Where did Fluffy get that corn?

I love squirrels, you know I do.  As Rodent Royalty it is my responsibility to love all of my subjects. But sometimes they don’t make it easy.

I’m sure y’all remember my earlier post about my squirrel friend, Fluffy.  If [...]]]>

Where did Fluffy get that corn?

I love squirrels, you know I do.  As Rodent Royalty it is my responsibility to love all of my subjects. But sometimes they don’t make it easy.

I’m sure y’all remember my earlier post about my squirrel friend, Fluffy.  If you don’t, you really should read that and watch the video before continuing. That post is titled, The Rodent Robber. I also have a The Rodent Robber (Part II: The Rat), which is about Bakersfield. Well worth reading. The two previous posts show just how hard it is to be a magnanimous ruler over the lesser rodents. It is hard. Very hard.

Squirrels are usually pretty lazy

Most of the time it seems like squirrels are pretty lazy, even for rodents. I admire that. There is much to be learned from the squirrel in this regard. But when their laziness drives them to stealing, well, isn’t that different?

And stealing from the porch is one thing. I mean, the outside is their domain. Well, not really the porch though, that should count as part of the house and the house and the pool are mine. So that is where I draw the line. Only apparently Fluffy doesn’t even know about the line! Not that it’s on the porch or even the front door or even THE KITCHEN!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Why don’t you just help yourself, Fluffy?

Now I don’t know what to do. I only know how to open doors, I do not know how to close them. And if I leave the door open, Fluffy will come in and eat all of my food! Help! I need advice. What should I do?

Do you see a capybara?

Do you see a capybara in the photo above? I’ll be you don’t but I am in it nonetheless. That black line is my new long leash and if you could follow it through this wonderfully opaque water you would find me!

Do you see a capybara?

Do you see a capybara in the photo above? I’ll be you don’t but I am in it nonetheless. That black line is my new long leash and if you could follow it through this wonderfully opaque water you would find me!

There I am!

Ha! There I am, just as cute as ever. Look how wonderfully my fur blends with the color of the water. Before yesterday, I didn’t know that water came in this color. I thought it only came in clear or green. I guess I should have known better because my pool does sometimes take on a brown cast after I have been rolling in the mud but I never dreamed it could be like this!

Well, that isn’t my pool in case you were wondering. It is Capybara Creek. That is the creek that I have been rolling in the mud in this whole past year.

Rolling in the creek

This is how much water Capybara Creek had in it last week, just enough for a bit of a mud roll. Amazingly, it now has actual water in it! You may be wondering how that happened. It is a thing called “rain.” Oh, I know I’ve talked of rain before but this was different. This was real rain like someone turned the hose on up in the sky and all the water poured into our creek making me the world’s happiest capybara.

Paws above the water!

If you know me, then you know what I do when I am happy: I roll! What a wonderful experience that was…except for one small thing…

I do not need a leash

New or not, I was not happy with that leash. Do you have any idea how hard it is to roll with two harnesses AND a leash on? I won’t say it takes all the fun out of it but I bet it would be a lot more fun skinny-dipping, if you know what I mean.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you want to see just how much trouble that leash was, all you have to do is watch the video above. Melly says that when she is sure I will be a good capybara she will let me swim without the leash. I fear that that day will never come. I do not understand Melly’s idea of a good capybara, it seems completely opposite of everything that I am or that I want to become. We will see.

Capybara in the sunset

One thing I do not like about the leash is that Melly can use it to pull me out of the water. Just because the sun is going down that is no reason to stop swimming. Wild capybaras swim at night plenty of times (I imagine, I don’t actually know because I have never been a wild capybara).

The evening meal

After dragging me out of the creek, Melly and Rick took me to the back pasture where (she says) she has planted some grass especially for me. I was a bit hungry after my swim and the last rays of the sun dried and warmed my fur, which was nice.

I hope the creek stays full forever. I do not know what I will do if all the water goes away. Capybaras can’t cry.

A capybara statue at the Summit Park Zoo in Panama

Owner’s blog:

Sorry it has taken me so long to write this post. I have been sick for the past week. Nothing serious, just a cold and a cough and complete lack of mental focus. [...]]]>

A capybara statue at the Summit Park Zoo in Panama

Owner’s blog:

Sorry it has taken me so long to write this post. I have been sick for the past week. Nothing serious, just a cold and a cough and complete lack of mental focus. In fact, I’m still a little sick so this is going to be a short post and it may not be as coherent as most.

