Tribbles, Xena and the Great Squirrel Conspiracy
The tribbles continue to thrive and are all sworn to their best behaviour - no diarrhoea on a first date - for the arrival tomorrow of the first prospective new family. I think they're only looking for one tribble. Another family are going to take a boy when they return from holiday next month.
Talking about sex, there are three boy tribbles and two girl tribbles. We've tried not to name them but when you're trying to work out who's been wormed, who's missing and who's that swinging from the curtains ... names become handy. And descriptive names the easiest to apply. Big Boy is the largest tribble. Target, or Targa, is the one with the large white ring of fur on his side. 'The boy who is not Big Boy or Target' is ... you guessed it.
For some strange reason all the boys have long straight tails and both girls have short kinky tails. So the girls are Kinky One and Kinky Two. Which one is Kinky One and Kinky Two is almost impossible to tell. They're virtually identical. They both love climbing, they both throw themselves at the nearest leg, curtain or chair and they like to sleep on my shoulder.
Xena, after a lot of initial spitting - I'm not sure which Swiss finishing school she went to but I don't think it was their best - has accepted all the tribbles. She's brilliant with them - licking them clean if they stray within mothering range and she wasn't even fazed when one tried to suckle her. As for Kai, he thinks he's a tribble too and plays with them. Occasionally he gets a bit rough and intervention is called for but most of the time he's excellent. And popular ... the tribbles like to come up and rub against him. Something he quite likes until the tribble numbers exceed three whereupon he retreats and finds somewhere else to be fast. He has a strict three tribble limit.
I don't blame him.
Gypsy, however, takes the Klingon view of tribbles: they have no honour and if they're not already in her dog bowl gobbling all her food they're conspiring - probably with squirrels - to do so tomorrow.
Talking about sex, there are three boy tribbles and two girl tribbles. We've tried not to name them but when you're trying to work out who's been wormed, who's missing and who's that swinging from the curtains ... names become handy. And descriptive names the easiest to apply. Big Boy is the largest tribble. Target, or Targa, is the one with the large white ring of fur on his side. 'The boy who is not Big Boy or Target' is ... you guessed it.
For some strange reason all the boys have long straight tails and both girls have short kinky tails. So the girls are Kinky One and Kinky Two. Which one is Kinky One and Kinky Two is almost impossible to tell. They're virtually identical. They both love climbing, they both throw themselves at the nearest leg, curtain or chair and they like to sleep on my shoulder.
Xena, after a lot of initial spitting - I'm not sure which Swiss finishing school she went to but I don't think it was their best - has accepted all the tribbles. She's brilliant with them - licking them clean if they stray within mothering range and she wasn't even fazed when one tried to suckle her. As for Kai, he thinks he's a tribble too and plays with them. Occasionally he gets a bit rough and intervention is called for but most of the time he's excellent. And popular ... the tribbles like to come up and rub against him. Something he quite likes until the tribble numbers exceed three whereupon he retreats and finds somewhere else to be fast. He has a strict three tribble limit.
I don't blame him.
Gypsy, however, takes the Klingon view of tribbles: they have no honour and if they're not already in her dog bowl gobbling all her food they're conspiring - probably with squirrels - to do so tomorrow.