Miss Thunderpussy returns...

We have had a few stressful days with the rabbits escaping and causing us a headache, so we had to build another new enclosure for them to live in. Unfortunately they displayed amazing digging abilities, and refused to stay where they were put. One of the rabbits decided that he didnt want to live in the enclosure and leapt out every day, much to the house guests amusement when they found him sat on the door mat every day waiting to come into the house.

However, Miss Thunderpussy decided that she would dig a tunnel in a similar fashion to the great escape and left the compound. We looked for her, but to be honest there is hundreds of square feet of mountain to explore, the chances of us finding her were slim. All I hoped was that she had gone off to live with a colony of wild rabbits and was running free....

Days passed and no thunderpussy, so we moved the enclosure, recaptured hoppity and made plans to replace miss TP. But amazingly she was found, by my son who was in the bottom orchard playing when he spotted miss TP casually eating mangos. I was so shocked, but also relieved as it is never nice loosing an animal.

So, Miss TP is safely back home with the other rabbits, they have a nice new enclosure with a concrete base, armed guards, and 24 hour surveillance! She was welcomed home with some bunny loving, and a big bowl of food, so lets hope she is happy and contented now.

Operation duck pond and extension

I am beginning to feel that I spend most of my time walking round in circles repairing things that have been broken. When the duck house and pond were first built, we never imagined how big the ducks would grow to, and now we have three large ducks and Jessica the monster duck. We keep eyeing her up and deciding how many duck pancakes she would make, honestly she is HUGE!!!

People even comment when they arrive, with oh wow ducks, oh my god look at the size of that duck!! therefore, our compact and bijou duck house no longer can accommodate the ducks. We think this is why Lucy has stopped laying, therefore, a duck extension needs to be built sooner rather than later. I not talking a mansion here, just something that can be built on the side of the house to accommodate all of the ducks.

The duck pond also needs replacing as Billy has decided that chewing through the liner again is a fantastic idea!! So, this weekend I can see operation duck pond commencing which is a horrible job, but someone has to do it!! As my helpers have now left, to go back to the cold UK, with big smiles on their faces pleased to escape Casa chaos, looks like the duck renovations will be left to us.

lizards..

Lizards are a creature that we see quite often here, whether they be sunbathing on a rock, or climbing up the outside of the house being stalked by cats! They range in size from very small, colourful blue lizards to larger dinosaurs, that terrify everyone. Sometimes they come in the house, which is never good as they have to battle with the cats and an excited puppy.

Some months ago I sent Mr E a photo of a lizard attacking my daughters shoe (yes whilst on her foot) and he informed me that if he ever saw one he would..just DIE!!! Well up until last night he had been fortunate and Mr E and our scaly friends paths had not crossed. However, in typical casa chaos style he was never going to get away with not seeing one.

So, last night Mr E popped off to have a shower, and within minutes this high pitched screaming/cackling/snorting noise was being heard. Although I was curious to know what it was I was slightly afraid that he would have no clothes on so Mrs C was dispatched to see what the noise was about. After several more strange noises, and some heavy footed running across the terrace, the noise stopped.

Mrs C returned and explained that Mr E had encountered his first lizard, and "claimed" that a HUGE lizard had run down the back of the suitcase, and she had to go and find it. Earlier in the day we had a discussion on how large 7 inches was, therefore, she knew that his claims of HUGE were likely to be wrong.

Mrs C found the lizard and discovered that in typical man style his measurements were wrong, as she released the small, terrified lizard back into the wild. Mr E continued onto his shower not realising that lizards always go out in pairs, and Mrs C probably found the smaller of the two, lizards can survive in the hold of an aircraft can't they?

No Electricity....

I apologise for there being no blog yesterday, and I didn't realise so many people followed it until I received emails and messages asking where the blog was! Unfortunately we had no electricity yesterday for a huge proportion of the day, which was a huge pain. We were notified that there was to be no power all day, however, it still doesn't help when I rely so much on the power.

In casa chaos there is so much going on that if the routine gets muddled, the chaos gets worse therefore, no power caused a huge disruption. I work from home and need the Internet (yes I work as well as chase animals) so without power I went stir crazy...However, I did manage to fit in a very nice cup of coffee and a croissant in town with mrs C and  my son.

Then what to do, I did consider sitting under the light switch and pressing it every few minutes to see if the power was going to come back on, but guessed it wouldn't really help. I would love to claim that I had a full day of constructive activities, however, I didn't. After I stressed that I couldn't even have a cup of coffee, I decided that sleep was the only other option. Yes sleep is my next vital thing after coffee, and I embrace both.

