MIA Shenanigans

Right...now that I've been "Missing in Action" for nearly two months I figure it's time to sit down and update this blog, ugh! So much happened just before, during the trip to Gtown and Kaieteur Falls with Stefi and Ana I have to gather my energy just to type about it!

The last few days in Karanambu for Stefi and Ana were a lot of fun, extra boat trips, swimming in the river with Bud and Caiman catching!
For one, we 3 finally made it for a weekend to the village of Yupukari and stayed at Caiman House - it was lovely, the set up there is awesome. The first time we tried to all get there for the weekend Stefi because so seriously ill that we thought she malaria (she didn't luckily) and a few days later Ana was also struck down. The weekend that we did finally go Stefi was sick again but determined, even throwing up over the side of the boat on the way wasn't going to stop her!

Upon arrival we were greeted by our usual Caiman House mates Nando, Mike and Jess. We also got to meet one of the owners of C.H, an american woman, Alice. She had heard that we were coming and knew that Stefi was a vet and so presented her with a completely skeletal, emaciated puppy that had be brought to her. Stefi was barely able to sit upright on the couch but thankfully I knew what needed to be done and helped her do it. We gave the pup a small amount of food and then I gave it a few sub-cutaneous injections of saline solution to help rehydrate it (Stefi was passed out in bed by this stage). That was my first encounter with a dog in that poor condition, completely emaciated, could just about see the whole skeleton, it had practically no fur, was swarming in fleas and had a decent collection of ticks too.
WARNING: Following picture may upset some people . . .


It was amazing to see the improvement with each spoonful of food (we fed it a mixture of cooked rice mixed with a bit of powdered milk). By the end of the weekend it was already starting to wander around and act like a bit of a puppy. I haven't seen it in roughly a month but I'm about to head to Yupukari and Caiman House today (28/04) so I will give an update when I get back if it's still there.


One afternoon Stefi and I were down at the river with Buddy and 3 of the boys Denton, Devon and Martin. They were having a ball running about the sanbank and swimming, they also proceeded to show off when we pulled out our cameras by doing forward flips into the river! I was impressed haha because I have no hope of doing that!


Here we have Denton or Devon caught mid flip - they are first cousins but are almost the same age and very very similar looking - more like brothers, and as such I am forever getting them mixed up!

The boys then proceeded to show off one step further by running up to the cliffs above the water pump and leaping off. Stefi and I took one look at each other and simultaneously said "Should we?", after questioning the boys multiple times about whether the water was deep enough for us we decided to go for it. It was hell of a lot of fun and an adrenalin rush! We have some great videos from it but unfortunately the net connection here isn't fast enough so those will have to wait until we meet up for a beer or some cake (I'm distracted with the thoughts of cake because there is a birthday today = cake!). Having my Olympus Tough camera which can get wet was a bonus, especially when I decided to go up to the cliff and take a video of myself leaping off and splashing into the river haha.


Stefi took this for me - it is definitely a favourite photo of mine, talk about Batman Skills on SHAZAAM!

*distracting whislte* I may or may not have just snuck into the kitchen to steal a cookie and peek at the cake cooling on the bench...

There were plenty more shenanigans down at the river such as

playing caiman


and doing the proverbial monkey climbing up this lone, dead, branchless tree


Here I am eating a snack with Bud, Martin is chilling in the background and Denton is being cheeky and mimicking me!


Throwing Martin off my shoulders like dad used to do with us down at the beach :)


Is it a plane? is it a beaver? Can it even fly?


Bel munching on some afternoon tea


Me chilling with ma homey Bud in lockup ;)


That night Stefi, Ana, myself and a few guests went out with the team from Caiman House to go Caiman catching - very cool stuff! The guys caught 2 caimain, the first one was an average sized male and the second would've been quite a catch except he wasn't in very good condition, you could see quite clearly that it was underweight.


Freshly caught caiman using a noose, Ash is taping its snout shut.


