Rings n Things

I looked down at the ring I wear on my finger the other day and took a double take...with my eyesight not as good as it has been in the past, it needed me to put on my glasses and have a better look, before realizing that what I thought I saw was in fact so.  One of the emerald stones has indeed fallen out, and when it happened or where it happened, I am not sure.

With all the work I do, I choose to only wear this ring as it is small and less likely to become ruined by wear and tear.  It is in fact my birthstone ring and if truth be told I received it by default.  Having a husband who is not big on giving jewelry, bless his soul, I remember him saying to me after we were married that my wedding ring would be the last I would receive from him.  Not being one to be trapped by desiring bigger, better or more than others have, it did not truly concern me, but I guess my story concerning rings started from the time we were engaged.

When Johan first asked me if I would marry him and I said 'yes', we went 'ring shopping', looking in all the jewelry store windows to find something I liked.  Eventually I found something, small, pretty and delicate and it came as a twin set with the wedding band fitting in...just what I was looking for.  From ring shopping the next step was to ask my parents if he would give his blessing and it came with the usual 'daddy' speech of those days - lol

Once that was over, I just had to wait till the official big proposal took place and when that ring was placed on my finger I was the happiest girl alive.  My happiness came crashing down around me, when one Sunday night after returning home from church I saw that one of the stones had fallen out.  I clearly remember Sara and I crawling around on our hands and knees on our bedroom floor, as well as in the passage, looking for a diamond that we were very unlikely to find, and find it we didn't.  I guess the next day, when I told Johan what had had happened to my ring, was the day I realized without a shadow of a doubt that I had chosen right and I had chosen well.  I was nervous, no petrified to tell him, imaging him getting angry and shouting the odds...but he didn't.  He wasn't angry at all, in fact he was really calm and almost apologetic at what had happened.  We took my ring back to the shop where he bought it and they promised to repair it.  Sadly when we got it back, it looked nothing like the original design and I was so clearly disappointed that Johan did his best to sort it out.  We ended up receiving a complete new engagement ring and separate wedding band to replace what we had before and I wore them for many years before they were stolen during one of our many break-ins.  Having insurance gave me an opportunity to 'replace' them and with the value having increased over the years, I was left with a big decision in choosing replacements and was blessed to be able to get 4 rings for the same value - a new engagement ring, two eternity bands and the emerald ring, which as I said before, is my birthstone....and that is the story of how I got this ring 'by default'.  Every day looking at my ring brings back different memories, the best of which is that it binds me to the man I love, the man who has shared 33 years of his life with me, the man who has seen me at my best and at my worst, the man who I have shared laughter and tears with, the man who with the Lords blessing will be by my side for many, many more years.

 Soon after we became in engaged in June 1981

 As we are today...

We Have a Baby Boy

Sunday  I posted photo's on Facebook of Switch's huge, overdue belly.  I had googled again to check the gestation period of a horse, after my initial calculation of the 8th January passed by and she was still walking.  Reading that you have to make allowances for various reasons not easily explained here, I recalculated to the 14th January.  Well Johan left for KZN and NiQi was admitted to hospital on the 14th, and Switch just looked over her shoulder at them as they said 'goodbye' as if to say...'yah, now I have some privacy'.

Not wanting a repeat of last time, I did not want to appear the over anxious mother hen again, so every morning I resisted the temptation to go outside in the hours after waking just to have a peek.  I realized I would probably miss the whole birth again, and just hoped and prayed that all would progress with no problems.

Each morning I walked outside with my cell phone in one pocket and my camera in the other, in the hope I would have something exciting to take photographs of.

Yesterday morning, Monday, I went out and looked over to where Switch usually stands in the early hours, when she is waiting impatiently for me to get out to feed her...as if she is the most important individual around!!! Well she wasn't in her usual spot , but not far off and strangely she didn't move closer but stayed where she was.  I looked at her belly which still seemed quite rotund and fleetingly I thought she was still carrying her foal.  Then I noticed her looking back over her shoulder and back at me again as if she was trying to tell me something.  I peered into the distance of the new dawn morning that was just breaking through and I thought I saw something through the grass.  My heart skipped a beat as I knew it was her foal and I was dying to see it.  I went as quickly as I could to get the horse food and after feeding her, Zorro and Angel, I crept along to have a good look.

