It feels soooo good to be home. I really enjoyed the Philippines, and expect to go back at some point. But home is home. We left Manila at 9:30 am on Tuesday, and landed at San Francisco at 9:30 am on Tuesday. Weird. Had a 4 hour layover, so one of my husband’s relatives who lives nearby came to spend it with us. That was nice! Then we flew the rest of the way back to Oregon. By the time we got to bed that night, we’d been awake for 29+ hours. Phew!

Because of the wonderful housesitter, everything was in order. Whew! It was great to see all the animals well cared for.

Chickens:  When I left, I expected the chickens to be laying before I got back. They were hatched in March, so they should have started laying at the end of July or beginning of August, but the housesitter said she hadn’t gotten any eggs at all! So I went hunting, and eventually turned up their hidden nest – with 37 eggs in it! I did a float test and all were still good. I’m taking the housesitter a dozen eggs when I see her this weekend, and it looks like omelettes for breakfast (and lunch) for a while until we get through this backlog. Good thing we like eggs! For those who are wondering, the float test with eggs is to put each into a bowl of water. If the egg floats, it’s bad or almost bad and I throw those out. If it sinks and lays on its side, its good. In between are those that bob a bit, or stand on one end. I tend to feed those to animals after cooking them very thoroughly. The idea is that as the edible part of the egg starts to get older and decompose, it also loses some size, and the air cell inside the shell gets larger. The larger the air cell, the better it floats. It has to be well past floating to have that rotten egg smell to it, but better safe than sorry with food.

Rabbits: The “baby” rabbits aren’t so baby anymore! I use them for meat, so I was happy to see the size they are. I do have a line on selling a couple as breeders to someone else, so they have a stay of execution until that person decides. They’re 13 weeks old now.

The litter is a Californian / American Chinchilla cross. I did not know what to expect in colors from a litter of that cross, but whatever I would have guessed, it wouldn’t have been what I got: From a litter of 8, half are the white with the black tips of a Californian, and half are solid black.

Seven are females, only one is male (one of the Cali-looking ones) and I’m not 100% sure it really is male. I think the sex-change fairy is visiting, which is fairly common with little rabbits.

I ought to be able to tell easily at this age, but this male looks rather in-between. I’m calling it a male for safety because at this age they really need separated by gender to prevent an accidental between-siblings litter (in case any of them are precocious breeders). I will not sell that one unless the gender of it is unimportant to the buyer.

Aren’t they adorable? If you live in Oregon and want to buy one for a meat breeder yourself, let me know!

The cats are happy to have me home. My two went into a purring frenzy, and my half-a-cat looks very satisfied with himself, almost as if he’d brought me back himself!

And my Kira, the dog, is just so cute. She tried to ignore me, probably to punish me for being gone so long, but it lasted about 10 seconds before she gave in and started licking my hand. Awwww! She makes my heart melt. She’s the one I missed the most, all I could think about the last day before leaving for home was getting to see her. She’s 11 years old and gets more and more precious to me each day.

I think the garden is pretty much gone. Only one brussel sprout plant looks any good at all, and the sprouts on it are much tinier than they should be. The swiss chard and cabbage got eaten by wildlife. I can’t see where the onions and garlic are because that side of the plot got taken over by weeds. I can’t spend much time outside right now because of my sunburn, so I think I’ll just let them keep growing together and see what happens later.

Yeah, I got a sunburn. I got a BAD sunburn! On Saturday in the Philippines a bunch of us went to the beach. It was a goal of mine ever since I got there, to swim in the ocean! And then I did not put on sunscreen. I wear it at home for the cancer-reduction properties (which are debatable, I know), but I don’t burn even when I forget it. So when I forgot to bring it to the beach I didn’t worry about it. It was only 3 hours, and semi-cloudy.

I kept checking my forehead, figuring I’d go into the full shade of the trees when it started feeling hot.It never did, so no worries, right? I enjoyed the ocean and swimming, and the beach and collecting shells. So much fun! Then I got back to where we were staying and showered, and THEN it hit.Bright red skin, hot to the touch, and oh so sore. My whole face, chest, and shoulders. My face healed pretty quickly, and was peeling three days later. My chest wasn’t far behind. But my shoulders kept getting worse and worse and finally today they broke out in hundreds of tiny blisters. Boo! The doctor can’t see me for two weeks, but the nurse says to keep moisturizing and not pop the blisters, but to let them know if a fever starts. On the way home, on the plane, I chose to buy and wear a strapless dress. It didn’t look the most flattering on me, but was much nicer than dealing with straps over those sore shoulders.

I think the only other health issue that has cropped up was some infected cuts on my feet. Probably from the beach day as well. One thing I realized was how difficult it is to clean cuts with water that isn’t clean enough to drink. No wonder the cuts got infected! I started rinsing them with drinking water after I realized an infection was setting in, but by then it was too late. And how in the world do you keep feet dry when you shower? I never did figure that one out. So they kept getting doused in river water. But now that I’ve been home a full day they’re already feeling better. The cuts are tiny, they ought to heal on their own just fine now that the water is clean.

Speaking of the ocean, I saw sea snakes! Really cool looking. There were two, about four inches long apiece. Irridescent yellow/green and dark green/black. Watching them glide through the water like rippling ribbons was sooo awesome. I watched them until they dove deep enough that I couldn’t see them anymore. When I got home I googled to see what kind they were, and learned they were Belcher’s Sea Snakes. Yeah. Venomous. Extremely venomous! I am very glad that when I see snakes I just stand there and watch them, and that I have never been prone to poking them or picking them up!

It was fun getting outside today. I separated the baby rabbits and put some adult breeding pairs together. I float-tested the eggs, and got them in cartons and into the fridge (I usually let them stay unwashed and on the counter, but some of these are already 3-4 weeks old and already wet from the float test, so fridge it is). I picked blackberries. I watered the garden (or what is left of it). Not bad for not getting up until noon! Jet lag is weird. Hope it passes quickly, tomorrow is packed with stuff to do!