*** Mini Challenge #702 Living Things - Other then Human ***

Thanks to Len for the interesting challenge last week. In this weeks challenge, we can just walk outside and find many examples of our topic. Other than human, anything that walks, crawls, flies, breathes, reproduces, grows and depends on its environment to survive will qualify. Just about anything goes.

Some examples will follow.

This challenge will end Sunday, June 26 at 9 pm PT

Challenge Rules:

The host gives you a topic and you post up to three images that fit. Remember, it's all about fun, sharing, and learning. Any picture you have taken in person is eligible, regardless of the time taken, camera, or post-processing used. The host chooses the winners and honourable mentions and posts those in a new thread. The host's decision is final. The winner of this challenge then hosts the next challenge, judges the winner of that one, and so on it goes. The winner of this challenge will have 48 hours to post the next challenge. If that doesn't happen, 2nd place will have 24 hours to do so, then it's up to 3rd place.

Submission Posting Guidelines:

Post each one of your three submissions in its own reply to this post. Give each post a unique Subject, please. It is best to embed an image in its post rather than linking to somewhere else. Feel free to post photos "for exhibition only" if you want to share more than three, or won't be available to host the next challenge. Try to preserve the EXIF please, so we can see which camera, lens, and settings were used.

Comment Posting Guidelines:

Feel free to post comments on the images or ask for comments. Don't hesitate to click on the green "Like" thumb on the top right of the post, so we know which images were most popular. Likes are appreciated as much as constructive criticism is. The host can make up his or her own mind without being influenced by that. I wish you all "good luck" and let's see some interesting pics.

Recent Mini-Challenges:

701: Not of this Earth

700: Nostalgia - Your Early Digital Camera Pictures

699: Picture of a Picture

698: Happy Faces

697: Music

696: Birds

695: Nature

694: Boats

693: Metal

692: There's "nothing" to shoot!

691: Favourites

690: Nostalgia

689: Winter

688: Travel/Vacation

687: Festive Lights

686: Animals

685: Plants

684: Night Scenes

683: Small machines (for work and leisure)

682: Autumn

681: Wabi-Sabi

680: Landscapes

679: One Dominant Color

678: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

677: Chocolate

676: Amusement ride

675: One lone flower

674: Food and/or Drink

673: The Road Less Traveled

672: Trees in Nature

671: Waterfalls

670: Mountains

669: Not Your Best Work

668: Speed

667: Round, or nearly round

666: Awakening of Spring

Great theme Richard !

I'll kick things off.

Mute Swans

Mountain Goat

Monarch Butterfly

A great set Don.

Since these are for exhibit only, maybe you'll indulge me a little bit.

These are our furry family members, in chronological order -- past and present. Apologies in advance for the number of (mostly cellphone) images...

K.C. (Kitty Cat) 1989-2005

Right after we got married, we lived in an apartment complex next door to the local animal shelter. Well, you know what happened... K.C. basically adopted us as a little black kitten who refused to leave our doorstep. She lived 16 years. Here, she's helping with the ironing.

Little Bit 1989-2008

Little Bit was another animal shelter escapee. He looked like a little pile of grey vacuum cleaner fuzz, shivering on the open-air stairs at our apartment building one December. Obviously he found his place! He lived to be 19. This was his preferred activity: Holding down the floor...

Wobble 2003- 2019

Wobble's left rear leg was stunted, just an L-shaped bone covered in skin and fur. It didn't bother him, though. He showed up at our house just before we went out of town on a long weekend. We said, "If he's still here when we return..." Guess what. So we ended up with the world's sweetest three-legged, emerald-colored cross-eyed kitty. I suspect he had a lot of Russian Blue in him. He lived to be almost 17 years old.

Harry 2005-2005

Harry was named for my wife's uncle, under whose house he was found. A very sweet little Siamese fellow, he apparently had heart worms and passed away suddenly one morning at approximately two months of age. Here's my daughter having a hug with him a couple of weeks before he went.

Charmin 2005-2022

Named by the lady who adopted her to us, Charmin was indeed squeezably soft. She was The World's Cutest Kitten (TM) and before she passed had been a diva, queen of the household and finally a sweet little old lady. Here she's about two years old and in her prime. I called this shot "Mount Charmin" -- I could just imagine some tiny mountaineers clambering up her slopes. She was 16 1/2 when it was time.

