The Drums are Back!

The early morning drummers are back! I think they are starting a little later this year - I am sure in previous years they have started around 4am, however this year they seem to be drumming from 5am - 7am. It's one tradition that really should have been allowed to die out!

Ludvig is still saying 'hello', and he's also added 'hello little boy', which is what I say to him. Ian says 'hello little fella'. He also says 'good boy'. I thought he'd say 'thank you' soon, as that's what I say to him after I've given him a sunflower seed, but not yet. We're also trying to teach him 'poopy perch', so he'll fly to a special perch which will be his toilet perch. We'll see...

Ludwig supervising

Not in front of the P-a-r-r-o-t

Ludvig is definitely starting to talk. He rather started Roland, by saying 'hello' to him and confused Rosie by lunging at her through his cage and then saying 'hello'. He's got quite an upperclass accent, so he sounds like a mix between Terry Thomas and Mr Punch.

He also says something that sounds like 'good boy' - which is odd, as I don't think we say that to him very often. I'm surprised it's not 'no' or 'don't chew that'.

He ought to be able to learn to use some words in context, but that will be further down the line.

But we have to be careful what we say in front of him as they are mimics, and he may well mimic what we say!

The recent rain has made everything green again. I guess we're used to it now, but it always seems odd that the color of autumn here is definitely green as the grass comes back - and there aren't that many deciduous trees. 

Ludvig is getting ready to talk....??

We think Ludvig is starting to get ready to talk. He seems to be saying 'hello'. It's still not that clear, but that's definitely what it sounds like. We say 'hello' to him, so it could be he's getting ready. However, he also seems to be trying to say 'peekaboo', which is something we never say! So unless he's been talking to Alexa when we're not looking, it could be that Hello is just a noise too.

They start to talk, if they are going to, at about one year, so Ludvig is still a little young. However I've read that they start making different noises as they get to about 9 months old, while they are practicing.

Knowing our luck he'll bypass talking and join the dogs in barking!

We'll show him this video so he can see what our expectations are :)

Bamboo shoots

We are going to try to grow our bamboo. We went bamboo scrumping yesterday, and picked some bamboo with shootd which hopefully we can grow . It is our hope that we are as good at growing bamboo as we are prickly pears.

The rain in Spain...

We've been watching a Spanish series on the Internet which is in Spanish, but with English subtitles, and it's quite funny as we understand enough of the Spanish to realize that the English subtitles are an interpretation rather than a strict translation. For example, we were both surprised to see one of the characters say "the rain in spain falls mainly on the plain". The Spanish equivalent is Lluvia de Sevilla es una maravilla (the rain in spain is a marvel). There's been a few other things like this. Sometimes it's funny because the character will say a couple of words, but the subtitles go on like a short novel, and other times the English is just so 'English'.

Some subtitles are automated translations, but these have obviously been lovingly crafted by hand!

It has made me realize that I need to be careful when suggesting students turn on Spanish subtitles when they watch a program in English as it could be more confusing than helpful.

The other interesting thing is this series is about time travellers (it's not as dull as it sounds). And it's obviously the Spanish take on history - some of which differs quite a lot from the British take on history (the Spanish definition of 'Pirate' seems to equate with our definition of 'hero'). Another interesting thing is that Franco appeared in one episode. He was played as a straight character - but they gave him a funny voice. I have no idea if Franco really had a funny voice, but I thought it was quite a clever way of playing him in a way that made his slightly ridiculous, without making him ridiculous...

That was close....

We had a proper Extremaduran storm during the week and it was one of those where it felt like someone had just poured buckets over us. Luckily there was no hail, as the house would have definitely flooded. As it was, the water level rose so it was at the top of the step at the back. We were both out there scooping water from into the planter as water came out of there, slower than it came out of the drain pipe off the roof.

The rain stopped as soon as it started, and while it was a little wet inside the back door, we didn't have the flowing water we've had in the past.

Unfortunately, I'd lost Ian's head-torch that very morning (lost it when we were on our walk) and the battery had corroded in our other one, and the light isn't that good on the patio, so there was a bit of guesswork trying to keep the drain clear etc - luckily the power didn't go out. Ian's head torch was the first present I gave him, and it was when we were at Great Elm so he could find his way about and we could get to the pub and back - so that means it was over 18 years old!

It was warm rain, so it wasn't too bad standing out in it. We've been out of gas for a while, and have been showering in the cold water, which is just comfortable for a shower still - but certainly wouldn't have warmed us up if we'd got cold!

