Update on "Powell who is not callled Powell."

Powell went to the vet today and he has a broken leg and a broken wing..poor chap/chapess.

The vet thinks that the leg will heal but the wing will depend on how bad the break is, and" Powell who is not Powell", will have the vets full assistance until a decision that is in his best long term interests can be sensibly  made. 
It has warmed Big and my hearts to hear from the vet ,Dr Laterghan, that he does not charge for wild animals [similar to the approach in the UK, although the liklihood of lions and rhinos in Newbury is fairly distant]. They were all horrified at the vets this morning to hear that kids had stoned the poor creature and his sibling
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"Powell who is not Powell", is back at the farm resting where he will stay for two weeks before he sees the vet again. Some of you will know that I am heading back to England unexpectedly , so I shall be keeping my fingers crossed for angry little owl and hope that Big can weave some of his "Bird man of Alcatraz magic".

Kisses on the lips and HUGE cuddles for Jessie Tommy and Finn....XXXXXXXXX

New Guest. NOT called “Powell”

We have a new guest at the farm house.

He arrived yesterday evening before it was dark. Moses carried him inside in a rusty old oil can, covered with a lump of scrappy board and was extremely scared when he laid the packaged guest on our lounge floor.

Moses rapidly withdrew to the safety of the braai room..looking white eyed through the windows and braced ready to run.

“What is it Moses? A snake?..” I asked feeling rather concerned.

“No Missus..No snake..” and he held his hands up to his face as if it were some far more unpleasant monster.

As Big was still playing on the play station, I took the bull by the horns and lifted the oil drum.

There cowering underneath was a stunningly beautiful baby owl.

“How beautiful is he!” I shouted and Moses had backed away to the far end of the wall, convinced he was about to be mauled.

“No Missus..He NO beautiful.” Moses shouted from the depths of the adjacent room.

WE all flew into action, Bees old wooden box was brought into the braai room from the garage [after first checking for snakes!], and while we were adding logs and making it habitable, Big gave it water from a syringe [wearing leather gloves as this owl has HUGE talons!]

The story is that the little boys on the campong knew of a pair of baby owls being watched over by their parents, they attacked the nest during the day, one baby died and the other was injured. At which point Smally [Moses son] happened along and told them that Bossy had banned anyone from killing an owl on his land and that they should get Moses. Hence the apparition of Moses quaking from head to toe with the owl filled oil drum.You may recall our "owl incident" last year when Moses had explained that an Owls is a portent of "Death" in his culture, besides which, they also eat his chicks!

Once again we are in a huge dilemma, the owlet is unable to support himself, not because he is too small [nope..he’s rather large] but his leg appears to be damaged.
We should simply put him back at the site where he and his poor sibling were attacked, but as sure as eggs is eggs, he will be killed or will not survive.

The option is to try and get him better and then return him to the wild. At the moment he stares furiously at us with his huge orange eyes, clacking his large beak and making himself unstable by flapping his wings. I have tried feeding him minced chicken but he is not interested at the moment.

Will keep you all updated... I have decided NOT to name him this time, as my hope is that we can let him go in due course....but I was tempted by “POWELL”

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6e4RPTJFevxVR7-kam0xFNmud4y_y5bjkg2eqb-uDyI?feat=directlink  Apologies my computer is playing up..but if you follow this link you should get to the picture.

Farewell to the Koegelenebergs

Our fantastic neighbours Willam, Gerda and their two sons: Johan and Ian have moved out from across the road. They left last Friday and have returned to their beloved Vredendal. about 4 hours south of us.
They have been in the Northern Cape for just over two years..arriving almost exactly the same moment as we did in September 2008. They have been wonderful neighbours and I hope will remain great friends.

We celebrated their departure on New Years eve..rather too much celebrating I think! We wish them a happy return to their home town.

 Goodness...... how I still resent this phrase that the locals love to bandy around:
                    "The Northern Cape is not for sissys"
....In answer to it.... I freely admit to being a sissy.. and Willam and Gerda are the most "un sissy" like people I have ever met. They simply had a preference for their own home and family.

There is a background story to this outburst..one that I wont write of on the blog, but I cant stand the testosterone driven competitiveness that resides here about "how hardy" one has to be to live here and what wimps, every one who moves away are.  Emperors new clothes or WHAT!

The Boys

Finn wake boarding

The boys made the most of the sun, the pool and their holiday. Little has spent the holiday practicing his driving skills, he has moved up beyond the quad, past the dune buggy and is now allowed to drive his father’s Hilux [ baky or “The Raisin”] around the farm ONLY. As there are 75 acres of rough roads and sand tracks, there is plenty of space for him to practice his reversing/ cornering / gear shift skills.

Tommy wake boarding

Interestingly it was Finn I think, that managed to get the Raisin stuck in deep sand on the farm, the boys began digging it out in searing mid day heat. Tom then spun it deeper into the dunes and all were slightly irritated when Bossy came to the rescue. He simply deflated the tyres allowing them all to make a spitting exit.

Between driving [motor bikes/quads/cars] ,wake boarding, jet ski -ing and  thrashing around in the pool, the holiday seemed to go past in a flash.

