Slices of Life from Belize: January 23, 2013

House Painting

It took a bit of time, but I finally got the motivation to power wash and paint more exterior walls of our house. It's not that I don't like to paint, but it can feel a bit overwhelming at times seeing all the areas that need attention. The place hasn't been painted in 10 years, so there's quite a build up of gunk on the walls that needs to be removed first (hence the power washing). And once you're down to bare cement, well, that means at least two coats of paint to ensure decent coverage.

But then, because I'm a genius in this regard, I realized I didn't have to get everything painted all in one go...just take it one wall at a time. So this past week I knocked out three sections:

Newly painted side of porch, front and side walls of spare bedroom. Pretty! Shiny! Clean!

I couldn't have asked for better weather -- low humidity, enough puffy clouds to provide some relief from the sun, and a lovely breeze. These were way, way better conditions then when I painted the front of the porch in the middle of the summer. I had no idea my body could produce that much sweat.

After I give my arm and shoulder muscles time to recuperate, it will be time to work on the back of the house...

...and the front of the workshop:

Once all that's done, the only thing left to do is paint all 14 wrought iron window coverings on the house, not to mention all those on the shop. Sigh...

Everything is Comin' Up Roses

Actually, what's coming up are cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro, and habernero peppers:

I can't begin to describe how cool it is to have all this stuff coming on the vines in February. The tomatoes are probably a couple weeks away from being ready to pick, but I'm already dreaming of all the salsa and pasta sauce that I'll whip up. The cucmber plant, compliments of Dianna, looked a bit peaked early on, but then...BAM...it just started growing. So far, the cukes are coming on a couple at a time, which is great and lets us not have a glut to figure out what to do with. The habernero plant is from Fernando. Personally, I'm a bit scared of the heat on these peppers, but am willing to give them a go in some way, shape, or form. And can I just tell you how excited I am that we can grow cilantro? We tried so many times when living in the States, but it would always bolt. In another week or two, I'm going to try growing basil and thyme again. Once the seedlings get big enough, I'll transplant them to this bed, so they can be with the rest of their friends. Can Not Wait!


The Return of the Mystery Leak

So we thought we had figured out what was causing water to leak in our master bath when David discovered the feed line to the sink needed to be replaced. All was well for a bit, but when we started taking showers again, water started puddling up on the floor. Granted, it wasn't as bad as before, but still, it was clear something was still amiss.

The only thing we could figure was that it had to be coming from the shower plumbing. And that meant that tile and cement would need to be chipped out to discover the source of the problem.

The first place David worked on was the shower handles:

The good news was that there was no evidence of leaks in that area. The bad news was that the valves were shot and need to be replaced. And, of course, the local hardware stores don't carry the replacement unit we need. So that will mean a trip to Orange Walk to see if we can find the parts.

The next spot that David worked on was the pipe feeding the shower head:

Sure enough, this was the culprit. See where the elbow joins the pipe there toward the bottom? That's where the leak is. It should be a relatively easy fix. And as he already has knocked out an opening, we decided to raise the pipe up a bit so the shower head will be higher. It's not like we're giants or anything, but the shower heads in both bathrooms were installed pretty low to accommodate the wife of the previous owner, who is fairly short.

Now if all of this plumbing isn't challenging enough, we also have to figure out what to do for replacement tile. The chances of us finding the tile that was used in the bathroom are slim and none, but we'll look in the obvious stores here to see if, by some miracle, someone still carries it. Presuming they don't, we'll have to decide what else might work.

Making a Splash with Tile

Speaking of tile, David picked up a box of these babies:

This will be the back splash in the kitchen. And par for the course, the store that carries these, Creative Tile, had the tiles and the mastic, but no grout. They hope to have a shipment come in this week, but who knows. Will post pics when everything is up.

A Visit to Dr. Sheila

This week it was Olivia's turn to visit Dr. Sheila to be spayed. First she had a weigh-in and she's a whopping 12.5 pounds! Sheila doesn't expect her to get much bigger, maybe 15 pounds, which means she will remain the perfect lapdog size. It also means she won't be too big to sleep on the bed (much to David's chagrin...HAHAHAHAHA!).

