This is me in my natural state. That is to say, reading.  It's already been well established that I am a reader.  Not just a reader, I suppose, but an indiscriminate reader.  I will read just about anything.

I read on the computer, I read on my phone, I read things written on paper and even on television (captioning is one of the best inventions ever!)  I don't just read things, I READ things. My dad used to say that I ate books.  I devoured them whole. 

And it doesn't even have to be books. I will read magazines, newspapers, brochures, cereal boxes,  greeting cards, grocery lists and dictionaries.  If it has words, I will read it.  I am voracious. And worse, I am endlessly curious.  Which is why having my phone with me a great deal of the time is awesome.  If (when really) I have a questions, a query, a thought, an " I wonder" moment, I can immediately look it up and read about it.  Poor Tim, in the car a captive audience, gets to be read to.

I work at my computer be it writing the blog, curating the photo site I am a member of, emails, reading news articles on and off throughout the day.  And when I am doing other chores, say washing dishes, baking cookies, ironing or folding towels, I have my phone propped up so that I can multitask - reading while doing chores.  I read actual books while I am eating, relaxing in the bath or after dinner curled up all comfy on the sofa.  It's kind of an all day thing.  Seriously, it's probably an addiction at this point.

And I believed it to be glorious!  Turns out it's also sometimes an issue.  

Recently I began to notice issues with my eyes.  They hurt, they burned, they felt gritty and sometimes there were blurry spots in my vision.  I began to be very light sensitive, to the point where sometimes I was wearing sunglasses Inside the house and every once in awhile,  I would even experience double vision.  Ok this is a problem.

I began using eye drops throughout the day. Over and again, constantly.    My eyes would feel pretty good for a few minutes and then back to gritty, hurty burny, blurry, not good dangitall.    It's frightening to have issues with your eyes.  And in my case, especially scary because since my ears don't work very well, I am extra dependent on my eyes.

In two words what we have here is some serious eye strain. And the only thing to do for it is to severely limit my reading for awhile.  Which also means limiting my writing. And both of those ideas stink on ice.

I don't quite know what to do with myself without a book in my hands, or the computer mouse or my phone.  But I'm going to find out.  Starting when I finish this blogpost,  I will be taking a sabbatical from the blog, from the library (gasp!) from my cell phone and computer.  I'm not sure how long I'll be away, but however long it takes for my eyes to calm down.  Calm Down for heaven's sakes!  Just going to give them a bit of a break.

I'll be back eventually, I'm quite sure, and then  I will, most likely, have lots to catch you up on. But in the meantime, ya'll please be good, be safe and have fun.  Oh and take good care of your eyes!

​Hugs all 'round

That was intended to look so much nicer but apparently, I do not have the gift of being able to "write" nicely with my computer mouse!  ARGH~

Regardless of how messy it turned out, the intention remains.  With Easter right there on the horizon, just a couple of days away, I hope yours is wonderful no matter how you spend it!

Hoppy, or rather, Happy Easter ya'll!  See ya next week!

Hugs all 'round

How would you like an update on sweet, baby Brysco?  This is him looking pretty dang healthy if you ask me.

It was a long, sometimes scary, expensive and difficult road to get here but worth both surgeries, the money, the recoveries, the sleepless nights, the worry, the numerous vet appointments, the medications and specialty foods.  Absolutely positively do not regret any of it.  He is in a pretty good place right now and back to being the silly, energetic, fun, very sweet and loving cat that we first adopted a year and a half ago!  

Obviously we have to keep a close eye on him, make sure he doesn't go backwards. That would be awful. It took so much time and work and effort (on everyone's part including his) to get him healthy again, I would hate to see him regress.  

Right now the biggest part of keeping him healthy is medication.    He is down to only needing it every other day now and you would think that was very do-able.    Just one eensy tiny little itty bitty pill every other day. Nobody would blame you for thinking that.  But you would still be wrong.