There it was lying under an orange tree, beautiful and perfectly formed.  It couldn't have been born too much earlier as it's mane and tail was still damp.  Out came my camera and phone as I quckly snapped a few photo's.  The light wasn't very good but I did manage a few before it must have smelled me standing close by, as it let out a whiny for it's mum.  I haven't seen Switch run so fast in a long while as she tared toward me, head held high.  I spoke to her in a sweet soothing voice, as she slowed her pace and reached her baby.  She nosed him and the next minute, he was up on his feet...wobbling a bit and setting his gangly legs in position to keep himself upright.

The day went by so quickly for the new born as I often went out to check on them both.  He followed his mum around as she munched on grass and if he wasn't laying prostrate on the ground sleeping, he was on his feet suckling from Switch's extremely full udders.

Before the foal was born we had told Matthew he could choose a name, and when I came back in the house to share the good news with the family, I asked him what his choice of name was...he came back to me within  minutes...his decision - Yash's Pride.  Yash means victory and prosperity...a good choice for a beautiful stallion.

 If you look close to the middle you will notice a lump pushing at her side

 Switch and her big belly

 As I first saw him under the orange tree

 Switch checking on her newborn

 Standing on his feet for the first time

 lying prostrate on the grass

 His back hooves - already worn

 His wispy tail

 His sparse mane

Sleeping as a newborn does

Chance Meeting with a CF Mum

This morning I was on Facebook, as I am most mornings after breakfast and I read a post on one of the CF groups posted by a mum.  It caught my attention more so than many others as this mum was saying that her little one has in the past had Colimycin for a Pseudomonas infection which she received in both the USA and the UK but now in South Africa she couldn't get any because of it STILL not having been approved by the Medicines Control Council.  AHA, I thought to myself, I may be able to help here,so I quickly hovered over her name with my mouse to see where she is situated, and lo and behold, it is Pretoria....so I commented on her post and said I have some spare if she would like them,  It wasn't a minute later that I had an 'inbox' message from her asking where I lived.  I messaged back and likewise asked where she is. Well we are on opposite sides of the city, but no worries, wherever anyone goes here, one tends to have to travel great distances.  After giving her my GPS co-ordinates, she said she would get in her car and leave straight away, which left me sitting bolt upright and thinking, yikes I better do some tidying up - after all this isn't just any visitor, this is a CF MUM!!!!!!  Calculating I probably had about 40 minutes before she arrived  I summed up in a split second what I needed to do to make the place look anywhere near acceptable and got cracking.  Out came the vacuum cleaner to whip over the carpets, the bucket and mop to clean the kitchen, bathroom and toilet floors and every surface I could see was Domestos'd and disinfected...all things I was going to do once I had rested from my early morning stint and caught up on Facebook.

As it turned out, I had quite a bit longer than anticipated to get things under control - lol - as she frantically called me after her GPS had sent her to a very remote area near Soshanguve.  Not knowing the township area at all left me a bit perplexed for a second, trying to give her advise as to how she should travel to get onto a road that would eventually bring her to me.  With us not being on Google maps nor any other map for that matter we had to find a point that would get her going in the right direction.  Finally we hit on Grootvlei Garage, which is not too far from us and is a point that IS on Google maps.  She said she would phone me as she got closer, so I waited for her call.  Eventually, she did arrive here - after about two and a half hours!!!!!!

We spent the next two hours together discussing CF health care in the USA, the UK and South Africa.  She has had a bit of a shock to say the least and apparently fired the doctor she was recommended after just one visit.  I have often read the comments and posts of those from the rest of the world on these groups and thought to myself, how I wish we had access to the things that they do, or how nice it would be for so much care to be given from health care officials and hospitals, as is so often described and then depicted in my mind.  Yet, strangely enough I found myself defending South Africa.  Without even giving further thought I told her about what we personally have experienced and how we have moved on.  In defense of our state hospitals I told her how difficult it is for our CF doctors to gain the best that they can for their patients.  NiQi, and Mark have been blessed with excellent, caring, well educated in CF, doctors and physiotherapists and without a shadow of a doubt I can say that they have received the best.  Going even further, I think of the survival rate in South Africa of our CF's and I think it is more than comparable with the rest of the world...after all NiQi is now 24 and some of the other CF patients that we know of are even older than she is.  So even if Colimycin hasn't YET been approved by the Medicines Control Council, at least as a state patient it is available and because of that I was able to help a fellow CF mum out today with some of this 'gold dust' that she desperately needs to keep her son healthy.....and that, as some would say, is how we roll...