Measuring the head. You can see that the caiman has practically no jowls which is an indicator of health and weight. Big crocodilians in their prime and or in zoos will have big jowls and the base of their tail will be nice and plump and fat - these are their two main fat storage areas.


What're you looking at?


Very smooth and quite soft in a way...


Trussed up like a christmas turkey and getting weighed


WHOOSH! and he was out of there!

What a great night with not only Caiman catching but we also had a great gathering with all of the 'home team' as well as the good friends we've made at Caiman House. There was lots of great food, laughs and good times. Group photo time!


From left to right in the back row: Pat, Mike, Ana, Stefi, Jess, Diane, Ash (being a cheeky bugger) and then myself, Fernando and Gerry in the front row.


The next day it was time for fair wells, goodbyes and our 12-13hr bus trip to Georgetown. This was my first "real" bus trip as it were - dirt roads, no suspension, air con is the windows open and the bus zooming along. As "real" bus rides go I am quite aware that despite it's length this one is pretty cruisey. Yes at the end of it my kidneys had been shaken hard enough to create a Shaken Martini for the toughest of tough James Bond fans, my spinal cord was no longer attached to my brain and I had an inch thick coating of dust everywhere and on everything, there were no screaming, crying or vomiting children, no pooping livestock and plenty of seats to go round.


Here is our transport to cross the wide and briskly flowing river


Well I guess it's time to grab a cold coke and pull up a seat for a while...


Trying to catch a few winks - suddenly crashed (as in I was very tired and had a nap - not as in the bus ran off the road - it didn't...thankfully), but it was very hard to nap as before every sharp blind corner the bus driver would lay on the horn to warn any incoming traffic...did I mention the horn was very loud and very shrill...oh and there were A Lot of sharp blind corners on the way to Gtown...

The few days we had in Gtown before and after Kaieteur Falls we spent doing plenty of walking, exploring and gorging on yummy food such as pizza :P We also frequented a bar with our own lunch - corn chips, salsa and a block of cheese. They didn't mind because we were 3 charming young ladies (haha!) who spent hours there drinking many of their beers ;)


Good times at Windies

Bush Technician 101

Oh uh I guess firstly I should post some sort of "warning" about that fact that some people may find a few of these photos kinda "gross" or something...oh well....suck it up eh! ;)

This is for all my uni mates who are working hard to be vets and vet techs. I had a mad awesome time being involved in these surgeries, especially in such challenging conditions that called for a fair bit of poetic license and imagination!
3 Cheers for Rupununi Italian Bush Vet Stefi :D

There were 3 neuterings in all, in the order of dog - Blacky, cat - Sir Walter and 2nd dog - Soxy.

Here you can see the lovely Surgery Table ready and rearing to go. We used the wooden table in between the rooms of the trust house, covered with a plastic sheet, bits of rope ready to go to tie the dog into the right position if need be, drugs in the top left corner and gauze at the bottom.


Stefi was kind of nervous as this was her first unsupervised surgery, which would be harrowing enough without it being in the middle of the bush without a proper surgery table and equipment, no gas, no lights, wind blowing, flies everywhere and mozzies biting! She did an awesome job stepping up to the table as it were and it was great to watch her slice and stitch :D (yes yes I know, I'm weird).


Mid-surgery on Blacky, me on the left, Stefi in the middle and Ana on the right :)

Ana and I helped Stefi in anyway we could - holding the dog in the right position, holding stitches, holding testicles, checking Blackys breathing...all very cool.


Tada - The finished product: Blackys 2 testicles....2 removed, not 1, not 3 but 2. check.

My bathroom was then used as the patient recovery room - took out the washing basket and big mirror, and let him wake up in the quiet and dark. However due to a mistake that wasn't anyone's fault in particular Blacky escaped from the bathroom, still tottering and woozy. Unfortunately there was nothing we could do about it as he is a very nervous dog and at this stage we could barely get near him. So we just had to keep an eye on him from afar. Now strangely enough he greets Stefi and I quite happily, comes over for a voluntary pat and even wags his tail at us. For all he is a sweet he is still quite a cowed dog, which is a shame.

