Tag Archives: Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Are You One of the Oldest People in the Room?

“You might be the oldest person in the room if you’re the only one not dancing to the Paw Patrol’s theme song.”

PHOTO BY PIXABAY

June 18, 2024

Apparently, it’s normal to feel a little bit overwhelmed when you have three children (or any amount of children, actually).
They’re quite loud and always hungry. They’re also super emo, whether they’re two and trying to talk, six and discovering that girls and boys look different, or signature teenagers wrestling their natural hair into some crazy modern style.

When you get old, and I’m not saying that I am yet, it seems as though the only time you realise that you are potentially older than you thought is when there’s someone significantly younger around.

You Might Be the Oldest Person Here If You…

You might be the oldest person in the room if you’re the only one not dancing to the Paw Patrol’s theme song.

You might be the oldest person in the car if you’re trying to secretly have a nap and find the people talking like babies for fun quite irritating.

Can’t you just look for birds and buck and tractors and TLBs in silence for a bit? Please?

You might also be old if the thought of a run actually feels exciting. It’s like an adventure or an epic journey you can take because, well, you still can move your bones. Maybe you’ll see someone waving or find a rare bird along the route.

Even more exciting is returning home sweaty, well-exercised, and, more importantly, entirely injury-free. Yes, these legs still work, even though stretching is no longer that thing you remember three days later when you’re feeling a slight hamstring twinge.

If you’re old, stretching isn’t optional. Also, if you don’t want to get old and fat faster because an injury has broken your stride, you should probably start stretching, as well.

But what do I know? I’m not old (yet).

Grey hairs might be making an appearance now, right at the top by the roots. With a 6, 4, and almost 2-year-old that’s probably inevitable, but it feels a little early as a not-yet-40.

Maybe You’re Not That Old (Yet)

I don’t dance to cartoon theme songs much, though that ’90s techno beat still gets the foot tapping a bit, involuntarily.

Lame sprinkler moves and lang-arm sokkies were never my thing. It’s more a side-to-side foot shuffle with elbows bent and swaying. Cool, I know.

Getting old has its moments, but this privilege denied to many is straight-up God-given. I’m grateful.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Seven Birds a Week Challenge 2024 – Still Twitching

“Seeing a fantastic golden-breasted bunting two weeks in a row on our farm would normally have been amazing, but I can only log it once!”

Little Oribi bird watcher.

June 13, 2024

For about 20 weeks, I’ve been all self-important because my kind brother-in-law invited me into a very exclusive birding challenge. Me?

A committed non-twitcher who doesn’t really have time to devote to such whimsies right now? I said yes without hesitation because, well, I’m a bit competitive.

Enter the Birding Competition

It’s a WhatsApp group. It started with about 29 people from vastly different backgrounds – another mom, PhD students who live in the Kruger, a certain famous ex-weatherman, someone in Holland, stats enthusiasts, and so on.

All of us started together on January 1, united in one goal – find seven new birds every week that you haven’t seen yet this year. That’s one new bird every day. You can’t list the bird a second time in the year. Also, you have to have actually seen the bird in the week that you submit it.

For example, if you happen to see nine cool birds this week, you can only submit seven of them. To use the other two, you’d have to see them again the following week.

Easy, right?

Doesn’t Oribi Gorge have 250+ bird species listed? That’s at least three-quarters of the year I can stay in this challenge.

Wrong.

Stay Alive By Birding, Birding, Birding

The limit of being able to list only seven birds in a week and having no carry-overs makes this a lot harder to do.

Also, January is in South African summer, when there’s an abundance of birds on hand daily. By April or so, those birds have often migrated over to another country.

The group had submitted manually and tried to police themselves with not repeating birds. The integrity has been impressive.

My bird-loving brother-in-law has also committed time to do this admin every week, so he’s keeping things going in spreadsheets and automated bird lists.

Someone also added a stats site so that we can see cool figures, like the number of unique species logged by the group (750+ already).

I like birds. I like stats. I like travellers. I like competing. It’s fun.

But my time is almost up with not being able to travel out to birding sites. I’m too busy at home. Seeing a fantastic golden-breasted bunting two weeks in a row on our farm would normally have been amazing, but I can only log it once!

How long will I last in the 7 Birds a Week group? Stay tuned.