Yet Another Clinic Day

Today has been one of those days I would like to forget in a hurry.  It started off well enough but ended up with me feeling frustrated and furious....

Early to rise as is usual for a clinic day, I have noticed in recent weeks that even though we have just passed our summer solstice, it is already getting light later in the mornings.  So going outside at 4am is no longer fun when you know that dawn will not be breaking for more than an hour away and with talk on our radios of suspects and guns and suspicious vehicles seen in the area, I do not know how safe it is to be outside at that time of the morning.  However when needs must, then you do what you have to...

We left an hour later than we usually do, as Kyle took a day's leave to go with us and officially meet NiQi's doctor at the clinic. With him in the driving seat for a change, we went via the highway instead of the R101, which is much quicker to travel, but you never know if or when there may be an accident en route.  Today was a good day for us as we only hit one spot of backed up traffic and then when it dissipated and we made it onto the next section of road, we were left wondering what it was that had caused so much chaos.  No matter though, as we continued fairly painlessly, arriving at Charlotte Maxeke at 7.45am.  Being the first week of clinic in the new year, we knew it would be busy and it sure was.  NiQi was 3rd on the list so there was a while of waiting before her turn to go in.  In the meantime she went to lung function and was happy that it was the same as her last visit in December.  Her weight was down another 400g, the second month in a row - so even after all the Christmas and New Year celebrations and the mounds of food she ate, it made no difference at all.

Back upstairs and waiting for the doctor, NiQi used her time to confirm her bed at Milpark and get authorization from Discovery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Following protocol, she phoned on Monday to the doctors rooms at Milpark to book a bed and was told that they would speak to the doctor as they usually do admissions on a Tuesday, but if there was a problem they would phone her back.  NO PHONE CALL...
Again, as per usual and per instruction she phoned yesterday to Discovery for authorization for admission and after giving all her details, was told that she must phone today............
First phone call was to Discovery, repeating everything to the call centre person that she had said just yesterday, she had the phone call disconnected.  Usually when this happens - as it has happened before - they call back, but not today!!!!!  So another call, repetition of the now 2 previous conversations, and finally it sounded like she would get authorization.  Not a chance, she was asked for an 'imap' or 'mappi' code or something like that, that she didn't have and so had to wait to see the doctor before getting it.  As it turned out, her doctor didn't know either so that didn't help her at all.
Next call to check that a bed was still available....NOT A CHANCE.....Milpark told her that a bed hadn't been booked and there were none available.....gross negligence on the part of the doctor's rooms me thinks!!!!!  Well woop-de-do, the day was getting better.

Finally NiQi went in to see the doctor and Kyle went in with her so he could see and hear first hand what happens at a clinic appointment.  An hour plus later she was finished and a decision was made for her to be admitted to ward 496, Charlotte Maxeke in the interim and then Monday she will be transferred to Milpark.

While NiQi tried to organize herself, she had Kyle and I mixing up Colistin and Tazabac - and here I might add that after mixing 18 bottles of Colistin, I think that nurses deserve a pay increase!!!!!!  Her first dose was running through and she was feeling dizzy, nauseous and sleepy - Happy wasn't there but Grumpy was...LOL, so Kyle and I decided to leave her be to have a rest and we made our way home.

Home held more fun for the day, but that's another tale....

'Call the Midwife'

A friend of mine recently lent me the BBC series 'Call the midwife', which I have been watching since just after Christmas.  She is shocked that I have already managed to work my way through all 3 seasons in such a short space of time, but I must say in my defense, it has been done whilst I have been doing craft work and making presents for people, so I have actually been really busy at the same time.

I have been enthralled, and if you do not know the series, it is based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth - a midwife who worked in Poplar, in the east end of London, during the 1950's.  Never having been to the east end of London myself, it is interesting to see how it was then and the situations of many of the inhabitants.  Many of the men were unemployed and the majority of the rest worked on the docks.  Not many episodes were watched without a lump in my throat or a tear in my eye as I felt a sadness for those portrayed in the stories told.  

