Mouselemur

At the end of each year, we take the time to reflect on that year and all that we saw and everything that happened.

As I'm writing this, I can't help but think that over the past few years the world has become a lot scarier. I'm sure it's a matter of European white privilege, that one can know there's famine, war and genocide happening in the world but as long as it's outside of the "western world"? It barely makes the news, perhaps a byline every now and then. But once it gets too close, it becomes everyday news and you're actually facing it in the streets.

Our hearts go out to everyone fleeing their homes and running for their lives - leaving behind everything and everyone they know. Civilian casualties are unacceptable collateral, but in the face of religious and political disputes it's always innocent bystanders - just trying to live through the day to see another tomorrow - who end up hurt.

In the Netherlands too, we're facing a change due to the outcome of the November elections. A party that's been gaining more and more voters has come out the winner, and they're the voice of so-called nationalism: A return of our country to how it once was. The thing is, that the past they're projecting never truly existed.

It's a tricky understanding, realizing that 25% of your fellow people who are allowed to vote, gave their vote to the extreme right. A party who's basics are build on ideals that go against the constitution. A party who looks at the past more than the future. When people care more about the opportunity to have 3 airplane vacations each year, than they care about the environment. Because as long as you can ski in the Alps, it doesn't matter if its fake snow or real. And as long as you can go on safari in Africa, it doesn't matter if you don't see a Rhino because all that matters is that you can say you went on safari at all.

It can be difficult, looking for different news, not worrying about the future. And you feel guilty, for wanting to shut out everything bad that is happening. It's a coping mechanism - you're just trying to live through the day to see another tomorrow and hope that the next day will have a brighter outlook.

Our home, cats and hobby manage to do that for us.

After we got the news in December 2022 that our bid on a house was accepted, we signed the deed for our very first home in February 2023. After having lived together our whole lives as sisters under the roof of our parents, we are now living together for what may just be the rest of our lives, as sisters, under the roof of our own home!

It's a really nice house, if I do say so myself. It was built in the late 1950s, has three floors, a front and backyard and its own driveway. We've added solar panels, a catio attached to the back of the house, and a pond in the back of the backyard.

Inside it's a very eclectic mix of different kinds and styles of furniture that fit our taste perfectly - cozy and colorful, with lots of vintage and plants and enough space for our cats to run around wild. Which, they actually don't do as often as expected, they're quite people-oriented and like staying near to us which suits us just fine.

We didn't know what to expect really - we took "Sundance Kid", who'd been living with us and our parents since he was 9.5 weeks old, out of his familiar home and surroundings, and away from half of his people. He turned 6 years old the some month we moved, but logically, we know this was doable - more people do it after all.

We kept him in a relatively large room in the attic, but without running wild he gained some weight - which he quickly lost, because he now had some kitty play-partners!

He did give us a scare later on, when we noticed his use of the litter box was getting a tad peculiar - he often goes in, but doesn't do anything. More tomcats have trouble with their bladder as they grow older, so we give him special food now. Not too much later, we noticed he was having some trouble with his ear - he'd developed a nasty ear infection. We got him medicine, but weren't able to treat him properly so it didn't have any effect. We had to take him to the vet where they cleaned up his ear and we had to treat him for 3 whole weeks. That did the trick and it hasn't troubled him since.

We adopted "Sundance Kid"'s kitty play partners at the same time we moved; a friend of mine had been fostering two farm kittens who'd showed up at her home during winter. Nobody came forward or claimed ownership, so she socialised the two. The tomcat "Butch" proved to be used to people and quickly grew into love with cuddling people. "Cassidy" was a tougher nut to crack - while she loves to play, people need to earn her trust. She was very shy at first, but she opened up real quick at our home and has become a real love bug.

We were worried something had happened to "Butch", around the same time as our worries about "Sundance Kid". You see, "Butch" developed a curl in his tail. Do you know the curl in the tail of a Husky dog? It looks like that most of the time, just completely curled onto his back, although he can and does relax his tail too. We were worried there was a break, or it was due to paralysis, but it turns out he's got some weird genetics.