 Have you ever attempted to give a cat a pill?   The difficulty level is right about on par with disarming a bomb or attempting a reverse 4 /12 somersault dive.  Think Bull Riding mixed with Coal Mining and add in a cranky Panther.  Something along that line, except you actually are quite fond of the cranky Panther and don't want to hurt him in anyway.

I will attempt to describe how it goes in case you have never done this yourself. First you must find the cranky Panther, excuse me, the cat.  In my case, with two nearly identical black cats, we must find the Correct cat.  The one who needs the medication, not the one who doesn't.    Somehow he always knows when it's medication time. Even if I've gone nowhere near where the medication is kept, even if I haven't even whispered the word pill or medicine or anything like it. I didn't even Think it hard but he always knows. Somehow, he just knows.

Brysco like to hide in dark places. Black cats in the dark, very sneaky and very smart.  If his eyes are closed, his is virtually invisible.   He hides in the backs of closets and under beds in the farthest, most difficult to reach corners possible.  Of course he does.  I suppose I could snatch him from those hidey holes but I don't.  It's too traumatic for me and for him.  Instead I wait.  Eventually he will emerge. He will relax and think I've forgotten about it.  He will lay in a sunny spot and stretch out looking quite pleased with  himself.  And that is when I pounce.

Well I don't pounce.  I'm not a good pouncer.  But I quietly approach with the pill in one hand and the other hand ready to scruff him.  Scruffing is grabbing the cat by that extra fur at the back of the neck, much like a Mama cat does. It does not hurt them at all but it usually (Usually) renders them very compliant.   In a perfect world, the cat is scruffed with say, your left hand  and with your right hand you put a small amount of pressure at the back of the cats jaw to force it open just a little bit, with your third hand (?) you pop the pill into their mouth and, while holding the mouth closed, you massage their throat until they swallow and taadaa mission accomplished.

It didn't work like that at all.  I did approach quietly while he was relaxed in the sun.  I did scruff him, but he did not relax into compliance. Instead he shifted over into survival-I-am-being- attacked mode.  A secret kitty button was pressed and all twenty claws popped out to play. I once heard a fellow refer to those as murder mittens.  Sounds kind of cute yet dangerous.   Yup that's accurate. Murder mittens.  

To be completely fair, my hands are not very strong anymore so I don't know how tightly I was really scruffing him. Severe Arthritis has rendered my hands far less useful than I actually require much of the time. But I always have the plan to do the best I can with what I've got and at this point, I am fully committed.  I knew that I could release him knowing that he would then scurry back into his hiding place and be extra leery of my existence for a while  OR I could move forward which is what I did.

Meanwhile, he has, telepathically I think, communicated to his brother that the humans were killing him or at least torturing him and Wyatt has now run into the room to rescue him and is getting in the way, trying to stop me from doing whatever the heck it is I am doing to his brother. Very loyal and sweet but not helpful at all.

I attempted to avoid the wildly flailing claws while literally holding him now in midair. He gyrated, hissing and growling, swinging those scimitars of death at me and I stepped into it, got closer, hugged him to me to hold him more in place.  Somehow, miraculously, I did manage to shove the pill into his mouth.  I could tell when he swallowed because his body went limp. But his eyes. Oh those eyes.  They were open as wide as they possibly could and he starred at me with absolute shock.  How on earth could I have betrayed him like this?  I was a traitor, I was now the enemy and I would pay dearly.    Sounds about right.  I gently put him back on the window sill and as soon as I let go, he took off like he was fired out of a cannon.  Back into a safe hiding place to glare at me for the rest of the day while I applied bandaids strategically here and there.

It was awful.  I hated doing it to him.  He hated me doing it to him too.  There had to be a better way.  I could not bear the idea of this being our life every other day for the remainder of his life.

I watched several extremely unhelpful videos of people giving cats pills. And in each video the example cat was so easy going, cooperative and downright helpful that it didn't apply to our situation at all. But I went ahead and tried several different suggested methods.

