Out on a Limb

New Year's Day began gray and drizzly. And with something in a tree. See the whitish blob?

A closer look reveals Spotz the barn cat. Why is she out on a limb?

Hmmm. Let's look at this from another angle.  Not only is Spotz in the holly tree, but Jim-Bob is in the bird-bath.

But Spotz isn't really out on a limb—she's way on the edge of the holly's branches. Isn't this dangerous? And maybe impossible?

So how does she do it? Take a closer look:

Have you figured it out? Maybe you need to sit back and study the situation a bit.

Spotz has a support system—the entwined branches of a grapevine that grows in the holly tree. She's actually sitting on the grapevine, not the holly itself. The grapevine makes a nice nest for her.

Spotz gets to her grapevine perch by climbing the holly branches. Then she takes her place out on a limb—er, out on a grapevine.

There's a lesson here. If you're going out on a limb, make sure you have a good support system in place first. And what you think you see at first glance might be something else entirely when you take a closer look.

Appearances can be deceiving. A bit of philosophy for the New Year. . . .

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