Not wanting to tempt fate...

I bought some puppy training pads for Horace. These are just absorbent pads which you put on the floor and then hopefully the puppy gets used to doing his business here rather than elsewhere. I hadn't heard of them before, or perhaps I had but they didn't register.

There seems to have been quite a few changes from when I first had Bob. I can't remember all the different variations of dog food being available then. Even here there's a plethera of options, I'm sure when I first had Bob it was just a choice of dry or canned.

And so far it seems to be working quite well. I guess that he can feel the difference and as we know to our cost, all animals appear to prefer to spend a penny on something soft, perhaps it will be easier to housetrain him than I thought. If we can get him so he goes on the pads, we can just move the pads closer and closer to the door. So far I put one by his bed and one on the floor by where I sit, so when I put him on the floor when he starts fidgeting I pop him straight onto that.

Charlie has been much more straightforward to housetrain as she can go outside. She's pretty good but not perfect.

It's surprising how much the two of them have grown, although it obviously shouldn't be that much of a surprise. Charlie now hangs off the box she used to sleep on. I often wonder if puppies feel it's strange - the fact that everything gets smaller as they get older!

Festivities

So we're now in the build up to the real celebrations and the anticipation of the three kings. Last night we could hear carol music and the shops are all gearing up to the busy time. The three kings even find their way onto Amazon:

All is well here. Horace is still perplexing with his eating. That's a really good way to describe it. He's putting on weight and is probably double the size he was when he came to us. And he does eat well - but generally only if we hold his food for him. He will eat on his own but it takes an eternity. He skips through his food, scattering it on the floor and then can't find it. And we then have to scoop it up, put it back in his bowl and start again. His bowl can't be any deeper otherwise he wouldn't be able to get to his food - and it's ceramic to stop him moving it around mid-skip.

He is also highly suspicious of anything that isn't his normal food. He needed worming so I popped a tablet into some pate. Normally the dogs are very enthused by this, and I gave him a tiny bit of pate without a tablet, I hoped to get him excited so he'd hoover up the tablety-pate. But he ignored it. I eventually put a tiny bit on his nose for him to lick off and he didn't like that. I tried putting some of his food with the pate on my hand, and he carefully ate his food and ignored the pate. So decided the pate approach wasn't going to work and put the tablet as it was into a pile of food on my hand and he eventually ate it thinking it was a piece of his food.

When he's a bit bigger we'll let him eat with Millie, he may be more focussed if there's another dog who will help him finish his meal!

The weather has been very nice. We even sat outside and ate our orange juice ice lollies on Tuesday! First time we've done that for a while.

Cheese Shopping

We went back to the vet this morning just for a revision following Tinks and Charlie's visit on Monday. They are both OK, so that's good.

Charlie is a star. Everyone loves her - and she loves them. It's partly due to her poor vision. She doesn't see everyone, so all of a sudden she'll see someone new and get's excited as if they'd just walked in. We saw the lady who first had Pirata. We see her occasionally in there and she's always pleased to see us (I think). She was in there with her dogs, one of which is 18 years old - which is a very good age.

We also went cheese shopping. We bought two cheeses. We didn't choose the second best cheese in the world - instead picking one we'd had before. The shelves were groaning with award winning cheeses - I think it was a good year for Extremadura cheese.

And here's a photo of Horace on my lap - but how did he get there...?? (oh yes, as a complete aside, I was looking at some photos we took in 2005 and I noticed I'm wearing the same fleece top I'm wearing her in this pic. I have worn it every year we've been here and as I got it from a charity shop - it was certainly a great investment!)

This is how he got there!

But it doesn't always go to plan, he got distracted in this attempt...

Horace Playing

Here's a video of Horace playing. He happily bounces around like this most of the time. This is one of the reasons it takes him so long to eat. He skips up to his food, scatters it on the floor, eats one bit, skips away again...

What is interesting is how he chases his tail. The vet said he has no reaction in his eyes at all, yet he appears to be chasing his tail. So it is either instinctive or he can 'feel' his tail chasing him.

