Everyday for the last two weeks, Gnome has been digging out a pond for the Duckies. When Gnome was asked what machinery was used in the pond construction (I think they were expecting some sort of excavator in the answer) he replied with:
“A spade.”
Gnome Magic!
The pond is situated in the middle of the Zen garden and lined with rocks. Since the weather has been so dry, we were a bit dubious over whether it would get filled with rainwater. I mentioned to Gnome with a twinkle in my eye:
“…well, since it is a Zen Garden, can we fill the pond with sand and rake ripples into it? Do you think the Duckies would notice?”
No need to worry though…we had a constant drizzle today and the pond is getting nicely filled up.
Zazen Duckie Pond.
Oh, and we have to thank our doggy for helping Gnome every morning. She apparently thinks that a wheelbarrow should be pulled along by grasping the wheel with her teeth and dragging it along. What a funny dog she is! Gnome couldn’t resist shouting out to me to take a photograph…this is a picture of her in action.
This post is especially for two special ladies who were the previous owners of the doggies that we have on our farm…yes, you know who you are!!
Overweight Doggie.
We will start off with our Fat Doggie who can’t stop stuffing her face.. she likes to forage around the farm and eat copious amounts of fallen fruit and coconuts. She is a whopping 88lbs in weight now!! In an attempt to get her weight down, I have been feeding her a low calorie diet of rice, beans and green vegetables once daily only. I have also been restricting the meal to half the usual amount. She has been coping well with the new diet although, I do have to confess that she does whine and complain a fair bit. No doggie treats allowed right now!
Oh, and this is Mad Doggie…
Mad Doggie.
She is the one that used to eat walls and so her owner was forced to find a new home (our farm) for her. After a whole string of mad and frenzied farm animal killings, she has calmed down considerably over the years. We attribute some of these changes to self-therapeutic toad-licking and the judicious use of a training collar. Now, she can run around on the farm without attacking a single animal and she responds to commands. Phew…we nearly gave up on her at one point but fortunately we have managed to train here. Sit…good doggie!!
The pet soap is made from jackass bitters and neem leaf for control of fleas, ticks and mites without the use of strong chemicals. The Lime-Sulphur Pet Dip is used for more severe infestations of mange, fleas, ticks and ringworm.
Both products are safe to use on your pets. As you can see: our pets love Sulphur Dip Time!
Washing Dog with Sulphur Dip.Clean Cat.
For anyone who lives in Belize, outside of Punta Gorda, we can have these products delivered via Tropic Air. We also ship Internationally. Check out The Apothecary for more information and prices.
Hello Everyone!! We had a nice relaxing day today…our first day off in three weeks from farm work. Sometimes, when we are on an agenda, we forget that we need a break now and then. I woke up this morning at 5am, which has been our usual wake up time, and said to Gnome that I did not wish to wake up! We got up at 6am, rather reluctantly because of the doggy and goosie wake-up calls.
Doggy wake up call: mad panting with spurts of whooping.
Our Mad Doggie.
Goosie wake up call: Honk Honk!! Every three minutes…like Snooze on an alarm clock…this is goosie snooze with no batteries required.
Goosie on the Farm.
(As an aside, Goosie even honks back at truck drivers because he thinks that they are big geese on wheels!!)
Anyway, there was way too much noise so we had to get up. We both agreed to take the day off because we just felt knackered. And so we watched a movie marathon of Around The World in 80 Days, a three part mini-series with Pierce Brosnan. It was 4 and 1/2 hours in total, with brief Munchkin snacks in between, and we really enjoyed it. Plus, I got a chance to ogle at Pierce Brosnan for all that time!!
I know…she looks kinda friendly and sweet but believe me, our Beatrice doggy has been quite a handful right from the get go.
Our Mad Doggie.
We adopted her at age 1 from an old American lady in Punta Gorda (Ms. Letty). Everyone knows Ms. Letty because she has been around for a long, long time and now she is one of these retired old, harmless ladies who likes to while away her hours on a recliner watching American sitcoms. However, for reasons unknown to any of us (we have all speculated but can not find a logical answer) she acquired Beatrice as a puppy and wanted to raise her as a “house dog” in a her tiny, little house. Ms. Letty also owns a chihuahua so we are not sure why she insisted upon having a rotweiller/pitbull as another house pet. Anyway, the dog did not go according to plan since she ended up being energetic and feisty and far too big to be kept indoors. I think Ms. Letty tried really hard to hold onto Beatrice (one year of doggy bouncy madness) but what really clinched it in the end, was when Beatrice started eating the house walls.
At this point, we decided that we needed a farm dog and Ms. Letty was very happy to let Beatrice come to us since we had a huge place for the dog to run around in.
I will not even attempt to paint a romantic picture of this dog. She is a killer dog and she systematically killed one goose, five ducks and maimed one cat in the course of her time here. She seldom responds to commands (maybe “sit” sometimes). Otherwise, she is bouncing about, slobbering and whipping herself up into a killing frenzy for anything she can get her hands on. You will not believe the number of chances we have given her and each time, her killing instinct gets the better of her. In order to protect our animals, she is now regrettably tied up on a long chain and we take her on supervised walks (on the leash) through-out the day.