Once her poundage was determined, Sheila gave Olivia a sedative. She warned that it would sting and I must say, I didn't know Olivia to yelp in that high of an octave. But within no more than 30-40 seconds of getting the shot, she just slumped like Jell-O on the exam table. David and I never saw anything like it and asked (half-jokingly) if we could get some of that sedative to go for when Olivia and Bronte go on tears around the house.

We picked her up around 2:30 and were surprised that she was so lucid. If you recall, when Bronte when through the same procedure, she was very woozy for a couple of hours after we picked her up. Of course, she then went loony on us for the next several hours. But for Olivia, she didn't experience any of that. Granted, she was a bit low-key for the rest of the day, but no bouts of insanity. Dr. Sheila gave us some painkillers to administer to Olivia the next two days. But I have to say that by the next afternoon, you would never guess this girl had major surgery. She was back to her old self and conspiring with the cat. For example, between the two of them they unraveled the toilet paper from the roll in both bathrooms and paraded it through the living room. The cat pulled down our bath towels and the dog decided to use them as something to teeth on. But their crowning moment was when they got hold of a paint brush. When I was painting outside, I had need of a small brush to paint the window frames. Instead of washing it out, I just wrapped the bristles in plastic wrap so the paint wouldn't harden before the next time I needed it. Unfortunately, I left the brush on the coffee table that's on the porch. The cat knocked down the brush, the dog then proceeded to tear off the plastic and spread the paint on the love seat, the floor, and one of my flip-flops. Fortunately, it's latex paint so I was able to get it cleaned up with a minimum amount of fuss. But seriously, these two are dangerous together.

Age...It's Just a Number (except when it comes to candles)

In spite of the painting, tile work, plumbing, and vet appointment, we managed to have one heck of a good time on Tuesday night. We got together with some of our friends to celebrate the birthdays of Dave, David, and Bruce. Dave had his at the end of January, Bruce on February 14, and David on Tuesday.

From the left: Dianna, Dave, Bruce, Colleen, David, and Dianna's brother, David, visiting from Colorado.

We all met up at Tony's restaurant, located right on the bay. When we've eaten there before, we often were the only diners. But on Tuesday night, they were hosting a big dinner for a number of their hotel guests. Bruce and Colleen managed to snag a table on the upper level, which offered a wonderful view:

We ate. We drank. We were a merry bunch. We did not, however, have a birthday cake. The combined total of the candles for these gentleman would have put the thatched roof of the restaurant in peril.

Coming Up: My Asian cooking spree and why it was all Julie's fault


Lunatic Fringe

Being good pet parents, we dutifully made and kept the appointment yesterday with Dr. Sheila to have our kitten, Bronte, fixed. We dropped her off at 7 a.m., with her pick-up time scheduled anytime after 2 p.m. that day.

The house, during Bronte’s absence, was strangely quiet. Neither one of us had to yell, “No!” “Stop!” “Get Down!”, not even once. Olivia dozed most of the day, and I discovered how much easier it is to sweep the floor without having a cat attached to the broom or belly flopping into a pile of schmutz collected from my sweeping efforts.

But in spite of the quiet reprieve, we kept Bronte in our thoughts and hoped she made it through her surgery with no problems. Around 2:30, David picked her up. Apparently, she had just woken up a short time earlier, so was still pretty groggy. Dr. Sheila said that it may take a couple of hours for that to wear off. During that time, it would be best to keep her in a room to herself.

Upon arriving home, we put Bronte in the spare room and shut the door. This way, Olivia wouldn’t be able to pounce on her, and she could recover in peace. But within minutes, Bronte started meowing – loudly. She didn’t appear to be in pain, just lonely. We tried to let her be for a bit, but she kept increasing the volume. We then decided to let her out and put Olivia in the room instead. That worked better and gave Bronte time to regain her sea legs, so to speak. The poor thing insisted on jumping up on things, only to lose her balance and fall off. After about two hours, she seemed to be more like her normal self…at least that’s what we thought at the time.

We let Olivia out of the room and Bronte promptly started attacking her. Not in a “let’s wrestle quietly here on the floor” kind of attack; more like “let me sink my claws into you and bite your ears off” kind of way. We did our best to keep the wrestling to a minimum because we felt poor Bronte still needed recovery time and may not realize the wear and tear she might put on herself. Silly us. It became quickly apparent that whatever drugs she was given had her in a dimension that defied space and time. She became a LOON-A-TIC! She had this wild, crazed look in her eyes and proceeded to go on a whacked out mission of craziness…more than her usual antics.

