After reading many beautiful and heartwarming articles written by mothers and daughters about Mother's Day, I wanted to share some of the photos and stories of animals I've seen around the world taking care of their young.  Some of you know that I've been involved in animal rescue for many years and have a soft spot in my heart for all animals.  I am always amazed at how protective and caring animals are of their offspring.

  I really wanted to write a post in honor of all mothers and especially those that are often overlooked on Mother's Day each year.  If you have pets you are a mother they could not survive without you!  I wrote a similar post about animal mothers and their offspring for Mother's Day a couple of years ago.  One of my readers was very grateful that I had posted it.  Sadly not humans have a mother at all or one that they are close to. 

My husband and I have also taken in several stray pregnant cats.  We found homes for all of the babies and mothers including the seven orange ones in the second photo down.  We actually kept the mothers - Princess (the black cat) and Peaches (orange cat) for ourselves. 

The monkeys that I saw at the Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali we're so fun to watch.  The babies were so cute and well taken care of by their mothers.   I thought this mother was showing tremendous patience with her little one.
Here is a mother monkey feeding her baby what appears to be some coconut:
I saw many elephant mothers with their babies in the Serengeti National Park while in Tanzania:

One of my main goals for 2016 was to take some photos of my cats that I am proud of.  I wrote about it on this post.  I will be honest with you, it's it's not been as easy as I thought it would be.  Cats move very quickly and some of mine our seemingly camera shy.  The above photo of my oldest named Chanel (a Himalayan Persian rescue cat) is especially camera shy so I was happy to get this shot of her.

The above photo is of my angel Coco who left us on March 19, 2010

I stopped making New Year's Resolutions a long time ago when I realized that I never kept any of them and they always seemed to be the same.  I do believe that setting goals at any time of the year is a good thing for me to do.  Although I do plan to travel this year I want to take more photos while I'm at home.  I especially want to take more photos of my family, cats and friends.

I also got a new lens for my camera that will take really great bokeh photos.  It's a very different type of lens than I'm used to working with. I think that it's going to require a lot of practice as it has controls on the lens itself.  I would like to create some prettier and more colorful bokeh photos than the one of my chandelier you see above with one of my favorite quotes by Dorothea Lange.

You can have/use any of my better photos for free:  Click:  Here

Above are Peanut (age 9) and Princess (age 8)
The above photo is Jasmine who is ten years old and is Elizabeth's sister seen below who is also ten years old.  They were our first "foster" kittens that we fell in love with and decided to keep.

This is Coco's sister Chanel.  She will be twelve years old on May 29, 2016.  We got them from a rescue organization when they were only eight weeks old.  We miss Coco very much, but are so happy to have her sister with us still.


This is Fleur who is almost eight.  She was another foster kitten that we thought it best to stay with us.

 
This is Jack who is about four years old.  Someone left him at our house when he was about six months old.  Our veterinarian believes he is a Maine Coon cat.  He weighs about twenty pounds, but the doctor does not think he is overweight.
Finally, we have two FIV positive (Feline immunodeficiency Virus) cats you can see below.  The orange cat's name is Peaches and the grayish brown cat is named Piney.  Peaches is about five years old and Piney is about four years old.  Since all of our cats are rescues, we don't have definite birth dates for any besides Chanel.  Piney and Peaches have their own room and balcony in our home,  The risk of them infecting our other cats with FIV is very low, but we've decided not to take any chances.

Piney and Peaches are kept healthy with a fairly new drug called T-Cyte.  Few people know about this medication so I will post the link here.  It's not as expensive as one might think it would be.

http://tcyte.com/.

What are your goals for 2016?  I hope the new year is starting well for all of you!  Have a wonderful week!

~Michelle

Ever since I lost many treasured photos due to AOL photos going down about a decade ago, I've tried to store my photos in multiple places.  It was my fault that I lost those photos as I received multiple notifications from AOL that they would be deleting the photos.  Some of the photos I lost were of my cat Coco who was my "soul cat" for lack of a better way of putting it. 

My husband and I adopted Coco and Chanel from a rescue organization about twelve years ago when they were eight weeks old.  I took many photos of Coco and Chanel when they were between two and six months old, but I only have photos of them from six months on.  This situation would bother me regardless of the fact that Coco got cancer when she was just four years old and passed away just shy of her sixth birthday.  We did everything we could to save her and extend her time on this Earth.  Not a day goes by that I don't think about her: 

A collage of Coco and Chanel at about six months of age:

Coco and Chanel age 2-5
So...when I think about backing up my photos I remind myself of what I lost.

