Gillooly's in the last two weeks

Hamboogy!

ALMOST on a weekly basis Tristan and I engage in a delicate, potentially deadly, dance. I call it the Hamboogy…and we do it with our clothes on and our stomachs rumbling.

We are lazy eaters…the sort of eaters who wait until we are slightly dizzy from low blood sugar before we decide to make a plan for dinner.

Lately, the Food Network has intensified our dance. All it takes is 30 minutes of Food Wars before we are drooling, quivering, hungry, near-Hobbesian primates. But in polite society we refrain from hysterics and violence (only just!) in order to talk it through, strategise, put on our black leather gloves, rip out the laptops and think our way through it. The dance begins, it’s a delicate Cha Cha of modesty:

‘I’m starving!’

‘I could eat too.’

‘What do you feel like eating?’

Narrators note: instead of replying truthfully by saying ‘oh dear Lord, feed me the worst most shameless hamburger in the world with seven sides and at least 3 sauces’ we count on our dance partner cracking first in order to avoid seeming like the greediest pig in the relationship.

‘I don’t know, what do we have?’

‘There’s stuff for Greek salad and also some smoked chicken?’

‘Ahhh, I see, well then.’

‘What do you WANT to eat?’

‘Erm, well what do YOU want to eat?’

‘I could use a burger?’

Narrators note: at this point eyes twitch neurotically, stomachs contort with hunger a sweat may, or may not, have started to bead on our upper lips.

‘Well then, home made is healthiest, I mean we’ll have to see what stale rolls we can buy at the local this time of night but I am sure we can whip something up.’

‘Ahh sure, yes, home made.’

‘Or, we can get something to go.’

Narrators note: hope flashes between us, electric and full of possibility.

‘So do you want take out or do you want home made.’

‘Erm, whatever’s easy. I’m cool I don’t mind either way.’

Narrators note: the dancers get shaky with sheer hunger. Crankiness is starting to set in.

‘Just tell me what you want babe?’

‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’

‘I’ll take the shameless gourmet take-out burger with onion rings…’

‘Why didn’t you just say so?’

‘I eat ice cream for breakfast, I didn’t think I needed to say it…’

No offence to vegetarians, but we are proper meat eaters and FI's t-shirt here pretty much sums up our feelings on burgers.

---------------------------------------FiN-------------------------------------

Goodbye Baby Girl :(

OUR Zita passed away this morning, right after being readmitted to the vet hospital. Turns out, she is one of the 20% who just did not make it.

I am so heartbroken.

I love you baby girl and you have ripped open a huge void in my life that will never be filled. You'll ALWAYS be in my heart.

I wish that I could make you understand now, that I would have done ANYTHING, anything at all, to save you.

                                                                  xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Revengy Lovey Thesising

SO, as I mentioned in a previous post I am starting work on my Masters again. A brief recap: 75% of the work is done but there is 1.5 years sitting squat and terrible between now and the last time I worked on it.  Time is a miserable, impossible squatter to evict... or exorcise.  And I have tried dear interwebz, oh how I've tried.

So what exactly tempted me back into the madness of my Masters? A kindly old man, with a glint in his eye and a message to me sitting in my inbox...accusingly. The thing about literature professors is that they have an enormous gift with words. They can use words to accuse us to the point where we squirm in the agony of having disappointed them. Their words can, conversely, make our hearts swell with courage and with pride.

Damn them.

So the email I got was 'very innocent'. It starts: "Dear Y, I would like to know if you would be interested in completing your MA. If you are not up to it, I shall accept it and never say another word about it again, I promise." – At this point I can see big kindly Bambi eyes beseeching me to work with a wonderful professor.

"If you would be interested then I would be very glad for it and we can start work immediately!" – Uh oh, Bambi has that manic edge of a rabid animal about him...

How could I resist? The University scrambled to get me resources, from as far afield as a Women's College in Tallahassee.  Imagine that? All of that effort to HELP me...it's a humbling experience.

So, I pulled up my socks, put on my big-girl panties and started working on the beast again after all the years. With sheer determination and caffeine- fuelled rage I evicted the squatter that is time, cleared the cobwebs, wiped the floor, dusted the bookshelf, stole a more comfortable chair (hey, how do we embark on a romantic quest without a touch of theft?) and started afresh.

A trained eye would see the maroon of a stolen chair :)

It wasn't long, however, before I ran into a big fat Coxe. The world is crawling with Coxes, we have all had to deal with a Coxe here and there... but this specified, plodding, opinionated, Wordsworth disparaging Coxe has really funked my cool and slowed my stride.

Big old useless Coxe

So I am ignoring the giant Coxe for now, and moving on to a much kinder Winters or Lowell.

Wish me luck!

PS: Zita is doing well, we are collecting her today :)

Love+Rosie

REMEMBER Rosie? I promised that I would write about her. Rosie comes to us from Lesotho, a country bordering our own at the Freestate province. Rosie used to pull carts there where it snows in winter. She lived in a village with rural people and no grazing. Often times her owner would ride her to the shebeen (pub) and drunkenly inflict ills on her. For example, in addition to the harness wounds our girl had when she came to us, in addition to the bot fly eggs that lit up her tummy, in addition to her skin and bones, she had a panga wound low down on the mane. Perhaps this was a random act of violence, or maybe it was meant to mark her as the property of her owner; because if you cut deep enough (and she was) the mane grows back white in that place.

