Keeping Busy Around The Farm As The Days Fly By ......

This time next week - God willing - (says she who is terrified of flying, especially with the very same African airline which recently had an horrific crash in the Cameroon - and no survivors) I'll be safely on South African soil with my daughter.

When yet another adventure begins ... another chapter in my life. But more about that later in the week, when I'll fill you in on exactly what I'll be doing, and when !

In the meantime, I've been busy sorting through the boxes of babies clothes which I kept when my daughter grew out of them a few years ago. As we can get so little here, you tend to hang on to what you have - and if you don't need it one day, you pass it on.

I'm actually embarrassed at how much stuff I have (here's just some of it, piled onto the bed in our guestroom). So much excess, so much extravagance ... when people around me have so little. So, I've kept the bare minimum and given boxes of stuff away to people who need it more than I do ..... young mothers, old mothers, first time mothers or those who already have more children than can be counted on one hand. It gives me so much joy - always has - to give to people who have less than I do. Who need it more than me.

My husband is madly busy with his planting at the moment. Which is why he will only join us in South Africa two weeks after we arrive.

Took a drive down to where he was doing some planting this week, and watched the guys loading fertilizer into the planter (pictured above). Crisp blue Tanzanian skies stretched out above me ... and made me think of the smoggy, hazy Johannesburg sky I will soon be living under for almost 2 months. It'll be great to be in the city for a while, but I know how much I'm going to miss these endless blue skies.

And the stars ! You can't even see the stars in Johannesburg, for all the smog and bright lights that burn all night long .....

My husband was planting wheat the day I took these photo's. (As you can see, our new tractor is already earning it's keep !)

My daughter had a friend out at the farm this day, and they had great fun playing in the tractor cab for a while, afterwards running barefoot along the rough farm fields, the wind in their hair & the sun on their faces, teasingly shouting to one another 'Watch out for snakes !' as they smiled and waved at workers in the nearby fields, giggling in that carefree way that only children can !

I smiled to myself as I thought about how different her life is going to be over the coming months .... new adventures, new people, new places and a new (temporary) home. Will she miss the farm, I wonder ? I know that she'll miss the staff, her pets, the wide open spaces .... will talk in Kiswahili to all the African people we encounter in South Africa, and ask me, as always 'Mama, why are they ignoring me ?' as I have to explain to her that they don't speak or understand Kiswahili in this part of Africa .... will have children she encounters in local play parks asking her things in Afrikaans, and will stare blankly at them and say 'Excuse me ? What did you say ?' as this new, strange language puzzles her ....

Here's a field of beans which were planted (using the Zero Tillage method which you can read more about here) at the beginning of this month. They're coming along nicely, and are destined for the European market (seed beans).

I'm already missing the farm, and I haven't even left yet (!!) ..... but I'll be back later on this week to tell you all I have planned ..... and I'll be spending the rest of the weekend sorting, packing, organizing and making final 'To Do' lists ..... as I restlessly await this weekend, and the next few weeks ahead until the day I can finally hold my newborn daughter in my arms for the very first time !

Until then ................