Wilbur has an ear infection which we are treating. He gets doggie chocolate drops and yogurt. Chocolate drops are a treat and the yogurt is part of the treatment as the probiotics are supposed to help. As doggie chocolate drops and yogurt are his two favorite things in the world, he doesn't seem to be minding having his ears cleaned too much at all! 

Ian's Birthday Treat

The last few years we've sort of got into the habit of going fig scrumping for Ian's birthday treat. Admittedly, probably down to the fact the figs are ripe now, rather than it's something that's a treat for Ian. Last year we added almonds to our haul. And this year I wanted to get a couple of nice branches for Ludvig to chew and to make a nice perch for him and I know that some of the trees are trimmed back, so I was hoping we could get some discarded branches.

So we headed off yesterday with backpack, plastic bags, tree lopper - strategically timing our outing to coincide with the fiesta procession, knowing that there wouldn't be anyone in the countryside to see us scrumping figs (athough thinking about it, that would be the time anyone who was up to no good would go out - so I am surprised the countryside wasn't full of countryside wardens & police...).

But disappointingly, there were no almonds, no signs of any haven fallen so could have been a very bad year? The figs weren't ripe and we did find some trees branches - and they were OK, but not really inspiring.

However, on the way back we remembered that there is some wild bamboo up one of the lanes so we went and got some bamboo stalks - we got a few green ones and some which had thicker stalks. And then, I saw some eucalyptus trees which had been cut back and they had some great branches, which were going to be much better, so we got some of those too.

I put one of the bamboo tops in Ludvig's cage and he loved it. He shredded the leaves and chewed up the stalk, so that was a great success.

We've currently got the branches soaking in a bleach solution as I want to make sure we kill any nasties that might be there as the branches were on the ground. The branches need to be soaked in bleach and then put outside in the sun for a while so the sun breaks down the bleach - this will harden the branches too.

I want to turn the eucalyptus branch into a play gym for Ludvig and hang it from the ceiling. I think he'll have fun with that.

So, while the scrumping side of things was a bit lacking, we did get some fun things for Ludvig - so he's happy!

I did notice that we have three olives on our olive tree - so that was a nice surprise!

Book

Yes, I know it is upside down, however had a stamp carving project published in this book.

Prickly Pears!

Wish there was something we could do with them!

grapes!

Ian and Ludvig

Dark Mornings

It's now like the middle of the night when we go out for our walk in the morning. The sky is as dark as it is at midnight, the stars are still bright in the sky - however, to our surprise, the moon isn't there. Having decided that it is unlikely that the moon has fallen from the sky, we both realized that we don't know that much about the moon's monthly journey. So, a quick search of the Internet and I found out that apparently the moon isn't visible every day of the month - well, I didn't know that!

We could also play bat bat bird, as there are both bats and birds as the sun rises, but it's not as good as in the evening as there are no swifts catching insects, like we see in the evening.

So I am guessing that we'll either have to change our route or the time we go for a walk, as there are another few weeks of the mornings getting darker yet.

We had an unexpected storm last night - and an expected one forecast for today. Which will be a nice break from the heat of the summer!

Ludvic's toys

We are having fun making toys for Ludvic! This is a piece of loofah with straws poked.through it. He actually isn't very destructive with his toys, but perhaps that is because he is still a baby. I made a pile of toys which are rolls of corrugated cardboard. But he is yet to really get his beak in to them.

HOT! And 16 years ago today....

We're in the middle of a heatwave! Parts of the province of Badajoz and the neighbouring bits of Portugal are set to break Europe's highest temperature over the next couple of days, with temperatures in some places expected to rise to 48 (it's forecast 'only' to be 43 here!). The low temperature is 25.

Our patio is likely to be extremely hot and it will be impossible to walk without shoes out there.

And, after we finished debating how many years we've been married, Ian and I are now celebrating our 16 year anniversary. Who'd have thought it :)

Ludvig is continuing to develop into a nice little parrot. He now is out of his cage a few times during the day (but not in the same room as the cats or the big dogs). We're planning a hanging play perch for him, so that will be fun!

Yesterday we found a very poorly dog which we took to the vet and it sadly died. One of the downsides of Spain - and probably many other countries - is there's no RSPCA-type organisation , so there's no organization that will help with something like this, so we had to take responsibility for the dog or just leave the poor thing to suffer.

This means a lot of animals are left suffering as people aren't prepared to take the responsibility. The responsibility of course isn't just financial, if you take responsibility it means that dog is yours until you find it a home. There are private shelters and rescue places, but they are mostly full, and there is a municipal pound, but it's neigh on impossible to get them to collect a stray. So helping a stray animal can turn into a very big commitment, which I think puts a lot of people off. Which is sad.