Rosie walked from Lesotho to South Africa (Bloemfontein in the Freestate). She walked to a dealer yard. Her owner's mom died, and as is custom he needed a cow to slaughter for the funeral. He had Rosie as trade and thought that if he got her to the dealer he'd get enough money for a medium-sized cow. Rosie walked and walked and made it into the country. Then, 80-100kms from the dealer yard she broke down. Her owner had some corrugated iron with him, which he hammered out flat and then hammered into her feet. He thought this would make her hooves strong enough for the rest of the trip. Sadly, it did not. She could not walk and eventually she was tied down to the back of a small pick-up or bakkie and driven the rest of the way. When she got there, infection had set in and she was unable to walk for four days.

This is when the plea went out. She was on the market for $250, loads more than meat price... but he insisted on his cow money and would not let her go for less.

This was what she looked like

I decided to buy her and off we went...we drove 600kms to fetch her and paid the full price. Her owner had named her Papiertjie (Scrap of paper) which is what she resembled. I renamed her Bring Me Roses (Rosie) hoping for friendship and love and companionship from this FIRST Houthoek rescue. She was covered in wounds, her hooves were infected. Her belly lit up with the eggs of botflies - a parasite nibbled up through the eggs on the coat and into the digestive tract.

Rosie was thin, her hooves were shocking and she was so so sweet.

Shaggy dog, Rosie loving on Tristan

Her harness wounds stayed for quite some time, but she steadily gained condition...

Harness wounds showing up here, and still needing some condition

And then, four months later, she gave me roses after all...

SURPRISE!

And as you can see, she got SHINY!

Getting better, always :)

Feeling fine :)

And her tail grew wildly!

After Tiger Lily was born Rosie became more withdrawn. She became the independent Basotho pony she could be, while Lily got up to some weird things...

Lily and Masu

Lily and Masudik broke out of the paddock and into my front lawn :)

The point is that she was pregnant from the start, we just never knew. Both Lily and Rosie still live with us, and most of these pics are from 2009/2010 - when they started.

Things Flanders fails to 'get'

THE entire James Bond franchise. I am actually ashamed to admit this, mainly because of words like ‘icon’ and ‘pop culture’ but there you go. Admittedly, some lines are amazing as stand-alone items.

Terrifying...

Anything ever written by Dan Brown.  Not compunction here. I don’t like facty fiction or religious theorising of any sort.

Avatar.

This guy LOVES Avatar!

Twilight. Oef.

iAnything. I currently have an iPhone and I thoroughly hate it.

Most sport. These usually involve balls and genetically blessed young men who are able to kick them.

Keeping reptiles as pets. I am terrified of reptiles.

Justin Bieber. *sigh*

Really really high heels. I just…I mean…it’s just...

No!

People who use the word enormity to describe something big.

Push presents – they seem a little condescending to me. For those who don't know, push presents are gifts that husbands give their wives when they deliver a baby. Yay, gift grab!


50 Shades of Grey. I don’t get it. Why is it a thing?

People who never swear.

Always with the surprises...

SO I am back at thesising and I think I have found a winner to write about. EA Robinson is an American modernist poet. I just love the tidy elegance of his compositions, the tongue always in a cheek, the wonderful vivid images and the tone of his work. Honest, elegiac but never despairing. Wonderful.

Sadly neglected in our academic sphere, and yet he probably would have wanted it that way. Too bad EA, I am writing about you. I'm probably the first Saffa to do so. Wish me luck x

Here we go Masters!

We were in Cape Town when we got the news that my gran had passed. It was a vicious blow although not entirely unexpected. Loss compounded by loss; while I miss her now I have missed her for a long time as she suffered from dementia.

The proudest flower in our little garden

There was nothing we could do, we were in Cape Town and didn't get to say good bye. When the news came Tristan decided to take me to see the penguins at Simon's Town. It was a bitter sweet day.

The pair of them, just look at it!

And the pair of us, a macabre contrast

 

And them again, just because

Since last week Wednesday the race is on to save our Zita.

Zita has had an underlying problem since we got her. She vomits. A lot. She goes through peaks and troughs; doing wonderfully for months and then drastically dropping condition over night.

Altogether, we have taken her to seven different vets in three different provinces to try and root out the source of her issues. The diagnoses have varied from gastritis to ulcers to possible diabetes. We haven’t found a hard-and-fast answer.

 After three years of battling we finally have a diagnosis. Zita suffers from a rare congenital version of a hernia, by which a hole appears in the diaphragm and the organs move into the chest cavity. When not congenital this is cause by severe trauma, for example being hit by a car.

Symptoms include sudden onset anorexia and severe vomiting. I am proud to say she has never been anorexic. We rushed her to a vet in Johannesburg, a specialist surgeon with over 30 years’ worth of surgery under his belt. The best, we are told. He has done more hernia repairs than we can count, we are told. He received her x-rays and seemed optimistic.

Today she goes under his knife. The cost is well in excess of 1.5 months’ worth of my salary – but I’d pay so much more if she has a chance. And, I am told, she does.

I love you Zita, I love every grumpy inch of you. Please hang on girl child. xxx 

You funny, grumpy. quirky girl

ETA: As everyone knows, I said yes...

Not all doom and gloom then :)

Love + Memories!

HEREWITH random pictures of these last few years on the farm - some of my favourites! I think I should do these every now and again :)

I love you Bishop

Blue, Rocky and Bishop

Bishop

Year One - so much lies ahead!

Memel Town - mid day

Once pharmacy, then butchery now museum - what next?

Tristan's other girl Gooch

Handsome Ace was gelded TODAY :)

The day Ace was born, everyone had to have a look

The day our Aces High was born

Danz Amour - Ace's mom