Stefi felt the first operation went so well, and so decided to do Sir Walter that same afternoon - she was on a roll! He was so much easier to do! Only one hole made to remove both testicles and no stitches! He healed beautifully, quickly and easily too, such a relief!
Hm I have used a lot of exclamation marks in this last paragraph...oh well...!


Stefi in the middle of removing one of Sir Walters testicles - so much tinier than Blackys!



Surgery over and successful of course - can you spot the testicles? haha. Sir Walter is still knocked out at this stage but slowly coming to. He then went into my bathroom as Blacky had vacated it. Stefi said it was important that Sir Walter woke up somewhere where he couldn't easily climb up onto cabinets, over walls etc as he was still woozy and could all too easily fall off and injure himself. The bathroom worked perfectly and he slept the afternoon away.

That night when I woke up to go to the bathroom I had to artfully sneak in without letting out the cat. He seemed happy and healthy enough and the whole time I was in the bathroom was spent with him winding his way around my ankles affectionately :)

Soxy was done a day or two later and the actual surgery went a.ok. It started with him being so to see us when we went to inject him with the anesthetic that he peed everywhere...oh joy haha.

After the surgery we spent a fair amount of time removing ticks from him as he was infested...no worse than that...riddled....no...Swarming with the things! It was rank. We pulled off approximately 84 ticks straight after the surgery and more after that until the count reached over 100 ticks for this 1 dog. No exaggeration.


Here the count was at about the 84 mark.

A hole in the left shoulder of Soxy made by a botfly or something...when the scab was pulled off and it burst leaking watery blood and puss all over the place...a lot of water blood and puss...GROSS!!!


Now because Soxy started chewing at his stitches as soon as he woke up we were forced to create a home made 'cone of shame'. This ended up consisting of an empty vodka box, electrical tape and rope.

He isn't looking too happy here haha poor man.

Unfortunately this box did not last. We went through 3 boxes over a few days and in the end there wasn't any point as it was too late to redo any of the stitches and both he and Blacky had by then chewed out all their superficial stitches. However with the help of a few antibiotic tablets for a few days they are both healing very well, they just won't have pretty city dog scars. They are savannah bush dogs after all ;)

So all in all this was a super cool experience for me and I was and still am so excited that Stefi is all too happy for me to give her a helping hand in all things she does :)

Over the last few days I have been helping her with all the cats and dogs - they are all due for dewormer and are also being given vaccines - one for rabies and one Triple for parvo virus, distemper and an intestinal disease I can't remember. I even got to give Waterton and Sir Walter their injections! :D Coool!! It was good practice for me giving the dewormer as the next time they are due (1 month) Stefi will no longer be here and I will have to give it to everyone, otters included. The boys Buddy and Philip are fine, Philip the Dim thinks he's getting more food so practically jumps at the syringe. Bel however, being the wary little creature she is knows something is up as soon as she spots the syringe. We have been trying to get her accustomed to it by putting it in the food bowl with her fish, so she is forced to get near it every time she wants fish and so will hopefully come to understand that it isn't going to eat her. Fingers crossed she accepts it soon as she is only going to get bigger and more wary and even now we can't forcefully hold her to give the dewormer without the risk of us getting bitten and her getting really angry and scared - which makes the next time all but impossible.

Also just last night I was helping Stefi sort her blood and faecal samples taken from some of Karanambu's cattle. Whilst she did the poo samples (haha) which consisted of taking some poop, putting it in a little container, mixing with alcohol and labelling; I looked after the blood. After it had been separated by the centrifuge I pipetted the serum into small little container doovies - I forget what they are called - and labelled them, leaving behind the coagulated red blood cells which are not needed.

