Something Fishy

March 18, 2015 / El Rolyat / 1 Comment

My interest in aquaria was rekindled a couple of years ago when First Born and his delightful English Lass built me a 720 litre fish tank for Christmas.

Building the stand

We collected sand from a beautiful beach on a near-by island on the river. The sand is bleached white and squeaks when you walk on it.

Collecting sand

Catching stock

We don’t own a TV – only because we don’t want to, not because there is no service – and it was a novelty to have something to watch in the evenings.

The filters had not yet cleared the water but that didn’t spoil the viewing

Tigerfish (Hydrocynus vittatus) – striped water dog

“Pink Happy”

A couple of Squeakers

A trio of Banded Jewelfish

A series of unfortunate events resulted in this tank breaking. We managed to salvage some of the glass and used that to build a smaller tank but we had to release many of the fish back into the Zambezi.

Knowing my passion for fish keeping, this last Christmas Piet had another tank built for me while I was away in the UK visiting family and I returned to the most wonderful surprise.

My next project will be to create a ‘planted tank’, using vegetation that grows here in the Upper Zambezi River. In the mean time Piet and I love to sit of an evening, sipping on a Mozi Lager and watching our fish live out their lives in our living room.

African Pike

A Muddy Road

February 27, 2015 / El Rolyat / 12 Comments

It’s been almost unbearably hot this last week. I think the rains have gone, so there’s no promise of relief until winter comes. Even that doesn’t mean much around here – winter is pretty hot too.

It’s been a relatively dry season this year but we’ve had a few spectacular storms which wreaked havoc on the farm roads, making access somewhat tricky at times.

I took this picture last winter, the quagmire caused by runoff water from the centre pivot. Imagine what a 60mm thunderstorm can do to this road!

2015 #8

One Word Photo Challenge: Bittersweet

February 25, 2015 / El Rolyat / 12 Comments

Thanks to Jennifer Nichole Wells’ One Word Photo Challenge (and Google) I now know that the beautiful pinkish-orange colour you sometimes see at sunset has its own name – bittersweet.

Bittersweet

Here is my contribution for the challenge.

Pictures 006

Pictures 014

Pictures 087

Parcels With a Difference

February 9, 2015 / El Rolyat / 4 Comments

Around here it is the norm for most stores to have a parcel counter outside the shop where you drop off any parcels or shopping bags you may be carrying before you enter to do your shopping. You are given a ticket for your goods and when you have finished your business inside you produce your ticket and get your bags back.

I wasn’t sure if this shopper was dropping off or collecting her chicken.

2015 #5

Photo a Week Challenge: Flare!

February 2, 2015February 2, 2015 / El Rolyat / 13 Comments

I love taking pictures of sunsets. Every evening here is breathtaking and I have hundreds (possibly thousands?) of sunset pictures filed away in my not-so-organised filing system. So when I saw this week’s A Photo a Week Challenge: Flare I knew I would be able find something suitable. The problem was choosing just one photo!

I took this photo of a flock of African Open-billed Storks (Anastomus lamelligerous) a few years ago, while bobbing about in a boat on the Zambezi River – just above the Victoria Falls.

African Open-billed Storks

An Uninvited Guest

January 21, 2015January 21, 2015 / El Rolyat / 27 Comments

Warning ophidiophobes: Snake pictures

The other evening I was cooling down under the shower, unwinding after a particularly stressful and draining day when my peaceful reverie was shattered by a piercing yell.

“COME QUICK! WHERE’S TIKKIE? WHERE’S THE CAT? AAAAAAAGH!!!”

Panicked, I threw on some clothes and rushed out of the room into the lounge, my hair still wet and full of shampoo. As I’ve mentioned before, Piet is normally a calm and placid person and to hear him in this state was quite alarming.

He was standing on the far side of the room, wordlessly gesticulating towards the kitchen counter which was piled high with foodstuff rescued from the rats in the storage cupboard (this year has been a bumper season for rats – our storage cupboard had been turned into a Rat Hotel and we were beginning to feel like nothing belonged to us any more).

As I moved towards the kitchen he frantically motioned for me to not get too close, so I skirted the stove – which forms a sort of divider line between the kitchen and lounge – and joined him on the other side of the room, peering towards the counter trying to see what he was looking at.

It took a while for me to register what I saw and then I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating; it seems not everyone was annoyed at the rat population explosion and someone had come in from the dark to have his dinner.

I don’t think he was after the dog biscuits

Now where’s that rat?

