Thursday, April 29, 2010

The chickens

The newest members of our little clan, we get on average about 4 eggs a day...



We built this run for them...



But they prefer mum’s garden!!
Mum’s being doing some more clearing in fern valley...


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Finished room

I finally finished my room, well made it liveable anyway...


This is the splash back behind the sink in the bathroom


I made the shelf from a piece of glass I found in the workshop and the brackets from pieces of acacia that I fashioned myself and painted with these



Celtic designs.
I put this little box under the sink for all my toiletries


The bedroom finally finished



Monday, April 5, 2010

Ok back to the farm...


Here’s a picture of Dad’s rapids...






Our resident duiker...





Mum’s roses in bloom...






The rock garden at the front...



We had some bumper crops from our fruit trees this year.....

Our mangos and that’s just one tree...



The leitches


The fruits of our spoil


Foster sends his love...

Dad went walk about and came across this little stretch of spruit, is slightly up river of the dam, very tranquil.

This is a little bird mum came home with, we
Identified it as a house martin. He did very well and just flew away one day. We all hope he made it.




November was a month of lots of rain!!! The week before Mum and I went to Londalozi it rained for three days solid and only stopped the afternoon that we got there, which was a blessing. We met an American couple who had already been there three days and they had to sit through the game drives getting absolutely soaked, they we’re very pleased that their last evening and morning were dry. Dad’s dam sprung a major leak and we had bonafide white water rapids down our spruit. Wasn’t brave enough to grab a kayak and ride them though.
Ok now for the picks....I’ll start with londalozi...let me start by telling the whole story. As you know we’d been having heavy downpours and as you can imagine there was a lot of water about everywhere. When we got to the road to the park we discovered that it was completely flooded, Mum had a time trying to get hold of them to find what could be done, whilst we were waiting a chap in a large 4x4 came to check it out, he waded through it and it went up to his hips, he then drove his bakkie through and came to tell us that we in our much smaller bakkie would not make it through. We were a little too flustered to take photos unfortunately; finally we were advised that there was another entrance further back. That road although not being flooded was one big pot hole, I felt very much like a plate of jelly!
I was a bit nervous doing the clinic with Ma but everyone was so friendly there it wasn’t a big deal. The accommodation and food was spectacular. I felt a bit out of my depth but again everyone was so friendly it was ok.

This is the front of our cabin...



The bedroom...

This is the outside shower; it was a bit too cold to use it...

Our own private decking.
We went on the night drive but unfortunately forgot the camera. We pretty much saw all the animals possible apart from lions; the highlight I think was seeing a herd of elephants. There was a little one that was sooo cute. He’d been startled by a running herd of buck and in his bravado raised his trunk and gave his mightiest trumpet. It really was magical. The next day we had a bit more luck. Pretty much the first thing they did was take us through the flooded river; there was a road under all the water...somewhere




This is just a lovely picture I took of the river...

The road behind...

The road ahead...


This is a big bull giraffe that we saw, he was all on his own and massive...


A pride of lions enjoying the sun after so much rain...

We were very lucky to see these wild dogs, apparently it’s very rare. You can see Bella’s ancestry in them. There was quite a large pack of them and they had just made a kill and eaten. It wasn’t long after we’d found them that a female leopard stumbled into the wrong place and they proceeded to chase her up a tree...twice.

It really was wrong place, wrong time. They eventually got bored and left her alone. Truly wonderful to see these beautiful cats up so close.
A very exhausting trip but well worth it.
Ok back to the farm...