CHANGED TEACHERS?

The wise king of Israel, Solomon, is credited with saying: "Lazy people should learn a lesson from the way ants live" (Proverbs 6:6, Good News Bible).  The other day I came to the conclusion that things have changed since Solomon's time and that the animals and birds are "aping" the ways of the humans (if the apes will excuse me using this way of stating different behaviour of non-humans).

Around first light, just about every morning, my friend, the duiker ram, appears and expects to be given his daily ration of papino and he usually stands around until I get around to giving him his ration and most mornings I take a quantity of chicken feed out at the same time for the spur fowls (previously called francolins!) of which we have a family of five, Pop, Mom, and three half grown youngsters.  Two mornings ago, I did not take out the chicken feed at the same time as I put out the papino and I had hardly closed the door behind me when the five spur fowl started kicking up a noise and toi-toing around the duiker who was enjoying his breakfast.

The only conclusion I could come to was that the spur fowls had learnt that some humans tend to congregate and wave placards and shouting "we demand ….. ", and in general making a nuisance of themselves in order to get what they think they are entitled to, and just like the humans, the noise and dancing and shouting tend to minimize as soon as they get what they demanded!

As the Romans used to say:  O, tempora! O, mores!

Oupa.

THE BOSS

Surely we all know a person to whom this is 100% applicable:

1. The Boss is ALWAYS right.
2. The Boss does not SLEEP, he RELAXES.
3. The Boss does not READ the paper, he STUDIES it.
4. The Boss does not HESITATE, he REFLECTS.
5. The Boss is not LATE, he has been DELAYED.
6. The Boss is not WRONG, he is MISUNDERSTOOD.
7. The Boss does not GO OUT, he is ABSENT.
8. The Boss does not COMPLICATE, he ORGANIZES.
9. Enter the office of the Boss with YOUR IDEA and leave with HIS IDEA.
10. In case of doubts, rule No. 1 applies.

Oupa

safari new prices

SNAKES

We live in a region where there are supposed to be many snakes, but in the 5½ years we have been living here, I have seen only five snakes (an average of about one per year!) and only one of those was potentially very dangerous, namely a mamba lying in the shade of a car parked in front of our house. The other four were two harmless spotted bush snakes, one mildly venomous redlipped snake and one dangerous young puff adder.

Many people have very confused ideas about snakes, as a snake expert, Johan Marais, points out in his book A Complete Guide to the Snakes of Southern Africa. He lists some of the misconceptions:
You frequently hear about large mambas, stretching from one side of the road to the other, but the maximum size recorded is about 4,5 m.
All snakes spit their venom! Wrong, in our area only the rinkhals and the Moçambique spitting cobra do that.
The snake can sting with its forked tongue! Nonsense, its tongue is only for smelling, it can not even lick with it.
The puff adder strikes backwards! No, it can only strike forwards or sidewards.
Snakes move in pairs and if you kill one, its mate will come looking for you! Superstition! Snakes do not have constant companions, they live alone and only mate in the spring.
Do snakes have nests? Not our snakes, but the King Cobra of Asia sometimes builds a rough nest, our snakes live in holes or under a rock or tree stump.

In South Africa we have only a few very poisonous snakes: most adders; the mambas; the cobra family; the yellow bellied sea snake; the vine snake; and the boom snake. Most of the snakes are completely harmless or mildly venomous and quite lot of them are extremely useful as they feed on the rodents and insects like snails and beetles.

Moral: Do not kill every snake that crosses your path!

Oupa