Thursday, December 21, 2023

Happy Christmas

 
Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Rosemary and the Menagerie

 

Monday, October 02, 2023

Tristan


Vale Tristan

Tristan died a few weeks ago.  I miss him dreadfully.

Tristan arrived at Spring Rock in January 2003, as the cutest ginger kitten I’d ever met.  A few months before his arrival I’d mentioned to my friend and neighbour, Aileen, that with all the cats I’d owned in my long history of cat ownership, I’d only ever had one ginger cat and that was when I was a child.  I told her I love ginger cats (well, I love any colour cat, but I was talking about ginger cats at the time) and would love to own another one.  A month or two later Aileen asked if I still wanted a ginger cat.  Graeme was nowhere in sight so I said yes.  Aileen’s daughter’s cat had had an illicit liaison with a feral tomcat and had produced a litter of kittens, one of whom was ginger.

As soon as he was old enough to leave his mum Aileen brought the little ginger scrap over to his new home.  Tristan settled in quickly.  I named him Tristan to fit in with the current Arthurian theme at the time.  Lancelot and Guinevere were my two, now middled aged cats in residence.  Tristan developed a deep affection for Graeme, almost on sight, and wouldn’t take no for an answer when he wanted to sit on Graeme’s knee.  Graeme wasn’t used to feline attention.  Lancelot and Guinevere spent all their spare time on my knee.  After a few false starts, Graeme and Tristan became firm friends and the tiny kitten would curl up on Graeme’s knee while he worked on his computer at night.  As Tristan grew older and larger, and took up more of Graeme’s knee he was told he’d have to find somewhere else to spend his nights as he was now in the way, so Tristan, ever the pragmatist, found a spare spot on my knee and ignored the two older cat’s bad language as he settled in.

Lancelot and Guinevere didn’t ever really accept the new arrival.  Their opinion of this little ginger scrap was decidedly negative.  They felt that the house operated well on a two-cat basis and saw no need to over populate the house with an excess redhead.  Tristan lived on the periphery of their lives and was content to do so.  Very little upset Tristan.  He’d just go with the flow with any situation that arose.  I’m not sure that this laid-back attitude to life didn’t annoy Lancelot and Guinevere more.  No matter what bad language or physical insults they threw at Tristan, he’d just move a little further away, out of striking range, and settle down for his nap, whether on my lap, in front of the heater or in the bathroom on the beds there at night.

After Lancelot and Guinevere were no longer with us, Tristan settled down to enjoy life without cross cats in his life.  He didn’t have long to enjoy the single life before Ambrosia and Nefertiti arrived.  Unlike his two predecessors, Tristan welcomed the two new kittens with open paws and not a claw in sight.  All three cats settled into a warm friendship where there were no fights about lap space, heater privileges or room on the bed.  Strangely, sunny spots on the carpet did cause harsh words from time to time, but I’d just open the curtains further and increase the sunny spot size on the carpet and peace would reign again.

At first Tristan didn’t seem to fit into the Spring Rock menagerie.  He was a totally sane cat.  This was unheard of in the annals of my menagerie.  I mentioned my concerns to Graeme, rather in the manner of expecting trouble to rear its head any time now.  I needn’t have worried; it didn’t take long for the general lunacy among the four-legged Spring Rock population to rub off on him.  After a while, Tristan developed his own little idiosyncrasies.  When he felt unloved or unappreciated, Tristan took to putting his face against the wall and not talking to any of us.  He began channelling Meerkats, sitting upright on his bottom and hind legs for extra height, despite being on the floor so not gaining any advantage with this extra height, and, he began bunny worrying.  

In his younger days, before retirement and a sedentary life inside, Tristan preferred the wide outdoors most of the time.  When hanging around the house yard and house, whichever side of the door Tristan found himself was the wrong side of the door.  The time I spent opening the back door to either let him in or out doesn’t bare thinking about.  

