an unexpected flower

I went for a walk in the woods with the labs yesterday, between the rain drops. It was a gloomy wet weekend. I had not planned on getting us all wet and muddy, but realized I was antsy and needed to stretch my legs. And visit my beloved Sydney's grave.

April 11 was the one year anniversary of the day I put our house cat Sydney to sleep. He was almost 16, and it was time. I will spare you the details. I've had/have many cats and love them all, but he was truly special. A one of a kind cat. Sydney loved everyone, but he loved me the mostest. The day his heart stopped beating still haunts me, as does his last look and meow at me. No regrets, it was absolutely the right thing to do at the right time. Love is just never easy, and lingers in our minds and hearts.

I have tons of photos of Sydney, not that I need them. He is vivid in my memory. Sydney was featured in my Sunday Stills post if you want to see a few pics. He was a tree trunker in his friskier days, and got vacuumed on a regular basis. Always with his family, even towards the end when he wasn't feeling well. The most unusual thing about Sydney was his love of water. If you turned a faucet on, he appeared out of nowhere in a nano second. He showered twice a day his entire life, up until the day before he was laid to rest under my favorite pine tree.

I planted some daffodils near him, that were blooming at my old house. They have yet to even bud. However, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a different flower blooming right above him.

I did not plant anything directly above him. How could this happen?? 

one tiny white flower

I fought back the emotions, straightened his heart wreath made of loose pine cones before continuing on our walk. Trying to absorb finding an unexpected flower blooming, in this location, on this specific day.

 Sydney's heart

The mini daffs are planted back by the pine. They are so cute, and smell wonderful in bloom. They probably just need more time to get re-established. I am going to add a couple different daffodils I transplanted that are blooming right now in other area's of our property.

I noticed a couple more snow drops leaves next to the flowering one. They will do well there, and can spread all they want. They were never among my favorite, but they are now.

By the time I got back up to the house, I figured out how that white flower got there. You may recall last Spring I transplanted a lot of bulbs and plants from gardens beds that we removed at our old place. I had buckets of leftover dirt, and must have brought some down to cover Sydney up. Even tho I don't remember doing it. We covered his tiny kitty casket with the sandy dirt we dug out. But I vaguely remember adding some dirt on top later, when the ground kind of sunk down. Like it always does. I didn't transplant any Snow Drops intentionally anywhere, and only had them growing in one garden area at my old place. It is all together possible a few bulbs or seeds got mixed in with daffodils. The only logical explanation.

This is what google says Snow Drops symbolize:

"It has evolved to symbolize sympathy and consolation. The white of the snowdrop symbolizes innocence and purity. Because it is the first flower to bloom at the end of winter and the beginning of spring, it also symbolizes hope."

one of Sydneys last photos

Sunday Stills ~ Cats

My husband doesn't really like cats, but the rest of our family loves them. We compromised, and are a one cat family. We adopted Sydney from a rescue shelter as an older kitten, and he's crept into everyone's heart - even my husbands. He's very sweet, and spoiled. Sydney is full of fun personality, always in the middle of everything his family does...

excuse me, I was taking a nap on my couch

...I've been stalking him with the camera the past couple days, and not coming up with anything interesting, but put a bag on the floor and he can't resist crawling in. For some reason, he always insists on exiting through the handles...

are you happy now, I did something cute

...he's always trying to read the newspaper with you, and if you set it down - it's fair game...

claiming the paper

this is so exhausting

...but Sydney's favorite hands down thing is anything to do with water, preferably a shower...

obsessed water boy

Sunday Stills ~ emotions

The Sunday Stills challenge this week was to evoke emotions from the viewer.  It's a tough one, because it's all relative. Curious to hear if these photos evoke any emotions, and if so - which one(s)?

Harmony (Cierra in back)
Blizzard 2.2.11

Water Boy aka Sydney

Nothing like a shower




Enjoy other Sunday Stills

a while, smiles, and a new camera

Driving past the farm on my way to work I saw Harmony lying down by the hay bunk again, with Cierra standing next to her. As I glanced over my shoulder, Harmony was getting up. I can't imagine she is lonely with Cierra around to pester her, then again she grew up and spent her former years in a larger herd of around 15. Is it that? missing the boys? or does she just want to be the one going? It's all a guess, based on observation. I've been thinking about her a lot lately, and her uncharacteristic behavior. I was happy to hear, that Harmony was back to her old self this morning and eager to be fed. It only took a short while.

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Brad stopped at Iron Horse today, and dropped off Nemo's hoof supplement. He told me the boys are back to work. I asked if Koda looked happy. Brad's response "when I walked in Shauna and Koda were walking out of the arena, I couldn't tell who's smile was bigger". Brad asked how the boys did, and she said "they rode just like when they left" said (and taken) as a compliment. Patty is at a training seminar, we knew Shauna would be the one starting them back up again - and that's okay with us. She is a longtime Assistant Trainer, and they work very closely together. We completely trust her, she really knows her horses. It's a bummer I wasn't able to see those smiles.

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Today was back to reality. I really enjoyed my time off over the holidays. Among other things I was able to get back into blogging, spend time with the family and horses, and even picked out my new camera! Finally. I've been looking at them for about a year, and wishing for a new one forever. It was worth the wait. I won't be able to get distant shots, yet. I need to save up pennies for a telephoto lens, they are sooo expensive - it's gonna be a while. I can't wait to get out in the pasture and try to capture beautiful equine moments, until then - here is my first photo attempt, which has nothing to do with horses. We have a very spoiled water-obsessed cat, who also loves sleeping on anything soft, the king of the house - Sydney. Funny how the only other picture of him on this blog is also taken on his bed, er I mean our bed.

a little extra

Our horses, dogs, koi, and wild birds all need a little extra food and watchful eye these days for things like frozen water. The ground has become crunchy, hard, uneven and slippery - making it difficult to walk on. The wooded pasture area looks like a skating rink. Our horses are moving very slowly, and thankfully stepping with care.

After morning chores, I re-filled the bird feeders and had a little help cleaning up whatever spilled from our aussie-labs Mack (black) and Sam (brown).


Oddley enough, the ground is clear and not icy around the bird feeder/pond area - but the mini-icebergs that formed on the floating de-icer speak volumes about our weather. That's not snow. After all these years it still amazes me our hibernating koi survive underneath all that thick ice.


And then there's our cat Sydney...what a life. I woke him up from his morning nap, which comes right before his afternoon nap, that is shortly before his evening nap...lets just say he doesn't know the meaning of the word cold.