Cactus cat

All of our animals are slightly strange, bordering on weird and defiantly clumsy, however, Felix surpassed himself yesterday! Felix is one of our cats, who we love dearly and was saved from a group of kids dragging him along the road behind a skateboard. Due to the intense banging of his head on the road we do think he is slight more dopey than he should be.

Felix loves lizards, and will often bring them in and sit with them hanging out of his mouth proudly staring up at me like a small child that has just drawn on the white walls with a crayon. The cat has very few demands apart from never take his lizard away. His desire for lizards is extreme, and he will chase them everywhere including in cactus's as we discovered yesterday.

Just as I was about to sit down for a coffee with a friend, which happens very rarely in this house, Felix appeared covered in cactus bits. He had a huge part of a cactus sticking out of his side, and stupidly he had tried to remove it with his mouth! Therefore, Felix now had a mouth full of cactus spikes, they were everywhere, paws, face, mouth side, you name it and there was a spike.

Why cant my children and animals give me half an hour of peace without a drama! so we sprung into action tweezers and pliers were grabbed and without thought to my own hands, arms, face, and every other part of me that the cat scratched and a cactus ended up, we begun to remove the spikes. This is no easy task when the person who has stupidly got attached to the cactus sits still, and as you can imagine Felix had no intention of sitting still whilst I rammed a pair of pliers down his throat.

After an hour of struggle, swearing, and shaking my head how on earth he had got cactus needles everywhere, we finally were happy that he had them all out. We released Felix hoping he would go and lay down for a while and recover, however, to my complete disbelief he went straight back over to the cactus, in search of his lizard that has gone missing. Why o why can't any of my animals just be normal!!

Clear instructions..

The thought of gong away and leaving anyone in charge of this mad house is something that fills me with dread, and the possibility of us having a family holiday ever again is pretty non existent. The issue comes is that we know these animals, we know their habits, routines and "little" quirks. Dropping a sane person into this chaos would be a disaster for everyone concerned.

This point was proven not so long ago, when we had friends staying, and I was asked to take one of them and the kids to Las Palmas (the big city) My husband was working, which left the dilemma of the ducks!! these have to be put away before it lets dark, which is very simple to do, they know exactly where they have to go, however, they have to be secured.

One of our friends was staying behind, which was perfect, he is an intelligent guy, knows one end of duck from the other, and could cope with encouraging the ducks to bed with the "magic rake" or so I thought...we went off on our journey, and as the time approached that the ducks needed to be in bed, I begun to worry, like a mother that leaves her kids with the unsuitable teenage babysitter for the first time.

I thought I would just send a short, friendly text to ask if everything was ok..."NO" was the reply, panic set in and frantic text messages went back and forth, it seemed that he could not get the ducks in the house. This I could not understand as they just go in, bit of encouraging, but never a fight. Time lapsed further and he text again, sounding distressed and wanted to know what he could do, as my ever helpful husband had filled his head with stories of killer cockroaches that come out at night to eat house guests!

Another text appeared with the statement of " You do have four ducks don't you?" at that point the penny dropped clunk...clunk....clunk! The poor guy was trying to get our feral duck into the duck house, which was simply never going to happen. I had completely forgot about Daphne who lived with the chickens in the orchard, and believed she was a chicken, so never had anything to do with the ducks. Daphne had managed to wander past just at the point of bedtime, which was bad luck for her.

This mistake had resulted in a strange man chasing her with a rake, round and round until they were both very confused. Once the confusion was settled, the other ducks were put to bed, and Daphne went back to being a chicken, peace was resumed. This is why I cannot leave this place for more than a few hours, as how was I supposed to know that people do not think about the feral duck in the orchard that thinks she is a chicken, and will never be enticed by the magic rake!!

The Incredible Sleeping Cat....

Our youngest cat Diablo, has an incredible ability to fall asleep anywhere, for designated power naps, which cause us and guests a huge amount of amusement. This has become a daily occurance, and I even take pictures now to send to friends, so they can be kept up to date with the strange power nap locations.

The cat will be walking past and suddenly just sleep on the floor, which is funny, and not at all strange as I have the ability to do the same thing. I can also sleep anywhere, and have proven this ability several times, by falling asleep within minutes of sitting down, at the table, at my desk and in the car. However, Diablo seems to like strange locations for his power naps including, on the potato sack, dog bed, fish tank, kitchen table, by the duck pond, in the rabbit hutch, plant pot and under the car!

Its under the car that has caused the most concern as he simply does not move when the engine is on, and as proved the other day when the car is moving. Only I could manage to run our own cat over, but yes I did in fact roll the car over Diablo!! As I went to move from the drive, i heard this almighty noise, and realised immediately that there was a cat stuck under the car, I put the car in reverse and released the cat! leaping out of the car I caught up with the cat, and thought I had broken his leg for certain, and bundled him off to the vet.

The vet confirmed that I had broken his hip, however, as he is still so young, there was nothing they could do, and we simply had to wait. I was mortified, and as I watched Diablo hop everywhere i had mixed feelings of "why didn't the stupid cat move" to "feeling sick that I had run the cat over! The vet informed us that the hip would fuse back together, and in time they could break it again and re set it, but Diablo would not be very active for a while...with that he leapt off the table and proceeded to have a good nose around.

Diabo is hopping everywhere, and the hip has fused, but in a strange position,which means that he hardly uses the leg. However, this  has not stopped him, and he continues to run, leap, terrorise every other animal, and sleeps where he shouldn't, including under the car! Diablo certainly lost one of his lives that day, and I am just grateful that he was so young, that there is hope that he will recover fully.

Curry threatening time!

