Big Elephants and Tiny Quails
- Edward
- Nov 4, 2018
- 6 min read
This weekend marks one month in our new home. We started with the smallest of birds and today I came across these elephants on my ride to Samoeng.
There were more adults that I saw later in the ride, but didn't stop to take pictures. They were just out for a walk. I was on an early morning tour through the mountains to see the city of Samoeng.
I was the only one that stopped. The other cars were local people that have obviously seen this many times before, perhaps daily. When I was returning, I saw the adults heading up a dirt road to what looked to be a hill tribe village. I'm not entirely sure, but I'll be checking this out to find out more about it in the future.
By the way, I've been reading the Thai driving rules in preparation to get a license here. They do say that texting and driving is not allowed, but I guess texting and droving is ok.
I had more clothes on this morning than I have since we landed in Thailand. In fact, it was the first time I've put on socks in nearly 60 days. I had a down vest, a jacket, gloves and jeans. Not full leathers, but as close as I could get.
I also have a new full face helmet that is super comfortable. Anyway, with all that I was still chilly on the early morning ride, but I didn't care, it was such a blast to be riding on the winding mountain roads. Up and down some serious grades along the way.
Samoeng is smaller than Phrao, which surprised me. It's a hill tribe city so you see the women with the bright headgear. One was clearly wearing a bath towel. I also saw a young lady wearing leopard pajamas. She looked pretty comfortable. I was going to start wearing my pajama bottoms but that was nixed by Barbara. I guess she was right. It would be kind of scary on a farong.
It goes against everything we know. Where do they age it that isn't 93 degrees most of the year. I think it's just aged in the heat. The cork was in great shape and it opened up very nicely. This is sold as OTOP (One Tambone, One Product). I'm not sure which Tambone because that part is in Thai. It's the second bottle of Strawberry Wine that we have found here to be quite drinkable. A bit like a sherry as I said in an earlier post.
Backing up a day or two. Yesterday (Saturday) I went into the city to buy a screen mirroring device for the TV's. That let's us stream from our phones without having to buy a smart TV. It works pretty well, but Netflix is a problem on all but one device. Oh well, one is all we need.
While I was picking it up I was nearly pulled over in a scooter checkpoint by the cops. I was in the far lane and he let me go. I would claim ignorance, but my international drivers license no longer has a motorcycle endorsement. I need to take the test and get a Thai license. I understand it's pretty easy, the hardest part being asked to drive over a narrow plank. I'm pretty comfortable on Jerry's scooter now, so no worries there.
Up until now I couldn't get the license. You can't get one as a tourist, but as of Thursday we are no longer tourists. We are officially what we've been telling everyone for months ... retired!!!
We celebrated by going to Mad Dog Pizza with Jason and Nat. We love their pizza which is seriously on par with NYC pizza.
Friday night we went out with the On On crowd to cheer them on in their match with the Thai 1 On Bar and Grill Dragonflys. The food there was westernized, but very, very good. We're really enjoying our friendship with this group and plan to make it a regular Friday night outing. Lek and Pai in particular are really being good friends. Lek is a tour guide and has offered to show us around some of the lesser known sights of the area as well as help us with things that having a local Thai person is useful for. That includes a lot of things actually.
On On Place is the only undefeated team in the Chiang Mai Pool League.
After our night out, I realize there was no ground coffee at home. Since I didn't want to wake Barbara with the coffee grinder,I tried the fancy place in our village. I have been going to the Meaw Jai Dee Coffee shop which is a little hole in the wall place where a cappuccino is only 25 baht. This place is expensive at 40 baht. You pay for the atmosphere I guess. The current exchange rate is 32 baht per US dollar. The coffee is excellent at both places by the way.
Backing up to Thursday, let's talk about birds. Jason mentioned that he wanted to simplify his life on the ranch and was looking for homes for his parrots and parakeets/button quail. We haven't taken care of birds so we thought the parakeets were the best for us. They are easy, but the button quail are a pain in the neck. Not for us, but for the male. His name is little George.
Little George is named after a very talkative friend of Cheryl and Jerry. We met him at the funeral. Unlike Big George, Little George wasn't saying much when he came to us, but we soon observed it was because Mrs. Little George was pecking on him constantly. He was such a henpecked husband that she had taken off most of his feathers and took a good sized chunk off the back of his neck.
A YouTube video explained the exact behavior including the pain in the neck. Apparently it's hormones and when the hen is brooding she gets aggressive. For his own safety we had to get Little George a bachelor pad.
He misses her terribly and watches her from his pad. But he's quickly recovering and his neck wound looks much better after just a couple of days. Now that he's feeling better he is living up to his name and being very talkative and very loud. These quail are fowl so he is basically crowing. He does a high chirp with his neck extended like a rooster. After 3 or 4 of these he does something that's akin to a growl, or an airplane engine revving up (but quietly). I think the growl sounds like our neighbor's chicken hens next door.
The rest of the cage including the flock of Parakeets seem pretty happy. That is except for the white one we named Cheryl. She's been sitting in the corner and sleeping a lot. Her friends come to cheer her up though and I saw her horsing around this evening so I think all is well.
The coconut has been the nursery before. I told Barbara maybe she is thinking of having chicks. I wouldn't know if anyone laid an egg in there.
I have been watching the Quail box though and we don't have eggs yet. Mrs. Little George was laying an egg a day and now she's not. It could be the stress of the move, but her body is telling her she should be sitting on her nest. They say the aggressiveness comes when she's brooding. Hopefully when she starts laying again, Little George can go home.
Sam and Kat or Diane Akins, does this happen with chickens? I feel like such a city boy that I don't know the answer to that question.
As for our other pet, Wurstchen is quickly adapting to the Thai dog life. He was a little bored until the birds came. He was raised by a cat and to him the birds look like toys. In fact, I think the quails look like dinner.
It's been a fun week and weekend, except for the lawsuit which I'm avoiding talking about here. Just for the record, though the lawyers prepared a motion to withdraw and after many late nights with my former boss, they held off doing that. I don't think we'll be so lucky this week though. It's the yang to all this ying.
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