Bah, Humbug!

And what a Christmas it was! Despite the bucketing rain (we're up to day five with no respite today), the team and animals had a lovely time and ate to the point of sleeping, then woke up and did it all again. The roast here on Christmas eve was hectic, and only two hours late after I got distracted and forgot to put the chook in the oven... But tasted all the better for the wait :-) The Secret Santa ended with some pretty neat fun toys that will be well utilised as soon as the sun comes back!

On Christmas day we headed up to Ngatipa to have a lovely BBQ with the NZ High Commissioner and his lovely wife Leoni, as well as a bunch of other family-less ex-pats from the Hash House Harriers. The swimming pool was well utilised, the beer fridge well emptied and of course we are still eating the left overs that they donated to the poor starving Esther Honeys!

The kittens were given a lovely pressie also (but don't tell Gregg!); we turned the living room into a kitten club for the morning and had twenty odd babies of all shapes and sizes having a proper kitten party attacking home made toys, trees and toes. Every one - spectators and kittens alike - had heaps of fun and you can see the mayhem in the photos!

With the rain, the clinic is slow on consults but jam packed with in-patients. Not a single cage is free, with fish poisoning, broken legs, wounds, hypothermic goats, strays and boarders (plus four babies piglets who wont feed), so the poor team is getting soaked twice a day feeding and cleaning. Add the fact that no locals can bring in their animals in this weather so we have to go to them, we have had some rather fun treks through muddy sludge... Top it all off with a dead car battery in the middle of a tropical storm, and you have a pretty stressful end of year!

But may 2012 be just as successful and even more fun here at Esther Honey! Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIFB0h6O68k&feature=youtu.be for a summary of 2011 in photos!

Season's Greetings

Well, we come to our last blog before Christmas and I can't wish all our supporters enough happiness.
Here at the clinic, we are - as ever - open for emergencies so fingers crossed the animals of Rarotonga can avoid cars and fish this weekend!
Somehow, I have suddenly found myself in charge of cooking a Christmas dinner for eight and, no matter how old I get or where I end up, I can't help thinking that this would be so much easier if my mum was here to cook for me! So we do the traditional Christmas on the eve of, then on the real day I'm going to be showing the wholly northern hemisphere team a real proper Aussie/Kiwi Christmas. I don't think they know what they are in for with BBQ and swimming pool and cricket on the beach (and yes, I will make pavlova)! I'm not sure if I should continue my family tradition of mango dacquiries for breakfast; it seems such a waste not to since mangoes are positively falling at our feet...
We have plans to give the animals what Christmas we can also, mainly in the form of a scenery change and what toys some of the local children made for them. I hope every one out there can make some small difference to an unloved animal this Christmas - even if it is just donating some food to your local shelter. It is sad, but post Christmas is always the busiest time of year in those places.
Esther Honey was given a great Christmas present a few days ago (thanks to CITC, Aqua Tanks, Argon Distributors and Rarotonga Plumbing Contractors!) of a brand new big water tank and pump so that we can maintain a continued supply of water for the animals where we previously would run out quite often. This is a loooong awaited item, and incredibly generous of these donors!
Whever you are and what ever you are doing, from every one at Esther Honey, have a wonderful festive season and you'll hear from me soon! :-)

Merry Christmas

With the annual island census over, things are looking great for the dogs of Rarotonga. The results will be released shortly, but the volunteers have certainly put in some serious walking hours and are glad to have it done before Christmas! A big thanks goes out to all the team who literally walked the island stopping at every house, for seven hours a day, five days a week for three weeks to see how the dogs and cats of Rarotonga are getting along.

Our Estelle Friedman Gervis Family Foundation drive to match donations has come to an end, so we are all breathing a little again! A fantastic result, and we can't thank those who helped us out enough!

In other news, the Christmas spirit has hit Esther Honey. Raromart was kind enough to donate us a large bag of decorations, so the tree (and rest of the house) has been suitably glittered and looks sufficiently tacky to annoy Gregg :-)

Leading up to Christmas our volunteer numbers drop significantly, but a small lovely group of us will remian to hold the fort. A few kind locals have even invited us temporary orphans to celebrate with them, though we are also keen to attempt our own Christmas dinner (Gregg is leaving very strict instructions regarding burning down the house!).

