Guinea Pig Mad!

Everyone who knows me, also knows that I am 100% mad about them! 

I have one guinea pig of my own and the rest are owned by my sisters.  But as I am in charge and older, I take care of them all - you could call them 'mine'.

I have two breeding pairs:  Toffee (male) and Candy (female) Cupcake.  And Fudge (male) and Cocoa (female) Chanel.

Candy is mine and is the best breeder ever!!  She has now had three litters in the 6/7 months I have had her!  When I first got her, I thought her so ugly - but as she has gotten older and has become more tame, she is more beautiful.  Her current litter totals six - yes six!!!  Her last two litters were both three! 

Just before I left for Cape Town to visit my friend I went outside to the runs in which the guinea piggies graze all day and I heard this very tiny squeak - the babies!!  At that time there were four and I was happy!  They had JUST been born and were wet and bloody.  I picked them up and popped them in their hutch.  All was well - God had answered my prayer for her to give birth before I left!

The next morning I got an sms from my mom saying Candy had had two more during the night - impossible!  The books say four/five is the maximum - record said eight!  I couldn't believe Candy had six!  I was over the moon!

Unfortunately I don't have photographs at the moment, but as soon as I can I will post! 

Cocoa is a smaller, gentler mommy.  Her first litter she only had two, which was slightly disappointing.  She gave birth to her second litter shortly after we moved to Knysna - Tammy, Peanut and Butter (P and Butter are twins - identical!)  Cocoa is a very good, gentle, loving momma to her babies!  Hopefully, once she gets a little bigger, she will have more!

Poor Candy was huge while pregnant - no wonder!  Six is a lot of babies for one small guinea pig!!

Toffee and Fudgy are the males - Toffee is not a very good dad - he is more like a baby himself!  Toffee though is brilliant at coping with little children holding him!  He is Gabrielle's so he has to put up with a lot!

Fudge is THE dad!  He takes no nonsense from his guinea pig babies.  He is not the nicest guinea pig to cuddle, but he has character - which I like!  Beth owns him and Cocoa.

So now, I have thirteen guinea pigs to take care of - wow!!  The babies stay with their mothers until about five/six `weeks of age.  The last litter, Honey and Biscuit stayed with us until they were 9 weeks old  because of the move, it was very sad to say goodbye to them!!

Breeding guinea pigs is my hobby.  I also enjoy card making, but prefer to be outside with nature - with animals.  I really dislike dogs though because I was attacked by one.  My nose is still tender, because he broke it and I have sore scars on my face. 

When the babies reach the age to sell, I put out adverts.  In Cape Town I sold three to a lady with two children.  She came to our house.  My parents like to leave me to sell the babies, which I like:  I show the buyer the choice of what I have, then they choose and I give them a little info about them and then take the money, which I use to buy things I need for the other guinea pigs.  Hay, food, etc.

So in a month or two I will have lots of selling to do!!  I enjoy having the babies to take care of, but I am ever so grateful when they are gone!!!  Now, with thirteen all I am going to do is feed their ever hungry little tummies - but it is my hobby, so I don't mind!  To comfort myself after they have gone, I focus on the good side...there will be more in about....well, pregnancy period of the females is 63 days (females, if kept with their male will become pregnant usually immediently after birth, so they will forever be pregnant or lactating unless the male is taken away)!

Blessings to all,
Kelly-Anne

Happy Birthday Beth!

Last week Thursday, Beth turned six years old. She really enjoyed her little birthday party. Us girls (my mom, Nancy and myself) had an absolute ball making her presents!! Gabrielle and Rebekah gave her stickers. (Beth is mad about stickers and loves to collect them!)

I gave Beth a card making kit, full of papers, stamps, water colour pencils, stickers, templates, papers, card kits and so on! She was ecstatic to receive it!! Nancy knitted her a handbag and put a couple of coins in it. My mom gave her a beautiful scarf and a felt flower brooch. My dad unfortunately was still in Cape Town, working, but he came home the next night.

The little party was lovely! We had our neighbours round to enjoy a beautifully decorated chocolate cake, hotdogs and sweeties...it was lots of fun!

We put the table under the huge tree near our house, but far away enough that Rebekah could not hear the noise, as she was taking a nap!

We had to light the candles in the boot of our friend's car because the wind was blowing so the flames kept going out!  The walk to the house was a bit far to just light the candles!!

In the evening, we had pizza..it was very yummy! Our family is mad about pizza! We make very good ones! Our neighbour, Aunty Michelle, gave us some tomatoes that were a little soft and squishy, so we made our own tomato sauce for the bases!

Beth is so happy to be six and to have her own card making kit to play with! She made the first card made for me as a 'bye for now' gift when I left to spend time with my best friend! The next one she made for Danika, her best friend who is the younger sister of Heidi-Mari!

Beth is a real blessing to our family - without her, life would just not be the same...she is very loving and often you will find her looking straight into your eyes with so much love and affectation that you feel a bit 'scared'! She will often tell how much she loves you with a face full of love....I must say the things she tells us about ourselves is quite touching! Beth will also come and give you a cuddle, then pat you or wipe her hand gently across your face...she is so sweet!

We praise the Lord for allowing Beth to live in our family!!