Still, what a way to spend these last five months. I’ve intentionally looked out of my busy life and noticed what’s out there under my nose – daily. It’s rather beautiful.

Published here.

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: Yellowed Collars, Old Photos and Time Passing

“Ordering school photos might not be a thing in a few more years. I think I’ll miss it.”

PHOTO BY PIXABAY

May 16, 2024

How do you get sun-cream stains out of white school shirt collars? Tell me you’re a mother without telling me you’re one.

Apparently, a combo of baking soda, vinegar and fairy dust works. Other suggestions that have come up on searches included toothpaste, lemon juice, sunshine and a paste of Vanish. The collars are still yellow.

Maybe it’s the hard water on the farm here. Maybe it’s my woefully lacking knowledge of the types of material and what each needs to stay sparkling white.

Don’t bleach it, say the eco-conscious and the health nuts. (Also, this fades out the school badge!)

So, on photo day, it’s the least yellow collar that went on, alongside a hope and a prayer that Photoshop includes whitening collars in annual photo shoots. Say cheese, but don’t spill any of the yellow onto the collar, please.

These school photos really are something. It’s one day a year, but from my own school career, it was often the only photo.

I came from the era before digital photos. That time when mommies who could attend sports or other events had to bring a tripod or a steady hand and an extra spool to capture one or two good images of us precious darlings. Sports photos? Hopeless.

I have vivid memories of walking into Clicks to collect that little packet of developed photos. It smelled funny. Mom would flip through the photos and laugh or snort at the blurs, missed shots, and fingers in front of the lens. She’d take the good ones and put them into real-life albums with sticky plastic things you lift up.

When they get old, the photos don’t stay behind them anymore and get all mixed up when you take the photo album off the dusty bookshelf. But the images are still there. Immortal, for a while. That eighties hair on my friends’ moms was something else, I tell you. Perms, beehives, and bright colours stand out, even in faraway group photos.

It jogs the memory, even if you have to flip back a few pages to slip the lost photo into its correct place. In the history of things, photos feel like treasure to me. A silent glimpse into what’s come and gone that speaks far louder than many of the stories people tell.

Ordering school photos might not be a thing in a few more years. I think I’ll miss it.

Oh, and the answer is that green sunlight soap bar, of course. That’s the cure for yellow stains and everything else you want to sparkle.

Publish here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Egg Not on My Face

“As I walked back in from the laundry, my eye caught something unusual on the floor next to the fridge.”

The ‘joys’ of a cracked egg in a home with three small boys. PIXABAY

May 8, 2024

It was a bit of a manic morning at the farm. Three snotty, rowdy boys and a droning weed eater meant slight sensory overstimulation.

The baby spent the morning clinging to my leg because… loud!

The others were playing ‘cheetahs’ and putting on their cheetah power suits with reeds for tails and dry wors for meat.

Finally, after a stinky nappy change, the baby wanted to doo-doo and took me by the hand to the room. He fell asleep quite quickly, and I went back to the lounge. The brothers were watching some Australian cartoon dog family.

Time for some tea.

Surprise! Mom

While I was up and my leg didn’t have a baby clinging to it, I went to check the washing. We’d run out of water. A quick pump from the borehole sorted things out.

The kettle boiled a while ago, but as I walked back in from the laundry, my eye caught something unusual on the floor next to the fridge.

Those cheetahs probably spilled something in their hunt for dry wors. Unfortunately, a closer look tweaked the nose. It was egg. One of my last two in the house for the weekend.

I called the cheetahs for an explanation. The sheepish smaller one said yes, sorry, he’d cracked an egg by mistake. But don’t worry Mama, as ‘he’d put it back in the fridge on top of all the apples’. Great, thanks very much.

Tea would have to wait for the shelves, apples, floor, and containers to be washed and dried and checked and put away again, egg-free. The smell isn’t as easy to get rid of.

On top of this, there was a pear with one bite out of it that was going rotten. Classic Oribi baby (or any baby really). I guess the fridge needed a wipe-down anyway.

Small Wins and Big Wins

I decided to boil the kettle just one more time. The baby was still peacefully asleep, thankfully.

Just yesterday, our entire community here was celebrating the amazing news that the big-city prospectors had decided to withdraw their prospecting rights application to mine minerals on our farms in Oribi Gorge.

