And then I became Michael Jackson

What a busy summer it has been. Arrancopelito was fully booked with houseguests since the last week of December until Carnaval, and it felt great to have the guest room occupied all that time.

First we had an early December overnight visit by Sara and the Croquette (a.k.a. Jessie, her curly dog), and then we had Ines and Juan Pablo, from Montevideo, followed by Sibel from Germany, Ben and Tom, from New York, and most recently Ines again, and Gustavo, Nikki and their daughter Luz, Uruguayan friends visiting from Barcelona.

Throughout the parched summer I developed tendinitis on my thumb from watering the yard with a hose to keep everything alive, although I'm much better now. Now the drought has abated, everything looks as green as what I imagine Ireland to look like, but one of the consequences of the drought has not yet let up, and that's the snake epidemic.

After a two year drought, coupled with huge fires in the area, the crucera, a venomous snake that was already abundant in the area, has benefited by the disappearance of her natural predator, the water/garden snakes which eat their eggs. Added to their greater numbers, the fires destroyed half their habitat in our area, so they "came down the hills" in droves, and in the months of December, January and February every house in our area had at least one visit, if not more. We responded by clearing more of the empty lots around our property, but that was not enough apparently.

During Sibel's stay, she was unfortunate enough to arrive one night we were out to find a one meter long crucera coiled on the entrance steps. Thanks to the warning barks from Lunes, Sibel did not get bit, and she heroically managed to collect all three dogs and keep them from harm's way until the snake was killed. I was hoping that would be the end of the snake events, seeing as the rain has been copious and there are lots of frogs to eat everywhere, but a week ago we freaked out when we woke up and saw half of Lunes' head swollen to balloon size. From the window upstairs I could tell it was a snake bite, so we raced to the vet in Maldonado. Her neck had already swollen as well, and she couldn't even bark, so I was terrified she would choke on me before we got to the vet, but all was fine, Dr. Sienra had the antidote (which nobody does in Uruguay for some reason) and she is now back to her feisty self.

But for a long time I have been told by many people that cats are the only defense against snakes. I didn't want to get cats because I feared they would hunt the birds, but now that I'm used to Lunes eating several birds a day, it's not such a strong consideration anymore, and the snake deterrent has become a priority. So yesterday finally we got our first one, Zeytin, and are about to get a couple more as soon as Zeytin is absorbed into the family and does not require any more medication.



Zeytin is very small and came in bad general health and with an eye infection, but she's making progress daily, and has not been eaten by Lunes yet, so things are looking good. Tulu licks her until she's soaked, Lunes hits her with her snout and makes a huge effort not to eat her, and Oso just follows her around.


The problem is that when we went to Sienra's to pick up Zeytin the cat, I just followed the sound of a shrieking puppy all the way to the back yard, where we found a ball of black and white fur going berserk. We picked it up, and by the time I turned around to my husband, Dr. Sienra was standing behind us asking "You like?" in his most persuasive tone... I passed her on to Barbi's arms, and that was it, sold! Collie is a 6-week old female Border Collie, who apparently was bought as a gift for a boy who refused to take care of it, and so we got her instead. I had been resisting many puppies offered to me and many strays for a long time, but this time Barbi, who always plays the ogre, was right there with me and could not say no himself...


It's hard to convey how perplexed our dogs were. We had been away for two days (we never go anywhere) and we returned with two new critters, one of them a cat, which they had never seen before. Collie established her presence forcefully right away, barks, growls and tries to play with all of them, so she's fully adapted from the start. I guess by showing no weakness she kind of scares them, they don't really know what to make of her.

The cat will take a more gradual approach, or else she will become a snack for Lunes.

Unsurprisingly, my mother reminded me that I am becoming one of those crazy old ladies who accumulate pets. My elder brother has offered to start looking for goats, sheep and llamas for me, and it doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. My own menagerie...