a much-needed haircut: feline edition

Well, it’s been almost a year since Baby had a haircut and I’m pretty sure if Locks of Love had feline program, Baby could provide for at least 20 wigs. The cat has so much damn fur that it’s not normal. I am constantly picking up furballs around my apartment on an hourly basis. In ten minutes of brushing, I have to empty the brush five times because so much hair is collected that the brush becomes incapable of brushing. At the advice of Molly, I went and added a Furminator to my Amazon shopping cart, but I can’t even wait that long to get it. Something had to be done… now.

I went and bought a buzzer since she has some mats on her back that are down to the skin. I planned on giving her a lion cut, but she is so against getting buzzed that I had to call it quits after a while, leaving her with what would in human terms be the equivalent of a vacuum cleaner haircut.

But now I think it is pretty safe to say that I will not be picking up furballs tomorrow, and the fact that I can say that brings a huge smile to my face. Looking at her pretty much guarantees a laugh too.

before and after

Filed under: cats

charbroiled tales from Zion Snow Canyon

I had to go to St. George today to look for a prom dress (say what?!… more about that later), and the only way I could warrant a drive all the way to St. George was to do some hiking there too. I’m sure glad I did, because the shopping was a flop. Expecting a plethora of hideous prom dresses at the DI, I was sorely disappointed when all they had for dresses was stuff your grandmother would wear to church on Sundays. But I guess that’s St. George for you.

So after not finding a prom dress, I headed to Snow Canyon (yes, not Zion) for some exploring. Contrary to its name, there is actually no snow in Snow Canyon. A more appropriate name would be Fiery Rocks of Hell Canyon… seeing as the lava-filled park was almost 80 degrees today and will settle in around the 500-degree broiling temperature within a few weeks. Luckily, I picked up a fresh tube on sunblock right before the hike, so only two one-inch slivers of skin that I missed covering are scorched red.

Snow Canyon is pretty small. The longest trail is only 4 miles (one way), and all the other trails are no more than a mile or two. So I ending up hiking six different trails today… and also made my own. I somehow managed to get off the trail and in my exploring, found myself in a bit of a predicament… lost in an M.C. Escher-esque maze of petrified dunes a few hundred feet below the trail I thought I was on. I practically had to crawl my way out, but I made it out in one piece (lucky for how many times I had to jump)… though unfortunately deathly tired and still five miles from my car. Ugh.

I’ve been taking a ridiculous amount of detail shots lately (and this post will prove that), but the light is just so incredibly harsh and hard to work with this time of year (and it’s only going to get worse) that the details tend to end up the only shots with light that doesn’t make me want to puke.

and stack this last picture five times high and that’s what I got lost in

Filed under: the great outdoors

bad-mouthed, honky-tonk kitty

It has been a very big week for Stella. I’ve had a few very big revelations regarding my darling kitty’s health and heritage.

Last week, I happened to overhear a statement linking chronic upper-respiratory infections in cats to untreated dental problems. I don’t even want to think about what would have (or wouldn’t have rather) happened if I didn’t overhear that statement.

See, my Stella dear has had chronic upper respiratory problems her whole life. Vets back in Minnesota (I had like five of them) all told me she was perfectly healthy… just a sneezy, snotty kitty who may always be so. They also never said anything about dental problems, even though her front teeth were mangled (and eventually fell out). Well, I’ve come to realize most vets are idiots (or at least untrained in all things dental). Turns out Stella’s mouth is in VERY bad shape, and the recent relapse of upper-respiratory congestion has been because of it. One of her fangs has come completely out of her jaw and is sitting in her severely-receded gums, several other teeth are black at the root, and her gums are all swollen. She has snotting and hacking attacks, and has a hard time eating.

The good news is that we now know about these problems and they are being dealt with (albeit four years too late). She is now on a hefty regimen of medication, including antibiotics, pain killers, and an oral gel. In June (or earlier if she takes a turn for the worse), she will have most (if not all) of her remaining teeth pulled.

