Mysterious Fauna

Iggy in the bath

As I've mentioned before, I work as a dogwalker.  A friend and I run a small business called 'Animal Aunties'.
We also look after cats, parrots, chickens, horses, small caged animals and whatever happens to come our way, which is why I had an iguana living in one of my bedrooms for a few weeks.  In a large tank, I might add.
My grandchildren were fascinated and my grandson, on looking at her for the first time, turned to me with wonder in his eyes, asking 'Granny, is that a dragon?'
'Yes,' I replied, not wanting to spoil the magic.
'Does she breathe fire?', he asked in a whisper, as if frightened that she might let loose with a burst of flame.
I told him no, and that there was nothing to worry about, but clearly he felt that she should.  And perhaps he still imagines that she does spurt flame, despite what old Granny told him.  And why not?  If you can't experience some mystery and magic when you are a child then it's very sad. 

And it's amazing what mysteries we come across when we are dondering around the countryside with dogs in tow.  Or in tow to the dogs, which is usually a more realistic scenario.
A few weeks ago, on our usual morning walk by the sea, I looked up and saw two pigs in the distance.   I know there are wild boar on the loose in the countryside but these were Tamworths.  Yes, our very own 'Tamworth Two'.
We got closer.  The pigs looked at us curiously then started following us.  We put the dogs on leads as they were turning themselves insides-out trying to fathom what on earth these strange creatures were.
We must have looked an odd sight as we walked along, with the dogs having to be pulled backwards, followed by the two friendly sandy coloured pigs.  Maybe they thought we had food but, eventually realising that there was nothing to be had, they trotted off in search of richer pickings.  We later discovered that they were escapees from a nearby farm and apart from a few later sightings we've heard nothing more of them.  I hope they have been recaptured and are back where they belong.

Then there are the regulars, the dolphins and the ospreys.  In the summer we often see dolphins cavorting in the Moray Firth.  They are wonderful animals and a sighting of them fairly sets you up for the day.  Sometimes they are heading for Chanonry Point on the Black Isle, but often they hunt here at Spey Bay.  The dolphins round up the shoals and then the gannets come in, diving into the water and creating the tremendous spectacle of a feeding frenzy.
The dolphins often come in close to the shore and it's an amazing experience to just stand and watch as they leap and twist out of the water.
And the ospreys fish here too, in the pools behind the shingle bank and in the river, catching the salmon to take back to their chicks further inland. 

I've also seen Orcas.  Although they come into the Firth on a yearly basis my sighting was some time ago.  I simply couldn't believe my eyes.  Five killer whales broaching the waves not two hundred yards offshore.  I checked up with the local Whale and Dolphin Society which operates from across the river Spey and they confirmed the sighting.  I just felt so lucky to have witnessed them as they made their way west.

But there are also animals that I've spotted that perhaps shouldn't be here. Or maybe they should, depending on your point of view.  And after years of watching these particular creatures I'm beginning to believe they've been around for a lot longer than we may have thought.

I'm talking about big cats.

I've seen them five times in fifteen years.  The first time was at Mulben in 1999, when a cat crossed the road in front of my car.  This was a Eureka moment for me as I'd  heard of them, interviewed people who had seen them and written about them, but, until then, never seen them myself.  I've also seen them twice in Lhanbryde and twice here where I live.   I've heard the cats (a leopard's cough, and on one occasion a sort of 'grumbling' noise) and smelled their strong tomcat odour.
The animals are black, have the bodies of leopards with very long thick tails but have a slightly different head.  It's more like a giant domestic cat's face, they don't appear to have the strong jawline of the African leopard.  This makes me think that they may be a slightly altered strain of panther.  They live in the woods and appear to be completely self-sufficient, having a good amount of food available.  They will eat almost anything, from insects and birds, to rabbits, fish, deer and the occasional sheep, which explains their success.

I'm not the only one to have seen these animals of course, many people have reported sightings.  But there was an event, something very strange, that happened just a few weeks ago.
I was walking with a friend, along with our own three dogs, when Megan rushed out of the bushes, ears down and hackles up.  She refused to go forward, as did my friend's dog (Mrs Mist was behind us, chewing grass, and hadn't noticed anything).  We tried to urge them on but it was a no go. They just wouldn't move.

Megan at the spot where she refused to let us go forward.  What did she see?

