My husband and I pulled over on the side of a road overlooking the city of Cheyenne, WY on our way home from errands as the sun was setting.
We are blessed with many beautiful sunrises and sunsets here on the high plains, but every once in a while, we get a really spectacular one. Tonight was a really lovely display with the city lights stretched below us and the Rockies in the far horizon, backlit by the sun’s final rays.
I’ve always envied photographers who can capture such tiny forms such as individual snowflakes. I didn’t have much in the way of expectations, but I still gave it an effort and managed to get 1 good picture out of probably 15 other attempts. I could probably manage far better with some stabilization like a tripod or a surface to rest my camera on so I may try to use that next time. Still, not bad, overall.
That such beauty stands out from such a tiny form. It boggles my mind that this is what comprises the snow we make snowmen from and walk on.
Today was predicted to have 4-6 inches of snow, but so far it’s just cold with the finest of snow falling that has left town under a solid sheet of ice. A good day to stay home, stay warm and catch up on some things around the house (or do nothing at all)!
This week has been cold and snowy mainly, so it was a nice surprise to see a dark-eyed junco set against such a brilliant-blue sky. The blue was just as nice to photograph as this little friend.
Continued from our last post about Fury, our adorable cat…
As we returned to the vet for check-ups at both our local vet’s office and CSU in Colorado, we began to notice her hair falling out where her skin was scabbed from injuries. We still hadn’t gotten a look at the healing injury on her back, as it was re-wrapped weekly by the vets we saw. But the entire back of her neck lost all of it’s hair after we observed what we’d call dark red irritation bruising that crept up her skin after the horrible back injury. She also developed 2-3 thick, crusty “scabs” near her shoulder blades that ultimately could be peeled off, gently, only to leave a powdery white space that became gray and speckled in coloration and never grew hair back. It was surprising that the vet could peel these scabs off and Fury would barely feel a thing.
Several weeks later, the local vet determined that her skin wasn’t going to be able to heal the entire way on its own and after nearly 2 months of healing and body bandage re-wraps, they would have to debride this area and leave the wound open to heal on it’s own. This wasn’t a pleasant thing to see or look after, but our vet was right; it did ultimately heal after several more weeks.
We next moved into the phases of medication investigation. We started with explorations of steroids, anti-seizure meds and other regimens that our vets have experience with in certain situations. I’d caveat this though to clarify that our vet team was great at finding doses that were tolerable without adverse reactions. The progress was obvious after several weeks: Fury was no longer having those frantic states of sprinting out of the room, looking like she was hallucinating or attacking herself. For several weeks at this point, we really felt like we were heading in a better direction (granted we wished we could snap our fingers and make it instant, but still, we were hopeful). Continue reading
Not the friendliest of sights in our yard today. But in freezing temperatures, eating is surviving.
After making an introductory post about our cat Fury, I wanted to start documenting several medical challenges with her that we are working through. There is little information out there (for pet owners or veterinarians) for animals like Fury and hopefully, by maintaining her story online, it can be one more source for cat owners (and other animal owners) that struggle with these conditions:
Early Spring 2018
Earlier this spring, we noticed that as Fury grew, she often scratched aggressively behind and below her ears with her back feet. It was just, a bit much. Minor injuries began to occur as slices or tears of the skin below where her ears met her neck. These were usually enough to require a small number of stitches or glue to close back up again. Our local vet was very investigative when it came to these injuries. Yet without any presenting symptom other than itching, we didn’t really have any clear diagnosis other than to begin assessing skin allergies.
We began to notice other odd behaviors as well over the weeks. Randomly, Fury would be in the room with us, and out of nowhere, she would enter a moment of frantic agitation. One second she’s fine, the next her pupils were dilated, she postured as if she was ready to enter fight or flight mode and she would sometimes dash out of the room for no reason at all. In fact, it almost seemed as though she was hallucinating. And just a moment later, she’d flip an invisible switch and be entirely back to normal again.
We started searching online for any guidance of what we could be dealing with and we started seeing feline hyperesthesia syndrome (or “Twitchy Back” syndrome). It seemed to perfectly align with most of her behavior but didn’t account for other behavior. We also noted from reading and in discussion with our local vet that this was a diagnosis only arrived at after ruling out many, many other diagnoses first, so this was put to the side until we could confirm more. Continue reading
This was actually a fun shot that happened by accident. I’d been trying to snap a picture of the moon earlier in the evening to capture the beautiful clouds at dusk, but I was failing, miserably. In the time that my husband and I had a conversation in the driveway about my aperture and SLR settings, it was dark and I’d lost all the beautiful evening light. But, as luck would have it, I just aimed my lens upwards, sucked in a breath, and took this picture in sheer frustration. And lo and behold, it was the best one of the lot that night.
In mid-October, my husband and I ventured back to my home state of North Carolina to visit with my family and also earn a year’s worth of husband points for accompanying me to my 20th High School Reunion.
While in town, my parents treated us to a family dinner at their favorite restaurant, the Pisgah Inn – located on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The menu is terrific and perfect for any special occasion and the views you can enjoy while eating are second to none. I took this picture above from the deck of the restaurant just before we had an evening rain roll in.
On the return drive home, we stopped off at an overlook called Funnel Top, also on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and had just a few minutes to take another quick picture before the rain opened up and dusk settled.
I do love being near the Rocky Mountains here in this part of the country in Wyoming. But for all their grandeur and contrast, the Great Smoky Mountains are ancient and endless in their own right. Their infinite horizons remind me of water colors, painted with the most precise and perfect lines.
It’s home. No matter how far away I live, the mountains always breathtakingly unfold to welcome me back, every time.
Life by Lens and Laptop 