 The burrito method (or purrito as they adorably referred to it) only works if it's a cat that will allow you to wrap it in a blanket. Brsyco will not.  He was out of that blanket faster than Houdini.

Another one was to put the pill on a washcloth, put some liquid cat treat (we refer to them as lickysticks in our house and both of the boys love them) on top of it.  The washcloth is suppose to hold the pill in place so that kitty licks don't push it across the plate/bowl or floor.  Instead, Brysco licked every bit of treat off the pill and then walked away leaving the naked pill behind.

Making a very tiny kitty meatball with the pill at the center of wet kitty food.  Other than the grossosity of handling wet kitty food in that manner,  this actually worked at first.  I made a very tiny kittyfood meatball with a medication middle and put it in his dish.  He leaned forward and gobbled it up quickly then I put the rest of the food in his dish and he was none the wiser.  I thought, Jackpot!  We've finally hit on the way that works.  Until the day shortly thereafter when he ate around the pill. Dang.

I tried getting super sneaky and making multiple kitty meatballs, making sure one had the pill. Of course he didn't know which one did,  hehhehheh, medication roulette I gleefully thought to myself. I completely underestimated how strong a cats sense of smell is  doggone it.  He would eat the two unmedicated meatballs and walk away in triumph. Ratz.

Sometimes I thought he was eating the pill but I would find it somewhere later in the day, slightly soggy and beginning to disintegrate. Obviously he had walked way, me thinking he had taken the pill but when I wasn't looking, he spit it out. Such a smarty britches!

In desperation I tried grinding the pill into a very fine powder and mixing it into his wet food.  It did work a little bit sometimes. He never ate the entire bowl of food when I did that, but he ate some. The issue here is that I had no idea how much medication he was actually getting. 

Which lead to a far bigger issue was that I could see, literally see, that he was beginning to fail a bit once again, right before our eyes from receiving sporadic and uneven amounts of medication instead of the nice steady equal distribution he needed.  Dang it all.

Tim told me about transdermal application of medication.  Transdermal application is medication in ointment form which is applied to the skin and absorbed into the body.  That sounded like a great plan.  I called the vet to discuss it and they were onboard.  They ordered it and it arrived last week.   I approached it with great hope.

It has to be applied to the inside of his ear, alternating ears with each application.  It's applied and rubbed in and that's it!  Sounds super easy yes?  Well I will say this, it is getting easier with each application rather than harder which was how it went with the pills. At this point, he thinks he's just getting pets instead of medication.  

Once again, I  approach him only when he is already relaxed and snoozy.  First he gets lots of pets, which he adores, then the medication ear massage, then more pets and all is good.  Tim helped the first few times and we are learning the tricks of the trade so to speak, as we go.

And we are seeing such a wonderful difference.  He is more consistently playful, funny, silly, energetic and loving.  He spends more time each day awake and engaged.  Best of all, he is starting to put on a pound or two which was seriously needed.

I think finally, FINALLY, we have the medication method that works for us and for him and Brysco is on his way to the rest of a very healthy happy life!

Welcome to yet another Photo Safari Report.  I'm calling this one the WhirlyBird Hike for obvious reasons.  While Joy and I were tramping along,  fairly early in the hike,  I asked Joy if she could smell smoke. She agreed and we searched the sky for signs of smoke and saw nothing, but then our view was a bit obstructed by giant trees.  But it was no surprise when shortly thereafter we both heard and saw this bright red helicopter or whirlybird flying just above the tree tops, back and forth, over and over, in what I assume was a grid pattern,  perhaps searching for the source of the smokey smell?  Or maybe the fire had already been put out but they were making sure that the wind (it was a rather windy day) hadn't carried any embers off to begin another fire anew.  It is, after all, still our dry season and in a forest, it doesn't take much to go from small fire to raging inferno, y'know?  Safety First!

Still between the smokey smell and the very loud helicopter it was awhile before we saw much worth taking pictures of.  It's ok, some hikes have a zillion photos, and others just a few.  This one is the second type which means it'll  be a short post.  Ready, set go!