Albert 2008-

Albert was one of four in a litter abandoned by their mother after Hurricane Gustav blew through our area in August 2008. We adopted little "Tabitha" only to have her miraculously change gender at the vet's office... ahem. He was named for my step-father. He's now the elder gentleman of the house crowd and will turn 14 sometime in July. This was taken the second day after he joined the gang.

Trip 2011-

Our vet's office knew we had a three-legged cat (Wobble), so when they found a litter of Siamese kittens and only the "three legged" (actually 2.x legged) tom remained unadopted, they called my wife. She said 'yes', but I have to admit I probably would have as well.

Why 2.x legs? His front legs are fine, but one rear leg has a partially-developed "proto foot" (as I call it). He can shuffle around on it, but the other leg ends at the hip. Plus he has a stumpy tail. But he's all good inside and full of spit and vinegar, as you'd expect from a Lynx Point Siamese! He underwent the most dramatic appearance change of all our cats. Here's how he looks now:

Adult Trip

Boom ~2015-

We ended up with Boom as an adult when his human parents both ended up in bad situations. That was in 2017, so he's with us for good. Named for Boomhauer (on "King of the Hill") he has one gold eye and one blue eye. He's a real sweetheart and loves nothing better than shared naps and a belly rub. Plus, he knows how to pose:

Did I mention Boom loves boxes?

Lulu ~2019-

Our latest (and hopefully last, for a long while) addition is Lulu. She belonged to a next-door neighbor who really didn't have an interest in keeping her. It became evident she would be far better off with a family who wanted her, so we did the obvious thing. Despite her Sphinx-like appearance here, she's a very sweet little cutie. I told my wife she (Lulu) makes me smile.

[EDIT] My daughter is currently living with us. Last year her college roommate "gave" the kitten she rescued to my daughter just before graduation (gee thanks... I think). Found under a car covered in grease, he was christened "Grease". So he has (temporarily?) become part of the family, too... At least until my daughter moves into her own place. Here he is as a long-legged, big-footed juvie...

Little kitten Grease 2020

Now he's a rock-solid, sleek and shiny full-grown (more or less) tom now, but still adorably dopey and dorky at times:

el-Derpo the cat

If you're still reading, thanks! I guess I used up my image allotment until about October, but what the hey...

What a wonderful extended family you have/have had through the years, and such beautiful memories of each. I hope you will enter some of these or equally as interesting in the challenge. Thanks again.

I love the contrast in expressions between the two dogs!

My entries...

A horse, a horse, of course, of course...

Don't know his name, but he was (is!) a Tennessee Walker. Very friendly fellow, as they often are.

Susie Grace

Next to our us is a small apartment complex. There's a wooden fence between us and immediately on the other side is the backyard deck of one of the apartment buildings. The dirt below the deck on our side has washed out a bit and over the years we've seen several litters of cats issue forth from under the deck. This little girl was one of them, a little grey fuzzball of a kitten. She apparently got pregnant very early in life and brought her three kittens into our carport. We never adopted her (although a neighbor later did) but since she was grey and graceful we called her Gracie ...and yes, there was also a George in the vicinity -- for a while at least. She was very sweet natured, as you'd guess from the photo. She probably charmed herself a nice diet from most of the neighborhood homes. Later the neighbor adopted her (unknown to us) and named her Susie... hence our later revision to "Susie Grace".

Basket case

Boom loves boxes. And baskets. And pretty much anything else he can jam himself into. My wife bought this basket to fix up as a table centerpiece. Well, it was first a Boom centerpiece. He must've spent quite a while getting jammed entirely down into it, because when I removed him, I got the one and only hiss that I've ever received from him.

That’s a great shot 💕

The cuteness is running rampant in this challenge. I love it ❤️

irvcobb wrote:

Cool shot! ...although I doubt the moth would agree on that. It's pretty scary full size.

rjgjr wrote:

That’s a great shot 💕

Cellphone shot...

48 hours to go

Female Mallard

Jasper

Ox-eye Daisy