Tommy and Finn have been back in cold old England for a week and a half and Little is just preparing himself to start high school next Monday. We have mountains of new school uniform to pack, hair to be cut..doctors to visit and then a trip to Cape Town this weekend to wave a very “senior school” goodbye to Little for his first term at Bishops college. A return to being a small fish in a very big pool.

2011 brings pestilance of biblical proportions

I am deliberatly over exaduarating of course...but 2011 HAS kicked off with a bang here in the desert

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Earth quakes
We are now experiencing earth tremors daily, most are inconsequential, but on Friday we had a loud BANG! Followed by several seconds of deep rumbling..and much shuddering and shaking of the house...but NO damage.

Farm is intact!

I was moved to send an email to the “powers that be” to ask if the Augrabies earth tremors were being monitored and if so, what the scientific explanation for the recent spate of tremors was. Surprisingly I received a reply.
Yes the earth tremors are being fully monitored by the geo science department, Friday 7^th, measured 4.00 on the Richter scale [getting perilously close to the point where damage occurs [about 4.2] .

Although we are not on a fault line there is one in the Atlantic close to the West coast, about 400 kilometres from us. Augrabies suffered a similar spate of quakes in the 50`s and no undue damage was recorded. They say that there is evidence that suggests that a series of continually minor “events” [such as we are experiencing now], helps to dissipate a catastrophic event. I not sure that I am reassured by this.

Record of the seismograph picture that was taken of this mornings earthquake..IT WAS 4.2 !!!!

Indeed this morning. I woke to what felt like the biggest tremor we have had, bits were falling from the ceiling and Bongo was apparently quivering in the kitchen staring at the ceiling. Big managed to navigate his way to the bedroom with two coffees without having spilled any, and Little slept through the entire experience.
Mrs Smallie and her son ran from their house, white eyed and horrified and Mrs Smallie has told Moses she wants to move back to the family home in Pretoria!

Floods

The railway bridge across the Orange river at Kakamas

Added to this The Orange River is in severe flood again. South Africa has experienced unusually high rainfall over the past year, and all the dams are full so once again [as last year] the water management body, simply opened all the  dams way above us on the Orange river and today we reach the height of our floods. Littlke and I went and visited the bridge out of Kakamas to Upington yesterday, we sat on the railway brindge that runs paralell to the road and the water was only a matter of a few meters under our dangling feet. Normly there is a 30/40 METER drop!

Normally there is a 30/40 meter drop from the bridge to the water

Flooded vineyards

This has has a severe impact on the raisin farmers crops, which are a week off being harvested, and many farms on the huge islands in the orange river are now flooded and the crop has been destroyed. Those that chose to harvest early because of the flood reports, will have produce but it will be a very poor quality this year. So we have a reduced crop and poor quality..not so promising for 2011.

Grey Heron

Snakes
To add to this we have had our first close encounter with slitherers of the snake variety. Those of you on face book will have seen these photos before.

Spotted Bush snake

Little and I were undressing the Christmas tree, and had spent an hour removing all baubles and lights, then [as the tree is a fake on] I had started on the lower section removing the boughs from the central pole. Once these were all off, I simply had to pop the top section [which is all in one] from the pole. As I unpopped  it from the central pole , and lifted it up a snake threw itself from the upper section of tree...into the air and plummeted to the floor ,rapidly squiggling behind the sofa.
I DID SCREAM!..then shrieked to Little and the dogs to RUN...They did.
All of us stood ,panting in the heat and then Moses popped up. “Missus?” he said questioningly.
“Moses a slang in the house!!!” he looked worried and asked me how big..Of course I remember it being huge and stretched out my arms as far as they would go. His eyes were very white [Remember how he hates all squiggling, crawling, flying things.]
He asked me how thick it was, and I remembered that it really wasn’t that thick..he was visibly relieved..and went and poked around in the garage for a suitable tool. Returning with a length of thinish and very whippy plastic piping.
The two of us re entered the house and crept towards the lounge..Little and the dogs with their noses pressed against the big glass windows from outside.
Moses stood stock still..whippy pipe in hand, and so I assumed that it was up to me to turn the sofa upside down...no snake!..as I turned I noticed a tail squiggling by the opposite window. There it was a very long [about 90cm] bluish snake with black spots down its body length.
I have to say because of its colour and size I made an immediate assumption that it was a Boomslang, very shy snakes that live in tress [especially the vines at this time of year] and eat birds. They are deadly poison!
So it was with great relief that Moses gave it a serious slapping with his whippy pipe...he was so intent on murdering the creature that I had to stop him saying..”Moses its DODE” [ my Afrikaans is improving!!!
He lifted it by its tail and threw it onto a pile of sand outside, where we later inspected it. Having gone through the snake books it was is NOT a Boomslang, but a Spotted Bush snake and totally harmless.
I am increasingly surprised how many locals are as horrified by this story as I am..each one who has heard of the tale sais that they would have done exactly what we did, and everyone is surprised that it was in our Christmas tree.[ I still wince when I remember it flying out]. The consensus is that I probably brought a hibernating spotted tree snake into the house when I erected the Christmas tree..which has ..after all..been in storage in the garage for a year. But this means that the spotted tree/bush snake had spent his last Christmas with us in the house...YIKES!
So we are now waiting for  locusts, famine and war.

Sitting on the railway bridge last night just before sunset..feeling chilled!
[Today the railway bridge us under 1 meter of water]