If you’re in Kaş on Saturday 22nd May (THAT’S THIS WEEK PEOPLE) then go to Büyük Çakıl beach for the Kaş Rock and Blues Festival.
Don’t miss it, everybody who is anybody will be there, free entry!
Archive for May 2010
Kaş Rock and Blues Festivali
Alfred and the vet
Going to the veterinary clinic in Fethiye yesterday Alf was asleep most of the way. He has been holding his back left leg up for about a week so I thought it was time to get him looked at by a professional. That sounds as though I don’t care about him but he often limps on one of his back legs and usually after a few days rest and a walk in the mountains he recovers and is fine so if I can’t find an obvious injury I don’t worry for the first few days. I think he probably strains himself sometimes jumping over the fence or playing with the other dogs. Just to confound me as soon as we got to Fethiye and got out of the car at the vet’s place he started walking normally and didn’t show any signs of limping to the vet.
Two good things came out of the visit though so I was glad I took him. The first thing was that when we walked in the reception staff asked if I had brought him to have his hair clipped. Well I hadn’t made an appointment but it sounded like a good idea because the spiky seeds won’t stick to him then and won’t be such a problem to get out, so I said yes please. I asked about seeing the vet, he was busy looking at a puppy that had been run over by a car so they took details of what to be looked at and said come back in an hour. I went and had breakfast at a nearby restaurant and then did a bit of shopping.
When I went back to the vet I walked up to the desk and asked how Alf was and they pointed at a dog sitting waiting behind me, it was Alf! I had walked straight past him, he looked so different with his hair all gone and you could see the markings on the front of his chest that I’d never seen before. I hadn’t recognised him and I was still unsure if it was him until he turned towards me and I saw his left eye and then I knew.
The vet came and had a chat and showed me a long grass seed that he’d taken out of his ear. So this was the second good thing, it must have been in there a long time and I had thought that the brown stuff in his ear was caused by ear mites and had been treating him for that. I was given some ointment with a long soft applicator nozzle to squeeze into his ear every day for the next five days, I tried it this morning and managed to get some in but he doesn’t like it. Of course the vet was able to do it easily because Alf had been sedated I think, and things always look easy when an expert does them.
Anyway here’s a picture of Alf with his haircut and the inset shows him before, quite a difference eh?
And his leg? Well the vet said to make sure he doesn’t do anything too energetic for a few days and then start taking him for walks, exactly what I usually do so I’m glad I’m not doing anything wrong. Oh, and he’s not limping so much this morning and doesn’t seem to be whining so much but it’s early days yet, I’ll let you know how he progresses.
Rubbish
Taking the big rubbish up to the tip in my pick-up is always a bit of an adventure for me. First there is the possibility of getting a puncture in one of the tyres because of all the broken glass there and then there is the conversation that I know will happen when they see me. It’s nice and the people up there are always welcoming, like everyone in Turkey really, their hospitality is legendary.
I took the first load up on Monday and had a chat with Mehmet, Ekrem and his boy. They come from Diyarbakır in the east of Turkey. I find these guys to be very helpful and always ready to smile so I count them among my friends here. Mehmet often says a few words to me in English, imagine a guy working in a rubbish tip in UK being able to speak Turkish eh? I took the remaining stuff up there today. The roofing material that I took was being put aside to use on the roofs of their own place. They build their own shanty type places with what they find amongst the rubbish or people give them so they were happy for me to bring it.
When I drove back past their shacks the children shouted to me so I stopped and took a couple of photos. Here they are, the little one always makes me laugh, she stands there so sure of herself.
Actually I had tried earlier in the day to take the stuff to the tip but was thwarted in my plan by some of the goatherders who were taking their herd up to the summer pastures in the mountains. They were all over the road and I couldn’t be bothered to disturb them by trying to push through, I wasn’t in any hurry so I went back home and had lunch.
Everyone in Kaş is working hard getting things ready for the tourist season and the new marina in is steadily taking shape. There are more pontoons ready now and work on the buildings is progressing quickly. There is a new road by-passing the marina too.
At this time of year the broom plant is in full bloom. There are fantastic patches of this plant all over the place and their wonderful yellow flowers are almost blinding in their intensity.
Moths and dogs
In the garden this morning having a wander round with the dogs before I started work I noticed this strange-looking clump of stuff on a branch of a juniper bush.
It is made up of a lot of caterpillars of the Oak Processionary Moth all grouped together. They are called processionary because when they walk along the ground they go nose to tail like elephants and their procession can be a couple of metres long. It looks as though they like to sleep together in a big bunch too, there must be some sort of benefit to them from doing this. They used to be found around the Middle East and Mediterranean but in recent years they have colonised parts of northern Europe and UK too.
All those little hairs on them can break off in the event of an attack by a bird or other creature intent on eating them and if ingested they are highly poisonous. The hairs can also float on the breeze and if inhaled by humans can cause very nasty symptoms and can even be fatal if they trigger an allergic reaction. There are reports of dogs losing parts of their tongues and even being killed by getting the hairs in their mouths. I was worried for my dogs because they could easily go sniffing around and come across a procession of them so I gave the bunch of them a liberal dosing with insecticide. If they aren’t dead by tomorrow I will put on some rubber gloves and a spray mask and collect them in a little plastic bag to be flushed down the loo.
I mentioned previously that the goat-herder’s dog comes into the garden, well here he is with Wilfred standing over him to let him know who is top dog around here.
The goat-herder is disgusted with him because he lets my dogs jump all over him, even little Minnie gives his ears a good ragging now and then.
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