Our pig, Bacon (who, by the way, thinks he’s one of our dogs), has turned into a serial killer. Let me start at the beginning; Every thirty days, those of us on tourist visas, have to leave Mozambique. Charles and Marile had headed down to Joburg to visit his parents, so, as usual I’m here by myself for a week or so. No big deal. This week started out badly from the beginning. The first day wasn’t too bad, until I went to start the generator. First of all, the electronic start didn’t work due to the fact that whoever had stopped it the night before left the key in the ‘on’ position flattening the battery. No problem, it has a pull start backup and started first time. However, it then proceeded to run, but not exactly what you’d call smoothly. Surging up and down the rev range did not make me happy. After going through the usual list of what could be causing it, I ended up at the carbie. After fiddling a bit with it I at least got it to run at a constant rpm, albiet a little higher than normal but once you put it under load it was OK. First problem solved with a lot of swearing and the ever faithful Gerber tool.
We live on a hill overlooking the flood plain of the Limpopo River. We have a tank, on a stand, on top of the hill for our water. This really was the cause of all of the rest of the problems for the week. We have a pump at the bottom of the hill to pump water to the tank. This one is started hand by with a crank handle. The cranking handle has teeth cut into it, and the crank shaft has a piece fastened to it that matches those teeth, you slide the handle on the shaft, give it a crank and away she goes, in theory at least. However the piece fastened to the crankshaft wasn’t fastened properly and need to be tightened with an allen key. Now, I knew we had said allen key because Johan left one behind to do the job. We had it out when trying to attach a scope to the air rifle a few days before, but do you think I could find it when the water ran out? No bloody way. This is where once again, my faithful Gerber tool saved the day. The flat screw driver happened to fit in the screw and I was able to fasten the toothy thing to the crank shaft. Another problem solved, we had water again.
Now, as I said, the water tank really was the beginning of the problem all along. Randomly, the tank was running dry, usually overnight, when no water should have been being used. However, over the preceeding weeks we couldn’t figure out where we were loosing it as all taps were closed and toilets weren’t leaking. On Tuesday we discovered water running down the side of the tower and, Bingo!, we thought we’d found the problem. The water tower is brick, about two stories high. At it’s base it’s about six meters by 3 meters. There also happens to be a beehive inside the top of the tower, just to make things interesting. So we made an extra long extension ladder, and no, I’m not going to tell you how this was achieved! Having scaled the rickety ladder to the top of the world (ok, just the top of the tank stand, but it’s the highest place for miles!) we now had the offending tank in our sights. With a couple of the guys and a few bees buzzing around we rolled the tank over, manouvered it a bit and eventually found the leak, I hoped. Not a big crack but one that obviously leaks under pressure. After finding the right glues and making a patch I glued it on and hoped for the best. The instructions on this ‘plastiweld’ glue stated that it must be left for 24hrs to cure properly and have maximum effect, ‘fat chance’ I thought, I’ve got horses, other animals and me to water today. I decided we’d give it until after lunch and see how it looked, given it was only about 8:30am at this stage I hoped it would be long enough. Little was I to know that indeed it would get the full 24hrs!
Everyone then went back to their jobs until lunchtime. During lunch I notice that the guys were not lying around sleeping as usual, and this is unusual because they’ll sleep any chance they get! I wandered over to see what they were upto. I found them constructing what really amounted to a large pizza lift, the kind you see a person using in a large wood fired pizza oven. It had a long handle with a flat piece on the end. They’re also making what I recognised as a ’smoke bomb’ for want of a better description. This is basically dried tinder and grass the size and shape of a small coke bottle wrapped up in greenery and all secured with vines. It comes out to be a bit bigger than a rugby ball, you light the dried matter inside and as it smolders the surrounding greenery makes smoke. This, in theory, subdues bees. Now, I’d been up there that morning, right next to the hive and hadn’t had a problem. So, I thought to myself, if they wanna make smoke bombs and raid the hive for honey it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. They seem to know what they’re doing, it looks like they’ve done it plenty of times before, I might learn something by watching. I tell you what I learned - stay the hell away from bees!