We put the cats through an introduction phase while at our home - they stayed in their own room for a week, then we switched them. Because "Butch" and "Cassidy" are twins, and "Cassidy" can't be picked up, we decided to bring "Sundance Kid" to them. First through food on opposite sides of the door, then into the room for food, and then just to spend time together, increasing the time they spent together in a room. Only then did we allow them access to the whole house - starting with the ground floor, keeping the bedrooms closed. "Sundance Kid" had no qualms about going downstairs and staying downstairs if possible, "Butch" was curious, but his sister wasn't at all so at first, he stayed with "Cassidy". When she took to long, he'd spend more and more time downstairs as well. It was a full week before "Cassidy" was brave enough to step into the living room; she'd been down the stairs but freaked and ran every time before. Nowadays, they have access to the whole house, and often sleep on the bed too.

We felt like there was something missing in our cat "harem" - maybe we were missing a 4th link... After a friend expanded her cat household with a pedigree kitten and the intention to start a cattery breeding cats, we accompanied her to some cat shows and were introduced to different kinds of pedigree cats. Maybe one of those suited our home? But the cost and the needs of those kinds of cats, compared to a shelter rescue, were just too much. We figured a pedigree kitten would find a new home without problems, whereas shelters are filled with kittens all through the year and often have trouble adopting them out.

So 1st of December we welcomed "Bolivia". She was found alone in the streets at 5 weeks old. Nobody came forward or claimed ownership, so she was taken in by a foster where she's been cared for and socialised until we adopted her at about 3 months old.

She's a little sceam queen and purring machine - she loves to cuddle on your shoulder and in your neck and her meows sound like the screeches of a Burrowing Owl. She's loves to be near and often comes looking for some love, but is also great at playing on her own. She also likes playing together with people and already plays fetch. According to her foster, she also likes playing with cats and has real "tortitude" so we hope that combined with her young age will help her fit in with the other cats.

Having a home of our own - and pets of our own - has brought a whole host of responsibilities with it that affect our time and wallet... This means we need to, for our own sakes, limit the amount of zoo visits and cat café visits we make in a year. We will probably not be traveling as far and as often as we used to, and we're actually okay with that. We still have a lot of photos we've yet to share, a lot of photos even we haven't properly looked at yet because we haven't had the time!

We definitely plan to continue sharing our photography here, but as you may have noticed almost the entire year now, all our responsibilities have meant that I've not been as good with keeping up with replying to comments... I apologize for that. Honestly, the fact that you still come back to us blows my mind and makes my heart grow warm. We wouldn't be able to continue without your support; it truly means the world reading your comments and I will try to do better.

Other responsibilties are those taking us away from home not because of our hobby, but because of our jobs.

After my work put me through a tough and demanding few months at the end of 2022, I needed some time to re-energize and just find my happy place in my work. This sadly didn't happen. When I was offered an opportunity at a different job - minimizing my one-way 1 hour drive by car to a one-way 10-15 minute bicycle ride (depending on the weather and traffic lights) - I applied and was given the job.

I had some trouble getting comfortable at my new place of work - which is natural, I suppose - but I quickly realized there was something more going on. I left my job with an unaddressed, unattended burn-out... I'm not good as asking for help, but I finally did talk about it with my manager. He's going to try and see about giving me some tips and tricks to deal with it and hopefully I'll get better.

I'm still trying to find to get the hang of the work itself, as for the first time in 4.5 years I have a colleague in almost the same job. However, because the organisation decided on a strict separation between our jobs - and she's used to also doing my job - I find myself debating more and more if the tasks I'm being given suit my strengths, but also my wants and needs in a job. Luckily I've still got some months to figure that out before my contract is up for renewal.