Blessings to all,
Kelly-Anne  

Happy Birthday Card For Nancy

Hello everyone!!  Yeah!  I am posting a card again!  This one I made at my friend, Heidi-Mari's house.  I came down to Cape Town with my dad, who is working here for a while to stay with her - we have really had a good time card making, blogging and fellowshipping!!

Nancy, my ten year old sister is turning eleven years old in October, on the 14th.  She loves all things ballet, so I decided to make her a card with ballerina paper which Heidi so kindly let me use! 

This time I decided to try something new - I made my first easel card - it was so much fun!!  As I have said before, I like to do something new on each card I make.  I just know she is going to love it! 

I took part in the following challenges with this card:

Sweet Stampin - Vintage
Stamp Something - Something Flowery
Creatalicious Challenges - Something 3D
Your Next Stamp - An Easel Card
The Creative Cottage - Touchy Feely
Digi Doodle Shops Best - Anything Goes
Stampin For The Weekend - Recipe
The Crazy Challenge - All About Birthdays
Ooh, La, La - Birthdays
Craftalicious Challenges - Birthdays
Simon Says Challenge - Going Dotty
Create 4 Fun - Flowers
Heidi-Mari is a designer for Stamping for the Weekend.  I am very excited to be taking part in their challenge which is a recipe: 3 Designer Papers, 2 Flowers, 1 Ribbon and an added extra of gems or charms (I used pearls).

So here is my card:

This little stamp looks just like Nancy!

These are such pretty flowers and suite this card so well!  The pearls in the middle also fit perfectly with this card!

I love this pink ribbon with all the dots and spots!  Most of my cards have spots somewhere on them - I am a dotty girl!  I think the ribbon really brightens up this card.

I love to distress my cards a lot, as you can see!  With so much distress, the card looks 'vintage'  and 'old' which I really like!

Here is the inside of the card:

So that is my card for this week!  I really enjoyed making an easel card and shall definitely do another one again very soon!  If you haven't ever made an easel card, then I suggest you try one!  Here are the basic instructions.

I hope you are all enjoying your week so far!!

Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

Wordless Wednesday

Snow On The Mountains

A week or two ago, there was a huge rain storm.. It poured down and the tanks overflowed! It was very unusual for so much rain to fall! There has been a draught for two years!

Our friend, Aunty Nichola sms'd my mom to say that she must go outside and look at the snow on the mountains which my mom did, followed by the rest of our family...the site was heavenly! The snow was so near we could walk to it! – praise God!

Just look at these pictures...we are living in a little piece of heaven right here on Earth!

 

My dad took this photograph...beautiful, isn’t it? And this is basically in our backyard!

That fence is the main house in which the owners of the farm stay once a week. You can see that the snow was very close to the house!

It was very cold, but it was so amazing to see snow so close!

Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

Hello Again!

Hello again!! It feels so good to be on my blog again! We haven't yet got Internet on the farm as we are too far out!! I tried going to the library, but each time I went, they were offline! Fortunately my dad has been working in Cape Town so I came down with him to stay at my best friend, Heidi-Mari. I am staying for five nights - but I am really going to miss the farm!


Now I want to tell you a bit about the farm!

...It is BEAUTIFUL!! Never in our lives have we felt so happy! There is so much freedom and we are NEVER inside (except of course when we are sleeping) We beg to be allowed out, but not until our chores are done!!

Our cute cottage, what do you think?

There are also many down sides but we are choosing to focus only on the good!

Snow on the mountains!

Beautiful sunset!

There are two horses: Gaylord and Snowflake. Snow is pregnant!! Very exciting! I ride our neighbour's horse called Hazelnut. She is three and has only just been broken in but she is so gentle and sweet and
thinks she is a human. She comes to you for cuddles and hugs and is so good with the little ones even though she is still so young! I am teaching her to trot properly and to stop (she doesn't like to stop) and we are starting to canter! I ride bareback all the time because she is not trained to have a saddle! We ride up and down the road! Snow and Gaylord are very nosey. Snow loves my mom and she comes onto the porch! Gaylord we call 'Dopey' from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - he always looks sleepy!

Snowflake

Gaylord......"Hello"!

Trying to eat my breakfast of maize meal...as you can see I was having a bit of trouble....!  I actually got a bit of horsey slobber on my bowl...yuck!

The guinea pigs are doing so well! Cocoa gave birth to Tammy, Peanut and Butter a week or two ago, and Candy, my guinea pig, had her babies just before I left - four, the most she has ever had, or so we thought! This morning my mom sms'd to say that she had two more during the night!! She now has six!! Now there are 13 to look after till it is time to sell them! (Nancy didn't keep Honey.)




















Peanut

Butter

Cocoa with Peanut and Tammy.  They are feeding!!!

There is a forest at the bottom of the farm where we have picnics and collect small pieces of wood for the little coal stove in our living area.

The little ones play all day on their bicycles riding up and down the drive! They play with mud, tadpoles and sand toys!!

Nancy and I are enjoying living on a farm! I planted lettuce, radish, onion and Swiss Chard seed the other day. The Swiss Chard is for my guinea pigs!

The sunrises and sunsets are ten times better than in the city. The frogs croak all night, sending us to sleep, crickets chirp and a little bird hops about, tame as ever on our porch! Life is harder and tougher than in the city but there is a purpose to living - there is freedom and beauty all around us and we are wonderfully happy!





















This move was good - we are where we are meant to be - praise be to God for opening this door!!!

Blessings to all,
Kelly-Anne