Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Thick Skin


Want to help cats?  And your community too?  And people while you are at it?

You better have a thick skin.

I was reminded of the automatic labels a person acquires if they are a woman and help cats again yesterday.

A neighbor who lives down from me has never spoken to me before.  I was over at the mailbox when he walked by and suddenly stopped, looked over and said, "How many cats do you have in there?"

He doesn't know my name.  I don't know his.  The first thing, the only thing he wants to know is "how many cats do you have in there."

I steeled myself and said, without emotion "It's none of your business."

It isn't any of his business.  If I have cats or don't, it affects him in no way at all.  I don't let my cats free roam the neighborhood.  I have gotten 48 unfixed cats fixed on the block, however, plus a stray rabbit rehomed.   I took care of then rehomed old Jack's three cats when he died.

But none of this creating a better neighborhood matters apparently, because I have cats inside that house of mine which means I'm nuts and must not care for them and he has to know how many are in there.  WTF?

Old Jack had his faults but he was the one who was nice to me.  With him gone, I feel alone and am left without anyone to send a nice word my way.

Nice day today, bright, sunny but windy here.  I did all the things people usually do on nice days.  The lawn is cut.  The weeds are pulled.  The car is washed and even vacuumed out inside.

Slinko dancing (laser pointer dot out of sight)

Stiletto!
Raindrop, who is cross eyed
Huckleberry!
Vino!


Old Vision, my twenty year old, a Corvallis river cat, who lived with me along the Willamette once so long ago, when I had no home either, is beginning a decline.  She sleeps over the heat vent and now comes out more to sit near me, or cuddled against one of her best friends.  I've seen this behavior so often, like cats know their time is short and want to take in as much as they can before its over.






Monday, April 28, 2014

Now It's Rogue Again

Rogue's now having trouble with his mouth again.  Dad gummit.  I wish he'd been taken care of properly his first trip in for mouth care.   That was in February.  He went with Cougie, her first trip, followed closely by her second trip and not long after, by her third.   After I robbed five local banks and three convenience stores (of kleenex boxes due to my excess sobbing and sniffling over finances) Cougie's good now!

Not so much Rogue.

I called a cheap clinic recommended by a rescue group up North.  Sure it's practically on another continent, but I can travel there, get all his teeth pulled and have several hundred to spare over what I'd pay around here for the same thing.

I made the appointment.  There's no use making him suffer longer.  I started another youcaring fundraiser hoping to pay for it and since the trip is long, I'm taking Brambles for an overdue dental too.  I sure hope I'm not doing myself in for good with this gamble.  I'm hoping beyond hope I can raise those funds.  I got two weeks.  I'm hoping beyond hope my well used car will make it that far.

 And back.
Brambles is from the huge Hate Thy Neighbor colony and has suffered from chronic herpes all his life.  It's why he's here.  His eye was so bad when I took him initially to be neutered the vet talked me into keeping him, saying he stood no chance if returned.  When a vet makes a plea for a cats future, that's something.  However, I wish that would have come with lifetime vet care.  He's not young like Rogue, but Rogue is far from a kitten.

But making it there is the important part.   If I can't make it back, I'll spend my days walking on the beach with Rogue and Brambles, if they wish to join me.  I don't think cats like the beach much.   It's like walking in a never ending litter box I bet to them and they probably wonder why anyone would do that. 

The cats here know how to break into the cat food closet if I don't make it back.  They're smarter than I am.

I'm going to have a friend hang out here while I'm off with the boys to the far northern beaches.   Why not?   She likes it here and she may as well pretend she lives here.  I don't care.  I got friends with boyfriend troubles.  I got friends with husband troubles.     The crucial three words there are "I got friends".   As for their troubles, we all got those.

The power was out today.  Nobody knows why.   It came on again about 7:30.  Just now, near 11:00 p.m., I get a robocall from the power company.  The man says in his monotone computer voice, "We'd like to confirm the power is now on.  Thank you.  The power was out due to, pause, then slower, "transmission interruption".   I was so impressed.

And gee thanks.

Here's the latest youcaring fundraiser site.  I know, nobody wants to hear it.  So forward the link to your rich friends, or your cat loving rescue friends, or your school (their e-mail lists are a mile long, seriously), or make your little kids empty their piggy banks.........

Click here to empty your pockets into mine for cats!

