Think She’s Comfy?

 
It’s been a long running joke between me and my parents that our house isn’t really ours, that it really belongs to our cats and they just let us live there to act as their staff; cleaning their messes, feeding them, and fulfilling roles as furniture for them.

 
It may be a joke, but there’s a huge grain of truth in it. I mentioned before that whenever I get a new soft blanket, it doesn’t remain mine for long as one of my cats confiscates it.

 
Whenever I get up from wherever I was sitting one of the two female cats steals my seat. It happens with my desk chair (which can be really annoying especially if I’m just getting up from writing in order to stretch for a moment or use the bathroom), my chair at the kitchen table, my spot on the couch, another chair in the living room, even my bed.

 
Kenzi is typically the culprit, but Abby does the same thing too…

 

 

Think She's Comfy

 

 

 

Think she’s comfy enough?

 

 
Until next time…

 
[^_^]

 
~A.M.

Happy Leap Year

 

February 29th. Leap Year. I had no idea this year was a Leap Year. I don’t tend to follow that kind of thing. I’m so out of the loop when it comes to that, that at first, when I saw February 29th on my calendar, I actually thought it was a misprint! [^_^] I fail.

 

Happy Leap Year, and Happy Birthday to all the Leap Year babies out there!

 

Anyway, I went hiking a while ago, as I tend to do, and on one of the trails, there’s a bog area. The bog was still covered in a layer of ice even though a majority of the snow in my portion of Maine is already gone. I kept hearing these funny sounds radiating from under the ice. I can’t even describe the sound, it was so strange. But, it’s not the first time I’ve heard it. I’m assuming it was the result of a beaver family moving around and calling to each other under the ice since there was a beaver den on the far side of the bog. Sadly, I didn’t see any of them. I’ve never been able to catch a photo of a beaver in the wild (or, anywhere for that matter). It’s on my photograph bucket list along with several other animals (a moose being one of them).

 

But, I did manage to take a kind of artsy photo of a group of branches from a downed tree sticking up from the ice. The way the sun was shining and with the coloring of the ice and branches, it looks like the photo was taken in black and white, but it wasn’t.

 

 

 

Sticks in the Ice

 

 

 

 

Until next time…

 

[^_^]

 

~A.M.

Deer Family

 

Last Tuesday, I stepped into my kitchen and happened to look out the window at just the right moment to see this adorable scene… Good thing I always have my camera close by!

 

 

Deer Family

 

 

Now, this isn’t the first time this little family unit has paid a visit to my yard looking for food. Not by far. They’ve been coming to my yard since the little ones had spots and they show up every week. Sometimes several times a week.

 

I’m not sure, but I think the mother is actually a second generation that’s been frequenting my bird feeders.
Cuteness!

 

 
Until next time…
[^_^]
~A.M.

What Happened Here?

 

On a recent hike to a trail system in Addison, Maine, I came across something that puzzled me.

 

Several charred trees.

 

The char pattern was odd.  Only parts of the tree from the top down were burnt.

 

Charred Tree 01

 

 

Charred Tree 02

 

Now, I don’t claim to be an expert in…well, anything really, but my first thought when seeing this charring on several trees along the trail was that it was probably the result of lightning strikes.  I couldn’t imagine someone hiking along the trail, setting fire to random trees.  And I couldn’t imagine someone doing such a thing and not having the entire tree (or the entire forest) go up in flames.

 

What do you think happened here?

 

 

 

Until next time…

 

[o_O]

 

~A.M.

That Maine Weather

 

 

We have a saying here in Maine, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” Meaning, the weather can be one thing one minute and do a complete 180 the next. That’s kind of how it was this past weekend.

 

Friday, it was in the low 50s (it hit 51º in my corner of Maine which was a state record for this time of year) with sun and no snow at all. That all changed on Saturday.

 

While we didn’t get hit as badly as places a bit south of us (like DC and Boston), we did have some ice and at least six inches to a foot of snow dumped on us in a matter of hours with more predicted in the next few days.

 

So, we went from no snow at all…

 

Snowless Quoddy Trail

 

To a bunch of snow and ice …

 

Icicle in a Pine Tree

 

Gotta love that ever-changing Maine weather.  d_[^_^]

 

 

 

 

Until next time…

 

[^_^]

 

~A.M.