Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: The Bike and the Buck

Sneaking up to a buck on a bicycle shouldn’t be this easy.

An example of a reedbuck common to the region. PHOTO WIKIPEDIA

 

May 10, 2025

It was very loud and quite startling. I was alone on a bike and quite near the edge of the gorge. I had come to find a few vultures but the thermals weren’t playing ball so early yet and I didn’t want to linger, just explore a bit. I like taking detours every now and then and I know the neighbours don’t mind too much if I leave only bike tracks behind.

I had just flicked off a tick trying to crawl up my leg because the grass can be wild here. Sometimes, when you explore, you have to bundu bash a bit. I don’t like cycling on grass that isn’t actually a dirt road, but there isn’t always a choice if you’re going off the beaten track.

The main reason I like to see dirt under the tyres is for visibility. Bike wheels aren’t very high if it’s a mamba you’re meeting all of a sudden. I only imagine this, of course, because I haven’t had that terrifying experience yet and hope never to find out how fast I can ride if one ever sticks its head up out of the grass in front of me!

Anyway, this sound I heard almost made me fall off my bike. I happened to be cycling up a grassy sugar cane contour and making hardly any noise. The large reedbuck in front of me hadn’t noticed me yet. It was casually walking up the same contour in front of me and I think if I was a hunter, it would have been dead already.

I got to about 10m from it. Suddenly, it realized I was coming. Just then, I was concentrating on seeing how fast I could go towards it, so hearing a very loud shriek was an absolute shock. I thought the buck was also scared, as it had bounded further ahead. Then, I heard it again as the buck looked at me, screamed, and started running again.

Did you know that reedbucks make that high-pitched whistling, shrieking sound? I do now. I feel quite bad for sneaking up on it, but I guess both of us benefited from a little adrenaline rush to keep us on our toes. Hopefully, it’ll be wiser now so that I can see it again sometime.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Families Who Fish Together

There’s never a dull moment raising a family in Oribi Gorge.

PHOTO BY PIXABAYMay 1, 2025

There’s been a new thing starting. The tiny boys are growing up into little boys and starting to explore a few aspects of farm life.
Of course, I had some preconceived ideas about it because, when I was a little girl, my daddy took care of a lot of the ‘dirty’ side.

I didn’t like scales and blood on my hands. As an adult, I forgot that part. It felt surprising that this particular pastime involved such a lot of chicken hearts, sticky whiskery practical jokes from my sons, and wading to unhook lines from the reeds. The smell of the clothes afterwards is also quite a sensory challenge.

Still, it’s all part of the smiles that fishing brings to our little sons (and their parents). What I did correctly remember about fishing was the time outside in the sunshine, the quiet, and the birds. There’s something beautiful about glassy dams reflecting the clouds.

The Dam With the Fish Eagles

Our neighbours have a spectacular setting just like this, complete with a pair of fish eagles, a shady spot to sit, and wide open views. I’m aware that this is a bit more luxurious than tramping through muddy, cutting reeds and keeping a beady eye out for slithery things. I can also take the baby to play safely by the water’s edge and even jump into the shallow places if he feels brave enough. It might just be one of my favourite spots in the world, actually. Many happy family memories already and more to come. I think families need those special spots.

I know that this particular fishing spot will be forever seared into my sons’ memories. When they’re all grown up and taking the hooks out for their daughters who don’t want to get their hands bloody, they’ll remember these lazy weekend afternoons. They’ll remember their parents buying rolls and hotdogs and spreading out a picnic blanket, swimming, fish eagle cries, and the cool breeze as we wait for the barbel to bite. We even caught a tiny tilapia, which we threw back, as we do with all the others.

It’s a lesson in patience for energetic little boys, too, which is always good. May they always remember and smile. We’ll have to get one of those ‘Gon’ Fishing’ signs soon.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Crazy Amount of Growth

The author said it’s crazy how quickly things change from season to season when you think about it.

Everything seems to grow quickly in Oribi Gorge.

April 14, 2025

That’s crazy! I was looking at a picture of when we first moved to this little farm. There was a long drive to the little house, absolutely filled with invasive lantana and triffid weed, not to mention the bugweed, wattles, and various kinds of burrs.

The ‘garden’ wasn’t much different and only had a handful of baby trees in it. No shade. Plenty of snakes, birds, and wildlife, though.

