Dragonfly Ranch

sophie 2006-09-02, originally uploaded by Phil Youngholm.

We took Junior to the vet, and he turned out to be a girl, so we renamed her Sophie. She has settled right in. She’s 7 pounds, 9 ounces, and about a year old. The vet thought she had recently had a litter of kittens, which could account for the kittens people have been seeing and hearing around the neighborhood in the last few weeks. (The kittens seem to be gone now. We hope they were all rescued and adopted.)

This little guy was meowing pitifully from underneath a parked car right outside our front door on Thursday night. He was scrawny but apparently in good shape otherwise, and he came right to my hand when I offered him food. We lured him into the garage and he spent the night there. The next morning he wanted to see the rest of the house, and since then he’s made himself right at home. He’s very playful. He plays with the toys we bought for Willy (which Willy has always ignored), and he likes to head-butt us affectionately. He’s not at all afraid of Kai, but he’s wary of Willy, since Willy yowls and hisses and spits when he gets too close. We’re putting out “found cat” posters and taking him to the vet this morning. We’re tentatively calling him Junior.

I took this picture while out in our little park with Kai on Sunday afternoon. I have a fancy new Canon camera, which I’m trying to learn to use. The autofocus mechanism had a hard time finding the dragonfly, and I haven’t learned how to use the manual focus yet. But this shot came out pretty well.

I’ve been picking wild blackberries at work almost every day for the
last couple of weeks. They grow like crazy all over the old airbase
where my office is. This year’s crop is fantastic — I assume that’s
because of our wet winter.

Doesn’t he look great?
(To all you nosy ones, the answer is: over 30 pounds.)