Sue and I would like to wish you, your family and friends a very merry Christmas and all the best for the year ahead.
Lovely hot weather here at The Plot, I think its going to be about swimming and a few lemonades.
The goats are going to be spoilt today with watermelon and apples.
Winter is a thing of the past, we are now regularly getting temperatures in the high 30’s. Feeling much more in my comfort zone.
We are soon going into our hottest two months namely October and November.
Even now our animals just pass out during the heat of the day.
These two are now just over a week hold, born on the 10th and doing very well.
We now have 4 little things running, jumping and playing. Very cute
Monday last week we unfortunately lost a prematurely born kid. So we were overjoyed on Thursday the 25th when one of our other Toggenburg does gave birth to a lovely, healthy little female. 5 days later it is still doing very well and so cute.
Then this morning yet another baby female was born and even though it is only a few hours old, everything is going to plan, mommy and kid doing very well.
Our oldest female Toggenburg is also very heavily pregnant, she has always given us two babies. So let’s hope. Her one udder didn’t produce milk last time and we had to help with bottle feeding. See New Kids on the block. We can see her same one udder isn’t going to give milk, so if she does have 2 babies we will be back helping with a bottle.
Watch this space for the sequel.
I know of people that especially went to Lekhubu Island to witness the eclipse, but even from here at The Plot, Letlhakane, we had an amazing view.
I got up at 4:30 this morning and you could see that a tip of the moon was getting a shadow. As per the picture to the right.
By 5:00 it was half covered. By 6:00 you could just make out the moon and it was a dark brick red in colour. Just after 6 you couldn’t see it at all.
This was a first for me
I have added the Marula Tree to our section on our blog “Interesting trees at The Plot“
A tree for all. Fruit, juice, beer, jam, flavourings, medicines, shade, caterpillars, handicrafts, fuelwood and more, … all from the marula tree.
If you would like to read about the Marula the link is https://ourbots.wordpress.com/the-plot/interesting-trees-at-the-plot/marula-tree/
To all the mothers reading this blog, Sue and I would like to wish you a stunning Mother’s Day.
That includes our little “male” cat that recently gave birth to 5 kittens 🙂
Back in October when two little kittens arrived on our patio from who knows where, (https://ourbots.wordpress.com/2021/10/12/our-news-from-the-plot-letlhakane-botswana/) I sexed them and confirmed to Sue that we had a boy and a girl.
6 months later, the little boy has had 5 kittens 🙂 What makes it even worse is that, when, now her, stomach got big I did a Google search to found out why our “male” kitten was getting so fat. The results showed that there was a very good chance of worms. So of course we dewormed. Which obviously didn’t work in reducing the stomach size.
It was quite a shock when we found 5 kittens on Tuesday morning.
Sue and I have decided that the 5 greatest supporters of our blog, to show our appreciation, will all get a kitten.
This cute female Pririt Batis flew into our house and after settling down, she started to feed – darting around our rafters catching insects.
We wished she would stay longer, but after a few hours she flew out.
Whilst watering some plants this Nightjar took off from almost under my feet. It’s camouflage was so incredible that I wouldn’t have seen it if it didn’t take off. Nightjars are crepuscular (active in the evenings and early mornings), so this one was resting during the daylight hours.
I have been trying to work out which one it is, so if you can help – please let me know.
Two of the wildflowers currently in bloom
Monday night we had our first good rains here at The Plot, just outside Letlhakane, measuring 14mm.
However, gale force winds accompanied it. This seems to have been the story of our “spring”. High, high temps – most days being well over 40 and we have already been to 47C. The winds have been howling for about a month now. Our weather patterns seem to have become much more severe.
The nice rains have brought some relief and the bush is transforming to a beautiful green
Pete & Sue in Botswana 