June has been a true baby booming month for us. Our beautiful (if noisy and sometimes irritating) Indian Runner ducks have produced 10 ducklings for us and it is such a pleasure to watch them chase after their Mummy looking for slugs and bugs and puppy dog tails. They are still brown fluff balls and it’s hard to believe that they will change into white females and multi-colored males within a month or two. Rexie the Daddy was bitten by something nasty a month ago and now has scoliosis of the spine – when I recommended physiotherapy and traction, Joerg seemed to think I’d lost control of the last of my senses…

We are also now the proud parents of 5 chicklets which were hatched in an incubator and who will now need to be shown the ropes by a replacement parent. I have delegated picking and scratching lessons to aforementioned care-less husband, but egg laying is going to have to be me. Any ideas as to the best way for doing this are most welcome.

And then there are the 20 plus kits. What is she talking about, I hear you mumble. This is apparently the proper word for baby rabbits. I personally prefer rabblets or even bunnychens, but these appear not to be acceptable words for these amazingly cute and cuddly, bonny bunny rabbits. My aunt named one of them Lollypop as it always licks one’s fingers before giving them an ever-so-gentle bite. In rabbit circles I’m now called The Living Carrot.

An extra special addition to the farm has been the acquisition of Pekin Ducks and Guinea Geese. They are currently 2 months old and are already double the size of the full grown Runner ducks. We had them in with the chickens, but the (killer) cockerel (who is half their size) soon discovered that these babies are terrified of him, so he spent all day chasing them so we’ve had to put him into confinement for a while. We have given him his two ladies so he can’t really complain (but he does). His two ladies had an unsuccessful baby producing season. The one sat on fresh air for weeks – you can take away eggs after a certain period of time has passed without any chicks, but how do you take away fresh air? Talk about empty nest syndrome…

And last but certainly not least, are the 6 lambs we had in May. Okay, that the sheep had in May (picky picky). One mother had triplets and was clearly overwhelmed and actually tried to kill the third one! Well I was having none of that and dashed in and saved the baby. It was less thrilled than I felt I deserved and kept bleating for its biological Mummy. I considered having Joerg roll in sheep poop so that she would recognize the smell and maybe feel happier, but it didn’t work. We bottle fed the baby for a couple of days (much to the disgust of our cats), but the bleating and the random pooping soon wears thin and I was very glad that the Mommy decided to take back Tilly /Tilly Billy (couldn’t figure out what sex it was – must have missed that Biology class). All’s well that ends well.

And amongst all this excitement we went to the Med for a few and days to enjoy about the same weather they’re having at the FOOTBALL in SOUTH AFRICA!!! Germany played Serbia in Port Elizabeth yesterday and they had to use heat lamps to dry out the field. And this in a drought stricken PE. We have had no rain for months and the dams were dangerously low and then the football teams arrived and it hasn’t stopped raining since…Thank you Footballers!

Here’s hoping that the weather gods will be good to you and that you are all enjoying your noisy (sorry about the Vuvuzelas) stay in my homeland. If it’s any consolation, the weather here is about the same as the weather there, except that there are no Vuvuzelas (bugger I’m supposed to be talking about the good things) here and also no friendly South Africans who are very glad you made the long journey to SA. THANK YOU and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that your team wins, whoever you may be.

(PS: This post was to be followed by my Szegediner Goulasch recipe, but it has gotten a bit long in the tooth so I’ll post it separately. It is a perfect meal for this alleged summer cum winter weather and we enjoyed while watching football just yesterday.)