When outside and wanting to come in, Tristan would sit outside the lounge room window and emit little plaintive meows.  It seemed only I could hear these pleas to be let inside.  Graeme remain blissfully impervious to them.  Once inside he’d visit the food bowl and catch up with Ambrosia and Nefertiti for any new gossip (before these two friendly cats’ arrival he ignored Guinevere and Lancelot because all he would have received for his trouble would be a growl or swat), visit the food bowl again and soon begin to think of all the farm he hadn’t yet explored.  His strategy for letting me know his visit has come to an end was to jump on me if I was sitting down, jump down again, walk a little way away from me while looking over his shoulder at me in a significant way, then returning to jump on me again.  Tristan was no lightweight cat.  When you'd been jumped on by Tristan you were left in no doubt that you'd been jumped on.  His landings were often accompanied by an "Ooof!" from me as his paws hit my stomach (I tend to lay back slightly on the lounge with my feet up you see).  If I was standing up he wound his way around my legs, doing his best to trip me up (so he could jump on me I imagine).  He then headed door-wards while throwing me that significant look once again and returned to wind himself around me again if I still hadn’t figured his message out.

Tristan would disappear for days on end – on two separate occasions he was gone for over two weeks!  When he returned his ears would be covered in rabbit fleas.  We believed the only way he could acquire such a large number of fleas - his ears would be black with them - was to actually go down the rabbit holes in search of bunnies.  Rabbit fleas behave more like ticks than fleas.  They burrowed into Tristan’s ears and stayed put.  We haven’t had a flea on any of our pets since we moved to Spring Rock which is wonderful, and the only fleas we had to deal with stayed in the one spot on Tristan making de-fleaing a very easy process - Graeme and I simply used tweezers to de-flea Tristan on his return home.  If Tristan came home without us noticing the fleas, he would make sure to sit on my lap, give me a significant look and rub his ears on my shirt.  I soon got the message and Tristan was soon flea free again.

As he grew older, Tristan became more and more a homebody, choosing the inside option more and more until eventually he didn’t go outside at all.  When he first settled into old age Tristan would stand at the front door until I opened it so he could go outside and sit on either the front steps or just meander onto the front porch.  That was enough outside for him for a couple of years.  Then when he reached 18 he would ask for the front door to be opened, look out onto the porch and garden, ignoring the door I’d opened for him, then walk back to his comfortable bed, secure in the knowledge that should he ever wish to go on adventures the outside was still there waiting for him.  Eventually even checking the door still led to outside stopped and Tristan reached full retirement.

At 18 Tristan started having infrequent, but terrifying seizures.  His visit to the vets during the pandemic, along with Cleo and Aslan who also needed vet treatment, was not his idea of how an elderly gentleman should be treated.  Dreadful threats and bad language emanated from the cat carrier - even Cleo and Aslan looked concerned at the threats.  Once at the vets’ (we had two vets treating the three pets) Tristan quietened down and bided his time while the larger patients were seen to.  When Tristan’s turn came, I warned Jen, the vet, that he was in a bad mood and now felt that one of the privileges of old age was to be irascible and say it with tooth and claw when really ticked off.  Jen approached the cat carrier with caution, saying that most elderly gentlemen could be problems. 

Tristan decided to hold no grudges against Jen.  It wasn’t her fault he had been treated so abominably in the last hour or so, and he gave her is best purr while rubbing his face along her hand.  Jen was a devoted fan from that moment.  She complimented me on his excellent condition, despite his age.  I told her I hadn’t done much to contribute towards that condition - I’d bought him a heating pad for cold winter weather and called out to Tristan each time I encountered a very elderly cat on the internet, telling him the cat’s age and letting Tristan know this was the new number we were aiming for.  After a number of tests Jen told me, the seizures were not a big problem as long as they remained spaced about a month or more apart.  Should they get closer together we would have to review Tristan’s quality of life and make hard decisions.  Thankfully, they never occurred closer than a month apart, so Tristan and I just dealt with them as they occurred.  He was always able to recover relatively quickly - I think he was over the seizure before I was.