Megan went back down the path towards home, then turned and looked at me as if to say 'don't be a plonker'.  You could almost hear the audible sigh as she returned, took my gloved hand and pulled me back, away from any perceived danger.
Usually on a walk, Megan is like a bull in a china shop.  She crashes through the bushes and will chase rabbits, birds and, on the odd occasion, deer.  I don't like it when she does this, but it happens.  However, this time she was clearly petrified and so we decided to take notice and walked away, with the dogs looking back to where we had been standing minutes before, as if checking that nothing was coming after us. 
What had they seen that we hadn't?  Was it a another cat?  I don't know, but it is possible as big cats have been seen on several occasions in this immediate area.  And no, I haven't managed to photograph them but I live in hope that one day I will.  Unless Megan takes me away first!

Make Do and Mend

My dogs amongst the pink flowers of 'Thrift'  An appropriately named plant under the circumstances

Sadly, when I look at the glass this week, it's half empty. This coincides with the state of my bank account, thanks to Mr Chancellor.  I've managed to pay the car tax and the council tax but my self-employed national insurance payment is overdue.  And because of these taxing demands on my income, I can't afford to fix all the things that have gone phut recently.
I admit the situation isn't life threatening but it's damned annoying.

The dishwasher broke.  This doesn't matter as I can always use the sink but I miss being able to hide dirty dishes when somebody comes to the door.  And the digi-box is on the blink.  It freezes the screen and only works if facing away from the telly. Now I have to leap off the sofa and stand by the window every time I want to change channels otherwise the box doesn't receive the command signal from the remote control. 

My faithful old hairdryer went 'ping' and expired on Friday.  No, it's not the end of the world either, but it used to belong to my mother, was at least 20 years old and I was accustomed to having it around. 
Okay, 20 years is a good innings for any appliance, but this one went just as I switched it on, minutes before I was due to go to work.  I resorted to towel drying and then combed my hair into some semblance of style before applying half a can of lacquer to keep it in place, otherwise it looks as if I've stuck my finger into the plug socket.  A further downside was that the hat I have to wear at work wouldn't stay on as my new hairstyle was completely solid.

Then there is the car.  It has gasket problems (I know how it feels) and it's tappets are tappeting.  They make a noise that resembles a sub-machine gun going off at full blast. My friends casually raise a hand in greeting without taking the trouble to turn their heads to look at me.  They know who it is by the sound of the engine.
Everyone else dives into the bushes.
And to add insult to injury, the starter motor is playing up.  Or, I should say, it's playing dead - for at least four turns of the key.  I've got a stone in the car that I use to beat it into submission.  I was told this was the thing to do but I'm not so sure.  It doesn't seem to be the slightest bit afraid of me and I've no doubt that it'll take revenge and refuse to start at all when it's most inconvenient - and raining.  It's the same stone that I used on my last car.  With that one I used it to hit the battery connection whenever it decided to take the day off and so the stone has become a very necessary part of my mechanical tool kit.

Finally in this tale of woe, the loo has broken.  I don't know who decided to manufacture a ballcock and all the trimmings out of plastic, but it was not a good idea.  At least with old fashioned copper you could bend the arm and lower the ballcock so the water switched off before reaching the overflow.  Not so with plastic.  It simply breaks. Which mine did.
The result was a constant trickle of water through the overflow pipe.  It ran down the outside wall and could have threatened the foundations if left that way.  Not being able to afford plumber's rates at the moment (children, become plumbers or electricians, trust me, you'll never be poor) I had to resort to ingenuity.  Being unable to turn off the stopcock (it was jammed for some reason) I stuck a screwdriver into the cistern to hold up the ballcock so as to slow down the flow of water, rammed a hosepipe into the overflow pipe outside, covered the join with duct tape and ran the hose around to the veggie plot. At least in the short term the water wasn't being wasted and as we don't have a hosepipe ban up here, it was perfectly legal.

My business partner came to the rescue.  She very kindly brought over some new parts for the cistern, reached in to lift up the plastic arm and snapped the joint completely.  Water shot up out of the pipe, hit the shelf above and soaked us.
With great presence of mind she covered the breach with her hand while I rushed to find the duct tape, while shouting something along the lines of the little Dutch boy, thumbs and sea walls.  She wasn't impressed.  Maybe she thought she'd have to stay in the bathroom for five days or however long it took for him to be discovered.
I eventually tracked down the tape (it was still outside - see above) and we repaired the joint.  She did manage to turn off the stop-cock completely, but unfortunately the bits she'd brought for the repair didn't fit.
Now going to the loo has become quite an experience.
I have to turn on the stop-cock, let the water fill the cistern and then switch it back off otherwise water floods the bathroom.  The overflow can no longer cope with the rush of water as my screwdriver/hosepipe system is defunct.
This is all very well, but, as all ladies of a certain age know, time is not always of the essence when needing  the loo.  But at least it amuses my grandchildren.

