Day 26!!!

HELLO!!!

So sorry for the delay my friends, i have so much to tell you I hardly know where to begin. Since my visit to the super spar on Monday we have experienced some very large storms here in SA, they are incredible. So beautiful and very LOUD!!! However, this has meant that the electricity has been rocky which as a result has messed up the internet connection! HOW RUDE the weather can be sometimes, does it not know how important I and my blog is??? However, today is bright and beautiful and the connection here on the farm is good, so i will fill you all in.

Tuesday I was poorly, which was SOOOOOOO boring as i was at the cottage all day feeling frustrated that i couldnt help on the farm...And that was Tuesday! BORING!

Wednesday...Now wednesday was a goooood day! On Wednesday morning myself and Andiley one of the staff dudes here went to scrub clean all of the water holes in the enclosures, it was very cool and  there was another storm on the way. As the water system here runs by solar energy and we hadnt had much sun over the beginning of the week the water pressure was really low which meant after cleaning the second water hole we had to give up and move on to something else. However, it was a good task and the scrubbing gave my arms a good work out. I did crush my fingers a few times against the wall, but hey ho, theres nothing wrong with a bit of hard work and a few bruises. After being defeated we headed off to find the others who were cleaning the enclosures so we joined in and helped.

It was after lunch that i really had a great time. Quentin and I went for a walk with the two hyena cubs around the game part of the farm and it was so nice. First of all, we got followed by a butterfly which kept landing on myself and Quentin, we turned this into a bit of a photo shoot and enjoyed taking advantage of the little flutter beast whilst in lasted. About 50 pictures later however we suddenly remembered the purpose of the walk and turned our attention back to Dhubba and Sparky! Bless them. They were having a wonderful time running around enjoying the open space and lying in dirty puddles. They really are the sweetest things, i am going to steal Dhubba and pretend he is a battery operated cuddly toy when i get to customs. I cant think why they wouldnt believe me. If you say it with conviction they will believe you! :) Anyway, we had a really lovely walk...until it was time to go back. I think it took us about an hour to capture Dhubba who i carried back to the enclosure like a naughty little child and Sparky was still playing a winning game of hide and seek! Haha, when Quentin had finally caught him i heard him say in his finest french accent 'I am fed up of your shit boy!' haha which did make me laugh somewhat as i looked at Sparkys little face! I have a picture of it but will have to show you another time.

When we finally got them both back we fed all of the cubs and said goodnight to them in their little house. Bless them.

Thursday - We went for an anti poaching walk yesterday morning which was hard going, i possibly my face by the end may have been that of a pissed off teenager. It tool us about 3 hours and we were walking through thick bust up and down hills, hot work and i forgot my sunglasses and theres nothing i hate more than having the sun in my eyes. SO...you can only imagine! HA! I did find some amusement  however when i asked Peter (on of the dutch men, hes 68! Fair play to him) if he had slept well the night before? And he said that he didnt, and i almost asked him if that was because his farts kept waking him up! hahahahahaa....but i realised that although this may seem funny to me, it may not seem funny to him so instead i just giggled to myself...for about 30 minutes! To be fair, they are loud!

WHen we got back from the walk we were all exhausted but luckily we didnt find any snares which is GREAT! AND what was also GREAT was that it was Bonnies birthday! Hooorah! And she had brought a lot of different cookies and biscuits to celebrate, SO we all sat on the grass in the shade and had a good sugar intake. It was lovely. After recovering i went and had a nice play with the babies and got some funny pics of them jumping in the air. Lovely.

After lunch yesterday we went off with Meg and Amy the pretty lionesses for a walk...we didnt walk them OBVS but Rodney did, we stayed in the cars and watched, we were supposed to get in the cage afterwards and watch them roam around, however, Amy had other plans! Amy didnt want to play yesterday and in fact she decided she didnt want to hang around with us humans any more and took herself off for a nice long walk to almost another farm altogether, of course this would not have gone down too well with Farmer whoeveritis so Rodney had to put Meg away and then go and get Amy back! haha, it is great when they just do what they want, i love it! We sat and watched him try and entice her back with freshly diced meat chunks which worked in the end. She definitely had a look on her face which said 'Why dont you just piss off Rodders, im having a nice time by myself!' haha. Poor Rodney. But anyway, given her mood it was decided that sitting in a cage and taking pictures of her probably wouldnt be fair to her so instead we took them back to their enclosure to chill out a bit!

Poor Amy would be feeling a bit pissed off right now though even if she wasnt already, as this morning (Friday morning) the vet chris came to inject some of the lionesses and female leopard with a contraceptive drug which lasts for 2 years. This was really interesting and we were lucky enough to help. Amy was amongst those getting this done along with Gabby and iIkita the black leopard who is mother to Duke and Tyson the cubs. We did Gabby first and before the vet could inject the contraceptive he had to put the girls to sleep. So we watched Gabby fall into a haze and then deep slumbar before we all had to help carry her into the shade! Now im telling you, to get Gabby into the shade we had to move her about 8 meters max! And there were 7 adults helping to lift her and we had to stop 3 times because she was that heavy! Sheeeesh, that girl was hefty! And Chris the Vet actually grabbed her throat at one point at which time a little noise came out of her mouth like a cry and i swear to god i was almost out of that enclosure as fast as you could say 'KitKat'! I thought she had woken up and was going to kill us all...however, it was just because of where his hand was so acting as cool as a cucumber i re-grabbed her back legs and continued to help! Haha...im such a scaredy cat!

So that was the process with all 3 of the cats. And once the contraceptive drug had been injected they were all given a reversal drug which is used to help them re-gain consciousness. Now, i only saw Gabby come too afterwards and all i can say is that was one high cat! She was flying. Seeing her walk was an interesting sight. If you can imagine a lion drinking about 5 gallons of vodka, thats pretty much what she looked like, her 4 legs getting wrapped around each other! But its all good and soon she will be back with Bobcat who misses her terribly...I know because he told me!

And thats that! Its lunch time now and im just eating my lunch, although i've just gone to get my banana out of my bag only to find its been squished to pulp so I wont be eating that, there is banana puss all over the place! Not good. Ive got some grapes though so i should be ok.

I forgot to say that we made a nice dinner for Bonnie last night for her Birthday, salad and a couple of pasta dishes. I was shocked and amazed that Swedish Girl offered to help is prepare it! In fact i almost fell over when she asked if she could help, i must have been staring at her gormlessly for about 5 seconds until i responded 'Oh yes, that would be nice, thank you!' Haha, but it was a lovely evening, we invited some of the guys who work on the farm to come and we put on some of Arthurs dance music! :) We even lit some candles! Tonight we are going out for dinner and have got her a cake so that should be nice. I think the guys have just returned from the lion park with the meat so i must go and see if they followed my orders correctly and have returned with my can of appletiser, if they have failed on this important mission then i have no option but to scream in their faces!!! Haha...no i wouldnt do that, i told them if their wasn't appletiser they should get me fanta instead! EVERYONES A WINNER!

Anyhoo, i cant believe that tomorrow will be my last shift on the farm! It has gone so quick i cannot believe it! But what an amazing time i have had. I cannot begin to tell you how happy i am to have done so much and i have loved every minute with the animals and the people here. It will be so sad to say good bye. I am sure i will blog again before i leave so i wont say farewell just yet. But until then, have a wonderful Friday night people, Friday nights are happy nights afterall.

SEE YOU LATER ALIGATORS. xxx