Monday, March 5

Cerwin and the guys set their alarms early in preparation for a hunt. I woke slightly when Cerwin’s alarm went off.

I fell back to sleep and dreamt that I flew home because I forgot a pair of shoes. I found myself at church with people who were surprised that I was home already. I began thinking that flying home was a stupid idea when I could be in Africa with the others. Then I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the room at church – and in my dream knew I was dreaming. I tried so hard to wake up. 🙂 Oh, wow, it was so nice to hear Cerwin clearing his throat. 🙂

The guys met at 5:30 for a quick breakfast before going to the shooting range. They would be using Phil’s 30.6 rifle and needed to become familiar with it. 

It was a DELIGHT to sit on the front porch of our chalet – with French press coffee and watch the dawning of a new day in the bush country of South Africa. This scene was a bit to my left.

 

This was the scene directly in front of my porch chair. It was difficult to concentrate on my devotional book with scenery that was new to me. It was surprisingly quiet, except for the occasional sound of a bird.

My first animal sighting was this female nyala. She was in the bush to my far left.

I wasn’t even sure what a nyala was on the first day, but soon learned to identify them by their stripes.

Then I saw movement in the trees.

What fun to watch a troupe of Vervet monkeys – the pickpockets of the wildlife world. When editing this photo, I noticed that the one on the right was putting a Marula fruit into its mouth. Marula were ripe and being harvested when we were in Africa. There were many trees on Phil and Kate’s farm and camp. 

I had to pinch myself to realize that this was really happening only 30-40 yards in front of me. As you can see, there is a fence between me and the animals. The electric fence protects the people on camp from the animals.

Do you think they may have heard the click of my camera?

The male nyalas are a much darker brown than the females.

After I finished my second cup of coffee and the animals had moved on, I went to the house for breakfast.

Juice, toast and cereal were available until a late morning brunch when the men would be back.

We were kind of surprised when they guys came back with this beautiful nyala that was shot by Jere. He got it about 8:00 am.

Nelson, Phil’s main helper and tracker began butchering it as soon as they brought it to the farm. Phil said that Nelson has been with him so long that he now tells Phil what to do. 🙂 He has been working for Phil for the past 18 years.

We will be eating nyala steaks in a day or two. The other meat will be used at camp or given to their help. After each of them has plenty of meat, it will be donated to orphanages and other places where ground meet is needed.

As soon as the nyala was unloaded, they went back to do more hunting.

Can you tell that they are having the time of their lives.

Kristen, Jana and I went back to “soaking up” the beauty of our atmosphere.

Jesse and Jethro delighted in a swim.

Jethro loves to go to the pool but often stays on the edge – yapping and splashing.

He may go in the pool, but stays on a step, doing the same yapping and splashing.

It looks like company is coming to my chalet. Kristen and Jana wanted to see what our home looked like.

After introducing them to our African home, we walked to Jere and Kristen’s chalet. We could see the roof from our house.

It looked similar to ours

Then we moved on to Chalet #3 – Ian, Jared, and Jesse’s place.

Theirs was laid out a bit differently – with three beds. All four boys could have slept here, but Josh and Jana wanted to share a chalet.

So far, the first three chalets had similar shower areas.

I liked our beautiful washbowls.

Front porches were similar. There was a small refrigerator in a cabinet on each porch.

Our last stop was Josh and Jana’ place.

Their place could have held three people.

Their bathroom and shower was a bit different from the others.

Back at the main house I found Fisana doing our laundry. This room is in the same building as the butcher shop and woodshop.

Speaking of the butcher shop, Nelson had finished butchering the nyala and would soon hang it in the large refrigerator.

I found Donna – the elusive cat – in Kate’s office in the main house.

Kristen and I relaxed – a bit nervously – while Fisana prepared the table for brunch. We were a bit nervous because we had just heard a shot and wondered if Cerwin had gotten his nyala.

It was a good shot by Cerwin.

His nyala was a bit younger than Jere’s but Phil estimated that they both weighed about 300 pounds. He thought that Jere’s was about ten years old and that Cerwin’s was about 8 1/2 years old. Jere got his at 8 am, Cerwin got his at 10 am.

Josh had chosen to not hunt this year, but photograph and video graph his dad, grandpa, and brother’s hunts.

We had a prayer of gratefulness before brunch.

We relaxed a bit after brunch to wait for the heat of the day to pass before the men went back to the hunt – this time for Ian and Jared.

More about that tomorrow evening.