November Baboons

Hi five baboons got to their new homes in November.  Two took a long time to get there and should really have been October baboons, the other three were really quick to arrive.

One was sent to our friend @wirednerves (Killa, Kermit and Liz), this baboon has not given him a name yet or sent any pictures as she is recovering from surgery and the baboon is helping her and the gang.  We are so happy to have a baboon helping somebody like that.

The other baboon who took a while to get to her new home was Brandy who lives with Phi @3phibotticelli.  Brandy is a girl baboon and we can see that she and Phi are getting on really well.

I think they are chatting a lot.

The other three baboons to find their new homes in November all found homes in the UK, England and Wales.

One found a home in England and Wales, lucky baboon.  Artie or Art has gone to live with @Bertie_Junior in England and is visiting @bertie_cat in Wales.

Artie is a very gentle baboon and he gets on well with both Berties.  It is hard to choose which pictures to show there are so many lovely ones.

First he met Bertie Junior and he gently stroked her.  They had adventures together as well.

They like climbing together.

Then lucky Artie went to visit Bertie_Cat in Wales and he got on well with him too.

He also stroked Bertie gently.  He is a very gentle baboon and very popular with both Berties.

They also got outside.  Artie likes the outside a lot.

What a contented pair they are.

The next baboon to find his new home was a certain Vincent, who loves baking.  We found him the perfect family where we knew he would be doing lots of baking.  Again, lots of pictures to show.  I have chosen some favourites.

Yes Vincent is a baboon so the first thing that he and @Reddy_1408 did was to make pizza.  You know all about baboons and pizza.  Don't you just love Vincent's chef outfit.

Making pizza wasn't enough for them, they also made brownies.

Vincent does all the sorts of things that baboons do, including climbing and hugging.  He cuddled Redinald and his wife when he arrived.

and he has been climbing, of course he has.

Do be careful of the guitar Vincent, they are not meant for climbing on.

Vincent has gone to a Manchester City supporting household so Redinald always says he is good Kompany which is the name of Man City's captain.

Finally, only yesterday another baboon found his new home in Wales.

Dafydd ap Mwnci has arrived to live with @cloonfourmegan in Wales.

First he met Megan and they seem to be getting on well together.

Then he met Ori

 



That seems to be going well too!  As you can see Megan and Ori have beautiful coats that take a lot of brushing and Dafydd is going to learn all about grooming to help with that.

 

I understand he was greeted with Welsh cakes that he loved!

 

So five happy baboons in their new homes.

 

As always thank you to everyone who has given a home to a homeless baboon and to everyone who takes an interest in the rehomed baboons.

 

HUGS HUGS HUGS - Kolo

Lunch at the abbey

Today I decided that it was time for me to be little Kolo again and go for lunch with my grannie who was visiting from Kent.  We went to Quarr Abbey which between Ryde and the ferry port at Fishbourne and it is a beautiful place.

There is a nice cafe and shop there.  When we went in there I saw some interesting, funny vegetables.  Baboons are good climbers so I showed off a bit climbing on them when the shop ladies weren't looking.  Oh dear caught on camera and they were a bit nobbly to sit on so perhaps I needed to get down quick!

Well we were there for lunch and there is only one thing that I fancied, chips!!

Shame about the wholemeal bread sandwich, I let the our manperson eat that!

It was a lovely sunny day so we went for a walk around the abbey grounds and I stopped on a bench to chat to my grannie.

It was very sunny and nice.

It was a very nice day out and I think my grannie liked me even if I did show off abit with my climbing on veggies.

Thanksgiving Competition

Please see two edits both in red.

Hi y'all, well as I've already told you I am as American as apple pie these days so I'm going to celebrate Thanksgiving with y'all.  Well I will have to celebrate it the weekend after because you don't get the day off in England booo!!  So I thought I would do a Thanksgiving competition!

Edit 1: I realise I have got the date of Thanksgiving wrong as I thought it was always the last Thursday of November, sorry about that but I will stick with the dates I announced.

What are the prizes?

