As the days passed I came to terms with Skramunkel's departure from my life, but still felt really sad that it had to be like that. I had some nice updates from the SPCA also, and they told me that this horse was truly muddled up, as she at first would have nothing to do with the other horses, or the people, but kept on breaking into the cattle's grazing ground, and then graze away contently in the cows's company. I was relieved to hear that she responded to the trainer later, and was found to be a good little saddle horse. The main thing was that I had no experience in raising a horse, so I let her grew up having her way most of the time, and I was just glad that she had no lasting traits.
Got up early, and walked down with a bucket of water to water my veggies, as of course we had strict water restrictions, and was allowed only a little water per day. Nearly had a kingsize fit when I found all my plants wilted, and on closer inspection found that the bally creeper moles had found their way down to this new patch, and had made miles of tunnels underneath my veggies. I screamed to get rid of my anger, as I was fit to burst, and watched with glee as the peacock who was strutting around on my ground trying to scare me off, took to the skies with a startled scream himself! I had given up on the strawberries for the moment, as the last plunder from the peacocks had just about finished the whole lot! I had decided to have a go at finding ways to put spokes in the wheels of the snails, peacocks, chickens, and what not, when I came back from Scotland, as it was not long now before I had to go back.
Jan's chickens in the meantime was proving to be quite a wild bunch, and he had to device a plan to keep the two clans apart, as the fights that broke out between the lot was quite vicious.
As they started to become kind of grown up, it became clear of course that there was only one real hen, called Kleintjie (little one) as she was very small, and amongst the reds that was later bought there proved to be only a few hens as well, and that spelled trouble, although with our scanty knowledge of poultry keeping, we did not realize that.
There were two red cocks, but the Kuk-kuks turned out to be a funny lot, as there was about five cocks that looked like cocks, while the other lot looked half cock, half hen, and although there was a lot of chasing each other, no eggs were ever laid, except by Kleintjie, who had later to be protected and put into a seperate pen. Both the red cocks were very cheeky, but one of them was a real Don Juan, beautiful, and nothing but a cockey chauvanist! He would strut around on his rediculous yellow legs, leering at the young hens in a very offensive way, swinging his body, and swinging his head from side to side, while sweeping the ground with his one wing!
It wasn't long before the Kuk-kuks found out that there were females in the other clan, and that is when the trouble started.
Two of the Kuk-kuk cocks had paired off, and they roamed far afield, as they were not fighters, and tried to stay out of the way of the ever warring others, who had done some bad damage to their plumage, and I suppose their egos. It was pitiful when at night time the two would amble slowly up to the house, then stand clucking fearfully, stretching their necks to breaking point to peep around the pepper tree to see if it was safe to take up their night time spot on the fence, out of sight of the others. They then sit close together, keeping as silent as two mice, and my heart would go out to them.