There's a lot of life in this house!

I'm writing this on October 17th, and the kittens are 8 days old. Sara and I were obsessively watching them today and I noticed that one had one eye open!! Which was sooo creepy. We were talking about how weird it is that we see all animal’s eyes, and yet we are absurdly interested in seeing the kitten’s eyes. I kinda want to call that kitten Mad Eye Moody, because the eye had a fake or glass eye quality to it and it was super weird. And then Sara was saying Mad Eye to it, which sounded like Maddie, and we laughed and I think its name must be settled now. I also think based on what little we can see of their parts, that Mad Eye is a girl, so I think we have 2 girls and 2 boys :)

Most of my degus show signs of giving birth! Now I start the night telemetry part of my project, where we track the degus to where they are sleeping. They have a radiocollar on that emits a specific frequency, and I can tune my receiver to pick it up with an attached antennae. Unfortunately, this means that now Sara and I have to go to the park again at 8:30pm and usually get back to the house around 10:30pm. Then, we have to wake up at 5:30am the next morning for trapping. Not the best schedule ever. Zorro doesn’t like that we leave twice a day, either.

A caterpillar decided to make its cocoon right inside our front door. Not sure if that’s a good spot, but hopefully we’ll be able to see it emerge before we leave in about a month!

There are lots of bird nests around, including nests of the giant hummingbird, jal and platero.I am always amazed at their ability to construct a nest! Seriously, they are so perfectly formed and so sturdy and so intricate. We had a big storm the other day, that may have rivaled the “great flood” of August, and I was sure the nests would have been wiped out. Especially for the platero bird which nests on the ground. How could that not get washed away? Somehow they all survived! In fact, the day after the rain we checked the platero nest and there were very very new fledglings in it!  Non human animals are amazing. We are wimps.

Sara noticed another colony of coruros by our processing station that I like to watch. The problem is that the biting flies are so bad that it doesn’t allow for me to stand still very well, so when I involuntarily shriek in pain from a bite, or move to slap a fly as it’s biting me (I swear I don’t even consciously make the decision to move my arm I just go for it when I feel the pain), the coruros make their alarm sound and go back underground.

I’m trying to appreciate all the time I have left here (which is not much). After spending almost 5 months in Chile this season (11 months total) feeling like my time here would never end, it’s weird to think that it will soon. I may act like I want to get back home, which I do when I think about my life there. Family, friends, my dog Snickers, happy hour (which often includes, friends, family and my dog), going to movies, bar trivia, the fact that I miss out on my family’s beach trip every time I’m  here!! Those are just the fun things I miss. I miss the practical things like unlimited water, hot water, central air conditioning, real showers, internet, TV, washer and dryer.

But there are a lot of things here that I do not have in the US. These include, goat cheese and churrascas from my neighbors, which are maybe my favorite thing in Chile. Juan, the mammal guys, tiny tangerines in my front yard, Zorro, Potato and her kittens, all the delicious new foods Juan cooks us, cheap veggies and fruit at the Feria, peace and quiet and the ability to disconnect (no internet), lots of time to read books I wouldn’t read when I’m at home, and I'm more committed to working out and doing yoga when I'm here.

Sara is Venezuelan and wanted to make a common food called arepas for me and Juan. Juan said he would cook luche (sea lettuce) with potatoes for us. I had luche last year and wrote about it in the blog. It is one of my favorite things ever. Arepas are a kind of corn bread which you cut to make two pieces like two pieces of bread, and put whatever you want in it, like a sandwich. We had the amazing goat cheese from our neighbor, carne de soya, and eggs with veggies. It was an amazing lunch.

I've also included some photos of the Feria we go to every week to get fruits, veggies, nuts, raisins, oats for my degus, dog food, etc. 

One of MANY goat cheese vendors at the Feria

One aisle of the Feria, this place is HUGE

Chirimoya or custard apple, it tastes like froyo

Super needy Zorro

Zorro is always looking for attention now that we have kittens

Nestlings!

Papas con luche!

Best lunch ever!!!

Got to read about the debate, and then Sara and I read the whole transcript

Momma likes to take a break from her babies

Coruro

Cocoon

Another big spider was in our house!

Dar la luz

My next few posts will have a lot about kittens, degu pups, baby birds, etc. In Spanish the phrase “to give birth” is “dar la luz”, which literally means “to give light”. Isn’t that such a beautiful phrase??