She really hates all the medicine, but it is working wonders. I have to give her four huge pills a day, an oral injection twice a day, and an application of oral gel to her gums twice a day. The gel is her least favorite. She really hates the pills, but well, this is what happens when I give her the gel….

It’s really quite sad, but it’s good for her. Because I feel so bad for her, I gave the gel to Baby as well one day, just so she could get a feel for what poor Stella has to go through… and well, Baby foamed at the mouth too. It was hilarious. It’s okay for me to laugh at her. She is perfectly healthy.

So then today I had another huge revelation. It actually started brewing on Sunday while I was on assignment in Vegas. I was chatting with my photo subject at her house, looking at big animal books (the ones that are like four feet tall), and one was about cats… every few pages dedicated to a certain breed. And well, we flipped a page and there was a breed of cat I had never heard of, but one I recognized instantly.

I had always thought of Stella as a mixed-breed (though predominantly Siamese) barn kitty. But well, after much investigation, I’ve come to the conclusion that I think Stella is purebred… Tonkinese.

Stella came from a ranch out in the Black Hills where they have a set-up allowing people hauling horses into the Hills to camp out on their land with the horses. Because of this, huge trailers were always coming in and out of their driveway. Stella was always in the middle of the road. She loved people, unlike all her feral family members, and knew that standing in the middle of the road brought people out of their trucks to her. Fearful for her life, my mom’s friend brought her to my mom, knowing that I was waiting for a kitty who needed me to come along. It was Stella. I drove out a week later and met my darling new kitty, who my stepdad was calling Bugsy, because her eyes bugged out from her malnourished body. It was love at first sight.

I was telling someone recently about Stella and where she came from, and they said that there is no way she was a wild barn kitty. They believed someone must have dropped her off at that ranch. I don’t understand how or why someone would do that, but as of today, I am starting to see that as a more likely possibility.

See, if you browse the websites of Tonkinese breeders, you will find spitting image after spitting image of Stella. I had never in my life seen a cat that looked like Stella, but nearly every one of these Tonkinese cats could be her identical twin. Compare every marking, read every personality trait, it is all a spitting image of Stella. She is no mixed-breed.

So now I am left wondering how this beautiful, seemingly purebred Tonkinese wound up with a bunch of black and orange feral barn kitties. The only thing I can think of is that to a breeder, Stella wouldn’t be an example of a fine specimen. See, sometimes, she can get a little cross-eyed. It’s not all the time, but it definitely makes an appearance every once and a while. She also had her mangled teeth when she was younger. All I can think of is they couldn’t do anything with this kitty, cared enough not to kill it, and just dropped her off at a barn where she’d be fed.

I hate to say it of such disregard for an animal, but if this is what happened, I’m sure glad they did it. Stella has become my pride and joy. I love Baby too, don’t get me wrong, but Stella is my first-born. She’s the first animal I got on my own, two very long cat-less years after moving out of my parents’ house. I nursed her back to health from malnutrition, upper respiratory infections, food allergies, mysterious scabs, hair loss, and now her dental problems. She remains the friendliest cat I have ever met (and others will not argue with this statement). She is my pumpkin dearest and I can’t imagine life without her! Oooooh, kitty!

Filed under: cats

I live here (be jealous), and you guessed it, more Zion

Did you actually think I didn’t go to Zion this weekend? Ha! Of course I did. Be jealous.

Filed under: the great outdoors

fine art fart

This isn’t usually my style, but I really love this photo I took the other day while out wandering the canyon. But you have to look at it BIG… small doesn’t do it justice.

Filed under: the great outdoors

Jenny Boxer, a friend to animals

Jenny Boxer died on Wednesday. Who was Jenny Boxer? Jenny Boxer was a vibrant, outspoken 11-year-old girl I had the privilege of meeting when she visited Best Friends a few weeks ago. She came here through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She had an inoperable brain tumor, and her dying wish was to come to Best Friends to be with the animals. If that’s not love and dedication our furry and feathered friends, I don’t know what is.