M is still happy with the same job, but now that COVID-19 has almost completely disappeared from most people's minds, management is calling in for their employees to work from the office more. Except that same management seems to have forgotten that most employees were hired during COVID-19 when working from home was mandatory. Thus, most employees don't live a 30 minute commute from the office - try instead a 1.5 hour commute or more. Something's got to give, and we'll see which way things will go.

Her current assignment has her away from home 1 day a week, about a 1 hour commute by public transport. But they're changing the way she needs to do the work every few months, and she's only started in February. Every time you've just things figured out, they change it up again. It gets old real quick. Unless something changes, she's going to request another assignment early 2024.

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I've mentioned we've been trying to limit our zoo visits and cat café visits. So far, we have been enticed to visit more places than we intended. Then again, baby animals will do that for you.

We have seen some special babies again this year:

• 7 Silver Fox kits

• 5 Bat-Eared Fox kits

• 10 Arctic Fox kits

• 4 Corsac Fox kits and 2 juveniles

• 3 Bobcat kittens

• 1 Ocelot juvenile

• 4 European Wild Cat kittens

• 2 Serval kittens

• 1 Black Lemur baby

• 1 Moholi Galago baby

• 1 Meerkat pup

• 7 Banded Mongoose pups

• 3 Oriental Small-Clawed Otter pups

• 1 Binturong baby

• 5 Striped Skunk pups

• 1 and 2 Crested Porcupine babies

• Countless Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs

• 3 American Black Bear cubs

• 1 Wombat joey

• 1 Eastern Gray Kangaroo joey

• 5 Barn Owl chicks

• 1 Great Grey Owl chick

• 2 Long-Eared Owl juveniles

• 1 Eurasian Scops Owl juvenile

• 3 Black-Necked Swan chicks

• 2 Wild Duck chicks

• Several Panther Chameleon babies

We're still sorting through lots of photos so you haven't even seen some of them yet:

Life isn't endless, and sadly, it especially isn't for animals. This year, there were some notable deaths as well.

The male Siberian Tiger named Laszlo at Dierenrijk - whom we photographed together with his sister since they arrived at the zoo at a couple of years old - passed away due to old age. He was 18 years old.

Female Northern White-Cheeked Gibbon Kanette at Dierenrijk was found seriously ill in November. The veterinarian was called in, but all help came too late. She passed away. More tragically, she'd given birth to a baby this year - a little completely depending on its mother. The zoo had to make the tough decision to euthanize the little one.

Rumor has it her first baby born at the zoo Jaya also passed away this year, but there's no confirmation on that from the zoo. Famouls male Silverback Gorilla named Bokito from Diergaarde Blijdorp suddenly passed away. This is the end of Gorillas at the zoo too - they're choosing not to introduce a new male into the group, the group will be split up by family members and finding a new home at different zoos.

Our first zoo visits for 2024 are already in the works - we hope to visit Diergaarde Blijdorp in January, and Kölner zoo - and their new Mongoose Lemurs and Narrow-Striped Vontsira, both new species to us - in Spring.

In February, we'll be cat-sitting for our cousin the whole months. Depending on how our cats get along with the new addition of "Bolivia" we might spend a whole week together there - and visits some zoos up north - or if tensions are high, we'll only see each other on the weekends as we switch places. One of us doing the cat-sitting, the other taking care of our own cats.

We'll also be visiting our favorite haunts Faunapark Flakkee, Dierenpark Zie-ZOO, BestZOO and Dierenrijk as usual, and we'll see what else the year will bring

That leaves with me saying the biggest of thank-yous to all of YOU. Yes, you - for favoriting, for commenting, for sharing, for thinking of us. For falling in love with our photos and the animals we photograph. For being inspired by our photography, and for inspiring us.

You're the reason why we keep sharing our photos online.

Maybe I say it too often, maybe I don't say it enough but you matter. You make a difference and touch a corner of my heart every time I open DeviantArt and see your name.

Thank you for being you. I hope you will continue to be you.

I wish you all the best for the new year. Let's make it a good one!