A LONG LONG DRY WINTER but Love is in the air
A LONG LONG DRY WINTER but Love is in the air
The sky is silver blue, bereft of moisture. Dry as a bone and life has been hard on man and beast. My sins and bad judgments have come to haunt me. My eldest unmarried son, no longer wishes to communicate with me due to his perceived sins of my omission and neglect, long past but still fresh in his mind. Even this modest diary has been censored (the correspondence that circulated in my desire to get in touch with him) due to the sentiments and ‘issues’ of my American cousins. In fact this cutting off of my stream of consciousness has blocked me for some time, but NOW I am inspired by both love lost and gained to write again.
Just to swiftly get up to speed we have had our first major disaster on the bovine field and Nkulu my biggest cow disappeared, with nary a sign to mark her passing we have hunted the kloofs and canyons from high to low but nothing has appeared. We even consulted the local witch doctor who also came up blank, it is all very mysterious, a cow is a large thing and even in my enormous garden it is something hard to lose. Posters offering a substantial reward have illisitaed no response and the finger of blame is still swinging too wildly to make any judgments of guilt.
Then Gearbox my fine old bull had a large metal cylinder stuffed up his rear end to stimulate some hidden nerve that made him come, and to our chagrin he turned out to be shooting blanks, even though he had managed to impregnate 20 cows. In the world of bulls this is seriously bad news and he had to go. I was not happy, Gearbox was a nice old fellow, and his condition left me with but 2 choices, I could take him up to Bardendorfs AUCTION house of pain and suffering to be loaded in among other doomed beasts to be turned into sausage and biltong, in what my fertile imagination pictured, could only be a most disagreeable and scary end. Or …….I could allow my chum Fishy Tim to come with his lads and a .38 and drop him where he stood, and considered the kindest thing to do.
Little did I understand the nature of this sort of country pursuit, which like most, seems to always constitutes more than was ever expected or desired.
Fishy Tim led me down the old farm path, again, having volunteered his and his men’s services to deal with Gearbox and convinced me that his ‘cunning plan’ would be the best thing to do, i.e. to humanely and kindly make Gearbox ‘late’ and that they would from this produce for me a large amount of meat, you have no idea how much meat, a truck load.
So after the late Gearbox had spent some 4 weeks in fishy Tim’s walk in freezer Norah, Poppy and I went down equipped with knives and plastic bags to carve him into manageable bits. What a fiasco that turned into, and the only consolation being that Gearbox was unaware of the indignity of his fate, but would have approved of the financial losses that his murder engendered.
A small amount of meat from the total was cut out for the Numzaan, me, and then while Tim and I enjoyed the early spring weather on his patio, our staff hacked and chopped him up leaving me with buckets of bits, with nary an identifiable piece to be seen, such as a rump or T-bone. I had taken down some Durban Poison that had got Tin whacked and frankly he lost the plot. Perhaps I just never realized how much of a cow is in fact inedible, as proven by the slab of neck I poorly chose for our lunch. So although I have some small consolation that I did good by my bull, I am down by the cost of him, a deep freeze to put him in and several days spent disposing of him, I thus highly recommend to any out there contemplating slaughtering a bull to reconsider.
Apart from the tragedy of my bull the winter has had also it share of joys and triumphs. Principle among these has been my encounter with an old friend.
Brave Liddle A has been in my life on and off for the last 25 years. We first met when I purchased a property over the road from her with the inevitable sharing of bodily juices that the young bi-pedal ape indulges in, when in close proximity. I was still in those heady days of yore a player in the market of sordid encounters and A was one of many that I enjoyed, but when she declared that she was keen to have off spring my enthusiasm faded and she followed her desires and got married produced swiftly the desired rug rats but was equally swiftly disillusioned with the father of said rats and so she re entered my little world, which at this stage was plumbing the depths of brass pipe smoking and transsexual power exchange. These plumbed depths were murky and dark but a hell of a lot of fun, but inevitably had, as all drug based love, to come to an end and though we continued for some time after that encounter a break was inevitable and dully occurred. So another 7 years or so passed and I having terminated a relationship and indulged in a long period of celibacy was pleasantly surprised at the enthusiasm I felt for this old chum, who too had recently booted her male companion, we were in short both at the right time and place for each other.
This was a strangely warm and cuddly situation and yet still imbued with all the excitement of a new relationship, so good in fact that I have been to Johannesburg many times to pursue her.
However life on the farm never stops, with the loot from my NBF’s internet casino pouring in we have achieved miracles that all the enthusiasm of an errant hippy could never match, the farm is fenced and waiting for the ungulate auctions to start to be stocked with the original inhabitants of these hills, the herd has been substantially added to with fancy stud ladies and 2 new young stud bulls to replace the late Gearbox, to satisfy them this summer. The late Gearbox’s offspring are gamboling about the place and this place that used to contain so few heartbeats is now thumping with life, all very satisfying.