He enjoyed a “mushed” egg each day when eggs were plentiful or a small helping of butter off the end of my knife as I made my lunch when they weren’t.  Tristan began having a mushed egg because he refused to eat the egg white, gobbling up the yolk and ignoring the rest of his egg.  I whisked it to combine the two and Tristan polished off the lot, so that became his treat.  One time I had put the egg in his bowl when the phone rang.  I answered the phone and then wandered away, forgetting about the unmushed egg.  Tristan was appalled!  He sat there waiting for me to return to my duties, and when I failed to show up, half an hour later, he came and got me, letting me know I needed to return to the kitchen.  As I followed him, his tail straight up in the air to express his disappointment in me, Tristan muttered about how hard it was to get good help these days.  He then sat next to his bowl and looked at me, then the egg, then me again.  I got the message, mushed the egg and all was forgiven.

Tristan had me well trained in the delivering of mushed eggs and in many other ways.  When resting on my lap, if Tristan decided I was non-gainfully occupied with my needlework or reading, he would reach out a paw, hook it around my wrist (no claws involved thankfully) and bring my hand over to the spot that needed patting or scratching.  Once I was gainfully employed, he'd close his eyes and enjoy the attention.  Should I stop patting or scratching him and return to my earlier occupation, Tristan would simply repeat the process that led to his comfort and hook my wrist again and pull it towards him.  There was really no point in trying to sew or read when Tristan wanted attention, so attention Tristan got.

In the end, Tristan lived to two months short of his 21st birthday.  Tristan had lived with me longer than any of my children had, a fact I pointed out to them often.  Although he began to look like a very elderly cat towards the end, with that scruffy coat older cats usually have, he remained spry enough.  I bought a grooming glove to help with the scruffy look, but there was no denying my beautiful boy was a very old cat.  He had his daily arthritis medicine, which couldn’t have tasted too bad because Tristan would remind me if I forgot to administer it.  He’d stand by the kitchen cupboards near where I kept the medicine on the bench, look at me, and wait for me to catch his message. 

He died on his bed.  In the morning, we found him there in a bad way.  His back legs no longer worked and he’d become incontinent during the night.  He died before we could get him to the vets’ for which I was grateful.  A long car ride in the cat carrier when he was in such a bad way would have been so stressful for my gorgeous old gentleman.  I had time to say goodbye to him and thank him for almost 21 wonderful years of his company.  Sadly, I have no photos of Tristan’s last months to share.  I had a bad run in with technology around that time.  My computer was dead for over five weeks so I didn’t save my phone photos to the computer.  Then, before the computer was repaired, the SD card in my phone died, taking all my recent photos with it.  I have photos of Tristan from the day he arrived until a few months ago and I’ll always have my memories of a life shared with a wonderful red headed fellow.



 

 

 

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Recuperating With The Menagerie

I’ve been on the recovery list for a while.  Back in early April, I needed surgery to my left second toe and my right foot.  I had broken my toe a couple of times over the years and it had curled over, making wearing shoes uncomfortable.  I also had an arthritic spur on the top of my right foot making shoes uncomfortable there as well.  The surgery was quick and easy and I was home again that night with orders from the surgeon to keep my feet elevated until she saw me in ten days time to take out the stitches.  The left toe had a rod inserted into it during surgery with a little white bead sticking out of the end of my toe, just waiting to be knocked on something, so I took my keeping my feet up orders very seriously.  This rod had to stay in for six weeks.

I made a long-term nest for myself on the lounge where I had all life’s essentials to hand – my knitting, needlework project, books, laptop and the television remote.  I wasn’t forbidden from putting my feet on the floor so other essentials such as cups of tea were on a get it myself basis.  I was all set to recuperate in comfort.

Nefertiti was the first to discover my semi-prone form and she was all in favour of it.  She settled herself on my stomach, composed a new purr just for the occasion and closed her eyes to enjoy me lying down for long periods of time.  Despite Nefertiti wanting to keep this a secret, word soon got out amongst the other cats.  Tristan and Ambrosia soon began to crowd Nefertiti out and the jockeying for space on Mum soon began in earnest. 

