(ONLY cat, nature, and art sites can repost. NO permission was given to sites/pages with other themes. Photos/text for the use of Catwoods Porch Party ONLY. For more info see the “Extended Copyright and Image Talk” page at the link above, under the banner. Lovely readers who care about cats and the natural world, welcome!)
Franklin is here to present more – not the last – of our autumn pictures; these are from October and November of the year we won’t mention. We’re done with it but the trees outdid themselves, know nothing of calendars, and I feel “meh” about winter. So here comes part of the recent color parade, and Franklin has consented to an uneasy alliance with Shelley to bring these to y’all. The Kittens pics will be back later; “Phsssst to kittens” says Frank.
Cowcumber leaf arrival
Trees sprinkled leaves slowly and capriciously but the creek still did astonishing work.
Canopy displaced
I love the festive, colorful lights of December but I didn’t get many pics of those so these will have to do . . .
Straggling
Edgy
Seeing upside down
Along for the ride
Pastel Extraction
Stop and reflect
Reflection Detection
Looking across
Tree sprites
The non-rapids
Brightened edges
The trees helped:
Piebald Sky
Cloudy bright
Later-reds and evergreens
Coal on creek bank
Hey, we found a lump of coal washed up on the creek bank! LOL what could this mean, so close to Christmas!?
Lagniappe:
Our friend’s beautiful Shelley
Stay tuned for the photos from late November to early December, they are even weirder than these are!
And do check out my MUSE Award winning book, Catwoods, where words paint the stories of the (so-called) domesticated cats who have always lived with us in this forest, and other settings. Purchase of the book will help us care for Franklin, some ferals, and our adult Kittens. (Franklin: “Phsssssst to The Kittens!” Me: “Oh hush Frank, you know you’ll always be top cat.” Franklin: “Ya got that right!”)
To find the book click on the cover at the upper right or go to the “Order the Catwoods Book Online” page, link under the banner above.
I live near a creek in a forest, in close observation and awe of the wildlife outside, as well as the domestic animals of the household. I'm writer Leah T. Alford. I was "catwoods" on this site Catwoods Porch Party, Itchmo Forums for Cats and Dogs, and a few other sites that may or may not exist now. I have now published a book, and the publisher wanted it called Catwoods. I never expected the book title to be the same as my username, so for now I've changed the username to Leah. For more info, click the "About" button above.
Catwoods Porch Party 
goodness you’ve outdone yourself yet again!
Thanks da-AL, I appreciate it and I’m happy you liked the pictures!
Okay, now I swear I’ve commented here before … but apparently not?!? I LOVE the bright and beautiful colors in your photography. Every single one looks like a painting! I usually eschew bright colors and bold statements – but these pictures are so perfect – and so beautiful!
I think you did comment before MK, but on another post maybe(?) Thank you and I’m so happy you like the photos! I tend to like intense color myself, the Fauvists are some of my all-time favorites. But I can enjoy more muted color schemes with subtle color, too. I often wish I could take a few more “natural” looking photos, but that just never seems to work out for me, lol, I always crank up the color volume.
Great post Leah! Franklin brings back memory of my Megan Sweetie! Shelly looks like my Yuki Sweetie and I think she is calico cat which can only give birth to female kittens. The images of colorful leaves are pretty vibrating indeed and help makes feel better! Keep up the great work! Saludos! Ashraf
Thank you Ashraf, I appreciate it! I’m happy if my pictures can brighten your day! I’m still sad about the loss of your Megan Sweetie. I will go back and look at your cat pictures, I bet Shelley does look your Yuki Sweetie! All the best, Leah
Thanks Leah! Yes, my Megan Sweetie is gone for one month now, the house feels empty as she was the one who always talked to me. I miss her a lot and every weekend I go to her graveyard to see her. I buried her deep inside a small but secluded forest patch where people hardly goes. Its teemed with squirrels, and various birds, I remember Megan used to chase birds and squirrels when she was young. Therefore, if there is something called spirit, I hope her spirit will enjoy that forest patch. In her last days before she passed way, she brought me two big rats, she hardly hunts and I was very surprised that she went extra miles, probably negotiated busy roads, people, cars and all other human disturbances and took risk with her ill health conditions and brought me bag rats. I am pretty sure, it was her way of expressing that she was happy and grateful. I was with her when she passed away and it was peaceful and gentle transition and I can tell by her face, no pain, no agony, peaceful, happy transition….. I hope to see her over the rainbow bridge once my time comes….
Ashraf, that is so moving, I am close to tears. These little cats do really care about their humans, and they do indeed bring us what they catch to show that. They are so unusual among all the animals, they are partly little wild critters but they form such deep friendships with us. May you take comfort in these good memories of your Megan Sweetie.
