Barkley passed away in March. He had a heart problem. In a matter of days, he became very weak and was laboring to breathe. It broke our hearts to say goodbye to him. It was strange and painful to go to the refuge without him. One of the reasons we bought the property in the first place was so that Barkley and Momo could have space to run around. We joked that we bought our dogs a farm and that we should call it “Barkley and Momo’s Farm”. I’m glad Barkley was able to enjoy his farm. He loved to go in the pool and the ponds. He was so confident and independent that he would sometimes just run back to the cottage by himself in the middle of a walk. He was so good at communicating what he wanted that he got to do things like ride with Tonji in the tractor while he was cutting the grass, sleeping on our bed even if he wasn’t that clean because had been running around in the fields, and riding on his blue boat while being pushed up and down the entire length of the pool.
The dry season officially started in March. It is very hot and sunny. The grass isn’t green any more and there is a lot of amor seco. Our water lily ponds are slowly drying up. I want to add water to the ponds and save the water lilies! There are so many of them and it would be so sad to lose them all.
Tonji saw a pair of Greater Painted Snipes near the big pond with the water lilies! That brings our farm bird list to #104! So cool that we have seen and identified 104 bird species at our place! He sad they were in the shrubs on the left side of the pond. Unfortunately, I wasn’t with him at the time and he wasn’t able to photograph them. I looked for them, but no luck. Hopefully, I will see them some time in the future.
This is one of my favorite videos of Barkley. Of course it was taken at the refuge, our happy place. This shows the kinds of shenanigans we shared!
Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge 