A Very Close Call

We are having the perfect tick season here in Far North Queensland, to the point where vets here warned of a shortage of anti tick medication and that pet owners need to be very diligent indeed and check their animals daily.



  

Female paralysis ticks one fully engorged



  These tiny dangerous parasites can be very hard to find on an animal sometimes, as happened to our poor Cavalier, Tobi.  After a brushing and searching session last Thursday afternoon we noticed he had an ever so slight waiver in his gait so we immediately took him off to the vet. After intense examination by two vets, a vet nurse and myself nothing was found so home we went. 

 By Friday morning though he was clearly having difficulty and we rushed him back to the vet surgery.  While giving him a tick wash a young vet nurse found the tick implanted in the very top edge of his ear.  He started to go down very fast and we were warned he might not pull through.  Our vet said it would probably take up to 72 hours before we would know for sure that he would survive. 

 After 2 days of worrying and feeling very sad that we might loose the little fellow, on Sunday, mid-day, we had a call from our vet to say Tobi had turned the corner and was definitely rallying ...what a relief !!!.

 Tobi was allowed to come home yesterday afternoon, so it was with great joy that we went and picked him up from the vet, he is rather weak of course but clearly happy to be home again!!! 



Tobi this morning, Tuesday, and looking a lot better !



All is well that ends well as the saying goes and it will indeed be a very Happy Christmas here in the Roe household!!! Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday time and a very good New Year,

with beary hugs and  best wishes,

Robyn. 



Charming Fellows

Thanks to Sandi Smith for organising our TBACA 2010 Christmas Swap and to my delight my swap partner was Linda Benson from Benson Bears, so when the postie delivered a package from Tasmania last week I knew it was from Linda!!!. What a lovely surprise to find inside Rollo and Dink !  Rollo is made from a dense short alpaca and he has beautifully detailed paw pads and a little leather nose.  He is 10cm (4") high in a sitting position.  Rollo's friend Dink is a great little penguin standing at just 7cm (2 3/4") with wonderful webbed leather feet and a leather beak.  He has a fine white detail around his little eyes which gives him a most charming expression.  Both are wearing a red leather hat, Dink's at a very rakish angle, complete with a rusty bell on the end. They are just the cutest pair!

My swap to Linda was a little bear called Greentwinky Jnr. who is pulling along his Christmas tree cart.  He's made from silk plush and has handpainted eyes.  I had a lot of fun creating him and his little cart especially for Linda B.

Meet Daisy and Ivan




Daisy



Ivan





We had a wonderful holiday and along the way came across sweet little Daisy a 1930's Chiltern.  She decided she needed a sea change and now resides with the rest of the gang here in Queensland, which is a long way from Lewes in the UK.

She didn't travel alone however but was in the good company of Ivan, a Pat Murphy 12" gently aged reproduction Ted who also made the journey to warmer climes.

We've had plenty to do here in the garden after six weeks away, but it did feel good to be home again.  The doggies had a great time with their carer while we were away and got a bit spoilt too with extra treats!  and the doggie family has grown since we returned with the addition of a beautiful Black and Tan Cavalier pup, who has been happily causing havoc around the place chewing all manner of things.  Our elderly Cav, also a Daisy, was no longer interested in playing games with poor Tobi, a young Tri Cavalier, so now Tobi has a pal and the two boys are having a great time together.  Daisy dear can now enjoy relaxing just as every princess should ! 

Daisy, Barnaby and Tobi

Just after we returned our computer gave up the ghost, yet again, and was out of action for several weeks and after a new mother board seems to be behaving ok now. We think the high humidity and those pesky little Gekkos cause  havoc with computers here.  I've upgraded my website too since we came home and you might like to take a look, I'd love you to leave a comment for me in my guest book there and finally I'm back in my workroom and working on some new designs. 

Cheers till next time, Robyn.

OOPS!

Well I am sad to say I made a complete mess of my little panda's black eye patches.  I decided to use fabric pens to colour them and ofcourse when the pen slipped on one eye and I tried to rectify the mark it left,  all went askew !!!

 Whoops indeed ! Needless to say after my efforts to remove the colour from the cotton backing the poor fellow has ended up with two big ' bruised blue' looking eye stains!  So I have cut out another head but this time I'm going to sew his patches in...even though his head is rather small I'm hoping it will work. In my efforts I discovered that Copic Colorless Blender used straight from the refill bottle with a small paint brush caused the black ink to disperse through the cotton backing in a rather nice way so am going to play around with his poor little head, so to speak, and see what other colours etc. might do.