Well, I am going to need to somehow suddenly get rich to keep these cats here in vet care, food and litter.  Or marry rich.  It may not be too late to become a gold digger.   I could win that lottery.  But probably I should learn to count cards then head to a casino.

This video is going around.  Apparently Oregon's failed health care website cost the nation a quarter billion dollars.  It's embarrassing, but this is funny!



What can I say? We are idiots. And wasteful. Not me. I pinch every penny til it bleeds. As for Oregon's passion for cuteness, I'll just say, Rogue is darn cute and so is Brambie!

I want to add a huge thank you to all those who helped Cougie get her teeth all pulled.  For the first two times she visited a vet for dental work, thank you so much to Odd Cat Out, up in Sherwood, a division of Poppa Inc.  And for the final dental where the last 14 teeth were pulled, thank you to 15 supporters in all, who contributed, many from the U.S. of A., but also people helped from as far away as Australia, England and Canada!   She's looking good now and feeling great!
Cougie, taken this morning.  She's doing great!  Thanks to all who helped give her a better life!


Thursday, April 24, 2014

Rain, Rain

Rain Cascades from Dead Neighbors Long Blocked Gutters

Heavy rain and general dreariness have plagued Oregon recently.

Dead Neighbor's waterfall
If you live in Oregon for the rain...or for the grayness...or because you love depression and cold and damp and various types of mold, you're happy now.

I'm not.  This has got to end, my mind is screaming.  Where is the sun?

I'm sick of the gray and cold and rain.   But then, if it went sunny, what would I do then?   Mow the lawn.  And then what?   I need a job.

I need some money so I can get out of town, do something other than clean litter boxes, fill them, clean them, mop the floor, sweep the floor, take out the trash, mop again...repeat over and over and over.....

I've got to find a good canning area, go at it hard, something.

Go thirty miles now, costs me almost $4 in gas.

Today I did the cleaning then updated about six cats on flea treatment and vaccines, ear cleaning, nail trims.  Some I have to hold in a net to get these things done and I don't like doing that to them.  They're so good about it.  What a wimp I've become.  Has to be done.  I don't like them to be scared when I do that.  I'm thinking up alternate hold methods.

Shaulin is not athletic at all and to hold her in a net, with her breathing hard from being scared, made me really sad.  So I worked quickly to do what has to be done.  It's like holding a middle aged nerdy nice aunt in a net, you know?  I don't like it.  I love my cats, and all their differences.  Some are defiant and agile, some are chubby and clumsy.  Some are smart, some not so much.  Some have emotions that get in the way of their ability to enjoy life and some are giving and wonderful, like Slurpy.   Some are worriers and some panic easily.  They're a lot like humans in their differences.

My friend suddenly showed up.  I was happy to see her and we went off to the thrift stores.  She's worried about her husband, told me he drops off to sleep early in his chair and immediately is talking to her, but half nonsense, not asleep, but she didn't know what was going on.  Blackout, I say, not really knowing, is it that?  He drinks heavily, even more so since retirement.  There's nothing she can do to stop him either.  She loves him.  He's a good man.  But the booze, it's killing him.  He's been a heavy drinker all his life.  Her father drank himself to death.  So many do around here.   Overcame me, as I listened to her, with a profound sadness.  There's nothing anybody can do.

It's like they're waiting, she said the other day.  They care for his 90 some year old mom.  24/7.   She sits in a chair all day watching reruns of 70's and older TV shows.  Bonanza.  Emergency.  Murder She Wrote.  Etc.  The noise of that constant TV alone could drive me nuts.  But mostly she naps, leaned back, mouth open.  She takes pills.  And eats.  Not much of a life, for her or any of them, in that crowded house.  It's big enough, but crowded due to the layout of all the rooms off one narrow hallway. It's a stress on them.  One of them has to always be there and usually its my friend and her hubby would be off with friends or going somewhere.  Lately she's been asserting herself some, to get some time off herself.  It's only fair.  More than fair.

The neighborhood is full of drug people and kids with no real parents interested in them.  And abandoned animals.  And broken down houses, barely maintained.  It's sad.  It's depressing.  They once talked of moving. I think they should.  But it's not my business.  They're good people.  I love them. But it's all so sad sometimes.  Lebanon is sad.    Drugs and booze and poverty and nothing.

