A New Brand New World

Not really a brand new world - Chick & Chucky had been here before when they were very young. This is at my parent's house in the middle of the Netherlands (luckily, as our country is rather small, the Middle is within easy reach from its North, South, East, and West). My parents have now moved and the house is empty  for sale. Unluckily, the real estate market is pretty dead. Just about 1 in 10 houses has a 'for sale' sign in the front yard, waving at you as you pass, and nobody's buying.

Initially we wanted to go on a city trip, without any pet. Then the idea came up to go to one of the islands in the North, just us and the dogs. Then we decided to go to my parents house and bring all the anymals except the horses and the chicken. Not that there would be no room for them, but that much cattle would interfere with the Plan: to clean the house to make it look more attractive to the odd potential buyer who cares to visit once in a blue moon, and to do some gardening, since the garden really is the best part of the house, anyway.

Chick & Chucky loved it. But Chucky increasingly wanted to go outside Outside OUTSIDE! to explore. After a day, we let them, although at first we kept them inside so they'd realize: this is home, for now. I love to watch how they explore a new space - they go at it together, like FBI-agents entering a house that may have drugdealers of armed robbers hiding in one of the rooms. They really work as a team.

Once they knew they could go outside, they calmed down. At regular intervals they came in spontaneously for some food or a nap. This picture ( it consists of several pictures, taken with my iPhone and primitively stuck together) was taken after we had let C&C out from the window of my old room. As a kid, I would climb up that tree on the right, crawl along the roof of the garage to the flat roof in the front of this picture and enter my room from the window.