I fully understand that chickens are not machines, and that they have good and bad days, however, unless egg production picks up soon it will be curry time for some! Everyone thinks that farming is relaxing, however, owning chickens is the ideal way to turn you into an anxious, neurotic lunatic. Checking nesting boxes, counting eggs and pondering over reasons for very few eggs has become an obsession.

According to everything that I have read we have done everything possible to attract the chickens to the nesting boxes. Even the famous four, who should be old enough to lay now, are letting me down! There are some common factors associated with egg production including:

• Old enough to lay...check all of mine in the orchards are old enough...however, I am begining to feel that the famous four are late bloomers!
• Chickens all healthy and eating well....check, my feedstore bill indicates they eat very well
• Something to do with their pelvic bones, however, I have no intention of getting that intimate with my chickens and performing a pelvic examination, therefore, I am passing on this one

The nesting boxes are large enough, comfortable enough, have the correct bedding, and are even plumped and fluffed everyday! The chickens love to explore the boxes, kick the bedding out and cause a huge mess, but no incredible egg laying happening!

As I stood in the chicken coop I found myself threatening the freeloading hens with the chicken pie fate, and hoping they were just going through a bad patch..we will see! if not it may be time to call the chicken man, who knows exactly how to deal with chickens that don't lay!

We weighed the pig!

Alongside this blog I also keep fans updated on Facbook with day to day activities that happen, and usually this involves the 30kg lump of lard named Peppa. Like a child Peppa has good days and bad days, and yesterday was a bad day! she has quickly worked out that her brain power may not be the highest, but her fat to pig ratio is massive. This means that when she applies her full bodyweight against something it typically collapses.

We are not pig pen building experts, and even Google cannot help to keep the pig where she should be, so when she is in her defiant, I'm going to destroy everything mood she often gets out. Now Im used to my children destroying their bedrooms, and in fact one of my older sons did a tremendous job of his room when he was a teenager. We have the video to prove the devastation that one teenage boy can create when he is told NO.

Peppa is very similar and she can destroy everything in her path! therefore, I posted this on Facebook yesterday and someone doubted by calculation on how heavy she was! I had estimated that she was now a 30KG lump of lard. Further to my previous blog about how to weigh your pig, people had asked if I had i fact climbed in with her and measured her...my reply " Do I look stupid", however, I know someone who is stupid enough to grab her wellies and rise to the challenge.

We tackled this quest as we do everything here, 20 minutes on Google, then camera in hand and daughter in pig pen! Peppa considered the tape measure to be food, however, she considers EVERYTHING to be food. Once we had distracted her enough the measuring begun. Like a military operation the plan was to get in, get measured and get out!

Peppa had other ideas and she decided that today she wouldn't stand still, she would nip and bite everything within a 10 meter radius, and that all the attention was fantastic. Yet another task that took far longer than anticipated, the only good thing was I was on non smelly side of the fence with the camera. eventually we had the measurements, and off I went back to Google to work out the calculation.

I love it when I'm right, and I do gain satisfaction from saying the immortal words of "I told you so" therefore, when it was revealed that my guess of 30KG was not that far out I felt the warmth of smugness! I may be no pig farmer but I know my cuts of meat, and I had guessed 30KG when Peppa is in fact 36KG...which is not that far off...bring on the bacon!

How to carry the eggs...

Collecting the eggs that the chickens have decided to lay can be fun, it can also be challenging and dangerous. As you all know my chickens never lay in the nice nesting boxes that were built for them, they lay everywhere. Or the chickens that do decide to lay in the nesting boxes don't spread the wealth between the 10 nesting boxes, they ALL choose one box!

We have a basket for the eggs to go in, however, I forget it on a daily basis, and end up using anything nearby to place the eggs in. This includes feed buckets, scoops, pockets and if the egg ratio is more than 3:1 they will often go in the makeshift egg carrier called the bottom of my t-shirt. Some would call this initiative  others would call it laziness for not wanting to walk all the way back upstairs.

Whatever you call it, this activity happens often, and many times I will find the odd egg as I am wandering through the orchards. So, in complete madness these eggs will often go in my pocket!! Now, I have a lot going on, which typically means that I tend to have several lapses of memory throughout the day.

Therefore, the egg in my pocket will get forgotten, until it breaks, which is the oddest feeling as you realise that the goo running down your leg is in fact egg! I have learnt that the quickest way to clean up egg goo is with cold water, as hot water creates the strangest wet, scrambled egg! I have always considered myself to be intelligent, however, the egg in the pocket continues to be an event that takes place often!

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More for the maternity wing...

When a calima hits here, we are guaranteed of several things including no air, extreme heat and a batch of chicks being born. Every time the temperatures begin to soar, the eggs seem to think they are in an incubator and will hatch. We have been missing one of our ferel chickens for a while, and although we searched for her we could find no eggs or nest.

We knew that she would appear at some point, and why did I not suspect that this would be in the middle of the calima! We try and stay out of the heat as much as possible and ensure everything has water then run back into the shade before it become unbearable. However, yesterday "Honeybun" decided this was not going to happen.

My daughter was walking back up the drive when she heard chirping, now chicks chirping is quite a distinctive sound, and in the heat she could tell it was a distressed im really hot chirp. A quick 15 minute search revealed the hiding place of one mother hen and her chicks. Now don't ever be fooled into thinking that these creatures are clever or sensible. Yes, she had attempted to get home with her babies, however, by climbing up a mountain from the barranco, and managed to get herself wedged in between two rocks!!

My heart sank as I realised that this was not going to be a nice simple rescue, and as I carefully scaled down the hillside, I begun to curse chickens and their tiny brains. After 30 minutes, a lot of searching, and some major rock moving, we had mum and chicks in the box, and off to the maternity wing they went. Although the chickens are dumb, and they do cause me headaches, I would never leave them out in this heat...and they are rather cute!