Making Friends at the Adelaide Show

Not the ram in question, but really a little brag from me.  This is Sam, our very first Suffolk ram.

Recently we visited the Adelaide Show.  We go most years for two reasons.  The Elite Ram Sale and fairy floss.  There are members of my family who will tell you I go just for the fairy floss but that's not true.  While it is true I refuse to leave the show until I have some to take with me, I really go to admire the sheep on show.  

This year we needed to buy two rams - a Suffolk and a White Suffolk.  We inspected all the possible contenders for the Spring Rock menagerie, Graeme hoping like mad that he found rams that didn't have too much personality and me chatting to each ram to see if they were friendly or not.  All the rams on our list seemed to be Graeme's type of ram rather than mine.  With a philosophical sigh I left Graeme to talk to their owners about our picking the ram up at a later date should we be the successful bidder.  We don't take our sheep trailer with us - it's just too difficult to find parking in Adelaide at this time of year when you only have a car, just about impossible with a huge trailer on the back.

While Graeme was making arrangements with the breeders I walked to the other end of the huge shed to meet and greet the Suffolk rams.  The first ram on our list turned out to have won reserve champion at the show.  His ribbons and awards were proudly displayed over his pen while he snuggled in a corner taking a well earned rest.  I admired his awards and congratulated him on his success.  He was watching me as I looked over the certificates and ribbons in his haul and when I spoke to him he rose to his feet, wandered over to me and nudged my hand with his nose.  That's all the encouragement I need to get up close and personal with a ram - really it's all the encouragement I need to get friendly with almost any living creature (humans aside of course!!!).  I began scratching where his horns would be if Suffolks had horns, rubbing the side of his face and between his eyes.  All favourite scratching/rubbing spots for sheep.  

While this little love-fest was going on an elderly man stopped to watch me.  I smiled at him and said the ram was very friendly.  That was all the encouragement he needed to stop for a long chat about his merino farming history.  He was a lovely fellow and the ram and I enjoyed his company immensely.  After he left the ram and I continued our bonding process and I told him he was now top of my list and I'd do my best to get Graeme to bid has high as needed to buy him.  He seemed fine with that and started to close his eyes in bliss.

As he was drifting off into his own little paradise a group of girls walked by.  They stopped abruptly when they saw the ram blissing out. 

"Look at that sheep!"  one of them screamed. 

"Wow!" was the reply from her friends.  

They looked at me with shocked expressions and I smiled at them and said, "I'm hypnotising him."  

They believed me and started watching closer.  "How do you do that?"  one asked.

Oh, oh.  I thought.  They might try to hypnotise a ram that wasn't the big bundle of friendliness this ram is. I had visions of irate rams pounding their hand against the side of the pen while proclaiming he wasn't that sort of ram.  So I came clean and told them I wasn't really hypnotising him.  He was just a very friendly ram and was enjoying the rubbing and scratching session.  They still watched closely.  I think they preferred my first explanation though.

Did we manage to buy him?  Sadly no.  The bidding went way too high even for me to consider buying him. Farrer will not have any competition on the farm here for being the friendliest ram.  Well, I don't think he will.  We did buy the Suffolk ram's brother though, so I suppose there's some chance his friendliness is a family trait.

What More Can I Say But Billy!!!!

As those who have followed my blog for a while will know, I have a problem when visiting the toilet here - Billy. He sleeps in the laundry where our only toilet lives and as the laundry isn't very big and Billy is, there isn't a lot of floor space left over for essential toilet visiting things like feet and legs (mine, not Billy's).  When Billy is really up close and personal with the porcelain it usually takes a couple of gentle, or sometimes not so gentle, digs in his ribs to get him to shuffle out a bit.  Usually if find it a lot easier and quicker to do my best to arrange my self around him. This of course is fraught with danger, but at least if I'm ever unsuccessful in my arrangements I'll have a soft place to land on Billy's ample belly.

