Idling Motor

Many (many) years ago, there was a little girl who volunteered at the Chapel Hill Animal Shelter. She was a wee one, only 11 years old. They told her she couldn’t volunteer there because they had a rule that the volunteers had to be at least 14 years of age. But that little girl was willful, determined and stubborn.

She showed up nearly every day after school. She showed up when they opened the shelter on Saturday. And she was there when they opened the shelter on Sunday. And she did this for years.

This wee one was the person who saved me. I was a very sick kitten. She nursed me daily. I was the first one she attended to on her chores around the shelter and I was the last one she checked on before they locked the door behind her.

Staying in a shelter when you’re sick is a death sentence when there are 75 other cats all healthy, and eager to please the next human they saw. I had no strength. I was barely hanging on. It was through her love and care that I am able to be here today…wreaking havoc on the rodents in Uruguay.

Today she is 22 years old and while she is not yet here with us, we look forward to her visits and potential eventual move to South America.

Keep entertaining the world with your music, your dance, your stories, your pictures, and most definitely keep smiling. The world is a better place...Happy Birthday, Punky Poo (mini-Female Handler)

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I know it’s been awhile, and for that I apologize. So you’re sick and tired of the dust buster picture. I get it. I am tired of it too.

Life on the farm is a bit crazy. The days are long and never stagnant. Something is always happening.

Ok, I admit, nothing much is happening in this picture, but there are days that I am just plain tuckered out!

It starts fairly early, when the sun is starting to show hints on the horizon with a …body slam. The abuse I get around here is incredible. Sure I may be a little annoying by jumping to the bedroom window sill and digging my claws into the screen. It is only because the great outdoors is calling my name, beckoning me to antagonize all the rodents in a 2 kilometer radius. Instead, Female Handler (FH) has little compassion in my need to be outside at that hour, and grabs my torso from the window sill and slams me on the bed mattress. It doesn't hurt anything other than my ego. I indulged the handlers and give them the extra ½ hour of sleep.

And then it’s usually FH out of bed first to pound down a cup of coffee prior to the milk fest. Chochi, the momma goat, starts to vocalize her need to be milked around the time that FH is trying to heat up her coffee in the possessed microwave (but more on that later). The Handlers started separating the kids, Tontin and Timida (Tonti and Timi for short) from Chochi in the evenings only recently because they knew once they did, they would need to maintain that schedule of early morning milking. The hard truth is that mornings now come VERY early for them. Me doing a little screen snapping with my claws is only my effort to move the day along.

Summer has arrived. Sure enough the days are supposedly getting shorter. Hard to really see that when the sun is setting about 9:20pm. The ticks are fewer. Male Handler (MH) is awfully pleased about that. Those blood sucking losers really messed with my image over the spring. I once had one hanging off my lip. Imagine the look. No longer am I the cuddly Maine Coon who is kissed and doted on. That time is now replaced with the need to remove the tick and thoroughly check my body for others. With MH, it’s a lengthy procedure almost requiring the reading (examination and issuance of a certificate valid for one year) of a ten-page SOP, and the usage of tweezers for tick extraction. With FH, the tick is twisted to death in less than 2 seconds flat.

The goats have been a constant source of amusement for me. It is possible to train goats to walk and eat the flowers among the rows of almond trees….if you have a squirt bottle. Just a little pinch from an almond tree leaf will warrant being squirted in the face with the water bottle. Goats hate water. They are almost bigger wusses than I when it comes to getting wet.

I have spent many an hour observing the goats. If I were to imagine what these goats would be if they were humans, here’s the lowdown:

- Timida: The youngest and female, Timida is named after one of the Snow White dwarfs, Bashful. She came out bashful, and she’s still rather timid when it comes to new things. She’ll be the first to run for the hills when something startles her. The problem is that she doesn’t know where exactly she’s running to…. Timi would be the next Marilyn Monroe (without the ending). Her sultry hazy blue eyes and long eyelashes are intoxicating as far as goats go.

- Tontin: The oldest and male, Tontin is named also after one of the Snow White dwarfs, Dopey. Tonti would probably be a ranch hand with the perpetual blade of grass hanging out of his month, and who is easily distracted by cloud formations.

- Chochi: Momma Chochi epitomizes Big is Beautiful and is the one who will counsel teenage girls who struggle with weight gain. Chochi, while hauling quite a load, expanding with each clover flower intake, actually prances with her defiant head held high. She is one proud lady.

Every evening after milking, the routine is as such. MH goes into the house with the evening milk, strains the milk, measures it, and then puts the new containers in the fridge. He then comes back out to fluff up the bedding for the goats for the night. The bedding will have already been cleaned (of last night's poop) and aired out earlier, and the fluffing up is actually putting the bedding back into their favorite spots and adding the new goodies (flowers, vegetation…) Then he heads into the orchard in search of more evening goodies and to do a last check of rows of trees. What he is looking for are sources of leaf cutter ants. He is armed with poison and an attitude. Best to leave him be.

I usually always accompany FH.

Her job in the evening is to exercise the goats with a walk-about and gorge fest. A big willow branch came crashing down from the massive tree at the other end of the farm about a week ago, and that has been the direction that they head.

Sometimes they reach it, sometimes they do not depending on the number of distractions along the way. It also depends on how hot it is, and whether FH has to carry me. I just lay on the pathetic meow, and rather than squirt me with water to cool me off, she does what I expect her to do….and that is to pick me up and carry me through the high grasses.

My life is not all about being pampered. I do my share to bring home the bacon. One evening while not being carried, I caught a rabbit and killed it immediately with one sharp bite into the neck.

At first I wasn't going to give it to FH. I just wanted to enjoy it all to myself. But the level of enjoyment increases exponentially if you have others to share it with. So I put it on her rubber boots. She leaned over and was going to pick it up from the hind legs. I had a change of heart and took it back….This went on for several minutes, all taking place on her rubber boots. I could tell she was getting a little annoyed and no longer into my game. I finally gave it to her. It was really too hot to eat anyway. FH holding a rabbit by the hind legs, three goats in tow, and me tagging along, all went in search of MH. FH convinced MH to take this fresh rabbit and do what mini-FH would do. SKIN IT! MH went one step farther. He not only skinned it, he cooked it a couple of days later along with some lamb on the barbecue.

For my efforts, FH gave me a piece of it, and I must say I did an excellent job in catching a young tender rabbit. And now we have a nice rabbit skin doily. Another 500 more and we might have a rug.

So the year is almost at a close. Rather amazing. It is time to take appreciation for what we have and what we lost along the way.

- We now have our own source of milk: fresh sweet goats’ milk. Some may find it odd that the word “sweet” is used to describe goats’ milk. The formula for sweet milk is a diet consisting of willow leaves, trumpet vines, clover flowers, and grains growing in the almond orchard. The milk intake is about a liter in the morning and a liter in the evening which differs greatly from their very first proud moment when the handlers successfully milked Chochi below. That quantity was hardly worth the hassle, but remarkably they were undaunted and kept at it until they realized ....Oh, separating the kids was key otherwise the kids were essentially sucking her dry (even as "teenagers").

- The Handlers have edible mushrooms on the farm. This one below is edible.

They only pop up shortly after FH has washed the windows. This correlation may seem strange, but it is a proven fact. FH washes the windows, and within 24 to 36 hours, we will get dumped on with blowing wind and rain. While FH is depressed that an afternoon’s effort is for naught, MH is ecstatic with anticipation of a fresh crop of mushrooms… until he remembers that rain promotes the growth of grass. Remember the clipping in the winter?

Yes, he’s still clipping. I just marvel at his desire to not utilize electricity or fuel to power a mower. Hand Power rules on this farm. There are a lot of hours consumed by clipping. There is a cadence to that sound that is reassuring… FH shopped around one Saturday morning in search of a push reel lawn mower. The three hardware stores all had their own stories to share about when they last saw a push reel lawn mower but none had any or the ability to access one from some larger inventory elsewhere. These shots are actually of a bad mushroom:

A bad mushroom

And this is the same bad mushroom 10 days later. Lovely, eh?

- The Handlers have lost the joy of receiving snails’ mail since the move out to the farm. An occasional card always brings a smile to their faces. We have seen glimpses of a mailman who occasionally rides by on his scooter, but he never stops at our gate. While some may perceive this lack of paper mail as a wonderful thing, the Handlers are a little bit miffed and experimenting with different addresses and even adding in how many hundreds of meters they are beyond or before such and such’s house. Nothing has worked yet. This inability to receive mail is a bit of a pain. It requires them to go to the electric utility office in town every first week of the month, and have them print out their monthly invoice, and pay it. Going to the utility office requires going during the week, during normal working hours. What are normal working hours? 9-12pm, 2-4pm. So MH makes an attempt to coordinate this trip when it is Fish Friday and he can pick up some fish from the Montevideo vendor who is parked in town from 7am to 1pm.

- Remember when the Handlers lost one of their license plates back in June having been stolen to sell as a souvenir to the visiting Europeans. It’s still missing.

Thanks to the Chilean volcanic dust helping to outline the markings .

They don’t stress about it too much. They still have the local police department document in the glove box that confirms they reported it missing. That’s the most important. They have two options:

1) They can buy a license plate from a souvenir vendor. If it turns out that it exactly matches their back plate, bonus! If not, well, they’ll see how long they can go before it becomes an issue. The real problem is getting a replacement plate. The car is registered in another departamento. And once the car is registered in a departamento, it takes a whole lot of effort to get it moved to your departamento of residence…especially since you no longer have two license plates. And to get the replacement plate, you need to ask all the previous owners to meet you at the departamento’s transportation office, and verify that yes, that was the car you used to own. What the hell? Who knows where the previous 5 owners live, if they’re even living, or how to contact them. All that effort seems so incredible, just to get a replacement plate.

2) So in the past 6 months, the Handlers have become keen observers of license plates, and have noticed that many cars do not have original plates. Many are fabrications on wood and even paper (I kid you not). The second option would be to actually make one. That’s on the “honey-do” list but much farther down…

And the biggest loss, is of my best friend Mo. I miss him. He is with us in spirit and is the first to view the rising sun from his burial location.

I leave you with signs of summer at the farm. It is a wonderful place to be, and we are so very thankful for what we have. Happy Holidays, and here’s to what’s to come in 2012.