Happy New Year and Some Elephant Gossip

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Gather ye around and I'll tell ye the latest...

Gather ye around and I’ll tell ye the latest…

Hi all. I haven’t posted for a little while as we’ve been pretty busy around here with the silly season and all that it brings. I want to wish you all a Happy New Year, or Joyous Pagan Festivities, or whatever peels yer bananas.

To those in America and England, I’m sorry to hear that you’re rather cold at the moment, so I won’t rave on about what a perfect summer we’re having, as I sit outside on a beautifully starry night enjoying the wee solar lights and the humidity – that would just be cruel and I won’t do that to you. Nor will I mention the plums and avocados raining down upon us on a daily basis or Rustle the Hedgehog snuffling about feasting on them or indeed the Zinnia and Cosmos flowering madly outside my bedroom window. Far be it from me to tease you in such a hard-hearted manner. Continue reading →

Camera Rambles: Moa the Cat in Catnip Ecstacy

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It's that stuff again, isn't it...?

It’s that stuff again, isn’t it…?

After posting the article on catnip today, (read that here) I grabbed my camera and went to visit Moa with a piece of catnip. These were the results: Continue reading →

Factoids: Catnip – The Drug of Choice for SOME Felines

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Otis Friday. I was on her staff for 16 wonderful years. Beautifully-natured, but still happy to take a swipe at me from behind the shower curtain.

Otis Friday. I was on her staff for 16 wonderful years. Beautifully-natured, but still happy to take a swipe at me from behind the shower curtain.

When I was growing up, we always had two cats in the house, so I quite like having them around. They’re funny little critters – total mercenaries one minute then all furry and purry the next. They’ll never deign to fetch a ball for you, yet they’ll play “I want to be on that side of the door, no – that side, no – that side…” with the patience of an ancient Mah Jong player. They’ll lay on their backs all innocent-like and invite you to scratch their soft, warm stomach fur then suddenly change their minds and gouge holes in your birthday suit. It’s an ongoing mystery as to why we put up with their mercurial little souls, but once you’ve been a staff member of a cat-keeping household, you’ll always look at them with a certain amount of fascination. Continue reading →

Photo Essay – A Week of Volunteering at Elephant Nature Park. (Contains Many Photos and Much Waffling.)

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A baby banana-hoover learns how to do it.

A baby banana-hoover learns how to do it.

September 2013 and I was at it again. I traveled back to Thailand and instead of wallowing at beach resorts and quaffing drinks with little umbrellas in them, returned to Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary North of Chiang Mai, and volunteered my sweat and gave myself some blisters to remember. This time I went for two weeks instead of one, and also hauled my partner along so he could see what I had been rabbiting on about for the last year or so. Here’s a photo essay on being an ENP volunteer.

Firstly, this is where we slept. We were surrounded by Australians, so we dug in, marked our territory and guarded it fiercely. It was a great spot – it had a huge veranda outside, complete with guard dogs and several cats, and our room had a bed with mosquito nets, an open-walled ensuite, a tiny frog and a gecko. Unfortunately, it was situated up some stairs. Fourteen steep stairs to be exact. I know this. I counted them at the end of each long, hot day. Fooouuurrrteeennn of them…

NZ territory - right smack in the middle of Australian territory.

NZ territory – right smack in the middle of Australian territory.

Continue reading →

A Journey with 4 Legs – Short Film

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Hi all. Hope your day is going really well. 🙂

Here’s a really nice short film on Elephant Nature Park and the other projects Lek Chailert has put into place in South East Asia. Take a look – it’s very inspiring.

A Journey with 4 Legs (Save Elephant Foundation)

One of the beautiful eles at Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

One of the beautiful eles at Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Camera Rambles: Hello Ducky

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P1000364 72I spent a couple of hours with these guys. Once they realised I wasn’t made of bread they went back to doing their own thing. Continue reading →

Camera Rambles: In the Moonlight Tonight – New Zealand

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P1000493 72Te Marama (the moon) was out in many guises tonight. Had to go for a ramble – how could we not? 😀 Continue reading →

New Page – The Random Acts of Kindness and Pass it Forward Page

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A villager gives thanks for something he just received from a random stranger. Bharmour, Himalayas.

A villager gives thanks for something he just received from a random stranger. Bharmour, Himalayas.

I have added a new page to raveburbleblog.com. I’d love it if you contributed a story of your own and helped make it grow. You can get to it in the menu on the page header or click here. It will be nice to have a page full of happy stories to read, yes? Namaste.

A new link for the RAKAPIF movement. A wonderful and uplifting site  to read –

Share After Reading. 😀

Things That Rustle in the Night – or – No Nasties in New Zealand

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No words really...

No words really…

Much as I enjoy wandering around the fascinating tropical areas of Asia, there are times when I’m pretty glad I live in New Zealand. As I sit here right now (about midnight), in my awning outside my tiny house caravan, I can hear loud rustling outside amongst the dry leaves – the rustlings of a nocturnal creature of some sort. I am remaining fairly calm about this, because I know the odds are it’s just Russell, the avocado-eating prickle-critter. Russell won’t eat me. He just eats snails, slugs, cat biscuits (stolen ones taste best) and avocados. I think that’s why he lives around my tiny house – it’s situated under a plum tree and an avocado tree, and lately it’s been raining avos down so hard that it pays to wear a helmet outside. A veritable feasting ground for a prickle-critter.

Russell the prickle-critter, saving me from nasty vicious avocados.

Russell the prickle-critter, saving me from nasty vicious avocados.

Continue reading →

Dinovember – When Dinosaurs Run Wild…

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These guys get top ‘awesome parents’ points in my books. Every November this couple goes to great lengths to convince their kids that their dinosaur toys come alive at night.

‘Why do we do this? Because in the age of iPads and Netflix, we don’t want our kids to lose their sense of wonder and imagination. In a time when the answers to all the world’s questions are a web-search away, we want our kids to experience a little mystery. All it takes is some time and energy, creativity, and a few plastic dinosaurs.’

Fantastic! See their latest efforts here and their Facebook page here

Dinovember 72