Target training Ludvig

Which sounds rather alarming - however, we're not teaching him how to shoot things, we're trying to get him to come to a 'target'.  The target is a chopstick, and he's supposed to move to that. We can then teach him to walk to the target and then to fly to it. It's not going as well as it should, because he just wants to nibble the chopstick. The other problem is we're doing such a good job with his food, he doesn't seem to have a favourite which we can use as a treat. He just seems to like everything.

Ludvig has developed quite a lot since we got him. He no longer eats his baby food, he's getting quite adept at climbing and righting himself when he hangs upside down (he just waited for us to rescue him before!), and he's trying his hand at flying (or is that trying his wing?).  He flies a few feet from the end of the table where we've been feeding him to the top of his cage. We watch the baby storks in the summer when they learn to fly, and we see them jumping up and down, flapping their wings, and Ludvig does the same!

I'm currently collecting all my clipart, coloring pages, printable greeting cards etc and putting them into a new online shop. I knew I had a lot of 'stuff', but just didn't appreciate how much. This is going to be quite a job - but hopefully it will be worth it!

Healthy parrots breakfast

This is Ludvic's breakfast! This is artichoke with vegetables tucked inside which makes a sort of game for him, and in the green bowl is pasta pepper green beans chickpeas peas celery apple and a mix of vegetables into a sort of paste. there are a few sunflower seeds in that, however we have been sprouting them, Because this makes them more nutritious for him.

What a lucky parrot!

Ludvig says no to baby food

Ludvig has decided he is no longer a baby!

The last couple of days, Ludvig has started not really wanting his baby parrot formula. He eats a bit of it, but isn't really interested, being much more interested in his 'grown up' food (he's started to get excited when his morning food bowl arrives - whereas he used to get excited by his formula).

So last night, we didn't give him his bedtime feed, and he didn't seem unduly worried, and this morning he didn't seem ravenous and ate a bit of his formula but was much more interested in his morning mix of pasta, lentils, spinach and apple, so I think we can probably start cutting back on his morning formula feed too.

We've got a chart which shows how his development should be - and he's pretty much spot on. So that's reassuring.

He is very sweet except for when he makes this horrendous noise. It's like a cross between a squark and a growl which might be made by some underground monster. He doesn't do it very often and it seems sort of involuntary, but he did it facing Rosy and she backed away in fear! Hopefully this is just him developing his vocal chords as most of the time he makes a little squeaky sound.

It's started to get hot and summer has really arrived! The swimming pool opened last weekend and there are a few strange faces around the village, so I have popped a 'for sale' sign up outside the house. I'm not expecting that it will get any interest, but with people visiting for the summer, it will be a good opportunity to get word out that the house is for sale. We'll see....

Healthy Eating - Parrot Style

We're determined to get Ludvig off to a good start with regards to his diet. Happily, this isn't proving to be a problem as he tries anything he's given and seems to have liked it all - except banana which he wholeheartedly rejected. Favorites so far are green peas, sweetcorn, lentil and apple. He likes his pellets, which is good as this means we know he is getting all the nutrients he needs. And we are still feeding him twice a day with baby parrot formula. However, I think that this is more going through the motions as far as he is concerned, as he rarely eats all his formula. I think he just enjoys the feeling of being nurtured.

We went to a supermarket which sells all the produce loosely, so I was able to stock up on little bits of everything. I am sure it was an expression of happiness which crossed the shop assistant's face, as she rang up 15 centimos worth of broccoli, 2 green beans, 3 walnuts...

I also bought a parrot cookbook! There are some really good tips in here, like hiding fruit and veg in an artichoke so it's part game/part food.

Ludvig now uses the top perch in his cage (but we take it out at night) and I hang a skewer of fruit for him to nibble at.

I know this video is sideways - not sure how to turn it :)

Ian and ludvig

The last of the asparagus

This really is the last of the asparagus. We haven't been for a walk since last week, however this is what we find. Enough for breakfast, however I don't think we'll be getting any more now. It has been a remarkable year for asparagus . Our walks will probably take less time now, as Ian will no longer be launching himself over the walls trying to get elusive pieces of asparagus.

Welcome Ludvig

Last Wednesday we went to pick up our new parroty friend, Ludvig. When we went to pick him up, we were taken into the 'nursery' and my immediate thought was 'they aren't as big as I was expecting'. I thought the chicks we were looking at were the parents! I obviously knew they would be bigger than the lovebirds were, but I wasn't quite expecting a chunky little parrot chick looking at us.

