I had to get out my 17mm, super-wideangle lens to get a photo of Beaker impatiently waiting for the waffle that’s in the toaster oven. You can see the tips of his wings are a little blurry because he is fluttering them in anticipation. Guildenstern got up on the table, flopped himself down and waited to see what Laurie was having for breakfast. He wasn’t too sure about either the granola or the coffee.
Waffle Time For Beaker (WTFB). While I was heating up a waffle in the toaster oven, Beaker stood on the edge of his shelf impatiently watching the waffle through the glass door on the oven. When the waffle was done, Beaker tore off a piece and ate it on the edge of his shelf not bothering to take it to his food dish like he usually does. Even though he loves waffles, he will not eat them cold. They either need to be straight off the waffle iron, or toasted.
I finished putting up wire around the new roof on the catio, so now it’s reopened for kitty business. The new roof is lower, covers a 12 X 16 feet area, and is translucent, so even in the late afternoon there is plenty of light under the roof. The top of the kitty jungle gym is now almost three feet higher than the end of the roof, so the kitties now have open space all around, and a full 360º view from the top of their jungle gym.
I’ve gone out at sunrise the past two mornings (in 10º F temperatures nonetheless) to put the new roof on the catio. While I was out freezing, the kitties were in bed, under the covers, wondering why I was stupid enough to be out in the cold at such ungodly hours. As the first photo shows, I got a nice translucent roof installed that lets plenty of light in through the windows it covers on the north side of the sunroom. The kitties still can’t go out in the catio at night because I have to put wire up between the new roof and the structure over their kitty jungle gym.
I had one of those disgustingly productive days — I removed the roof from the “catio” but left the fencing around it intact. The kitties were supervising, and they thought I was a pretty cool cat working up on the roof, balancing on vigas, hopping between cross beams, and making quite a mess at the same time. They didn’t realize what I was doing until we all came it for the night and found the cat door to the catio blocked. Now my being on the roof all day doing dangerous things is like very un-cool among the cats.
The reason I deroofed the catio is that Laurie started reorganizing everything, and that turns into repurposing spaces. The roof over the catio was originally a shade structure to protect our bonsais and other plants from the intense sun we have in New Mexico. I later put a tin roof on it, but there was really no way to seal the edges against the house to make it useful for anything but plants, weights and cats without redoing the roof. So a roof redo is underway so I can seal the sides that are against the house and make it a more useful space. The last photo is the roofless catio taken through a very dirty window.
What do our cats do in winter? Romeo was not sure about me taking yet another photo of him. Rosencrantz made like a kitty statue, while Guildenstern relaxed on a Viking book to see if he could soak up some Old Norse. Mama Manx dozed on a “cat magnet” blanket, and Diné got warm lying on the heater vent.
I suppose the title could be for a law office, but it’s simply Rosencrantz, a finch and Guildenstern.
Rosencrantz and René were both wanting my attention, and neither one cared much for the critter competition they had going on.
I went out to photograph an old wood mill in the north valley, and as I got to the top of a rail spur there was a dog gnawing on an old carcass. He was so involved at first that he didn’t notice me. After a few shots, he heard the shutter in my camera and looked up. He was standing his ground and then started coming sideways towards me half snarling and licking his chops. I didn’t push my luck by trying to cross the dog’s path to get down where I could get better shots of the buildings. I got a few shots of the mill from standing on the rail spur and then a shot toward the mountains as I walked back to the car. I presume the dog went back to gnawing the carcass.
We took a walk on the river at sunset on New Year’s day and saw the first pink on the Sandias for 2014. The geese were flying, but the cranes were settling in for the night.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on the black cushions.