This morning there just wasn't anywhere to put my feet.  Billy was almost wrapped around the base of the toilet.  It's in a corner of the laundry so that was quite a feat for a large dog.  Billy is stone deaf these days so unless I can get him to look at me, and when he knows I want him to do something he doesn't want to do, he'll look anywhere but at me, I can't get him to do a thing.  If I can get him to look at me, hand and arm flailing, serious facial expressions and lots of pointing usually result in Billy heaving a sigh and going wherever it is I'm pointing.  This time he just kept his eyes closed, sleep being the best excuse ever.  I proceeded to perform the digs in the ribs routine only to me met with absolutely nothing from Billy.  He didn't grunt, shuffle to the side or even give a hint that he'd felt my prodding.  I moved my foot and prodded his head.   Billy's response was to open one eye, look at me and then close that eye again.  My back was in a bad way already so there was no way I could bend and grab his collar and forcibly remove him.  Graeme was out in a paddock somewhere so calling for his help was no use and I really needed to move that dog!!!

I resorted to bribery - quite a common theme with my dealings with Billy I'm afraid.  Billy is a sucker for dry cat food.  He will do almost anything for a little scoop of cat food, including take his attention off the ferrets in the middle of an exchange of insults between he and them, so waking up and moving a few inches should have been a cinch.  I opened the bin containing the food and took out a small scoop.  At the sound of the cat kibble crunching as I scooped it up Billy's eyebrow twitched.  I waved the scoop under his nose.  Billy's nose twitched.  I then moved the scoop away but Billy didn't follow.  I brought the scoop back under his nose and once again that nose twitched.  I might add that twitching nose was the only thing that did move on Billy's body though.  I moved the scoop away with no dog removing success yet again.  I decided to leave a little trail of cat foot from Billy's nose to his dish in the hope that he'd jump up and scoop up each kibble, thus creating a free space around the toilet.  No such luck.

Billy lay there, nose twitching, trying to locate the spot where the kibble lay.  Then, before my disbelieving eyes a huge pink tongue came out, moved across the floor and scooped in the little line of kibble closest to his head.   Crunch, crunch crunch and the tongue came out again, explored as far as it could reach and scooped in the last of the kibble he could reach.  I waited for Billy to get up to get the rest but he obviously thought that the little snack he'd had (all of about six pieces of kibble) would last him for a while and went back to sleep with a satisfied smile on his face.


I had no alternative than to perform acrobatics that a woman of my age and injuries shouldn't even contemplate.  My mission was successfully completed and more acrobatics performed to get me back on my feet while Billy slept on.

The left over cat food?  As soon as I opened the door Juno, the red kelpie type, raced in and scooped it up as quickly as she could (the kelpie types love cat food as much as Billy does) while keeping one eye on Billy's prone form.  I expected Billy to jump up and defend his stash.  Nope.  Billy gently snored and left Juno to it.

Just what was Billy up to last night?!!!!

Bird World

Last week we had to drive to Melbourne for a car service and, as it was going to take a day and a half to get done, we had to spend the night down there.  We decided to take this opportunity to have a mini holiday and stay at Ballarat for the night and spend Friday being tourists.


We drove down to Melbourne on Thursday and dropped the car off at the dealers for its service.  We then took off in the loan car (a very sporty looking Volvo) and visited with OzJane
http://five-minutes-of-fame.blogspot.com/ for a few hours.  Jane made us a very scrumptious lunch and her friend Sue came around to show me how to make a very intriguing needle holder that opens from either side and turns the opposite side into the hinge.  Very hard to explain without a video to show what I mean, but it looks like magic!!!  I am now addicted to making these and will give them as gifts to the quilting group ladies who visit here each month and for all the girls in my family for Christmas as well as anyone else I can think of.  I made my first one that night in our motel room and it was a success!!!

After being thoroughly spoilt buy Jane we drove to Ballarat and went to Bird World  http://www.ballaratbirdworld.com.au/   on Friday morning.  It's about a 1km round walk through the sanctuary and aviary but on a board walk, so I decided to brave it.  I'm so glad I did.  The birds were wonderful.  We started off looking at the birds in the cages, a long line of quite roomy cages and plaques with information about each species.  When we got to the black cockatoos I found bits of stick to give the inhabitants because I know cockies love nothing better than to chew a stick to sawdust.  They all came to the wire and appreciated my efforts and were all so gentle.  A few of them were talkers. 

One Major Mitchell parrot went through a whole repertoire of words and sounds - hello, wolf whistle, even a meow and the hackneyed, Cocky wants a cracker.  I told him how disappointed I was in him for being so trite and he hung his head in shame, then went back to wolf whistling at me to try and win my favour again.  It's been so long since anyone has whistled at me that this ploy was a complete success.  While we were talking to the Major Mitchell and tickling the foot of a very big black cockatoo next door - he held the soft underpart of his foot up to the cage for us to stroke -, the owner of the sanctuary came out of his back door and spotted us.  He stopped to talk about his birds and ended up taking us into the cage of the black cockatoo, who's name is Jessie.  I never did figure out if Jessie was a boy or a girl.  The owner referred to him as both he and she while talking to us, and I'm not expert enough to tell by the colour of the white spot under Jessie's tail.

