Monthly Archives: April 2025

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.