My Off Season

Meet Jabulani. Our “little” orphan Bonsmara bull calf. My dad raised him by hand on powdered milk. With him is Bakkies, our Boerboel/Staffie puppy. The dog and the bull is the same age, and they are big mates. Jabu thinks he is a dog, he comes when you call him, and he occasionally sneaks into the sitting room. Where he has been known to leave a “gift” on occasion. Bakkies likes playing with Jabu’s ears or tail.(Read: Jumping up and biting his ears or tail and then hanging on till a kick in the ribs encourages him to let go) Typical orphan calf, he misses his mom, and fuelled by instinct, he sucks on your fingers

-I built a swimming pool. 25m long, one lane wide. Since we don’t have electricity on the farm, the irrigation furrow will run through the pool, keeping the water clean. The bottom will be black to absorb heat, with a white line on the bottom. However, I ran into some technical difficulties somewhere between pouring the foundation and pouring the walls with shuttering. Our road is too small and rough for a Ready Mix truck to just come in and pour concrete. So the pool is a work in progress. If anyone out there has any bright ideas (other than making it a cattle dip, or a long trampoline) Lets have it. Also, monetary contributions welcome. Never thought it would take over 180 bags of cement to build a narrow, shallow , “short course” pool! Hopefully, in the not so distant future, I’d be able to step off my stoep, into the office.

Notice the thunderstorm brewing in the distance. We had 25mm (1inch) of rain in 15 minutes, (and then some more) Almost called The Guinness Record Book for the shortest time a pool has ever been built.