Our Honey also finally been neutered and sent home, after so long here we all miss her terribly; she was the only dog I've ever met that never barked for no reason. If she was barking, you knew either someone was climbing the fence, someone was here and no volunteers were with them, a dog was off it's chain or a pig was in the bushes... Such a good wee girl.

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas season, enjoys spending time with their family and friends and keeps the animals in mind. Remember that dogs are for life, not for Christmas, but if you think that you can fit an extra family member into your life, why not make a difference to one this Christmas?!

Car and Dog Wash!

As some of you know, on Saturday a few of the girls and I decided that it was well and truly time to try a Car Wash and Dog Wash!

Budget car rentals helped us out by donating all the washing materials, and Cook Islands Television put some ads on for us, and by Saturday morning, the amount of queries and requests we had received in regards to it was starting to scare us that we would be overwhelmed!
Indeed there were a few moments where there was a queue, but all around things went incredibly smoothly. Plenty of dogs turned up, some that had never had a bath in their lives (this worked in our favour sometimes, decidedly not at others!), and many utes/cars that had definitely never seen the touch of a sponge!


Predictably, water fights ensued (to be fair, it was 34 degrees!) and, while it was hot work, we had a lot of fun. People were incredibly generous, and in a four hour car wash we made a little over $350 - this turns into $525 with the Estelle Friedman Gervis Family Foundation matching 50% of our donations (don't forget this is only lasts until Friday so if you are able to help out, get in quick while your donations is even more valuable to us)!

For those that missed out this weekend, don't worry, we had so much fun there is sure to be another car wash in the near future! :-)

It's all go!

What a week! As the weather gets hotter and more humid, we work harder than ever towards our fundraising goals before Christmas comes!
Some incredibly exciting news is that the Estelle Friedman Grevis Family Foundation have agreed to match 50% of any donations made to Esther Honey between now and Friday (Dec 16th), so as much as I hate to use the blog to ask for donations, just this once it is such a good opportunity for your generosity to be worth even more! Check out estherhoney.org/donate to help us out!

As some of you know, this time last week I was somewhat overwhelmed by having the honour of taking photos of a bunch of army boys with our animals! Gregg had told me that a few of them had offered to come over to prove 'cats can be sexy too', but the last thing I expected was to be handed a camera just as almost 15 shirtless, incredibly good looking men piled off their bikes onto our doorstep! It was a fun morning, with the boys being great sports and only a couple of kittens 'temporarily misplaced', and certainly the volunteers having a bit of sport (note the photo with Lee sneaking a peek from the door looking more than a little besotted...).


Other fundraising efforts going on this week includes tomorrow's car wash/ dog wash! With many of the local young men always keen to stop in and visit 'the Esther Honeys', we are hoping for a great turn out; and any funds raised will also contribute towards our fantastic matching opportunity. The Quiz Night for next month is also beginning to take place (with potentially some very exciting MC's donating their time for us), and the prizes for our raffle are all in order!

On the social side of things, a certain somebody (ie me) got the only hole-in-one at CocoPutt on Wednesday; a great laugh until you realise the price consists of swallowing a funnel of beer in front of 20-something backpackers cheering you on! Our own Lukas also kicked some serious butt at the Limbo competition, and was awarded the same honour!

From the clinical side, we have had a busy week with WAAAY too many road traffic accidents presenting over the weekend, and we were very lucky to have Fiona - our super surgeon - arrive just in time to help fix them all up! With the census of all the island animals almost finished for the year, that also brings in hundreds of extra dog neuters as the girls door knock and encourage the owners of any entire animals to bring them in as soon as they can.

All up, it's all go here! Can't wait to see if we reach the final goal of $20,000 to be matched by this extraordinary opportunity!

Doubling up!

Some very exciting new for all our keen supporters; the Estelle Friedman Gervis Family Foundation has agreed to match any donations received by EHF before December 16th with 50% of the value!

That means that a $1000 donation instantly becomes $1500! And if we raise the full amount, our $20,000 will become $30,000. Our aim is to use these funds to help continue our free treatment of Cook Islands animals, as well as develop our education and outreach programs among the Cook Islands children. This would involve regular school visits, outer islands children involvement and beginning a 'reading to animals' program, where children are assisted with their learning by using the non-judgmental companionship of an animal to share their books.

We hope that all our supporters may consider being generous once more while their donations can be worth so much more. More info is available at http://www.estherhoney.org/donate.html

Please; help us to help the animals!