Jessie fell in love with Graeme and hopped on his arm while Graeme was paying attention to the owner.  Jessie then travelled up Graeme's arm, settled on his shoulder close to Graeme's face and lowered his/her head near Graeme's obviously asking for a snuggle (we'd seen the owner snuggle with her when we first entered the cage).  Well, Graeme, might scratch a parrot and even offer his finger for the parrot to hold hands, but there's no way he'll snuggle with a parrot so he pretended not to understand what Jessie wanted, even after I patiently explained the bird's intentions to Graeme!  Jessie had to make do with what Graeme would do, and lots of pats and kind words from me of course.  I introduced Jessie to the delights of having under his/her wing scratched.  I don't think anyone had done that before because at first he/she was reluctant to raise her/his wing, but once I started scratching Jessie's wing stayed up for the rest of the visit and more requests for such scratches were made.  That's my galah Hedwig's favourite scratching site so I thought other birds would most likely would appreciate it too.

All the time we were in Jessie's cage the Major Mitchell was doing everything he could to get my attention, so I divided my time between the two.  I couldn't offer him a scratch of any sort though because he was a biter.

We then said a sad goodbye to Jessie and walked the rest of the aviary.  Through the free flight section we were stalked by a gorgeous red and green parrot who met us when we first approached the aviary by landing on the wire and talking to us.  Once we'd gone in he dive bombed us from time to time, not threateningly, just playing, he came nowhere near us and was so obviously having fun that we weren't at all worried about him.  We didn't realise he was hatching an escape plan. Just before we reached the end of the aviary he left us.  When we got the gate there he was sitting on the post near the exit.  We stopped and chatted to him and he made it plain he didn't want to be touched, so I contented myself with just passing the time of day with him.  While we were chatting he climbed onto Graeme's arm and sat there with an expectant look on his face.  That's when I realised he was hoping to be sprung!  He wanted Graeme to carry him out of the cage and into freedom!!!  When he realised that this wasn't going to happen, he took off in a huff and we left the cage quickly in case he returned to fly through with us.


We had a great time.  Jessie is welcome to come and live here at Spring Rock any time he/she feels the need for a change of scenery.  The Major Michell is welcome too, even though he is a biter.  With his wolf whistles to stroke my ego he'd be a wonderful addition to the menagerie.

Ambrosia And The Owl

Ambrosia has added drug addiction to her many sins. I don't know if you remember the children's toy that was in the news a while back. It was a set of beads that children could lay out in any shape they liked, spray with water and they stuck together creating a little sculpture made of plastic beads. As it was reported in the media if they were sucked hallucinations were often the result, and as little people tend to like to suck things this was a pretty drastic side effect. The company that sold them recalled all the bad beads and got to work to create a none hallucinogenic bead. When the original beads first came out my granddaughter Hannah was given a set as a gift. She made me a little bead owl for my owl collection. I duly thanked her and admired him as a true work of art. None of us knowing the potential this owl had for causing trouble. Hannah was so proud of herself when she made it for me. It was one of her first works of art with her new toy. She wanted me to keep it after all her other bead creations and the bead set itself had been thrown away. Hannah just gave me a lecture, complete with wagging finger, telling me never, never to suck the owl she'd made for me. I promised faithfully, but sadly Ambrosia has made no such promise.

Ambrosia went through a phase of stealing my owls. Every day I'd find another little owl removed from my collection and secreted somewhere around the house. I haven't found them all yet, but then again I haven't found all my thimbles or other sewing paraphernalia that Ambrosia finds so intriguing yet either. Then one day Ambrosia discovered the little bead owl. Since then she's devoted all her pilfering skills to getting hold of the owl. I've found it in all sorts of weird and wonderful places, usually with Ambrosia curled up asleep beside it. I've tried hiding it, putting it up high and covering it with other owls, but Ambrosia has always managed to find it. I suppose all those hallucinogenic drugs have a distinct smell for cats. Up until now Ambrosia hadn't done anything but pick up the owl and carry it around, just as she picks up my thimbles and carries them around or anything else that fits in her mouth, is portable and catches her eye. Last Monday the owl stealing took a darker turn.

When we arrived home from shopping last week Ambrosia was in the hall, lying down and taking it easy. I had hidden the owl in a tight fitting pot I (that's made to look like a tree trunk) earlier that day. It acts as a nest for Sad Owl, a soft toy and Hannah's favourite owl in my collection. Sad Owl was firmly placed on top of the bead owl. When I went in to investigate, after finding the soggy Beedo owl on the hall carpet with Madam lying prone beside it, Sad Owl had been lifted out and neatly put beside the now empty pot.

I retrieved the bead owl from the floor beside Ambrosia. She opened one eye to watch what I was doing, lifted a paw to stop me and decided that was too much effort. With a sigh Ambrosia resumed her slumber. She eventually recovered to some degree and rocketed around the house for a long while afterwards. No-one was safe. First she'd hurtle towards Nefertiti who was doing her best to keep a low profile and avoid all leopard type cats in the house. The trouble was the house seemed to be filled with leopard type cats. Ambrosia was everywhere at once! After Nefertiti moved to higher ground and pretended to be asleep Ambrosia turned her attention to Graeme and me. We spent quite a while sidestepping Ambrosia as she skidded across the kitchen floor in our general direction, with a startled look on her face. She seemed to have forgotten that if you try and stop on the kitchen vinyl after scooting across it at top speed, stopping is going to take a while to happen. I tried to catch her a few times to calm her down but she was having way too much fun. She'd wriggle out of my arms and race around the house as if it was full of frisky mice. Who knows, after her bead owl sucking, maybe she thought it was.

There were many comments from one member of the family (no names mentioned but you know who I mean) who kept mumbling that she should be put outside until she calmed down. Huh!! Catching her and holding on to her long enough to make it to a door would have been a fine thing. Not that I'd throw my little chemically confused cat outside in her hour of need. It was tempting at times - but no! I wouldn't do it. Eventually Ambrosia wound down. Then she came and cuddled up to me and went to sleep - exhausted after her busy day. I have now hidden the troublesome bead owl inside a cylindrical box with a tight fitting lid and a heavy owl sitting on top. I hope I've finally thwarted Ambrosia's access to drugs.

Now all I have to do is watch Ambrosia for withdrawal symptoms.


Isn't he beautiful? Who knew the problems he'd cause.

Worming Pets Can Be A Health Hazard

 Winter is here and the dogs are spending their days dozing in any sunny spot they can find, the cats are living in front of the heater and the ferrets have retired to their polar fleece sleeping bag.  This means not much blog worthy is happening at Spring Rock at the moment, so I've dug up a story I wrote back in March 2006.  

I'm feeling very sorry for myself at the moment. I fell down the back stairs yesterday and I'm now sporting the most interesting collection of bruises all over my body. Yesterday was worming the pets day – a day I really dislike. With the variety of livestock I have, the methods for getting the various chemicals down the correct throats are as diverse as they are ineffective.

I began my assault on the “Spring Rock” worm population by worming the cats. I used to be able to buy a tasty paste that you spread on each cat’s paw and then sat back and watched the cats get stuck into it. As they cleaned their paws you could hear them saying, “Yum, yum,” or the cat equivalent anyway. I can’t say that that was the resulting scenario around here, what with the squirming, twisting and turning, the paste ended up all over the cats, but once the stuff was distributed to each cat paw, face, back, tail or whatever, but they definitely cleaned it off their fur and rarely tried to spit it out afterwards.

The co-op where I buy the worming medications has had a change of policy. Farm cats don’t get wussy little paste tubes to deal with their worms any more. Farm cats are tough. Farm cats get a tablet and can like it or lump it. Well my cats lump it. The tablets come with a special little syringe type applicator. The instructions tell you to place the tablet in the holder, put the applicator in the side of the cat’s mouth and push on the plunger. Voila! The instructions don't actually say Voila! but they definitely imply it. One cat thoroughly wormed. Well, I don’t know how the cat test pilots reacted in the laboratories when they tried these new applicators out, but the reality in my kitchen is vastly different to the above scene.  

My cats are very sneaky and will eat around a piece of cheese or meat with a tablet in it and leave the tablet.  I've tried crushing the tablet up and putting it in meat or cheese, but then the cats just refuse to eat the offering at all. So I thought, what the heck, I'll give this modern technology in cat tablet dispensing a go.

First I put the tablet in the applicator, then grabbed the nearest cat (in yesterday’s case it was Lancelot), while Guinevere looked on with deepening foreboding. After a small struggle, whereby I lost a few patches of skin on my left hand, I managed to get the applicator into the side of Lancelot’s mouth and pushed! More squirming and clawing on Lancelot’s behalf and then, phteww, one tablet on the kitchen floor. I repeated the tablet insertion process a number of times trying, to introduce a slightly different technique each time – put the applicator in the other side of the mouth, put the applicator in the front of the mouth, prize Lancelot’s jaws open and go straight to the back of the mouth, throw the dispenser against a wall and use my fingers to poke it down, but none of these resulted in a swallowed tablet. By now the tablet was looking very second hand. I had a little think and decided to give the “wrapping the cat like a mummy” technique another try. I usually end up trying this as a last resort. 

I have to admit that I’m not a dab hand at cat wrapping. There always seems to be more than the standard issue of cat legs and teeth while I’m frantically wrapping, and some of those extra legs always end up poking out with claws extended in my general direction. This time was much the same. After a couple of aborted attempts to get the tablet to its final destination and suffering more skin and blood loss, I ended up with the bits of Lancelot that were sticking out of the towel in a classic half nelson wrestling hold, while I tried to use my left hand to open his somewhat reluctant mouth while still keeping a firm grip on the bundle with that same hand. It wasn’t easy. By throwing my body over the towelled bit of cat, and holding him down that way, Lancelot finally had the worm tablet in his mouth. Various obscene cat threats were being issued through the jaws I was clamping shut, but he refused to swallow. I waited. Lancelot waited. I stoked his throat with my spare hand. He glared at me and issued more threats. Little bits of dissolved tablet dribbled out the side of his mouth. I scooped it up and smeared it on his paw (just like the paste of times gone by). This standoff went on for a while with both of us glaring at one another, until Lancelot finally gave in and swallowed the tablet. I gave him a drink of milk to show there were no hard feelings and Lancelot and I were friends once more. Lancelot has a milk addiction, and anyone (me that is) who supplies his habit is his best friend, no matter what personal insults have gone before.

Guinevere on the other hand, is a totally different kettle of cat. She had been sitting under the table, watching the proceedings and enjoying Lancelot’s discomfit. As soon as Lancelot was tucking into his milk, Guinevere realised that she was most probably going to be next and scooted out of the room as fast as her paws could carry her. I eventually located her under the bed in Justin’s room and from there chased her under various other pieces of furniture throughout the house. I managed to corral her by closing doors as we left each room and restricting her to the small hall we have, and after just as much trouble as I had with Lancelot, Guinevere too was wormed.

Great! The worst job done I figured.  I have a lot of experience with dogs that don't like tablets.  Years ago I inherited a Whippet named Buffy who took not taking tablets to an art form.  Buffy had a hair lip and buck teeth, but I don't suppose that was the reason she wouldn't take tablets.   She could hold on the them as long as you were around and then spit them out later.  I took her to the vet's one day and he said she had Tracheitis or some such throat ailment.  He said that a course of antibiotic tablets were the cure.  

I said, "Buffy doesn't take tablets."  

His reply was along the lines of every dog will take tablets if dealt with forcefully enough.  I just repeated that Buffy didn't take tablets and I was sure I couldn't get a week's worth into her.  With a big sigh he popped the tablet in her mouth, held her mouth closed and covered her nose.  After she began to turn blue and appeared to swallow he let go.  Buffy popped out the tablet on the table.  I just looked at him without commenting.  He then heaved another sigh, wandered off and rummaged in his equipment drawer and returned with a long rubber hose with a spilt in one end and a syringe on the end.  In retrospect, this obviously  worked along the same lines as the cat tablet inserter I described earlier.  He put the tablet in the slit, pushed the rubber hose right to the back of Buffy's throat and depressed the syringe. Buffy's eyes popped out in surprise and he then once again held Buffy's mouth shut until she swallowed.  He let go and was just about to get rid of the syringe when Buffy gave a delicate cough and produced the tablet yet again. 

The vet looked at me as if I'd spat the tablet out.  I returned his look with a very innocent one of my own and said, "Buffy doesn't take tablets."

After suggesting we put the dog down and my negating that option he decided to give her a long lasting injection.  Happily Buffy survived the throat infection and lived for many, many non tablet taking years.

Back to the current worming episode.  The dog worming medication these days is in the form of meat flavoured chews and all but one dog love the taste. It hardly seems fair that the Co-op has no philosophical problems with farm dogs being pampered with meat flavoured worm tablets while farm cats are expected to do it tough, but I digress.  I gathered the chews and headed out the back to administer them to the canine population.

As I said, all except one, Shadow the Silky Terrier type, love them. This pro-worming chews attitude creates its own problems. I have to be very careful that each dog gets it correct dose and the others don’t to steal someone else’s dose, resulting in some very wormed dogs and some not at all wormed dogs.

Billy was first. His chews are the giant, economy size. He needs two huge chews and a medium sized chew. Billy is more than happy to take them, but finds that they are too small for his big, floppy mouth to hold onto. I have to stand over him and supervise his cleaning up all the dropped bits. Unfortunately this means, picking up the slimy morsels and poking them into Billy’s mouth. But in the scheme of things this is easy work, if very messy and I count my blessings. If Billy didn’t like them there would be no way I could keep a tablet in his mouth, with his acres of droopy mouth he’d be sure to find somewhere to spit it out.

So Billy was finally dosed. I then turned my attentions to Shadow. Shadow has a sixth sense about worming and even though she can no longer see or hear, her nose told her I was up to no good. She then retreated to the laundry and tried to blend in with the scenery. I grabbed as much Silky as I could manage, flipped her over and opened her mouth. While she grumbled about the indignity of it all, the chew was popped into her mouth. Shadow glared at me through cataract clouded eyes and swallowed. Well that was easier than I expected, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, or a Silky for that matter, so I turned my attention to my two hyperactive Kelpies.

Juno is the lowest rung of the doggy social ladder. All other dogs keep her in her place, and she’s quite comfortable there. No amount of self esteem lessons on my part has convinced her she’s as good as the other dogs so she stays oppressed and seems quite comfortable with her lifestyle of being bullied by all and sundry. I therefore wormed her sister Dione first, with the intention of giving Juno her chew while Dione was occupied with hers. Billy was behind me, offering to take this chew off my hands and deal with it himself, but he knew if he tried to steal it, there would be trouble, so he waited patiently in case the chew became mysteriously up for grabs. Dione on the other hand, was watching carefully and planning her stealing the chew from Juno strategy as she munched on her own one. Just as Juno tentatively moved in to take her chew, Dione made a lunge for it too. I moved quickly to fend Dione off and stop her eating Juno's share. Almost immediately I knew I’d done the wrong thing. I found myself overbalancing on the edge of the back porch and then tumbling down the three concrete steps, hitting each step as I went. I lay at the bottom feeling very sorry for myself for a short while.

Billy was still standing at the top of the steps with no thought in his head except trying to will the chew to move in his direction through the power of positive thinking. When he saw me lying at the bottom of the steps, surrounded by anxious Kelpies, he took immediate action to remedy the situation. He assumed the Kelpies were responsible for my predicament and in fact on the verge of attacking me.  The fact that neither Kelpie has a nasty bone in its body didn't change Billy's mind.  I was in trouble and Billy is my protector so he

raced to defend me. 

There I was, lying prone and aching all over, while Billy stood protectively over me, drool and all and told the Kelpies a few home truths about their behaviour.   The Kelpies, were all too anxious to explain themselves and try to wriggle out of any responsibility for my difficulties, but Billy wasn't listening. He lives by the credo that if there is to be any knocking down of Mum, he'll be the one doing it, and woe betide any other creature that tries. Needless to say I had to stop feeling sorry for myself and get up before I found myself in the middle of an energetic doggy debate on exactly who was to blame. Thankfully through all this time the worm chew remained untouched by all contenders and I was able to pick it up and give it to Juno while Dione and Billy continued their discussion.

I then painfully climbed up the steps only to discover Shadows chew lying on the tiles in a soggy, discarded heap while Shadow stood by doing her best to radiate an aura of innocence. I had to go through the whole Silky worming technique again and again! I'm in too delicate a condition to recount that worming exercise, but just let me say, it wasn't pretty :)

In Which We Once Again Visit My Toilet Habits

I know I have posted before about the dangers of using our toilet.  It's not that I'm obsessed or anything but just a warning.  This post is going to be cover that topic yet again.


For those of you that are new to Life At Spring Rock our only toilet is located in the laundry which is outside our back door on the porch.   All our dogs have tried to lay claim to it over the years.  Some have been successful, some have had to wait for the another, tougher dog to die of old age, and some are still being kicked out whenever they put a toe over the threshold (Juno and Dione, the Kelpies, will never give up though - they've been trying unsuccessfully for over 12 years now).  You can read about the wars for laundry domination here   http://lifeatspringrock.blogspot.com/2009/01/battle-for-laundry-floor.html  and the difficulties faced when using our facilities here   http://lifeatspringrock.blogspot.com/2009/04/please-take-care-when-using-our.html

Once gain, it's all about Billy.  I often tell him it's a good thing he's such a handsome fellow (just look at the photo above to see how gorgeous he is) because he certainly causes enough trouble in the menagerie.

Billy is now channelling his Swiss ancestors and enjoying the cooler weather, but he is becoming a bit of a problem in the laundry/toilet yet again.  I suppose it all started when I had to push him out and close the door a couple of days ago while I was dyeing fabric.  The laundry just isn't big enough for fabric, dyes, dye-pots and other dyeing paraphernalia, myself and one large St Bernard.  As Billy has yet to master the art of fabric dyeing that meant he was the one who had to go.  He tried closing his eyes so he couldn't see me pointing towards the door.  Being deaf, this is his supreme weapon in the fight to do as he pleases and Billy uses it at every opportunity.  Since being turfed out  that day he's re-claimed the laundry as his territory and refuses to budge an inch when I want to use the facilities.  Billy sprawls himself out the full length of the floor with the majority of his bulk right in front of the toilet, closes his eyes and assumes the look of an exhausted dog just catching up on some well earned sleep.  

I get up at 6am.  Well my body gets up, my brain takes another couple of hours to join it.  Consequently I try to operate on autopilot until my brain catches up.  Visiting the laundry used to be so simple I could do it with my eyes closed.  Lately I've encountered acres of St Bernard almost wrapped around the toilet base and overflowing out far too far to manoeuvre around him.   I tried, poking him with my foot, pushing him from one end or the other and just grumbling ineffectually to his deaf ears. Nothing worked.  Billy stayed put and feigned sleep.  I knew he wasn't really asleep because he wasn't snoring.  In the end I practically had to do the splits to accomplish my mission - no mean feat when your brain is stuck in neutral.   Billy didn't budge.  At one stage while still trying to position myself so I wouldn't fall off, I trod on Billy's leg.  Of course I apologised profusely - all Billy did was raise his head (giving the lie to being asleep), give me "That Look" and resumed his recumbent and possessive position around the toilet.  


I found myself apologising to Billy and making a bigger effort to not disturb Billy's pretend slumber any further ("That Look" has that effect on me I'm afraid).  One of these days I'm going to get a nasty injury trying to bend myself around Billy's recumbent figure while trying to use the toilet.  I shudder at the imagined scene in Emerency at the local hospital as I explain how I sustained the injury.



All I could do this morning was grumble to myself that this wouldn't happen to Graeme.

Protective Custody Spring Rock Style

Before I explain the title of this blog, Paula M asked: So the battle has been on-going for a couple of weeks now. Any sign of victory...for either side? My money is on the cat.  

Well Paula, we have had some success, but the battle hasn't been won yet by any means.  Ambrosia is jumping up less while we are around to do something about it, but we suspect she goes to town when we aren't in the house and sits on benches just to prove she can.  The over worked water bottle has been brought into use yet again for a new reason though, and that brings me to the title of this blog.

Chocha, my usually very boring axolotl has been placed in maximum security protective custody

That's my very heavy marble pastry board on top of her tank. 

Two nights ago, Ambrosia climbed on the box on the left side of this photo to have a drink of water.  We keep a bowl of water near the cats' food and they get a drink of milk every morning because they are spoiled cats, but Ambrosia and Tristan prefer Axolotl flavoured water.   As a matter of fact all our cats have preferred axolotl flavoured water.  Chocha, knowing her place in the food chain, has always shown good sense and stayed at the bottom of the tank doing her best submerged log impersonation and peace has reigned.  Ambrosia would have her drink and hop down without another thought about why the water tasted so much better than the water bowl water.

Two nights ago Chocha proved herself to be the dumbest axolotl on earth.  While Ambrosia was having her nightly drink of water Chocha could stand it no longer.  She swam to the top of the tank and rubbed noses with Ambrosia.  Ambrosia reacted just the way you'd expect a highly strung huntress to react.  First she rose about three feet in the air, performed a very fine double twist while she was up there and finally landed on the floor with a startled expression that had me regretting I don't keep the camera strapped to my body.  My next thought was that trouble was just around the corner and I was right.

Ambrosia sat down and had a little think about what had just passed.  Her normally calm water tank has sprung to wet, slimy life and touched her nose. Ewww!  Ewww! Ewww!  She stopped thinking in order to give said nose a good scrub followed by a thorough washing then resumed thinking.  Obviously there was something alive in her water tank.  If that was the case it was also obviously prey!  Why you ask?  Because to a young Bengal cat if it moves its prey.  It might be the play with it and stay friends type of prey (Nefertiti, Tristan and her favourite toy, The Christmas Duck)), play with it and feel superior because I am so much better at hunting than they are  type prey (Graeme and me), catch it, wrestle it to the ground and never quite win, but never give up until Mum intervenes prey (the ferrets) or the very, very rare, if you can catch it you can chomp on it prey (mice, moths and other insects).  Ambrosia suspected that this prey fell into the last category.

"Well now," we could see her thinking, "This is going to be FUN!!!"  Ambrosia climbed back onto the box and began her hunt.  This would take a bit of finesse.  She began by just sitting there waiting patiently for Chocha to come back up and rub noses again.  While Chocha may be the dumbest axolotl in the world she is not completely without self preservation instincts.  She went back to her submerged log mode and kept her head low.  Meanwhile, I  removed Ambrosia from the box and told her her fish tank water drinking days were over.  Ambrosia was no sooner on the floor  that she'd jumped up on the box again.  This time she knew she was going to be removed just as quickly so she dove her foot into the water trying to scoop Chocha out before she, Ambrosia, was removed to the floor once again.  Chocha panicked, an emotion of which I thought an axolotl incapable, and swam to the top of the other end of the tank. "Right!!" thought Ambrosia as she was dragged away, "Progress is being made!"

I sacrificed my sandpaper board (used for tracing patterns onto fabric) and placed the Contact covered underside on top of the tank.  This board is only made of sandpaper, cardboard and Contact so I wasn't hopeful that this would keep Ambrosia out.  I advised Graeme to ready the water spray bottle that was closer to him than me (he's a better aim anyway) and the battle began.  

At first Ambrosia inspected the board, sniffed it all over and decided it wasn't going to present much of a problem.  From where I was sitting I too was inspecting it for weaknesses and I was inclined to agree with Ambrosia.  I readjusted the end so that it was under the craft box's little overlap bit in an effort to stop the board simply being flipped off.  Huh!  Ambrosia wasn't going to try anything that delicate.  She jumped on the long edge of the board sending it flying, rushed up onto the box again while Graeme was scrabbling for the spray bottle and tried to scoop Chocha out yet again.  Water was everywhere, the spray bottle had been brought into play and little sprays of water marked the lounge chair, floor and craft box, Ambrosia's feet were wet and Chocha has actually managed to make a small wave that overflowed the top of the tank in her panic.  

This problem was going to take more thought on my part.  We needed either a new tank with a top on it or something heavy and waterproof to act as a top.  We'd only been in town shopping that morning so we couldn't find anything permanent for another week when we go to town for our next weekly grocery shopping day.  I sacrificed my marble pastry board.  Graeme settled in on top of the tank while Ambrosia watched from the floor.  I could see her little brain working out ways to dislodge this prey acquiring obstacle as well.  As soon as the marble board was settled in place she jumped up and tried the same trick she'd used for the sandpaper board.  No luck, also another jet of water streamed her way getting her right between the ears!  Ambrosia eventually called it a night and took up a disgruntled position near the heater while she planned her next move, to be executed at a later date.  Chocha returned to her normal routine of doing nothing and peace returned to our loungeroom.

Ambrosia is still considering her options.  Why she has been adopted by a pair of prey loving humans she doesn't know.  What she does know is that these humans are going to have to learn that this in now her house and all prey are hers by Divine Right.  Until then she'll have to settle for swatting and wrestling the occasional ferret and making jungle cat growley noises while eating her canned cat food.