Weeds Galore!

I don’t know the right names for all the burrs, except for black jack. There are flat, half-moon shaped ones we call sweethearts. Then, there are very sticky green balls that are almost impossible to get off you whole; it takes some time.

There are things like devil thorns, which is why our children have always worn gumboots in the garden since they could walk. I might have also had snakes and scorpions in the back of my mind when sending them out onto the rough lawn in boots. I also think gumboots on tiny toddlers are the cutest.

Of course, now they’re way too farm boy-ish and hardy to wear gumboots while they play, run, climb, and dig outside. At least I saved their baby feet a bit from all the scratchy, prickly things we have growing here.

Growth Is Always Happening

The pictures from 2017 seem like a whole other world when I look out over my garden now. There’s still a long, long way to go, to be sure, but the progress is undeniable. There are now actual trees growing, still small, but getting there. There are some flower beds and paths. There are shrubs, hedges, grape vines, and flowers.

When it feels like I’m just not winning against the sweethearts and blackjacks, despite constant weeding, all I need to do is to look back at a photo from a few years ago and see how stark it was before. There’s always growth happening. There’s always progress to see.

It’s crazy how quickly things change from season to season when you think about it – including the growing boys who are fast outgrowing their shoes and their sand pit. Maybe I’ll make that sand pit into another flower bed soon. There’s no rush.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Dirty Footmarks on White Passage Walls

The author said it feels like time is flying by.

PHOTO BY PIXABAY

April 8, 2025

When we renovated our little cottage to join up the next one, it seemed to fit just what we needed. It’s cosy, but it gives us bedrooms that are big enough and an extra bathroom. We went back and forth a bit on how to maximize the space and landed on a long length of cupboards down a long passage. That’s just how the existing foundations all fit together, but it worked out well, I think.

A few years on, the eldest boy has grown daring. He’s now able to shimmy up the passage wall and touch the ceiling. He uses his arms and legs pressed hard on both sides, like some sort of parkour move. Of course, the middle one tries to do everything in the same way. He’s got it right now but stays in the bottom half and isn’t yet moving up. It’s still quite impressive.

The youngest – the two-year-old boy – has had a few near misses as the boys fall, and he runs underneath them, narrowly escaping being as flat as a pancake (or headless). Sometimes, it’s not an escape, and there are tears. He does it again, though, which I’ve given up trying to understand.

The youngest can’t even touch both walls with his short little arms, so it’ll be a while until he can climb up like his brothers. I say that, but there are only two years between the youngest and the middle child, so I expect to see him up there in 2027 or so. Saying it that way makes it sound further than ‘just two short years’! It feels like time is flying when I look at them wrestling, showering by themselves, and tramping off to school every morning. Where did my little babies go?

Maybe when they’re at school, I’ll try the passage wall out myself. I’m not that old, am I? If I fall and break my ankle, that would be quite a lot of explaining to do if the doctor asks what happened, so maybe not. There’s a time for everything under the sun – and my time for climbing walls might be over. It’s okay. Watching my sons get it right brings the same thrill.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: One Foot in Front of the Other

The future work landscape is difficult to predict.

The planet Mars. PHOTO WIKIPEDIA 

March 22, 2025

The world of work has been quite the journey for me. I like adventures. It started off right after varsity, newly married, 21, and newly relocated to the big city – Durban. I look back on those four years I spent in retail management and feel a bit shell-shocked. Six bosses, five stores, two provinces, three cities, countless CCMA cases, sleepless nights of alarm call-outs, and many, many tears. Adulting is hard. At a certain point, staying with it and getting the next promotion would have been harder than just jumping ship.

Over the Sea

We decided to play our luck and go teach English overseas instead. Maybe that wouldn’t feel like selling souls to corporations who didn’t see or care. In a way, it didn’t. Then again, there were many moments in those next five years in the classroom that still felt like we were in some rat race we didn’t choose. It was a fantastic experience to go out of South Africa and jump in the deep end of a foreign, non-English speaking culture, earning some real money. The children and co-teachers were sweet a lot of the time. The rice cakes were much sweeter.

