The Baron Is Back!

Hi folks, Sorry for the delay. My Internet stopped working AND then my PC died but some brilliant technicians got it all back with NO losses. Every time I touched another computer the connection was lost so it's been pretty frustrating but now I'm going to catch up on the farm updates. Starting with Baron.

After Baron got sick he spent the night at the vets but was back the next afternoon. He was pretty doped up when I first saw him and I didn't have my camera. When he was feeling better though...

...he came and found me...

...sat down and told me all about it.

I couldn't quite make out but...

...obviously something hilarious happened...

He looks pretty happy to be home.

SlobberDogs TummyBug

This Is Baron Von Slobberdog

He posed for this pic yesterday but was clearly not loving his life. I thought he might have Tick bite Fever as it's very common around this time of year but the vet says it was gastro!

He is going to spend some time at the vet but we hope to have him back by the end of the day. When he's well he usually keeps his slobber closer to his mouth where it gets all muddy with dust so he can wipe it off on your clean clothes when he comes to greet you. It makes him fairly unpopular and since he's like a 75 kg puppy he can be a bit difficult to control. When he's not feeling well he doesn't swallow so these beautiful spit stalactites form and we know it's time to visit the vet. Sometimes in the morning when he has just woken up he'll get them but he'll have a good shake, they'll wrap around his head and he can then wipe it off on the next passer by...ahhh...what a character.

More pics to follow.

Dakota

This is Dakota.

 He's the top dog of the farm these days since Tequila died...I think he's around 6 or 7 years old. He has always been a bit of wimp which isn't ideal in a pack leader but he looks pretty mean to intruders. He's a dark coloured German Shepherd and he always escorts me on my patrolls around the farm...I think he likes to walk with me 'cause I'll keep him safe. :o)

Recently we had a rabies scare in the area and all dogs were required to get a rabbies shot. So I loaded all 7 of the dogs up into the back of my bakkie (truck) and set of for the community hall. Besides the dog that I had in the front puking all over the passanger seat the whole thing went off without a hitch...untill we were on the dirt road about 200 meters from TLC's entrance when Dakota decided it would be perfectly acceptable to jump out of the moving vehicle! I wasn't going very fast so he didn't get too hurt. Just a bit of a bloody mouth, I didn't see any broken teeth. It's strange because he loves to come for rides in the back and has only ever jumped out once before while I was at the hardware. He dodged some traffic and decided it wasn't such a good idea to get out without my say so, but to jump out while the car was moving! What a nut! I think the excitment of all the dogs crammed in the back was too much maybe. Anyway. He's fine and still a very handsome dog...but not as handsome as Nibo, the newest addition to the pack ...I'll tell you about him another time.



When It Rains It Pours...

Last week Wednesday we heard that there was a huge storm blowing in from the south. There was some lightning, high winds and not much rain, at least in the south of Johannesburg where we are. It was weird because the next day it looked like there had been a massive storm on that morning but it wasn't very wet. My Friends who live high on the hills facing south say it was more like a dust storm which we do get once or twice a year. The wind must have got particularly bad at some point during the night. On my way to TLC the next day people all over were repairing the damage.

This guys tree fell on his fence

A small section of brick making companies wall came down.

A big section of wall blew over just up the road from us.

They haven't fixed the wall yet but they breed game animals

here so they've got a fence up in the mean time.

The whole way in I was hoping that I would find TLC in one piece or that the damage would be negligible...unfortunately it wasn't to be...

  The roof of the rubbish place just about blew away.

And about 30 meters of our wall fell over.

Leaving our brand new chicken houses exposed to thieves!

I tried to update this blog last week but we had constant problems with our connection, on the upside I can show you how far we've managed to get. We scratched and scraped together enough to employ some of my regular workers to try get the wall back up. I'm confident some money will come in soon to finish this but at the moment it's as repaired as we can get it.

A short hurdle. Better than nothing.



It'll probably take my workers another two days to finish it. That's 5 workers for two days which is only R1040 about 100 pounds or $150 US.

I'm going to put up the pay pal donations button here. The money goes into an account and will be forwarded to me to be used for the farm.

I'll let everyone know when we are secure again :o)