... and then there were two

Two more kittens went last night so the sign came down and we are keeping Guncs and Blackbeard. In case there was any doubt about how they all get on, in the pic is Schnukes, Dookes with Guncs cuddled up in the middle.

Loom / Loon

I am a little worried about Ian. I've been trying to discuss with him the fact that what we really need is a Loom. He kept replying that we already had one loon and that was enough. It must be the heat or something making him hallucinate. We've patently not got a north American aquatic bird living here. When I point this out he says that he was thinking of another loon. Strange.

Anyhow, confusion aside, we are now the proud owners of a 4 heddle table loom. No,I don't know what that means either. We bought it on Ebay and it is coming from Holland. Hoorah.

It was quite a bargain, and the people we bought it from specialise in spinning and weaving equipment and overhaul everything they sell so it ought to work assuming I can work out how to beat the weft whilst raddling, and other such strange things.

The pic is what it should look like,of course we have to assemble it so it might look slightly different when we've finished with it!

Bye Bye Thompson

A crowd of children came round on Monday night and we eventually worked out that they were asking about the kittens. Ian was remarkably quick thinking and told them to come back with their parents. It turned out that the girl who wanted a cat, was the daughter of a disabled lady who couldn't come out the house so we asked for her to come back yesterday and we'd take a kitten to her house and we could check it was OK while we were there.

Last night there was a knock at the door and the girl was there on her own, it was a little like the Wizard of Oz, she is a very little girl, and the door is very big. Anyway, one of our neighbours came round to help, which reassured us that the parents did know that a cat was coming.

She chose Thompson (who used to be called Gunc Twin). Thompson is the smallest. We thought it would be BT who is very friendly and cuddly. But BT had managed to eat a slug or something which had crusted around her mouth, and then was playing in the dog-poo bucket. Unsurprisingly this made her rather unappealing.

The picture is Henry, our new air conditioner, kitties and two of our Crocs.

Hail and Floods

Admittedly, Ian would have preferred that instead of wandering around with the camera I helped bail the house out - particularly as we were doing it for the second time in 3 hours, however I felt that this jumbo hail deserved a pic.

We commented on Friday that the kittens had yet to see rain. It rained a bit overnight on Friday, but just seemed to rain mud, the yard looked like someone had splattered mud pies around.

On Saturday it got darker and darker during the day until the heavens opened, and the kittens watched in horror as the rain fell from the sky and chased them into the house. Our gutters and drains were blocked and rain just built up and came flooding in through the back door. We bailed 70 litres of water out of the front bedroom alone! Our good humour started to wane slightly when it then hailed and the drain blocked and it all happened again.

Of course, solid floors, tiled walls and no carpets means that everyone was dried out and back to normal within hours. Many people were in a similar position and whereas we were trying to push the water back out the back door again, they simply opened their front doors, let the water run through, then get the mops out and give everything a polish.

Moral of the story: Ensure drains are kept clear and that guttering does not provide home to half the bird population in the area.

Ian demonstrating AGAIN that he is not a cat person

Kittens showing Ian how to use the new laptop. Look in the background and you'll see we have found Nanny's painting of Bridge Cottage.

Bye Bye Biff

Biff went off to her new home yesterday. It was a bit of a surprise, a young girl, her mum and granny came round to enquire if we had any kittens left. We got into a bit of a tizz as we quickly needed to decide which ones we would let go. We agreed that we would keep Guncs in case his eyes become a problem in the future, and Spot becuase I've never seen a spotty cat before. However all the others are equally good natured, healthy and friendly so we took them all in to see them. But what a surprise - with the exception of Biff the kittens were all terrified and ran away to hide. I don't know what up set them, but seeing that they quite happily stand their ground with the dogs, haven't seemed phased by any other visitors, their behavior was very odd.

Anyway, we always new that Biff would be the one to go. We were both sad as we'd grown attached and had assumed we'd be keeping them all. Although we do still want to rehouse at least some of them. I'm wondering if we might get other people come round now as word will get around.

Peaches

Much to our surprise our peach tree generated two peaches. Unfortunately Billy ate one, but we got to the other before it fell off the tree and it was wonderful. I don't think I would be exaggerating to say it was probably the best peach in the world.

Unfortunately the rest of our plants are not doing so well. The mix of hundreds of kittens, unruly dogs and heat has resulted in our pot plants going brown and crispy. Shame as we did have a colorful yard for a couple of weeks!

New Laptop

We've got a new laptop, which means that we can listen to the radio and work outside in the evening which is quite nice. It also means we can spend more time together, and actually talk rather than sending messages from the workshop to Ian's office and back again. I am sure the novelty will wear off soon.

I've been busy again gathering links for freeneedle.com, today I am concentrating on bags - there are loads of really good bag projects. I am enjoying looking at the tutorials, there is a lot of good stuff on the internet - it is often just a case of finding it.

It has been 10 weeks now since we had rain. Well, it did rain a bit a few weeks ago, but it appeared actually to rain dust. The temperature has dropped slightly, I don't think it has been as hot as last year, although you wouldn't want to do anything too much in the afternoons. We've had ice cream every day since we bought our machine. Well, actually it is frozen yogurt. I've not made any for a few days and we have used shop bought yogurt. I'm not certain that it is cheaper making our own as milk is fairly expensive here.

We need to get the dogs rabies jabbed this week. That will be fun! They need their jabs every 2 years here, so we have to get them done by the end of the month.

Update of Things

Wow - over a week since I posted.

Here's an update of what we've been up to.

• We've bought an air conditioner - and needless to say the temperature has dropped. it is great even though it does sound like a small train in the room.
• We've still got six kittens.
• Ian has started work on a new project - Spanish Village Shop, which he is going to run with Tony. They will sell Spanish food and things online - olive oil, saffron, jamon, other meaty bits etc.
• We've launched my new project www.freeneedle.com - it is a directory of free sewing and needlework projects on the internet - soon to be followed by some more sites, next ones will be themed.
• I've proofed the project in Interweave Crochet, the article for Writers News magazine and finished an interview for Cheap and Cheerful Crafts - or what ever the name of the magazine is. All for October publication!
• We've been in the midst of the emigre fiesta, so lots of strange faces in the village. We didn't go this year, but the dancing started at midnight again.
• Our weekend of fun was canceled yet again as we couldn't get Mapp gas. We need a brazing gas for my new torch, and we've only got propane butane mix from my other blow torches. One option will be to use propane with an adapter, however we're going into Merida tomorrow to look at woodburning stoves so we'll see what we can find in the builders supplies.

Well, that's it in a nutshell. More soon...

Kitten Modeling Braclet

Foot and Mouth

I cannot imagine how we would be feeling now, if we were still living in the UK with our animals. Well that's probably not true. I think I know exactly how we'd feel.

The imagination comes in when thinking about how farmers must feel. Whose livelihoods are once again in the hands of something completely out of their control. Whilst financially farms are protected perhaps by insurance and by compensation payouts - there is the horror of facing mass culls, seeing years worth of breeding and bloodstock lines wiped out at shot. Literally.

We were living in the centre of the outbreak in 2001/2, and even without animals it was a pretty bleak existence. Our cars were hosed down when leaving and entering the area, there were many students at the school who were either not able to leave their farms, or if they were at a critical school stage, were staying with friends off the farms. The country side was absolutely CLOSED.

We heard horror stories of culls, saw the funeral pyres the other side of Penrith, saw acres of fields which were empty of livestock.

The thought of someone coming onto our land and culling our animals is desperate, I hope that consideration is given to vaccination, and that culls are a last resort.