The first photos were taken as we were entering the Preserve.  Seriously, we had just turned onto the dirt road that leads us to the parking area when Joy glanced off to her left and saw them. Sand Hill Cranes~!~  Wow!  I was cleaning the lens on my camera in preparation so I handed her my camera and she quickly snapped these guys right out the window:

It felt like a great start!  Eventually, we did see quite a nice variety of birds, the best and most unique of which was an indigo bunting. We had just turned on to a side trail when Joy and I both saw him at the same time, but Joy was quicker with her camera than I was.  By the time I had my camera up and focused, he was long gone.  Luckily Joy was kind enough to share her photo with me so here is this little turquoise cutie:

The rest of the birdie gang, most of which you probably recognize is here.  The only kind of different one is a crested something that I cannot remember. Joy told me and I've already forgotten. Ah well, He knows who he is:

Time for some botanicals and a couple of randos

We've come to the end of the WhirlyBird Hike AND the end of the week.  Hope your weekend is a terrific one with loads of fun and laughter!  We'll meet again, right here next week.  No idea what I'll be writing about, but it'll be something.

​Hugs all 'round

Despite the cover photo (and isn't it a doozey!) this is not a Photo Safari Report.  Nope, Photo Safari Reports are exclusively reserved for when Joy and I set out, cameras in hand, together.  This was something else altogether.

Tim and I had the genuine pleasure of spending one morning this weekend with another photography minded couple who we had never met before in person.  I belong to a photography group online and I "met" the couple there.  As much as you can really get to know someone online, I enjoyed them and took the opportunity, when offered, to meet them in person this past weekend. I know, I know, general consensus is that is always a bad idea. Especially when their photography is something I greatly admire.   

They, especially the hubby of the couple, are seriously dedicated photographers and they travel all over the world taking the most amazing photographs.  The fact that such experienced, interesting, successful photographers were interested in meeting us at all was flattering in the extreme. I have long been an admirer of their work and now, perhaps, (I was hoping) to have the opportunity to learn at the hands of yet another photography master (Joy being the other one).  for some people it's singers, actors or athletes, for me it's artists and photographers.

Not only did I learn, but I was encouraged and even praised by someone I greatly admire,  The biggest surprise was that I was also relaxed into an easy comradery with these people.  Tim and I both enjoyed their company tremendously.  It was that rare feeling that was as if we had known them forever.  To our surprise, they expressed the exact same thing.  Awesome. Love when that happens.

Here are some of the photos that I took.  Hope you enjoy!

One of my favourites was this young bird who hadn't quite figured out how his wings worked yet. He was adorable, awkwardly attempting to flap around the nest while his parents calmly looked on:

Another favourite moment was watching this bird fighting with a vine while attempting to gather yet more nesting material.  PS the vine fought back:

There were quite a few nests, some with tiny baby birds in them, all being lovingly tended:

An impressive variety of birds were in the area. Here are just a few of them:

Managed to capture a few flowers too:

And even a few randos:

They say, "never meet your heroes" but  in this case, it worked out perfectly.  

This is a crow.  Just your basic crow.  A regular bird. I'm sure you've seen them and probably not paid a great deal of attention to them. Me either.  Until Sydney.

We have our own crow now and I've named him (or her)  Sydney.  Why?  I have no idea.  I tend to name creatures and that was the name I arbitrarily chose.

I first noticed Sydney when  we put a bird bath in the courtyard.  There were a few small birds that occasionally came by to use it, but it wasn't exactly a high traffic area.  I was considering moving the birdbath and debating where to place it when I looked out the window one day and saw this massive black bird perched precariously on the edge and helping himself to a drink.   Wow!

I thought it was great the cats weren't certain how they felt about it.  They were also watching out the same window and looked at me with big round eyes that kind of said, "What they heck?"  Crows are good sized birds y'see. The wingspan alone is more than a yard across! That's a wee bit intimidating to a small cat !