My head always gets in a jumble trying to comprehend the thoughts about life that come with the news of death. This is no exception. The only thought I can seem to get a firm grasp around is the fact that Jenny is an inspiration to us all, in so many ways.

Filed under: best friends

cats, birds, dogs, horses, and guinea pigs

I haven’t posted any work photos for a little while, so I figured I should do that.

Filed under: best friends

“Gaaaaaaaaaary!” and yet again, more tales from Zion

Being photographers, Miss Molly and I hate carting around massive camera gear when we don’t need to. Molly even contemplated not bringing her camera on her vacation to HAWAII last week (she did bring it though, thank god, and has amazing photos to show for it). On hikes, I usually just pack the camera with a wide lens. But yesterday, while we hiked Observation Point, we ditched the SLRs completely and instead carted Molly’s brand-new, fancy-schmancy, pocket-sized tourist camera. It tends to overexpose and has a crappy digital zoom, but those faults are forgiven by the fact that it takes video. We took so many ridiculous videos during the eight-mile hike that I planned to do a big, fat video post… that is, until I realized I don’t know how to compress them. So for now you are stuck with only photos. Videos coming soon.

We were totally obnoxious hikers (repeatedly singing in opera voice, “trumpeting,” and even singing the Planet Unicorn song), but there weren’t many people around to witness it. Luckily, we only came across a handful of people on the trail. Apparently everyone was at Angels Landing that day, including fellow photographer Gary.

Considering the top of Observation Point offers an excellent (although ant-hill-sized) view of Angels Landing, Molly and I screamed “Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaary!!!!!!” over and over and over again across Zion Canyon… because surely Gary would see us and wave back. When we ran into him at a restaurant that night and crashed his date, he said he thought he saw us up there, but sadly, no, he couldn’t hear our calls. Bummer.

Yesterday’s hike was one of the most beautiful hikes I think I’ve been on… at least the part when you get outside Zion Canyon. Zion Canyon is beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it always seems to look the same from any angle. And the sight of a road going down the middle of it just ruins it for me. However, the much-less-visited east side of the park (which you spend a good deal of time in on the hike to Observation Point) is glorious. I’m currently planning many more voyages into its belly (and also about a million more voyages in the other areas of the park, the state, and the region). Huzzah for spring! True, it’s been snowing all day today, but that is March for you… and it will be nice again tomorrow. In the past week, I have gone on four hikes, totaling just about 20 miles and ascending over 5,000 vertical feet. I still have about 800 million more miles and a trillion vertical feet to cover.

ANYHOO…

we saw a goat

and a swan-shaped log

I pretended to be an arch

and Molly pretended to meditate

there were beautiful clouds

the moon rose

and then we crashed Gary’s dinner

many more photos can be viewed here, in my Zion Flickr album.

Filed under: the great outdoors

itty bitty chipmunk and even more tales from Zion

It’s Sunday. That means I go to Zion for yoga… and seeing as the weather was grand and yoga didn’t kick my ass today, I was ready for an intense hike after all that downward dogging. I was ready for Angels Landing.

Yoga may not have kicked my ass this morning, but this hike did. It didn’t help that I severely underestimated it. But considering how wrong the trail guide was on the hike I did last weekend (calling it ‘moderate’ when it was beyond easy and ridiculously short), I figured their dubbing of Angels Landing as ’strenuous’ and taking four hours was another overstatement. I kicked its ass time-wise (up in 1.5, down in 45), but it kicked mine with that ’strenuous’ rating. If I were to rate it, I’d call it ‘kick your ass AND mess with your head’… which is a step above ’strenuous’ in my book. It did not ‘murder’ my ass (a step above kicking the ass), but either way, I’m beat!