Thanks Leah! As a matter of fact, I myself is in transition stage, transition from wildlife ecology to computer science but my inner core will always revolves around cats and all other non human species. I am building my computer science portfolio and I have incorporated wild cat project in it. I dedicated wild cat project to my Megan Sweetie! The hotspot link is http://bushmaster.myftp.org From there you can click Project Wild Cat to take a look the project pages. It’s still at its infancy, so I still have lot of work to do. I am coding all from scratch and hosting my sites from my own home server powered by Linux and Apache of course! Paws Up! Ashraf
Wow, Ashraf, that looks so great! A beautifully designed website. You are so talented, I’m sure you will do well in computer science!
Thanks Leah! I will let you know when the cat project is in good shape. I plan on making the project as dynamic database driven web application, similar to ebay, amazon, paypal, etc. So that folks can query search all the 38 cats …. the cat database is completed, I just need to learn more technologies so that I can incorporate it in wild cat web pages…. Saludos! Ashraf
These are gorgeous. Many of your photos look like paintings!
Thank you cattalespress, I appreciate it!
An artist’s palette of color – beautiful!
Thank you Eliza, I appreciate it!
I love the color in your photos! Do you offer any for sale?
Thank you so much, I’m happy you like the pictures! I don’t have them for sale right now, but I’ve considered it in the future, since I’ve been asked about that several times.
Beautiful leaves and reflections, each a painting. Hope your 2021 is happy and colorful.
Thank you Inese, I’m happy you like the pictures! A Happy 2021 to you also!
Thank you!
Franklin,
Keep those fall photos coming, it’s our favorite time of year. I could sit by the window for hours and chase the gold leaves that fly by!
Purrs & Head Bonks,
Oliver
Franklin and I would love to post more photos . . . we have some . . . We thank you for your kind words and we are glad you enjoyed the pictures, and that you enjoy the fall, Oliver!
Purrs and Meows,
Franklin and Shelley
‘Best of all, he loved the Fall’ – Hemingway. And I have to agree, winter here in Texas is brown and boring.
I do love the fall, too, catscue, and I did not know that quote, thanks! Our winter is mostly muted browns and reddish colors; we do have some pines, and actually quite a few leafy evergreen plants around, but I still find it uninspiring.
I always love your reflection photos… and the right side up ones too. Right now there is a giant butt blocking my computer screen so it’s hard to type… but we all have to work around our feline assistants, don’t we?
Ahahahaha so true about those oh so helpful feline assistants, RMW! I’m happy you liked the photos!
Wow, the colors are brilliant in these photos, Leah. Congratulations on your Muse!
Thank you so much, meowmeowmans, I appreciate your kind words!
Those fall leaves look like Impressionist paintings!
Thank you so much! I appreciate that!
The images here are a kind of impressionist poetry, spontaneous, genuine and beautiful. Good work, Leah.
Thank you so much David, I appreciate it!
Beautiful images. Wonderful colours. I particularly like the reflections with their nod to impressionism.
Thank you Goff James, I appreciate your kind words!
Pleasure. Have a wonderful day.
I love going out in Fall and Spring with my DSLR and taking photos of the trees, leaves and landscapes. I post my best ones in Flickr. Of course I thoroughly enjoyed yours. And of Franklin. My Katie is the subject of many photos through the years I have had her.
It is so much fun to go out and photograph the natural world, for sure. I’m glad you are able to enjoy it too, Carole! Thank you and I’m happy you liked my pictures. I’ll go and see if I can check out yours at Flicker when I have a moment, I’m not actually on there myself. I always love seeing pictures of your Katie!
Ah, my 2 favorite photo subjects:
1. Cats (and dogs!)
2. Trees
Love these photos, Leah — they’re just gorgeous! I especially like Tree Sprites and Piebald Sky; love the red & blue colors together.
I’m slowly working my way around the internet again. Been a couple of highly odd and distressing days in politics and I’ll admit I’ve been glued to the TV (too much). Hope you & your husband & cats are all well. Thank you for your email! I will be getting back to you soon!
