We are trying something new this year!!!

You may remember last year when we planted our maize crop in November … well according to my sources, if you have a well irrigated crop area than it is possible to harvest two crops of maize in 1 season.  Because we have a good bore water system running under Willow Park and our pump delivers more that enough water to irrigate the crop we are going to go for it.  It will be great to get double the crop size this season without having to expand our garden area.  We are in the process of setting up traps for the wild pig so that they cannot destroy our crop this year … if we can catch 4 or 5 pigs then we will be able to send them to the abator and we will be able to have meat to feed the girls at Samkele for one meal each week for the whole year.

WOWZERS … You would not believe this

In my last post I was a little down because my chickens at Willow Park were not meeting the quota of eggs required.  We tried the method given by Gordon (he commented on the previous blog) and it only seemed to make them a little nervous seeing the chopping board and knife on the wall.  So we resorted to plan “B”; this was installing the light timer.  OH MY GOODNESS … it only took them three days and they began spitting out eggs like it is going out of fashion.  We have now hit the 90% lay rate (210 eggs in 1 week) and things are looking at improving; from the sales alone this week “project chicken layers” can finally support itself by purchasing its own layers mash (I have had to purchase the layers mash in the past because we there was not enough eggs being produced to sell to make the revenue to buy even one bag of mash).  We can now look at starting to save for our next bunch of day old layers in 6 months as well as ALL the feed and muthi (medicine) for them until the new chicks reach point of lay … hooray!!!

Time for a chicken update:

The layer chicks which some of you bloggers chipped in for are all doing really well; they are healthy and are enjoying life in their open coops.  However, I think they may be enjoying life a little too much and are forgetting to thank us by laying eggs.  By this stage we should be at a 90% lay rate (having 40 layers means we should be getting about 36 per day) but we are only getting a maximum of 30% lay rate (I’ll let you do the maths on that one).  We are about to initiate a new light schedule for them; according to various chicken scholars a strict lighting regime means a successful laying season.  I was able to purchase a light timer when I was “down south” so I will let you know how this goes.

The roof is finished …

Just last week the thatched roof had finally been completed.  It took a little longer than normal because we had run out of thatching twine and could not find it anywhere (even in South Africa).  This is looking absolutely GREAT.

 

What absolute Legends!!!

My men from Mawabeni are absolute troopers.  Just last week I had organised to collect them from the bus stop (where I normally collect them) at 8am.  Unfortunately the fuel situation in Bulawayo was dire with only one fuel station out of four that had diesel; hence I was about 1.5 hours late to meet them.  What makes them ‘absolute legends’ is that it was the only day that we had a constant rain and these guys waited for me in the rain and drizzle for the whole time and did not complain when I finally got there; they were just happy to get back to Willow Park to do more work.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Legends from Mawebeni

Whilst in Pretoria …

WOW … I have never seen a shopping mall this big before … the Menlyn Mall was HUGE.  Apparently, speaking with locals this is not the largest mall in SA … in fact there is one in Cape Town which is supposed to be even bigger (I don’t know how it could be bigger).  To put it into perspective for the Brisbanites … it would probably be about double … if not triple the size of Chermside shopping centre.  I have taken a couple of pictures of the skateboard ramp; I have never been to a shopping centre that has a skate ramp on its fourth floor.

 

 

Reflecting on our time in the mall, I have to admit … as strange as this may sound … I didn’t really like it all that much.  Sure, the size of it was impressive but it just seemed to be the same types of shops just with different names.  Give me the range of products in a Bulawayo shop any day J

The skate ramp on the forth floor

If you just like to watch

Hmmm ... there is just so much to choose from

Drink anyone?

Now ... where do I find the Double Creamed Brie Cheese?

The trip over the SA border

Just last week, Jodi and I travelled down the Pretoria (in South Africa) for a 5 night getaway and shopping expedition with an American couple (with their 8 month old baby) who lecture at the theological college (the baby doesn’t lecture yet).

