Refugee Upgrade!

Those of you have have remained faithful to my writings (even with the lengthy gaps in between each post), will have read the words 'feral cats' several times! Some of these precious souls have become part of our family, some have been homed to special people, some were released after trapping and neutering and have never been seen again.....and some have simply remained where they were trapped and later released, wobbly from the anaesthetic, but free to live without breeding.

Two of these gorgeous girls live just around the corner, and because they were trapped and fixed in July and come from Jacobsbaai, it was fitting to give them names beginning with...J

So Jasmine and Juniper they are! Lovingly referred to by us as 'The Refugees'. Our wonderful neighbours gave us a lovely kennel for them, and so they are warm and fed and safe and happy. Jasmine has become tameish.... she sits on the wall where I feed and waits until she sees me walk into the driveway of the lovely people who let me meander up their drive daily to feed them. Once the food is down I can stroke her, but not Juniper, she is still very wary and waits in the background until all the lovey-dovey stuff is done!

The Refugees little home and garden!

Kittens in the Kitchen!

I was happily pottering in the garden about two weeks ago (ignoring the nagging thought that there was a small pile of ironing waiting for me), when a neighbour pulled up outside our gate, hopped out and called to me.......

And what she said made me so angry that I could feel my blood pressure rising and my head getting tight!

'I need your help please', she said 'Someone has DUMPED six kittens at the bottom of the road. Can you please help?'

Well........................
Two minutes later I had grabbed the cat box, hopped in her car and arrived at the end of the road. Another neighbour came out to tell us that she had collected them in case of 'scattering', and had put them safely inside a box, on a blanket. But because she was highly allergic to cats, she did not want to touch them too much and was already itching and sneezing!

And there they were. Six perfect, beautiful kittens. Not newborn, these had wide open eyes, and I put them at between 6 and 8 weeks old. But.... no mummy cat with them. So, where had they come from? By clever deduction we worked out that they must have been dumped there just after 8 o' clock, when Rob and I were sitting in bed drinking our coffee! We actually noticed a strange Security van racing past our house towards the sea, and then literally racing back a minute later..... could this person have been involved?

Back to the kittens. They were tame, very tame actually, so were used to human company and touch. They were happy to be picked up and cuddled, and we put them into our box to take home.

Beautiful babies.

Alfie's Story!

For those of you who regularly read my ramblings (not that my ramblings are that regular any more.... but I shall improve), our little off-white dog Alfie has been a familiar name as he lives his life alongside ours.

We have had him for nearly thirteen years, wow, we can hardly believe, and for those of you who didn't know his story, here is a brief synopsis!

Alfie and his best friend... Rob.

I found him in the middle of the traffic one January morning in 2007 in our town of Vredenburg. He was lost, he was confused, he was filthy and matted and covered in fleas and he was in danger of being run over any moment. So, we stopped to pick him up (my sister was visiting at the time) and took him to our wonderful vet who said that she would keep him for a few days to see if he was claimed.
When I got home and told Rob the story, he looked amused.
'What do you want to do?'..... were the words he uttered and by that time I was phoning the vet to say 'Give him his innoculations, I shall come to fetch him' and the rest is history!

More friends, Morris and of course, the ginger boy Basil.

And for the last thirteen years our evening routine has never varied....

Boom Boom Spring Is Here!

I know it has been months since my last post and I do apologise... I promise to try harder!!

Our winter came and went and we did have some rain, I am happy to say. Not a lot, but enough to allow our restrictions to be lifted... although I sincerely hope that we do not regret this later! Our dams are now at the 70% level which is pretty good, but once we are allowed to use water freely again, who knows.

But this is about Spring and the things it brings!
The boom boom bit is for the sound that my heart made one day about two weeks ago.

Read on!!

There I was happily pottering in the garden one morning when suddenly the sound of starlings broke through my thoughts, and looking round to see why and what, I glanced at the lampost where we have a nesting log attached. And saw what looked like a sausage in the entrance/exit hole.

Interesting! (All photos thanks to Rob)

The parent birds were frantic, flying and diving and as I watched, the sausage moved.... and I realised that it was a snake with it's head inside the log, taking one of the two baby starlings that were almost at flying stage.