As usual all the prizes are first prizes and I hope you will all join in.

This time there are three first prizes.

1. A monkey or owl adoption from the Owl and Monkey Haven on my island.  http://www.owlandmonkeyhaven.co.uk/products/adoptions.aspx don't worry the haven will continue to look after them for you.

2. A T-shirt or mug from our dear friend @RettetKaninchen's rabbit sanctuary in Germany.  http://www.kaninchenrettung.de/

3. The other first prize has been donated by our dear friends @Nutmegtorby and @CheshireK, it is a beautiful painting done by their dear Robin, of their baboon Amani (which means peace).

It is such a beautiful picture that any baboon or art lover would really love to have it.

Edit 2: Please note the picture is 9 inches by 12 inches.

How can I enter?

There are three ways to enter and all entrants will be numbered in the order they enter regardless of which method they use.

1. Leave a comment on this blog saying you would like to enter.
2. Send me a DM on Twitter.
3. Send me a private message on Can Be Social.

When do I have to get my name in by?

Entries will be accepted up to 9.30 am on Saturday 1 December.

When will it be drawn?

It will be drawn on Kolo Thanksgiving Day which will be Saturday 1 December, at 10 am GMT, which is the nearest weekend to proper US Thanksgiving, although @hi_im_monkey and @leroy_sealion might argue that Thanksgiving can as easily be held in April.

How will the draw be done?

@Leroy_Sealion's little brother Henry Sealion, who is a very fair minded lion will do the draw by using a random number generator.

How will I know whether I have won?

Winners will be notified after the draw by DM on Twitter, personal message on CBS and I will also blog the results for all entrants to see who won.

Thank you for entering and good luck.  I hope everybody wins.

Vegetable hot pot

Hi yes, its me blogging again for the third day in a row.  I thought we'd share another yummy recipe vegetarian recipe with you.

All of us at Baboon HQ cook and this time it was Yaya's turn to cook one of his winter favourites, vegetable hot pot with cheesy dumplings.  Yes, most vegetarians think they can't have dumplings any more because of the suet, but you can have dumplings with cheese instead.

You need a heavy casserole dish with a lid.

This recipe comes from the book Favourite Dorset Recipes, by Amanda Persey, published by Salmon, Sevenoaks, England.  We have made adaptations which I will point out to you.

This dish takes a bit of planning ahead and seems like hard work but actually the cook does a lot of sleeping on the baboon futon while the oven does the work.  It will need 1 1/2 hours in the oven.

Yaya started by getting the ingredients ready.

Ingredients for the hot pot

Four four people (with comments about dividing this up for 2 people)

2 oz butter - we used two table spoons of olive oil instead.
2 medium onions sliced - we use red onions for two people we use one onion.
2 cloves of garlic peeled and crushed for two people we use one, and we tend to only use one for four.
1 oz plain flour
1 pint of vegetable stock, we use an Oxo or Knorr vegetable stock cube for two people we find we still need the same amount of liquid.
1/4 pint of white wine, if you do not what to have alcohol the cooking does burn it off but if you prefer to avoid it completely you still need the extra liquid and something with some acidity, some friends had success with some dilute apple juice.
3 large carrots cut into 1/4 inch slices for two people we use two
2 sticks of celery we don't use this because our man person says absolutely no to celery, but if you like it use it.
2 medium parsnips cut into 1/4 inch slices for two people we use one large parsnip
8oz tin of red kidney beans drained for two people we use half a tin and then use the rest in other dishes
8 oz button mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon of mixed dried herbs
salt and pepper to taste - we don't use much salt because of the salty cheese that will be used later.

Ingredients for the dumplings

We make the whole amount for two people and then don't need potatoes or other accompaniments.

4 oz self-raising flour
1 oz butter
2 oz Cheddar cheese, grated (any hard cheese will do)
1 level teaspoon of dried mustard powder

Method

Heat up the oven to 350 F, 190 C or Gas Mark 4.

Heat up the olive oil or butter in a casserole dish, on top of the cooker and cook the onions and garlic gently with 10 minutes.

