I don't know if you are aware of Oliver's story but if you are a Cat lover, I feel you wont mind if I tell you. A little over 2 years ago Moggie moved in. She's a black cat with a couple of tiny white patches, most visible is the star on her chest. She turned up, out of the blue and adopted us! We had 2 cats already [Chloe and Smudge] but it was winter and very cold and we didn't feel we could put her out, so she stayed. She's very vocal and friendly and we quickly came to love her but Bev called her Moggie because she thought her owners would reclaim her, if she stayed the plan was to change her name to Maggie but that didn't happen! Though she was fully grown when she moved in we think she was very young and inexperienced - she neglected to tell us that she was pregnant! Months later she presented 4 Kittens! We had only realised and got organised a couple of days before the birth. We had a large box, lined with towels, into which Moggie had begun to settle but as the first Kitten, Alfie [Black and White and gorgeous!] was born, she jumped out of the box, in a panic, onto Bev's lap! We later found out that Alfie was starved of Oxygen because of this, his back legs didn't work properly and we had to have him put to sleep - it broke our hearts! Next came Archie, a stunning Grey Tabby - a real "Chocolate Box" Cat! Then came Daisy, the image of her mum and finally Oliver! Initially we planned to keep Alfie and Archie, we'd never had great luck with boy Cats and they were so beautiful! We found homes for Daisy, named by my friend for his little girl and for Ollie with a friend of Bev's. As the runt of the litter, Oliver didn't get a look in when feeding, he kept getting pushed out and though we tried everything, putting him back on the nipple and even removing the others, to give him a chance - he began to starve! Bev got some syringes and started to hand rear him, feeding him Kitten milk 3 or 4 times a day but when the others moved onto solid food he just wouldn't eat or even drink from a bowl! We'd lost Alfie by this time, it broke our hearts! We resigned ourselves to keeping Archie and letting the others go. Being unemployed at the time, I was with the Kittens all day and Bev realised that Daisy would need to get used to being handled, before going to my friends, so I was given the job as Bev didn't want to bond with her as she new it would be harder to let her go! Meanwhile I was trying everything to get Ollie to eat something solid so one day I poached some Chicken in milk. I put some down for Oliver and after sniffing it suspiciously, he started to eat! Then the greatest thing happened - as Daisy came over to see what was so tasty, Oliver stamped his little paw "Back off! This is mine!". We lost Archie at 6 months - on Bev's Birthday, imagine having to break that to her when she came home! We think he was hit by a car. We had fallen in love with Oliver and decided to keep him, when my friends came to visit we both thought that they were too rough with Daisy and to my great relief, Bev said she wanted to keep her as she didn't want to split her and Oliver up! As you can see Oliver is long haired, so from an early age we realised that he would need to get used to being groomed, he loves his comb, knows the word and will even pull it off the coffee table when He wants a comb! He still eats chicken and drinks Kitten milk, two more words in his vocabulary! We've never had such naughty, inquisitive Cats but would be lost without them! Fate threw us together and we couldn't be happier! I'm sorry about the Epic storyline but it needed to be told!

I started my day today ankle deep in a freezing creek with a 30 foot tall ice volcano looming over. It was not a bad way to start the day at all, and I verified my new boots are very much waterproof, otherwise I would have been light about three toes by now. I am not sure how much I got in me tonight in terms of writing, I am pretty exhausted and have a few things to do yet before bed calls. But there were a few thoughts that this photo engendered that I wanted to get down. I took this at Latourell Falls. It was coated in ice, a mound as big as a house looming at its base, the cracks of ice echoing off the basalt walls and the thunder of water pouring down. And in the midst of all that, this is the shot I found that moved me the most. I like the juxtaposition of the free flowing water versus its frozen kindred, or rather the alchemical nature of that change. But mostly what struck me is how I found this shot, because it was not anything dramatic, it was just in how I was looking as opposed to where I was looking. I often say, practice as many other types of photography as you can, it will make you a better photographer at those types you like best. And that is the case here. I started looking down when I began taking floral macros, marveling at the worlds around my ankles. This trend continued with a series of photographs I took of footprints. And then it was patterns in the sand at the beach. There was a crack in the sidewalk here, a tannin stain of a leaf there, and the melted outline of a power cord under a snowy mat. Through it all I have learned the wisdom of looking down, as well as looking up, or to the left or the right, and not just what is directly ahead. A mentor once cautioned me, that during sunset, the best place to look was often to the east. We get so caught up in what is happening west that we miss the display going on behind us. This morning was the same scenario. The thunder and ice in front of me were certainly riveting, but once I noticed, the frozen stream at my feet was much more rewarding. Vision is an elusive thing. And we find inspiration for it in the most remarkable of places. Or, in other words, the more you seek, the more you will find. Just make sure you take along some waterproof boots. Oh, I forgot to mention. I am planning a return wade up Oneonta Gorge on Friday morning. I promised that I would not go alone (if possible), so if anyone else out there is: A) Crazy B) Owns a drysuit C) Likes being chest deep in ice cold water Then send me a Flickrmail. I am aiming for 7:30 on Friday morning, I have to be back and at work by 11.