Having a bale of a time.

There’s always one who has to get her fingers caught in the cookie jar. The drought has been relentless and we have had to take desperate measures to keep the animals in good condition.

40 tons of lucerne and grass fills up our bush pantry and every day the vehicle takes out loads of food to various points on our 3,000 hectare game farm.

Except some folk have become lazy and they hover around the shed eating their bellies full, then lazily amble a mere 20 meters away to chew the cud. And back again. And so the cycle goes.

Today one clever heifer ate her way from the front of the shed to the back. Until she was caught in a corner and her exit was blocked by a heavy bale.

Far from being domesticated and with an unfortunate disposition, made the task of freeing the heifer difficult. The bales were far too heavy to be humanly removed so the front end loader (TLB) was called in. It took ages to shift the bales, while the buffalo was beginning to breathe heavily and showed signs of stress.

Two hours later the way had been cleared for her, by now she was exhausted. We let her rest and finally, after a couple of hours, she shook herself off, snorted out the dust and ambled off as though nothing had happened.

Just another day in Africa