So if there is a mechanically/electrically minded plumber out there who would take pity on a poor old soul and come to her assistance, your help would be gratefully appreciated.  And while you are here, is there any chance that you could cast your eyes over the sealant around the bath?  It's not looking too good either...

The Clue's in the Name

I'm lucky in that I have a reasonable long-term memory.  Of course the longer you live, the more there is to remember, but while, like a lot of  my generation, I often mislay my glasses or the car keys, I can recall a lot of what went on in the sixties.  This is because I was a young teenager and as far as I was concerned grass was something green that grew in fields and hash was made from corned beef.
We wore mini dresses, straightened our hair between sheets of brown paper on the ironing board and listened to Cream, the Beatles and the Stones on the radio.  Popular too were the individual singers, the most famous being Tom Jones and Engleburt Humperdinck. 
Personally I'm not keen on crooners, but Engleburt and Tom were all over Top of the Pops which was required viewing in those days.  Even the mums and dads and maiden aunts quite liked them (while professing not to approve of Tom's gyrations but casting covert glances at  the telly all the same).
And you've got to admit, the pair of them have staying power.
They are masters of re-invention, not only in their careers.  Tom is now on The Voice and our Engleburt has reached the dizzy heights of Eurovision.  And being a good citizen I wish him well, but quietly wonder if he were chosen so we could avoid hosting the whole shebang next year.  Post Olympics we might not be able to afford it.
But Engleburt's re-emergence into the spotlight has reminded me of a little friend I had in the sixties.  He wasn't very big, only lived for three years (in my bedroom, because of the cats) and was named Bungleburt Hamsterdinck.
He was a great little chap, full of heart and a real Houdini.  No barred cage was going to keep him in and safe. He wanted to be out there in the wider world of the bedroom, the hall, and on occasions, the kitchen.
This was dangerous.  'I've lost the hamster', I'd shout more frequently than was reasonable and the whole family would set to and look for him.
He actually lived behind the cooker for a week and how he avoided being eaten by the cats I don't know.  Occasionally we would hear scurrying and pull out the appliance but we were always too slow.  He would retreat under the sink which then gave him the run of several cabinets and because of the layout, out onto the floor. There'd be a sudden flash of brown and white, somebody would make a dive towards him but he was quick.  Too quick.  But then, just as suddenly, his spell of freedom came to an end.  No, it wasn't the cat, it was my stepmother, wielding, with great dexterity, a dustpan and brush .  Caught.  And I was grateful.  I didn't want to see him end up as lunch.
Like Engleburt, he lived to a ripe old age and the little hamster was still at the top of his game until suddenly he was called to the big wheel in the sky. 
So when Engleburt comes on stage and sings his heart out for Britain, remember my little friend Bungleburt.  He won't  be here to watch the competition but I'm sure he would have been thrilled to bask in some reflected glory, should Engleburt claims the prize.

Wherefore Art Thou, Global Warming?

