Tag Archives: farmlife

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom

The “Oribi Mom” Column

Newspaper Column Regularly Featured in the South Coast Herald

Since 2020, this little newspaper column has become a standard feature in the Lind household. It’s an actual newspaper – the kind that rubs off black onto your fingers – publishing our comings and goings here in Oribi Gorge.

Part of the motivation behind it was to give the Lind children something in black and white one day after we get old and don’t remember all the details. The local community here also seems to have enjoyed the offering, which tries to share our story 400 words at a time. A few neighbours and friends have appreciated some of the humour, relatability, family drama, and close encounters with nature. International readers just gasp, wondering why we choose to live in a place where Black Mambas do.

Why Oribi Mom Started

Ambitions to be a journalist in the teen years were short-lived. If you’d asked then whether we’d like to just blog for a local newspaper whenever inspiration hit, it would have seemed inferior to “real” journalism. What a crazy idea.

Fast-forward to about a month before the entire world shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to share our experiences felt overwhelming. At eight months pregnant, South Africa’s hard lockdown had cancelled just about everything. Things got complicated, including the smooth, quick route needed to reach the hospital three hours away.

Instead of calming soundtracks and earphones, we had to remember to pack our eldest child’s birth certificate in the hospital bag — just in case. What if the police stopped us on the highway to ask why we were out of our home when the government had expressly told everyone to stay put. We’d even rehearsed the speech to say in between contractions. “Yes, he’s our son. Yes, we had to bring him with us. No, there’s nobody to look after him at home. No, we couldn’t go to another hospital because the doctor is at the one three hours away (another long story).”

We hadn’t found much online about going through a late-stage pregnancy during a global pandemic. Nobody else crazy enough to try it? So, we wrote one. And we’ve never looked back.

Thanks for reading!

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Dark-backed Weaver Friends Are Everywhere You Know

“They’ve been right there in front of us the whole time, waiting for the sun.”

Dark-backed weaver. Photo Derek Keats/Wikipedia

June 5, 2024

Have you ever heard the dark-backed weaver sing? That’s not a book title. They really have the most melodic singing you can hear for miles. It might be Oribi Dad’s favourite bird sound. Maybe because it took us a good long while to identify what bird it was coming out of when we first moved to the farm.

They’re tricky from far, especially in Echo Valley. You think it’s one tune, but when the bird flits closer, it sounds a bit different. It rises and falls, and then ends in this buzzing sort of noise, like a phone vibrating on a table. You also hardly see them in the thick bushes they sing from or if their backs are turned to you. Yet from the front and in the sun, they’re the brightest yellow – rivalling orioles and African emerald cuckoos. Against the dry winter brush, it’s really quite stunning.

Isn’t that so like some people we know? We meet them, masked in their dark brown coats with faces turned away from us. We hear their names but don’t remember. We wonder what others see in them at all. Then, one day, we hear their song and it makes us pay attention. Where is that coming from? We want to know more.

Sometimes, it takes us a while to figure out how this brown-coated interesting figure can produce such a clear and beautiful sound in the first place. Did we hear wrong? No, we think, as we hear that melody ring out a few more times. There’s something there worth discovering.

One day, we might even hear that voice and catch the owner turning to face us, just as the sun hits from over the gorge cliffs to the east. The sparkling yellow seems to light up the whole valley as the song rings loud and captivating from that tiny black beak. What a sight! What a talented package this is. How could we have missed that mesmerising beauty for so long?

It feels like that’s how friends are made sometimes. We see each other, really see each other. And we hear a song we can’t ignore any longer. Then, once we’ve seen and heard it, we suddenly start to see that person’s influence and worth everywhere we look. How could we possibly have missed it before? They’ve been right there in front of us the whole time, waiting for the sun.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Trying To See the Light During Loadshedding

“Just another day in paradise.”

PHOTO BY PIXABAY

October 7, 2023 

It was just one of those days today. Work ran late, spanning through three loadshedding sessions. I crawled into bed at about 11.15pm after showering in the dark. My baby woke up for the third time, his snotty nose making the feeding difficult for him. I could see his grazed eye and face by the moonlight, where he had launched himself onto the concrete earlier. Learning to walk is hazardous.

Down the passage, one brother was snoring like an elephant and the other was coughing again. It was so loud it just about drowned out the Scops owls and nightjars that have been calling so loudly since spring came around. The annoying roof rats are even louder at the moment.

Sleep Isn’t Easy When the Kids Are Sick

I slept on and off, but the baby was restless and the brothers were too. Then, at 1am, the baby’s cough got a bit worse. He vomited all over himself and my feather duvet.

I was so tired at this point that I just stripped him, threw the duvet on the floor, and found a blanket to crawl under with him. I would have chucked everything into the washing machine, but what good would that have done without power for the next two hours.

Only, it wasn’t two hours, or the regular four hours we’ve been having; it never came on. We woke up still in the dark three hours later with the whole area without power. No morning rooibos. No explanation.

There’s Power and Comfort in Community Life

A few residents managed to log a call before 7am, which was when the next four hours of load shedding was due to start. That puke duvet was still on the floor with the clothes and the normal pile of washing.

The fridges were off. The cellphones were almost flat. And the work day had started with laptops and Wi-Fi routers that couldn’t charge.

The baby and his brothers are still snotty. And the baking we did for school (between load shedding stints) was left behind in the confusion of the morning. That meant a turnaround and a little person very late for school.

But we did get him to school.

The dogs and kids are fed.

The sun is out.

And a certain van for electricity repairs has been spotted in the area.

There are also a few baked goods left to reward us for enduring all our challenges this week. We’ll make it to the weekend.

Published here.