Maybe its not any sadder than anywhere else.  Lots see my life as sad, sitting here alone all the time, with just my cats, on this cemetery block, quiet as death.  Them caring for their elders like they do is like light in the darkness, despite the problems it creates.    The unwanted kids in the area are always in their yard, knowing somebody lives there who likes them and will notice them.  It's why I go over when I can---they're always happy to see me, friendly, accepting, they don't judge, and they'd share their last bit of food with pretty much anyone.  So...there you go...

What I don't want, is for him to die I guess, from the booze, because I think he's terrific and I don't want him to die from the booze either because my friend would lose her life long best friend, her husband and it would be so hard on her and then trying to figure how to live without him.   I guess nobody can tell death who to take and when.  Nobody on earth has that kind of power.  I wish I did.  I'd say "Leave them be, don't touch that family there!"  That's what I'd say.  "Because they're my friends, my precious treasure I happened upon, and I love them."


Cougie is much better.  She plays now, runs around, acts like she doesn't miss those painful teeth at all.  That's her on the right, and her family member, Misty, from the same Albany business, is on the left.  She hangs out with Misty a lot.

I've been working nights on the Odd Cat Out website, to help out my friend who runs Odd Cat Out.  I've written some copy for the home page, and finally figured out how to add some photos on the Adopt/Sponsor page, but still haven't linked those photos to other pages for sponsorship.  She hasn't sent me more photos of sanctuary cats, to add. I had those I added because those are cats she took in from down here and I'd taken photos of them here.  I enjoy trying to figure out how to do it.  Learned a lot so far.

You can go to Odd Cat Out's still under construction website by clicking here.

Meesa looking mighty fine against my wall colors.
Relaxing Mooki
Relaxing Mums
Insecure Sam


Guess who broke into the exclusion room and rearranged a desk cubby to suit herself?
Rain, rain go away, I'm tired of your boring gray, pack your bags cause you can't stay, you make it easier to say:  don't you douse us one more day.






Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Another Death

I have been struggling with feelings of uselessness after my self appointed job came to an end.  Sure, it is like a full time job to care for the cats left here.  But I like to get out and see other people, help people, interact, do things that help the world or community.

Most of the volunteer opportunities in this town are religious oriented.  Even the local YMCA and Habitat Restore are fairly religious environments.  I am not religious at all and it isn't easy to find anywhere one can fit in if you aren't around here in a volunteer capacity.

I wish we had a Planet Fitness.  You can join that gym for ten bucks a month.  Even the Y, a nonprofit, here, costs $50 a month, for a single person, which is more than most private gyms cost.

In other words, finding something to do here is not easy.  Especially if you are not religious and don't have money.

So, Sunday, when I went up to Lebanon to have dinner with Lebanon friends, and spotted one of two unfixed male cats they feed, I said "Let's trap him!"   Used to be, this gray long hair would only come around now and then.  Lately, however, he's been hanging out there most of the time, across the street, under the abandoned house.

Red flags were popping up in my mind.  The males, left to grow up unfixed, in that area have been leukemia positive.  The last male to show up there, a big Grumpy Cat lookalike, had no energy and looked bad.  I took him over to Heartland to be neutered, then they were going to adopt him out.  But he didn't even come out of anesthesia well, and when tested, he was positive for leukemia.  He was also a wreck, with a mouth full of tumors and infected teeth.  In the end, he'd hung out close to my friends' place, although unwanted by the other fixed cats, an enigma.  He was sick and wanted comfort, warmth and love.

So was this unfixed gray boy sick and was that why, in breeding season, he wasn't out roaming, and instead hanging out near the food and the mental comfort of my friends place?  I shrugged off the thought and set their trap, across the street, by the abandoned house.

The first cat to spring the trap was the cat abandoned by the people who'd lived there in that now junked house.  He's a black and white male gone slightly wild since he was left.  We took the other cat they left behind up to a Portland rescue.  She got a  home.  So before we released him, I dripped flea treatment on him, so at least he'd have relief from fleas. 

It took a long time for the gray male to show up and even longer then for him to decide to go into the trap, which was another red flag in my mind.  Why wasn't he jumping at a chance for smelly wet food?   He did go in, in the end.

I was ecstatic.  I had trapped a cat, the first in months, and felt warm and good and important and useful again. 

He stayed in my car the night.  I hadn't really thought about where he could be fixed.  I'd had a couple of beers up at my friends place and seeing an unfixed cat, it was like reflex to trap him.