As I mentioned earlier, I am looking for a job.  Or was.  At my stage of life it's not that easy to land a job as prospective employers tend to have the passing thought that you might fall off your perch whilst on shift.  Plus I don't have recognisable bits of paper that say I can use a computer, add up or string a sentence together (I did have some but they bore no resemblance to what is required nowadays and I've no idea in which house move they got lost.)  But the glass is full to the brim and in addition my cup runneth over.  I've landed a job.  It's permanent - unless I do anything incredibly stupid - and it gives me enough hours to become more solvent than I've been of late.
And the job?  I'm now working in the world of the fish supper, of sausages in batter and the deep fried Mars bar.  Yes, I've got a job in the local chippy and very fine it is too.
At the moment I'm getting to grips with the sink - and the dishwasher which broke when I was only into my second shift - but I'm sure it weren't me, guv.  Then I was briefly let loose on the till, but my more experienced workmates took over when we got incredibly busy and I went back into the nether reaches of the shop where the Marigolds live.  Still, no doubt I'll get the hang of it all, hopefully sooner rather than later.
One bonus is that when I come home, with the aroma of chips preceding me up the garden path, my dogs (Mrs Mist, a Labrador/Staffie and Megan, a Retriever/Staffie) go into ecstasies over what they imagine is a walking meal.  Instead of the usual glances, their expressions clearly saying 'Oh, you've turned up again, what time do you call this?  And where is supper?', they rush to the door and demand a full account of the evening's happenings.  They are very obvious.
'Oh, can I smell fish?  And is that a sausage?  Wow!  With chips or just salad?  And the shoes, check out the shoes.  It's spilt batter if I'm not mistaken.'
When all they get for supper is run of the mill 'Doggo', their mournful faces say it all.  'What's the point of you working there if we don't get the benefit?'  But they eat it anyway because they love food. Any food.  And their absolute favourite is anything disgusting found on the beach. 
'Dead fish?  How dead?  Three weeks? Yummy!  And a decomposed bird? Whoopee!  Wait till I get past the feathers, it'll be great'.
For some reason Mrs Mist also loves seaweed.  Perhaps it's through a lack of iodine in her diet, but she scoffs it down like it's a prawn mayo sandwich.  And this brings me to the main point of this post.
While I care about the state of the planet, it seems that we up here are not basking in the same warmth as the rest of the country.  It would be nice to have the occasional respite from the cold, and I think I have an answer to Scotland's lack of global warming.  No longer will the forecast say 'London 22 degrees, with full sun. Scotland, you're only going to get up to minus 3 degrees, but hey ho, think of the ski-ing'.
Yes, my answer is Mrs Mist.
Bear with me please.
It appears that the dinosaurs may have been responsible for their own demise.  According to the latest thinking, with their consumption of whole forests, methane emissions from these huge beasts resulted in the climate becoming unsuitable for their own survival; the rising temperatures caused disruption to the weather patterns.  And scientists attribute the same to cattle. They could blow us out of existence.
But it would be nice to have a bit of heat up here in the north, before the end comes.  To look in the back of the wardrobe and find those long forgotten shorts.  I know that hurricanes cause devastation, but couldn't we just have a small share in the global phenomena for once?  To be able to sit in the garden without an easterly coming off the Russian Steppe would be so nice, just now and again.
If methane does cause temperatures to rise, then Mrs Mist - on seaweed - provides the solution.  'Thar' she blows' has nothing on my dog after a few brief snacks from the beach. 
The effect wouldn't be so great, she's not very big.  But on a local level it might give us respite from the nose-bitingly cold weather that has lasted since about November (apart from THAT week in March, and we weren't ready for it).
And there is cause to think it's working.  She spent a considerable amount of time at the weekend chewing her way through the detritus on the shoreline and today we have a temperature in double figures, which is just as well as I've had to open all the windows.

'You can take the girl out of the farm.......

