Snake!

We've got a snake living in the barn door - eeek!

It's a small one, so hopefully it will make it's way somewhere else to settle ...

Kittens, Cycling and Jesus

While this might look like there has been a terrible accident, Babbity Bumble was in fact sleeping on the beanbag. It is quite unusual for a cat to lie like this, so I think it is a sign that she is relaxed in her new home. So far they have met Davy who was very good, Sam who was a little nervous, Bob who was more interested in the contents of their litter tray and Dookems who is still recovering from shock.



We've dusted off our bikes and started going for a cycle ride every day. We've both agreed that this is a great place to cycle. Ian says it is good because it is nice and flat, whereas as I have been surprised by the amount of mountains that have sprung up. We rarely use the car and when we do we'd rarely take a track that we didn't know (unless it happened by accident), so this is a great way to see some more of the area.

Jesus is painting the side of the house. Don't know why this still makes me laugh after 4 years. He's doing it on a ladder, which takes some nerve. The side of the house is very high.

It's San Juan fiesta this weekend - and Spain have their next match in the World Cup tonight. What fun!!

Kittens and Chicken Herding

The kittens are settling in well. Babbity Bumble is just like her namesake, for ever buzzing around. I've found the Beatrix Potter books online - Mrs Tittlemouse (which is where Babbity Bumble appears) and Miss Moppet.

They are currently spending most of their time in extreme playing activities (including falling off things, into things, out of things or over things) or sleeping.

Today we decided that it was time to move the chicks back outside. They've been in the barn since they were hatched and therefore are not experiencing outdoors life. So we decided to herd them from the barn on the inside patio to the barn in the outside yard. It quickly came apparent that we were running the risk of having the house full of chicks as they seemed intent on going everywhere except for where they should, so we (Ian) had to brave the mother hens and rustle the chicks into a box - again. Happily, after a bit of clucking and crowing, they seem to have settled down outside. I was worried that the cockerals might be aggressive towards the chicks, but I think we have timed it about right., The chicks are big enough to be able to run around outside, but not big enough - yet - to upset the pecking order!

Lorna, Pisky and Fragel

We went to collect two kittens yesterday who were being fostered by the animal rescue center in Badajoz. The rescue centre is attached to the vet, so they only look after poorly animals there and volunteers foster the other animals. The lady, Ana, who was fostering Lorna and Pisky was lovely and we know that they have had a very good start in life. Pisky was Churrette, however Ana renamed her as she said she was a pisky, which I think is pixie. The other kitten we were interested in was Pipi, however he sadly died. Lorna is Pisky's cousin and two weeks older. She is really pretty, with calico markings, which means she is white, cream and grey. Pisky looks like she may be a tortishell.

We also met Fragel who we loved. Even though he is very poorly he was a real character. We would have bought him home yesterday, however he is still too poorly and the vet wants to keep him there where he can be supervised. We were worried that he may be caged, however he has full run of the vet premises and we could see that he got lots of attention and is probably a favorite amongst customers and staff. We have no worries about him fitting in with the others as he certainly seemed a nice character.

We are thinking of new names for the kittens. I had originally thought of Babbity Bumble and Tittlemouse. However, while Pisky is an absolute Babbity Bumble, Lorna is not really a Tittlemouse. She could be a Miss Moppet.

So, we're starting the kitten integration process. Pisky (or Babbity Bumble) is a little live wire, Lorna is a little more timid, but I don't think we'll have a problem.

I've been asked by my little class to give them two lessons a week during the holidays (that start on Wednesday). I'll happily do this, although it will be a challenge to keep them interested for 12 weeks!

Championes

Last night the village under-10 football team came round to show us the trophy that they had just won. They are local champions. There was lots of cheering and shouting of 'championes'. As the team members who scored a goal were shoved forward to say hello, I felt not unlike the queen as she meets the winners of the FA cup!

Cult of Kate

Ian calls my little class the Cult of Kate. Although, quite frankly, the Cult of Basil would probably be more appropriate. They quite often come round in the evening to see me (although we suspect it is really to see Basil), so yesterday we shut Basil outside so they couldn't see him. I don't know who was more upset, the children or Basil!

I've been asked to give a class to even younger ones next year. I think that they'll be five or six years old. In true cult fashion, I think it will be good to get them young!! I will probably do this as it fits in with my criteria of not having children whose English is better than mine and whose Spanish won't be that great either!

Manuel's taking down the roof of the chicken shed today. He is very worried about it falling on our heads. They having been starting work at 7 and have also been coming back in the evening too. This time of year what we call 'evening' they call 'afternoon'. Evening officially starts at sunset. This means that afternoons are very long during the summer. This means that if they come back at 8, that is still classified as afternoon! We don't really change our eating times much during the summer and this means we often have meals when Manuel and Mario are working. I am sure that they must look at us, as we have breakfast at 8, lunch at 2 and tea at 8.30, and wonder what meals we are eating. They would have breakfast at 10.30, lunch at 4 and tea around midnight! They could think that we are eating between meals snacks!

Chicks

They are between three and four weeks old and coming along nicely. They are going through the fluffy leg-warmer stage at the moment!

Three Little Pigs

My little class put on a special performance of the three little pigs for Ian. Somehow, during rehearsals, the end got changed so that the wolf was killed by immense screaming and being hit with pieces of paper. Obviously they all had to take it in turns to be the wolf. I think Ian appreciated the work that had gone into this and the fine acting skills. I must admit, however, that seeing the vast majority of the performance was either screaming or huffing and puffing, I am not sure how much English they actually learned.

