Kaylee pics

Just a few photos I took of Kaylee with my phone this evening; I was on the couch, she was on the floor playing with her Santa snake. Although given that she ripped the Santa hat off yesterday, I guess it's just a snake now:

Catchall

The last two full days of my vacation were both very, very busy photo days—too many to go through in the time I have after work. So I'll keep plugging away at that task, but in the meantime I thought I'd post a few pics I've taken in recent days; most have already been shared on Facebook and Instagram, but I figured I'd post them here as well.

A couple of Kaylee shots to start things off:

Yesterday's sunrise:

And a look at this evening's snowfall:

Ice and squirrel

A few photographs I took last January. just before I set out on last year's vacation. Yesterday's rain and high temperatures pretty much wiped out all the snow around here, so it's looking very different around these parts right now than it obviously did a year ago. But New England weather being what it is, we'll undoubtedly be inundated by the white stuff again before too long...

A red squirrel posing on top of one of the frames my folks use to protect their plants from snow buildup:

A second red squirrel with an unusual patch of black hair along its side:

Some interesting ice formations along the little stream up in the woods:

And Kaylee, basking in a patch of sunshine:

Quick look at an August evening

Just a few pics from an evening in mid-August when I stopped by to join my parents for dinner.

A bit of a rainbow we noticed overhead:

And a couple of Kaylee pics, taken while her majesty was reclining on one of her favorite spots—the cover on top of the hot tub. In this first one, she was keeping a watchful eye on Dad as he worked on the grill:

But then she decided he had everything under control, and that her supervision wasn't required at that time. It's tough work, but someone's got to do it...

The return of Kaylee

It's been a while since I had any pictures of her on this blog, so I figured I'd share a couple of shots of Kaylee I've taken over the past week or so. She's got a bit more white hair these days, but, then again, so do I.

Goofy Kaylee

I don't really have the brainpower to go through a ton of pics tonight, so I thought I'd search through the folders and find a fun Kaylee shot I hadn't yet shared. This seemed to fill the bill quite nicely:

Summer photos

Just a few photos I took in May and June, starting with a brown trout rising in the museum's casting pond. Through some stroke of luck, I caught the surface tension as it bowed but hadn't yet broken:

Kaylee with her buddy Robby:

And a few solo shots of the girl herself:

Because my brain needs a break...

...and I have a bunch of pics to sort through before I finish the Kauai 2011 day 12 posting, just one photo tonight. But I think it's a pretty good one, so hopefully it'll do:

Kaylee time

The post title pretty much says it all...

First up, this is the sight that greeted me when I headed to bed on Thursday night; apparently Kaylee is very enthusiastic when it comes to providing turn-down service:



But how could I be upset with someone so absolutely adorable?



Friday morning it was snowing at a pretty good clip when I woke up, or at least enough to close the local schools for the day. Kaylee, of course, was full of pep after a good night's sleep, so I grabbed her rubber ball and took her out to play. However, in the winter there's a bit more this particular activity than just a game of fetch; more times than not, Kaylee will bypass whoever's throwing the ball in favor of climbing up one of the snow banks created when the driveway is plowed, dropping the ball, and then digging at it. Which drives it further into the snow, requiring more digging. She'll actually do this for several minutes before finally grabbing the ball and bringing it back to whichever one of us has been standing there doing their best imitation of a popsicle. Then we throw it for her, and the process begins all over again.

At any rate, after watching Kaylee dig for a while I decided I might as well do something with my downtime, so I snuck back into the house and grabbed my camera.

Loved that I managed to catch her just as she was glancing up to see where I was. And yes, she really was in the snow bank that deep:



Trying to get herself turned around:



Digging in a new spot:



Another check on me:



Trying to maneuver herself back down into the hole she'd created:



And, at long last, Kaylee decides she's ready to return the ball to me:

A couple of pics

I'm currently staying with Kaylee at my parents' house, as they left yesterday for their yearly trip to Kauai—where I'll be joining them in just under a week. As I mentioned before, I have every intention of taking and sharing pictures during my stay on the Garden Island. For now, though, just a pair of photos I took this morning when Kaylee and I went out for her morning constitutional.

First, I liked the way the tangle of trees looked against the early morning sky:



And a shot of Kaylee, as I find it impossible to resist a snowy nose:

Sunday visit

I stopped over at Mom and Dad's on Sunday to hand out with Kaylee for a while, as my folks had traveled north for the day to visit some of our family. I brought my camera along, and now that I've finally gone through all the photos I took I figured I'd post a few of them here.

A dead tree that I thought looked particularly striking against the snow:



A couple of shots I took when the flurries were in particularly high gear:





There were still a few Redpolls hanging around. And by "a few" I mean "enough to have their own Hitchcock movie":







And a closer look at the Redpolls swarming the two seed feeders:



Evidence that I took this picture during a very strong gust of wind?

1. The streaks of snow show that it was moving sideways.
2. The side of the feeder that this Hairy Woodpecker is clinging to is, as you can see in the previous photo, usually perpendicular to the house, not parallel to it:



A male Cardinal that joined the woodpecker on the feeder:



The two birds weathering both snow and Redpoll flurries:



A couple of shots of the male Cardinal in the blue spruce:





And I managed to spot the female Cardinal tucked into the spruce as well:





Finally, a couple of Kaylee shots I took as she made our walk safe from fallen branches...



...and dealt with any suspicious-looking bark as well. After all, one can never be too careful, right?