Had to go to the vet yesterday with Charlie who has diarrhea and Tinks who has a cough. Hopefully Charlie will be better with some medication. A cough in Tinkerbelle is a little more significant. She coughs because her heart doesn't pump strongly enough to remove all the fluid from her lungs. This is what made her ill 18 months ago and was the first sign her heart was a little weak. The medicine has worked wonders, however the vet wanted to know if the cough meant it was time to increase her medicine. However she was x-rayed and it is just a cough, which is good news, hopefully. It certainly hasn't slowed her down in any way - she makes an appearance at the end of the video!

Charlie and queenie

Playing

Horace

Looking clean after a bath!

Roland, Pirata and Queenie

I couldn't have got them to sit like this if I had tried!!

Three Weeks in...

So, after three weeks with two new puppies things are nowhere near as frazzled as they might be! Charlie remains a very good puppy and while she's a bit bouncy, she's very well behaved. Although Charlie and Horace are the same age, there's a lot of difference between them development-wise. Horace is still a little baby, and while he has eaten a whole meal on his own yesterday and today, that's been the first time he's eaten without help. He's a happy little chap though, he bounces round like a lamb - with all four feet off the ground as he bounces. And he's just starting to engage with the others. He was trying to get Charlie to play on Saturday and she was very gentle with him. The others just ignore him.

Horace is quite nervous and will hide when he's not sure of something. He doesn't come to us, but he no longer squeaks when he is picked up. I think that life is a bit confusing for him so it will take him some time to get settled. Unfortunately he has to go back to the vet on Wednesday, so I hope that doesn't set him back at all.

The biggest challenge with Horace is keeping him with water. He's much too tiny to find his way outside and doens't know his way around the house yet. When we put water down the others drink it, so we have to remember to pop him away in the bedroom with a bowl of water a few times a day.

Charlie is beginning to get more fluffy. She's going to have soft and silky coat, unlike Queenie's more wirey coat. We can see the long hair starting to come through on her tail. We'll have to get her used to being groomed.

And our other new arrival, Missy the cat, is now fully recovered after her operation. She still hisses at the dogs, but is getting increasingly comfortable in their company.

In other news, after ten years my About contract hasn't been renewed so I am no longer writing about rubber stamping for them. No real surprise, but it would have been nice to have had it for another couple of months before we get money coming in from the course we're launching. 

Wilbur Substitute

More Horace and Wilbs

Horace and Wilbs

Dimrose

Looking content on.the clean washing!

I can't help myself

How could i not share another cute Horace pic!!!

And in other news...

Missy, the cat we found in the supermarket carpark went to the vet on Monday to be neutered. We've been getting a bit worried about her, as she has been getting increasingly rotund and we wondered if she may be pregnant. However, it turns out that she's just fat. Apparently her not stopping eating since she arrived has taken its toll on her waistline.

The vet was going to close Missy's open eye, however he didn't do it as he said it wasn't necessary and didn't want to put her through something that she didn't need. He said he would do it if we didn't like to look at it, but we said it didn't worry us, so she'll stay as she is.

She went back today to the vet to have her stitches checked and we took Horace as he needed some booster vaccinations. Goodness me - what a fuss! The poor little chap was out of control with distress. He made so much noise another vet came in to check everything was OK. He's really come on a lot since we got him and we can pick him up without him squealing and he's getting better at eating (but still a long way from perfect), but obviously the vet's was too much for him and he got very distressed. I wondered if we did the right thing by taking him, however he needed his booster shots and he's got to get used to different experiences - we just have to make sure we don't do anything that will set him back. He snuggled down on my lap on the way home and is quite happily cozying up now, so he's got over it now. He's got to go back in two weeks for his rabies jab, so it will be interesting to compare how he is then, as he'll have another two weeks with us under his belt.

And Charlie is turning out to be a star puppy. She seems to be very well behaved, however, Ian says that because she is a border collie (or border collie type dog), she's clever enough to be naughty without getting caught!

Puppies

Getting them to stay still for a photo is tricky! However, they seem to both be at home after their first few days with us!

And all the others want to help

Horace has lunch

Horace appears to have no sense.of.smell.and.needs.help.finding his food..

Horace and Ian

With pirata in the corner looking on...

Horace and me

He's getting happier having cuddles

A right Charlie

This is why Charlie is called Charlie. It was either that or Adolph!!!

