Ulovane

Today my mom, Kyle, and I, along with a few other people, got to be guinea pigs for a student field guide at Ulovane (pronounced Oo-lo-vah-nee) Training Center. For her exam she had to take a bunch of people on a game drive. We totally don't mind being guinea pigs, especially when it's all free! So here are some Africany photos from today.

A few giraffe were feeding in the bush, but this guy kindly posed in the road. Interesting fact: when giraffes walk, they move both legs on one side at the same time (so they'll put back and front right leg forward, and then back and front left, unlike most animals which would put back left and front right forward, and vice versa).

The guinea pigs, and the student at the wheel. Oh, and the guy in the left corner is the "examiner."

Playing with my pano settings during their "coffee break."

An elly sighting! I love the flowers.

I actually took this photo when Ashlie and I went for a walk this afternoon here on the farm. These flowers are everywhere! It looks like a purple carpet in some places.

It's days like this where I'm amazed at God's mind. From the lumbering elephant all the way down to the teeny flower, He thought them all up. Somehow spending time in nature makes me realize even more that the God who fashioned everything down to the minutest details is Someone I can trust implicitly.



The End

Whew, it didn't occur to me that posting something every day would be such a difficult goal to achieve. Remind me to avoid setting blogging time constraints for myself in future.

Here's a lightning look at the rest of this week: Rolling over the grid after a long day in PE. This view evokes happy sighs every time anyone on the farm returns home from town. Talk about being blessed!

Traditional Sabbath morning breakfast. It would be a strange Sabbath on the farm that didn't include waffles.

Not the greatest picture, but it gives you somewhat of an idea of what our 7 km drive to the highway this morning was like. Think rain, mud, skidding, and sliding. Thanks to some nifty driving on Grampa's part, the tractor was not disturbed from its repose in the shed.

Children's story time at church. That little monkey kneeling right in front of me was quite the quizzy one!

Well, that's it! A week on the farm. I hope you appreciate all the effort and internet expended in posting all these pictures. Okay, I'm kidding. It's been fun!



Of Walks and Hand Washing

Since Tuesday decided I didn't have time for blogging, I'm going to have to tack it onto Wednesday. And just for fun, I'll give you Wednesday first.

The whole world seemed to glow today! The wind took a vacation, the sun beamed extra-generously, and temperatures soared to t-shirt wearing levels. Predictions of ominous weather have been rumbling from the weather forecast, so I snatched this opportunity to get some hand washing done.

Most of our water comes from a borehole, and it's very brackish. White or delicate clothes go brown and yucky if you wash them in the machine. So we have to hand wash a lot of things in rain water (which collects in the big green tank you can sort of see out the window). Once filtered, that's also our drinking water.

And this is the view I look out on while I'm standing there scrubbing. See the little white island way out there in the ocean? That's what gave this farm its name--Island View!

And now for yesterday. Ashlie, Kyle, and I went for a walk, taking pictures along the way for a project Ashlie's doing. She kindly let me have some of them. My almost-daily afternoon walk with Ash has got to be one of my favorite parts of each day. We tramp down the "Forest Road" (so named because of the thick bush), up the hill next to the game fence, and then sit talking for a while by the grid at the top. Sometimes we even watch the sunset from up there. The view is just awesome!

Anyway, here's a few pictures. See the tall fence on the left? That's the border between Island View and the game farm next door. We often see zebra, wildebeest, and all sorts of other neat animals on our walks.

So we got a little side-tracked. The doggie's name is Toffe. And just so you know, he's the sweetest, cutest little dog that ever wagged a tail!

And here's our spot at the top of the hill. It's probably my favorite spot on the whole farm!

Sorry we didn't think to take a picture of the view. You feel like you can see forever from up there!

Phew, well there it is, two days in one. And I'm off to enjoy another dark, siren-less, traffic noise-less night. Ahh, you just can't beat life in the country.

Of Muck And Reservoirs

So I thought I'd deviate from profound musings for a bit and give you a peek into a week (no rhyme intended!) of life - on a farm - in Africa. Today's adventure: cleaning a reservoir! We had some friends visiting, and of course we couldn't just leave them out, so two of them got down in the muck with the boys. Since I appointed myself photographer, I couldn't exactly get mucky myself. Above you can see our luxurious mode of transportation.



This was before it got really icky. Scooping out the last bit of water with buckets.


 

Who needs TV when you've got mucky reservoirs being cleaned?




Down to the yucky stuff.




The "gunk" that used to live at the bottom of the reservoir. Now our showers won't be green anymore!  

So yeah. That was Sunday. If I can find enough interesting photographic opportunities, I'll show you Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. And so on. As for now, my eyelids are fighting gravity.