The second time the crow showed up at the birdbath, he actually used it for a bath.  Water went everywhere as he splashed around. It was very entertaining though I was concerned for his safety as the birdbath was originally not intended for a bird his size and the structure tipped a little this way and that as he enjoyed himself.  After he left and I replaced the water, I also took the time to make sure the birdbath was more stable for his weight.  He returned multiple times which was when I bothered to name him. 

And then suddenly, one day without warning, he was gone. Just disappeared. Awwww, bummer.  I read up on birdbaths and attracting birds. I moved the birdbath to the backyard to an area that seemed more bird friendly and still no Sydney. Nor any other birds either.  I stopped concerning myself with the birdbath after a few months. If nobody is using it, why I am constantly putting in fresh water, y'know?    Then last year's hurricane season happened, and the birdbath was damaged.  The subject became Moot.

A few months after hurricane season, I was cleaning out the pantry one day and noticed that somehow, we had collected multiple boxes of microwave popcorn that was very short dated. I started to just throw it away and at the last second held back.  I suppose I could go ahead and pop it all and put it outside for birds/squirrels/whoever wanted it.   I filled a large garbage bag with all of the popped corn, scooped one bowl of it and gave it a toss into the backyard without any real thought.  I figured that I would check the next day and if it was gone, hurrah, somebody enjoyed it.  If it was still there, I could always just throw it away. After all, it was already in a garbage bag, right?

To my surprise I had barely made it back into the house when a crow landed and gobbled up some of the treat, ate it with apparent relish and then grabbed some more before flying off with it.  As I watched, he returned for several more trips before the popcorn was all gone!  Hurrah! Sydney was back!

Every day, around the same time, I put a bowl sized scoop of popcorn outside in the same general area and every day, as soon as I went back inside, Sydney would come down and enjoy it before taking some with him to, I guess, share.  Huzzah!

Eventually I ran out of popcorn, but found some slightly stale cereal which he also loved, some broken granola bars of which he was also fond and currently I set out crackers for him.  He loves them all.  I hear him caw to announce his presence around 9 o'clock every morning now.  I go outside and yell, Hey Sydney!  and hold up my hand with the crackers so he can see that I have a treat for him.   I put the crackers on the ground in the same spot and, usually, he swoops from the tree to the rooftop and then, once I've gone inside, to the ground to eat.

I was thrilled a few weeks ago when he gracefully glided from the roof's edge to the ground while I was still outside.  I believe we have established a level of trust.  It is so amazing that Sydney and I have created this Trust between us. We cannot  communicate really, so it's not like there was a negotiation or a discussion.  But I suppose I've proven that I mean him no harm and that was good enough for him.  It's good enough for me too :)

In reading about crows, I've learned that they are extremely smart creatures. Apparently, they have the same brain weight to body ratio as humans.   They are inquisitive, curious and clever.  They create tools to use and are quite adaptable to their surroundings and situations. In my reading I learned that they are monogamous and that while some cultures believe them to represent death, other cultures believe them to be good luck omens.  I also now know that a group of crows is referred to as a murder, which is an unkind choice of words!

As far as intelligence goes, I have seen Sydney tucking crackers away in different parts of the yard, saving them for later so I know he's giving the situation a great deal of thought. He doesn't turn food down, but he doesn't waste it either.  Smart!

I took a few photos from the family room window the other day of Sydney and his crackers:

I believe I misspoke before. I said that we have our own crow now.  That's not true.  We don't own Sydney and more than he owns us.  He is his own bird, comes and goes as he pleases. Isn't the expression "as free as a bird after all?  So no, we do not have a crow, but there is a local one that trusts us enough to eat what we have to offer and isn't afraid of us. And that'll do.

I'm really glad that Sydney decided that we were ok.  Not as good as crows, of course, but as human go, we aren't half bad.

I went back through my recent pictures and found a few other non-Sydney crow photos to finish up with.  Hope you enjoy!