As you may know, Coral, Sheldon, Stacy and I all went to Panama to see the elusive lesser capybaras in the wild. As far as I know, it is not possible to see lesser capybaras in captivity. I do not know of any zoos or breeders who have them. Unfortunately, this is still true even after our trip. Try as we might, Stacy and I could not find a zoo in Panama that has capybaras. The closest thing we found was a statue of a capybara (shown above) at the Summit Park Zoo. It is a pretty nice statue but wouldn’t a real capybara have been so much better?

Gamboa Rainforest Resort taken from near the capybara wetland

This is where we stayed, the Gamboa Rainforest Resort. This is the only place where we actually saw lesser capybaras. I’d like to say something nice about the resort but that would be misleading. Okay, there were some nice things. The rooms were very nice. There were some really nice touches in the decor.

One of the doors to a guest room

The view was spectacular

The pool was pretty nice, as you can see.

Caiman and crocodile statues in the pool

Coral, Sheldon and I spent some time at the in-pool bar.

The view from our room

The view from our room included the capybara wetland. Unfortunately, I somehow failed to get a photo that shows the whole wetland, tiny as it was. You can see its little offshoot at the bottom right in the photo above. There was a small trench leading to the larger area. This is apparently fed from a pipe that (hopefully) drains runoff from the plentiful rainfall.

I’m not going to dwell on why we were so displeased with the resort but given its obvious beauty I feel I have to say something least you come off thinking it couldn’t have been so bad. Firstly, the service was terrible. If you ordered an item off the menu rather than eating the rather expensive buffet, you can to reconcile yourself to a three hour meal. You would need to get your own coffee or water or wait an hour for that. Ordering a drink at the pool bar likewise meant spending at least another hour there. There were no educational materials about the wildlife. There were no naturalists present or at least we did not have access to them. You were not allowed to go out on the grounds at night (we got in trouble for this but wrangled it into a personal tour with one of the groundskeepers). If you look at the first photo of the hotel at the top of this post, our room was just off the frame to the left. In order to exit the hotel, we had to travel all the way to a point off the frame to the right. In case of a fire, this place would be a death trap. There was another exit that could have taken us out to the front about one building over from ours but the gate was always locked. And the prices for everything were at least as expensive as at a similar hotel in the US. If you want more information, you can email me.

How many capybaras do you see?

I took the above photo using my 280mm lens from the balcony of our room. How many capybaras do you see? None? Look harder.

Three

Here’s a cropped version of the same photo. Hopefully you can now see three capybaras. There is the obvious one toward the bottom right. One with just its nose sticking out just a little way above it. A third is to the left of the second one. (Remember you can click on the photo to see a larger version.)

To be honest, I only saw two capybaras when I took this photo. It wasn’t until I got home and was editing them that the one with the nose popped up. I have a series of photos that are almost identical but the capybaras shift around a little and in some you can see that capy’s nose and in some you can’t.

Three lucky people get close to a capybara

In general the capybaras were very shy, unlike the common capybaras I saw in Venezuela, but the people in the above photo were able to get fairly close to one as it went from the smaller wetland area I mentioned earlier to the larger area what you can see in the upper part of this photo.

Another thing I didn’t like about Gamboa was the manicured lawn. In some ways this is very good for the capybaras because that is pretty delicious looking grass. In another, it represents a virtual desert in what would otherwise be a rain forest. This area has obviously been cleared with very little of the natural vegetation left. Of course, you expect some of that but it would be nice if they made a few more concessions for the wildlife. As far as the capybaras are concerned, it would be great if they would create another wetland area like this (or two or three). They have the room for it. That would give a lot more habitat for the capybaras, which would seem like a good thing for the tourists too. As it is, the wetland supports a surprising amount of wildlife including at least eight capybaras, a paca and a small caiman.

Paca or conejo pintado at San Diego Wild Animal Park

In case you don’t know what a paca is I have included a photo of one that I took at the San Diego Wild Animal Park last October. They are large rodents, maybe 15 – 20 lbs. I saw one at night at the capybara wetland but was not able to get its photo. They are pretty adorable animals.

The manicured lawn does also seem to be good habitat for agoutis. They were pretty common most everywhere we went in Panama and most people referred to them as “conejos” or rabbits.