After a little sleep I went to collect a kitten from the local animal charity, which is coming to join us in casa chaos. We decided to adopt another kitten to help  the rat issue, well that's the official line given to my husband, the truth is she was cute, small and had take me home eyes! Tazzy as she is known due to her behaviour like the Tasmanian devil is settling in well, and I'm sure she will soon understand the level of chaos.

Horse racing....

Who doesn't like a bit of horse racing, the thrill of the betting, the power of the horses, and the getting dressed up for the day in posh frocks, sipping champagne. However, in true Gran Canaria style, why bother with the race track when you can gallop down the main road. Whenever I think that living in Casa Chaos cannot surprise me any more, something jumps up and makes me stop in my tracks, and the horse racing did that on Saturday.

There has been a local fiesta in the next village for the last two weeks, and when these events are in full flow they have some odd traditions. Now, I don't mind strange traditions as long as I don't have to be involved. Don't get me wrong I have followed Sardines, jumped over fires, thrown tomatoes and danced in the foam. However, things have been busy around here lately so we didn't attend the local fiesta, and I had no idea what was planned.

Maybe if I had taken the time to go and read the poster, I might have known about the galloping horses! Saturday started as usual, chaos, shouting and general stress, however, it was annoyed further by a Spanish guy going up and down the road screaming into his megaphone. At points I listened, but just presumed it was the typical village idiot declaring his unhappiness about something.

I was wrong, it now appears that he was in fact indicating the start of the race! Eventually he shut up, and i went back to my desk, however, that was short lived as a policia bike went down the road at full speed, followed by two galloping horses, the man with the megaphone on the back of a pick up, and another policia bike.

If this had only happened once, I might have thought I imagined it, but no it happened several times, and we begun to watch. Road racing in Ireland is incredibly popular, however, they have banned it for safety reasons. As the Spanish and safety never quite understand each other, I presume why these riders are allowed to gallop full speed along a main road. Oh well it kept us amused for a while, and increases my belief that nothing amazes me any more...

New Battery's......

After the success of rescuing the last set of batterys and the fact that their feathers are now growing back, and none have died, I thought it was about time we did the same again. After many weeks of negotiating with the chicken man, haggling over the price, and trying to arrange collecting them whilst having guests here, the day had arrived.

My son had kindly offered to go with his sister to the "dodgy" area and collect the chickens. This caused much amusement as he had a hire car, I wonder if that was in the terms and conditions...1, do not drive off road...2, drive sensibly...3, do not transport chickens in hire car!! I also warned him that he was not to leave the car unlocked, or parked in one position for too long, or the local people would strip it bare.

So, off they went with promises of better chickens, prettier chickens and chickens that were the best. After last time my feeling was they could get no worse unless they were dead! My daughter text me whilst at the chicken mans hideout, which is a bit like the batcave but less glamorous. She informed me that the chickens appeared to have feathers...she also sent me photos of the "other" area of the chickencave, which held all the other animals.

We were told they were on route back to us, there were 4 boxes this time, all neatly packed with my new chickens. They were taken to the orchard and emptied onto the floor, and immediately you could tell that these were far better, they had feathers for a start. They had also had their beaks clipped, which indicated that they were on route to the battery factory, rather than leaving there.

This set of batterys are far more confident, they have no fear of twigs or leaves, and fit in well here in casa chaos. They do not know how lucky they are, as we saved them on their journey to hell and allowed them some time to be a chicken, rather than an egg producing machine, lets hope I am rewarded with lots of eggs.

Nature is strange....

Vicious Muma finally hatched, and although we waited days she only had one chick, which is incredibly odd. From a cluster of 16 eggs we expected slightly more, especially as she had 21 last time, however, it is just one of those things, which I cannot explain! When she begun to hatch we waited and waited, however, only one chick appeared. Then one day she was outside the feed room with her one chick meaning that she had abandoned the other eggs.

We rushed over to the eggs, but they were all still in one piece, which is when my heart sinks. You have to consider are they chicks, are they eggs, what do we do? On this occasion we popped them back under muma in a different location where she sat for another day, however still no chicks. At this point we resolved ourselves to the fact she wasn't going to hatch, and moved her and "Solo" to the maternity wing.

This chicken may be a bitch, but she knows her mothering skills, and I took her instinct that for whatever reason the other eggs just weren't going to hatch. When things don't quite go to plan, it is the time when my children look at me and ask 100 questions, which I just don't have the answers to. I don't know why they didn't hatch, maybe its just nature, which is an incredibly funny thing!

Solo is doing great being protected by the mum from hell, but he is a fighter and looks so small in the maternity wing. Hopefully with the wing clipping activities that is the last batch of chicks for a while, and the chickens can get back to laying eggs which is what they are supposed to be doing.