It is not a bad life for a dog on the farm but we would honestly like her to roam around freely without all these restrictions.
Beatrice is 3 years old now and we have decided to give it one more chance. Well, we saved our pennies up and bought a dog training collar. So far, we have been using it for 5 days only. And, I am very glad to say that she is responding really well, just to the beeping noise. She can respond to 4 commands already and she is behaving consistently. We are so pleased with our doggie rehabilitation; we are going to continue commands on the leash for another two weeks and the next step will be “off the leash.”
She Can “Sit” Now!
Our ultimate hope is that she can run freely around the farm eventually.
Also, after that, we need to move onto Doggy Rehab 2 with Shaneeka, the guinea-pig stalker. She also has quite a history but I will talk about her another time!
Today we were in Punta Gorda doing our delivering, “hailing” and the usual town stuff. In Punta Gorda, everyone knows you so you have to go through the custom of “hailing.” Ignore this at your peril! Basically, you need to say “Hello, how are you?” to everyone that you know…who happens to be crossing the street, sitting in their shop, driving in their car or standing in the queue in front of you. If you can handle a bit of small talk then that is an added bonus because every-one loves to stop and chat. If you ignore anyone who knows you, you are considered an “ignorant outsider” or just plain rude. These are the unspoken rules of a small community.
We delivered our Pet Products to The Farm Store in Punta Gorda. This particular shop is owned by Mennonites (Anabaptist Christian Group who emigrated originally from Germany and now settled in Belize) and run by local Mayans who have converted into this particular faith. The Farm Store sells anything to do with farming, hardware and pet supplies, basically, anything that is useful to man or beast! We delivered the following:
Jackass Bitters and Neem Pet Soap.
This is not the same as our same-name soap for people. This one has a higher percentage of active ingredients so that it is extra strong for the treatment of fleas, ticks and mites in pets (usually dogs and cats). Gentle but effective, without the use of strong chemicals.
We also took this opportunity to launch our new pet product: Lime Sulphur Pet Dip for Mange, Fleas, Ticks and Ringworm.
Lime Sulphur Pet Dip Label.
This is the label with the instructions. We used recycled beer bottles for this product because they are the cheapest thing to use so that we could sell the product at a rock-bottom price. Gnome created a tag to go with the product with regards to the philosophy of recycling; unfortunately, the network connection to the printer wouldn’t work so we didn’t get this part printed in time. So, this tag will be on the next order:
Lime Sulphur Pet Dip Wrap.
…Gnome Philosophy stuff in small writing for anyone who cares to read Gnome humour.
We use all our stuff on our own pets; they are very healthy and have the reassuring smell of sulphur to them:
Washing Dog with Sulphur Dip.Clean Cat.
This is a picture of the very friendly bossie of the Farm Store. He is a lovely young man:
Mr. Brian Cho at The Farm Store.
So, you can now get our pet stuff at the Farm Store in Punta Gorda. The products will be posted up in the Apothecary soon for those of you living outside Toledo or outside of Belize.
In the heat of the lazy afternoon fowl-play was afoot as we heard the sudden beating of wings and then a HONK that sounded like a shreek and then then the crash of mad chasing under the house. I ran out and caught a glimpse of a dog pouncing on my poor goosie as it fought back valiantly with its wings and beak. As soon as the stray dog caught a whiff of me, it scarpered quick smart off the property. Goosie was left in a state with blood on his neck and a severe hurt look on his face; he refused to look at me in the eye and beat a hasty retreat towards the shade of the coconuts.
Goosie.
After all this pandemonium, we suddenly realised that the goosie’s duckie buddies (white duck and two brown girls) were missing.
Duckie Buddies.
Gnome heard distant quacking coming from the pond where the fowl go to swim during the day. We walked the 150 yards, in silence and fear, to the pond and noted a trail of goose feathers as we went along. When we finally got there, the dog was there drowning one of our poor ducks in the pond. As soon as the dog saw Gnome, it sprang out and bounded away. We stayed for a while in the pond area with the poor, bedraggled half-drowned duckie swimming around dizzily in circles. There was no trace of any other ducks and we scoured the pond area to no avail. Eventually, the half-dead duckie got so distressed that Gnome said that it was best to leave her alone until routine feeding time.
We headed back to the house in a forlorn state wondering about our duckies. I checked up on Goosie and he seemed okay sitting under the coconuts. All of a sudden, Gnome and I heard WakWakWak (White Duckie Male Quack) and goosie perked up and hastily bobbed his head from side to side, frantically looking for the source of the noise. As soon as white duck came into sight, Goosie gave a mild honk of relief, ruffled his feathers and slyly sidled up to his best buddy. Gnome and I felt much encouraged by this re-union.
Goose and White Duck- Best Friends.
