Week 12, Day 5 (Are pets electric?)

I'm recovering from a very fun (and at times, moderately active) weekend around horses. Luckily for me, the blurgh/exhaustion went into remission for the weekend, although both caught up with me again yesterday once I had a day "off". Can't wait to get back into riding again, however that's got to wait until November. Given this, I don't know if the weekend's exposure to equestrian fun and games was a treat or a tease!

The old trick knee is playing me up today, but that's expected and can be tolerated. Bumpkuss used me as a springboard again just before dawn, ensuring that the rooster's cracked key crowing ruined any chance of a sleep-in. Nothing for it - get up early and start on the hundreds of photos I took over the weekend.

A couple of hours later and it's 8am. Rain persisting down, Wayne's cuddled up on the couch watching Schwarzenegger reruns and Joey is in fine burbling form. There's no way I can concentrate on getting down to work while those two are providing the bass track, so I figured I might as well update the blog :-)

Today's funny story stars my favourite cat, Badger. Badgerbrat is a particularly nice looking butterfly harlequin tabby, with the physique of a Burmese. She's a bit precious, and is particularly addicted to creature comforts. However, this did not stop her from discovering what wonderful fun it was to climb on top of the aviary and chase the parrots.

She'd scoot along the rooftop, the parrots would fly in a mad panic down the other end, and she'd give chase. The tamer parrots didn't fall for her games, but the others were going to kill themselves at that rate, either by nasty collisions or heart failure. Bratus Catus, of course, could have kept it up for weeks with no ill effects whatsoever. Excellent fun, whooohoo!

If we put the hose on her we could force her down, but she would get right back up there again the minute our backs were turned. Nothing for it - we had to take preventative measures before the word got around all the neighbourhood cats that for a good time, dial 555-aviary!

Wayne rigged up a wire around the top third of the aviary perimeter, held out from the aviary wire by outriggers, then connected it up to the electric fence. We sat back and waited for the first feline reaction to the barrier.

And waited. And waited. Days went past, and we figured the cats had worked it out, so pretty much forgot it was there.

Then one day we happened to be standing on the back doorstep as we heard an almighty shriek, and watched in amazement as a perfectly circular bundle of fur and fright bounced like a basketball across the back lawn and into the trees. As the frightball passed us, we vaguely recognised the stripes, the culprit, and the cause.

An old word game quotes a list of words, and asks what they have in common. The correct answer is that no other word rhymes with them. One of those words is 'purple', and it shouldn't be there because the correct name for a cat throwing all its hair up on end is to 'hurple'.

Under the word 'hurple' in the dictionary should be a picture of Badger as she hurple-hurtled her way across the lawn, in perfectly round formation. Did her anxious humans go after her and offer condolence and comfort? Of course not. We stood, gawked, giggled then laughed ourselves sick. (On behalf of the parrots, naturally).

Princess Badger was no worse for wear from her experience, but she definitely learned a wonderful lesson about when aviaries fight back, and the parrots appreciated the ceasefire.

At least Badge learned from just one experience - we can't say the same for The Wobble. Being a city-bred dog, he hadn't met electric fences before, and I could not count the number of times he would aim a piddle at a fencepost, and get a zap in the whoopsies. I thought Golden Retrievers were supposed to be smart? He finally gave up and returned to piddling like a girl dog, in the hopes that the grass wouldn't bite back.