I contacted the Willamette Humane spay neuter clinic, by phone and e-mail.  They would not be open until Tuesday.  Their website proclaimed their free feral fix reservations were full through the end of April.  I was disappointed to read that no appointments would be open, for the boy in my car, but also thrilled they have a free feral fix program.  For the people who help others by trapping the cats they feed to be fixed, this is a blessing.  I think to myself how wonderful and easy that would have been for me, if the program were available in these two counties, Linn and Benton, when I'd been rounding up cats.  The Willamette Humane program is for Polk and Marian counties.

Then a Heartland Humane employee commented on facebook that they were doing surgery the next day, yesterday.   Whoopee.   It does cost $40.  My friends said they would pay.  And for my gas to transport him.

I took him over yesterday morning and arrived to pick him up at 1:00 p.m.  I saw an empty trap as I came in the back door and my heart pounded.  But then I saw him, on the recovery table, breathing steady, out cold and freshly neutered.  But as I moved into the room, Courtney stopped me and said his combo test had just come out positive for leukemia.  My heart sank down into my ankles then drug along behind me on the floor.

I made small talk like I wasn't affected with this person and that person, paid the clerk for his end, the $40, and finally escaped to my car, where I broke down in sobs.  

His mouth too was a stinking reeking painful mess.  It was true he'd been hanging out close to my friends place, like the big Himilayan had, seeking some comfort when very ill.

I killed him, like I did the Himilayan.

I can wallow in self-pity and guilt, but it has nothing to do with reality.  He was fatally ill.  Both of them were.  And now they're not and they're not spreading that horrible disease to other cats either.

When I am ill, without hope for better days, I'd want the same thing for me.

When I was in Corvallis, I took the opportunity to shop at Winco for cat food.   It's no cheaper there than at Walmart but they have a bigger variety.  Going through checkout, I experienced the usual.  The clerk had to say something about all the cat food.  I try to brush it off in my mind each time.  It's usually either the clerk or the customers in line making comments.   I don't know why. It's unacceptable in our society to help stray cats.  You are considered a bizarre and crazy person if you do dare to help stray cats.

 If someone is buying a lot of soda pop or junk food, that does not illicit comments, but if you buy cat food, for some reason, it does.  If you are buying large amounts of alcohol, that's ok too.   Usually they want to know how many you have.  If I'm mad, about being interrogated, I'll say something rude back, like, "Oh, just 200, and none are fixed, they just breed like rabbits, you know."  I might be even ruder and say "they breed like welfare moms, you know,"  since welfare moms are also an accepted target of ridicule, like cat women.

You don't hear Crazy Gun People, about people who have a dozen or two dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammo stored up.  You don't hear Crazy Car People, about people who have five or ten cars, in various states of repair around their place.  You don't hear Crazy Sports Fan, about people wide eye nuts about some sports team, who collect  sports memorabilia and sit around watching games all weekend or who spend thousands on a single parking space for home games over at a parking lot near OSU or on home game season tickets.

But if some woman dares to help cats, then you hear it.  She's a CRAZY CAT LADY.  And it's ok to say that and put her down and make remarks and ask her how many she has and nothing else at all matters about her, if she likes cats and helps a stray cat out.  Then she's nuts and fair game.

So you go to a store to get cat food and you brace for it before you go.

I needed something feel good, to take my mind off everything in the world.  I've started meditation.   I do it now many times a day,  on days if my mind won't stop or when I wake up with nightmares.

I started a batch of Horchata.  I like Horchata.  I don't follow a specific recipe, just a general one in my head.  I use pulverized almonds.  I start with raw almonds, blanch them, remove the skins, toast them, then pulverize them in my coffee grinder.  That coffee grinder!  I love it.  It's also used here to process dried catnip.

I pulverize a cup of uncooked rice too, and join the almonds and rice with cinnamon in a blender, with three cups hot water, then I let it sit a day.  Or so.  Then I blend it again, some, add a couple cups more water and let it sit further.  Finally I strain it, extracting all the fluid from the mash, add a cup of water with a quarter cup sugar dissolved in it, and a couple teaspoons of vanilla.  I stick my finished Horchata in the fridge and drink it on ice.  I make many variations.

Finished Horchata cooling.

I eat the mash too, as a breakfast cereal.