There are many methods for backing up photos and people need to choose which is best for them.  I see many people storing photos on Facebook, but Facebook doesn't store photos in full size.  My two choices for storing photos are Pixabay and Panoramio.  I also back my photos up on a one terabyte external hard drive:

Pixabay is very selective.  In order for your photo to be accepted it must be flawless in their eyes.  You are also releasing your photos under Creative Commons CC0 into the public domain which is irrevovable.   Here are some frequently asked questions about the use of photos on Pixabay:  https://pixabay.com/en/service/faq/

Here are my photos which you are free to use and there are photos from all seven continents.

Mariamichelle's photos

For those of you who don't want to give up the rights to your photos and want to store them in their original form Panoramio might be a better option.  You can choose to let the world use them or reserve all rights to your photos.  The amount of space you can use is not unlimited but you can buy more if you need it.  Since not all of my photos are accepted by Pixabay, I use Panoramio along with my external hard drive to save my photos.  One feature of Panoramio is some of your photos might be used in Google Earth which some people like.

Here is my Panoramio account and all are Creative Commons CC0 :

Mariamichelle's Panoramio photos

 Do you have a system for backing up your photos?  If so, please tell me about it because sites go down and computers and hard drives crash.  I've been trying to make more hard copies of photos and create albums with the thousands of photos I take while I'm traveling.  Thank you for stopping by my blog.  I hope that 2016 is being good to you so far and will continue to be.  

~Michelle

 “You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.” ― Paul McCartney

It did my heart good to see how well cats are treated on the island of Santorini in Greece.  While I was there I visited a restaurant several times where there were several kittens and cats. After what happened in Bali last year:  “Knowing it and seeing it are two different things.” ― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay , I told myself that I was going to avoid all stray cats and kittens because I couldn't take the heart ache of having something happen again like in Bali.  

I told the owner at this restaurant that I was  going to go buy a big bag of cat food for the cats that I saw lounging around on a couch in his restaurant.  He seemed offended and said "I feed and water them every day".  It did my heart good and restored my faith in humanity for a while.  I went back there more than once.  I needed to seek the solace and comfort get away from the tourists given the fact that this vacation was not what I had expected it to be.  If you read my last post:  What Do You Do When a Tragedy or Emergency Happens at Home While Traveling?  you know what I'm talking about.  The food was wonderful the service was great and I highly recommend that you stop by this restaurant if you are ever in Santorini.  I just wanted to write about this wonderful experience because it did help me get through a tough time.   Yes, I was on a beautiful tropical island and I had my camera so I was able to take pictures, but in all honesty I couldn't wait to get home.  

Santorini is an incredibly beautiful island and I would like to believe that someday I can go back and truly enjoy it.  Having said that, the world is a big place and there are many other places I want to see you as well.  

Visiting this restaurant was one of the bright spots of my vacation in Santorini.  Thank you to the owner for taking such great care of those cats.  As you can see they are very happy and healthy looking,  

I was very happy to learn about a group on Santorini that helps the numerous strays on the island.   Santorini Animal Welfare Society (SAWA) is an animal welfare association this gorgeous island. They are a small organization and mainly focus on spay/neutering which is extremely important in stray populations.

Here are some photos of Kamari Beach:

I loved the colorful boats and cabanas all over the beach!

It's a very popular place!

I loved watching the kids play on the rocks
Kamari Beach is a really relaxing area away from the crowds of Oia
There were many, many nice restaurants overlooking the sea

The beaches are a little rocky - I live near Clearwater Florida where the sand is like baby powder so it's just different to me.
It was nice strolling down the streets lining Kamari Beach
I found this pretty church on one of the side streets

I also found some nice boutiques with pretty clothes and a happy cat :)

Then I found  a nice, away from the crowds restaurant named Koutouki tou bekri AKA as"cat heaven: 
They were allowed inside out of the hot sun and allowed to rest on a nice and comfortable couch.

My two very well behaved and entertaining dinner companions:

Kissing kittens:

For dinner I had sparkling water with lemon ( my usual) and grilled halloumi cheese with tomatoes and pita.  Very yummy!
And my favorite apple pie with just "a little" ice cream ;)

Here is their contact information if you want to visit them which I highly recommend!

Playful, happy, and healthy kittens!
Below is a beautiful table handcrafted by the owner:
  .

 I will leave you with the message I left in their guest book:

Thank you so much for your visit.  As always, your comments and or questions are always appreciated.  have a wonderful week my friends! 

~Michelle