one lump or two?

I love working at Murdoch vet school. It is NEVER boring.

Part of the reason its never boring is that there so much good work to do. Sometimes its about the people, sometimes its about the animals.

Yesterday, as I popped over to see the staff about one of our successful cases, a trailer pulled up outside the vet school with a CAMEL in it.

yep a camel (can you imaginewhat the people on the freeway thought?)

Tanami stands about 6 ft tall, and weighs about 500kg (1200 lbs). He's one of a few camels on a nearby hobby farm.

He's at Murdoch for a the "snip".
Tanami has an undescended testicle, which means that his regular vet was only able to geld him half-way. He still acted a bit too much like a stud, so he needs the other one removed. After calling a few vets none of whom wanted to try their hand at anesthetizing this big fella, they called Murdoch.

So Tanami sits in our production animal barn, heads above the other sheep, goats, and alpacas. Tomorrow is the big surgery day. So far a steady stream of students and staff have visitedhim to wish him good luck on his surgery. I popped down for a cuddle just to make Nathan's aunt Molly jealous.

Tomorrow the media arrives to document this unusual case. I can't wait for the headlines. One hump or two takes on an entirely different meaning when you are talking about a camel gelding.

Our roommates

When we were invited to take up a cheap lease on our new house, we were excited about the opportunity but a little cautious. The conditions of the lease included the care and feeding of 2 cats.

It was clear from the first that we were moving into the cats' house. Before we could sign up for the deal, the cats would have to approve. I was overseas but Nathan, the cat whisperer, managed to woo these shy and somewhat high-strung cats into a little cuddle on the first date.

When Col and Clyde moved out, the cats were quite upset. Neither would stay in the same room with us for the first week. But Nathan again worked his magic and they have relaxed. Just last week, we made another test...moving Jake back (into his own half of the house). Jake's rather potent smell and earsplitting yowling have our new roommates a little nervous, (not that it looks it from these pictures!) and we are hoping to slowly introduce them to each other.

But first we'll introduce them to you:

To dance is human to Polka is Divine (Polka) is an 11 yr old female Siamese, who is quite timid and likes a bit of a snuggle. She is terrified of Jake, and even though he's behind a shut door, Polka runs in fear when Jake starts his usual yowling for company.
I had coordinated my previous work wardrobe with Jake--black suits to hide his black cat hair. Polka's cream colour fur means I need a new wardrobe for each part of the house.
She is a big change from ole Jake, as she is definitely a lap cat. Once she has found a lap she is there FOREVER. She likes Nathan best, perhaps because my tiny bladder won't allow for extended uninterrupted lap time. Polka is also convinced the way to get our attention is to sit on the computer keyboard while we try to type.

Pinky Freidman (Pinksta) is an 11 yr old neutered male Burmese who is slightly crazy. The first 3 weeks he would freak out if you were entered a room he was in, now 6 weeks in he's becoming a lap cat too. He has the most pitiful meow (like he has laryngitis).

Pinky gets to go outside every day with a belled collar. In the morning he jumps on the counter by the door to have his collar put on. Once it's on, he'll jump down ready to get outside for the morning scout.

He apparently is quite aggressive when he is outside (as we have already seen him fight with another neighbor cat). Although we hope to avoid any conflicts, Jake can take him. Not only does he weigh twice as much as Pinky, he doesn't have such a weenie name.




Jake "the Peg" (Jacque) is our big black 3-legged cat. He's probably about 14 years old, and wasn't neutered until he was 2 or 3. He has old Tomcat jowels, urine like napalm, and in London terrorised cats within a 6 mile radius. Since then, we have kept him as a house cat, with no other cats for competition. He has adjusted to the move to our new home graciously, with no malicious peeing and almost no curiosity about the cats on the other side of the door.

They all still live separate lives: Pinky outside for most the day, Polka on her own in the house, and Jake in his half of the room. Maybe someday we'll get brave enough to try and mix these 3 cats together.

As I was telling my sister about our cats, I was reminded of my neices and nephew predicting I would eventually become the crazy cat lady with 20 cats.

3 down, 17 to go.

On the move again

Where have we been for the last 4 weeks?
In purgatory, in limbo, in cognito?

Nathan and I spent our Valentine's Day weekend celebrating with a romantic getaway in a turn of the century stone cottage overlooking the ocean. It's our new house...

Unfortunately, valentine's day (valentines' ?!?!? see previous) was spent preparing for the move.
After a day of watching Nathan swim for his triathlon (okay it wasn't a full day, but a chunk of it), we packed our first boxes for the move that night. With folks coming at 11:00 am the next morning, we decided we would just move the furniture into the moving van and pack the rest into our cars after moving the furniture.

The next day we were up early to pick up the truck, pack a little more, and deliver Jake to the spa for a little holiday. Our packing was cut a little short by the fact that we had to return the first truck for leaking diesel all over. So at 11:00 am our moving crew showed up--Jeff, Emily & Justin. We had all the furniture loaded in about 1.5 hours (even with a beer break). We thought we might have a chance to beat our previous 4 hour record. When we turned up at the new house, unfortunately the owners (Clyde and Colleen) were still moving the last of the items out.

We took a break for lunch and started unloading again at about 3 pm. We moved everything in just over an hour. We had to take a break for a stressed out strategy session when we discovered the room we had planned on for a bedroom need to be a music room because the piano in it couldn't fit out the door (except for on its side). After a few minutes, we rearranged the plan and finished the unloading. Although the move went fairly fast (Jeff, Emily and Justin may not think so), we were exhausted so opted not to move the small boxes of things back to the house that night. Our old house was ours for another week, so we were able to procrastinate the rest of the moving and cleaning for a few more days.

This caused a minor problem the next morning, when I discovered that I packed no shoes for work and had to drive over to the old place to finish dressing. Over the next weekend, we moved shoes, food, tools to the new place and did a marathon day of cleaning.

Our new home is just 1 km from our old place. We are renting from some friends of ours, at a really good rental rate. The catch is that the house is "unusual" and comes with a pair of high-maintenance felines. As you know Jake doesn't play well with others, so he spent a few weeks at the spa while we tried to settle the inherited felines down. He's just moved back in...so we know have divided the house in half: Jake's half and the other cats half.

The good news is that this house is perfect for that. It is 2 stone cottages from 1899 and 1900, which have been blended into 1 house. It has 2 front doors, and the front of the houses are 2 seperate lounges, and bedrooms connected by a long hallway. At the rear of the house there is 1 shared common kitchen and dining room, with 2 entries, and 2 bathrooms. It also has 2 seperate gardens at the rear of the house. It has 2 gas bills, 2 electric bills, 2 days to take the garbage out. At least we only have 1 phone number (the same number as last time--email if you need it).
I thought you'd like to see some photos of the house, and our new housemates.