We chose a boy chick (the difference is visible with African Greys, the girls are slightly lighter in color around their shoulders), because we thought he might be more friendly. But from what we've learned, the friendliness also comes from how they are treated at an early age.

We had already said we wanted a boy chick, so when we arrived, Ludvig was waiting for us. The breeder showed us how to feed him and explained how to start training him so he was part of the pack, rather than us part of his flock.

The breeder also suggested that on the way home, we have the box open that he was being carried in. This seemed counter-intuitive to me, as I would have thought keeping him in a dark safe environment was less scary, but we did what he said and were treated to a little parroty head sticking out of the box watching carefully what was going on. The breeder said it would help him to bond to us as he would feel he was going somewhere with us, and not being somewhere dark until he got to his new home and everything was a suprise.

Emilio, the breeder, had been feeding him on pellets, rather than mixed seeds, which is good and is what the vet had suggested for Larry, but we could never get Larry to eat pellets. Emilio suggested uncoloured pellets and gave us a bag to take home and we'll continue with that. We'll then supplement the pellets with fresh food, which should mean he has a good balanced diet.

Here's a picture of Ludvig 'kissing' Ian. He gives little kisses, which is a sort of lick.  It's very sweet, particularly when he squeaks while he's doing it.

And here is a box of parrot toy making things. Basically a rummage around my workshop. Parrots are so destructive, there's no point in spending lots of money for toys, they will get as much pleasure from chewing up a cardboard box as they will from what's in it. 

We need to make him foraging toys, which is where we hide his food to encourage him to find it. Things like hanging a string of paper cups and putting a grape in some of them is the sort of thing he will enjoy playing and finding food - apparently. 

So far he has met everyone except the lovebirds, and he'll meet them this afternoon. The lovebirds definitely used to interact with Larry, so it will be interesting to see how they are with Ludvig.

Lizard

Surprised to see that we have a little friend come to stay! The weather turned super hot yesterday so I wonder if he came in out of the heat. the weather has been unseasonably cool, however I think for mum and Susan's visit that was a lot better than the searing heat we had yesterday.

Asparagus or Triffids?

We have so much asparagus this year, we're not even able to eat it all. This is me blanching the asparagus ready to freeze

Asparagus hunting

The asparagus season is coming to the end. Although last year we were picking until my birthday, that was the exception.

We've started going for a walk again in the morning, so have been doing our hunting then in different olive groves.

The swifts have been back in the house to have a look round. I wondered if it was too late for them to be nesting so I did a bit of research and found out they are actually a protected species. Not that this means we have to give them a home in our living room though!

Book illustrations

Book illustrations are taking forever. This time it's about an annoying girl and her equally annoying grandmother. I think I will revisit the idea I had a few years ago to write a book for young English learners, and illustrate that. The author wanted me to make realistic characters which is a little more challenging. With a three eyed alien, noone can tell if I make a small mistake - however with a realistic character it is obvious!

We got lost this morning in an olive grove round the corner. The rain has made the weeds grow so high, we were completely disorientated. We had to carry Pixie and Millie because they kept getting stuck in the weeds!

Unwanted Lodgers

A family of swifts has been checking out our kitchen / living room as a potential place to call home.

They've been coming in, flying round the room and flying out again. This morning they flew in, both headed to a corner of the room, nodded their heads, and headed out again. So Ian's now closed the door to stop them getting any further ideas.

I'm wondering how clever they will be, as there are another two doors open to the back of the house, so I wonder if they will try to come in through there.

Obviously, a house full of cats and dogs isn't putting them off. Charlie would be the one that would be most interested, as she'd try to round them up. But she can't see them.

The fact that we have the windows open means that yes, spring has sprung. Hopefully it's here to stay now, but I think the weather forecast shows it getting a little cooler at the weekend.

But it's good for asparagus!!!

Sheep Dog

Ian and I were watching Charlie last night as she was rounding up Babbity who was in the pantry and Queenie who was in the living room. Her sheepdog tendencies are so strong, she takes keeping her flock together very seriously. It's obviously quite challenging for her as they disappear when they are on her blind side, but she doesn't give up, running round till she finds them again!

We were wondering if she would actually have been a very good sheepdog. And we also then wondered how difficult it is to train a sheepdog if they already have strong tendencies like Charlie. I can only imagine that if she had full sight and hearing, and had been trained from puppyhood, that she would have easily taken to rounding up sheep and doing clever things in fields.

Of course, we don't know her background so she could well have come from a working farm, although you would think that real farmers would understand the dangers of breeding dogs with the conflicting genes which cause blindness/deafness, and be more interested in the dog's temperament and intelligence than their color and the fact they have blue eyes.

Rain!

