Traffic Rules In Africa?

None,you make your own! Wanna move your cattle over the busiest highway in the province..? You just chase your herd right on over..(these motorists have no excitement trying to stay alive on these roads anyways..)

Then,while the cattle are milling about on the highway,you proceed to cut a hole in the very expensive palisade fencing that the government put there to keep you from crossing over the highway at this point.., in full view of everybody too..,

..and did I hear some swear words in at least four different languages too...

I saw some pretty innovative hand signals as well!

Versatile Blogger's Award

I received the Versatile Blogger's award from Inger over at Desert Canyon Living and now I have to tell you all seven things about me you didn't know!
Thank you Inger!

1. I always shake my shoes out before putting them on.
  .There is a chance of snakes,frogs,scorpions,centipedes etc feeling comfortable in there.
    I don't particularly like any of those creatures...

2. As a child my idea of the tastiest food in the world was a whole lettuce filled with mayonnaise!

3. I passed my gr 12 exams "studying" while riding my horse...I always took a school book with me to the
    stables...      

4. I love the moon.

5. I have always been very interested in American Indians and the Black Hills,I really can't explain it,it's just
    so!!

6. I am notorious for being VERY unattached to my cellphone,hate the darned thing!

7. I can move mountains one day and be terribly lazy the next!

I would like to forward this award to: 

Jim at; http://jabacue.blogspot.com/

Allison at;http://gallimaufrylife.blogspot.com/

Terry at; http://moondanceranchco.blogspot.com/

Maura at;http://lillyanna-lilaclanecottage.blogspot.com/

Michaele at;http://sproutnwings.blogspot.com/

A Wine Rack With A Difference

I just have to have one like this in my house!!!

 I would be reduced to a salivating,jabbering, nervous wreck if I don't have one......

I saw this in a neat little shop recently but it was sooo pricey!

C'mon Cules,you are very good at welding and we have stacks of old shovels and wire lying around on the farm...

Who's Stealing?

What are these sheep getting that have them so uproariously excited at feeding times..Is uproariously a word...?

Ghost sneaking a taste..

Me...?

Never!

How To Escape The Unwelcome Attentions Of Over Amorous Men

You just hop onto the back of a ewe...

Females making a stand for vanity first thing on a Monday morning!

"Where did she go to??"

"I'm invisible...,I'm invisible...."

Sit still Melly, they can't see you!

More Twins!

The Mama goat looked at me as if to say "Well.., who is going to clean them, nurse?"

And I said :  "It's after hours...and overtime here doesn't pay so well these days you know.."

"Besides, I need a break from all that yellow gunk you know..."

"Nice try...very well" she said.....Cules is sure to hear about this as soon as he gets home!"

Her: "You don't want me to tell on you,do you?"

I'm thinking I have been alone on the farm during lambing season once to often...having these discussions with mama goats!

"Er, no,we certainly don't want him to hear things like this...,which one do you want me to clean first?"

Her "The boy"

Me: They're both boys!

Her: Men...can't do anything right!"

The End

Finally,Ducklings On The Yard!

Remember when I got my ducks last year and my waiting in vain for the babies to come...

Well, finally they managed to get their acts together and reproduce..!

Yesterday late afternoon there were four....

...and six this morning!

There is another Mama sitting on a stack of eggs which should also hatch soon..

Now to try and keep them out of harm's (snakes and rock monitors' ) way!!!

We have put them in a coop until they are a little stronger..

They are sooo cute!

Dullstroom And Belfast Revisited

Hi everyone,it's been a hectic couple of days here since Wednesday! First we went to an auction in the quint little town of Belfast,which is only about ten minutes or so from one of our all time favourite hangouts,Dullstroom,a fly-fishing and sheep farming mecca. We sold some goats and Cules then bought some sheep and pigs (he tried very hard to keep his hands in his pockets and out of sight from the auctioneer, but failed miserably,I'm afraid.....) He also managed to lock our car keys in the truck when  we went to fetch Minki's eye ointment...On Friday we went with three trucks to the Baobab land of Messina to buy a hundred white dorper sheep! I ended up towing the majority of sheep because I refused to have to drive any other truck than my beloved Mitshubishi double cab down the mountains!!  I KNEW her brakes won't fail me...,I had a good chat with her before I left home...I was safely tucked in between Cules and another driver all the way home...