I went back and reread the patient care instructions that Dr. Sheila provided to see if I could glean any insights to what was going on. Let me share some observations:

Per the instructions –

“The cat should be given a quiet place to sleep, as the drugs will not be out of her system until tomorrow.”

We tried that “quiet place to sleep” routine earlier and knew that wasn’t going to work. Matter of fact, the cat did not sleep…at all…for the entire night. Okay, she dozed off around 9 p.m., so we all trundled off to bed. But within minutes, she was awake, she was perky, she was a bundle of non-stop energy. After about a half hour of flat out, insane jumping around, biting toes, attacking the dog, and basically being a royal pain in the ass, we put her in the “quiet place to sleep” spare room and shut the door, none too gently. She HOWLED and would not stop. We let her out and the manic behavior escalated. What was the lesser of two evils? A howling banshee or a demon intent on trashing everyone and everything in the house? Either way, sleep was clearly not going to be on our agenda. It got so bad, even Olivia had enough and chased her away.

We managed to doze off for a bit, but woke up to the sounds of things being chased and tossed off of the kitchen counters. This morning we found the mesh strainer from the kitchen sink, a dish towel, and a scrubbie thing for pots and pans strewn around our bedroom floor. And let’s not forget the sponge and nail brush on the kitchen floor, along with the bottle of dish detergent overturned on the counter.

“For two days, the cat’s activities should be moderately restricted.”

Explain to me what “moderately restricted” means. We were dealing with a cat on speed. There was no restricting anything, whatsoever.

“A light supper should be offered the night of the surgery, as the cat may still be sleepy from the anesthetic. Some cats will not eat until the next day.”

We did offer her a small bowl of dry food with a little bit of milk around her normal dinner time, thinking she might just want to nibble a little bit. She wolfed it down in no time flat. Not surprising, as she hadn’t had anything to eat since dinner the night before. But that bowl of food wasn’t enough. She started attacking the plastic bin where we keep her cat food. She wouldn’t let up. We finally gave her more food, which she promptly scarfed down again. “[She] may still be sleepy…” Uh-huh.

 “This cat will not have kittens. If you allow her eat everything she wants she may become obese. This cat already has a lot of abdominal fat.”

See prior paragraph. She was clearly hungry. She was clearly going to continue on her crazed attack, unless she got something to eat. But besides that, the cat weighs four, count ‘em, four pounds! How in the world can she have that much belly fat?

“If the cat seems ill or has other problems, please contact me.”

Oh she has other problems alright. In addition to her reaction to her anesthesia, can someone, anyone, explain to me her absolute obsession with climbing inside the refrigerator? I've already, by accident, shut the door of the fridge with her inside. She has me totally paranoid that I'll inadvertently make her into a catsicle.

To be fair, it’s now Tuesday afternoon, and she’s been mostly sleeping for the last two hours. We’re keeping fingers crossed that the Bronte we know and love is returning to us from her drugged out high. If not, David and I may need drugs to finally get some sleep.

P.S. Bronte’s brother, Nelson, had his appointment to be fixed today. We thought it only fair to alert his parents, David and Dianna, of Bronte’s behavior. If it runs in the family, they could have their hands full at this very moment. God help them, their other cat, April, and their three dogs. They could be in for a long, long night.

When Anteaters Attack

There we were, sound asleep around midnight Sunday. We heard Sam and Tanya bark, but didn’t think much of it. As our trusty guard dogs, they’re very good about letting us know if they think something is amiss in the yard.

We no sooner rolled back over, when all hell broke loose. In just a matter of seconds, the barking escalated and the sounds of some animal in pain echoed through the yard. David jumped up, threw on some clothes, grabbed the machete and a flashlight, and raced out of the house.

He reached the dogs, who were by the side gate, and saw Sam being attacked by some long-snouted animal. David came charging back to the house, grabbed Sam’s leash and somehow managed to get Sam tethered when the animal in question broke its grip on Sam’s face.