Before trekking off, we heard rumours of long waits at the boarder if we get there after 8am.  As we all don’t like queuing, we decided to start the 2.5 hour journey from Bulawayo to the border a little before 5 am.  The journey to the border went extremely well with no drama’s what so ever (except for the choice of music … Jodi insisted that we put Billy Joel on repeat).  As we approached the border post on the Zim side we saw that there wasn’t a massive line up and we appreciated the fact that we had got in front of the predicted bus loads of Zimbo’s who make their pilgrimage over the border to get their groceries.   30 minutes later we were back in the car and travelling over the Limpopo River to get the South African border post … this is where the trouble began.

We travelled through the gates and saw a massive line up of cars behind 5 buses and to make things even worse, as we drove up to the back of the car line, the actual line up of people to get through immigration was even longer than the line up of cars.  Having a baby in our travelling party we wanted to see if we could get to the head of the line (pregnant, elderly or crippled people generally are allowed to get straight the front).  No such luck … the guards monitoring the line told us to pick a line (as there were two lines) and to wait our turn.

We examined both lines (queuing in two different directions going through the same door though) and decided to pick the shorter line … this was an error we later chose to regret.  I think it was at about the 2 hour mark that we noticed that the other line was moving a lot faster than ours and that we had probably only moved 5 steps in this time.  At the 4 hour mark (and another 10 steps ahead on our queue) we were tossing up whether or not to continue our journey or just head back over to Zim.  This is were I should make a note that we could have made it to the front of the line and through to SA in about 30 minutes if we chose to give a 100 rand “gift” to a local who offers to take you to a “friend” who can “help” … not an option we wanted to take.  I think it only took another 30 minutes and one of our travelling companions we met in line decided to take the matter of the lack of line movement to the proper authorities. 

It was at this point that we thought everything was going to be ok, as our line started to move through the first doorway; all of us were extremely happy and could not wait to get our passports stamped and continue on our journey … this excitement was short lived; as we ventured through the doorway into the “inner courtyard” there were another two MASSIVE lines travelling around the perimeter.  With shoulders dropped, and ambitions shot for a quick exit we joined one of the queues.

At this point Kayle (our American friend) decided to head back to the car so she could feed and change her little one.  As she was about the exit the “inner courtyard” she noticed an old man queuing who was on crutches:
“have you asked to get to the front of the line” Kayle asked the man. 
“no” he replied “can I do that?”
Kayle went to the front and asked the official if her “crippled father” could come to the front of the line … this was our ticket through.  The lovely elderly man (we called “dad” for the next 30 minutes) wanted to help us as we had helped him get to the front of the line.

It was at 2:30pm that we finally got through the gates (6 hours at the border) and continued on our journey (still another 5 hours to go until we get Pretoria).  We got to our lodging at about 8pm that night; it took us 15 hours in total were we were only expecting 9 hours (including border posts).

Life in Africa … you gotta love it!!!!

The thatching is almost done

The dining hall is starting to take shape and now with the thatching almost done it is looking a treat.  I have done a quick video so you can see what has been happening … enjoy!!!  I will give you more pictures in the coming weeks

Oops … I forgot to tell you

The other week, in-between when our OZ team left and our next visitors arrived, we had the joys of moving house.  It was a very quick move and surprisingly there was not a whole heap of stress that came with it.  We were able to move all of our stuff in a couple of trips (thanks to our mates’ MASSIVE trailer) and then sit down and enjoy unpacking … fun and games.  Here are a few happy snaps of the new abode.  I will try to post some more in the coming weeks.

WOW … that was FAST!!!

Thank so much to the person who donated the money to fix the Willow Park road … you really got in fast.  Actually, I should tell you the story of how fast it was:

The day before last I had decided to post a chipin to help raise money to fix our road.  Literally the very moment I had pressed submit and the fund-raising event had been lodged I got a pop up message on my facebook asking me to chat with someone.  Of course, being the socialite that I am I accepted and it was one of my mates from OZ … the very first thing he asked was if there was anything he could help out with as he had a certain amount of cash he wanted to donate … you’ll never guess the amount that he wanted to donate … almost the exact amount … how amazing is that.  Both of us were blown away by this!!!!

I will be going out tomorrow to pay the farmer and hopefully sometime next week (or the week after) it will be finished.  I can’t wait to show everyone the photo’s of what it looks like after it has been leveled and graded.

If you also want to chip in but missed out on this one … you can chip in to our lives in Zimbabwe by clicking on the coffee cups on the side bar.