Saturday, April 4, 2009

No wolverine sighting yet, but...

Every time I talk to my grandson, he ask me if I've seen a wolverine yet. Not quite sure why he thinks I will see one, but then again, he's 6. The first 2 months of being in South Africa, I had really seen very little wild life. Some really cool birds, lots of lizards and that was about it. Until this past week. So, first I saw a mongoose. Mongooses (mongeese?) are great to have around as they kill snakes. Supposedly there are quite a few on the property, but I had never seen one until last week. Cute, curious little things. A lot like ferrets. My thought though is, if there are lots of mongoose, does that mean there are lots of snakes? Or are the snakes gone because there are a lot of mongoose? Hhhmmm....

Then, yesterday morning, I was out walking Gracie right around sunrise. As we stood staring out into the newly cleared field behind our house, I saw what looked like a big deer. I'm guessing it was an impala, although I thought impalas were smaller than that. It saw us & hopped off between the rocks.

So, the wildlife is really starting to show itself. I could have done without the next thing. I was standing at the patio door talking to Rae & suddenly saw a HUGE snake slither from the side of our house to the rocks beside our patio. It looked to be about 3-4 feet long & was a blackish silver color. I went to get some help. Stanley, one of our African DTS students, came over with a jug of gasoline & a lighter. I showed him where the snake went in the crack & he threw the gas in & lit it on fire. By that time, there was quite a crowd. Trust me, I was standing as far away as I could! I was thinking, hmmm,roasted snake! But NO! The snake comes slithering out & goes down a little farther to the big rock pile. Well, I had to leave after that, but apparently they kept trying to kill it since there is a lot of burned rocks! So far I haven't seen it again & will be just fine if I don't!

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