Today's walk report: 120322

 It was a mental health walk this afternoon. I had spent all morning into early afternoon feeling a great deal of concern and a certain level of helplessness regarding our dear friend Stan, the feral cat. Stan is family for Docken, Lucy the Cat and me. Stan apparently injured his front right leg on Thursday (checked my notes, Doc). On Thursday he was a no show. Yesterday and today he has been unable to put any weight on his front right paw. I think the injury is an acute sprain of the front right carpus. We've seen this before with Mr. Stan. 

Anyone reading this please send healing vibes to Stan because we love him and don't want him hurting. The good news is he's eating well and he slept in his house here on the patio from early AM until about 1:00 PM. How early? I don't know but yesterday morning, which is when I became aware of his injury, he was here before 3:20 AM. This makes me feel good, that he knows he can come here for rest. We just wish we knew where else he takes off to. Anyway, I pretty much kept an eye on him all morning so I could make sure he had plenty to eat before leaving and I wasn't about to disturb him while he was sleeping. I also wanted to get some pictures to see if I could determine the extent of his injury and to see how well he was able to navigate his exit on three legs. Note: his right paw is not touching the ground. I have photos of the pads on his paw, there's no sign of injury like a cut or puncture. A sprain can take a couple of weeks for recovery but it's not like I can isolate the poor fellow so he can be monitored. Again, Stan is feral. Stan is one of the sweetest, most unusual cats I have ever encountered. I'm sure Docken agrees.

Docken joined me on the phone (thank you!) a little later in the afternoon and I drove to the nearby college campus to go for a walk. Unfortunately, I had to contend with and avoid the, LAUSD 46th Annual Band & Drill Team Championship. There are 184 High Schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. They were everywhere. In fact, I can still hear them right now as I type and I am .84 miles (1.35 km) away from where they are doing their thing. Much of the campus was not accessible to me, I went directly to the top of the hill to find parking and some solitude.

There wasn't much picture taking, here's what I got...

A big upside, yesterday there was .53" of much needed rain and today the sky was gorgeous.

See the lampposts near the bottom center of this image? That's where I headed next after a rather uneventful walk around the hilltop.

Common ravens, there were three until I got too close for comfort. I had dry cat food for them but I didn't get  chance to deliver any.

No contests between ravens, crows (there were a lot) and this red-tailed hawk, not this time.

I had a large murder of crows fly directly at me from this field but I wasn't paying strict attention and missed the shot. To be honest I was looking for stuff on the ground that the rain may have brought.

It was good to get out. I was feeling part of the scenery.