And introducing Horace

This is Horace. He is a little white Maltese puppy. He is blind and deaf. He is very different to Charlie (our collie pup), who is very self-sufficient. Horace is completely blind, however we think he hears some loud noises. However we're not quite sure what noises he hears and what he doesn't hear, he doesn't hear voices, but seems to react to vibrating sounds. We are trying to discover a noise that we know he hears that we can make as a signal that we going to pick him up or as a signal that we are close to him.

Horace is probably our biggest challenge to date. While Herbie was completely blind and deaf, he was older and literally streetwise. Horace is a little scrap of fluff who is currently unsure of everything.

He is the size of a guinea pig, with extraordinary short legs!

At last it's quiet!

Introducing?

This Blurry bundle is our new puppy! She is similar to a border collie, she has the double merle gene, which means she is deaf and has a deformed eye with limited vision in her other eye very similar to Queenie.

No, we were not planning a new puppy, but wgen we heard of her we thought she would be a great companion for Queenie. Queenie though is a little unsure at the moment.

Her Spanish name is Alma. Not sure what we'll call her.

art gallery

Wow, look at all the clever things we did! Guess who did what!

Thanks to mum for the photo, I didn't take one with everything displayed.

Exhibition

We've been making art! Can you guess who did which?

I could have sworn I left a cat in here!

Our new one eyed feline house guest has spent her first two nights in the shower room.

Oddly, she appeared not to be in there this morning...until I heard a miaow that I first had difficulty placing.

No idea how she got up there. It must be about 9 feet up with no obvious route.

We went to the supermarket

And came back with a small, one eyed cat.

Smoke

This time of year there's a smokey haze that hangs over the countryside as farmers - and anyone with land, thinking about it, burn off the dry weeds etc. I joined in the fun yesterday, burning a patch of debris in our back yard. Ian came and joined me and burned a couple of old fence posts. I tried some prickly pears, but they remain indestructible.

I normally don't like burning things because of the smoke, however now is the time of year to do it - and as rain is forecast for Wednesday, it seemed a good idea to do it now.

Ian's turned his old office into a recording studio as he is recording video tutorials showing people how to set up an e-commerce site. Well, when I say recording studio, I actually mean a bookcase with a computer on it and a blanket for sound insulating. However, it seems to work well!

Oh yes, and we finally finished our grapes. What a mountain we had! I reckon we had a good two or three week's worth of grapes from two vines. I don't know when we last ate so much fruit!

Spinning

It's looking good...

It must be getting colder.

Cuddling Kitties equals colder weather.

Giving tablets

This is what it's like in a household with many dogs!

Grapes

I asked him if he had any great ideas for hoe Spanish people conserve grapes. He gave me an odd look. We picked the last of our grapes yesterday and our Apple harvest(which was small in both senses).

What a difference a week makes

Last week - hot weather warnings, 41 plus degrees temperature HOT

Today, 21 degrees temperature

A drop of 20 degrees!

I remember when all this used to be stars...

In the summer we have tremendous night skies. One day we'll treat ourselves to a telescope, but at the moment we just look unmagnified at the sky and can see all sorts. I think I mentioned before that we sometimes see the ISS space station, however something that we've seen a lot of over the last couple of days is the Iridium satellites which flare as they go past. A tremendous burst of light comes as their solar panels catch the sun's rays. Last night we saw three go past. It made me wonder if in years to come the night sky would be a heaving mass of satellites and spacestations and whether people would remember the good old days when the sky was just full of stars.

My office mate

This little fellow was sitting next to me. Until he got popped into next file's yard hastily!

Grapes

Our first grapes!

Paint!

Hooray! The finished paint and the damar resin i had to melt with the wax. All of the colors except for the small whites were made with the darker brown wax which hasn't been bleached in the sun. . The blue is a little dark, so I might make that with the bleached  wax.  The resin should mean that the wax melts at the higher temperature. 

 

MOT and Pixie's Claws

The car passed its MOT but we were both a little traumatized by the experience. MOTs are a sort of drive through experience and there's three lanes of vehicles that get tested. Our testing man was very thorough. Much more than in the past. He kept shouting something that sounded like 'die, die', which was confusing and it was only at the end that we realized he might have been saying to 'kill' the gears. The car is leaking fuel too, which they all had a good sniff at, but obviously not enough to worry them. They test the brakes and that's quite traumatising. Well it was for me as the testing man replaced Ian for that part of the test and the car's on a sort of treadmill and he puts on the brakes to see how much pressure the brakes can take or something - but it did result in lots of bumping around. But happily that's it for another year.

It's quite an efficient system - albeit a tad stressful. You go to an office with your paperwork, then get into a designated lane - and then drive through the tests, and at the last stop they either give you your window display thing for the next year or fail you. If you fail you have five days to put it right before you go back to be retested.

You can also go without an appointment and just join a queue, however looking at the queue when we went, that's not a preferred option. The end of the queue must have been a four or five hour wait.

We had another go at clipping Pixies claws. Goodness me, what a fuss. We had her wrapped in a blanket and she was making such a noise! We managed to get the worst ones, but anyone would think we were torturing her. But at least we won't have to take her to the vet to get them trimmed!

Bleached wax

Who would have thought that the bleached wax came in so many different shades! The wax at the top wad its natural colour.

Spinning

I'm getting on with it, this is as far as I've got. There's a lot more to do! It's not quite as blue as this in real life.

It's HOT!

We're in the middle of a heatwave! It's impossible to walk outside now without shoes. Although there was a cloud yesterday, which was nice, it's blue skies and very hot sun!

Happily all our cats and dogs are sensible enough to keep themselves out of the sun. Bobbins and Dumpling are two we have to watch, as their noses are short and therefore the air doesn't get a chance to cool down as they breathe and they can overheat. But both of them are more than happy to lie down hugging the floor when it's hot.

We watched a really nice video about parrots the other day. It was about pet parrots in America and the challenges that are faced all round. Because parrots can live until they are 80, people don't realize the commitment they have to make. And also there's still a trade in wild parrots. And, of course, there's the issue of birds not really being domesticated and they haven't evolved for life in a cage. The video was well done because it was very well balanced.

The video was really good and gave us an insight into Larry's life. I am so glad we have the lovebirds as one of the biggest problems the video said  'companion' parrots face is loneliness. Before he came to us he was in an outdoor building so he must have been really lonely and bored. At least before we had the lovebirds he was in the middle of things - and now he has the lovebirds next door to him so he's got a small flock. And they definitely communicate. When we move we'll have them all in together.

I did wonder if we should try to find him a mate, as in the wild they mate for life. However, that could go wrong for so many reasons.

The reason why I was looking for a video was because I had seen Larry untying knots. I saw him do it once and thought it was a fluke. But I've seen him do it over and over again, so I was looking for ideas for toys and things we could make him which might include a knot or two because he's obviously very clever.

Or so I thought...

That was when I found that untying knots was in fact pretty basic in the parrot world. In the video we watched there were some parrots who could tell colours apart. They would be asked to select the red toy or even put a blue toy into a certain shape, and they'd do it. I think that might be beyond Larry!

Bat.... Bird......Bird..... Bird....Bat.....ISS

One of my favourite things about this time of year is when we are sat out in the evening, saying 'bird', 'bat', 'bat', 'bird' as the birds and bats flutter round together. There's a short 5 minute or so window, when they are out together. It's difficult to tell them apart, but when you look you can see birds gliding gracefully and bats flapping round like mad things.  Hence the random cries of 'bird', 'bat' etc.

We've been here for 10 years and EVERY YEAR at least several times in the summer, I ask Ian what he thinks the birds think of bats - with their wings on backwards.

So, I was a little surprised when recently, Ian said to me 'do you think that birds think that bats are birds with their wings on backwards'. I assumed he was joking and taking the mickey out of me, because this is something I say a lot. But apparently not. I wonder what else he's filtered out!

When we first spent the evening outside earlier this summer, we saw a moving 'thing' in the sky. I've got an ISS (international space station - not a terrorist group) app on my phone which says when it's flying over, so we looked at that, and it was, indeed (and probably thankfully), the space station. The next night we asked when it was going over, looked at the app, looked in the sky - and there it was. But the strange thing is, the first three or so nights it was there almost 'on demand'. Finish tea - look in the sky - see space station. But since then it's going over at other times, and I'm not that interested in it to get up in the night to see it! So what a coincidence that our first evenings sitting outside coincided with the space station going over at tea time.

Storms!