I felt nostalgia for a time in my life, when seeing many of the buildings, as I was reminded of  Regina Road in Chelmsford which was situated below the railway line that ran along the far end of the road.  It was here that I and my siblings spent many weekends staying with my granny and granddad, creating many happy memories together, listening to war stories of a time when my mum and aunt grew up there.

There was however one episode in particular that left me living the situation myself.  It was episode 2 of season three, and as with all other episodes there were a number of cases involving different families intertwined together.  In this episode there was a young couple who had both a newborn and a toddler.  Both were chesty, failing to gain weight and generally sickly.  The poor parents were exhausted, neither getting much rest.  The mum was supplementing the newborn with water as it was always griping and hungry.  As I said, I lived the episode as it brought back so many of my own memories.  I knew where the story was going without being told...I remember so clearly how tired I was before Mark became so ill that he was hospitalized.  I fed him myself and at times had blisters from the continuous sucking, but I persevered just as the mum did in 'Call the Midwife'.  Having had Matthew before Mark I didn't dare want to think that there was something wrong with Mark, but I knew that things were not the same.  He also battled to pick up weight, even though I was feeding him all the time.  I started him on some solid foods at about 6 weeks, not a lot, just a teaspoon or so at a time, but at least it kept him quiet for a while.  I had him back and forth at our GP almost every week, but it wasn't until he was a year old and I went to the clinic for him to receive his injections that the sister in charge asked me when last I took him to see my doctor as she could see there was something wrong with him.  Watching, brought back all these memories...the way the parents felt in the episode were the same for Johan and I, not knowing but also not wanting to know.  I went through the same 'blame ' game after diagnosis, wondering if it was something I had done, or something I had eaten when carrying him.  When the paediatrician called me in to deliver the results of his diagnosis, I heard nothing of what he said, other than that he would never reach adulthood and the average age was 14.  Whatever else was told to me on that morning went in one ear and out the other.  It was only later after the genetic sister paid us house calls for counselling, did I slowly begin to understand.  That was 27 years ago now, almost 30 years after when the episode was set.  I am impressed I must say, by the realistic way the story was told - someone definitely did their homework to bring it to life the way that they did.  Of course, only those who have lived through the diagnosis of their own children, will truly understand, but let me tell you that what you see is almost the real thing, it is indeed a very good portrayal...

Late Breeding Season

From year to year I can almost know when the parrots and the like that are seasonal breeders are going to start breeding.  It has become anticipated that come June/July I am hand rearing a brood of maroon tail African Greys and Ringnecks, however this year I had to throw out the rule book.  If I had written this blog a couple of months ago, as I had fully intended, it certainly wouldn't have been anything like what I am now posting.

March time I noticed a marked difference in the birds with them almost begging us to clean out their nest boxes from last year and fit them back into their cages.  I similarly begged Johan, telling him that as early as it was in the year, the birds were ready to breed.  He blatantly ignored me and continued with anything to do with budgies and left the other poor birds to get on with it.  Visiting Bakkies and Daleen at Easter time we happened to discuss this very matter one evening and I was quite hot under the collar about it as I was certain we had missed the window period to a good breeding season which would either have been over early or we could have had a bumper time with two or maybe even three rounds of chicks from each pair.  Johan was quite non-commital to any thing, however Bakkies reckoned that 'we' were right to wait.  He reckoned that by waiting the birds will breed better later in the year.  So, okay, having another opinion made me feel slightly better about not doing anything positive at the time, but some months on now and I was beginning to feel that maybe Bakkies too had been wrong and we were in fact going to go a whole year, or season, without one chick from any of them.

It is by all accounts way too hot for the birds to be breeding now as we have gone from a cool winter - much cooler than the last few years anyway - to an extremely hot 'spring'.  when I say hot, I am not exagerating....it is 29/30 degrees celcius every single day.  To top it off, we have had winds that are blustery all day long and most days it is just plain unpleasant. So with it being as hot as it is, the birds should actually not even be considering breeding now - and yet they are.  In the last few weeks I have noticed how they have been going into their nest boxes and when Johan was here earlier in the month, he had a peek and noticed that they almost all have either been into the nests and/or laid eggs. 