I’ve mentioned before that with the cats it’s the closest to my face who wins, which usually means last one on is the winner.  With my legs lying out straight (albeit on an unusual incline) and my torso semi-flat, there was considerably more space for the taking, but only the very top of my chest was the desired area for all three cats.  When I came out to the lounge room first thing in the morning the battles would commence for the prime piece of property.  Ambrosia was usually first up and she contented herself with the top of my legs, until Nefertiti arrived and chose my stomach.  Tristan, being 20 years old now and a cat of peace, would wander in soon after that and just look for a peaceful, war free zone.  Unfortunately, Ambrosia and Nefertiti fought the Battle for Closest to the Face every morning.  I would do what I could to shield Tristan with one hand and remove both brawling cats one handed. 

Once the two combatants were exiled to the floor, looking very disgruntled and totally innocent Tristan could settle down.  Nefertiti and Ambrosia would sneak back, duly chastened for the time being and I would get on with my sewing, knitting or reading.  Thankfully, Graeme came in to give me the much needed cup of teas and lunch at appropriated times.  

The problem arose when trips to the bathroom were necessary – and believe me, I put them off as long as possible.  I would begin my exit by putting Nefertiti on the floor.  She was the cat who invariably won the War of the Closest to the Face, so the first one I could reach.  Before Nefertiti was able to jump back up again I had to get Ambrosia off my legs, which was nowhere near as straight forward as you’d think.  Ambrosia instantly took on the consistency of that slime children play with.  If I picked up her middle, she’d sort of ooze out of my hand, if I tried using both hands she’d go limp and roll away from the hands.  It took a while to manage to corral the entire cat and by this time, Nerfertiti was up on my chest again, preparing to forgive and forget and settle back to her snooze.  Eventually, both girls were on the floor and I would gently move my legs away from Tristan who always ended up in a little Tristan sized zone between my legs and the back of the lounge.  Both Nefertiti and Ambrosia sat on the floor giving me their most hurt look.  I’d head bathroom way apologising and I went.

Once back on the lounge the whole process began again, with the exception that Tristan usually stayed in his little Tristan Zone of Peace.  Words would be said on my part and ignored on Nefertiti’s and Ambrosia’s part, and eventually we’d reach the stage where everyone involved could live with the arrangement until I had to get up the next time.

In case you are worrying about Venus, she had no interest in joining the other three cats on top of me.  Venus took one look at the scuffling and nasty words being exchanged (the cats’ not mine) and preferred to spend her days with her dog, much to Cleo’s embarrassment.  Venus spent her days catching mice and presenting them as love tokens to Cleo, who did not favour the taste of mice.  Once I was up and around on my feet again, I would watch Cleo roll her eyes at yet another small, dead offering from that strange cat.  If she noticed my presence, Cleo would look at me, clearly appealing that I do something about this, as it was mortifying to be fed mice by a cat.  Marlowe solved the problem each time by ducking in and snatching the mouse, because he had no such prejudices against the taste of mouse.  When Venus came in at night, she’d settle herself on Tristan’s bed on one of the lounge chairs and snooze the night away.

 

 Tristan enjoying his bed before my foot surgery.

The puppies’ roles in my rehabilitation came after I was back on my feet.  Both puppies behaved as if I’d been out of their lives for years rather than only seeing them occasionally for just ten days.  Cleo thankfully has matured into gentle old age.  She contented herself with standing beside me and placing her head under my hand in case pats were available – they always were.  After the pats were administered, Cleo would either follow me around the yard “helping” with whatever I was doing, or retreat to her sunny spot and go back to sleep.  Cleo has become a low maintenance dog if we forget about her very expensive operation a few months ago (I’ll write about that in the future).