I'll hopefully get the brain power and motivation to update again soon as I'm running a little behind :) Peace

Purple Sutures, Guava Cheese and Singing to Caiman

So I was on time to get this next post up a week since the last one. I started writing it around Wed/Thurs and then was like naah too soon. Now so much shiz has happened in the last few days it's now actually Tues! So here is technically last weeks blog and then there'll be another.

This week has been full of some madness, mayhem and cool shiz. So you know, the norm for out here. It will be a blog update of a few short stories as it were, so it jumps from story to story. Better keep up.

We had the river rise from this

The stairs were just behind me when I took the photo.

To this

Overnight.

Pretty freaking crazy. It must've been absolutely pouring rain down south in the Kanaku Mtns and then it all flowed here on its way out to sea.

This meant we had no where to be with Buddy at the first landing since there was no sandbank, which forced us to go feed him at the lagoon. Only problem was, since the water level had risen, the caiman had moved from the river, through the mangrove like trees and into the lagoon. Three of them, one particularly large one that does not respect Buddys territory, nor does he care about rocks and such being thrown at him. Problematic. So for a few days Buddys trips down at the river were rather short, especially when one morning he actually swam straight into 2 of the caiman and had a tussle. He came back fine, one little scratch and a little shaken up. Buddys otter 'friend' returned, and this time within about 10m of Buddy! Buddy however was once again completely oblivious because he was busy eating a fish. For now though it seems like this otter isn't interested in giving Buddy a beating otherwise he would've done it by now. He may just be looking for a companion.
Needless to say we didn't take the kids down for 2 days because the caiman were right there.

So we had a number of rather stressful mornings and afternoons but the water has dropped again somewhat which means the caiman seem to be less interested in hanging out in the lagoon and we can again access the sandbank at the first landing.

-
We have been having overcast, humid and muggy weather for the last few days with patches of rain. Patches of rain here seems to be it goes from overcast to near torrential downpour in 2minutes. Rains furiously until you are soaked to the skin, then slows down, stops, and the sun comes out . . .

Stefi and I were down at the lagoon yesterday when such a downpour occured. Funzies.

-
I've been eating lot's of new foods local to Guyana, most of which are pretty tastey. One is a fruit - a tiny little yellow apple that tastes like you are eating a thin slice of apple with a thick slice of strong blue vein cheese! Pretty cool, but can only do one or two at a time!

It is called a........Cheese Apple....not really. It does have a proper name, but I currently can't remember it...

There was a dessert two nights ago that was like a really dense cheesecake. It was made from Guava, so was a little grainy in texture wise and very very sweet. This is roughly how the following conversation went between myself and the others at the table - Diane, Pat, Salvador, Andrea and Pete.
I asked what it was made from and what it was called.
The response was Guava Cheese.
Why?
Because it's texture/density is like cheese. There is already the Guava fruit and Guava jam and this is something different again.
But it doesn't taste at all like cheese . . .
So what would you call it?
...Guava Cake...
-> laughter all round.
Well I mean really that seems pretty sensible to me haha. Ah well crazy guyanese. Pete said there is no way any Australian would call this cheese. Exactly.

-
Right now I'm munching on a piece of bread and chunks of cheese I begged from Auntie Doris and Girly in the kitchen :) my heroes. I was starving.

-
So Ana and I have been helping Stefi in her veterinary pursuits, which is excellent fun. We started off with the aim of getting blood from all the cats and dogs to test for rabies and distemper. They are going to be vaccinated anyway but it is important to know whether it is here or not.

Waterton and Soxy were easy as cake to get blood from, we just walked up to them, rolled them over and took blood whilst giving lots of praise and pats. They didn't even make a sound. Good boys! Old Boy was also very good, Alvin just called him outside, held him and we took it. However we don't have a chance to take it from the other 3 dogs without their owners holding them. We can't get near them - they know something is up, also even if we did manage to get a hold of one, there is too much of a risk that we would get bitten. A risk we don't need to take.


