The Holiday Is Over

One of my holiday snaps.

Graeme and I have been away on a holiday for the past 12 days.  We visited Central Australia and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  I did miss the menagerie but managed to meet a feral cat and have a quick chat with him before Graeme dragged me away mumbling about enough feral cats living on our front porch.  The taming of Venus was a huge success and she now lives on the front verandah with her own bed, food and water, but I'll write more about that on another day.  I also managed to befriend a lovely red kelpie whose owners were in the caravan next to us in Alice Springs, but these two animal episodes didn't make me miss my pets less at all.  Thankfully my worries about them couldn't get off the ground because my daughter in law Savannah and five year old Elliott visited here every few days to distribute food and water, change litter trays and dispense love and hugs all around as well as send me photos of the menagerie to let me know they were all fine.  You'd think the animal population at Spring Rock would be grateful wouldn't you?  Well, apart from the cats I think they are, but the cats are another matter altogether.  

Ambrosia getting ready to air her complaints to Savannah through the window.  

Before we leave home on one of our trips we set up the menagerie to survive at least four nights of us being away.  This has resulted in spending a fair bit of money to provide automatic feeders and waterers for the cats and ferrets, a very large food container for the Saint Bernards, automatic waterers for all outside menagerie members and a huge new, four level cage for the ferrets' inside cage.  We also batten down the hatches for the lounge room, kitchen and dining room.  From previous experience we've learned not to leave anything breakable out where the cats can knock them off tables or other surfaces (including the top of the refrigerator).  For some reason when we're not here for more than a trip to Wagga our cats start practising high jumping, skidding across polished surfaces (it's even better when there's a tablecloth to improve lack of traction, causing big skids along the table) and pulling things off any flat surface that has breakables on it.  So I pack all my owls,  teapot collection, antique sewing tools and all other delicate items into washing baskets lined with quilts and lock them away in the sewing room where they'll be safe from marauding cats.  The cats are left with the bathroom, hall, kitchen dining room and lounge room, all bare of everything we can move out of the room, for the duration of our time away.

We arrived home yesterday and when I called the puppies only Aslan came to greet us.  I was immediately worried that Cleo had found a way out of the house yard, because she's usually waiting at the gate as soon as she hears our car driving along our roadway.  Thankfully she was just snoozing and didn't hear us come home.  Aslan was glad to see us in his own laid back way - he kept wandering over to see if there were any pats being offered, but he wasn't insisting on them mind you.  Cleo, once she woke up and realised we were home, was everywhere we were, tripping us up, walking so close to our legs we couldn't walk a straight line and generally making it known that we were missed.

Venus wanted to say hello too.  She came around the back into big dog territory and bravely walked past them to ask for some pats. She has both dogs completely cowered now.  Before we left Cleo tried to sniff Venus in a very friendly, hello manner and was rewarded with a prickly swat across the nose.  Poor Cleo was more offended than injured.  She backed up along the path and all the way around the side of the house, keeping an eye on Venus the whole time.  Venus has since claimed the front verandah as her own and occupies it unchallenged.  When she met us in the yard yesterday Venus insisted I make up for 12 days of not patting and loving her NOW!!!!  

So, our welcome home was quite touching, we were obviously missed and welcomed home with open paws - that is, until we walked into the house.  We were met by three pairs of eyes that clearly said, "And where have you been?"  The inside cats then started their usual getting even tactics.  Tristan started ignoring at me - being ignored at is more scathing than just being ignored.  If the offending party is just being ignored he or she might not notice it, so being ignored at if much more a effective way to let the offending person know they are in your bad books.  It begins with a glare and then Tristan turns his face away and refuses to talk to you.  That didn't work well last night because I was expecting it so Tristan upped the ante by coming over to where I was seated at the computer and sat on the floor near the computer and talked to the electric fan on the floor while making sure he didn't acknowledge my presence. This being ignored at can last days so I pulled out my secret weapon and whisked up a raw egg for Tristan's dining pleasure (Tristan loves eggs but will only eat them if I whisk them to combine the yolk and egg white).  I'm pleased to say that all signs of being ignored at are gone and I'm once again allowed to pat Tristan and of course feed him eggs.

Nefertiti wouldn't talk to me at all, other than to say, "You are dead to me",  she huffed out of any room I entered with a glare and twitching tail for most of the night.  Thankfully when I went to bed last night she wanted under the covers and in the crook of my arm as usual, so I was forgiven.  I'm so lucky the nights are still cool here otherwise, if it was summer, Nefertiti might go days holding her grudge.   

Ambrosia wanted to tell me everything that had happened in the last 12 days at the top of her voice.  Most of it seemed to consist of complaints that we weren't there when she needed us.  The ferrets were glad to see us and climbed their cage to get us to give them pats and love (sadly it only worked on me and Graeme walked right by without noticing the little face looking at him and asking for a pat).  

Savannah told me she spent an hour on Sunday cleaning up the mess the inside animals still managed to create with nearly everything packed away.  Now that's a real talent I think - to be able to create an hours' worth of cleaning up with barely anything in the rooms.

The Galahs and Silky roosters screeched and crowed welcome messages when they saw us (or we could have been being told off for abandoning them for so long - I don't talk Silky or Galah), and the chooks welcomed me when I went in to collect the eggs (but that might have had something to do with the sunflower seeds I was distributing around the masses).  The galahs are denying giving Savannah, Justin and Elliott a hard time while we were away, but Savannah had photographic evidence.  Hermes is still denying bad behaviour, but pictures don't tell lies.

Hermes - not very welcoming for poor Savannah but she fed him anyway.

It's hard to believe that these neglected, starved for love animals had Savannah and Elliott and sometimes Justin as well visiting every few days to feed them, change their litter and pat and love them for me, but I'm very grateful for their care of the menagerie for those 12 days.  

Justin sent this beautiful photo to assure me all was well with the puppies.