They've fallen in love with Basil, and quite often in the evening the door goes and there's a little band of 8 year olds chanting 'Basil, Basil'. Of course, Basil loves this and enjoys the attention. I'm not sure if they will want lessons during the hols (which start in two weeks), if they do, I think I'll draw up some form of plan which won't entail high-pitched screaming. Pronunciation is a biggie, so this might be something we work on.

We've been watching with interest the building work at the Castle. It does seem that they are clearing some of the land now, perhaps with a view to landscaping. It's quite interesting watching what they are doing.

We've had a new water pipe put in, which means that all of our pipes are new now. We've had the metre put on the side of the house too, which will be better for everyone.

Rain!

It's raining today, which was a bit of a surprise. We've been getting used to the big blue skies and warm weather recently and not checking the weather forecast. My workshop is nice and dry though, so we can see that there are no leaks in the roof. Rain is forecast for tomorrow too.

I can tell it is getting warmer as I no longer have to fight for room on the settee with cats and dogs. We're still in touch with the Badajoz people about Fragel. He has had a bad case of diarrhea and is very thin, which is why they're holding on to him, but we'll probably be seeing him this week. The walks in a funny way and doesn't jump. It sounds very much like Sam's injury. We're also going to see Pipi and Churrette who are two kittens. If we only give a home to one it will be Fragel as he seems like the one that they'll have have problems homing, and I like the idea of helping him. Ian ("I'm not a cat person") is quite keen on kittens so we'll see... Ian wants to call a kitten 'Batman'.

Our new working routine is going well. Today is our 'PullenSite' day. We're working on MakeForWedding which will be wedding crafts. Our sites are doing very well at the moment, helped certainly by the exchange rate (revenue is in dollars) but we are experiencing organic growth too. After MakeforWeddings, we'll be launching MakeForOccasions. This will really be an extension of MakeForChristmas and will be things to make for parties and celebrations. After that we've got YumYumYarns which is a project that's been on the back-burner for a long time. We're changing the original plan so it will be a directory of handspinners and handspun yarn. The last one doesn't have a name yet, but it will be for graphic designers. This will be a bit of a change in direction, however it will follow the same lines as the others, but with some articles that Ian has written about different aspects of graphic design.

I'm so glad that we didn't sell FreeNeedle last year!

Having said that our new routine is going well, we're doing something different this month. We're spending all next week working on our things to sell. So Ian is working on his photographs, getting a collection organized and I'm working on getting a range of jewellery to sell. Our original plan was to do this spread throughout the month, but we realized that it is a better use of time to do it all in one go. We both really want to have things ready for Christmas - which as we all know starts in August!! The benefit of us working on this at the same time is that we can split things like researching post options and packaging between us.

Chick update: we can no longer tell Chickatita apart from the other chicks so that seems to be all going well.

Corpus Christie

Here are some photos from the Corpus Christie parade yesterday in Zafra. We missed the one here, I think it was in the morning. I knew we missed it as a couple from my class came round with flowers in their hair - and wearing roller skates. I guessed they weren't going to do the parade in roller skates!

Click on the pics to see them full sized. They aren't very good as you really needed to be up high looking down to get an idea for what the street looked like. But at least you can see their dresses and outfits.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10000greatideas/sets/72157624097573429/

Chickatita

Chickatita is at the front under Spot

Chickatita Update

Well, it is now very difficult to tell Chickatita from the others. She is one of the smaller ones, but that is because she hatched late, not because she is weak. It is really interesting, although there were only 5 days between the two hatches, the older chicks are noticeably bigger than the younger ones, and they've turned from yellow to white.

Chickatita has been following both Spot and T'other one so both mums have obviously accepted her.

Chickatika

Well, we decided that with our little chick doing so well, we'd put her out with the others. It's imperative to get then back with the flock asap if they are to be accepted. She's had the secret name of Chickatita (rhymes with the Abba song, Chiquitita, not 'chicken tikka'), however when her future looked bleak we stopped calling her that. There is a big risk introducing her now, as her mum won't know her and the other chicks will have bonded. 'Pecking' order is quite brutal and they establish their order by pecking. However, Manuel is starting work tomorrow, and will be taking the roof off the chicken barn, so we decided we'd have to move our two families into the barn by the lemon tree.

It made a lot of sense to move Chickatita at the same time. So what we did was pop her in first. Move the chicks in second and the hens in last. Of course, it sounds very simple, but entailed Ian getting attacked by two very cross broody hens. And, boy, could they fight! Ian spent quite a lot of time running in circles while he was being chased.

We managed to get all the chicks first and popped them in with Chickatita. However when they all ran to the back of the barn, Chickatita ran to us! When we bought the two hens in the same thing happened - however the broody hens at this point started herding Chickatita back to the others while getting ready to fight us if we tried to grab their chicks again.

We had a real Disney moment, when Chickatita's natural mother, (aka T'other, as we have Spot and 'the other') went to gather Chickatita back and off the little chick followed, stopping to look back at us before she snuggled down with mum. As Ian and I blubbed our way out of the barn, we decided that things were looking good and that she was bonding with her real mum.

Until we went in an hour later.

We then found Chickatita had left her mum and had gone to join Spot's brood. Dislodging one of Spot's chicks who had gone to join T'other one.

It does appear, however, which ever mum she ends up with that she's been accepted.