still wild...

 Mozambican Spitting Cobra

Moses the Monkey

Don't worry things are still a bit all on the wild side here. the above two photo's taken in the last week alone. The snake is a Mozambican spitting cobra, that fortunately didn't spit on me. The monkey is "Moses" so called because he was found abandoned in the rice paddies, and adopted and raised here on the farm. No relation to Mango though, who I hear is still doing well :)

new arrival

Our new puppy - ShenDane

Unfortunately my favourite dog Levi passed away from what might have been a snake bite a few days ago. Shendane (he's a great dane from the Shengaan tribe) has been here for a month or so now, hence deserves to get his photo online!

 

Snouted Cobra - can you see him on the end of the stick?

Caught this little guy this morning on the path outside my house.

random snaps

big lawn mower!

snake eyes!

Apologies to all faithful readers, haven't had much time to write any posts of late so have had to settle with a few pictures illustrating the activities of the past few days!

killer kitchen

Today seems to have been full of various wild and not so wild-life.

Why am I writing about these things? because the bakers are yet to appear for work! oh well looks like they will be having a late night tonight!

This morning was spent mostly in the pantry of our kitchen stalking a snake (a boomslang or tree snake) that was hissing at everyone any time they tried to get out some plates or pots and pans. After about 2 hours a plan was made and my boss built a small catapult/slingshot - I thought it'd never work - which he proceeded to use to fire a pellet at the snakes head, stunning it so we could catch and remove it. Must be some kind of boy scout trick... but hats off to him he got it right eventually.

I know not all my readers like the snake info so I've shrunk the pictures nice and small....look away now!

Managed to at least get some better pics this time as I was holding the camera!

Mango the monkey is still doing ok, I just gave him a bath and a bottle of milk so he's happily fast asleep. I'll check if he's feeling more photogenic later and try and get some more pictures of him.

wet and wild...

Last night saw us getting 40mm of rain during the night, the most we've had so far this summer. I can now say summer as it is bloody hot! You know its hot when you wake up perspiring. One of course wouldn't be perspiring if the fan stayed on all night but the thunder storm caused our electrical transformer to malfunction and cut the power. No power also equals no water as the pump cannot pump from the borehole. So my day started hot, sweaty, no power and no water.

During the rains one of my female (why is it always the girls?) colleagues encountered a baby puff adder (poisonous snake) blocking the path to her house. Fortunately I didn't have to catch it but I did come along with the camera."This is something for the blog!" I called as I raced to the scene behind the tails of our resident snake expert. It was indeed only a baby but apparently they are more deadly as have yet to learn how to properly control the release of their venom when they bite something/someone... not sure if that's just an old wives tale though... Still its a beautiful creature.

Brown House

As promised yesterday here's a quick snap of the brown house snake they caught outside the office.

We baked 135 breads last night, of which I've sold 127 so far this morning, covering the costs at least. More flour is on the way from Maputo tonight and for once we have enough stock on hand. the only thing I'm still suffering from a bit is a lack of good firewood. I bought a nice sized bundle the other day for 40 Mets. (12 Rand/ USD 1.40 / GBP 1.00) but that only lasted a night. My duties elsewhere on the farm are keeping me too busy to cut wood myself for now so I'm sure I will have to buy-in wood again for tonight. I don't really be-grudge it so much though, as it is supporting the local 'economy' and giving someone a little extra income.

Labour Woes

Another day, another labour related problem it seems. I'm not talking at national level here, I only have one employee, but Alfonso was sick yesterday and didn't come into work. Unfortunately the cynic in me knows that today is a public holiday and hence yesterday off, 'sick', along with his usual saturday off would give him a nice long weekend... hmm am I being too cynical? I'll have a word with Alfonso and lay down the rules. Namely - if you're sick you need a slip from the local clinic to bring in the next day. With the huge problem of HIV/AIDS in this area lots of our (the farm) employees need to go for bi-weekly checkups, white blood cell counts etc. This is of course provided for, the state here gives them a special medical book and they just show us it has been stamped to be renumerated for that day. All sounds very systematic I know but you must have these systems in place or people will take chances, as employees everywhere do, I know I used to ;)

Summer has most definitely started here, today it is currently 32 degrees Celcius, pretty warm! Fortunately there is a slight breeze but it's not much comfort. Spring/Summer's onset means snake season is coming, I've already seen a few out in the last few weeks but they should become more common as they come out of hibernation and go hunting for food. This morning there was a commotion as a 'big' snake was spotted in the gardens in front of the office. The 'big' snake turned out to be a harmless brown house, which was safely caught and released into the food store of all places, needless to say this wasn't to everyone's liking and one of my colleagues who is cooking lunch now refuses to enter the store. Not very helpful. I haven't downloaded the pics of this morning's snake yet so i have posted a picture of a juvenile boomslang in the roof of the gazebo, he's very shy and lives between the reeds, only showing his head occasionally then retreating once he's spotted movement.