We didn’t anticipate being quite so isolated, I think, without our support system. Since it was only meant to be for a short time, it didn’t seem to matter. Maybe we only noticed the difference when we came back again to South Africa and reunited with people who really knew us and loved us.

Back Home

Then, we started working online. It was convenient and seemed like it opened up a whole world of possibilities. We were thinking about kids, being flexible, and not wanting to be in an office or schoolroom that kept us out of the sunshine. Idealistic, maybe. Our dues are being paid currently, but we’re doing it in the sunshine most days.

The journey hasn’t stopped, though. Online work has changed – metamorphosed – since 2014, when I first dabbled in freelancing. Teaching online is now a viable career for many with a better internet connection than I currently possess. Freelancing in anything has become extremely competitive. And then, there’s AI.

I’m not sure what this work thing is going to look like in five to ten years. Working on Mars? On a floating office as icebergs melt? Let’s see, shall we?

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Squeaking Takkie in the Winelands While Herding Cats

We celebrated with our family and watched our boys experience their very first wedding.

 The beautiful winelands in the Cape.

March 14, 2025

Oribi Mom’s crew had a little adventure.

First, it must be said that this was the very first new year that Oribi Mom and Dad can remember staying up for in, well, we think, decades. We’re not teenagers trying to find shelter on some beach thanks to the South Coast’s dependable New Year’s Eve rain anymore. This year, we shouted ‘Happy New Year’ over loud music under flashing lights and even kissed (very briefly!). It was well past our parental bedtime, and three tiny boys were already asleep in the room we were all sharing. Still, we were quite proud of our efforts.

It was a special wedding, you see, over New Year’s Eve on a wine estate – and over 1500 kilometres away from our little farmhouse. We worked all year to get to that wedding. We very nearly cancelled, too.

We Almost Didn’t Make the Wedding

The first half of December was a bit of a blur. The kids promptly got sick in the last week of school and passed it along to their tired parents. Then, Oribi Gorge lost power in that huge storm that blew over poles and trees. We didn’t have power for eight days.

We went to stay with the grandparents a little earlier than planned, packing for the wedding just in case, and then the kids got sick again. Very sick. Like buying a portable nebuliser in case anyone couldn’t breathe properly on the road.

A rat chewed our car’s air conditioning wire to pieces. Can you drive through the Karoo in mid-summer without air conditioning? On the morning we decided to leave, a beloved uncle passed away.

What did we do?

We visited our dear aunt with flowers, finished the packing, bathed the boys, and strapped them into their car seats at 7 pm.

We drove 18 hours, non-stop, through the night and arrived in Cape Town at lunchtime the next day.

We celebrated with our family and watched our boys experience their very first wedding. It was like herding cats with 10 niblings walking ahead of their aunty down the aisle together, but it was so beautiful.

We danced. We laughed. We got all dressed up and took a family picture. We saw in 2025.

And then, we made it home again to Oribi Gorge. We’re all better; we have power, and it’s a whole new year!

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: An Ancient Artist’s Palette in an Unlikely Place

There is beauty all around.

 PHOTO BY PIXABAYMarch 4, 2025

There’s a tree I love on the highway between Harrismith and Ladysmith. I have seen it since I was a little girl, travelling home. I lived in Northern Natal for a little while and played sports sometimes in Harrismith. Even after that, we’ve made trips up to Joburg to see family, embark on planes, or visit game reserves.

Every time we come back from the highveld to the lowveld, there’s a spark. I see that big flat mountain in Harrismith and feel a tingle. Then, I see the ‘Racing Car’ mountain, which my children insist on calling ‘Hippo Mountain’, where I look for bald ibises. The little spark of joy grows because I know the descent is coming.

You have to go super slow down Van Reenen’s. Driving at 60km/h feels like trudging through clay after a few hours at 120km/h. The police assure us it’s not meant as a lesson in patience; they want us to arrive alive. Before you get to Smelly-Truck-Brake Pass, though, there’s this beautiful tree. It’s huge compared to everything else in that location, so it stands out. It’s also right next to the road.

Look Closer at the Tree As You Come To This Ancient Place

I have no idea how this tree is still standing. For 30-plus years, I’ve taped it as absolutely ancient. It hasn’t changed. The tree of my childhood memories looks just the same. It’s a gum tree, but let’s skip over the part about it being invasive and water-guzzling. It’s dazzling. It stands straight up, towering above you as you come up the hill. You can see it from quite a long way off, and as you get closer, it touches the sky.