Pulverized almonds and rice, now heating for breakfast.
 My next project, a batch of rice wine.  It's easy to make, also, but won't be ready for about a month.



Sunday, April 20, 2014

Easter Morn

To those who celebrate, Happy Easter.

I woke up early after sleeping a good share of yesterday.  Let's call it napping.  Sounds better.

Why not?  It was gray and cold and rainy and my right arm and hand were numb off and on, from inflammation, so I couldn't really do much else.


 Slinko finally sneaked a spot beside me on the bed.  Took awhile.  The guardians wanted him nowhere near me or the bed.  That's their domain.

He's got that let down look, like it was too easy and he's disappointed about that too.

Not my problem, Slinko.


 I watched the sky lighten to the east.  Today the weather is supposed to be sunny and warm.  Might get up near 70 degrees.  MIGHT!


Through my other window the moon was still out, shining bright through the neighbors' maple tree.

Cat Moon Tree
And who was watching me in the night?

Zeva, that's who.  Roof hopper.  It was dark out.  I lightened the photo so you can see her there, staring in at me, from the neighbors roof. 

So I played laser pointer with her from my bedroom window, and she darted around the neighbors roof after the red dot, which showed up well in the dark.  She whips her tail back and forth when she plays.


Guess what?  I woke up this morning to learn someone donated the last money needed to reach Cougie's fundraising goal, to completely pay off the cost of the surgery she had two weeks ago, that removed the last of her teeth.  Yippee!  I am so relieved.  Money is very tight these days, as most people know.  She's doing very well!

Speaking of toothless wonders, Gretal had her teeth out, all of them, in a series of dentals a few years back.  Look at her now!

  And then there's this.....

Friday, April 18, 2014

Recovery

I am in recovery. No, I'm not talking about the economic recovery the nation is attempting.  I don't know much about all that.  I've been in survival mode for as long as I can recall, always scrambling for little things, reusing broken parts of this to fix that, and scrounging for free items I can put to use.  I am poor and always will be poor and things are getting bad, with gas prices skyrocketing and now food prices too.

I still scheme and dream.  Who doesn't?  I try to think up ways to better fund the care and feeding of the cats left here every single day.  I dream of travel or even just camping, but I'll never travel.  It takes money.  It's just reality.  I'm stuck here, in this city I don't like much, probably for the rest of my life.  At least, in this brilliant age, I can travel through google maps, although their latest version update, is tragically, shit.  I can travel through the eyes and experiences of other ordinary people, with cameras and blogs.

I love the people of this area.  I just don't like the town, devoid of any recreation or nature, and quite a distance from available recreation.  I suppose that too is the reality of ending up in a freeway town.

My car has too many miles and my pockets are empty. Even camping is beyond my financial capacity, due to the gas of travel and the cost of campsites.

Food price increases are shocking and scary.  I probably won't have internet when this deal I've got from Comcast runs its course.  Comcast isn't going to decrease prices.  Only in my dreams, eh?  That's no fun to think about, but that, too, is reality.

The recovery I am talking about is from the deaths of Electra and Hairy.   It makes me sad to lose friends.  I know lots of humans, but I rarely see any humans.   People I know are so far away, or just online friends.  So my cat friends are my rocks of support in an otherwise pretty barren landscape.  It hurts to lose them.

I try to stay busy.  Yesterday, I took the legs off the old brown table I'd moved into the second bedroom once I moved the big bed out and flipped it.  I'd already created new tall legs for the "high bed" I intended to make from the old table, out of boards I had in the garage.  I had to splint them together to achieve equal height for all four.  Two of those boards used to support the big bed I just gave away.

The cats needed something in the second bedroom.  So I attached the tall legs I made, with the table on the floor.  Then, I attempted to flip the whole thing upright.  Was not easy.  I was straining with it partially hoisted upright and thought about just letting go.   But I hung on, and got it on its feet.  Once it was partially lifted onto its new legs, there was no turning back. It would have fallen on me, if I'd let go. And finally, it was up.

I made a lower shelf of the table's third leaf, that had been in the garage, used in the garage cat room cage, as a bed shelf, for awhile, then as a weather barricade outside, in the yard.  Now it's got a new life as a shelf again on something else.

I can tell you factually that some things do experience reincarnation.  LOL.
That's my old brown table, way up top, flipped upside down.  It's third leaf is that shelf with the two carriers on it.

