Weather, or not...

Weather fascinates me. Rain, Sleet, Snow, Wind, Sunshine, Clouds, Hail; it all is amazing.

I have been known to pull off the road to watch a sunset, or stand in amazement as rain comes down in buckets. I can't resist, I guess it's the science nerd in me.

Weather also makes for some interesting photo ops. Too bad I can't spend all my time snapping the shutter release.

This morning it was foggy when I got up, this afternoon the sun played peek-a-boo from behind the clouds, one of the great things about the weather; it is never the same. Weather helps make life interesting. Next time it rains, stop, take a few deep breaths and enjoy the moment. Complaining won't make it stop, so let's enjoy it.

Sleeping in - one of life's little joys

Ahhh, Saturday morning. A time to snuggle up with Tricia and the cats and be lazy. Sometimes I am amazed at how lucky I am to have such a wonderful family. Saturday morning has always been our time for being together and just being. After this morning that will change. My new job schedule will require me to work weekends, so Tricia and I won't have our weekend time together to be lazy, explore, run errands together or any of the fun things we have always done. It will be difficult, but hopefully I will be able to get back to having at least one weekend day off soon.

When one door closes another opens

I have neglected my blog for a few weeks while I have been learning the ins and outs of my new job. It is amazing how much harder it is to learn when you are in your mid fifties than it was thirty years ago. Thinking about new things can really tax one's brain. I was as comfortable in my last job as I am in my favorite slippers. Having my position yanked out from beneath me was quite a suprise and a shock! After a few months of searching in this terrible economic climate, I was fortunate to find a position. The door that closed was an old and familiar one, the new door seemed to have some dark and scary things behind it Luckily my eyes are becoming accustomed to the dark, and the things that seemed scary are coming into focus and aren't as bad as they seemed.

Right now I am sitting at the computer watching two Male Rufous Hummingbirds zip around the yard checking the new flowers on our Red Flowering Currant in the backyard. They are bright iridescent copper colored and they are tiny. We are very lucky to have a lot of different birds who visit our yard or fly over on a regular basis.

Our return to Africa is all arranged, we only have car rental arrangements left. Everything else has been sorted out and confirmed. One week of wildlife rehabilitation classes followed by a week in Kruger National Park. (For those who are interested, Kruger is over twice the size of Yellowstone National Park!

Spring has sprung

Spring is here, though by the weather you might not guess that winter is gone. We have a heavy frost this morning, and yesterday we had a tremendous windstorm with driving rain that blew through. Our heavy snows are gone

and some of the early Rhododendrons and bulbs are starting to bloom.

Each spring Tricia and I look forward to the explosion of color that will replace our winter garden browns. Our yard is a year round sanctuary for birds, squirrel, raccoon, and other wildlife. As spring continues into summer our yard becomes a quiet sanctuary for Tricia and me too.

This past week, I started a new job after three months of being unemployed. It feels good to be back into a work routine, though I was starting to like sleeping in.

African Birds are amazing!

While in South Africa we were able to see over 100 species of birds that were new to us. So many people go on Safari looking for the Big 5, and large animals, but we found that the birds and smaller critters were truly amazing.

From the tiny African Firefinch to Pied Kingfisher, to the Goliath Heron (The Largest Heron in the world at Five Feet!) birds were everywhere and so colorful.

We were fortunate because we booked an extra two days, so wegot our ranger all to ourselves for an entire day of birding on the preserve, Something we wouldn't have been able to do with the entire group.

Brown Hooded Kingfisher

Turacao

Pied Kingfisher

Torti Cats

If you are wondering, yes we have a conclave of cats. six tortishells and one Torbi and white. If you think , yeow that's a lot of cats, let me qualify this with the fact that my wife is a Veterinarian, who is a feline spcialist. Having lots of pets seems to be a hazard of the job.
Our girls are quite special, and get along great. Now this many cats is not recommended for everyone, as disasterous results can occur. Our cats are mostly indoor types, though our backyard has Purrfect Fence cat fencing, which keeps our girls in and safe from other cats and predators. The fencing also keeps the birds that visit our yard safe from the mighty hunters on the inside of the fence. You can see their product at http://www.purrfectfence.com/. Our cats love being able to go outside, and we love the security it offers our girls.

Baby animals

On our African Safari we were fortunate to have timed it just right. Our arrival in September allowed us to see a few babies in the wild. This little Giraffe girl was less than three weeks old. Her umbilical cord was still hanging from her belly, these generally fall off at around three weeks old.

She was so cute, Tricia just fell in love with the Giraffes. Her fur looked like a Gund Teddy Bear fur. The first time we saw her, she was close by her mother. Our Ranger said that unless they are right with the mother, you generally can't find them as they are well camouflaged and will stay perfectly still to evade predators.

The Giraffe we saw are the Masai Giraffe. One of the interesting features of these Giraffe is that the older they get, the darker the coloring becomes. Compare these pictures with George from my last post. He is much darker than these Giraffe. Females have tufts of hair covering their horns, while the males quickly lose theirs by rubbing them on trees and bushes, and using them for fighting, being the macho boys that they are.

We also really decided that baby Rhino's are adorable. This little boy was only four or five weeks old when we were there. He stuck pretty close to mom, and eyed us with suspicion when we were around. His little button horn was cute, and he just was not too sure of our intentions as we watched him from about 30 feet away. Mom couldn't have cared less about our presence and just kept browsing.

During our time in South Africa, we had an amazing time. Animals all around everywhere. Tricia and I were in awe of everything we saw. We also found that not all of the people on Safari were as excited about seeing animals as we were. More than one of the people in our group and another group complained that they were tired of looking at animals all of the time. Hello, isn't that what you came here for? We saw so much, and yet all it did was whet our appetite for more. That is why we decided while we were there that we would return in September, 2009.

This time we are renting a four wheel drive at the airport in Johannesburg, and driving to the SanWild preserve near Kruger National Park for a week long wildlife rehabilitation course. When we are finished, we plan to drive to Kruger and spend at least one night in the Park, then drive south back to Kwazulu Natal province and spend three or four days at Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park. Where we saw Lions on our first trip.