Last Wednesday and Thursday there were storm warnings. On Wednesday there was an electrical storm bouncing around, and - quite literally - six drops of rain (Ian and I felt three each when we were sat outside in the evening). On Thursday afternoon the rain came - it was proper Extremaduran rain, but we didn't have any hail, which is always the problem - and we didn't flood so I didn't think there were too many problems.

So I was a little surprised to see this photo of Bienvenida:

where the whole of the center of the village flooded.

But it did remind me of the first time Mum and Dad visited and we experienced proper Extremaduran rain. After, Mum and Dad went out for a walk and we asked them where they had been, and they said along side the river. Which confused us because there isn't a river here. However, we hadn't experienced the storm drains after proper rain - they do become proper rivers!

There are other photos of cars which got washed into ditches, into trees etc by the strength of the water. Of course, because there's no wooden floor boards or skirting boards, and because electric cables in homes are hand height, there would be very little damage. Also, the flooding was caused by massive hail stones blocking drains, so the water ran away quickly when it they melted, so there's no standing water, So the clean-up would be annoying, but nothing in comparison with Carlisle.

There are lots of photos in the news website showing pictures of the hail - this is what causes the problem. It's generally hail that used to make us flood - it blocks the drains and there's nothing you can do. The raised back step has made a huge difference.

So we got off very lightly!

Things are back to normal now with the weather forecast showing lots of smiley suns for the foreseeable future.

Beeswax update

I think I know why bleached beeswax is so expensive. Here is the latest in my beeswax quest, the bleached beeswax has been melted into blocks however that appears to be a lot of black gunk on the bottom which now needs to be sliced off. I then need to re melt it with damar resin

Goodness me, what a job!

And don't forget the wooll!

I am making about two batts a night, so this box will take a while before it is full! I am trying not to mix the colors up too much so it doesn't come out gray when it is spun. the finished wool should be sort of tweedy.

Bleached beeswax

It appears that hanging beeswax in the sun for several weeks does appears to bleach it! Unfortunately the bigger bits of beeswax I have put outside haven't bleached so I'm trying a different approach with them. This entails melting the Wax in water so the wax floats to the top as thin sheets that I can hang outside to bleach. just to find some pegs for the hanging part now, which are surprisingly difficult to find at the moment.

Morning Walk

We got out for the 5 km walk to the castle this morning. The first since...I don't! Probably because it means getting up at 6:30am.

27th of June and still asparagus

Enough asparagus for breakfast, but surely must be coming to an end now.

Getting closer...

I have started to cart the wool. Here are the first three batts. I'm doing one a day so it could be a few weeks before It's ready to spin!

On Top Of The World

We got lost coming out of Cordoba. We both commented on the highly unlikely fact that there was a new bridge crossing the river, and then realized that it wasn't a new bridge but we were on the wrong road.

Because it had a sort of ring-roady feel about it, we stayed on it, only to find ourselves climbing and climbing, until we were probably at risk of running out of oxygen. There was a road - goodness knows why - which went across the top of the huge hills between Cordoba and the next town. If it hadn't have been so scary it would have been amazing. We really were at the top of the world for where we were, just looking down on the tops of other hills. Shame it was single track road and that Ian reminded me that the brakes had failed only two weeks ago.

There were a couple of groups of houses and some big fincas, a couple of bars/restaurants with magnificent views, but not a lot else. Every time we headed down with relief, the road promptly swung back up again. We ended up eventually by the reservoir we had a picnic with Mum and Susan.

It was an experience! I can't think it's the sort of thing we would voluntarily have done - not in our car - but it was amazing.

We didn't take any photos - too nervous to stop the car! But here's a screenshot from Google Maps which shoes the route we took and the second is an image from Google which was from the road we took.

Woolly thing s

Here is my birthday wool that I dyed and it is hanging out to dry. The white is the silk which I am degumming, I didn't think it needed too much degumming so I will see what it's like when it is dry.

And still more asparagus…

First of June, and we went this afternoon picking asparagus. We managed to collect as much asparagus as we would have done got in the season it really has been quite successful yet for us! Normally by this time of year, we are lucky if we pick enough to have a few strands of asparagus on toast for breakfast. I think this is really quite exceptional!

hung up

Here are the sheets beeswax which I've hung on the line to bleach.  They are wrapped in clingfilm is fall on the floor.