Our daily dose of JOY!

24 Aug '07 5:55 pm

I love the orchids - am really an orchid novice, but I met my first proper orchid collection in Singapore's Botanic gardens, just a few months ago. I understand much more now why they are so beloved. Hope all your lovely garden things and your family are well.

25 Aug '07 6:00 am

Many thanks for your sweet compliments, dear friends – Mark, Faith, Gordon, Goose and Mary. (Thanks for asking, Mary - my family are all very fine). I’m delighted knowing that you’ve all enjoyed my pictures. So now you all know what I’ve been up to besides blogging and flickring...hehe, spending lots of time dressing up my photos and trying on different styles and fashion! Such fun really, though it has become quite addictive! Wink

Even our garden sees little of me, and I’m way behind in my weeding, repotting and pruning. Fortunately my better half keeps them happy with daily watering and scheduled fertilizing. Smile

Gordon, the closest the dove will ever come is about 2 meters away from me. I was fortunate with this nearer distance as it didn’t see me hidden behind my tall potted plants. I’d love if I can feed them with bird seeds but that’s not possible as it’ll encourage more rats to our garden! For the past 4 months, we’re having a losing battle with infestation of rats leaving their nauseating poop and urine all over our frontyard! The horrible odour even permeates our living hall. My hubby had tried traps and rat poison to rid of this menace but 'outsmarted'! Evil or Very Mad

Aargh...we may have to reduce our plant population! A menace worldwide it is! - http://www.howtogetridofstuff.com/pest-control/how-to-get-rid-of-rats/

25 Aug '07 7:06 am

Hi, Jacqueline;

Rats! Wow - I can't imagine them being so obvious around people! Do you have any idea where they come from? From the pictures I've seen of your neighbourhood, it doesn't look like the sort of place that is commonly associated with the little rodents. Here, they congregate around the harbour (but even there you hardly ever see them) and around the garbage dump (well out of town). As I said earlier in a post, I once had one in my ceiling, which sent a shudder through me, but a bit of rat poison got rid of him/her, and the neighbourhood cats seem to keep the population down. Good luck in your war with them!! By the way, have you seen the movie "Ratatouille"? If not, you should - it'll give you something to laugh about on the subject of rats! Very Happy

Cheers!

gordonf

25 Aug '07 9:36 am

[quote="gordonf"]Hi, Jacqueline;

Rats! Wow - I can't imagine them being so obvious around people! Do you have any idea where they come from? From the pictures I've seen of your neighbourhood, it doesn't look like the sort of place that is commonly associated with the little rodents.

Rats are everywhere in the world and so numerous, it's said that at ground level, no human being is ever more than 30 ft from a rat. But they are quite shy and secretive so many Westerners have never seen a wild rat and wrongly imagine that means they aren't around. But anyone observant who sits quiet and still in the garden watching, can often see one. (Watch under bird seed feeders, around compost heaps and ponds etc).

I once had a shaming moment at school open evening, when my son's teacher showed me the "news diary" of another boy in my son's class. He had written " Yesterday after school I played at(Jaybee's son's house). While we were eating our dinner I watched his Mummy kill rats".

Janet.

25 Aug '07 11:16 am

I used to keep finches and other small birds in outdoor aviaries which opened into smaller indoor flights inside a shed, all of this perched just above a year around creek. You can easily imagine my rat problem. I remember once startling one in a 6 ft by 7 ft aviary. I blocked off what I assumed was its entrance from inside the bird room and then I went mano o ratto with this pit bull cross of a rat. They may be cute when animated but they are incredibly fast and agile in the flesh and this one had teeth like a great white shark (well, surely I'm allowed some hyperbole). I had a hose with a sprayer in one hand and a trowel in the other. It was touch (ewww) and go at times but in the end I prevailed.

The creek bank is covered in ivy, blackberries and morning glories. Basically rat nirvana. There is a well established brick path on my neighbor's side of the creek and he used to leave the gates on either end open so everyone could cut through to the park without going all the way around. Once, I opened one of those gates to see two large grey-brown creatures fighting right at my feet. At first I thought they were river otters. By the time I realized what they really were they had disappeared into the brush. The other attractant are the two dumpsters kept above the creek, roughly across from where I had the aviaries. There is a small hawk (perhaps a sharp shin) which used to make its living in our neighborhood. It used to regularly fly low through my garden pop up over my fence and quickly descend into the dumpster enclosure.

Well, there are more rat stories I could tell but now I'm really hungry for dinner. I'll bet Jacqueline's neighborhood monkies are even more agile than that sabertoothed rat I fought to the death. Wink

25 Aug '07 4:49 pm

Well - I certainly got a reaction that time, didn't I?? Very Happy

Actually, I hadn't realized that rats were so very widely spread! So I learned something important today! Smile

But, you really should ALL see the movie, "Ratatouille"!

Cheers!

gordonf

26 Aug '07 2:10 am

I actually used to enjoy making ratatouie occasionally from my eggplants, now I don't know if I will ever be able to eat it again because of this movie. Everytime I think of ratatouie, rats will immediately come to mind. Not my favorite creatures on the planet. Anyone who has a horse barn with it's attendant spilled grains will know why.

Actually I haven't seen the movie. I'm sure it is cute, as are most animated animal films. I don't know if it would moderate my feelings about rats though.

26 Aug '07 4:47 am

[quote="Mark"]I used to keep finches and other small birds in outdoor aviaries which opened into smaller indoor flights inside a shed, all of this perched just above a year around creek. You can easily imagine my rat problem.

Only too well. We used to have a bird peanut feeder hanging from a rose-covered trellis close to the kitchen window, so we could watch the birds while we have breakfast. One morning we noticed there were no birds coming to the feeder and were just wondering why, when a gigantic rat swung onto the peanut feeder just like Tarzan and started stuffing my peanuts. It was a handsome athletic rat with a very shiny coat and whiskers, so I think this had been going on some time.

We've since built an unclimbable rat-proof birdfeeding station.

26 Aug '07 6:21 am

First of all --better late than never--- I need to thank our talented Jacqueline, for the extra beauties she recently posted!! Exceptional captures, compositions, WORK!

And then...rats!! Oh, dear! I have never had this problem in the houses I have lived so far, with my parental or my own family..But my cats here had been bringing in the house some tiny animals looking like baby rats.. Should I be ashamed , that I saved some of them?

Concerning Ratatuille, a normally very healthy and delicious veggy dish , traditional in Greece and many Med. countries, I could never think of it as a title of a ...rat film!! And , yes!! What a funny,creative, inspirational, good taste film!! We saw it with my little Nicholas, as soon as we returned from Corfu. We were laughing more loudly, the two of us , than any other ....child in there!!! Embarassed?? What?? No!!! I was feeling like I had an excellent dinner with good friends and some excellent ...wine!!

26 Aug '07 8:27 am

A bit late, but at last I've caught up with your beautiful posts, Jacqueline! Your collage of your 9 seedlings is just such a joyful celebration of the exuberance of nature when it comes to colour! And your various framings add SOO much to your lovely pics. Your dragonflies remind me of a man I met earlier this year when visiting Samaria, the game reserve belonging to my godmother's family - I have posted on it. He is an expert on dragonflies and presented a most amazing powerpoint on them. Do you know that there are thousands of species, each adapted to a very specific habitat and climatic condition??!! So you will find for instance one species that frequents standing water and another that prefers little streams amongst grasses and yet another for rocky streams...

As for rats - well rodents anyway: ever since I went away for 3 weeks in June-July my house has been invested. Over the weekend I realised that they've even got into my clothes and my bedding. I found a dead one - had it been summer the stench would have been unbearable rather than just noticable - but it was only a little long-nosed fieldmouse.I am going to have to have a complete spring-clean - quite a job, as my bedroom is up a ladder and in under the eaves. It looks more like the home of a gungho teenager at the moment than that of a sohisticated batchelor Shocked

Our daily dose of JOY!

Me Too

Rats!

Re: Rats!

That is so funny (now) Janet.

More about Rats

Thanks for the reminder Gordon

Re: That is so funny (now) Janet.

Ratatuille, Orchids, and other delights..

I'd rather talk dragonflies than rats...