Deb
Deb I’m so happy you like the pictures! I’m fortunate that this unusual spot on the creek reflects so many colors in combinations I like, too! No worries about how soon you can get back with email, I know it’s hard to keep up as I’m have a hard time doing that too! Later, Leah and Kitties
I’m in Michigan now, Leah, and tomorrow I plan to go out in the woods & just snoop around & I shall look carefully, as your excellent photos have prompted me to do! I just went through some of your wonderful posts. I think you’ve turned off the “comments” on some of them, which is fine, but I just wanted to tell you that I listened to Michael Smith’s song, “Panther in Michigan,” which I love — and knew absolutely nothing about! Love it that he mentions MI & IN!!! I’m going to listen to it again, I’m so interested in this song. Gosh, you now have quite a few cats (as do we!) and they all look so happy, healthy & loving. Your black cat appreciation post made me remember 2 of my cats: my first, ever cat was pure black (Starr) & the cat my husband & I got after my mom died was pure black (Tomas). Such a lovely tribute. And … congratulations on your book award! Totally deserving, I must say! Again, I just love your blog because of the way you mix words & photos — like a beautiful painting! Deb
Deb, thanks so much you are so kind and you have made my day! (Which has been a hard one, more later on that). I’m so glad you liked the song, When I posted it I had hoped you would see it! I’m glad you’ve now heard it, I did mention it in the book in the “panther chase” chapter, but of course when reading a book we don’t jump up and listen to music. I think I recall saying that it sounds like such a real narrative that I wonder if it refers to a real incident. I did set all posts to cut off comments after about 60 days . . . because it was getting hard to go back to a myriad of past posts to answer. Other than that I don’t know how to cut off comments to individual posts although I’ve seen it said there’s a way. Your black kitties sound so lovely . . . of course, they all do, all kitties are gorgeous beings!
Don’t blame you a bit for turning off comments for old posts. I used to do that, too. I’d forget what I’d written LOL and had to go back for reference. Yes, my black cats, loved them dearly (as I do all my kitties & Chuck). I’ve heard of Michael Smith, and I was just looking him up on Wiki. I really like narrative songs, and this one is terrific! I’ve often thought about trying to write fiction (short story) based on a narrative song. I know that, up here in MI, people have said they’ve sighted panthers, and I think someone once posted a pic taken by their security camera. But I believe the DNR says “no such thing.” Anyhoo, I’ll keep my eyes open from now on! Sorry you had a hard day. I think our nation is having one, long hard year-into-January. Hoping things get better soon, Deb
Everything going on in the nation got to me today too, that was part of it. When I made a comment on facebook someone came to argue, and I never go to the other side to argue with them. Too ill at this point for one thing. Thanks so much for the well wishes. Oh yeah all the officials do always say, there are no panthers, lol. I don’t necessarily have fixed opinions of various incidents, but I won’t rule anything out. Have a good time exploring the forest!
LOVELY Franklin photo as the opening one. He looks a lot like our biggest boy, Spooky:
https://mariettesbacktobasics.blogspot.com/2010/09/you-like-to-meet-our-3-feline-boys.html
They all have their own unique personalities and it is wonderful getting to know them better and better over the years.My husband almost has your book done and you are so brave for mentioning your very rare health issues in there! Quite touching and we both certainly do hope that others will support you in purchasing this EXCELLENT book!
Hugs,
Mariette & Pieter
Thank you Mariette, I’m glad you like Franklin’s picture and I think you are right, he does look a lot like your Spooky. Kitties are indeed all so different and so expressive and I have found it fascinating to live with them too!
I thank you for your kind words about my book and I am so glad you both like it!
Hugs and Cheers and Meows and Happy New Year,
Leah
Wishing all of you a Happy New Year too! As well as it is possible… we all are at a stage in life where every day is one!
Beautiful Shots! It is so great to see all the colors. It has been pretty dismal around here the last 6 weeks, just snow and shades of grey and and brown and very little sun, looking at the fall colors is uplifting!
Thanks Barb
Thank you so much, and I’m happy you enjoyed the colors! There will be more, I have a huge backlog of fall pics now. I know what you mean, all our colors are very muted now, and winter landscapes just don’t do much for me.
Amazing play of colour in the images. In Australia we would suggest a conservative fossil fuel loving politician had dropped the lump of coal.
Thanks Denis, I’m happy you liked the pictures! Yikes, hopefully there are no fossil fuel folks in our forest! We do have our share of those here in the US too, though. We are in coal mining country and I think high water a few weeks before had carried it here.
Mee-yow wow lovelee fotoss Miss Leah! THE coal inn sand foto iss innterestin…LadyMew wantss to know if THE plantss are Spring Irisess?
Yore Autummy fotoss cheer her up so much. It iss chilley an gloomy an grey here day aftur day. An err are inn lockdwon again **sighss**
Franklin yore man catly hansum an Shelley yore beeuteefull an so Autummy lookin…
***purrss*** BellaDharma an 🙂 LadyMew
The kitties and I thank you both, BellaDharma an Lady Mew, for your kind words! I’m glad you like the pictures and that they were cheerful today! I don’t like gray and cold weather either and we have some coming!