You can’t help but notice the phenomenal composition its stripped bark reveals layer upon layer. It’s like a bored artist has taken their palette and tried to get every colour there is onto one tree trunk – pinks, greens, yellow, blues, greys, oranges, and all the fancy colour names in between that I don’t know. ‘Rainbow’ would not even come close to it.

The ibises, cranes, and ducks get to enjoy it every day. I just catch a glimpse of it when I’m coming home. Is that why it’s so captivating? I hope to ask my grandchildren one day. Will they be coming home to beautiful KZN, too? To me, home is colours on a tree and the promise of the ocean.

What’s it to you?

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Falcon Power From the Wild, Wild, Wild Boys

It’s always a good thing to learn about our country’s wildlife.

Falcon power. Photo by: Richard Sagredo on Unsplash.

 

February 21, 2025

The third small boy in our house has now hit the stage of tall stories, potty training, and screaming not to be restrained in the car seat.

He’s also got the advantage of superpowers much earlier than his older siblings who didn’t get to watch such advanced programming – nothing much beyond Peppa Pig, Bing, and Winnie the Pooh.

Now, It’s Wild Kratts, a highly educational wildlife programme that also happens to have baddies trying to steal or eat rare animals that need saving.

The Kratt brothers use their power suits with various animal powers to do that saving. By the end of the episode, you know all about the species, so I’ve shrugged off the superpower stuff mostly.

The Wild, Wild, Wild Linds

As a result, the littlest person in our family is now hitting his chest (the button on the power suit). He shouts, ‘Falcon power,’ and zooms from one end of the house to the other. And back again. Sometimes, it’s cheetah power, grasshopper power, salamander power, or any other of the number of species the Kratt brothers showcase on their show.

He’s learning about quite a wide variety of animals, I guess. I don’t know many other two-year-olds who can talk about falcons and actually know what they are and what they do. I could be wrong on that.

Anyway, if you hear me calling the boys, ‘Wild, wild, wild Linds’ you’ll know why. They’re basically Kratts.

I wonder if there will come a day when my sons are roaming the earth doing conservation work with rare species and developing their own power suits. It seems like that would be a great way to spend a life.

Meet the Kratt brothers and their wildlife show.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Flushing Fan-Tailed Grassbirds in the Proteas and Penny Gums

There’s something special about bird watching.

PHOTO BY PIXABAYFebruary 15, 2025

I’m back in the bird challenge for 2025. I bombed out in the early 30s – in August, maybe – of 2024’s 52-week challenge. That felt like good going for being at home for all except two of those weeks.

I learned a lot about birds right under my nose here, including rarities. Two of these amazing finds were the wintering spotted ground thrush and orange ground thrush, which both just happened to appear in my little slice of forest.

If I hadn’t walked down into the dark gorge below the house in winter, I wouldn’t have found them at all. Now that I know they’re there, that’s two more birds I can potentially list this year when the time comes.

Mostly, it’s just exciting to know that I’m preserving some habitat they can shelter in for the next few decades (let’s hope!).

A Little Trail Running Turned Out To Be a Big Birding Win

While exploring, I also found a wonderful fan-tailed grassbird. It was in the middle of some penny gums when I took a little detour on my usual route.

It’s quite hard to describe that moment. The penny gums are beautiful and smell so good. The king proteas nearby were in full flower on one lonely tree.

In front of this, in the penny gums, the bright yellow Cape longclaws were trying to hide in the longish tufts of grass.

I was sneaking up on them to see how close I could get to those skittish birds that are all along the road in Oribi Gorge. As I came around the bend, I flushed the fan-tailed grassbird instead.

It took me a little while to click.

The gorgeous little bird was in its full spring plumage. Bright and clean, it perched on top of a young penny gum tree and looked quite indignant about my disturbance.

Behind it, there was the view of the brown farm slopes dropping down to the Mzimkhulu.

At that point, everything else was just sprouting tiny, almost transparent leaves. I knew they would grow and darken into full green foliage in a few weeks, but right then, the freshness – new life – was palpable. The ocean further beyond that shone in the sun.

