It's Raining, It's Pouring

Storm coming, originally uploaded by Miloflamingo.

Well, not exactly. But winter suddenly arrived with a boom of thunder the other day, much to my relief. We'd been going along with temperatures in the 30's (Celsius) for so long that we were beginning to wonder if summer was going to stay forever. The warmth was extending the hazy fall days with the warm air trying to rise from the valley floor but being held down by cooler air blowing in from the sea to our north. Now the skies are clear and the visibility in the desert is our usual winter breathtaking clarity.

So I have my favourite mare on rehab walks in the evening, the weather is cool enough to take riders out for day long rambles in the desert and countryside and I don't have to worry about the dogs dying of dehydration, not that they would with the conveniently placed pails of water around the garden.

The parrots have made their winter adaptation by demanding a higher octane bird bread and more of it than fruit. They usually get a mix of broccoli, sweet potato, beets and whole eggs mixed with tahini, soaked black-eyed peas, pasta, soaked sorghum, corn meal and peanuts slow-baked for a couple of hours. In the winter I up the soaked grains in the fresh food and add more peanuts in the bread to keep them warm and happy since they live outdoors and it does get chilly at night.

The locusts never made much of an entrance in our area though they did land in a friend's garden on the Red Sea and denude a couple of trees. I'm not sure where they are heading as I've had computer problems that resulted in my reformatting my hard drive this morning, so I haven't been able to connect to my gerbil-powered server for a while. I did see quite a few of them while riding in the desert last weekend and they are impressive. Bugs the size of sparrows are not my cup of tea at all and the thought of being engulfed in millions of them just makes my skin crawl. When you consider that they can take a field to the sand in a few hours, these things are a force to be reckoned with.

I'm hoping that my reformat has done the trick and I will be able to post more often. As it is, I'm dragging my laptop to a friend's place in search of broadband... A techie's life is never easy.