Tag Archives: lifestyle blog

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Welcome to the Farm

“It was a wonderful weekend.”

PHOTO BY PIXABAYJune 19, 2023 

So, there’s this welcome sign on our cottage front door, a relic of some previous tenants that have long since moved on to other adventures. It’s pretty, and kind of green. A nice touch for a little one-room space that’s seen quite a few people come and go.

Time For Some Visitors on the Farm Again

There were a few less while we were in the middle of the pandemic, but the other day we opened up the cottage to visiting family members for two nights. We managed to get it looking quite fresh. We even removed the giant black scorpion that had made its home in one of the corners.

It took around a week of mad cleaning, scraping, scooping, spraying, and wiping. Endless layers of dust seem to accumulate so quickly from cane fires, dusty roads, and the cement factory down the valley.

Nice Visitors Are Always Welcome

At some point, we noticed a hornet or two staring at us from a wall or a window. A baby brown house snake appeared and then disappeared, hopefully to the garden. Thankfully we didn’t find mold or bigger slithering residents. And the windows opened up the whole place to a nice breeze and the beautiful smell of the basil outside in full bloom.

It was a wonderful weekend. We celebrated. We chatted. We hid from the massive rainstorm that brought about 45mm to the farm in less than two hours. Some of us whispered prayers of thanks under our breath that the storm only managed to find two drips from the ceiling. Nothing came crashing down.

And then, we waved goodbye armed with lots of photographs, including one of a tiny little tilapia that an ecstatic three-year-old fisherman hooked.

Some Not So Nice Visitors Aren’t As Welcome

Cleaning up just took a few minutes. And, we closed up the cottage again so that the next guests might have slightly less dust to contend with.

For good measure, I sprayed the old ant nests we’d vacuumed up from all the inside walls. Then, I sprayed the welcome sign as an afterthought, just in case the ants had started eating through the wooden door under there… and, I had to run fast!

As I sprayed, about thirty hornets angrily emerged to show me what they thought of my cleanup efforts. They didn’t get me. Thankfully, they hadn’t got my guests, either.

Still, the irony of that warm welcome wasn’t lost on me. Next time, we’ll at least warn our unsuspecting visitors!

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Making a Racket Again

“There was apparently a sighting in Harding a few years back, but it was still incredibly rare to see it here. It was also my first time seeing one.”

An example of a racket-tailed roller. PHOTO WIKIPEDIA

May 30, 2023 

There have been two phenomenal birding sightings in our area this last month. One was on a telephone line, and one was in a puddle.

I’ve been off social media for a while trying to eke out time for my many commitments as a mommy to three little people. Scrolling steals too much of that, which means I haven’t seen the South Coast Birder’s group in a while. I miss it.

Not One But Two Amazing Bird Sightings in Oribi Gorge

Anyway, the first sighting was by yours truly. A casual drive-by and a glance up at a telephone wire revealed a turquoise shimmer on a biggish little bird, undoubtedly a roller.

We get quite a few European rollers here over the summer. I love to admire these rather impressive and beautiful birds whenever they pop up. Maybe because I always used to love seeing the lilac-breasted rollers in the July holiday visits to the Kruger Park as a child. They would be shining in stunning purple and blue on top of a brown bush, a striking contrast that’s not easy to miss.

So, seeing rollers in my backyard as an adult has been rather special. But at the last minute, I saw this one jump and turn around. As it faced the other direction, I saw long tail streamers behind it, with little rounded bits on the end. I gasped a little. It was truly spectacular, but I wasn’t aware of why. I didn’t know that European rollers had long tails like that! Wow.

It turns out they don’t.

The Bird Wasn’t What I Thought It Was, But Close

I drove home, chatting to the kids, looking for reedbuck, jackal buzzards, water mongoose, and tractors like we do every day. We spied vultures above Leopard Rock. We saw a jiga duza (a Bell loader) that always gets my boys very excited.

So, when I got home and remembered to look at my birding app, I was shocked to find that what I had seen was not, in fact, a European roller at all. I wouldn’t have known that it wasn’t one of those gorgeous blue birds so common on our telephone wires in the summertime if I hadn’t driven past at the exact moment it jumped up and showed me its spindly tail.

It was a Racket-tailed Roller! And it was hundreds of kilometres south of where the map distribution indicated it should be. I couldn’t believe it.

I even messaged a birding fundi to check that I wasn’t going mad. I wasn’t. There was apparently a sighting in Harding a few years back, but it was still incredibly rare to see it here. It was also my first time seeing one ever.

Maybe, I should be travelling with my camera in the backseat instead of chattering farm boys shouting with delight at the tractors, TLBs, and cane-loading machinery we pass.

Oh, and the other sighting was by one of the farmers down the road who saw another wayward bird, the African Crake. Birder’s eat your heart out in Oribi Gorge, hey!

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Almost Enough To Get the Blood Boiling

“About five minutes in, I hear screams and shouts and running feet outside. “Mom, come quick!” The husband is shouting for me to come get the baby. Where is my middle child? Is it another mamba?”

Oribi Mom: Heather Lind

February 5, 2023

 

The heat draws out strange things, especially in the humans in my home. Everyone is a little grumpier, a little lazier, and with toddlers, far less covered in socially appropriate clothing.

As the jackal buzzards enjoy the thermals far above, we sit in any cool spot we can find and try to act normal. The garden doesn’t have much shade right now but my grandchildren should have a few big trees to sit under if I can help these saplings survive a few more Januaries.

Hot and Bothered Under the Collar

On one of these sweltering days, I was casually trying to dry four days’ worth of washing and get the housework under control. I heartily agreed to the husband’s request to take our three little farmboys to the pumphouse to put off the water.

Off they went for the 20 minute stroll, with the five-year-old refusing to don clothes and only wearing his costume bottoms. The two-year-old would not put on more than a nappy. And the baby would not wear a hat for more than twenty seconds.

Well, it might be worth 20 minutes of housework.

About five minutes in, I hear screams and shouts and running feet outside. “Mom, come quick!” The husband is shouting for me to come get the baby. Where is my middle child? Is it another mamba?

As I race in the direction of the gate, said middle child comes waltzing over the grass, completely naked, and not at all concerned about his mother’s worried face. Behind him is one of the farm workers who lives nearby, looking sweaty but definitely coming up to the house. What is going on?

Everybody Calm Down and Move the Wardrobe

It turns out that there was no big emergency. We needed help carrying a large piece of furniture into the house and our friendly neighbour had agreed to come in and help with the load on his way back from town. So, now we have a beautiful wardrobe in our room and I didn’t have to break any vertebrae or toes on the way. Isn’t life funny?

It’s still hot, but there’s a cool breeze blowing calm onto my porch in 2023. Maybe, it’s going to be a good year.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Hello Darkness My Old … Eish!

“Do you think loadshedding will be a thing when our children’s children are listening to that same nightjar calling, ‘Dear Lord, deliver us’ in the dark?”

Photo for illustration purposes. WIKIPEDIA

October 4, 2022

Did you know that fiery-necked nightjars still call when it’s raining? I hear them as I venture out into the still dark rainy dawn to put on a load of washing. Why am I doing this again? Oh, yes. Loadshedding.

School sandwiches, cups of tea, baby reflux medication and sterile syringes, showers and baths, vacuuming, getting things out of freezers and fridges, cooking, charging things…all confined to random slots in a 24-hour period.

Only, life does not fit so neatly into those times when you have three children and work online from home. It doesn’t fit neatly even if you don’t have children or work from home.

Eishkom Dictates My Life in These Loadshedding Slots

You need electricity to have an internet connection. On the farm, you also need electricity to pump borehole water for household and farm use. Rain tanks help, but not for long. They don’t work either if they rely on a little electric pump for pressure.

It’s okay. We are used to it now, right? We are even grateful that enterprising apps tell us when it is going off and for how long.

But, any length of power outage is still inconvenient. Changing a baby’s nappy at 3am by the light of a cell phone is challenging, to say the least, especially when you’re trying to locate random spots of butternut-colored mess while holding tiny feet out of the way. When you only manage to get one eye open and half a brain awake, the task is almost impossible.

Other Things Manage Just Fine in the Dark, Including…Eish!

The eagle owls manage to come and hunt crickets on our lawn easily enough at that time. The rats run through the roof sounding like a soccer team at certain times of the year. They don’t need light to smell their way through life and find an easy meal of discarded toddler snack items. Thankfully, they didn’t find the half-eaten biltong in the couch I happened upon the other day.

Some time ago I also had a reminder why lighter coloured tiles were, in fact, a good idea. I question this choice occasionally.

I was walking to the kitchen for a baby bottle or something at 1am and stepped over something dark, thanks to my peripheral vision. I thought it was a sock or a broken toy, both common items waiting to pierce tender soles.

Instead, shining my cellphone torch on it revealed a giant black scorpion casually crawling near my bare foot. Close one (and nothing a toddler-sized cup with a lid can’t handle for chucking outside).

Like our schedules, our eyes can adjust to the dark somewhat. But I’m still hoping and praying that we don’t have to make it a permanent arrangement in this country.

Do you think loadshedding will be a thing when our children’s children are listening to that same nightjar calling, ‘Dear Lord, deliver us’ in the dark?

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Febu-Weary Heat and the March of the Ants

“It was war for a while but the farmhouse has mostly been reclaimed.”

The hard-working ant’s diligence ultimately pays off.

 

March 2, 2022

Summer has been an interesting one, but what could we have expected in our currently upside-down world. I know that Proverbs tells us to take note of the hard-working ants and be more like them in our approach to life’s pursuits. But today I was not a happy or passive observer of those little intruders. I think every ant on the farm decided that this was an excellent day to move into the farmhouse.

The lounge, the kitchen, the guest bathroom and anywhere else they could hide their eggs became overrun. It looked like the walls and floors were moving. Millions and millions of red and black ants, marching into every crevice they could access.

It’s a War: Ants vs. Human Farm Dwellers

It was war for a while but the farmhouse has mostly been reclaimed. The spiders are still very much at home, even the sneaky rain spider that has somehow found the only gap under the cupboard. One of the bigger arachnids in the passage ceiling caught a bee today; very impressive.

The swallows in the laundry are also currently raising their second batch for the season, so it will be time to say goodbye soon.

How did it get to February? Febu-weary is what the scorching heat has felt like on a few days but it won’t be long until autumn blows that away.

We are expecting a third addition to our brood. Will it be a second lockdown baby? I would never have imagined that to be a possibility if you had asked me two years ago, when things were different. It’s just as exciting now, though. Like the ants, we will soon be preparing a place for the little one and life marches on.

Febu-Weary For Sure But It’s Just a Season

There was only one word to describe those ants: relentless. Absolutely determined, they were not deterred by vacuums, brooms, or anything else; only singular focus on the purpose at hand. Perhaps, there is a valuable lesson in that after all.

May we be so determined, so enthusiastic to carry out our purpose in life. If it’s raising a family, may we remember to let our lights shine just as brightly as we show our brood how to illuminate theirs in a dark, confusing world.

 

It might also be helpful to remember the ants, no matter our pursuits or the season we find ourselves navigating.

Published here.