We may
have mentioned that we live in a barnyard.
This has been a true learning experience for us city people. There are
numerous chickens living all around us; 5 dogs, who are feared by all the
neighbors; an occasional goat; and a herd of cattle which sometimes wanders by
our house. Needless to say, we have to
watch where we step. It is the chickens
and roosters though whom we dislike the most.
The rosters like to crow under our window kusenombonombo (very early in the morning), and they are ruthless
in pursuit of the hens. And the chickens
especially like our front porch as a potty stop. We have been told that once a chicken chooses
a spot, they can't be deterred. For
those of you unenlightened, there is nothing more disconcerting then exiting
our front door first thing in the morning and finding a big, smelly wet pile
where the door swings or where one must step. Or finding a similar deposit on a
low front window sill.
Mark
has been diligently trying to introduce behavior change to our chickens. (After all, we were sent to Swaziland to
effect behavior change.) One day he came back from a run with a large acacia
branch which he cut up and placed just by our front door, putting numerous rips
in his shorts and fingers. Acacias have
lethal thorns.
It worked for awhile,
but the chickens just moved their deposits over some to the window sill. Not to be outdone, Mark placed numerous
pieces of barbed wire on the sill, plus some stones and metal debris, but so
far the chickens are winning.
Mark spends a lot of time washing our porch, muttering and
swearing softly under his breath in a variety of languages.
He did
have one success. In the 2 springs we
have lived here, the sparrows wanted to
nest above our doorway. They would swoop
out on us leaving the house, making lots of noise and mess. Mark plugged up all the places the birds
could nest with rocks and plastic bags.
So
score one for Mark and one for the chickens!
The
last battle, which we will not win, is with the snakes. They are very numerous this fall and very
scary. I have been warned not to go
outside to pee at night so without chagrin, I use a bucket. Lately, all the houses on our homestead have
had snakes inside, including ours. A
week or so ago we had a big thunderstorm.
Both of us went in and out of the house to view the rain. Because of the storm, I bathed inside. So there I am standing bare naked, and see a
snake (appx 18 inches) slithering around on the floor into the bedroom. Talk about being caught with your pants
down. Mark valiantly whacked away at our
snake with his croc, swept it wriggling into the dust pan and took it outside
and finished it off with our hammer. It
was pretty unnerving. The photo below shows a
snake killed beside our pit latrine recently; from the beautiful markings it
looks like a picture the PC has provided us showing a puff adder - quite deadly.[i]
No place is safe!
[i] Last week the custodian at the High School across the
road from our homestead showed us a small snake he'd killed. We asked him, was it deadly? He assured us, no, it was not deadly. It would not kill you in 5 minutes. It would take 30 minutes, he said.
Yikes! Snakes scare the be-Jesus out of me. If I were there, I'd be developing a cast iron bladder. :) Once again, you've shown your courage in Swaziland. Gold star for both of you guys.
ReplyDeleteBest regards,
Monika