Tapir art and craft in my Picasa albums

I've spent a lot of time this weekend digging out photo files from folders, rearranging them and putting them in web albums. It's only the beginning, and it's fun - finally, after all this time I'm making some progress! Here's a picture of Elvis, the cat I had in Colorado, with two balsa wood tapirs from Peru. It was taken in 2001. You can see these tapirs and more in my lowland tapir art web albums. Check out the other tapir art albums, too. That's what I worked on today. Also, I have to share this. Sara Tegan sent a link to a tapir web cam in England. What fun :)

Last photos of Palisade and Pets

Well, this is it - the last photos of the garden and pets. It's already May 29th, and moving day will be June 5th. Marco is moving back into the house so he doesn't have to pay another month's rent on his apartment. It's fine. We're getting along. He lined up some friends to help me pack the moving truck on moving day. Kate will be flying in from San Jose to help out and drive with me all the way to Oregon. I've made the discovery that Central Oregon is HOT in the summer. The Willamette Valley (Oregon) isn't as hot as Western Colorado, but it's hot enough, and it's more humid. I'm not going there. I don't know where I'll land, but it won't be another place where I can't go out and enjoy the summers. I've been looking at temperatures online now that summer is settling in. Beth suggested I check out the Oregon coast, so I've been doing that. It's weird knowing that I have one week to decide where I'm going to live, and I can't go there to check on it. I have about enough space on my credit cards to get moved and take care of basics. So, which of Oregon's coast towns will be right for me? I guess I can even decide when I get there. The one that looks most promising may be Astoria, with some depth, history, and a community college. My other concern at this point is that I have a lot of stuff to pack into the moving truck, and I dread doing that on a hot day. It could really mess up the rest of my week, and I'll need my health. This is stressful and scary, but also exciting.

Here's Elvis on the hummingbird feeder. We're supposed to hang a bottle on the stand, and we've done that before, but I'm not going to risk the birds when she looks so eager! Here I've exposed the picture for Elvis. See below for how it really looked.

Here are a few more pix of Elvis on the feeder. She was so cute (and creative).

Yeah, Hi Elvis. Where are the birds?

Here she looks like a weather-cat!

The back yard in the evening with roses and late-day sun on Grand Mesa.

Leila enjoyed lying in the back yard about this time of day.

It's not quite the same pose. You'd have to click on it and then look at her carefully. Indulge me. These are the last pix I'll ever take my lovely dog. I think it would be unfair and confusing to come back and visit. Once they get over missing "Mommy," that should be it, I think. The thought makes me cry, but what can I do?

Sweet Leila.

Leila and Elvis doing their thing. I'm not sure why I don't have any pictures of Pterelas today. Maybe he was asleep on the couch. Going around taking "last photos" is no fun, so I probably was trying not to think about that.

One photo on my birthday; Elvis in the fern

This is the only picture I took on my birthday. I'm writing this "from the future," and I've forgotten the details of the day. Marco had moved out. I was packing and planning my move to Oregon. Our divorce was being finalized, and I was getting ready to part with pets and home. It was my 52nd birthday. I hadn't made real friends in Palisade due to health, work, and the fact that when Marco and I were happy, we didn't seem to need anyone else. Also, I tend to be shy. I have a lot of friends and colleagues online, and a few really good friends in real life, but they all live far away. I'm sure my mom called, because she always does. My siblings probably e-mailed, because that's what we usually do.

As you can see, Elvis was sleeping in, and continuing to wreck, my gorgeous fern. Well, it's not gorgeous any more :( But she's so cute, and cats don't follow instructions very well. I had put it way up high but that didn't bother her!

Happy cat; not so, Sheryl

At this point some panic and depression are setting in. I know I'm going to be leaving them, and about all I can do is spend time with them and take photos to remember them by.

I love this one. Elvis in action.

Snoozing.

Where to sleep if you're a cat

If you're Elvis, I guess the window sill behind the blinds is a good place to sleep. Marco's mom gave us the gold and green thing on the left. It's a "money tree," a tradition in the Philippines, which is where she and Marco are from. I don't think it ever brought us money, but maybe it did. I remember one time ringing the bells and an order came in on a slow day. But that was only once. The box in the upper left is something I made to hold floppy disks. I like making simple things that solve organizational issues. I'm not a great woodworker, so they have to be simple, but they do usually work. I or we also built the shelf under the blue box.