Marlowe would bound about me, showing how happy he was to see me and invite me to a game of tug of war or chasing, neither of which I was prepared to join in with my poor toe.  One a couple of occasion Marlowe’s bouncing energy brought him too close to my foot encased in a surgical sandal and the inevitable would happen and I’d have a 75kg Saint Bernard land on the tender toe.  Marlowe and I would exchange a few words about being more careful, I’d eventually get over the pain and life would go on.

Hedwig, the arbiter of shoe fashion, objected very strongly to the surgical sandal.  It wasn’t surprising; she hates my garden clogs and has left beak marks in them from time to time.  The huge, black plastic sandal was just too much!  Hedwig wanted it out of her aviary and wanted it out now!  Feeding Hedwig and Hermes required me to do a little shuffle dance to keep the irate fashionista off my sandal and away from my toe.  I’m not sure the white bead didn’t offend Hedwig’s sensibilities as well, but I was careful to keep it well away from her beak.  Hermes really wasn’t bothered about the sandal, but doesn’t take Hedwig’s tantrums well.  He would sit on one of the perches and offer her verbal encouragement until I’d refilled their feed containers and left.  Hedwig would then return to Hermes, clearly telling him she’d dealt with my latest fashion disaster.

 

Hermes and Hedwig

The chooks and ferrets didn’t notice the change in my footwear.  Graeme fed the chooks and collected the eggs until I was on my feet again, and the ferrets and I communed much as we always had.  Charis and Freya don’t care what I wear as long as I distribute treats and cuddles on a regular basis.

On Monday evening, my toe was giving me a lot of trouble.  It had been slightly painful all day (and it wasn’t one of the days Marlowe stepped on it).  When I had finished all my menagerie feeding chores I opened up the sandal and removed the surgical stocking to find my foot was swollen, the toe an angry red and the redness was covering about half my foot.  When Graeme came in from the paddocks, he took me to our local country hospital.  The doctor on call prescribed IV antibiotics and she’d call my surgeon in the morning, but there were no spare beds at the hospital so I had to come back every eight hours for my next IV.  This meant leaving home at 3.30am for one of the injections.

On Tuesday the surgeon was in surgery all day so uncontactable.  I was told to keep coming back for my eight hourly IVs.  Throughout my numerous visits the little hospital he staff were wonderful and were soon treating me like one of their friends.  Finally late Tuesday an appointment was made for me to see the surgeon and everything is now well on the way to healing.  Wednesday afternoon was my last IV and I’m now taking oral antibiotics so no more hospital visits in the early morning.

I think the trips to the hospital stopped just in time.  Poor Marlowe had felt that it was his responsibility to wave goodbye to us each time we left for the hospital, and to be at the gate to welcome us back home again when we arrived, even the 3.00am departures and subsequent 5.00am returns.  Cleo was happy to assist Marlowe in the goodbyes and welcome homes at decent hours of the day but she put her paw down at getting up in the middle of the night to join Marlowe’s farewell and welcome committee.  It's a good thing the 1.00pm IV was the last one.  Marlowe waved goodbye from the gate as we left, but when we returned home at 3.00 he was snoozing in the sun.  He opened his eyes, gave a short wag of his tail, and told us to welcome ourselves home, he was over it.  He did muster the energy to follow me to the back door, but quickly returned to his sunny spot in the garden.

I have been ordered to keep my foot elevated until the swelling goes down, which, according to the surgeon, could be a few weeks.  Here we go again.

The Farewell/Welcome Home Committee

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

It's Been A While


 

It’s been a while since my last post.  Marlowe is now nine months old and has settled in as a beloved part of the menagerie.  We had some fraught times with him in the early months.  

Our doggy medical adventures began with Cleo.  She was losing weight at an alarming rate, had developed a large number of bare, sore and itchy areas on her skin and was basically miserable.  Our vets are wonderful and it's difficult to get an appointment under two weeks away.  While I waited for the appointment day I treated Cleo with various potions to help with the itch, tried various foods to tempt her appetite (tinned puppy food was the only thing she'd eat) and generally spent my days trying to stop her scratching her skin raw.