Agouti at Gamboa

Of course they are not rabbits, they are actually rodents related to capybaras. I’ll have a separate post on them later.

That’s it for now. If you have any questions you specifically want me to answer, leave a comment and I’ll try to address it in my next Panama post.

A lesser capybara

Smelly is being really lazy about getting her photos together of the lesser capybaras she saw in Panama. In case you’ve forgotten about them (but how could you?) here is a link to our first post on lesser capys.

Because of Smelly’s lackadaisicalness, this [...]]]>

A lesser capybara

Smelly is being really lazy about getting her photos together of the lesser capybaras she saw in Panama. In case you’ve forgotten about them (but how could you?) here is a link to our first post on lesser capys.

Because of Smelly’s lackadaisicalness, this post is only going to be pointers to the capybara videos she took. There are three videos and they’re all pretty short. They were all taken at the Gamboa Rainforest Resort (more on that in a later post).

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first video shows a yellow caracara, that’s a kind of vulture, eating parasites off three capybaras that have come out of their wetland to graze. Caplin Rous always wanted a bird to land on his back and I have to admit these capys do seem to be enjoying it. Nevertheless, I think a better solution would be not to live in an environment with parasites in the first place! That way you don’t need a scary, killer bird to land on you and peck your eyes out. Okay, I guess that didn’t happen but you never know.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The second video is a quick clip of a capybara resting in the wetland with a not-quite-so-threatening-looking bird climbing all over him. Then the rest of the video shows three capybaras enjoying a nice meal of delicious looking grass. Melly says it rains a lot more down there than it does here in Texas (which is not at all!) so the grass is greener. Also, it is apparently still summer there! I want to live someplace where it is summer all year.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The third video shows one of the three from the last as she is being chased by a stupid human child. Poor thing! She is so pregnant she can hardly move. I bet she has 10 little baby capybaras to take care of even as I write this. I wish Melly had been down there to get photos of the new babies but that’s not the way luck would have it. Anyway that stupid kid scared her and made her stop eating and run back into her pond. I don’t think her bark sounds much like mine but you know how it is, you can’t really tell what you sound like unless you hear a recording and, so far, I have not allowed Melly to record my bark.

I will do my best to get Melly to write a blog post about the Panamanian capybaras later this week. I hope I don’t have to bite her.

Me and Bakersfield chillin in the pool

Sometimes rodents have to work together to achieve fame, and that’s what Bakersfield and I are doing. We are each cute separately but we are exponentially cuter together.

The sum of our parts is cuter than the [...]]]>  

Me and Bakersfield chillin in the pool

Sometimes rodents have to work together to achieve fame, and that’s what Bakersfield and I are doing. We are each cute separately but we are exponentially cuter together.

The sum of our parts is cuter than the individuals

How do I know? Because our video is on the Cheezburger Network! Do you know how BIG that is? It is REALLY, REALLY BIG!

Click here to view the embedded video.

You might want to click through and leave a comment, hopefully something nice. (If the link above doesn’t work try this.)

I am really starting to feel like I am doing my job as Capybara Ambassador. I think Caplin Rous would be proud of me. And, although this is great enough by itself, this same video is going to be shown on Japanese TV on Feb. 7th. We are going to be on TV Asahi’s “Torihada”. If you are in Japan, please watch and tell us how we look!

Litte Boy Blue

Sure there is a price to being cute but there are advantages too. Take a look at this great blanket that my Facebook friend Katie Gallo made for me. It is super soft and the blue really brings out the color of my eyes.

Litte Boy Blue

Sure there is a price to being cute but there are advantages too. Take a look at this great blanket that my Facebook friend Katie Gallo made for me. It is super soft and the blue really brings out the color of my eyes.

Don't I get treats for being this cute?

My blue blanket goes well with my new blue chair. The chair isn’t actually new, it’s been there all along but it was only recently that I found out that it is suitable for capybaras. The chair swivels, which I don’t like, and it rocks, which I pretty much hate, but it is ever so comfy. And with the blanket to cover me I feel like the king of the world! (Which I am since I am a capybara.)

I don't think he's talking to me.

Another great gift I got was this beautiful quilt featuring the ROUS Foundation logo. That was made by another internet friend, Nina Helms McCampbell. Isn’t it beautiful?