Stir in the plain flour and cook gently for 3 to 4 minutes.  Remove from the heat and stir in the stock and wine slowly, stirring all the time to make a sauce.

When the sauce has been made add all the remaining hot pot ingredients.

 

Put the lid on the casserole dish and put it in the oven.

 

At this point you can have a rest on the baboon futon for a while but you do need to make the dumplings.

 

Rub the butter into the self-raising flour, stir in the cheese and mustard and just enough cold water to make a soft, but not sticky dough.  Yaya added this slowly to make sure he didn't get too much, you really need very little and trial and error is the only way for this, but if you add the water in drips you will get to a good consistency.  Yaya found he needed to add a little more at the end for the last few bits.  Be very careful with this.

 

The recipe says make 10 balls but we always seem to get eight, its just the way it works for baboon paws but it does make good sized dumplings.

 



These can sit around until your casserole has been in the oven for one hour.

In the meantime Yaya found he needed to do some washing up, no napping on the futon for him.

Rubber gloves keep your paws nice and soft.

Next Yaya had to add the dumplings to the pot.  He took it all out of the oven to do this so as not to burn his soft paws.

Put it back in the oven for a further 1/2 an hour, we usually turn the oven up a little to 200C at this point to thicken the sauce a bit, use your judgement on that one.

At this point Yaya thought he would relax a bit.

No don't worry he's not really allowed to drink that.  So he decided to watch the hot pot cooking instead, no Yaya it doesn't cook any quicker just because you are watching!!

Finally, 1/2 an hour after putting the dumplings in, Yaya carefully took it out of the oven, using the oven gloves to protect his nice soft paws and served it up in warmed bowls.

We all had some and it was lovely, it is a great winter dish and not half as much work as it looks, except for the oven of course.

Enjoy!!

October Baboons

The end of October was very special as it marked the end of the first year of re-homing.  Can you imagine that it was in November 2011 that the first four baboons were re-homed. 

Tony went to live with Marshall Sheldon in Idaho, since then he has moved to Lousiana, survived Hurrican Isaac and had plenty of adventures. 

Hugo went to live with Zack Rabbit in Halifax, Canada and he has featured in Zack's cooking show.

Marco went to live with Pasikas in Scotland and took up silk painting and other artistic pursuits.

Monty went to live in Oxfordshire with Mrs Fiddlesticks and Tim Kirby and has become a vital part of the functioning of that busy and interesting household.

Overall, since the first re-homings in November last year 61 baboons have reached their new loving homes and three are travelling.  One left just this morning and one more will be ready to go this week.

Two baboons reached their new homes in October to complete the first year of re-homings.  These were two brothers with very different personalities who found homes that suited their particular interests.

The first of these to reach their new home was Awbrey, who went to live in Bend, Oregon with the Pixie family, @dana_pixie.  Awbrey is a very outgoing baboon who likes the outdoor life and adventures, so there was an obvious home for him.  Awbrey has done so much since he got to his new home and there are so many fantastic pictures, that it was hard to choose which ones to show you.

You can see that Awbrey was welcomed by all the family, especially the Pixie cat, tsk.  They look like great friends already.

The minute Awbrey arrived he started going on adventures.

Climbing trees to see the beautiful autumn leaves.

Feeling the wind in his fur on a bike.  He need to be a good cyclist for his family!!

Visiting Lava Butt crater.

Awbrey is having a fantastic time with all the outdoor adventures that he wanted, a loving home and a good friend in tsk.  Awbrey has even seen snow already, in his first week in the the states.  I know that Awbrey will continue to have lots and lots of fun and he has even sent me a post card of his beautiful state to say how happy he is.

The other October baboon, Winston, went all the way to Japan.  This was very exciting because he was the first re-homed baboon to go to Japan, apart from @pepismartodog's re-homed baboon Steve Furwin who visisted Japan a few months ago (wow these re-homed baboons get around)!!

Winston is more of an indoor type of baboon, I'm sure he will go out and see something interesting things in his new country but at the moment he is happy getting to know @Nyatsbykitti.