The vet appointment day finally arrived and Cleo and Marlowe visited the vet.  Marlowe was due for his next booster injection.  The vet blamed Marlowe for Cleo's hot spots and steroid tablets, antibiotics and various other remedies were prescribed.  The medication schedule for the menagerie was both extensive and confusing. Tristan has a daily arthritis medication to add to the extensive range of medicines, but it's still difficult to believe all the medicines were for just two dogs and one old cat.  I ended up writing up a table to help me sort it out.  Here is a photo of what the pet medication hub looked like back then.


The medical adventures continued the next day.

We have two feral, half-grown cats who visit our back porch at night to help themselves to the dog food.  Marlowe has become good friends with Venus, our ex-feral cat, although she still prefers Cleo, who Venus considers to be her dog.   It looks like Marlowe tried to befriend the feral cats.  One Wednesday morning I noticed a large swelling under Marlowe’s chin.  We’d only been to the vets’ the day before as a follow up for Cleo’s hot spots (they weren’t hot spots, but mites, most likely brought into our back yard by some of the rabbits on the farm).  After an ultrasound Jen, the vet, said the abscess on Marlowe’s neck wasn’t ready for lancing and she booked Marlowe in for surgery on the following Monday.  By Thursday night Marlowe was miserable.  He couldn’t swallow and was in so much pain, we decided to take him back to the vets’ on Friday in case the abscess was ready for surgery.

It was a good thing we did because Jen said it would have burst on Saturday night.  Marlowe had the surgery and came home with the cone of shame around his neck and a drain tube in the abscess.  Jen said the abscess had been a lot worse than she expected and went in quite deep – the reason poor Marlowe couldn’t swallow.  Jen said there was still a bit of a lump there but that would disappear over the next few days.  Antibiotic tablets were to be given twice a day. 

 Marlowe after his first abscess surgery

All was well until the following Tuesday when Marlowe was looking down in the dumps that morning.  By lunchtime he couldn’t stand up.  I rang the vets’ saying I was bringing Marlowe straight in.  We couldn’t fit Cleo in the back this time because the car fridge was still in there and there was no time to remove it.  Graeme carried a very sick little Marlowe into the surgery for me, because despite Marlowe still being a little Saint Bernard, he was now too big a Saint Bernard for me to carry.  We were shown into a room immediately and a vet nurse checked Marlowe while we waited for a vet to arrive. 

Amber was our vet this time and couldn’t find a reason for Marlowe’s collapse.  He was running a high temperature, but the abscess lump didn’t feel that bad to her.  We left Marlowe there for a range of tests and wandered around a park in Wagga to kill time before we could pick our little fellow up.  Amber rang to say she’d like to keep Marlowe in for the night and was getting one of the senior vets to consult with her once Rose, the senior vet, returned to the surgery.  The upshot was that the abscess had re-emerged and was in deep once more. 

We returned home without Marlowe and Cleo, who had up until this time tried to convince us she was not smitten with the puppy, went looking for him at the back of the car.  When Marlowe didn’t emerge she went to find her squeaky toy, whined, and mourned him the way she’d mourned the loss of Aslan.  I told her that she couldn’t convince us she didn’t love Marlowe after all, but Cleo was too busy feeling sad.  She remained attached to her squeaky toy until Marlowe returned from the vets’ later the next day.

Rose performed surgery the next day and put a super dooper drainage system in this time.  It had a little suction bulb attached and I needed to empty it a few times a day until it was removed.  This new drain warranted Marlowe wearing an old tee shirt of mine because the cone of shame didn’t work with this new system.  The tee shirt almost lasted the three days before the drain came out, but by the last day Marlowe, who was feeling a lot better, had reduced it to tatters.  Thankfully, the drain was removed and that was the last we saw of the abscess.  Our vet bill that month was eye watering!  We’d had Cleo to the vets’ twice with her mite problem; Marlowe had his final booster injection and then two surgeries, all adding up to more money than I want to think about.  They are worth it though.