All the blood taking equipment - the razor, which incidentally was completely useless for use with animal fur haha; the needles from the syringes to take the blood (out of picture there is a special vial for collecting blood that contains a vacuum, so when it's pierced by the needle the vacuum sucks the blood into the vial - cool huh cousins?!); glass slides for making blood smears; and water for the razor (it's just water on the table too!).


Here is a fresh blood sample - Old Boys if I remember correctly and blood slides from Old Boy and Waterton.

One morning late last week we woke up to find that Waterton had come back from a romp on the savannah with a huge gash on the his left 'shin'.

So Stefi got to get her vet on for the first time really since arriving (aside from stitching a boys head when he fell of a horse). We are lucky Waterton is such a sweet sweet dog, he let us hold him and Stefi stitched him up with the aid of a local anesthetic. However the next day we found he had chewed out all but 1 of his stitches. We went to catch him and put more in but due to some shiz going down that didn't happen. In the end he now has no stitches but the cut is still clean and healthy looking so it should heal a.ok.

-
On one of the 4 nights Ana, Stefi and I were sleeping in hammocks and a tent because we were full of guests Stefi had the bright idea that she and I should go down and bathe at the river that night. So i warily agreed to said idea and off we went at I dunno about 640pm. We had 3/4 of a moon to light up the sandbank so could see pretty well and our torches hadn't spotted any nearby caiman eyes. I was a tad nervous at this point - it was really going against the grain bathing in a river, at night, that is full of caiman, especially after growing up in Australia where if you did that with Salties you wouldn't be there to finish washing your hair. We sang Piano Man (we have all been learning the lyrics religiously to keep ourselves amused) to keep back the nerves and the caiman. In the end it was a lot of fun but a little nerve wracking!

-
On a very cool note Buddy caught a massive stingray the other morning! I don't know what species but it was about 46cm in diameter. We saw him thrashing about in the shallows and I guessed it was a stingray because he was struggling too much for it to be a fish. Boy was he chuffed about it, he came over dragging it making very excited, happy noises and wriggling his whole body and tail.


He then spent at least the next hour and a half gorging himself stupid on the thing. Then when he was full he'd go off for a little bit and then come back and have another nibble - he did this several times. He also proceeded to present us with the half eaten stingray, probably to share with us

Thankyou Buddy that is very sweet but um no thanks.

-

Peace and happy travels to all :)

Next post will be about Stefi the Italian Bush Vet with Ana and I her technicians, neutering animals left, right and centre!

Another Day, Another Bite

Another update and a few more pics of the otter clan and finally an introduction for Bandit.

This is a large fish Buddy caught and promptly consumed the day before yesterday.

Buddy alternates between being our golden boy and a teenager with selective hearing. I have noticed since I've arrived - all of 3 weeks, that he is getting progressively harder and harder to bring up most days. Then other days we call him and he comes straight up, right at our heels, no issues what so ever... At his age it is getting towards the time he would be booted out of the family and have to make it out on his own. Unfortunately since Buddy is blind, if he were to decide to head out he probably wouldn't last a night. There has been some discussion as to the possibility of him going to a zoo - Jacksonville Zoo in the states has been mentioned. We'll have to wait and see...

This is what happens to a full bottle of mozipel (we morned its passing) gets into Buddys jaws...He took it into the water before we could grab it and we weren't about to grab it from his mouth because that is asking for a bite. Giant Otters are very defensive over their food. Even when it's not food. He chewed it thoroughly, enough to puncture it and send mozipel shooting everywhere. Needless to say he didn't like that one iota and sneezed repeatedly - we laughed and laughed at him, the sucker.

Uh..sleeping...angel..? He is no longer called a delinquent. He is no longer called a terrorist. He is now
Devil Child.