                                                             

Another OOPS! moment happened this last week when my husband took some visitors out fishing. They couldn't go out to the Reef  because of very rough seas so they chose to do a spot of fishing in the rivers.  As they drifted along Moon Creek fishing close to the bank one of the fellows spotted a Cocodile.  The Croc was around 7 foot long (2.1m) and ofcourse perfectly still with it's mouth agape enjoying a bit of sunshine, as you do, if your a croc and the season is cooling down.

The trouble was the visitors didn't believe he was real and thought he was a plastic Croc put there to scare the tourists ! ROFL !!!  It just so happened as they drifted closer to him one of the fellows in the boat caught a fish and in the process of landing the fish ended up about 5 feet (1.5m) from the Croc who promptly charged in with it's eye on the fish and possibly the fishers too! Well that put and end to any plastic Croc stories and made them realize just how careful you need to be when messing about in boats in Croc country !

And last but not least another OOPS moment as time is fast running out before we leave next Tuesday for a far flung five week holiday.  I have a few teds cut out ready to sew along the way and a very new and natty  little notebook laptop so I can keep in touch with home AND also join in and enjoy the ACD Awards and the TBACA online Fantasy Ball  don't miss it.

Enjoy your week

Going Bananas

Well it's certainly banana heaven here at the moment! We planted our banana plot over a year ago and as time went by and no fruit appeared we thought we had wasted our time. Then suddenly out of the blue we've had 3 beautiful bunches appear!  The first to ripen were the small sugar bananas and they were just delicious, there were about 100 bananas in that first bunch, way too many for us so our neighbours helped us out.

 

Now the Lady Fingers are just about ready. It is very satisfying  growing your own food and with some to share.  Now the cyclone season is over and the humidity has dropped  it is the ideal time to be out in the garden and the perfect time to grow vegies here in the tropics.

It's also great for sewing teds so here is my latest panda, a work in progress.

I hope you enjoy your weekend

Posties Been

It is still raining here in North Queensland and rather grey but the day sure brightened up when I discovered a package in the letterbox all the way from Tasmania!  Here are pictures of the little treasure I found inside !

I am one of the lucky winners of Linda Benson's give away !  Thank you Linda for this sweet Benson Bear !  His little face has the most charming expression and his tiny leather nose is perfect. I love him!

and here he is sitting on the bookcase in my sewing room with another couple of Benson Pals! Hope your Monday has been a happy one too!

After the Valentine

A big THANK YOU to Sandi Smith of Bearly Sane for another successful TBACA Valentine online show last weekend.  Sandi's close attention to detail and organising skills are what make the show such a pleasure for both collectors and artists alike.  The Valentine show is also a fund raiser for the Free the Bears Fund.  Artists donate a bear for Bobo's Booth and all proceeds from the sale of the donated bears go directly to the Fund to help support rescued Sun Bears in Cambodia. Bobo's Booth is still open so do drop by to see some great bears waiting for adoption.

 

 This was my 'Bear for Bobo' his name is DinDin. I really had fun creating him along with his cart full of fruit!  He has been adopted by Leslie.

 

and this is Stefano, a rather happy chap at 6 inches (15cm) tall carrying his Valentine Rose and still looking for his special someone!
Cherrio for now,
Robyn.

Lots Of Rain

 
 Heres a photo of a corner of our front garden in a very wet state ... waiting to see what low rated cyclone Olga was going to do ! Lot's of people in the supermarkets here buying noodles and such like food ...being prepared ? ! Our power did go out for a short time ... but not long enough for the fridge to defrost !  (we did buy a generator after Larry so we were feeling pretty independant until we discovered we didn't have enough fuel to run the b..... thing!).  Well she moved south and caused a lot of havoc there too, good havoc generally with a lot of rain, maybe too much in some places because some people lost their lives, swept away in sudden flood waters while enjoying a simple picnic in a perceived safe spot and in contrast a year to the day of the terrible fires in Victoria which no Australian will ever forget ! What an amazing and beautiful country we live in!!!

Valentine Sneek - Peek

Here's my Sneek - Peek for our online Valentine Show coming up on February 13 !  Another great opportunity for collectors and bear lovers to enjoy and also support Bobo and the Free The Bears Fund who have been working so hard and achieving great things, to the betterment of the lives of bears, for over the last 14 years.

All proceeds from Bobo's Booth will be sent to Free The Bears Fund.  Thanyou to Linda of Lombard Bears Australia for sharing that wonderful Pi Zap site to help with the SP ... it drove me crazy ... but what a lottt of FUN !