I had thought foolishly what with my fancy new fire engine and extensive fire breaks that this year I would spare the estate of the horrors of fire but the best efforts were undone by some sad mad old man that wondered this hill cheerfully setting fires, and to add insult to injury I actually gave him a lift here, so the place is black, and I am filled with remorse as I was the one to make a bad decision which allowed the fire to get out of control. The truth is that fighting grass fires is a thing that needs to be done a lot to understand what is what.
The other great event on the farm has been the arrival of Mr. Wonder Boy Sibanwe.
My man Douglas decided on some African whim to disappear into the undergrowth leaving me short handed and irritated, but being a chap of infinite wit and sagacity I kicked the bushes and was informed that Jan Trekker my neighbor had chucked by his chap and that this fellow was available for low paid toil.
Now being a white man in Africa, my mission and reason for living is to keep African ladies and gentlemen employed, the universal outcome of these exercises being, I am sorry to say, at the very best mind you, one of mild disappointment. These collaborators in my schemes have managed with the wisdom of this continent to do just enough, that their pitiful wages, their services command, to if not actually fail at their appointed task, also not really quite doing it either. A rather cunning ability ensuring that we get used to being surrounded by people doing everything for us badly, so when I went to have a peek at Wonder Boy Sibanwe’s first contribution I was expecting little.
I cannot actually remember what this appointed task was but of this I know, that as I gazed at his contribution to the fiscals I perceived something I had never seen before.
1. The job was complete sooner by far than expected
2. The job was done to my complete satisfaction!!!
3. In fact better that I could have hoped for.
4. Maybe better than I would have done it myself if I was not so bone-idle!
This fellow had thought about the task, something never attempted before in my experience, had come to a plan, another first, executed it fast and efficiently, another unique manifestation and was ready for more, I was impressed.
However being a man who has seen new brooms working before who would rapidly loose their enthusiasm I kept my expressions of joy muted and allocated a more demanding task, which was again done with speed alacrity and efficiency as were all the jobbies I have set him since!
My joy was over bounding, I raised his salary to dizzying heights, gave him a bakkie to drive a new cell phone and now live in fear of losing him, in short I am in love. The sad part being that none but none of my resident staff have followed him down this path to wealth and privilege, to bad.
Well that has been my winter more or less and spring is here at last.
The sky is silver blue, bereft of moisture. Dry as a bone and life has been hard on man and beast. My sins and bad judgments have come to haunt me. My eldest unmarried son, no longer wishes to communicate with me due to his perceived sins of my omission and neglect, long past but still fresh in his mind. Even this modest diary has been censored (the correspondence that circulated in my desire to get in touch with him) due to the sentiments and ‘issues’ of my American cousins. In fact this cutting off of my stream of consciousness has blocked me for some time, but NOW I am inspired by both love lost and gained to write again.
Just to swiftly get up to speed we have had our first major disaster on the bovine field and Nkulu my biggest cow disappeared, with nary a sign to mark her passing we have hunted the kloofs and canyons from high to low but nothing has appeared. We even consulted the local witch doctor who also came up blank, it is all very mysterious, a cow is a large thing and even in my enormous garden it is something hard to lose. Posters offering a substantial reward have illisitaed no response and the finger of blame is still swinging too wildly to make any judgments of guilt.
Then Gearbox my fine old bull had a large metal cylinder stuffed up his rear end to stimulate some hidden nerve that made him come, and to our chagrin he turned out to be shooting blanks, even though he had managed to impregnate 20 cows. In the world of bulls this is seriously bad news and he had to go. I was not happy, Gearbox was a nice old fellow, and his condition left me with but 2 choices, I could take him up to Bardendorfs AUCTION house of pain and suffering to be loaded in among other doomed beasts to be turned into sausage and biltong, in what my fertile imagination pictured, could only be a most disagreeable and scary end. Or …….I could allow my chum Fishy Tim to come with his lads and a .38 and drop him where he stood, and considered the kindest thing to do.
Little did I understand the nature of this sort of country pursuit, which like most, seems to always constitutes more than was ever expected or desired.
Fishy Tim led me down the old farm path, again, having volunteered his and his men’s services to deal with Gearbox and convinced me that his ‘cunning plan’ would be the best thing to do, i.e. to humanely and kindly make Gearbox ‘late’ and that they would from this produce for me a large amount of meat, you have no idea how much meat, a truck load.
So after the late Gearbox had spent some 4 weeks in fishy Tim’s walk in freezer Norah, Poppy and I went down equipped with knives and plastic bags to carve him into manageable bits. What a fiasco that turned into, and the only consolation being that Gearbox was unaware of the indignity of his fate, but would have approved of the financial losses that his murder engendered.