 Marlowe wearing my old tee shirt to protect the high-tech drainage tube.

After recovering from their various ailments, the puppies settled down to a firm friendship together.  Soon it was harvest time on Spring Rock and what a harvest it turned out to be!  We, like everyone else on the east coast of Australia, have had a huge amount of rain this year.  This resulted in our paddocks becoming waterlogged and the springs, from which our farm gets its name, were running in all the paddocks, and for the first time, even on our farm driveway.  This necessitated us having to use firebreaks to get off the property and only then if it hadn’t actually rained within the last few hours. There were many days when we couldn't get to the outside world.

As I mentioned in a post from last year’s harvest, I drive the tractor to unbog the header when it encounters wet patches in the crops.  This year I have been called out multiple times a day to rescue Graeme and the header.  The routine is, I’d try to get things done around the house until Graeme rang to say he was bogged, I then drive the tractor out to wherever the header is and Graeme hitches it and our other tractor up and we tow the header out of the bog.  Earlier in the harvest, I would then stay out in the paddock in the tractor while Graeme continued harvesting.  It really wasn’t worth coming back to the house, because he invariably became bogged a few more times that day.  I started taking a book and a travel mug of tea out with me and read the days away.  Eventually I put together all the bits and pieces for an appliqué block for a quilt I’m working on and took an audiobook out as well and I now stitch the day away.  Harvest still isn’t over.  We are usually finished well before Christmas, but this harvest has been drawn out and horrible.  We’ll get there though.

Back to the menagerie – everyone is happy and healthy; Tristan is now 20 years old.  I realised that he’s lived with us longer than any of our children did.  I told Graeme that this gives Tristan voting rights on decisions to be made in the family, and of course, Tristan being English language (or any language for that matter) challenged, I’ll be his proxy.  Graeme is not in favour of this democratic turn of events, but Tristan and I outvoted him.  Tristan spends most of his day sleeping in wherever he feels is the most in the way spot he can find, and Graeme and I arrange ourselves around wherever Tristan has chosen to nap.

 Tristan enjoying his winter daybed.

Ambrosia, Nefertiti and Venus try to race Tristan to his personal bed on one of the lounge chairs.   I made up a little padded spot for his old bones a while ago and Tristan slept most of winter there, but he prefers different sleeping arrangements for summer so isn’t interested in the winter bed.  The other three cats haven’t realised this and I’m sure they think they have won again when they settle on Tristan’s bed while he chooses to sleep in the very middle of the lounge room floor or on my lounge chair, taking up the whole space so I have to find somewhere else to sit so I don’t wake the old gentleman.

Hedwig and Hermes have only had one visit from a snake this summer.  They are enjoying the peace and quiet of not having to call out snake alarms nearly every day as in past years.  We are enjoying not having to go out to the aviary with the snake deterrer and persuade another brown snake to leave the cage.

Freya and Charis, the ferrets are doing well.  They enjoyed the Christmas decoration time in the house.  I always decorate the top of their cage with baskets of Christmas flowers, pine-cones and other little decorations.  I then set the ferrets free each morning to romp among the decorations for a while.  They made little pathways, had competitions to see who could push the most decorations off the top of the cage and generally created mayhem – mayhem being what ferrets are best at.  When the decorations finally came down Freya and Charis were sad to see their little wonderland disappear, but they manage to find other ways to create havoc so all is not lost.

 Freyer and Charis celebrating Christmas

The inhabitants of the chook yard have been playing musical yards.  The chook yard is divided up into three yards – a large, general yard, a smaller, but still spacious yard where Phoenix used to live and the Silkies’ yard, which again, is quite spacious.  When Phoenix died, I opened the gate between his yard and the main yard giving everyone in the main yard a bigger area to use.  

I have three roosters – Opportunity, a beautiful little Silky rooster who was supposed to live with George and Emu, our two Silky hens, Monster, who was an egg Emu hatched (Monster is a Faverolle, Hamburg cross so a very large rooster) and Henry, our Hamburg rooster.  Henry was purchased as a hen and disagreed with the diagnosis of his gender and Opportunity came here to live because he was crowing to loudly in a back yard in my daughter in law's mother's urban home.   

