The Watchers

Another element of homeland security:

What?! I'm working here!

Xander takes it upon himself to keep an eye on the perimeter...even if sometimes he gets a little sleepy.

Both guards on duty

Okay, I know...the glass is REALLY smudged (gee, wonder how that happened!)...maybe one of these days I'll actually clean it using one of Lori's tips from this post: Window Glass + Nose Slobber = Glue

But that, combined with the reflections make for some interesting shots!

Attack of the Flying Green Mouse

One of the kitten toys Xander still enjoys is his fuzzy green mouse on a "fishing pole." It was great when he was little...he liked that the mouse was so big...in some of my earliest pix it was almost as big as he was! Now that he's all grown up, he still likes it.

Of late the mouse stays hung from one of the dining room chairs. It started out there one day when I was trying to do some work at the table and I found it difficult as I was constantly under attack! I looped the mouse over the chair and was able to get a few minutes peace at a time. Periodically, I would give it a good swing...

It's stayed there and he still enjoys playing with it, whether I'm there working or not.

The Trick That Sealed My Fate

Truthfully, I fell in love with Solana from the moment I first laid eyes on her. She was about four hours old. For a few months I deluded myself into believing that I could just hang out with her and love on her as long as she lived there and that if someone else bought her I could go back to hanging out with the other horses. Yeah, right! The day she did this, I quit pretending:

Horses are prey animals. Humans are predators. It takes an awesome amount of trust for a horse to allow a human to approach them when they're on the ground and vulnerable. She went to sleep like this! I think she knew who was really vulnerable here :D

HAPPY 9TH BIRTHDAY, SOLANA!!!

Bridge Update

So, no posting yesterday as I spent most of the day doing tech-related things as LoML and I have finally joined the 21st century by going to smart phones! As much as I love my tech gadgets, we had been tied in to a contract with a cellular company that wanted too much money per month to add any kind of data package. Our contract expired and we decided to go with a no-contract service that has a low monthly rate for unlimited everything. For our birthdays (both celebrate this month) we got each other smart phones. They're Android phones and I spent a lot of time updating each of our Google contacts so I won't have to do that again!

I told you a while back that the bridge leading to our island has been one-lane since August. While it's been frustrating to have to wait extra time at the light, it's also allowed for some really nice pix. These are two of the many I've taken...straight out of the camera, just rolled the window down and shot out the passenger side!

Anatomy of a Cat Attack



Step One: Engage your prey.

Step Two: Be sure to allow for prey stepping away...use weight and toes for balance.

Mom! He's touching me!!!

Step Three: Study prey as it leaves...be ready to reengage should the opportunity arise.

Mom, what am I supposed to do with that?

My Birthday Buddy

Y'all know that I'm pretty conservative about putting personal information out there for all to see on the interwebz...part of it is just that my blog was begun as a way to share pictures of critters, etc. So while I try to "keep it real" and share some of what's going on with me, I don't post pictures of myself or my family. But I decided this week that I needed to share a couple of pictures of my birthday buddy who is no longer with us.

I was born on my maternal grandfather's birthday. He and I were always special buddies :) If I had time I could write the longest post I've ever written telling you wonderful things about my granddaddy...about how he was a true southern gentleman....about how he lived life to the fullest, always involved in giving back to his family, his church, his community....about how he maintained a child-like wonder and joy in everyday life through all of his 98 years on this planet.

But what I really felt drawn to share with you is just about how I always think of him especially on my birthday. There were only 2 years that we missed celebrating together over the years...Yesterday I told my Mom about a traditional conversation that Granddaddy and I had every year for many of my earlier years...and I was surprised to realize that she didn't know this. You see, when I was little I loved to hear the story of the day I was born. As you can imagine, since it was Granddaddy's birthday the family was "rooting" for me to be born that day (or at least he was!). With a flair for the dramatic that was surely a taste of what was to come, I made my dramatic entrance into this world....at 3 minutes before midnight! (I always imagine they had all but given up on me making it on the appropriate day...I still love a good dramatic entrance!) So the conversation that I used to have every year with my Granddad went something like this:

Me: "Granddaddy, what time were you born?" (Always wondering if he'd waited 'til the last minute as well.)
Granddad: "I don't know. I didn't look at the clock."

It was many years before I realized that he really had no idea as they didn't keep the types of birth records in the year he was born that we have now. But that also is a prime example of his sense of humor....he loved to crack little jokes and tease, but was never, ever, malicious.

I'm grateful that I was shaped by the steadfast love of this gentle man. He remains an inspiration to me....a humble, spiritual man who quietly "showed up" for life, doing what he could to make the world a better place in his little corner of it--not seeking accolades, but doing it because it was the right thing to do.

I miss you birthday buddy, but am forever grateful for the time I had you here with me!

Spring Shed

Solana gets a wonderfully thick, fuzzy, winter coat. Come spring...the shedding process is nothing short of ridiculous! There is a period of time once the shedding begins where it seems that I could brush her until my arms fall off and although I would amass great quantities of hair, she would still have just as much still needing to come off!