Winston started off by exploring the house, climbing on the curtains gave him a great view of his new surroundings and used up some of that energy that baboons tend to build up on their journeys.

After that he got straight into the library at his new home and found some anipal reading matter.

We can se that Winston is happy and relaxed in his new home, he is a baboon who really knows how to chill out.

 

 

Oh yes he is really chilled out!

 

So its nice to see two more baboons in their new happy, loving homes.

 

So the first year of re-homing is complete and the second begins with the three November baboons who are travelling now and another who will leave soon.  But there story is for next month.

 

Thank you for being interested in our baboons and thank you for reading.

 

Halloween dinner

This week we had halloween, that is not something that used to be celebrated in England but y'all know that since my trips to Texas and Boston this summer I am as American as apple pie.  I'm so American now that I will probably get a vote in the presidential election.  So of course I wanted to do something for halloween. Baboons can't go trick or treating, human parents think our costumes are too good and it gives us a natural advantage (costumes heee heee heee)!!!

The human inhabitants of Baboon HQ didn't think that baboons with sharp knives carving out the middles of pumpkins would be good for the new carpet, or the baboons for that matter, so we decided to cook a halloween dinner.

To be precise Edward, my brother who used to live and work in the shop thought it was time that he did some family activities, so he took charge of the cooking and made:

Butternut squash bake

Serves 2

 

The first thing Edward did was to get the ingredients together to make sure he had everything he needed.  Edward is a very organised baboon, I think that is because he had a job.

 

 

 

Annoyingly I can't get this picture to rotate, grrr come on Blogger.  He wasn't lying down when he did this.  But anyway he chopped and prepared the ingredients ready for the cooking stages.

Ingredients

1 medium butternut squash                         

1 leek

6 medium mushrooms       

1 large red chilli

50gms puy lentils  (if you are not keen on lentils it is still nice without them but they do add something, I think Edward called it nutritional value, but I think its flavour and texture).                                                   

2 bay leaves (optional)

200mls water                                                            

Sunflower oil for roasting and sautéing

Black pepper for seasoning                                   

Salt for seasoning (if required)

Cheese for topping (medium cheddar works well)

Crisps (potato chips for our US friends) for topping (Walkers Thai Sweet Chilli Sensations work well. I think Walkers are Lays in the US any flavour will be good).

Crusty bread

Equipment

Casserole dish for roasting

Covered pan for sautéing (wok with lid works well)
Saucepan for lentils

Method
Pre-heat fan oven to 200^oc (220 if it is not a fan over)

Peel and de-seed the squash, and cut into 2cm cubes. Mind your fingers when you are doind this.

De-seed the chilli and finely chop (don't wipe your eyes while you are doing this), and combine in the casserole dish with the squash and 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil.

Mix together and place in oven for 20 minutes, basting after 10 minutes.

Whilst roasting the squash, put the lentils, water and bay leaves into a small saucepan and bring to the boil.  Turn down the heat to a simmer, and leave uncovered for 20 minutes, until the lentils are soft and virtually dry.  If during the cooking the lentils appear too dry, add a little more water.

Whilst cooking the squash and lentils, chop the leek and mushrooms.  Soften the leek and add the chopped mushrooms in the sautéing pan.  Season with black pepper and salt, if required.  When cooked down, drain off any excess liquid into the lentils, for added flavour.

After roasting the squash for 20 minutes, mix the lentils (remove the bay leaves), leak and mushrooms with the squash, in the casserole dish.

Crush the crisps, and combine with the grated cheese.  Spread over the mix and place back in the oven until crisp and brown.  Usually 10 – 15 minutes.

 

 

Edward got the dish ready for the oven and put it.

 

Now Edward is the sort of baboon who multi-tasks and he decided not to waste time while the dish was cooking so he decided to have a nap on the baboon futon.

 

 

Now he was lying down in this picture.  You see he is a baboon who never wastes a moment.

Luckily Edward woke up in time to get the butternut squash bake out of the oven.

 

 

Serve with chunks of warm crusty bread.