We stopped over at Harry's Pancakes in Dullstroom for lunch..

"Bottoms up to you too!"

Muscovy ducks waddling around at the auction

Lots of these around too...

Keep your hands outta sight,Cules!!

Uhmmm,what can a girl say, other than ,"nice view..."

The well known saddle maker, Leon Liversage's son, Kalon, helping Cules fish our keyes out the truck!

No locksmiths in Belfast!!

Stopover at Cules' favourite fly fishing shop in Dullstroom to buy a new point for his fly fishing rod..

The Piazza in Dullstroom

This lady makes the most beautiful flies....

Made to order...

Too beautiful, how to choose..???

Roadside Signs You Will Find Only In Africa!

Don't ask me why I take pictures of road signs...I have a blog you know...

This sign is about 100m from the entrance to the town of Hoedspruit..about a forty minute drive from where we live.

This one is close to our farm entrance...!Notice the orange orchards in the background...that is what our horseback out rides are like! That and riverine bush all along the Great Letaba river. The smell of those blossoms wafting through the house is amazing.

What, who, where???

 I can't see!!!

Don't worry,that's the diva in Minki after I applied her eye ointment the vet prescribed....

Her eyes are fine,her eyelids are stuck together every morning,so she has to have a bit of a lie in until I clean them for her....

Minki's First Run In With A Spitting Cobra

Seconds after I hit the "publish post" button for my post about our brunch today,another spitting cobra made it's appearance on my back porch! Minki went for it and got spat in the eyes... Thank heavens she wasn't bitten.

Her eyes are incredibly sore,the vet said to take her in the bathroom,close the door and wash her eyes out thoroughly with a hand held shower...

Did she learn her lesson...being a jackie...I doubt it!!! For today she will leave the snakes..tomorrow is another story altogether again!

My baby is feeling so sorry for herself.....

What Did You Have For Mother's Day Brunch??

We had Mozambican Tiger prawns,Nieu  Zealand green lipped mussels,garlic loaf and litres of excellent wine!! and you???

The Ghost And The Darkness (Something Different for Today)

On reading my post about growing up in the Kruger National Park and chatting to their Grandma who still lives right by one of the main entrances to Kruger,namely Kruger Gate (Phalaborwa) The  kids wants to go visit Kruger Park this coming weekend.., I don't. Any of you watched the movie "The Ghost and The Darkness"...?  I have a overactive imagination!! I have watched that movie once too often!  Just a mere couple of years ago a refugee who had been stalked by a lioness, thought he was safely through the Park and, exhausted, fell asleep behind a shopping mall in the town of Phalaborwa.....only to be pounced on and eaten by that same lioness right there behind the mall!!!  She was shot by VERY shocked and shaken policemen....Sound far fetched? Google it...!

 We have heard many stories told about lions; lion attacks,man eaters,encounters with lions in the bush, but today my thoughts are channelled specifically along the lines of the Mozambican refugees trying to escape atrocious  circumstances by making a run for South Africa. The only way out is through the Kruger National Park and it's ferocious man eating / opportunist, lions... Many of them make it, no-one truly knows how many doesn't...As a child I can remember seeing the police vans filled with Mozambican refugees that were caught in the Park, on their way to the police station in Phalaborwa (which was where we went to school). Never did it cross my mind as to what those refugees must have lived through, as from the very first night they crept under the 3 000 volt electric fence which was the border between RSA and Mozambique.