Four times I thought I had reached the top, only to discover that, no, it’s still up ahead. I was happy about this the first few times, but after getting to the top of Walter’s Wiggles, I was ready to be done. And when I looked up at where I still had to go, I thought to myself, “are you kidding me?” It was a jagged half-mile long spine, three feet wide in parts, and going up another 500 feet in elevation. I realized this must be the part the trail guide is referring to when it said “NOT FOR ANYONE AFRAID OF HEIGHTS.” Luckily, I am not afraid of heights. It was beyond my idea of sketchy, but well, I didn’t die, and that’s what counts.

So long story short, I get to the top (the real top) and it’s fairly amazing. I think about how it’d be better if the trees were in bloom along the river below and the sun wasn’t glaring on full blast, but I still appreciate the ass kicking and the good view. I peel a banana and am visited by an itty bitty chipmunk. I can’t complain. Life is good.

Filed under: the great outdoors

an assortment of this week’s favorites

I love my job.

Filed under: best friends

vampires disguised as puppies

Be warned. They look innocent and sweet.

They pretend to be your friend.

But then they’ll show their teeth…

and then they attack.

If they could reach your neck, they would surely draw blood from there, but since they can’t, they do it from the knees and feet instead.

If you make it out alive, your clothes will be torn, your shoes shredded, your skin mutilated. But at least you have your life.

Be warned.

Filed under: best friends, dogs

baby cactus and other tales from Zion

I went hiking in Zion for the first time today. Sounds crazy, right? I mean, I’ve driven through Zion about a hundred times (I do it every week on my way to yoga), camped and hiked on BLM land just outside of Zion, but I’ve never actually hiked in Zion. I’ve stopped and taken photos a few times, but never wandered too far from the road. Blame it on winter. I moved here in December.

A few weeks ago, I drove through Zion during a massive snowstorm. The roads weren’t plowed (and where they were snow was accumulating fast), you had to take the turns on the switchbacks at 3 mph (or risk dropping off a 2,000 foot cliff), and you couldn’t see any part of the road or any tire tracks. It was by far the most treacherous driving conditions I have ever found myself in, and it was by far the most beautiful drive I’ve taken in my entire life. It felt like I was driving on an invisible road in the middle of nature. I knew the boundaries of the road because of rocks and cliffs on the side, but it seemed like I was hovering over the land… or maybe skiing really fast while sitting still (if that makes any sense at all).

Though I wasn’t afraid while driving it (I’ve learned the key to sketchy winter driving is simply to only go as fast as you can without clenching the steering wheel and don’t hit the brake), but maybe I should have been. I found out later there was an avalanche the next day on Checkerboard Mesa and they had to shut down the park. I remember looking up at Checkerboard Mesa and not being able to see where the ridge stopped and the sky began… not from fog or clouds, but because snow had engulfed every inch of every rock, tree, and bush on it. I’m really glad that avalanche waited an extra day before she broke. Next time I really should just stay home for safe measure. It was really (really) stupid of me to take that drive, but it was well worth it.

Now it’s March and the temperatures are inching their way towards summer, the snow is almost gone (we had a few feet of it), and today Zion was calling me. Yoga kicked my ass (hard) this morning, so I only took a quick hike, but she was a beauty. And along the way, I met a baby cactus… an itty bitty baby cactus about the size of my grody fingernail (I pick my nails, get over it). It struck me, perhaps because I’ve never lived anywhere with cactus before, or perhaps just because it was so damn cute.

It felt great to get out again into awe-inspiring, human and building-free nature. Zion is awe-inspiring even from the car, but it’s not the same when you don’t have a little burn in your legs, a little sweat keeping you cool, and the wind as the only noise whistling in your ears. I am so incredibly stoked on spring.

I feel so fortunate to have been able to live in such incredible places, to have had (and continue to have) the best backyards anyone could ever ask for. Grand Teton, Yellowstone, the Gros Ventres, Uintas, and Wasatch… now Zion, Grand Staircase, the Grand Canyon, and Bryce. They might not be why I moved out west, but they are certainly why I’m staying here.

Filed under: the great outdoors