Hello FML --
The wire tunnel/ramp between the two ferret pens is partly installed,
and one ferret, Galen, likes to use it as is. It's sealed off at the
far end in the new (gojo) pen because the pen doors aren't yet
installed.
From my office, I hear him as he comes down the last part of the tunnel
and sometimes I go out to greet him. We see each other from a distance
of about 8 feet -- I am on the outside of the pen, and he is in the
tunnel ramp. So there are two layers of wire mesh between us. Sometimes
I have to call a couple of times till he spots me, and then there is
his little face and his little black eyes looking right at me.
Galen is v light tan/dark white, and is large and muscular. He has
little tiny eyes and little round ears on his large head, and of course
his neck is very thick. Sometimes I call him my gangster. Actually he
is sweet and mild and a nice kisser/licker. He used to give painful
for-fun nips above my Achilles tendon, but now they are gentle and
seldom.
If I'm in the garden (in front of the house) when Galen comes down,
there are three layers of mesh, and even I have to maneuver to make
eye contact. I have the garden fenced off w wire mesh from the donkeys,
and I had hoped to keep the cats out too, so the birds could enjoy the
flowers and trees -- and I could enjoy them. Keeping the cats out works
to some extent, and I do have the most wonderful assortment of birds
here. But, even better, for some reason birds here are totally alert
and I have never seen a cat catch one.
I'm getting ready to sew a cloth top for the gojo-bet pen. Thatching
grass is very expensive and poor quality now, because we are at the end
of the dry season. So no thatched roof for now. Maybe in Sept after the
rains.
***I just went out to measure the new pen again. Galen is asleep at the
closed end of the tunnel/ramp. The ramp is almost 50 feet long, and it
goes up from the ground in each pen and through the ceiling,
zigzagging, to about 7 feet high, and then runs straight for quite a
distance. It's supported on the top of the garden fence. One side of
the new pen shares a side of the garden fence. All the walls are wire
mesh. If you want pix, just ask.
The original pen is only about 8 feet by 10 feet, but the new one is
abt 50 feet in circumference, with a 17-foot diameter -- plus one
small, rather narrow triangular nook. I'm wondering if they'll use the
nook as a latrine.
***Ooooof, big noise****
Edelegnya (the male crippled donkey) was trying to break into the
room where the grain is.
The donkeys also break into the garden from time to time. Last week,
pregnant Sofia got in and ate all the lobelia and 1/2 of the allysum.
Sat, Edelegnya got in and ate all the remaining allysum.... Time to
improve the latches.
Dinku, the guy who usually does my carpentry work, including the new
ferret pen so far, has quit. He and my new animal caretaker, Abera,
quarreled over territory, seniority, etc -- general dominance issues. I
don't know if this will get resolved, but meanwhile, I hear that Dinku
thinks he can get an enormous severance payment from me. Oh YUCK. It's
not true, but I do not want the hassle of an argument. Well, we'll see.
So I have to find someone else to do the doors for the new pen. For
security, I always do double doors at any entrance involving ferrets,
and since Dinku's doors haven't been great, it's just as well I'll have
to find someone else to do the pen doors. All doors, walls, etc, are
about ***Sofia is just now trying the gate into the garden, I can see
her from here.*** about 6.5 feet high. That makes the new pen large and
airy. I'm excited about it. It also looks nice, because of its shape.
The rest of my place is pretty basic -- low, rectangular, cement! And
because it's well into the dry season, the only green ground is within
the garden and in the 1st ferret pen.
Meanwhile, today, Sunday, is a day with no workers here. (Tues is too.)
It is a beautiful day, light winds, warm, sunny. The garden's great.
Some friends are coming for a short visit, and the house is clean.
Yesterday aft and evening, Abera and I took everything out of the
livingrm and bedrm, he beat the carpets, and we swept and washed the
floors (cement) and put everything back.
The 6 main rooms in the house are all the same size (abt 10 x16 feet, w
8-foot ceilings), and they're lined up in a row, as two long buildings,
three rooms each. The 3 rooms to the left have the kitchen, guest room,
and animal room. The ferrets have a Ferret Nation cage in there, where
they spend their nights.
The donkey stall is between the two buildings. I put in a cement floor
and plastic-sheet roof to keep off the rain and sun. The other three
rooms are the office (where I am now on my iMAc), livingrm, and bedrm.
Every room except the bedroom has its own door to the outside. No ante
rooms, they just open directly to the yard. In this season, that means
DUST gets in. But it's not too bad. Just needs a good clean every
month.
To the left of the bedroom is the 1st ferret pen, and behind that is a
2-room building housing the storeroom and bathroom. Yep, the bathroom's
in separate building from the bedroom -- plenty of late night trips,
but I've gotten used to it. I keep wondering how, since I'm so
comfort-loving. I could have become one of those women who lie on
cushions and eat chocolates all day. When I was a child I wanted to
be a princess just like in the fairytales.
The bathrm-storerm building's made of "chikka" the traditional building
material -- a mixture of mud, straw, and cow poop over a wooden
framework (there's no smell after the stuff cures and dries). Actually
all 3 buildings are made of chikka. But the insides of the two main
ones are thoroughly coated inside w cement and painted, and the
outsides of both buildings (but on the front only!) with plain cement.
Here are links for some birds that come to my yard. Sometimes little
birds go into the ferret pen to get water, but the ferts aren't
interested in them for some reason.
I did watch a hawk almost get a pigeon. I heard a loud fast flapping
and looked up to see the pigeon flying frantically by, and then the
hawk slowly sailing after it. But the pigeon went into an enclosed
area where the hawk cdn't follow, and the hawk lifted up and away.
http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Nile_Valley_Sunbird
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speckled_Pigeon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-cheeked_Cordon-bleu
[Posted in FML 7376]
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