Interesting question about the plants, and I just don’t know. I’ve never seen anything iris-like blooming on the banks and I wouldn’t recognize the spring iris but since plants do wash up here when the water is high, it’s certainly possible that there may be some.
Purrs and Cheers and Meows, Leah and kitties
LadyMew told mee that efurry Winter it getss grayer an gloomier Miss Leah an Franklin ….mee thinkss shee iss rite!! LadyMew allso said shee thott those plantss cuud bee wild onion….shee sure has sum emagination.
**purrss** an ~~head rubss~~BellaDharma~~
Those are beautiful autumn photos, Leah! And of course, Franklin and Shelley, too. 🙂
The kitties and I thank you Lavinia! I’m happy you like the pictures!
I would like to “Fast Forward” to Autumn this year. Cats look good anytime of year.
Cats are always “picture-perfect” picture subjects for sure! Ahahaha Greg wouldn’t that be great if you could get to the season you wanted that way! Actually, those who are wealthy enough to travel etc. could have two homes, one in the northern hemisphere and another in the southern; that way you could avoid a season you didn’t like, just go to the hemisphere with the opposite season. That would really give you some latitude!
I never thought of that probably because I could never do it!
Oh I could never afford to do that either, I just think about that idea whenever it’s really cold here. I don’t like cold weather, and we do get some now and then.
always fascinating me your photographs… I love their colourful touches but sure more cats… Thank you dear Leah, Love, nia
The kitties and I thank you Nia, I am happy that you like the pictures! Love, Happy New Year, and Best Wishes always, Leah
Happy New Year dear Leah to you with all your lovely cats, Thank you, Love, nia
Beautiful photos. Finding a lump of coal is a good thing. I means Santa doesn’t have to bring you one!
Thank you Indulgedfurries, I’m happy you like the pictures! Ahahahaha Santa does need a little break now and then so the having the creek waters deliver the coal was a good thing indeed!
Chaplin: “You found a lump of coal in the creek?”
Charlee: “Santa must have crash-landed there on his way to someone naughty’s house!”
Ahahahaha good idea Charlee and Chaplin, that’s probably how it got there!
Beautiful pics and love the coal!!! Hilarious! I see all last year as one chunk of coal. I keep hoping for a better year, but as of yet, I still can’t watch the news. It’s insane. God bless.
Thanks Polly, I’m glad you like the pictures! It is funny about the coal. This is coal country but it’s the first time we’ve had any wash up here.
The news is scary indeed! For one thing, more and more friends report they know someone with Covid.
Stay safe and all best wishes!
These are so, so beautiful! Really wonderful. I agree with the commenter above that your pictures look like impressionist paintings. You have a good eye. 🙂
Thank you so much Lynette, I’m happy you like the pictures!
Your pictures are like impressionist paintings! Exquisite!
Ingrid, thank you so much for your kind words!
Beautiful leaves and water. Cute kitties.
Thanks Tim, the kitties and I appreciate it!
You take such beautiful photos. Fall is my favorite season and goes by too quickly. Wishing you, your hubby and kitties a happy and healthy new year! XO
Thank you Ellen, I’m happy you like the pictures! I do like fall, but I actually like summer too. I know that’s unusual but I like warm weather and don’t care for cold at all. Warmest wishes for you and your hubby and family and kitties to have a wonderful New Year too! XO
Very colorful pictures. Beautiful!
Thanks Brandon, I appreciate it!
Beautiful photos Leah.
Thanks Correne, I appreciate it!
A cornucopia of colors! Thank you, Leah.
Thanks Neil, I’m happy you like it!
Those are all so very beautiful and of course the kitties are too!
Brian thank you, I appreciate that and the kitties love to hear it too!
Beautiful!
Jacqui thank you, I appreciate it!
Beautiful photos! Congrats on the Muse Award! I am reading your book… 🙂
Thank you so much Pam, the kitties and I appreciate it! It’s so good to see you are getting around the Internet again! And thank you so much for getting my book!
Lovely photography, Leah! It’s so amazing how water, leaves, and trees can create such a beautiful scene or moment in time. ❤️
John, thank you so much! I really don’t know much about how to make a photo work in the camera but working with photo editing is lots of fun. This area of the stream seems unique, the trees let in just enough light for the reflections and shadows to do strange things. So it’s really the creek doing it, not me!
Lovely photos! They are works of art! 🙂
Thank you Susanne, I appreciate it! I was a painter and mixed media artist and I can’t do that any more, so this is fun!
Ah. Your artistry shows. 🙂