Not something I see every night in my kitchen. Thank goodness

According to the experts this is a male – you can apparently tell by the length of the tail

Once I had regained my breath I snatched up Tikkie and The Cat who had both come over to see what the commotion was about, ran back to the bedroom and shut them up in the cupboard; that python was big enough to have me for a meal, those two would be pre-dinner snacks. Amazingly none of the other dogs took any notice – there was no barking, no warning growl – they all carried on sleeping as if nothing unusual was happening while Piet and I tiptoed around wondering what we should do next.

Although pythons are not venomous, one this size – we estimated, as best we could without getting too close, a length of about 4m and weight of 60Kg – can be very dangerous and would have either of us wrapped up in his coils in no time, and he would certainly inflict a nasty bite. We tried calling the local snake park, but being so late at night the owner was unable to round up enough men to help him with the capture (it would have needed at least 6 grown, strong men to restrain this giant). We tried shouting but that had no effect (snakes have no ears). We tried stomping our feet – snakes ‘hear’ through vibrations on the ground – but he ignored us. And of course there was no question of killing such a beautiful, magnificent animal, even though he was trespassing in our home. So we had no option but to sit it out and hope he left in time for us to get some sleep.

Our guest seemed to be in no hurry. He sniffed around, climbed onto the counter and curled himself up to wait for dinner and at no time appeared perturbed by our presence – I would even say he was arrogant in his disinterest of us.

Let me just lie here for a few hours and wait – I have all night

It was almost midnight (some four hours later) before this python realised there was nothing to be eaten here – the rats were strangely quiet, wisely cancelling their nightly football games in the cupboard for one evening – and he slowly started slithering onto the top of the storage cupboard, where he waited perhaps another hour before finally leaving the building.

Imagine coming face-to-face with this fellow on a dark night

Nothing to see here

Christmas in July

October 7, 2014 / El Rolyat / 11 Comments

Local villagers thought Father Christmas had visited one Sunday evening in July when a thirty tonne rig carrying beer overturned on the Kazungula-Livingstone road.

The accident happened at around 10.00pm and within minutes the wreck was surrounded by ‘salvage experts’, all intent on making the most of this unexpected windfall. A handful of policemen arrived from town to guard the load but by midnight they were overwhelmed and a party was in full swing. So riot police were dispatched, tear gas was thrown and the revellers reluctantly weaved their way home.

In the mean time a wreck recovery company worked through the night, moving hundreds of crates of beer to the relative safety of their yard. This had to be done in stages and returning to the warehouse with the second load the driver was surprised to hear loud, joyful singing coming from inside the building. The security guard, whose job it had been to keep an eye on the beers, had taken it upon himself to do some quality control and he seemed oblivious when being reprimanded and relieved of his duties; he simply continued his song as he danced his way out of the yard, still clutching a half-finished sample.

By the next morning all that remained of the cargo was broken bottles strewn across the road, on the verge and in the bush. And a handful of stalwart party-goers who had somehow avoided the tear gas and the police.

This young girl somehow managed to avoid all the broken glass with those bare feet!

This guy had obviously been there all night. We saw him offering advice to the crane operator and when that was ignored he lurched onto the road, stopped a passing taxi and handed some bottles to the driver in exchange for cash.

Looks good enough to drink

Early Morning Elephants

October 3, 2014October 2, 2014 / El Rolyat / 4 Comments

Early this morning we had to drive into town to buy fuel for the wheat harvester. At eight o’clock it was already very hot (but not as hot as mid-day yesterday when we measured 48 degrees celsius in the vehicle!) and the heat haze shimmering on the tar looked like puddles of water. We are not expecting rain for at least another two months and it is going to get hotter and hotter every day until that rain arrives.

Smoke from bush fires hung thick in the air, reducing visibility to a few feet. Then we rounded a corner and became stuck in an unusual traffic jam.

Don’t even think of coming any closer!

Monday Afternoon Elephants

October 2, 2014 / El Rolyat / 8 Comments

The late start of the bush fires this year has meant that food for the elephants and other wildlife in the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park has lasted longer than normal. The fires started in earnest about two weeks ago, and because it is now so dry most of the grass and many trees have burnt. The sky is constantly hazy, the smoke burns your eyes and throat and everywhere you look you can see plumes of smoke billowing above the horizon.

The elephants are hungry and on Monday night we had our first incursion of the season. Piet received the call at around 01.30 in the morning and was out until just after sunrise – luckily he and the guards managed to keep the elephants out of the wheat.

Late Monday afternoon we were driving through the park when we came across a herd of around 60 elephants eating in a small patch of bush that has escaped the fires; we think it was the same herd that came to try to sample our wheat that night.

Would you believe there’s an elephant standing right behind this bush? You can just make out its outline: