As another year ends...

I want to wish everyone a happy and prosperous year to come. I guess most of all, I hope you have good health. As we get older, we begin to realize just what a blessing it is to be able to get up and function normally every day. I complain and whine a lot of times, but I have no serious health issues. I should be counting my blessings.....
One blessing is this--Bubbie got to come home today--that is a good thing. I think. Not sure how this bandage is going to work out. He really cannot maneuver well without help. He is also shivering sometimes which concerns me. But then a lot of his fur is gone, and it IS winter. Earlier when he did that I laid down with him in the living room floor and snuggled up around him and he was happy with that. We put a heating pad in a box but I think he is also just tired of being confined by his limitations. I am hoping and praying that this takes and he feels better soon.

Believe it or not, he has done been trying to sleep in his usual way as pictured here. He cannot do it too well, but he does try. I think it is a good sign that he tries. And he has ate and also cleaned himself. So those things alone are a real positive sign in my book.
On to other things; one of my daughters got me the books on hawks above. The one by the National Audubon Society has owls in it as well. I am done wishing I had another set of these books just to keep in the Rav4. They are so nice to have.
And my husband got me the Rebel XTi....I have the original digital Rebel DSLR....and I had the lens pictured here. Well, I don't like changing lens...the sensor on my original rebel done has dust on it that I can not get off without going and getting some kind of kit. And I may do that now. So there were times when I wouldn't change the lens just because I didn't want to risk getting any more dust on the sensor. But there are times I want the wider angle it has, plus just being afraid that the lens above would interfere with the flash.

So my husband got me the second body till I can have either one whenever I want it. Plus, on my original, the time it took to actually turn on seemed like forever, specially when you are all set to take a wildlife photo. On the Xti, it is instantaneous, or almost so. So close you can't really tell.

That is a little of what is going on here. My husband has had a sinus infection, and I had him to the doctor yesterday. I took Cougar in to the vet today as I picked up Bubbie because he had an abscess on his back. I have not got to visit anyone today but will make up for it either later tonight or else over the next day or two.

I will leave you with a forerunner of the sunset pictures to come in the future. I hope you are not disappointed in this one or the ones to come.

"ee"

Please click and enlarge for better viewing.

I really am having trouble deciding what I want to post. I could post for a couple weeks just from the other evening/night at the strip pits. I was thinking how Jeopardy will have clues and the answers will will contain certain letters, so thought the 'ee' would tie these two subjects together.
I cannot begin to count the number of deer that I seen...the first picture was taken just a few minutes after I got there. The second one was quite a bit later, right around the time I found the owls,
and these last two were so dark that I have messed and messed with them to try to get them light enough for you to see the deer. It was dark enough till if I had been out on a road that was traveled any at all, I would have needed my headlights. These are different deer, and definitely not all that I seen of this herd.
I think saying there was 15 or 20 deer is almost a conservative guess. I couldn't help but wonder if those in the first photo had came back and were a part of this herd...it was close to where I seen them.
Right after I got there I started taking pictures of geese; the sky was alive with flocks of them. The sky was beginning to show signs that it was going to be beautiful. I took several pictures then, but they seemed washed out compared to what I actually saw.
I don't know how it happened, but I took most pictures in the RAW size, and they seem much more accurate in color. I was really aggravated at first, but if images like these are the result, I might just start using it all the time. I took 165 images that night, 29 were in the jpg format and the rest were RAW.