In the meantime, I put Bronte and Olivia in the bedroom, started turning on lights, and grabbing towels because David had yelled that it looked like Sam was bleeding.

When David got Sam into the house, there was blood dripping from his ear, face, and mouth. He was panting so hard, it took some time to get him calm enough to examine his wounds and get him to drink some water. David’s breathing and heart rate were spiked as well, as you might imagine. When his blood pressure came down enough, I asked what the heck he thought was the attack animal. He said that it reminded him of an anteater, just smaller. Presuming that my dearly beloved was still jacked on adrenaline, I just said, “uh, huh” and continued my examination of Sam.

The poor dog had puncture wounds all over his face and shoulders and his ear was badly gashed.  

Results of anteater attack

He also reeked to high heaven with a smell similar to having been sprayed by a skunk. However, after a bit of time, the cuts started to coagulate and the bleeding wasn’t so severe. While I got him settled on the porch, David was surfing the Web trying to identify what kind of animal we had in the yard.

Turns out it was this:

 

A Collared Anteater or Tamandua. What do you know? You can read all about them here, but the upshot is that while they have no teeth, they have very long, sharp claws. They also will spray their opponents, much like a skunk. As their name suggests, they eat ants and termites and often hang out in trees. This one must have come down from one of the palms when Sam discovered him. Probably they both scared each other and the fight ensued. Tanya, our other adopted dog who is about 10 years old and arthritic, managed not sustain any injuries but lent her bark to let Sam know she had his back.

Now I don’t know about any of you, but I never knew anteaters lived in Belize. Possums? Yep. Armadillos, crocodiles, and tarantulas? Sure. Nor have I ever had to call the vet to make an appointment for my dog being attacked by one. Dr. Sheila didn’t skip a beat when I got in touch with her. Just another anteater incident and typical day at the office for her. She gave Sam the once over, checked his weight,  gave him a shot, and provided a week’s worth of antibiotics. Her cost: $18 BZD or $9 USD. Once the swelling in his face goes down, hopefully in another few days, and his cuts start healing up, we can gently clean his wounds with soap and water.

Anteaters. In our yard. Attacking the dog. Still trying to wrap my head around that one.

Bronte and Olivia Update

Today the girls, Bronte and Olivia, went to visit Dr. Sheila for a check-up and for a round of vaccines. We were pleased as all get out to see that both have put on weight. Bronte is now three pounds (up from one and a half pounds when we got her). And Olivia tipped the scales at five and a half pounds! We were also relieved to find out that Olivia's skin infection is completely healed, meaning no more medicated baths every three days. Both were good as gold, but just plum tuckered out when we got them home.

You would not believe how much Olivia's fur has grown. Remember how she looked like this?

 

 

Take a look at her now!

 



She still doesn't have any fur from about the mid-point to the bottom of her ears, but hopefully that will start coming in soon. Dr. Sheila wasn't ready to hazard a guess as to what breed combination Olivia may be, but did think she'll probably grow to about 25 pounds.

Whatever her make-up, she does have something in common with Sam, one of the two older dogs we adopted when we bought the house:

Sam

 

Olivia

 

While Olivia has a number of tomboy tendencies, Bronte is all girl and clearly sees herself as quite the princess with an attitude to boot. It's amazing something so little can be so bossy and sassy. She gets into everything, and while she understands what the word "No" means, chooses when she hears it. She is a prime example of selective hearing. On the flip side, she loves to be cuddled, purrs a great deal of the time, and hates to be out of sight of us or Olivia.

If you've read prior posts, you know these two hang out together to eat, sleep, and play. We were stymied at first as to what to do about pet toys. Having animals as pets here is still a novel concept and there is no such thing as a PetSmart store. With a little creativity, we came up with some homemade items that seem to do the trick:

A baby sock filled with cotton balls and knotted shut. Have had no success in locating catnip. Quite frankly, I don't know if we could deal with the level of maniacal behavior should Bronte ever encounter the stuff.

An old hand towel tied into a knot



The plastic wrappers on the top of our five gallon water jugs. This is the best toy...ever! It's light enough for Bronte to carry around, but makes enough of a crackling noise to keep Olivia occupied.

A toothbrush. This brilliant idea is from our friend Julie, here in Belize. The plastic handle is perfect for Olivia now that she is entering the teething stage and the bristles massage her gums.