10/9/15 11:58am

We have a kitten!!! I was on my laptop in our front room when I saw the cat book it into Sara’s room. That was unusual behavior for her, she usually saunters in and looks around, drinks some water and tries to get us to give her food. She might beeline for my room where Zorro’s food bowl is, but besides that, she is usually very calm. I thought maybe she was looking for somewhere to start labor, maybe in a few days. Next thing I know, Zorro and I perk up when we hear squeaking. I peeked into Sara’s room and there was a kitten with her!!! I yelled to Sara, “There’s a kitten on your bed. I’m not kidding”.  We had kinda joked that she would do it in Sara’s room, on her bed or something since she sleeps there, but we still couldn’t really believe it. 

12:52pm Now, we have 4!!! About 15 minutes ago we checked on her and the number went from 1 to 3 kittens, and we could tell she was pushing. We witnessed the actual birth of kitten number 4 and it was amazing. She is such a good mom and is so sweet to us. We are careful to keep Zorro out, which is hard because that room doesn’t have a door. We’ve made a barricade to keep him out but we are still in shock about what to do now that there are kittens on Sara’s bed. He acts like Lady in Lady and the Tramp in the song "What is a baby?" If you don't remember it you should watch a video clip of it because that's how he acts! Except we can't let him in to see them or the mom beats him up. In about a week their eyes will be open and in a few more weeks they will be playing!!! This will certainly make for an exciting last one and a half months!

Sibling love :)

Kittens in Sara's bed!

He's like Lady in Lady and the Tramp

There are lots of babies around, since it is spring. We have seen nestlings around my site and the mammal team has found degu pups in their grids. I am still waiting for my degus to give birth, although I found a new female the other day that I suspect may have had a litter. I am hoping I will see or catch some pups around her burrow systems. 

Giant hummingbird's nest by Juan's house

Inside the nest

A birds nest on the ground at my site

Very pregnant lady with her babies bulging out her sides

Flamingos, fox chases and fetuses

Sara was finally able to experience the joy of adventures with Juan. I feel bad that I’m always talking about our great times last year, and she doesn’t get to have that because we don’t live in the park with him this year. We hadn’t seen him since the earthquake, and the September 18^th celebrations so we lunched with him after trapping on Tuesday, and he invited us to go to the coast on Wednesday, and stop at a wetland to see a pair of flamingos that he knew about. He even made sopapillas for us for a snack before so that Sara could try them. He makes them with a pumpkin/squash like thing they have here called zapallo, and they are especially delicious with his homemade pebre (kinda like pico de gallo). We stopped by our house first and Juan got to see Zorro for the first time since we rescued him! Like everyone, he fell in love with his goofiness right away and kept saying how great he looked. We showed him our pregnant cat, who Sara named Pata (potato), or Patita because she eats raw potatoes which we think is weird, and also she is very round at the moment. Juan exclaimed that she wasn’t a potato she was a ball!! She is very very pregnant. Then we were off, and along the way we saw lots of goats, sheep, cows, horses, birds, dogs, etc. When we stopped at the wetlands I could not believe it, there was a pair of flamingos!!! In the wild!!! I’m so used to seeing them at the zoo, I would walk by them every day and I remember that they were Chilean flamingos on the sign, but being here I never thought about it! It was awesome. We saw swans, ducks, cormorants, and lots of other water birds. Then we ventured onto this wooden bridge thing that had all these signs saying to be quiet, and no hunting, and other exclamations to protect the species there. Juan had heard that a rare species of bird called “7 colors” is seen there so he bird- called for awhile why we waited…and waited. He said there was a lot of activity in there but nothing was coming out.

Bad quality, but a pair of flamingos!!! One is grey and one is pink

The "seven colors" bird that we didn't get to see

We walked on this creaky bridge thing to get out over the water

Next stop was more wetlands on the coast on the way to Tongoy. I had been to Tongoy with Juan before, and stopped at these wetlands on the way back, but this time we found that right at the ocean, the road had been completely washed away by the storms and tsunamis etc. So we parked the car and walked on the beach. Sara and I couldn’t resist the ocean so we took off our shoes and ran in, getting soaked up to our butts, but we didn’t care. It was a gloomy day, but the water didn’t feel too bad! There were these buey balls with a mollusk on it and Juan flipped out, he was so excited they washed up because he knew how to cook them. Of course, being Juan he dropped them off at our landlords’ house for them to have and didn’t even keep any for himself! I think it will be a real treat for them. We waded through the water that washed through the road, and started sinking into the sand and further into the water. I didn’t mind though since I love being in the ocean any way possible. We wandered a little further before returning to the truck. On the way back we stopped in a town for goat cheese and bread as a snack. I found more cute dogs in that town.

at the beach!!