The rain continues! While it's a good thing, it's a bit boring now and hampering our asparagus hunting activities :) So I wonder if it will mean that this is a bumper year or a very bad year. Looks like it will be Wednesday before we head out and have a look, as high winds are forecast for today and where we go asparagus picking is quite high up.

Some of the young children in my class were highly excited because they had seen a rainbow last week - and I forget how unusual they have been with the lack of rain. The little ones can quite possibly have never seen a rainbow before.

The rain and wind had conspired to fill the chimney pipe from our stove with water, so Ian spent much of yesterday morning cleaning that out so when we lit the fire, it was less like a smokey sauna.

It will be interesting to see what this rain has done to the resevoirs.

Oh, and we noticed it had been raining in Kenya too. The two ponds are now almost one and I can see little patches of water in the background, so I wonder if that means we will see less animals, as waterholes may have filled up elsewhere..

The thirteenth ugliest bird in the world...

This is the 13th ugliest bird in the world - a marabou stork. The second image is of a new born elephant. He appears at the watering hole every day - but is difficult to see as the adults all crowd round him looking after him,

Elephants, monkeys, mongoose, zebras - and storks!

We're still really enjoying watching the webcam of the wildlife in Kenya. I've given the baby elephants names and we're getting to know their habits. We keep the webcam on all day, so can keep an eye on what's going on! It's quite amazing that we can watch the wildlife of Africa while we're eating our tea!

The elephants are interesting, and the other day we saw a bit of an elephant fight - there was definitely a clash of tusks. I think it was two adolescents. We also so an adolescent square up to the big male - but just one look from the boss elephant and he backed off.

There are a lot of birds, including some massive storky things - which reminds me that our storks have come back. We saw them for the first time this week - but I wonder if they are going to be too late to breed this year. There's only about three or four, but it's nice to have some here. I wonder where they've been!

Elephants !

This is amazing :) Today I saw six elephants, two babies and a monkey.


https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/kenya/taita-taveta-county/voi/tsavo-east-national-park.html

Yesterday we went into Llerena and saw just one stork, so the lack of storks seems to be wider than just the village. I will have to ask and find out what's going on.

Snow & No Storks

We had a handful of snowflakes fall this morning. Quite literally a handful, we wouldn't have known that there was any, if we hadn't have been outside at the time - but it's a bit grey now, so wonder if more is coming our way. I can't remember when we last had snow. I do remember it we had it relatively frequently when we first moved here, but I think that while we thought that was normal, that was actually the exception.

We noticed there are no storks on the church or castle. We'd seen a couple flying around after Christmas, and I am sure I saw one in the nest, but there's no sign of them now and they should be nesting. Ian wondered if the dry has made this an undesirable place for storks to come to this year...?

Blast from the past...

Having remembered the fog and trying to get to Cordoba when we first moved here, I looked back over some of our old blog posts from when we first moved in - http://pullens.blogspot.com.es/2006/01/ 

I love the stories about Basil, I'd forgotten how he used to peer in through people's windows when we took him for a walk (but I do remember how old ladies would cross themselves).

Foggy Mornings

The last couple of mornings has been foggy. We are even aware of it on the patio, and this morning, when we went for a walk (first since the new year - we got out of the habit :( ), the fog was quite eery. It reminded me of when we first came here and we spent a couple of weekends trying to go to Cordoba, and had to give up because of fog. We had to do our walk in reverse because the fog made it so dark it would have been difficult to have seen our way down the track.

The fog will likely burn off though, and will result in a lovely sunny day, which is what happened yesterday. And it acted as a reminder that it's on a couple of weeks now, before we don our asparagus hunting gear and head out to catch our tea!

Finished our world class cheese!

We finally finished our cheese feast last night! I must admit, after going cheese feast shopping, I am inclined to take a step back and think 'we just spend THAT on cheese' - however it does last a long time, I guess that's the benefit of buying mature cheese, it doesn't go off. We have bought 'queso fresco' - fresh cheese - and we did have one that went bad. This year we bought some blue cheese to go with it, and that was quite tasty, so I think that helped to keep it all going for longer this year.

It was paired with some pretty good chutney (if I say so myself :) ) which I made from our harvest of grapes and extremely tiny apples, and a few scrumped figs. Normally I make an onion and red wine marmalade type of thing, but didn't need to this year.

So, it's all back to normal now after the holidays, but Carnival is next on the calendar, so the youngsters will soon be getting excited about that.

The weather finally broke and we had some rain, I think it's been quite heavy, however I realize that the gutter at the back of the house is broken so water comes down in one spot, which I think makes relatively light rain sound heavy.