Thursday 29 October 2015

Trials of Being Owned by Cats

Keepin' busy. Lots has been happening but I've little to say. So, what's been happening? Hmmm. Well, first on the agenda - my Magnolia. A few of you may remember last Christmas Mum and Dad bought me a Magnolia tree - my childhood dream. Well, it's flowered for the first time under my care, and I'm stoked. It's gorgeous! I can't wait until it gets bigger, reaching it's 6 metre height and covers itself with that lovely colour. Mum's plan is to eventually buy more of them to put on that small new section of land when we eventually get it - it'll be great to see so many of the different colours we could get.




Our vege garden is now well underway. The glass house is filled with miniature pots with all the seedlings growing, the seed potatoes and beetroot seeds are in their bed, the strawberries are spread in among straw and marigolds are around the perimeter of each individual garden. The garden is separated out into three sections - four if you include the strawberry patch - to make it a bit more easier and distinct where everything should be. And I'm not too much of a fan of Marigolds, but heck the bees like them and that's the important thing, right? Mum's growing all sorts of other flowers as well, so the potted colour around the place should look pretty neat too :)
It's quite nice to see everything growing, flowering, fruiting. It definitely is that feeling of spring/summer when you start getting fruit on the trees. The Loquat is delicious, the grapes have taken off in growth and we have minuscule grapes growing on them for the first time, and more importantly the Peach tree is fruiting.
This Peach tree, it's a pretty special tree. See, when we first moved here there were two heritage peach trees in the backyard - they were absolutely delicious! But, we thought they were so good and well, so did our Husky, Chy-Anne. She would stand on her back feet, reach up and pluck fruit from the trees, leaving the stones everywhere, so we had to pull them out and move them to a new location so she wouldn't destroy them. However, they didn't survive the move and died - gutting. We moved north, Chy-Anne died a few years later, then we came back here one day to find a Peach tree growing in between the fence and pigsty - Chy-Anne's legacy. We transplanted it, crossed all our fingers it would be OK. It has since grown massive and is now fruiting for the first time, absolutely stoked about this, where would we be without that dog? Man she was awesome.


Labour Day traffic was mental, there was one non-fatal accident on one of the local busy roads around here, meaning poor old SH1 was exploding with traffic at every entrance to it, due to the diversion. Meaning I had to take a slight back route to work, not the most ideal road, part of it is like a one lane driveway so coming across others like me who are skipping the main road was a little interesting - especially when some of them appeared to not know how to drive a gravel road! (Aucklanders, why you come north?! Where did you even go?!) Monday was a good work day, I got to take back control of one of my favourite sheds, where I haven't been able to work at much this season due to my other commitments at other farms. I have hopeful thinking that they appreciated having me back for a change, and Tuesday night I got to go there too - where, on this occasion I somewhat said it straight to the farmer. You. Need. To. Take. Some. Time. Off! He's a stubborn person, we're all a bit like that though, I guess, and came up with every excuse in the book as to why he couldn't have just one sleep in for a change (he hasn't taken any time off this season yet, and it's showing). This is the one farm I work on that I'm covering for the staff and not the boss. Ridiculous



Frodo has made her mark recently, quite literally. Rewind the clock to Wednesday: Pippa is sitting in the scullery, staring in the corner where we keep things such as bags of potatoes, onions and kumera. She has quite a perplexed look on her face, keeps looking at me saying, "Mum, there's something in there." Me, well, I'm not the biggest fan of rodents so I just tried to ignore her looks. My mum, however carefully lifted the bags out of the way and then yelled, "There's a mouse!" Me, freaking out, laughing, hiding in the kitchen so I wouldn't have to try catch it. Darling Pippa is also like, omgosh, it moved, I'm outta here! The guys were outside working, so we couldn't have gotten their help, Mum eventually caught it and we let it go outside, while trying to convince Pippa that she was a cat and needed to kill it. I think she was just amazed that her new toy moved all on it's own. Frodo, not all that concerned either to be quite honest. 

Last Thursday was my day off, Mum and Dad were out working and Nick had just gotten home. I crawled out of bed, discovered a pile of feathers at the bottom of the stairs (thanks Frodo, I'll clean them up soon) and found Pippa sprawled out on the floor, staring underneath the couch. I'll have you know, I avoided the couch for a while, Nick had gone back to his house. Eventually I got the courage to pull the couch apart, and here is a mouse with the spotlight on it, sort of thinking, 'oh crap, uh, hi?' Now I'm seriously freaking out, grabbed my cellphone, messaged mum "there's a mouse!" Help! (what on earth was she going to do? Other than yell via messenger to not let it escape?!)

Pippa is absolutely starstruck, staring at this mouse. It runs, I yell. You can probably imagine it about now. It took probably half an hour, until I managed to trap it. How? Stuff a plastic bag down one end of the metal vacuum cleaner pipe and force the mouse in the other end, spin pipe around and mouse is in the base. Release mouse outside just as Frodo arrives, where she looks pitifully down at the poor creature who's had quite an eventful morning and appears to ask if it's quite OK? Later on I see the mouse flying through the air as Frodo plays with it, she's so sweet would never hurt a fly, that cat! ;)

By now you're probably thinking, gosh, they have mice in their house? Wouldn't want to go there! No, quite honestly, we don't. I'll explain.
Saturday night, I'm 'asleep' in bed, it's about 10pm and I've got an early start. Mum and Dad start yelling, why? Because Frodo has just arrived through the cat door, battle cry and all, and released yet another mouse in our house. She's quite pleased with herself! I'm in hysterics, laying in bed above the lounge, where below me Mum and Dad are going ballistic at the cat, because said mouse has run here, there and everywhere in a mad panic. Hehe. Our house is pretty open plan, there's no doors downstairs except into the bathrooms, so you can imagine having a mouse on the loose, who knows where it could go? Eventually, it was discovered in the bathroom, Mum biffed the cat in there shut the door, told Dad it was his issue (his cat) and went to bed. lol. The mouse was caught, released and gone. One wonders whether each time it was the same mouse? What a happy thought.

Now, I get to the main part. I got up for work at 5am, nothing seems amiss apart from the couch still being in pieces from the night before. Off I go to work. A few hours later I come home again, to hear that after I left for work Mum and Dad came downstairs to discover a. RABBIT at the bottom of the stairs. Quite dead, but in quite a state, potentially looking like a murder had occurred there (thank goodness I was working) and to think that our carpet is a very light, tanned sort of colour. Hmm, we're still trying to figure out what will get the stain out, it's pretty awful. Flippen cat, left her mark alright.
And to think, I'm pretty sure it's the Chinese Year of the Rabbit....thank goodness it's not the year of the blimmen Horse. o.O

But anyway. Sunday I get to see Sam and Chantelle again - first time since August, you wouldn't believe the trials of trying to sort one date where we can catch up, if only for a few hours for dinner somewhere. Going to Chantelles for a while on Sunday night, having dinner and watching a movie. Should be nice :)
Today is Mum and Dad's 21st wedding anniversary and we've got our YF meeting on tonight (how exciting, to be honest the only part I enjoy about going to these meetings nowadays is being able to eat the lemongrass crumbed chicken....mmmm).

We have had 10mm of rain so far in October, over last weekend. Now it's drizzling out there again - a fantastic sight as the ground is all cracked up.

2 comments:

  1. Great about the magnolia!

    hehe, the cat saga... About my only comment is that that is why our cats are permanently banned from the house. Haha, but very entertaining reading for the rest of us, even if not for you!!! :P

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