Opportunity lived with the Silky girls for a few weeks and decided life was too quiet in the Silky yard (which just happens to be exactly how George and Emu like it).  He then jumped over the dividing fence, only to find Henry in residence. The fact that Henry is three times Opportunity’s size didn’t faze our intrepid little fellow.  Opportunity bashed Henry up and told him there was more of that to come if Henry still thought he was top rooster in the yard.  Henry, who is not a brave rooster at all, now keeps himself as far away from Opportunity as he can.  If he finds himself close to Opportunity accidentally, Henry will squawk in panic and run to the end of the chook yard.  I’ve tried putting Henry in with the Silkies – they were against this idea and turfed him out.  I’ve tried putting Henry in Phoenix’s old yard, but Henry hates being in there with all the action going on in the other yard, so Henry stays in the main yard and makes sure he keeps out of Opportunity’s way.

Monster began life with the Silkies when Emu hatched him, and was happy to share their yard.  One day he decided to try the main yard, just to see what the other chooks were enjoying.  He stayed there for a few weeks, being bullied by Opportunity and commiserating with Henry.  I put Monster back with the Silkies a few times when the main yard threatened to become a war zone, but the next morning would find Monster back in the main yard.  Then, one day, for no apparent reason, Monster decided he’d had enough of the exciting life and moved back in with his mum, Emu and Aunty George.  Life in the chook yard has now settled down to peace and quiet.  I wish the same could be said of the puppies.

It's all fun and games here at the moment.  Cleo, who is now an old lady, has come into season.  She is nine years old and should be thinking of a quiet retirement instead of putting romantic ideas into silly, young dog’s heads.  I've Googled to see if it existed, but found there's no such thing as doggy menopause.  Marlowe, who is nine months old and in his difficult teenage doggy years, thinks that coming into season was a very good idea of Cleo's.  He hadn’t realised she could be so interesting, but is definitely happy to take advantage of this new situation.  I, on the other hand, am very much against Marlowe taking advantage of the situation.  I have come up with a system whereby I alternate locking one of the puppies in the laundry and giving the other a couple of hours of freedom. 

Cleo is all in favour of being sequestered on whichever side of the laundry door she finds herself - she knows she's too old to consider being a first time mum.  Cleo has reached the age where lying in the sun or shade, depending on the weather, or even better, on the kitchen floor, relaxing her days away and occasionally joining in a game of tug of war with young Marlowe, is her idea of a day well spent. Cleo is looking for a peaceful, old age just whiling away the hours snoozing or eating.  Puppies would mean an end to all the peace, not to mention the dangers of an old age pregnancy.  No, Cleo feels life is good just the way it is.

Marlowe on the other hand is all in favour of teenage fatherhood.  He is full of energy, bigger than Cleo now, and feeling his wild oats – wild oats that he definitely wants to sow.   Marlowe objects strongly to being on the other side of the laundry door to Cleo.  He has stated he doesn’t mind if he’s in the laundry or outside the laundry as long as Cleo is inside or outside with him.  To express his displeasure clearly at having a door between him and his newfound love, Marlowe has nearly destroyed the laundry door, scratching and complaining that just when Cleo got to be very interesting he's no longer allowed to play with her.  Cleo, comfortable on whichever side of the door she finds herself, just rolls her eyes and goes back to sleep. 

Graeme, on the other hand, has no patience for teenage, love-struck puppies who try to tear down the barrier between himself and his true love.  Things are being said.  I'm doing my best to pretend I don't hear those things that are said and just change the dogs over and hope Marlowe learns a bit of self-control.  Thinking back to the human teenage boys I knew way back when, I'm not hopeful about the self-control bit though.

So, as you can imagine, my days have been full.  Is it any wonder it has taken me so long to write another blog post?

 Cleo and Marlowe pre Cleo's season