 Occasionally we would overhear something the adults would be talking about, but overall we were protected from the gruesome realities those poor people suffered. During the bloody war in Mozambique it was either starve to death,be killed by militants or cross the border and go to Joni (Johannesburg) ,the land of milk and honey(so they thought). Anyway, I came across this fascinating piece written in 2003, So I ask again..,have you watched "The Ghost and The Darkness?" If you have you should feel a tingling down your spine about now...if you feel brave, read this very interesting article here

Update On Guinea Chicks

Two of the chicks have fallen prey to snakes, the remaining four should be strong and canny enough by now to survive.....

We were given a mature pair of guineas which we will use to produce eggs, then place the eggs under broody hens, so the guinea chicks will be tame and stay around the house.

Already the racket the babies make at bedtime (just as night falls)  is like food to my soul...

The poor hen is having her work cut out to keep up with them, they are busybodies and run hither and dither after insects all day long.....

A very curious bystander...

As Happy As A Pig In Mud....

Howzit bra? (South African slang for "How are you, my friend?")  

The wa....hmm  mud's great! Come..., jump on in!

Hey, what you got over there....?

Nothing, nothing, just tilling the ground.....

My Mama taught me to till the ground if there's food there somewhere....

Twins!

These were born yesterday. Aren't they the cutest things!

Brother and sister.

Mielie babies!

Their mom is an old hand at birthing babies. Thank heavens!

"Take my pic too,pretty please?"

I did place a pic of you, all covered in gunk, when you were born the other day!

We don't want them to have a low self esteem, do we?

We don't breed modest babies here on Stonecroft Farm!

Childhood Memories Of Growing Up In The Kruger National Park

I thought I would share some childhood memories of growing up in the famous Kruger National Park with you today. Excuse the quality of the pics,they were taken in 1975-1981. Many,many thanks to Jeanne Newby who gave me permission to use them!

 This elephant was the well known tusker Letaba,there were seven huge elephant bulls who where all named for their territories in which they reigned. All of their tusks can be viewed today in a museum in the Letaba Camp. This was how all of our fences looked...You didn't just pop out of your yard to go and play with your friends,had to have a good look around for elephants and lion in particular! This particular bull formed such a relationship with Jeanne's mom,Lettie Newby that he would allow her to spray him with a hosepipe as she was watering her baberton daisies in her front yard! Please do not try this when visiting Africa!

This young bull was getting stroppy and mock charged. His ears are flapping,when an elephant pins his ears close to his head and charges...he means business! I had had a few encounters like those with elephants chasing my Dad in his truck and recalls my Dad reversing at speed with a very cross elephant chasing us.

Walking to the bus stop in the early mornings,you never knew what animals you might encounter! We had sightings of leopard,lion,cheetah,Buffalo,kudu,wildebeest,baboon,hyena...you name it! The game rangers would ensure that the way was cleared for us kids if there were any sightings of dangerous animals in the mornings!

Letaba offering a clear view of his magnificent right tusk, the left one was broken off..

My Mom had a hilarious encounter with a lioness one morning when she set off to walk to work(she loved walking to work) and as she walked out of our yard she found herself face to face with a lioness who had just been chased of a kill in front of our yard by the rangers and was trying to escape into our yard! Both the lioness and my mom turned and ran thinking the one was chasing the other...My Dad,who saw the lioness running off ,held our door closed from inside the house as my poor Mom was trying desperately to come in...! Needless to say, I learned some pretty neat swearwords that day.

My Dad had also had one particular incident where he came home from a night out with his buddies and waved the "dog" away from the gate as he was coming home...the footprints of a huge lion told it's own story late the next day when my Dad remembered his encounter with the "dog" and went to investigate...

A tourist who didn't obey the "do not cross" sign at a low water bridge during the floods....

That is his vehicle floating down the river...

I don't know why the quality of these two pics are so bad but the others are ok.

 Don't worry the park mechanic,game ranger and other personnel would save your car from the river in no time!

And out they come!

Few people can say they grew up like we did!

We were born in and lived in Kruger Park our whole lives until my Dad retired!

Thank you Mom and Dad.