I am a city girl – but that’s another story altogether.  If you have followed my blog, you’ll know I am here because I fell in love with a good man.

With farm life comes all sorts of adjustments.  We need to walk with torches in hand for a midnite pee, just in case we step on a snake visitor during the night.  Or we have to shake out clothes before donning them, in case some cricket, spider or grasshopper has made the garment its temporary home.  We seldom venture off our tiled porch at night, as you never know what may lay lurking in the long grass, and our carpets look like dog-paw paintings after a rainy spell.

With it also comes encounters with anything from jackal crying around the house at night, to finding injured birds or abandoned baby animals.  Not all of them make it, despite our best efforts, but we try.  I married a man who probably should have rather been a veterinary surgeon, and my respect for him swelled again two nights ago when he deftly sewed on a broken wing and administered medicine to some unfortunate bird, who alas did not make it through the night, poor thing.

We have a strong and healthy owl though, well on its way to a full recovery after breaking its wing, and rescued from little monkeys taunting it, ruling the household at the moment.  He is so “hardegat” (strong-willed), and has us in fits of laughter at times.  He loves his aunty Marietha, and only she can feed him.  If I try, he unceremoniously spits out the food and looks me up and down with disdain.

For a short while we also nursed a baby wheat squirrel that got lost from its tribe.  We absolutely adored him, and he loved having his tummy rubbed.   Unfortunately, shortly after a loving snuggle in aunty Marietha’s neck one morning, we found him dead soon after.

I’ve always wanted a farm with loads of cats, dogs, a cow, a goat etc, but did not envisage the feathered or more wild type additions.  But, as long as we are able to, we will do our best and nurse and love all of God‘s creatures to the best of our abilities.