Elvis and tapir skulls

I love this picture - she's so relaxed! Remember, this is the cat that likes to stretch out in the fax machine. It looks like Leila's all curled up behind her.

Writing from the future, I don't remember why I chose this day to photograph the hybrid tapir skull unless someone wanted a photo. I was taking them with me, of course. Here they are in my Picasa Web Album of mixed, generic, and hybrid tapir natural history. I've written about them in the captions in the album.

On the couch

Elvis and Leila. My two little sweeties are quite happy on the couch together. I'm going to miss them terribly. When I move, they're staying here. I don't know where my future is, and most likely I'll end up in a no-pet apartment. Marco is good to them, loves them as much as I do, and they have plenty of room to run around here off the street. It's hard, but I don't know what else to do except take a few photos for the memory book.

Elvis on the photo stand

This is my set-up for taking photos for the gift shop. I guess Elvis thought it was suitable for her. What a soft, gentle cat. She's a good one. We got lucky with both dogs and Elvis. Except for sleeping in some very odd places and the occasional playful bite, Elvis is a very easy-going and non-destructive cat. I love how she plays with the dogs, too. I'm not sure they love it, but they tolerate it. Sometimes they instigate, so I guess they don't mind having their faces bitten all that much.

Feng Shui plants and Elvis

Did I say the grass was growing out of control? It was VERY out of control. Spring came before I knew it. I'm writing this at a later date, and I don't remember when Marco left, but it could have been by this time. Counseling didn't work. We were splitting up. I was going to move, and I didn't know where. We were getting a friendly divorce, and we had to follow through with that, then I'd move in a couple of months and he'd come back and reclaim the house. If I were going to get a divorce, I wanted to move someplace where I could be outdoors more of the year. I loved Palisade and Colorado, but I couldn't take the heat of summer, which lasted from early May all the way into October. Then due to the cold, it was hard to get out and do a lot in winter. I wanted someplace I could be outside and enjoy it. So I was giving it some thought.

I'd been reading some books on Feng Shui, and I realized that the right rear corner of our house was missing. That corner is designated the "love and marriage" corner. We weren't the only couple that had come to grief in this house, but the people who lived here before us had split up as well. Enhancing the corner wouldn't help us at this point, but maybe just for the sake of completion, or maybe I wanted to leave something for Marco, I wanted to fix the problem. I didn't have a lot of money to make a nice garden or gazebo or fountain out here in the empty spot, so I bought a plant I liked - a moonlight scotch broom - and I measured the coordinates carefully and then stuck it in the ground hoping he'd at least water it after I was gone. I chose the scotch broom because it was big and imposing and I thought it would "anchor" the corner. Little did I realize that it was also symbolically a part of my new life. The Oregon coast abounds in scotch broom.

Elvis liked the new plant.

One by one, all of our plants were turning green and growing like weeds. Here's the catnip, and you can see the dandylions getting a good start, too. I had worked and worked on them, but had refused to use herbicide. They were - totally - out of control.

A blog is a blog - Leila, Pterelas, and hail on the worn out deck

I keep struggling with the fact that some of these pictures are simply self-indulgent and have no redeeming artistic or social value. If it's going on the Web, it should be meaningful, right? Probably not. What is a blog? It's a web log, and it's mine. I like my pets. I want to remember them. I like the way Leila commandeers the chair by the washer and dryer, and Elvis likes to sit with her on the back of the chair.

Here's Pterelas, looking goofy and happy, as usual.

Leila and Elvis, no flash.

How fast the seasons change here! It's April and the grass has not only turned green, but has started growing out of control. A bit of hail reminds us of the season. It could still snow, as we often get our deepest (but not coldest) snow in April. Old-timers say the Grand Valley used to have a long Spring and Fall, but no more. There's basically only winter and summer now, with a very short Fall and Spring. At least it seems that way.

Elvis and the Fax Machine

I don't know why she took to it the way she did, but Elvis loved to lie with her front legs stretched across the feeds of the fax machine. I don't know if she thought she was "mousing" the paper or if it was just comfortable. She has some pretty weird sleeping places, but then she's a cat.