A small amount of meat from the total was cut out for the Numzaan, me, and then while Tim and I enjoyed the early spring weather on his patio, our staff hacked and chopped him up leaving me with buckets of bits, with nary an identifiable piece to be seen, such as a rump or T-bone. I had taken down some Durban Poison that had got Tin whacked and frankly he lost the plot. Perhaps I just never realized how much of a cow is in fact inedible, as proven by the slab of neck I poorly chose for our lunch. So although I have some small consolation that I did good by my bull, I am down by the cost of him, a deep freeze to put him in and several days spent disposing of him, I thus highly recommend to any out there contemplating slaughtering a bull to reconsider.
Apart from the tragedy of my bull the winter has had also it share of joys and triumphs. Principle among these has been my encounter with an old friend.
Brave Liddle A has been in my life on and off for the last 25 years. We first met when I purchased a property over the road from her with the inevitable sharing of bodily juices that the young bi-pedal ape indulges in, when in close proximity. I was still in those heady days of yore a player in the market of sordid encounters and A was one of many that I enjoyed, but when she declared that she was keen to have off spring my enthusiasm faded and she followed her desires and got married produced swiftly the desired rug rats but was equally swiftly disillusioned with the father of said rats and so she re entered my little world, which at this stage was plumbing the depths of brass pipe smoking and transsexual power exchange. These plumbed depths were murky and dark but a hell of a lot of fun, but inevitably had, as all drug based love, to come to an end and though we continued for some time after that encounter a break was inevitable and dully occurred. So another 7 years or so passed and I having terminated a relationship and indulged in a long period of celibacy was pleasantly surprised at the enthusiasm I felt for this old chum, who too had recently booted her male companion, we were in short both at the right time and place for each other.
This was a strangely warm and cuddly situation and yet still imbued with all the excitement of a new relationship, so good in fact that I have been to Johannesburg many times to pursue her.
However life on the farm never stops, with the loot from my NBF’s internet casino pouring in we have achieved miracles that all the enthusiasm of an errant hippy could never match, the farm is fenced and waiting for the ungulate auctions to start to be stocked with the original inhabitants of these hills, the herd has been substantially added to with fancy stud ladies and 2 new young stud bulls to replace the late Gearbox, to satisfy them this summer. The late Gearbox’s offspring are gamboling about the place and this place that used to contain so few heartbeats is now thumping with life, all very satisfying.
I had thought foolishly what with my fancy new fire engine and extensive fire breaks that this year I would spare the estate of the horrors of fire but the best efforts were undone by some sad mad old man that wondered this hill cheerfully setting fires, and to add insult to injury I actually gave him a lift here, so the place is black, and I am filled with remorse as I was the one to make a bad decision which allowed the fire to get out of control. The truth is that fighting grass fires is a thing that needs to be done a lot to understand what is what.
The other great event on the farm has been the arrival of Mr. Wonder Boy Sibanwe.
My man Douglas decided on some African whim to disappear into the undergrowth leaving me short handed and irritated, but being a chap of infinite wit and sagacity I kicked the bushes and was informed that Jan Trekker my neighbor had chucked by his chap and that this fellow was available for low paid toil.
Now being a white man in Africa, my mission and reason for living is to keep African ladies and gentlemen employed, the universal outcome of these exercises being, I am sorry to say, at the very best mind you, one of mild disappointment. These collaborators in my schemes have managed with the wisdom of this continent to do just enough, that their pitiful wages, their services command, to if not actually fail at their appointed task, also not really quite doing it either. A rather cunning ability ensuring that we get used to being surrounded by people doing everything for us badly, so when I went to have a peek at Wonder Boy Sibanwe’s first contribution I was expecting little.
I cannot actually remember what this appointed task was but of this I know, that as I gazed at his contribution to the fiscals I perceived something I had never seen before.
1. The job was complete sooner by far than expected
2. The job was done to my complete satisfaction!!!
3. In fact better that I could have hoped for.
4. Maybe better than I would have done it myself if I was not so bone-idle!
This fellow had thought about the task, something never attempted before in my experience, had come to a plan, another first, executed it fast and efficiently, another unique manifestation and was ready for more, I was impressed.
However being a man who has seen new brooms working before who would rapidly loose their enthusiasm I kept my expressions of joy muted and allocated a more demanding task, which was again done with speed alacrity and efficiency as were all the jobbies I have set him since!
My joy was over bounding, I raised his salary to dizzying heights, gave him a bakkie to drive a new cell phone and now live in fear of losing him, in short I am in love. The sad part being that none but none of my resident staff have followed him down this path to wealth and privilege, to bad.
Well that has been my winter more or less and spring is here at last.
posted by Francis at 2:08 AM
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