 

So there you have it -- the latest and greatest about our new additions!

 

You might also like:

• Say Hello to My Little Friend
• It's a Pupapalooza
• What a Difference a Week Makes



It's a Pupapalooza!

So Wednesday was another milestone for us. For starters, we got word that our kitchen cabinets are back on track. The other event that rocked our world was the arrival of our newest family member, Olivia:

David was off at the cabinet maker when Fernando arrived with the puppy. To say she was the most pitiful looking thing I had ever seen, would not be an overstatement. Apparently, a guy Fernando knows in Ranchito owns the mom, who had given birth to a litter of seven or eight puppies. Their living conditions were abysmal -- nothing but dirt and all kinds of nasty stuff. Olivia, being the runt of the litter, had to struggle more than her siblings to get whatever little bit of food she could scavenge. Seriously, I had never seen a puppy this tiny before...ever.

Fernando wouldn't even let me hold her at first, because she reeked to high heaven. Once he gave her a bath, I wrapped her in a towel, dried her off, and got my first good look. It wasn't pretty. She has very little fur, her skin was just covered with all kinds of scabs, and she could barely stand up. Fernando wasn't optimistic she would make it through the night.

When David arrived home, he was as surprised as I had been to see her and not altogether pleased to have a sickly puppy to contend with. But we both agreed there was no way we could let her go back to her birth family. 

Once she had dried off from her bath, we figured she really could use something to eat. The poor thing was just skin and bones. David, bless his heart, hopped in the car and went off to find puppy chow. When we set down a dish with food, it's was clear she hadn't had a meal in some time. 

During all this, Bronte made her presence known. She tried playing, pawing, and sometimes nipping at Olivia, who wasn't really equipped to defend herself. We did whatever we could to keep the two at paws length. 

But it was amazing that once Olivia had a long nap and a full tummy, she started getting some energy. We were keeping our fingers crossed that she would be okay.

That night we settled on the couch to watch TV. I had Olivia wrapped up in a towel, like a little nest. Next thing we knew, Bronte decided to hang out with us as well:

The peace and tranquility didn't last long. Bronte woke up and decided it was time to play. I sent David  off to bed and got myself as comfortable as I could on the couch to deal with the little ones. Bronte got bored after a bit and headed into the bedroom to sleep on David's head. I am not kidding.

With Olivia curled up on my chest, the two of us tried to doze off. Around one in the morning, I woke up because Olivia was moving around and something felt weird on my arm. Turns out, she barfed all over me and her nesting towel. I got the two of us cleaned up and we tried to doze off again. We did well until about 4 a.m., when she woke up.

While she certainly had more spring in her step, we wanted to have the local vet, Dr. Sheila, check her out. Just as an aside, I can't say enough good things about Dr. Sheila. She is amazing. When I think about what types of cases she must have to deal with down here, well, she deserves the utmost respect.

Dr. Sheila estimated that Olivia is about five to six weeks old -- the same as Bronte. When Olivia was put on the scale, she weighed two pounds. Count 'em...two pounds. No wonder she was such a tiny thing. Dr. Sheila explained that the scabby bits on Olivia's skin were from a fungal infection that she contracted from being in poor living conditions. She gave us some medicated shampoo that needs to be applied once every three days. Due to her small poundage, we would also need to feed her about five small meals of puppy chow mixed with milk or water each day. After her check-up and being given her first dose of heartworm medicine, we were good to go, all for the whopping fee of $20 (BZD) or $10 in US dollars. 

Upon arriving home, I gave Olivia a bath with her new shampoo and wow -- what a difference to her skin and her attitude. Once she scarfed down another meal, she seemed to be transformed into a whole new puppy. So much so that she decided to spend some serious time playing with Bronte.

But after any rigorous workout, a nice long nap is in order:

These two have really hit it off -- when they aren't hitting on one another. 

So while we hadn't planned to add a puppy to the mix this soon, we have been totally smitten and are happy that Olivia will have a chance to be in a loving home, with plenty to eat, and lots of cuddles. She and Bronte are due back at Dr. Sheila's on December 6. It will be interesting to see how much they weigh at that point.

In the meantime, be sure to check back here for updates on the progress of our two tykes.