The mollusk we found!

All Juan had to say was "Maddie, don't take her home"

 We made it back to our house to change and check on Zorro, who we left playing with the construction workers and their dogs for the day. He was so excited to see us all, and I felt bad about leaving him to go back to the park with Juan. So Juan let us take him back! We had dinner and Juan fell more in love with Zorro. He says if he could he would want to keep him in the park with him so he wouldn’t be so lonely. He made the great realization that Zorro looks like Santa's Helper, Bart Simpson's dog! He is so right. They are both super funny looking. Zorro got to meet his namesake, some of the foxes that live around Juan’s cabin. They were resting peacefully outside looking so cute and probably waiting for Juan to feed them, when Zorro finally noticed they were out there. He is so protective at our house from other dogs that I should not have been surprised from him reaction. He flipped his shit and charged the fox over into the shrubs. Next thing we see is the fox sprinting down the road with Zorro right on its tail. I’m telling you I’ve never seen animals run so fast. And the sound of the scared fox was insane. It was such a crazy moment we all just burst out laughing at the table like what the hell just happened??? We went outside but they were long gone. I feel bad for the fox. Zorro came back tail wagging looking so proud of himself. Juan is a sucker for him and was feeding him goat cheese all night, he can’t resist Zorro’s begging eyes and the way he lays his head on your leg when you’re eating.

Possibly the fox that Zorro chased

Compare to Santa's Helper

Seriously this is Zorro's expression all the time

During our trip Juan was asking me if we had any truck problems. If anyone read my blog last year I think I wrote about the hell we experienced last year. I was so happy to say no, no flat tires (5 last year), no leaking tanks, no burnt out clutches. And I know how the world works, it only makes sense that the next day we got a flat tire on the way home from the field. I was confident I could change a tire after my practice last year, but I knew it would be a little difficult and I was anticipating the problems we had before with a shitty jack that couldn’t hold the truck up so it would always collapse. And last year the jack wasn’t tall enough so Juan had to find us blocks to put it on. So I was a little worried. The construction workers said they looked over and saw us under the truck getting the spare tire and knew they should help us, as gentlemen. I have to admit I was relieved to have them do it for us, and we watched carefully so we could put the other one back on once it was fixed. And as I’m writing this, we just finished putting the original back on. We celebrated the fact that we are strong independent women that can change the tires on our bad ass field truck.

I joke when people ask me how it’s going here that it changes daily, sometimes hourly. In the mornings I will be so annoyed by all the mosquitos that attack me, and then I’ll check traps and we’ll have 2 new pregnant females which is the best thing ever! And then it will warm up and I will be swarmed by dozens of biting flies and I will be miserable until trapping is done. And then I’ll be happy to go back to the house and make some coffee, but something will happen like this week when we found out we were out of water. That lasted like 4 days. Luckily we had drinking water but for everything else it was annoying. But then Juan took us on the excursion and it was such a good day. And then we got water back. But then we had a flat tire and had to go fix that which worried me a little to be driving to the field on the spare. And we are waiting for our cat to give birth, and having kittens here will be the best. 

Big ass fly trying to bite through my fleece

When I walk through my site in the morning dew the flowers bleed on me

More flowers

Also, the real highlight of this update is that this morning I felt fetuses in a pregnant degu!!!!!!!! I’ve had Sara feel some of them as they’ve been gaining weight and mostly it’s just a round tummy. Which is what it was like last year. And then today I asked her to feel this fat one and she felt it!!! So I tried and I felt the little masses!!! So I feel safe saying I officially will see pups this year, my field season won’t be a failure, and I will actually leave Chile feeling like something worked at last. Sooo happy right now.

Right after this photo we palpated her and felt fetuses!!!

 

Little baby Zorro

He joined us for the moon event at 11pm

Eeek!!! Gross tick

Round lady on the right, and a male on the left

 

If we're home, this is where Zorro and I are