The raid took place, smoke everywhere, and as per usual around here, everything seems to be on fire. There were three guys on top with a smoke bomb and the other guys were on the ground holding the big pizza lift with a smoke bomb on it near the hive entrance. So far so good. The guys on top opened the hatch and reached in, bad move. A giant, angry swarm of bees shot out and attacked everything, and I mean everything. The guys down the bottom covering their mates up top dropped the pizza lift with smoke bomb at the first sign of trouble and ran, leaving those up top in even more trouble. With all thoughts of fresh honey gone, the race was now on to see who could get away fastest, they’re not the bravest of fellows. The last guy down the ladder practically jumped from the top. By this time the farm was a ghost town, where there were ten black guys standing around offering helpful advice there were now none. This had taken around 30 seconds flat. Of course, I was standing on the porch of the house, about 30 meters away, laughing my arse off at these guys, I mean serious laughing. That is, until the freakin’ bees headed my way in search of their antagonizers. Apparently bees are color blind and they came straight for me, a bloody noisy, angry cloud intent on revenge. It was then my turn to run, straight inside slamming the door behind me! The house is sealed with screens to prevent mozzies getting in so I was alright. I proceeded to close all the windows to prevent their assault reaching me. Unfortunately, all of our animals, who think they’re human and hence reside on our porch, were right where they like to be, on our porch, where, until seconds before I had been too.
Now the commotion really started, firstly the dogs started yelping as they were attacked. I managed to call them inside OK and relieved the shorter haired canines of their stings. Outside, fighting the bees are the three parrots, the ducks and ducklings and of course Bacon. Bacon ran off squeeling, he’s got thick skin so he was the least of my worries. The ducks and the parrots were having a rough time. I ran out and grabbed one of the parrots, not being able to see the other two at that moment. I should mention I was only wearing a pair of shorts and had wrapped myself in a towel for this particular sortie, not the best attire to negotiate a swarm off angry bees. Upon re-entering the house I decided I needed to be better equipped for the fight or I could have a problem. That, however, involved running the gauntlet to my room. Once there I donned long pants, boots, and a long sleeved shirt. My mozzie net was hastily modified to fit over my hat in a bee keeperish sorta way. Ok, I thought, now I’m in business. However, in my haste I’d put on the wrong pair of army pants. These came from Pete, who has slightly shorter legs than I, and are made with elastic at the bottom designed to blouse around high army boots. Mistake number one, this now left a nice inch or so of bare skin (I was sockless) between the tops of my Blunstone boots and the bottom of my pants. I got nailed there twice before even making it back to the porch. I also forgot to button up my sleeves, leaving my forearms and hands exposed. More bloody stings, however I was bloody worried about the animals and the adrenaline was now flowing so back to the battle field I went.
Most of the ducks by now had escaped, but the mother duck and her ducklings were still there, with Mum copping the worst of it. I grabbed her round the neck and threw her in the door, closing it behind her. Now, I should tell you, we spend most of our time chasing the ducklings out of the house and off the porch (’cos they crap everywhere) so there really wasn’t much chance of me catching them all and getting them inside so they were on their own, not doing too badly by all accounts as they’d managed to hide away amongst the shelves and boxes. Now my attention returned to the two remaining parrots, I found the second girl on the other side of the wall taking refuge in the long grass, she’d been horribly stung on the flesh around her eyes and was in a bad way. No sign of the third parrot, much to my concern. I got her inside and the stings out, there must have been at least ten on the tiny little thing. Marile has raised them by hand and they sit out on the porch during they day, playing on their tree we’ve installed for them and at night the come inside and roost on the curtain rails in her and Charles’ bedroom. They’ll quite happily sit on your shoulder and ride around with you.
Little Macie was very ill, her tiny feet curled up into fists of torment, not even able to stand she was in so much pain. She just lay down on her tummy in the hospital box on top of the rags. I gave her Terramycin and could do nothing but wait. During this time I went out again to look for number three but couldn’t find him, by this time I was very worried considering the state of Macie but there was nothing I could do. I made sure the other animals seemed to have escaped OK then returned inside to tend to my own stings. I lost count of the stings as they were happening but I got done at least ten times if not more. A couple on the face, and numerous ones on arms, legs and torso. Wonderful fun! Thankfully, although they sting like hell at the time, making you really jump and yell, the pain soon goes away and you’re OK, except for a bit of swelling and tenderness. Now all I could do was make sure the dogs were ok and wait until the swarm had buggered off before searching for the rest of the animals. Don’t forget, that it was now mid afternoon and the water tank was still on it’s side and empty, and with the evident anger of the bees, looked to remain that way until tomorrow. During that time inside I could hear the other parrot calling out, most of the bees seemed to have left by this time so I went out for another look. However, one bee around the place is enough to attack you again and bring all the others back! Argh! This time I managed to find number three, who was fine having made it all the way to the tree by our vegetable garden where he was able to take refuge. So he was made safe inside and I had to attend to a few more stings. There was now nothing for me to do but sit and wait, attending to Macie as best I could, unfortunately she died about an hour later.