The cat in the fern

Here's Elvis, the little cutie, demonstrating why my fern doesn't flourish. It used to be lush and beautiful, then it started to die. Go figure. I'm still not sure how she got on top of the shelf (where I'd put the fern out of harm's way), but then she is a cat, after all.

Elvis at the back door

This is Elvis at the back door. It looks like someone has been trying to get in using the screen. Before we moved here, the garage had been converted to a family room and the deck and sliding glass doors were added. The area wasn't quite level, and on more than one occasion, the glass door simply did a belly-flop into the room. The carpeting prevented breakage, but one time it nearly landed on me and one of the dogs. We kept trying to get it fixed, but the landlord was a do-it-yourselfer and he couldn't get it right.

Downtown Palisade, Colorado, and Elvis with two wood tapirs

This is one of my favorite Mt. Garfield photos, with the leafless peach trees and snow. I took it from the end of our street (Milleman) where it crossed the main road into Palisade, which has the picturesque name of 37 3/10 Road. No, I'm not kidding. The Grand Valley is on a grid system. Further down, it's called Elberta Avenue, but I'm not sure if the name is official up here near I-70.

That's my Mazda hatchback parked in front of our group mailboxes on 37 3/10 Road. In the distance is Grand Mesa. Our house is the second (tan) one behind the blue one on the left. Mt. Garfield is behind me. The view of Garfield from our back deck was uninterrupted and glorious before the blue house was built. They're nice people, but I sure appreciated that view and I hated to see it go. The round-topped trees are globe willows. They grow like weeds, and they look beautiful. I'd never seen one until I came to Colorado in 1992, and now I love them.

The red building is The Livery, an old-fashioned bar that looks like a movie set and has a nice atmosphere. I'm standing in the parking lot of Family Food Town. Yes, this is Main Street. You can just see Grand Mesa in the background. The building with the blue banner has had some incredibly good restaurants in it, but inevitably they go downhill when (I imagine) they can't keep up the quality of food or the chef they opened with.

That's a nice shot of Grand Mesa, showing also what a teeny town this is. The population might be 2,000? So how do I not go crazy? Internet (web site and business), e-mail, books, friends, husband, pets, artwork, genealogy, gorgeous scenery in every direction, camera, and . . . I'm a "project person." I always keep busy doing something that (to me anyway) is fascinating.

Here's more of the Family Food Town parking lot. The white roof is a gazebo with benches. The big tan building next to the red one is the bank (downstairs) and offices upstairs. My dentist's office used to be up there.

More exciting downtown Palisade. I'm not sure why I included this one, but it's uploaded now, so there you have it. There are a couple of sidewalks in downtown Palisade, and this proves it. The street light is nice, too.

From the Family Food Town parking lot, you can see Mt. Garfield to the northwest and the train tracks on the rise in front of the white buildings. I sometimes walk down here to get exercise. Our house is up near the bluffs. There's a lift gate, or drop gate, where the tracks cross Main Street, and I always love it when the trains come through, even though they're long and make you wait. I was surprised one day to hear that one of the white buildings was a meth lab and had been busted. I had not thought of meth labs. The idea never crossed my mind. I was too busy dealing with tapirs. Why would I be thinking of meth labs anyway? I just remember it was a big surprise to think about that kind of drug operation right where I'd been thinking everything was so basic, plain, harmless and legal.

This is Elvis with two carved balsa wood tapirs from Peru. She (Elvis) almost looks motherly. This is a bench on our back deck where I took photos for the online gift shop. It was interesting, because the light was so often extremely bright. I had to jump through hoops to get anything I could use.

I guess Elvis has had enough. 'Bye-bye, Elvis.

Elvis, a very good cat - Palisade, Colorado

These are just some pictures of Elvis on took on January 11. She's a good cat. Nice and soft and friendly, with very few bad habits, except for biting sometimes, which most cats do. She especially likes to wrap her arms around the dogs' faces and gently (?) bite their eyes. They tolerate each other well. Film at eleven.

Today is also my dad's birthday, but I didn't see him, since he lives in Arizona.

The eye of Elvis

Fun with digital cameras. This is my cat, Elvis, and my room when I lived in Palisade, Colorado.