A capybara is the center of the universe

I love that quilt but Melly is bound and determined to give it away. She talked to Nina and together they decided it would be nice to give it to the owner of Buella Belle, the first capybara who used the ROUS Foundation funds. That is a very sad thing because while the RF is trying to help living capybaras, it also pays for necropsies of capybaras that die in captivity. That is what happened to Buella Belle. It turned out she ate some poisonous azalea plants. Very, very sad. I think the quilt might make Debbie, Buella’s owner, even happier than it makes me. And she can use it to wrap her new capybara, Rousabelle up in. Don’t you think Rousabelle is a good name? It is part Caplin Rous and part Beulla Belle.

Who is that feeding me?

You may be wondering who that strange person is sitting on the couch with me and the beautiful quilt. That is Rezoner. He is a stalker from way back when. He used to stalk Caplin Rous and even visited him once. Now he came to visit me. Caplin didn’t bite him so I didn’t either, at least not hard, and anyway, he provoked me.

Rezoner is nice but...

Isn’t it a little rude to talk on the cell phone when you are visiting someone? It wouldn’t be so bad if I could eavesdrop but he was speaking Russian! It was a surprise to me that I don’t understand Russian, I thought I understood all human languages.

Russian is a boring language

I shouldn’t be so hard on Rezoner, we did some fun things too. Of course he fed me treats, which is always appreciated. But we also went for long walks in the woods where we discussed issues of deep philosophical importance.

The meaning of life? 42!

Rezoner spent the night at our house. I am not territorial the way Caplin Rous was so I don’t mind if people stay over. In fact, I might like them better the longer they stay. Rezoner and I got to play a game of King-of-the-Bed!

Remember I have giant rodent teeth!

Capybaras do not like being pushed around, I will tell you that. I don’t think any capybara will put up with it. I had to give Rezoner just the tiniest nip on the arm for trying to manhandle me.

Guess who ended up King of the Bed?

After all that, we sat around in the living room chatting about whatever came to our minds. Rezoner kept going off topic (which should have been me!) and so I occasionally fell asleep.

I am *not* asleep! My eyes are still open.

I don’t think he noticed when I fell asleep. I was very discrete about it.

Zzzzzz.....zzzzzz....

Don’t get me wrong, I loved visiting with Rezoner and I hope he will come back very soon. Like all capys, I like a good nap after a little mental and physical exercise. Who doesn’t?

I had two more visitors while Rezoner was with me JoAnn DePenning and her daughter came. I forgot the daughter’s name so I am going to call her Coral because that is Melly’s daughter’s name. Maybe all human daughters are called Coral. Makes sense to me.

JoAnn & Coral DePenning

JoAnn lives very near us but she said she was going to visit my Washington DC fan club and wanted to get photos of me to take with her. I am not sure about that. Angela DiMeglio Mitchell and Papua Piig of Guinea Pig Today are big fans of mine who live in DC and she never mentioned a fan club when she came to visit.

Wouldn’t it be great if I did have a fan club? Something to think about for the new year.

I am signing off now. I probably won’t be able to post for a few weeks, until at least Jan. 9th, 2012, since Melly is taking off to see the wild capybaras in Panama. I wonder if she will bring me back a friend.

Me, Jim Perry and Hillary

I am a capybara. I am cute. I have to get used to it. There is nothing I can do about it. But it comes with a cost and that cost is visitors fawning over me, feeding me, scratching and petting me, giving [...]]]>

Me, Jim Perry and Hillary

I am a capybara. I am cute. I have to get used to it. There is nothing I can do about it. But it comes with a cost and that cost is visitors fawning over me, feeding me, scratching and petting me, giving me treats and hugging me. The only one of those things I don’t like is hugging. Capybaras don’t like to be hugged, it reminds us of anacondas.

I am getting used to visitors. Smelly says I am better at it than Caplin was. It might be the only thing I am better at than Caplin. Smelly says Caplin would bite people if they stayed too long. That never happened but I guess he threatened. I don’t do that. The longer people stay, the more I get to know them and the better I like them. Doesn’t that make more sense?

In the photo above you can see me with Jim Perry, the wonderful artist who did the Computer Caplin and Angel Caplin paintings, and his friend Hillary. They only stayed for a couple of hours so I didn’t get much of a chance to know them, although I’d met Jim before and he is cool. They visited me in mid November.

