Friday: Last night was really difficult because for the first time we had to separate the boys into two groups - cropped and uncropped. The four cropped boys were so glad to be back in familiar territory that they spent the evening just running around the garden playing, doing the daisies - what's left of them - and generally just having fun. The three uncropped boys, Gandhi, Dark Blue, aka Navy man or Sailor, and Light Blue, AKA Mantis experienced a closed crate door for the first time and they didn't mind that at all but they did mind not being able to check out their brothers. Especially Gandhi and he just wouldn't settle after the last potty call. I held him and talked to him until 10:30 at which point he finally settled down. For twenty-five minutes that is. At 10:55 he was complaining again so I held him for another half hour before he finally settled in. And so, running on 4 hours sleep yesterday, and less than that today, morning came far too early for my liking. I'd anticipated that it might be difficult to potty the boys in two groups but surprisingly, they were very cooperative. Maybe it was too early for them as well. So I let the 3 uncropped boys out to potty and they were only too happy to come back into their crate, even with a closed door, even knowing their 4 brothers were outside pottying. Then I showered, dressed, and re-pottied the 3 boys in preparation for the ferry trip. Everything went smoothly and by 2 p.m. the last three boys were cropped, awake, and chowing down food. Mantis was first up to bat and I held and rocked him for quite some time as he came out of the anesthetic. Then Dark Blue. By this time Mantis was kicking up a fuss and wanted out of the pen so one of the assistants let him out and he was running around the office, up to the front desk and back again, just having a blast checking out the new space. By that time I was cuddling Dark Blue. Herby, the dog in the kennel underneath Dark Blue, went home and his door was left open and before I knew it little Mantis had snuck in and was wolfing down the food that was left in his dish. It was food the owner had brought in and had this gravy kind of smell to it. Who knows what it was. I was worried it might give Mantis diarrhea but there were no ill effects. By 3 pm we were loading the boys into the car and I was confident I'd be there in time to catch the 4 PM ferry. And I was. Got to the ferry at 3:40. Unfortunately, being a weekend and the height of the tourist season, there was a two-sail wait so I didn't get on until the 6 PM sailing and I was lucky to do that because there were only about 5 cars loaded on after us. Got home, pottied the kids and gave them some food which they were only too willing to hoarf down. Then we put all the kids out together for a run and they checked out each other's crops. One last potty and they were sacked out for the night.