Olive and olives

Monday our cat Olive had her sterilisation, we collected her from the vets early evening and brought her home.  Unfortunately they had fitted her with one of those awful plastic collars to stop her touching the wound or possibly pulling out the stitches, they said she needed it on for 10 days.  They also said she needed her wound disinfected twice a day with hydrogen peroxide which I got at the chemist but later discovered is quite harsh, it’s a type of bleach. and not widely recommended for animals.  

Olive was unsteady and confused after the anaesthetic so we decided to keep her in the pet carrier for a while but she was so distraught throwing herself at the side of the box almost tipping it over I worried she would injure herself.  We decided to let her out but she couldn’t cope with the collar, walking backwards and because it was so big unable to drink the water I offered or even see where she was going.  It was so distressing that we decided to take the collar off.  We’d had two females sterilised in the past and neither wore collars, we decided to take the chance and three days later she’s doing ok, she’s eating well, toileting, lots of purring and enjoying being out and about while I continue to worry.  The somewhat delayed appointment we got allows 14 days before we leave for her to be healed, we cannot afford any complications. 

So Tuesday we started the olive harvest already feeling frazzled.  It’s tiring work and every day is harder but we seem to have a lot more olives than we imagined.  We thought we’d be finished in a couple of days but by Wednesday we hadn’t even picked half our trees.  We are definitely back in the oil business.