Philip for the most part is ok...it's the other parts that are the problem. He is getting worse and worse after the food is gone now. Instead of screaming and wandering over to probably eventually bite your toe/s he now charges like a bat out of hell screaming at the top of his lungs. He will either bite feet/toes or jump up on your legs (leaving scratches like mine) to try and reach the empty container and invariably turns and bites the inside of your thigh, which, is a rather tender place to be bitten. He has drawn blood or left a bruise 4 times. Inside of forearm, inside of thigh, index finger and big toe (that one was today).

I no longer try and wack him on the nose - that is asking to get a finger bitten...like he did mine. I am now getting quite practiced at standing my ground (even though he's only all of 6.25kg or so, he has a strong jaw with a mouth full of wild giant otter carnivore slicing, crunching, puncturing teeth), sidestepping his charge at the last second and giving him a good shove. This sends him sliding across the ground for a distance and seems to get the message across.

Two days ago he threw a massive tantrum down at the river and charged me fullball so I did the sidestep-shove, he immediately turned and charged again, so I repeated the sidestep-shove but harder this time, sending him sliding a metre or so. He looked up at me in alarm and barked (something they do when they are unsure of something (often something/one new) and backed off. That'll teach him.
Eventually.
Hopefully.
However that said he is still sneaky about some of his bites, and despite my mad skillz he can still catch me unawares P:

This photo of Bel was taken during their 1130 lagoon feeding. For some reason she often likes to come and eat near or on my feet :).

She is as sweet as ever. Salvador who hasn't seen her for nearly two weeks says she has grown. Stefi and I think she has despite the weekly weighing showing little to no difference. She is just growing at Bel pace...leetle bit by leetle bit.

Now comes the biggest culprit for biting me this week. Bandit the Crab-Eating Raccoon.

This was taken tonight when he came down from his tree to say hello. Since he doesnt stay still for very long I couldnt get a good photo of him checking me out and saying hello tonight. Will try again soon. As you can see is a very handsome, very muscley animal.

He used up my biting quota for possibly my entire stay in the space of 5-10minutes I guess.
Long story short he was pissy about being locked back in his night den for part of the morning. So he took it out on Diane and I when we let him out again at about 930am. When a 2yr old fully grown raccoon that is built like a cat crossed with a minibear on steroids with canines roughly 1.5cm long is pissed off at you, shit is hitting the fan, if you'll excuse the expression. I drew his attention off Diane because the last thing I wanted is for her to be seriously bitten, as it is she is bitten too much. So I walked the 20m to his tree which he sleeps in during the day with him dragging along - he had his hands wrapped around one of my ankles.

When I stood still at the base of the tree he then proceeded to alternate between jumping repeatedly up at my arms trying to bite them and biting and literally chewing on my ankles. So I stood with my arms crossed behind my back out of his reach. I stood stock still looking straight ahead not reacting to him at all to see whether he would get bored of it if he was paid no attention. Unfortunately that did not work. At all. He gradually bit my ankles and my damn ankle bone harder and harder, eventually he bit too far, I'd had enough and gave him a kickshove. It was beautiful technique - leg curled back, foot stretched out, clean follow through. Again it did nothing to dissuade him from his warpath.

During this time he had transferred to Diane a few times when she called him but I would quickly call him back so he wouldn't have the chance to bite her badly. Finally I'd just had enough of his shenanigans and decided what the hell just grab the little turd up. So I reached down, darted past his teeth and grabbed him hard by the scruff of the neck and picked him up. With Bandit his neck is practically pure muscle and loose skin so if you don't take a firm grip chances are he is going to swivel around and bite your wrist. Needless to say he went still very quickly, but the next thought was "now what?...the tree...dump him on the tree and maybe he'll get the message" so that's what I did, I half threw him at the tree.
Back he came. I picked him up again and by this time Diane had appeared with some of the otters left over fish. We showed it to him, put it on the ground and then I dumped him (rather unceremoniously) on said fish. Nope. Not interested. I held him by the scruff in one hand and offered him fish with the other but nope he really was on the warpath now.

I have no idea how long we were at it for but Kenneth (one of the guys here who takes people on guided walks and boat trips etc) must've heard the commotion - Diane was telling Bandit off rather loudly and I was threatening to pick him up and really throw him, like throw him up the tree - and came to the rescue. During the last moments of confrontation Bandit leapt up and grabbed a hold of my left hand, then as he fell back down one of his canines proceeded to slice open the meat of my thumb on the palm side (thankfully it was much shallower than it could have been). Needless to say I swore and threatened Bandit that hed soon be losing a limb. Bandit then realised that Kenneth meant business and bolted, after a few laps of the trees and otter house we ended up putting him in purgatory in his enclosure with only 2 bits of fish for Pat to come and let him out later.


After it was cleaned and treated with good old reliable Betadine.

So in the end not so long story short haha but hey for all it was a crazy experience it was also freaking awesome haha. At the end of it my hands were shaking from the huge and prolonged adrenalin rush of tussling with him. It also showed me that if I ever need to deal with Bandit again I have absolutely no qualms about grabbing him up by the scruff and doing what needs to be done, which for me is satisfying to know.

Since much of this post has been about biting which involves teeth here is a photo I took down at the river after Buddy had fed on most of this piranha but left the teeth behind. The teeth are shaped like some sharks...cool huh

Creatures of all shapes, sizes and personalities

Im not sure whether I have mentioned it already or not but aside from the otters and raccoon there are also 6 dogs and 3 cats.


Waterton sleeping at my feet under the desk in the office as I type this :). I think because there are so many guests in all of the rooms this is the calmest, quietest place he could find.

The dogs being Old Boy, Horsey and Blackie (all 3 dogs are black, Horsey has white socks), Soxy and Patricks Dog (no one knows its name) (both of which are a sandy colour) and then Waterton who is a white/golden colour and Pats dog. He is really the only one we have interaction with. He enjoys sleeping in my shower during the day where its nice and cool, dark and quiet. A more happy go lucky dog I have never met.

The cats include Garfield, an old ginger tom that no one knows exactly how old he is. He is the godfather of cats and a face that could tell many tales (resisted the pun of 'tails') with ears curled from mange in years past and fur missing on his cheeks. I think he is also missing a canine...he is a cool old fella none the less.



Then there is Sir Walter Raleigh (there are falls named after this dude in southeast guyana) who is actually owned by Anas boss Graham. He is a very very handsome ginger cat that now that he is a big boy annoys and tests poor old Garfield all the time. However Stefi and I have a solution to that *devils grin*...we like to call it "snip snip" haha. But seriously I cant wait to help her neuter Sir Walter, Soxy and Blackie :D it is gonna be the coolest thing ever!


Last but not least there is FancyFoot, so named because he was born with only two toes on each of his back paws. He walks a little odd but when he runs (like from us when we came at him with the dewormer) he runs juuust fine. He is black with the typical white bib and feet, a sweet but twitchy cat.

In the above pic you see FancyFoot hiding from us on top of the linen closet. We had the dewormer syringe...even tempting with fish didnt make him budge.

In terms of more wildlife yesterday there was a big female Iguana sunning herself near the trust house. So naturally we pulled out the cameras and took a few pictures from a distance. Then we snuck closer, and closer...and closer until we were less than a metre away. Gerry couldn't believe it because usually as soon as they see a person they make a dashfert (for those who don't know my familys 'language' haha dashfert = dash for it). Gerry reckoned she was gravid with eggs (are Iguanas gravid or only snakes?) but it was still odd for her not to run. Either way we all scored some sweet pictures. She did not like Ana however, so Ana did an Iguana pushup territory display - hilarious!


Next update, playing rugby with an otter and practicing shotput with a raccoon.