Well most interesting for me are 3 pairs of Red Rumps which were given to Johan by Bakkies to try out.  The first pair I don't think have been anywhere near the nest as it still looks as undisturbed inside as the day that I put sawdust in it.  The second pair we had high hopes for as they were definitely going into the nest, but then sadly a bird of pray came and attacked the male through the wire and it died.....  The third pair are what we pinned all our hopes on and we watched as the hen laid first one egg, then a second and a third right up to five eggs.  With keen anticipation and much trepidation I have been keeping a watchful eye on these eggs and will you believe it when I tell you that two of the eggs hatched!!!!  The chicks were the tiniest  and fluffiest little things I've ever seen.  The first chick only survived two days but the second one is growing bigger and stronger by the day.  The other eggs haven't hatched, but that's okay.  I will be happy if they manage to raise the one chick, then at least we know that there is hope for more in the years to come.

As for the other birds - well Olive, our ever faithful ringneck, laid five eggs and I know that she has chicks now.  I'm not sure how many there are as she is viscious and mean to me, so I am waiting for Johan to come home so he can have a look.  The African Greys are still sitting on eggs and hopefully they too will be hatching soon.....so I have been proven wrong, but I had to wonder if it was nature adjusting to a situation that wasn't helped by us not fitting the nest boxes?  No, I don't think so, because if the birds were ready to breed when I thought they were, they would have laid eggs in the bottom of their cages, irrespective - and they didn't....

 first pair of red rumps

 cockatiel hen

 second pair of red rumps before the male died

 Olive and her partner

 one of the African Grey pairs

 cockatiel chicks

 not a great photo but difficult to photograph in the nest - the red rumps' chick

the red rumps eating to feed their chick

Horsey Tales

Well after we put Titan down at the beginning of August, we decided we were going to keep the horses home.  It was best to keep and eye on them  instead of worrying where they may have wandered on the plot next door and whether or not they had picked up another scrape or scratch or gash or wound of any nature. 

With keeping them here it just means that they can be less picky about what they eat as they would have to settle for what is left before the rains come.  So it has been more than a month of staying here with us and every day as we look out across our plot I am surprized they still find anything to graze on.  Graze they do though and they are at it all day long.

Just before the end of last month I went out one afternoon to feed the horses and noticed that Switch was some way off looking most distressed.  To watch her it looked like she was choking, as she went round and round on the same spot, lifting her head and then tucking it in again.  I immediately phoned our vet and was panic stricken that she too may have the same problem that her foal, Titan had.  She was stumbling around as she continued to lift and let fall her head.  Chris, our vet, suggested that if she were choking, as she very well could be, then I should get her to water and squirt it into her mouth and down her throat to move whatever may be causing the problem.  This in itself was no easy task as she was far from any water and a hose.  I haltered her and started leading her up and that is when I noticed that she couldn't walk.  She was definitely unsteady on her feet and was dragging her front left leg.  We managed to get her up near the water tank and I connected the hose.  While NiQi held her still and then managed to get the hose into her mouth, I then turned water on so it could squirt down her throat.  Not a happy event for her at all as she kept spitting the hose out of her mouth.  We then observed her behaviour and decided between the two of us that her leg was actually the problem.  NiQi took a video on her phone which we sent through to the vet's emergency line and then I phoned them to find out what they thought.  Chris decided to come through himself and soon after he was here.  The long and the short of it is that it appeared one of the other horses, and by that we assume it was Navajo, kicked her on her shoulder.  It was most likely an accident, as he would not have gone for her, and she unfortunately ended up being in the middle of two of them.  He gave her an injection for the pain...it was the agony she was going through that resulted in her going round and round in circles tossing her head up and down.  We used an ice pack on her for a few days morning and night, rubbed arnica ice on the affected area for about a week and gave her anti-inflammatories morning and night too.   She will stay separated from the other horses until after she has had her foal in January. Navajo is happy there is just a fence between them as the two of them often call to each other and stand on either side of the wires talking to each other.

In the meantime she is chomping madly on what little grazing she has to herself.  She has finished the back camp where the sheep used to sleep and she has finished under the top citrus trees - as well as the trees themselves...sadly.  Now we have moved her around the house and flat.  The rain is on it's way I can feel it in my bones...lol  The horses are looking for something green for extra nutrition - thankfully they have not lost weight and become gaunt as we supplement them with horse rider meal.... in fact I think they are very spoilt horses.

 eating on the asparagus fern...nothing is safe now

 We had to tie her off from getting to the aviaries

 under the carport taking a nap

 the fruit trees!!!!

Behind the main house