And so we waited the long hour until feeding time. During this time, we tried to put together the events of the afternoon and realised the brave actions of our goosie. Since the goose feathers traced back from the pond to the house, it looked like the goosie took flight back to the house, luring the dog with him. Meanwhile, this gave the rest of the ducks a chance to run off to safety while goosie ran “interference” to save his buddies. Awwwhhh…what a Champ our Goosie is!!
Hero Goosie!
When it was feeding time, we went back to the pond and, to our dismay, found no trace of our distressed damsel. We felt so terrible for leaving our duckie behind earlier and walked back to the house, desperately unhappy, feeling the weight of the world on our shoulders. We fed the rest of our animals and performed the rest of our evening routine. Just as the sun was coming down…it was a deep red tonight like blood spilling across the sky…we heard an insistent QuackQuackQuack outside the duck coup. Our duckie (the dizzy, swimming one) had returned and was trying to get into the coup. Oh, we were so pleased to see that she had recovered and did not look half-drowned anymore!
So far. So good. Only one duckie missing and most probably taken out by the stray dog. Goosie is alive and recuperating. Sleep tight duckies and goosie…don’t let the bad dogs bite!!
A couple of months ago, Gnome made Lime Sulphur as a Bored-in-Belize project. One of the many uses of it is a dip for dogs and cats. It can be applied for mange, fleas and ringworm. We tested our formula on the two dogs and the cat today (not the guinea pigs!!). We poured out a quantity of the concentrated lime sulphur and diluted it with water in a bucket:
Measuring Lime Sulphur.2 Gallons of Diluted Lime Sulphur.
A rag was dipped into the bucket of solution and the dogs and cat were soaked with it. Prior to this, they all got a wash with our sulphur soap. There were no complaints from any any animals concerned as we sponged them copiuosly with this bright yellow fluid. They seemed to like the smell of rotten eggs!!
Sulfuring Doggie.
Sorry, no picture of the other doggie because we both had to hold her down because she is the mad one that likes to lick toads.
Sulfuring The Cat.
The cat actually stayed still and did not seem to mind the extremely pungent smell. After all that, we were both smelling of sulphur; Gnome said that he felt spiritually cleansed…I think he was referring to fire and brimstone and all that stuff!!
In the early hours of Thursday morning, on the 19th of February, foul play was afoot and a heinous crime was committed at Paradise Pastures, the gated community for Guinea Pigs. A one foot deep hole was dug beneath the cage and three newly born piggies were snatched from their cradle.
Paradise Piggies.
Gnome was at the Scene of the Crime a few hours later; the scene was one of devastation and distress.
Scene of the Crime.
Paradise Pastures was quickly secured and placed in a protected area. Gnome and Munchkin combed the surrounding land looking for the remains of the three missing baby piggies. And, alas the diligence was paid off as one live piggie was found, unharmed and safe.
One Baby Piggy Found Alive and Well.
Tragedy and fortune came hand in hand on this fateful day. Meanwhile, the criminal has been apprehended and remanded to custody with bail set at $500.
Shaneeka-Doggy, Guilty as Charged.
The piggies at Paradise Pastures are up in arms over this crime. They have petitioned Mayor Gnome to build a secure “Mother and Baby” facility.
Mayor Gnome must concede to their demands or else he might find himself bang in the middle of a Piggy Riot. And we don’t want that, do we?!
My dog Beatrice, likes to lick toads and has done so for as long as I have been her owner. I would like to share some interesting observations with you which may indicate that my dog is capable of some degree of awareness and adaptive behaviour.
The Cane Toad Bufo marinus.
Beatrice, in her formative years, used to run after and maim toads like mad. At the same time, she would be slobbering all over them, licking them like mad! In turn, the toads would release chemicals which would cause her to salivate more and it would always turn into a very, very wet slobbery mess. She would bark a “playful’ bark for about half and hour, frolic about with the toad, and then she would fall asleep instantly for a couple of hours. I have not noted any long-term side effects from this dog’s activity as I am aware of this chemical being cardio-toxic. In my observation, I have noted that after these toad-licking sessions, her mood appears to be more stable as her basic personality is mad, aggressive and erratic and she can be quite a handful.
Over the years (I have never been able to stop her fascination with toads), I have noticed a moderation in her behaviour with toads. She no longer thrashes about with them in a overly boisterous way but instead, she is perfectly content to sit next to toads in a friendly “let’s hang out” sort of way.
Doggy Hanging Out with Toad.
She now sits with the toad calmly and they seem to enjoy each other’s company in the shade of the coconut trees. It is a different toad (I think) each time and I have observed that she licks them intermittently and actually pets them with her paw. Whenever I see this spectacle, I call it “Beatrice and Bufotina Hanging Out” as a play on words because the chemical which toads release is called Bufotenine. The toad does not seem scared at all and usually, after a while it politely leaves her company without any fuss; what I am saying, is that the toads do not get injured anymore! Moreover, there are just a few frolicking barks but no keeling over on the dog’s part.
In conclusion, I think that my dog is capable of surpassing normal aggressive doggy behaviour and learned how to control her recreational requirements with moderation.