The cats loved this instantly, unlike the cat wheel, still unused and unappreciated.   But it was the regulars here who took it over immediately, and the Lebanon colony cats were mostly shoved out.  You can see Vino there, in the photo if you look close.  He's sleeping on the yellow blanket between the two carriers on the lower shelf.

For the most part, since the big bed left and disrupted the security of the Lebanon cats whose main living space was the second bedroom, they have moved out and occupied other areas, which has caused some tension.  I knew I needed to make cat furniture for the second bedroom as soon as I could.

Mona Lisa, a.k.a. Owly, is petite, curious and has those huge eyes!

Mona Lisa and other colony cats on cat runs in the living room.


Slinko
I continue to look for safe permanent homes for cats here including for Slinko.  Slinko got in bad with Slurpy and Starry to begin with, and Starry won't let him on the bed nights, in revenge.  He really wants to sleep on the bed nights, with me, but first impressions last, and he wasn't nice to Slurpy when he first decided to come in the house and Starry has not forgiven him his behavior towards her best friend.  She is not going to risk him on the bed, not until he really makes up for his previous sins.

Slow Friday, worn out from all the heavy work yesterday.  Woke up with my right arm and hand completely numb from inflammation in my shoulder.  No work today, have to rest up.

I'm going to create a memorial space for friends lost.  I'm not sure where it will be yet.  I think it will help in recovery.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Goodbye Very Hairy Hairy


 I lost my baby Hairy today.  It was his time.  He came here four years ago.  Someone trapped him in Corvallis, because he was sneaking into their house wanting food.  He was feral, but already had a right ear tip, indicating someone, maybe me, had gotten him fixed at some point in his life.  He was taken to Heartland Humane in Corvallis.  Heartland called me, hoping to find him a safe haven, so he would not have to be euthanized.  So I took Hairy.

He briefly went up to Wilsonville, and was to be placed as a feral, but that did not work out, and I retrieved him.  Here, he thrived, had friends, loved the cat yard and cat runs and, of course, the food.  Hairy loved his vittles.  He was the first to the plate always for wet food and loved cat treats.

Almost a year ago, Hairy began a decline.  He was peeing too much and slowly began to lose weight.  He was still acting feral so I could only give him fluids when I could.  After a vet visit last October, I began serious fluid therapy for him, and he did very well for a long while, although I had to gradually increase the amounts he received.

After that vet visit, Hairy moved inside the house, rather than where he had mostly remained, in the garage cat room and cat yard.  He had decided he'd rather be a total house cat, and also began following me around like a dog, giving a course old fart croaky meow, until I petted him.  Whenever he was awake he followed me and he was just so darn cute in his crusty way. 

Hairy was so hairy with a thick fine undercoat that matted severely I took to clipping him several times a year.  He had allowed this even when "acting" feral.  And it was an act. 

But after the last clipping, last fall, his coat never grew back in.  I knew that was not a good sign either.

Kidney failure results in an inability to regulate stomach acid and often ulcerations in the mouth esophagus, stomach and intestinal tract.  Hairy began to vomit blood.  When it became severe, this last week, along with an inability to give him enough sub cu fluids to keep him hydrated (300 cc a day was not even enough), I knew this was not good.  Today Heartland helped Hairy from his suffering.   They said, looking at his teeth, he was very very old, far older than I had thought.

Hairy, you crotchety crusty old guy, I loved you so.  Glad to have known you.  Glad you graced the cat house here.  Goodbye my friend.  Happy trails.


Hairy with half his haircut one year.  The clip jobs would get tiring, for him and me, and my cheap clippers would heat up so bad they wouldn't work after awhile.  So the clip job usually was a two day affair or more.





Bloody vomit from this morning.


Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Total Eclipse of the.....(not heart)



Lunar Eclipse tonight.  Wouldn't you know, after all these sunny days with clear nights, tonight the clouds rolled in, completely obscuring the night sky 12 minutes before totality.  Darn it.

I took photos with my camera, hand held, no less, no tripod, since the battery compartment broke a couple years back and I had to do a rig fix, which covers the tripod mount screw in.  The best three I got are above, the rest, below.


















Dog in the Road

 I went to get groceries yesterday morning fairly early. I was expecting visitors, brief ones, pop in and out, so I wanted to get done with ...