I still had animals and myself to water, time to make a plan. Once the bees had retreated enough to venture outside I set about rounding up the guys from various corners of the farm, using various methods to coax them back. We then grabbed the horses water buckets and placed them at the bottom of the tank stand. This is of course after more fires were lit to subdue the bees still hanging around. Bear in mind that the hose feeding the tank from the pump is attached to the top of the tower but not to the tank, which is standing on it’s side. I got them to start the pump down below and we filled the horse buckets with the cascading water, as well as a few buckets for other animals. I had a Jerry can of filtered water me to drink. Now the water problem was solved, except no shower for me that night - lucky I’m on my own!!The scene was set for completing the repairs early next morning. Upon my rounds of the animals I discovered that our white male duck had not returned and for the life of me I couldn’t find him. More worry. After finding the ducklings and rounding them up for a look I noticed that one was suffering from a couple of stings so I caught him, removed the stings, gave him some Terramycin and placed him in our hospital box for observation. After a few hours he seemed perky and fine so I returned him to his family that evening.
The next morning the white male duck had turned up and was not well after suffering multiple stings to the large fleshy parts around his eyes. I again administered Terramycin, and smeared anti-inflamitory cream around he’s eyes. The duckling from the night before had also not appreared again. I found him in his roost and he was not well either, so it was back inside for him to the hospital box and more Terramycin. He was very unwell and I didn’t hold out much hope. The repairs got underway again at 6am, with virtually no sign of the still sleeping bees. Up on top I checked the patch, which, to my surprise looked surprisingly good. We manouvered the tank back into position and attached the inlet and outlet pipes. It was about 9am by this time and our male duck was starting to look much better, sitting up properly and looking around a bit, making me much happier about his prospects for survival. The tank was now back in place, hopefully fixed, so we cranked up the pump to see. Whilst it was filling we all returned to our regular work. I returned to the house. Hearing a commotion I went outside. To my dismay, there on the ground, was a headless duckling. Next to it, Bacon was happily munching away in his food bowl. When ever Bacon gets fed the ducklings try to steal his food out of his bowl, this time Bacon chowed one of them. Bacon was now banished to the other side of the fence around the house, seriously banished, gates were tied up and so on so he couldn’t get through. Around 20 minutes later the blacks were calling “Boss Greg, Boss Greg!” I came out to find that Bacon has broken back through the fence and attacked the the white male duck whilst he was recovering, killing him. Bloody hell. Once again, with much swearing Bacon is banished back behind the fence. The rest of the day went pretty normally, the little duckling in hospital was hanging on, but only just. I didn’t have high hopes for the little guy.
The next day, Friday, went from bad to worse. When I awoke I was unable to find the ducklings, any of them. Now I’m really upset, it seems pretty obvious that Bacon has eaten the rest of them overnight, even the black guys tell me this. Mum is wandering around, eating as usual. Thankfully all our baby chickens are OK as Bacon can’t ever seem to get near them, they’re too quick. OK, I thought, now there are no sick or young ducks around, it should be OK. The little duckling in hospital had also died overnight. I had to go to Xai-Xai for some food shopping as I had run out of rice to feed the dogs, as well as a few other things including beer. Returning in the early afternoon I was greeted by the guys, again with bad news. Bacon, still banished on his side of the fence had attacked and killed one of our female ducks, I really couldn’t believe it. Bacon had really done it this time, his total was now 5 ducklings, one big male duck, and now one female duck. Crap. We haven’t rebuilt the old milking shed here yet and one of the side rooms is about 3 meters by 3 meters, this is now Bacon’s cell, never to be let out until the joyous day we put him on a spit. I guess he’s figured out that we plan to eat him so he decided to get a bit of his own back before his time was up. Bring on the death penalty I say, at least there is no appeals process here for the lawyers to get fat off. We are Judge, Jury, Executioners and consumers! I wonder if he’ll have a slight duck flavour?
NOTE: This all happened two weeks ago, the postscript is that we’ve yet to eat Bacaon although he’s fattening up nicely. The patch on the tank didn’t work, the pressure being too much for the glue I’m guessing, because I haven’t been back up there to look. We have no cement to block up the hive hole with so I’m not risking setting off another chain of events like the one above! See you all in two weeks.