Was I in some lost world? As I heard the nearby quarry machines whirring up, the grassbird flew off. I guess not. But it was still so beautiful.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Cheers To a Year of Discovery and Now… A New Word

“The more I thought about my experiences and most recent memories, the more it fit.”

Pixabay

January 19, 2025 

Happy New Year! It’s late, but that feels normal. It’s been a little busy in our patch of the world. It’s not only with general festive craziness but with a few other things, both unexpected and unavoidable. That seems par for the course in this time of life. We’re parenting three littles, trying to scrape together enough to feed said littles, and wondering why on earth we did PGCEs 10 years ago.

There are a lot of ideas on the train track of the mind these days, especially when I’m running, cycling, or walking to keep the crazy slightly at bay. On one recent run, there was a sudden idea – an epiphany, really. This Word of the Year concept isn’t such a waste of time.

Really? Choose Your Word of the Year and Life Will Be Better?

Maybe there have been too many American podcast episodes on my playlist. Choosing a Word of the Year has always felt a bit like one of those trendy How To books. People buy it hoping for answers and then realise it doesn’t have that much to say. It felt like a selling point or a gimmick.

But then, while I was watching a spur-winged goose flying over me and feeling the nine-kilometre tiredness starting to set in, I suddenly had a word flash across my mind: DISCOVERY.

Yes, Really! Discovering That Life Is Full of Newness

Last year, 2024, was most certainly a year of discovery. The more I thought about my experiences and most recent memories, the more it fit. Yes, that was what the year had turned out to be. Discovering (or maybe re-discovering) that I really like to move.

Discovering that sticking to a stricter routine on normal days makes me feel more secure about those times that make me deviate from said routine. Discovering that regaining a few hours of uninterrupted sleep after weaning, truly makes me a nicer, more productive, and more rational person. It was also a year discovering how deeply my soul feels loss, but let’s not get down that rabbit hole for now.

I discovered that showing grace towards my growing children when they were acting out can be relationship-building. I discovered that some birds like to do something called ‘anting.’ I discovered that I am capable of consistent exercise three times weekly for almost a whole year. I discovered that God is closer than I ever imagined.

And 2025’s word? I guess we’ll see. What’s yours?

Published here.

Oribi Mom, Travelinds

Oribi Mom: Doing Life One Tree at a Time

“Mist-blanketed rivers with crocodiles have tales to tell, I’m sure.” – Heather Lind.

The mist in Oribi Gorge, just like in the rainforest. PHOTO BY: HEATHER LIND

October 16, 2024

More than a decade ago, we planted a tree in the rainforest. It was one of those last-minute decisions you make when you’re leaving a beautiful place and wonder how you can leave some sort of mark on it.

We’ve always been free souls who preferred to leave footprints and take only memories. I guess it was a sort of ‘ethical traveller’ decision. It’s the same reason we never rode an elephant or went on those boat tours to see the propeller-etched whale sharks they feed to keep nearby for tourists.

We don’t buy curios most of the time unless the mementoes on sale are directly helping a local person earn a living. In this case, planting the tree was the best of both worlds. We were supporting a local business and, at the same time, contributing to reforesting the badly depleted jungle.

That tree also contributes to the oxygen you and I are breathing at this very moment, 11 years down the line. Yes, we understand that this little side business of the place we stayed at was to make money.

Isn’t it okay to feed your family off the money tourists are willing to pay for a tree-planting exercise? You’re making a living and helping the jungle ecosystem. We even got a ‘plaque’ – a little wooden thing painted with ‘Linds’ on it. They stuck it in the thick mud next to our sapling. I guarantee that plaque is not there today. It was the kind you might recycle later for another tourist by painting over it. That’s okay. The tree, though? I often think about it.

I’ve planted many, many trees since then, particularly on our farm in Oribi Gorge. Hundreds of trees. But I still wonder what that tree looks like now. Is it towering over the little wooden huts with the rickety boardwalk? That boardwalk was really the only way to walk from your hut to the place they served food.

The ground was basically just thick mud up to the knee. Thousands of leeches were also just waiting for you to squelch over there so that they could feast.

I’d still go back to see that tree, but we’re older and wiser now, aren’t we? Imagine what else we would notice ten years on. Mist-blanketed rivers with crocodiles have tales to tell, I’m sure.

Onwards and upwards