Apparently, the operation would be environmentally unfeasible. What a surprise, right? The oribi, ground hornbills, and Cape vulture colonies are safe for now.

A little bit of egg cleanup seems like a very small price to pay for a farm that’s still ours and still so beautiful.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Live Each Day To Its Fullest

SCH Local News | “You have the right to stay in bed even if you don’t exercise it.”

Another bright and beautiful morning in Oribi Gorge. PHOTO BY HEATHER LIND

April 14, 2024 

‘Storms to persist’ the headlines said for Human Rights Day 2024. I looked outside and confirmed that the weatherman was indeed correct about the bleak outlook for today.

The first day of the school holidays was just a normal workday for me as a freelancer. There had been a lot of questions about my rights floating around my brain that week.

The Right To Just Be Left Alone?

A potential prospector has been scuttling around our beloved part of Oribi Gorge. The notice cited lithium, and a few other things, that a big yellow demarcated area on the map is assuming might be under the ground. As if we needed yet another hard thing in our lives after losing a beloved brother recently. Grief must wait apparently for community objections to said prospectors and lots of research about the area that we don’t have time to fit into already full schedules.

Three noisy boys running around and asking for food isn’t a great environment to be reading complicated 158-page documents about mining and laws and stuff is it?

“Pay attention to the details, brain.”

If I missed something about a loophole or water use license, would we lose our home in a few years’ time? What about the animals and birds and plants? What about the endangered oribi I admired in our little field of baby macadamia trees last month? Will those trees bear fruit in five years as they should, or will the dust from an open-cast lithium mine have ended their prospects?

It’s dramatic, I know. But that’s how it feels. Storms persist. They leave for a while, but there’s always another one. That’s life.

The Right To Continue to Live Freely? Maybe

What a privilege seven years in Oribi Gorge has been. I pray there will be 70 more, with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren too.

We are born and we die, but in between is so much life to live and so much wonder to experience. Right then, on the rainy day during which our country was celebrating human rights, it felt hard to get on board with hope and freedom. Still, the Samangos were calling in the forest just 50 metres away to remind me that I didn’t get to feel sorry for myself in bed that day or any other day that would come after it.

Miners may come. Precious species may go extinct. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. But today is the day to get up and be human about it and to hope.

It’s our right and our joy to live each day to its fullest.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Smartphone Is Now Properly Dead

“It won’t switch on at all. It looks like a dog’s breakfast.”

PHOTO BY PIXABAY

March 15, 2024

Look, it held on for a good two years of bumps, bangs, falls into tiles, grubby little people‘s fingers, spilled tea, and even a bit of Bovril that someone had so kindly spilled and camouflaged on the granite countertop. It even hung on as the glass protector cracked, and chipped away and then the screen started to chip away, too. It’s a good thing not many people phone thanks to the invention of instant messaging because if they did, there was always a chance of getting glass pieces in my ear. Yes, it was that bad.

I’ve had a few phones I had to leave in rice overnight for leaked water bottles or similar things. I even had a joke about who fixed the phone while it lay in the rice all that time, but I was reprimanded about it not being PC and I won’t repeat it.

When I worked in South Korea, I ate rice every day at school. Kimchi, too, of which there are thousands of varieties. In my second year in the land of Samsung, I decided to get with the programme. Everyone has a smartphone! So, in 2013 I got one, too. A Galaxy S2 with a dark purple cover.

It was a whole new world, especially discovering the phenomenal camera (it was cutting edge at the time). We could travel just with a smartphone and still get amazing pictures of everything along the way! Who knew? So convenient. It seems so archaic a decade later. Now, you can probably just blink and your TokTik robot will automatically bedazzle it, turn it into a video, and post it for three million perfect strangers to put thumbs on.

My dying phone could do everything I needed it to, especially capture my babies’ funny faces, milestones, and everything else. Since my camera still worked and I didn’t have much free time on my hands, I held on. I also don’t like to waste good money on expensive things when it’s my fault they need replacing. It’s not even close to my birthday. So, I eked out every bit of battery life until the end and kept taking those pictures and videos of my sweet boys.

