Friday, June 25, 2010

Update on Miliko at the vet

As per usual I am about three weeks behind with my blog writing, nothing new there. However I though I must keep you all up to date with our little darling, that wrecks the place, and drives us and the other dogs to distraction..... yes Miliko. We took him along to the vet in Cordoba as arranged, for a check up, after one month, having being given the news that there really was nothing we could do for the little fella, regarding his soft tissue that had formed around his jaw, that had been dislocated, and preventing him from opening his mouth very wide. Well personally, I was over the moon, to hear it had stayed at exactly the same size. He can open his mouth 18mms. He can still eat his dinner, and tries very hard to play with toys, drag washing off the clothes line, eat candles, and I'm afraid even manage to eat baby birds. Sadly nature has it's way of keeping the bird population down, and Miliko is one of those ways. I was so worried that he had deteriorated and therefore would have an idea of how long the lil fella would have, but thank God, this is not the case just yet. We are going back to the vet in six months time, God willing. He will be one year old in August, bless him!

Miliko being a pain to Blue, whilst she is trying to watch her favourite tv program Bondi Vet!

Wonderful trip back to Brighton

I know we all think we have the most wonderful children in the world, but I'm sorry, I do! Thanks to my wonderful daughter and family, I hopped onto an easy jet flight in Malaga for another little trip back to, what was a gloriously sunny Brighton. As usual it was not long enough to see many friends, although I did manage to catch up with a couple of besties. This time including my good friend Karen, that I worked with, in one of the schools, who was adamant that she treat me to lunch, lunch was great, but the company even better. It was wonderful to catch up Karen, thank you! Poor Frankie is carless at the moment but we managed to get about on buses without too much difficulty, even though she is out in Peacehaven. Thanks to buses, and Mark and Callie driving around, I managed to see as much of the kids and beautiful babies as possible. The babies are both such charactors now. Kaci was standing up beside the furniture, and crawling, really laughing and squealing, as well as saying, dada, mumumum, and pa! This was her favourite thing to shout at me whilst I tried so hard to encourage her to say nana! I would just get "PA" in return. Maise is now having these great little conversations, but she sounds like she is having a good old moan, inbetween the most beautiful smiles. I am so proud of my Frankie and Mark, and their little families, and I just cannot believe how wonderful it is to be a nanny. It is so very difficult to be away from them for long periods, it helps when I have a definite date for a return trip. Which I am extremely happy to say I have just booked....... yippppeeee! Ok, proud nanny wants to show you all the photos below!

Maisie

Kaci


My two gorgeous girls!


Sunday, June 6, 2010

Alpaca weaning

The time had come, well if I am honest, probably a couple of months ago, that Galaxy needed weaning. Cassandra his mum was a little on the thin side so we knew it would be in her best interest, but we were worried as young alpacas get very upset and hum loudly whilst looking for their mum, and the mum gets very stressed and agitated too, thinking their youngster has gone missing. Santa who is younger than Galaxy can be weaned soon, although he was not ready to be weaned at the same time as Galaxy, we also knew that he would miss his little friend!

Galaxy had been into the paddock playing with Rafa, Marcus and Eduardo, the boys, a few times. It had started off very friendly, with the boys practically skipping, high off of the ground, but of course then a need to prove dominance begins, and when things would get a little rough we would put the hose on them, just to calm things. So we were unsure how things would be. Also Rafa was being a little bit bullied in the boys paddock so we had an idea that maybe we would seperate Rafa and Galaxy together, to enable them to do a little bit of team building before putting the boys back together again.

So the big day arrived, we had to plan it with great precision, unfortunately it was a day that we had guests arriving, but never the less it was the day Alan wanted to do it. We managed somehow to get Rafa and Galaxy past Marcus and Eduardo and through to their new paddock. All was well for about five minutes when all hell let lose! Eduardo and Marcus suddenly realised they did not want to lose Rafa from their gang, and somehow squeezed through a tiny gap in a fence, that was less that a foot wide, they were runing around excitedly. Meanwhile Rafa jumped over his new fence to see his mates, that we thought he would like to be away from. Ok project all halted until another day!

Let's try again! Having blocked holes in fences and tied up fencing to lessen opportunities of escaping alpacas we had another go. Maybe it was beause we were calmer but all seemed to go to plan. The grey boys, Marcus and Edardo were in a small area so they could not run around. Galaxy did run up to them and had a good sniff and said "hi!" He then followed to where Rafa had gone to their new paddock, yet again! All was calm and all was well. No alpacas could escape! After a couple of hours, Alan and I thought we would pop ino town as Galaxy seemed fine, and although Cassandra was humming pretty loudly we knew she just had to get through the next couple of days, and she would be perfectly happy again.

Alan went ahead and opened the gate and started the car, as I followed behind, Rafa tried once again to jump over the fence. Poor little lad his front legs and feet were over, with his back feet off the ground. I knew Alan would not hear me shouting for him over the car engine so I had to wait for him to drive slowly down from our car parking area, as of course by then he was wondering where I was. As he looked for me he thought I was standing, cuddling Rafa, until he realised that I was trying to take some of his weight as he balanced over a fence. Bless him! We undid some fencing, and managed to get Rafa back on four feet, with no harm done, apart from his dignity, and alpaca street credability. Since then Marcus and Eduardo have settled down nicely, Rafa and Galaxy are doing just great, and Cassandra was a little upset for a few days, and could often be seen looking over the gate for her little boy, but thankfully she is also doing fine now, and is starting to put some weight back on!

Rafa and Galaxy happy in their new paddock

Rafa explores their new stable

He seems happy!