Life can be sad, and sometimes upsetting, but oh, the strange and wonderful things one see every day by keeping your eyes open, are just so enjoyable. I was washing my lunch stuff, enjoying the few rays of sun that peeped through the window, when a flock of Muisvoêls (fruit eating birds, so don't know why they are called mouse birds), settled in the leaveless tree outside the window. It was the most amazing thing, as they all turned to the sun, opening their wings, soaking up the feeble heat! Then one of them flew onto a lower branch where a lonely bird sat, looking very cold. This bird then shuffled untill he was very close to the lonely one, opened his wings, and the two sat happily dozing.  Usually I shoot at this birds with my catapult, that of course is during the summer, when the fruit are ripe, and they ruin every peach or apricot, pecking at them, and when not soft enough to their taste, they just go on to another! So I don't really love them all that much, but seeing this half frozen lot basking in the sun did soften my heart a wee bit!
On Tuesday morning the peace and quiet was suddenly and rudely ripped apart when a pig started screaming and gurgling at Danny's place. I thought at first that it had escaped, as it does frequently, and Danny and family were trying to catch her. But this screaming kept on an on, and the screams were so full of anxiety and fear, that I went out into the road to have a look. Couldn't see a thing, but shouted that I will phone the SPCA if this torture did not stop. It stopped for a few hours, then it started again, but stopped after a while. I thought that maybe they had slaughtered the poor thing, as she was quiet for the rest of the night.
Next morning about nine, the frantic screams started again, and as Klonkie, Sheila's cattle man walked passed at the time I went to investigate, I asked him to go and have a look to see what they were doing to the poor sow. Now this is the same sow that had ruined my onions, so I should not have felt so sorry for her!!!!!!!
Klonkie came back laughing and giggling. Between shouts of giggling, he told me that Danny had rented a boar to fertilize the sow, but this sow was not at all taken with her bridegroom, as he was a bitty on the scraggy side, and smelled to high heavens! Not that I think any porker would mind a bit of smellyness, but how and so ever, every time the boar came within a meter of this sow, she put up such a racket, that the whole neigbouhood came down to see what was up. This went on for three whole days, and just when I was loosing it completely, as this noise was just across the road from me, Klonkie told me that they had in the end slaughtered the oncooperative sow, and bought another one from the owner of the boar. This sow was much more complient, and all went back to normal!