Now, though, it is dead. Properly dead. It won’t switch on at all. It looks like a dog’s breakfast. How lucky that Mom and Dad have a spare one I could use until I get my act together. I can keep taking pictures. I can keep writing silly stories with just my thumb.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Rose Bush Is Free of Triumphant Vine

“The vine branches are the same colour and thickness as the rose branches, minus the spiny thorns that go right into tender fingers or arms.”

PHOTO BY PIXABAY

March 2, 2024 

That vine has come up again. The one with big leaves that grow right over my rambling rose. It twists and clings, dropping new roots as it goes. If I leave it any longer, it’s going to get those seed pods again, which is the reason it came up again this year, I’m sure.

Today, when I looked out of the kitchen window for the umpteenth time to admire my little pink roses, I couldn’t even see the bush! The vine looked triumphant. So, I left the housework, the children, the paid work, and the tea and marched outside to collect my boots, slasher and gloves. I’d had enough of that old vine.

Don the Gloves and Go For It

The gloves are an essential feature for me in this thorny, hand-slicing garden of mine. There are all sorts of stinging things, too. One day I felt something tickle my leg and swiped a bit. As I looked down there was just blood. I thought I’d squashed the fly, but it was my own blood that the nasty fly was apparently having for lunch [insert horrified emoji here]. The scar stuck around for two weeks.

The boots look ridiculous, but they’re for the night adders. Rather, I like to think of them for the night adders and not think about all the other, much worse, slithery things my feet might step on while I’m knee-deep in grass or blackjacks.

Watch Out For the Spikes and Fangs

Careful of what you grab onto. Vine snakes look like branches, and so do female boomslangs. Actually, a lot of snakes look just like branches, or leaves, or the pesky weeds that grow long tendrils over everything and push my poor plants flat down on the ground. I’m constantly pulling those out. They get little white flowers with a purple centre that are actually quite pretty, but don’t let them fool you; they take over in a matter of weeks.

With my trusty boots and gloves on, I dealt with the vine. My rose is free, though it didn’t thank me. The vine branches are the same colour and thickness as the rose branches, minus the spiny thorns that go right into tender fingers or arms. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. At least I can see the pink blooms again.

Summer is almost over already, and the green beauty will soon disappear for a few months. Next season, hopefully, I’ll be a little more proactive about that vine earlier in the season so that I don’t have to spend an hour in the rain getting eaten by horseflies. Or maybe I’ll just have tea on the porch instead.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Number Three 18 Months and The Next Phase

“I wonder if the next phase is going to be just as eventful?”

Heather Lind.

February 16, 2024

It seems impossible, but here we are. The youngest of the three Oribi farm boys in our house is already eighteen months old. He is running around, navigating steps, imitating the Samango calls and climbing antics, and eating mince by himself. Well, that last one is a ‘sort of’ by himself, because a lot of it still lands up on the floor for the two dogs or the two million ants that apparently live under our home.

Eighteen months ago, we were in NICU and unsure whether we would be going home with or without him. I don’t wish that on any mother or father. Now, here we are, a world away, and trying to keep up with the shoe sizes changing every few weeks. We’ve exchanged time standing still for weeks that fly by and make you wonder how on earth the pantry can be empty again. Didn’t we just go shopping? Weren’t there two full boxes of grapes in the fridge yesterday? Farm boys are hungry boys.

One at primary school, one at playschool, and one in nappies. Three that love tractors, trucks, TLBs, jigaduzas, and crop-spraying helicopters. One that’s allergic to penicillin. Another that’s allergic to being told ‘no’.

Time Waits For Nobody, So Enjoy It

We’re two-and-a-half years down the line from the rioting that had night watch duty, and four years on from the start of the global pandemic. Did we really wear masks and avoid malls and deplete the toilet paper stocks of every shop everywhere? What a crazy few years it’s been for these particular parents of very small children. It seems like the world has not only turned on its axis but also flipped upside down a few times. I suspect that many of you can relate, even if stinky nappies haven’t been part of your recent experience.

And life goes on. It is going on.
It feels a little overwhelming to speculate what a few more years could bring when the last seven for our family have been, well, let’s call it surprising. God isn’t surprised, no doubt. For the rest of us, it’s all a bit of a rollercoaster.

I wonder if the next phase is going to be just as eventful here in Oribi Gorge. Adventure awaits, I’m sure.

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Slow Jogs By the Mzimkulu

“They say these birds sit in one spot for hours or even days to hunt before moving on to another prime location.”

 PHOTO BY PIXABAY

January 15, 2024

Have there been two, or maybe four, sunny days up in Oribi Gorge and Paddock since October? I’m not sure. I’ve done quite a number of runs in the rain now, which is often a squelchy, slippery experience to start the day. The distinct advantage of getting outside in this type of weather is the creatures and birds you see up close, of course.

Yesterday, I ran against a side wind with a cap to keep the drizzle out of my eyes. The mighty Mzimkulu was still all wrapped up in its fluffy cloud duvet.

First, I chased some hadedas out of the wet grass. I definitely think I got more of a fright at the four of them suddenly bursting out of the wet grass and shouting at me while they flapped furiously. When it’s rainy like this, the jog also involves continuously jumping over slugs on the road. There was even a black, tarry ‘present’ to jump over that looked like a baboon had dumped it there.

Jogging Up Close to Nature Just Sitting in the Rain

As I came up to the one section, I spotted a small silver bird on the wire. It was bigger than a dove but not nearly as big as the pair of buzzards that sit there every day. I got closer, expecting it to fly away. It didn’t. It seemed to be stretching after waking up from a nap. Maybe it wasn’t an early bird like me.

I got right under it, and saw it was a beautiful black-shouldered kite. We get them here, but not as much as I used to see when we travelled to Harrismith or Underberg. It looked so clean and fresh, probably thanks to all this rain. I considered trying to snap a photo with my very inadequate cellphone, but that would’ve scared it away I think. So, I just kept moving. It didn’t budge.

Birds and Animals Are Normal To See in Oribi Gorge If You Know Where To Look

On the way back, it was still in its spot, looking out over the field in search of breakfast. It looked more awake but didn’t fly away. They say these birds sit in one spot for hours or even days to hunt before moving on to another prime location.

I wonder what the resident jackal buzzard thinks of this feisty little competitor for dormouse, cane rat, and four-striped fieldmouse? It’s only here for some of the year, so maybe they don’t mind. I would ask the hadedas, guineafowls, and Natal spurfowls if they weren’t so loudly protesting my presence.

Published here.

Oribi Mom, Travelinds

Oribi Mom: Escape the World – Read!

“Read wherever you can, even if it’s pouring with rain.”

The privilege of reading in a campsite next to Lake Navaisha, Kenya. Photo By: Heather Lind

 

November 2, 2023

There’s not much time to read these days. It used to be easy, grabbing a book in the evenings after a day of teaching or reading a quick few pages on the subway as we travelled up to Seoul or Pyeongtaek for various reasons. The ultimate relaxation was lying on a rickety lounger or a colourful towel with salt spray in my face. I’d fliick though an old, yellowed novel that I’d found on a resort’s shelf nearby or swapped with another traveller.

A Winter Escape With Piles of Books

There was one winter holiday where we had a few days off and couldn’t stand to be in -10 degrees for another second more than necessary. So, we hopped onto the cheapest flight we could find and headed south to The Philippines. In that case, it was to an island called Virac. The flights were cheap because it was the rainy season in that area, but who cares.

We took rain jackets, quick-drying shorts, and waterproof hand luggage. It absolutely poured when we arrived, and continued to do so for the whole week we were there. Since we needed rest more than adventure for those few days, we made full use of the hut on stilts we slept in with bamboo floors and a big mozzie net. And then we found the books.

Without much Wi-Fi around, even Oribi Dad got stuck into the whodunnits, corporate thrillers, and spies on offer. Days and days and days of reading, interspersed by meals of freshly caught crayfish… I mean who can really complain about a little bit of torrential rain?

Travelling To Tropical Islands Just To Read Books? Why Not

That happened to be a world-famous surfing beach with a festival of hundreds of people in July. But in January, we saw one other family arrive the entire time we were there.

The family who owned the five huts at our ‘resort’ seemed confused about why we were there. They kept apologising for the big box of books that were still wet from flooding before we arrived. We were glad that we could contribute to their income while getting a holiday out of it ourselves. And they made the most delicious crayfish and fresh fish meals for us every day.

When I pick up a book back at home, that’s the memory it triggers. Well, that, and the many other places I’ve been privileged enough to read books in. May there be many more in this lifetime!

Published here.