Living in a cul-de-sac rather than on a croft you'd think I'd be content to keep my menagerie down to a couple of budgies. But we've always had dogs and cats (currently two of each) plus I've a rabbit named pii, (pun intended).  But, still on the lines of growing my own food, I wanted to branch out a bit.  Deciding that the neighbours might be a trifle nervous if faced by a couple of hefty beef cattle at the gate, I opted for hens. I was assured that they took little care apart from daily food and water and a weekly scrub out of the hen house. 
I was delighted by the girls, Henrietta, Margo, Loquisha and Mrs Cluck.  They are like nosy Victorian ladies with feathered bustles.  Any movement in the garden has to be investigated immediately and the sight of them running across the lawn, feathers akimbo, is a hoot.  They all have different personalities, Mrs Cluck, despite being the smallest is the Queen Pin of the hen house.  Margo, unlike her namesake Mrs Ledbetter, is the shyest, Henrietta by far the friendliest, sitting on my lap, my shoulder and whenever possible coming into the house.  But it was Loquisha who was taken ill. 
I first noticed she was under the weather when she took to hiding in the bushes, tail down, refusing to eat.  I watched her carefully for a day, leaving food and water within reach but it was no good.  She was clearly poorly. 
Faced with the possibility of losing one of my feathered friends and unsure as to what a vet could do, I phoned a hen keeping friend who told me she was probably egg bound and the treatment was to steam her gently and then dose her with liquid paraffin. 
Putting out of my mind the image of her fixing me with a beady and disappointed stare from under the lid of the stock pot, I decided on a course of action.
Using the bathroom as a sick bay I thrust her into a wicker cat basket and placed this over a tray of hot water on the floor.  Then I turned on the shower.  After repeating the treatment  a couple of times to keep the room steamy I let her out of the basket in case she wanted to eat or lay an egg.  She had other ideas and hid behind the loo. 
Next I filled a syringe with the liquid paraffin, retrieved Loquisha and sat her on my lap.  I held her with my left arm, facing away from me, tried to open her beak and fired the syringe.
I apologised to her, wiped the paraffin from her eye and feathers and from my jumper, refilled the syringe and went for Take 2.
Paraffin doesn't taste very nice really.  I could quite understand why she had turned her head at the critical moment, altering my line of fire and causing the stuff to go into my face.  I put her down, washed my face and cleaned my teeth, filled the syringe yet again, managed to extract her from under the waste pipe and went for Take 3, but hens are really amazingly strong.  I hadn't realised that she would have the energy to escape my grasp and flap across the room, given that she wasn't well in the first place.  And it's surprising how sticky paraffin is when it's all over the carpet.  But by now I was determined.  It was for her own good after all, even if she was convinced I was trying to poison her.
And Take 4 was a success.  The medication went into her beak, she swallowed and then turned her head to look at me, her expression clearly indicating that if I EVER did that again she would go on production strike for a lifetime.
She did recover, albeit slowly.  She is back to egg laying, to foraging for the tastiest worms along with her sisters and has regained her place in the pecking order.  But has she forgiven me?  Well, they say elephants never forget but hens are descended from dinosaurs and trust me - they have very, very long memories.

Ups and Downs

I'd like to introduce myself. I'm a mother of four (grown-up) children, a grandmother to three and I live in the north of Scotland near the shores of the Moray Firth. 
When I first had an idea for a blog, I was in full time employment - albeit made up of two part time jobs - and wanted to make my carbon footprint a little smaller.  I'm the proud owner of four hens, grow as much of my own food as possible, and, after a break of forty years or so, decided it was time to get back on a bike.  Plus, like so many people aspiring to make their fortune, I am, on occasions, writing a novel. 
I thought it might be an idea to share the successes and/or failures of my endeavours with the world but it's amazing how things can go wrong isn't it.
Firstly I got cold feet.  Who on earth would want to know that my cabbages had been infested with the  Cabbage White Butterfly larvae, that my hens had scratched up the onion crop or that I'd got stuck with the novel after 36,000 words?  Probably nobody, at least not those who had better things to do, like making a living or reading War and Peace.
Then, unfortunately,  in February I was made redundant from the wage paying job.  This was a blow.  I needed this job to stay afloat financially as in the other one I am a self-employed dog walker and, as all self-employed people know, the amount of work is completely dependent on how many people are willing to employ you. On those days when the work pours in, which are few, I can walk up to twelve miles and end up totally knackered, me not being in the first flush of youth you understand.  In fact I'm a lot closer to my 60th birthday than I care to think about.  But when I only go out once or twice I have to count the little piles of money I've earned to work out how much there is for petrol/food/electricity, end up depressed at the result and turn off the hot water yet again.  Still, I decided to look on the bright side, to be ingenious and to make the best of a difficult time.
Until I fell off the bike. 
To be fair, it was a dignified fall, a gentle roll to the left, landing on the grass verge and, to the best of my knowledge, wasn't witnessed. I wasn't hurt and jumped up, brushed myself down and climbed back on a little nervously, thinking of the saying 'you never forget, it's like riding a bike'.  Hum. 
Maybe in the passing of forty years my bike-riding memory cell gave up waiting to be re-deployed and  departed to the Great Velodrome in the sky.  I'm still waiting to find out as we've been experiencing the usual Scottish spring weather of rain, hail, snow and gales and I haven't ventured out on two wheels since, despite the cost of putting petrol in my car.
All isn't lost however. I've been given a greenhouse, my latest pride and joy, and am raising hundreds of seedlings in the hope that I'll be able to sell some of the plants and then eat the rest of them when they have grown  - if the hens don't beat me to it.
So, is my glass still half full?  Well, it's been up and down.  On some days when the sun is shining and the dogs behave it appears to be brimming over, on others well, perhaps it's best not mentioned. 
But I'm here, still walking, still tending to my plants and hens and still filling in the job application forms.
Wish me luck!