Do any of my weaving/knitting friends need any? :D

Ridiculousness

I know. My blog is becoming repetitive. I can't seem to stop myself! Seems the more outside pressures and stresses intrude on my mental well-being, the more I feel compelled to snap and share :D

This chap really has not a care in the world!

By the way, this is *my* chair! Well, it is when His Highness allows me to borrow it:

Old(er) New Kid on the Block

There's another horse at the barn now. That was the plan all along, but there was no rush as it was important to find the right horse to fit in...enter Dixie, a 22 year-old Thoroughbred cross. She, Mo, and Solana were all together before. While their current stable was being completed, they had all boarded together nearby. Dixie had remained at that place when we moved Mo & Solana to their new home. For various reasons it now makes sense for Dixie to come on board as well.

It's been a smooth transition. Herd dynamics can be a funny thing. It's been unusual as Solana is still getting limited turn-out (though increasing times...we're hopeful it won't be terribly long before she's off "restriction"!). Mo wasn't initially sure what to do with two mares! He seemed to have this theory that he should keep them apart...perhaps so they wouldn't compare notes and plot a coup?

Dixie hadn't been around me in a while and wasn't sure what I was up to with my camera slung from my hip...but she was game to check it out.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

An Old Celtic Blessing

May the blessing of light be on you— light without and light within. May the blessed sunlight shine on you and warm your heart till it glows like a great peat fire.

Water Boy the Video Evidence

Well, after much technological grief, consultation, and voodoo...I am pleased to present to you the video evidence which I've been teasing you about:


I want to thank my tech support team consisting of my sis' and my SIL (sis'n'law) who guided me and gave me useful info so I could sort out some issues. One interesting note is that my sis' told me about this website: www.speedtest.net It will test your download and upload speeds. Turns out, I had a couple of issues...one of which is that my "old" computer...a custom-made gaming laptop that I use as a desktop has LOTS of issues. It's several years old and has been through the metaphorical wars. It's one we put together for LoML to be able to game on after a total knee replacement years ago but that he quit using after he got better. Recently I took the battery out and leave it plugged in all the time...a neat little trick I learned while chatting up one of the Staples tech guys a while back. But sometimes it's just snarky and locks up when you suggest it do things it doesn't want to do. Truthfully, about all I use it for now is to download my pictures, edit them and then save them to my external hard drive. My bestest ever technojoy that I can't go anywhere without is my Lenovo ThinkPad Twist that I got on Black Friday (did I tell you about it already 'coz I don't remember). I LOVE it. It rocks! Which is why I was shocked and appalled that it wouldn't let me upload my video. Anywhere. So, after my sis' got me thinking about upload speeds (refer to website mentioned above), I got to wondering...because I frequently use a public wifi hotspot at my job to "play" on my twist at lunchtime and/or a public one at the public library, I run a program that creates a personal vpn to secure my system. One of the things it does is hide your ip address. Even though my home wireless network is secure, it's easier to just leave the setting to automatically secure any network through this program (which I've been impressed with...it's called Hotspot Shield). So, I'd never had cause to look before, but it reaaaalllly slows down your upload speed because of all the bouncing around of signals it does (at least, that's my explanation of it!). Once I temporarily disabled it, I had no problem uploading my video to YouTube (Blogger still didn't want to do it, but that's okay...).

Which leads me to one final point for tonight: Xander now has two different email addresses and his own YouTube account. Just sayin'.

Crafting with Cats

Maybe I'll teach a course on this. I have blogging/internet friends who are very gifted with various crafts. Some of them make beautiful cards. I am not yet (if ever I will be!) as talented in that regard, but I can tell you something about crafting with cats. It's an art. Oh, yes indeed! You see, there's a fine art to putting together a couple of cards for friends using stickers, stamps and glue and NOT gluing a certain someone's tail in said project. Even when said someone is "helping." A lot.

Here are the beginnings of some cards I made...I shot these before I added some personal notes. Because, well, they were personal!

This also involved using those fun scissors that cut funky patterns into paper. Somecat had to help with the little slivers of paper.

Here's the start of another card I made...note the paw...somecat was always nearby.

A wee gift I sent one of the recipients of the cards...a matted print of a picture I took last year:

I had a lot of fun doing this....even especially with all the help :D Soon I'll show you some more cards I've been working on with new 'toys'! Have a greyt day!

Seriously?!

How am I expected to leave the house to go to work when it requires leaving this?:

Note the little back feet partially crossed

And note the fang sticking out

Other Solana shots

Well, I'm still battling with the world-wide interwebz gods over why they don't want to allow me to upload the funny Xander movie. Have tried different browsers...have tried uploading to YouTube so I could then embed it...nothing working. Grrrrr. It's not even a big video! Sigh. Meanwhile, I leave you with some more random Solana shots:

More on Sleeping

 There's a lot of art that goes into sleeping around here. There's sleeping with babies, as above. There's nestling in, as below.

 

  There's always cuteness involved!

I have a super-cute video of Xander's faucet-drinking habits...unfortunately, I have spent the past two days trying various browsers to get it to upload to no avail. I've had issues before...occasionally blogger can be snarky about it...but never to this extent! I didn't want you to think I'd totally abandoned you, so figured I'd better throw this post your way. Will eventually prevail!