7 years on from this post we now are without Molly and Rupert is almost 18. This poem seems to have been written for cats. Have a wonderful day everyone, keep warm if the weather is stormy as it is here.

Original Post: January 16, 2012 – “Halfway down the stairs is a stair where i sit.”

“Halfway down the stairs
is a stair
where i sit.
there isn’t any
other stair
quite like
it.
i’m not at the bottom,
i’m not at the top;
so this is the stair
where
I always
stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up
And it isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!” – a.a. milne

We have two Cornish Rex cats – Rupert and Molly who have curly fur. Like all cats, they migrate around the house depending on where the sun is shining. In the morning it shines through onto the stairs. I was struck this morning by the wavy shadows of the stair balusters next to the curly cats, so caught this. Rupert is a golden colour, Molly is black. The image was better in black and white.

This is a photo I took 6 years ago and just found again with the original post text. The close protectiveness of the mother to the baby is particularly moving. They are no different from human mothers in caring for their offspring.

Now, I feel differently towards these lovely creatures, from what is written in the post below. I no longer wish to be responsible for any harm or suffering to come to them in any way, as in raising them for food. But that is now and this post below was how I felt then. And it was just as valid, though I have now changed.

Original Post: : October 21, 2012 – 294/366 – *Highland Cattle in the Evening Light

This weekend was one of discovery of our local area. We spent the days out and about taking photographs and basically drinking in the sights. For the first time since we moved here, over 15 years ago, I had the same exhilerated feeling that I got when we first moved to that wonderful place in France: “We LIVE here!” We discovered beaches, coves and roads that we had never seen, all within 15 minutes drive of our house. The colours, of course, were out of this world. It is the best year for leaves that I can remember.

But today’s image is one that has more depth and meaning to me (not to knock the colour, which I just love and I know would be more popular). As we were driving back towards home, we passed a small farm, with a farmer working among his animals. He had pigs outdoors, geese and ducks were honking and quacking in his fields and farmyard. The highland cattle you see here were in a field with a young Jersey heifer. I could have walked up his drive and started doing the farm chores that I used to do in our place in France. It was so much like home in the atmosphere of the place it was unsettling. This is a very unusual sight in Nova Scotia which made it all the more memorable and appealing.

So today I have these cattle in black and white photographed against the evening sunlight which lit their outlines so nicely. Noble beasts, harking back to ancient and not so ancient farmyards from lands across the seas.