Me with Liz and Marc Capaldi

Liz and Marc Capaldi broke a record on visiting duration. They came over two weekends in a row for a total of three days of visitation. As you can see from the photo above, I really liked them. Okay, it might look like I just like the lettuce but that is not it, I liked them too. Liz is about as crazy about me as a person can be. Marc, while more subdued, is also crazy about me. He has a camera glued to his hand though — Melly has that problem sometimes and it is a terrible handicap — so I didn’t get to bond as closely with Marc as I did with Liz.

You may scratch my nose

I made a special point of positioning myself occasionally so that Marc could reach me with his good hand. They are a very nice, soft-spoken, British couple. The British, it seems, know to bring a capybara treats when they come to visit. This is a lesson all humans should learn.

What? There's no treat in your hand?

Liz likes to swim too so I hope they come visit me when the weather is warmer and we can lounge around in the pool together. That water is pretty cold and even I can’t stay in for very long. Oh hey! That is another thing I am better at than Caplin! Smelly says Caplin would not go in the pool when the water was cold.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is a video of Liz scratching me on the couch.

On the couch with Liz Capaldi

I am quite heavy and it is best to have something on your lap when I sit on you. That is why Liz has a pillow. She moved it away in the video and if you watch her face I think you can see that it was a mistake to do so.

Meanwhile Marc was videoing everything!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think this video Marc took is one of my cutest videos ever.

Do you see how playful I can be? I am not all that easy to hold onto when I am in that mood. It takes an experienced capybara handler which, unfortunately, Melly is. I think I look like a bucking bronco but guinea pig people call this popcorning.

You should watch all of Marc’s videos of me.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Look how cutely I ask for treats. I am very polite.

I am going to save my visit with Rezoner for another blog post since I think this one already has enough stuff in it. Don’t forget to go to the Capaldi’s YouTube channel to see all of their great videos of me!

Caplin Rous on my tumblr blog

It occurred to me that not everyone knows how to find me on the web. I mean, obviously you know that I am here on my blog or you wouldn’t be reading this, but I am other places too.

Knitted Capybara Scarf

The web is a wondrous thing. You never know what you will find there. What I found today is that someone is developing a pattern for a beautiful capybara scarf! Oh internets, I love you!

The pattern come from Not Just About Knitting. And you’ll [...]]]>

Knitted Capybara Scarf

The web is a wondrous thing. You never know what you will find there. What I found today is that someone is developing a pattern for a beautiful capybara scarf! Oh internets, I love you!

The pattern come from Not Just About Knitting. And you’ll love the subtitle for this blog:  Outlining the minutia of Geri’s life as a retiree. How great is that? I mean, I am assuming she pronounces Geri as Gari and not as Jerry, but I think that’s a safe assumption. And the scarf is kind-of like my outline.

All of my fans should have one of these!

Garibaldi & Bakersfield

That photo doesn’t have anything to do with this blog post. Melly said we needed something to catch people’s attention and this was the cutest thing I could come up with. Doesn’t Bakes look sweet perched on my back?

At any rate the [...]]]>

Garibaldi & Bakersfield

That photo doesn’t have anything to do with this blog post. Melly said we needed something to catch people’s attention and this was the cutest thing I could come up with. Doesn’t Bakes look sweet perched on my back?

At any rate the blog post is actually about the winners of my Capitalisms contest!

1. ACAPELLA: Adverb: To eep without accompaniment (Jen S.)
2. Eepicap: Noun: A syrup derived from the roots of the eepicapuanha plant in Brazil, and is well known eepetic (substance used to induce eeping). It is often given to a sad capybara to make them happy. Warning: May cause excessive Eeping!!! (Sara Beth)
3. iCap: Noun: The phone choice of most capybaras.
   NOT to be mistaken with
   ICAP: Noun: Capybaras favorite restaurant chain where they go to devour the delicious double blueberry pancakes. Short for International Capybaras Annihilating Pancakes. (Sara Beth)

Those are some pretty good winners, although there were many, many great entries in the contest. Melly says having our readers vote is the best idea she ever had since that way we don’t have to pick a winner.

If you’ll recall, the prizes are:

• A Super Capy plush
• A 2012 Capybara Madness Calendar
• A Caplin Rous Poster
• A Garibaldi Rous notebook
• A copy of Celeste and the Giant Hamster.
• A raku pawprint from Francine Rossi
• A 3 Capybaras tshirt (men’s or women’s)

I will be contacting the winners to let them select their prizes.