07/12/2025
August faithful followers!! I had no idea I had been so slack with posting an update and boy what busy few months we have had accumulating at the sight of 10 (not 13) large bags packed, weighed and wrapped in plastic.
But let's back up shall we for a brief recap of the past few months ......
Planted wheat
Watched wheat grow
Watched cows and donkeys and goats wander in and eat wheat.
Started a livestock pound on the farm. (Record of 7 days holding a herd of 40+ head of cattle before someone realised they were missing and came to claim them)
Nitro got blamed for killing a goat, (knew he hadnt killed a goat) so Nige went to see dead goat - shocking no dead goat = innocent dog.
Jenga the small rescue dog became more feared on the farm, than the malinois as a guard dog. If she had been an Aussie pound dog you would have sworn she had heeler in her. DNA test showed 0%.
Found baby goat. Tried to return the baby goat to five local houses but nobody wanted it. Amazed it survived. Goats are tough and incredibly cute. We had to re-home Samro the goat as we were booked to go to Vic Falls. Mini goats are now added to Christmas wish list.
The decision was made that Farm 1 (main farm) would not continue farming operations once the wheat was harvested.
Went on road trip to Victoria Falls via Bulawayo. Many people advised against it. Bad rods, crazy drivers, soo long. Pft just a bit soft if you ask me. The road was no worse then the lst 30km of dirt road to the farm, the drivers are the same everywhere and as for long, well just pack more snacks!!
Attended Remberance Day Service and lunch hosted by the British Embassy.
Once we were all moved off the farm we went back up to Nyanga, one of our most favourite spots.
Oh and amongst all of this we squeezed in a visit from SA rellies, a Baptism, 2 x performances of the kids dance concert, a gymnastic competition (Miss F came 2nd), a swimming gala (Master L won his age group champion), end yet performance with homeschool club, 3 amazing fun days with friends, a pantomime and 2 x lots of school orchestras/advent and carol celebrations nd
Grannies 81st bday celebrtions. Phew!!
So now you are all up to date let me share one of the most influential experiences to date, that will stay with Nigel until he passes into the next life.
Once the decision was made to cease farming operations on Farm 1, we had to start the packing and moving process as we would soon be homeless.
We also had to start planning for the spotty ponies we had to return to their owner in town. So begins the adventure /misadventure of transporting horses off the farm.
Chapter 1.
When you have 3 horses and 2 horse box you cant leave one horse by themselves, so first you bring a huge 16hh plus old polo horse out to the farm to even numbers and provide company so no horse would be left alone.
Extra large horse arrives, stays 1 night and is due to leave the next day with 1 x farm pony. Simple enough
Ch 2.
The next day XL horse escapes. Ahh madam, he went that way. ➡️⬅️⬆️⬇️↘️↖️↗️↩
The search was underway. Nigel, Chideke (who was chief fence fixer and water trough filler) set out and found hoofprints. Going AWAY from where the other horses were 🙄
Around lunch time we had now also lost Chideke in the bush, and a professional tracker was sourced in town to come out and help. (2hrs one way from town).
While we waited we drove around to the local neighbours asking about the 'mahach jena' White horse. No one had seen the giant white horse. But we did find Chideke, who was looking quite refreshed, from what we suspect was a lengthy midday nap. He and Nigel did eventually find more hoofprints and with the help of google maps satellite images came up with a rough estimate of the place he may have gone. Off into the bush Nige and Chideke headed once again. You can just imagine Nigels delight at this point and how much he enjoys wasting time doing anything horse related.
Norman the professional tracker arrives and we drop him off to follow where Nige and Chideke went. The 3 of them them met up and continued following XL horses tracks. I went home to feed the kids and Angie drove around to where Nige thought he my pop out of the scrubby bush. Sure enough, there he was, in some ladies front yard tied with piece of rope thick enough to moor a ship.
I collected the horse box and picked up the silly old fellow up. So after escaping about 10 hours earlier, searching, finding and arriving back to the farm in darkness. He had gone about 10kms as the crow flies. 🙄😆
Chp3.
The next morning we started loading 1 XL footsore horse and 1 x farm pony who hadn't being on a horse float in 5 years, for their trip into town.
XL went on no problems, he seemed quite relieved to be leaving the place, and the other one was such good girl and went on after some generous bribery.
Away they went, into town for night or two and then out to Farm 2 on a truck with the rest of the polo horses for a spell.
Chp4.
A few day later we collected horsebox from town to collect the 2 remaining farm ponies to return them to town. Uneventful trip out.
It took us an hour to load the remaining 2 ponies, they were not so keen to leave the farm and then away we went.
Driving down the terrible farm road we heard bit of funny noise but put it down to the springs protesting loudly about having to traverse the shocking road for 5th time in 3 days.
Alas this was not the case. The noise revealed itself to be the whole tow bar ripping off the back of the car leaving the A bar of the float to gently plough into the road and come to stop! Ponies were unharmed as were we.
So we jacked up the float, contacted the farm to send the old farm banger ute to come and get us, and called for a rescue from town. As we now had some free time to kill, Nige popped under the float to make sure there was no other damage. No damage thankfully, but found nearly every nut holding the bolts, holding on the axles were loose. !
Farm ute took us to the end of the dirt road, car from town arrived and after 4 hours the ponies arrived into town where they went to a small showjumping show the next day with the kids and then were returned to their very generous owner who had lent them to us.
So you can just imagine how Nigel was feeling after all of this. His tolerance for anything horsey was always extremely low but after these back to back escapades, I think he now even views sheep in more favourable light, and horses now out rank sheep on his scale of useless animals he never wants to deal with again. 😂
In no time at all the wheat was harvested, ponies and all our stuff was off the farm and now we were once again shacked up in Nigels sisters house in town and looking at flights back to Australia. While Nige was looking for flights for us, I was getting quotes to see how much it would cost to bring my dog Jenga back to Australia, and if there was any slim chance we could afford it. There was not any chance fat or slim!!
The multiple quotes I got were all well above $10grand AUD, which did not include the costs associated with the 6 month stay Jenga would have needed in a country that would actually allow dogs to be imported from into Australia eg, the UK, US or SA. So my heart broke and I had to find her new home here in Zim. Thankfully, she has settled into her wonderful new farm home, with a new doggie friend, Guinea fowl to chase and hopefully we will see her doing some tricks with horses soon!
Next came having to sell the car that we finally found and purchased in June. 🙄 Was a cracking good car, and I would have loved to have had it for longer. Rocky went to his new home 2 days go. It was cutting it fine I know.
The past week has been hectic, so many laughs, so many farewells and so much packing and repacking to make the bag weight.
So From A to Z and back again.
Tomorrow we start our journey back to Oz, with enough travel time for Peter Jackson to easily make 3 full length feature films!!!
Harare ➡️JoBurg ➡️Dubai➡️Singapore (long stop)➡️Melbourne.
Once back in the great southern land and I have time to reflect on our time here properly I will post again. Let's hope it will be a journey of relative ease which results in us and all our bags arriving safely in Oz. Wish us luck.
