Update: Monday, July First, 2013…

What Does The Jonny Miss Most About Home In 3 Days???

These are the answers in order from most correct to correct. If you guessed any of the following, consider yourself a winner.

—————————————————

1) Fireworks
2) Mexican Food
3) Women or the company of a woman (ok-ok, it’s possible this one could be #1 haha)
4) Sleep
5) The Shotgun Range and Saturdays with my Great Uncle & Friends/Family
6) Money/Income
7) IN-N-OUT (for those of you not from America, this is a famous hamburger chain that is in California, Nevada and Arizona)
—————————————————-

What does The Jonny miss the least about home? (no particular order)
—————————————————-

1) Our Political BS (Do I really need to mention a name(s)?)
2) Ridiculous Taxes
3) Polluted Air (Los Angeles)
4) Unhealthy Food
5) Living and Rotting in a Cubicle
6) Los Angeles Traffic
—————————————————-

Ok, so onto a more serious update. I have been given clients of my own as of a few days ago. I had to pick them up all the way down in Durban which is about a 4.5 hr drive from Vryheid. I have been their host and driver/guide for these past few days and tomorrow we are doing a tour of famous battlegrounds nearby. We are going to Rorke’s Drift, Blood River and one other place. Here is the catch. Ooooooh there is always a catch, believe you-me. I have to pick up some tour guide along the way and he has no address. He couldn’t even give coordinates. Thank God he at least has a cell phone so we can try to meet up.

*By the way, side note, just about everyone that is poor here somehow manages to have a cell phone (usually a really nice one like a galaxy 4S or a iphone 5) and be on it texting (or SMS’ing as they call it) and calling constantly YET they don’t have money for anything else and are lucky to eat a bowl of dirt for dinner… If you know why this is, please feel free to email me!

Anyways, so I have to do all of this while making it look like I know what I’m doing in front of the clients… This is where I start laughing insanely LOL, because that is pretty much impossible given the circumstances. However I will do my best and hopefully it turns out well.

We have had non-stop clients in the camp. Several groups of Americans which were all great and just recently we had a group of South Africans who were very cool people as well. I got to party with them a little one night and I would like to think I made some new friends out here. It’s too bad they are from Pretoria but they were really fun and nice people. Many thanks to Marius for the help with the Visa. Thanks Bud!

If you are dying for the buffalo story, well what’s worse then dying? Because guess what? I haven’t had time to finish writing it and uploading all the vids for it (I have to do some editing as well). So it’s going to be a HUGE post once it’s done, but it will take time.

Meanwhile, sadly the ridgeback dogs here got out one night about a week ago and one was slashed by a bushpig. I apologize if my next words sound graphic but this is what happened. They got loose and were running around out in the bush. We had a gut pile that we recently started stocking about 300 yards from where I stay here and the smell sometimes drifted up here (enough for the dogs to pick it up regularly at least). Now most normal people would ask, “Why on Earth would you put piles of guts, bones, animal heads and skins in a pile near to where you are living?” Good question!!! I don’t fully understand the proximity part myself either, but we put an infrared trail camera up by it so we could see what kinds of animals were coming in regularly to the guts so that eventually if we wanted to take (kill) one of those animals with a client, we would know to go there at a certain time of the night to do so.

The trail camera has showed us that bushpig, a BIG male leopard, and a brown hyena have been feeding there fairly regularly. So about a week ago we all went down to have dinner at the Lapa and I guess the dogs got lonely and caught a wiff of this nasty meat and dug their way under the fences to go there. Well somewhere along the way they must have bumped into a bushpig and the one female dog was slashed towards the rear but on the side of her belly. Her intestines were coming out. The dogs managed to run to the lapa and some of the other people found them. At first we thought the dog had been shot and essentially “raised all alarms” and started armed patrols/investigations. Naturally I grabbed the 12 gauge shotgun loaded with SSG shells that has been “issued” to me along with my flashlight. Not too much later we realized it was almost certainly a bushpig that got her. In the end, they had to put her down, the farmer way.

It’s a sad day when you have to shoot your own dog. Especially when it is clearly still alive in front of you, but you know that it won’t survive in the longer run and is suffering. It was a little easier for me because I wasn’t as emotionally attached to the dog as the owners but I still played with them and pet them sometimes and even I felt sad when this all happened.

Sad stories aside… I am regularly hearing that leopard grunting around our developments here on the farm around sunset and well into the dark night when I am sleeping. It’s not normal for them to attack full grown humans but it still makes me think and wonder sometimes. Especially when I ride home late at night on the dirt bike or walk around in the dark I can’t help but be aware of the fact that it is out there and there is a great chance that IT IS watching. A 12 gauge over my shoulder is a comforting friend at night in this place

Well I should be off to bed. There is much more to say but that gives you all a decent bit for now. I am planning on doing a video update in the future because that is a little faster than typing up a whole update. Maybe that will save me some time. I wrote all this as fast as I could, so sorry if it isn’t as well put together as I would like to think some of my other posts have been. But I have already sacrificed just over an hour of precious sleep to bring this to you all so I hope it is enjoyed.

I hope everyone is doing well.

Cheers and Goodnight!

-The Jonny

ZZZZZZzzzzzzz’s

2 thoughts on “Update: Monday, July First, 2013…

    • Oh thanks Steve! What did you like about it? Just curious, I always enjoy feedback.

      Ya its sad what happened to the dog but this is Africa and it is dangerous, things like this happen as I’m sure you know.

      Oh wow nice! It was an enjoyable trip that day once I got us there. I was essentially given 4 different sets of directions. And no, im not joking, 4 different sets. It was totally bogus but I got the job done in the end and the clients ended up having a good time after all 🙂

Leave a Reply to steve robinson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *