The rains have started at the end of October, after about five months without. There is a beauty of hearing the rain on windows, the ground outside and, faintly, on the roof, as well. The thunderstorms have been really been magnificent, with lightening flashing every few moments and the thunderclaps making everyone jump. The lowvelt is full of bright colour and new life. The trees are greener than ever, and all there are new babies wondering around. There are now warthog piglets, and we're waiting to see the offspring of the large herds of impala that roam through the estate. The zebra are extremely shy and in the seven months I've been here I've only seen them twice, so I'm not sure we'll be seeing their foals (as baby zebra are called). The other animals aren't as shy as the zebras of Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate. Its lovely seeing this.
Just now, two of the female warthogs that frequent our little garden arrived with two tiny piglets. These two little piglets are extremely nervous and skittish. They ran up and down the garden, looking for their mother, at almost every sound. They kept climbing into the water troughs that we have in the garden, looking for the small amount of water at the bottom. It was quite funny to watch them. Last year, my mum said that there was a litter of warthog piglets who came into the house. They got stuck because of the sliding glass doors, which they couldn't see. The glass door was half shut and because they couldn't see it they kept walking into out and Mum says they were squeaking to get out and had to be helped. We being more careful, as we've had two baboon raids on our house since my family moved down here last year! Baboon raids are not nice to clean up, I can tell you that!
Watch this space for more news, stories and pictures! I'll post when my forms, visa and the like start coming in!