May 6, 2010

I never thought I’d say this, but I love farm life. To drive the perimeter of our farm it takes nearly an hour. We need to feed ‘the boys’ (the Cheetahs on-site) a natural prey for them so they can start learning to hunt. Two weeks ago they caught a warthog, which was not the preferential prey but available, and released it in the pen and it wound up chasing the Cheetah instead of them chasing, killing and eating it. It had to be removed. So this week we’ve set up 2 traps along the perimeter fence to try to catch something they can ‘hunt’ before going to the larger transitional pen up north. We’re trying to get a small Duiker or Steenbok. With large traps, shovels and bush-cutters we set out in the pick-up truck and set them up on different sides of the farm. It’s the kind of trap that once you enter and step on a plate the sides drop and trap you (them) in. There are so many small details we needed to focus on, like the actual pressure on the plate designates settings on the doors. And we had to cover the trap with Acacia so it would be disguised. Chopping down the Acacia in the hot sun was hard and hot and we got thorns in our arms, but to be honest I consider them battle scars and I love them.

Today I learned spore tracking, which is being able to tell which animals passed through a site based on their paw prints. We only focused on feline and canine predator tracks and I learned how to tell the difference between lion, leopard, cheetah, caracal, hyena, domestic and wild dog, jackal and porcupine. It’s complicated and hard to differentiate in the sand. We walked around the farm around our campsite and found a lot of porcupine, domestic dog (MURHPHY!), hyena, jackal and aardvark. To be honest I find it really difficult so I’m trying really hard to be able to spot and call them, but it’s hard for me and that really makes me pissed off and impatient. But I’m trying!

Today I also was really challenged with scat tracking, which is basically going through a bunch of samples of cheetah poo they’ve collected to figure out what it’s eating. It was a stinky job and I was like a kindergartener giggling and ewwwwing, but I will say the science lab portion of it was awesome. So how do you analyze poo? You take a dried sample and scrape it apart (with tools, I aint touchin’ that shit). Interestingly enough cheetah poo is for the most part just hair from whatever it ate. So then you take these hairs, insert them into a beeker-type thing, set it with wax, cut small cross-sections and set them on a microscope. Every species has a different hair under the microscope so you know what it ate. How cool is that!? Today we just prepared the slides, but when I know the results I will post them.

In other news, farm life is making me a beautiful glowing tan color… on my face and arms. I officially have a farmers tan, and that is only a week in. Having to trek through the bush every day I can’t wear shorts so it looks like this will continue to build with my pretty tanned face and arms, and pasty body elsewhere.

We went on a game walk yesterday and saw a bunch of cool animals, but the truth is unless you’re in a fully-stocked farm (which someone has to artificially stock) most animals hide and run. We still saw lots of different kids of colorful birds and game. I wish I was a bird lover, because there are so many I’m learning about but I really don’t care so much.
Camp life is good. I haven’t lived with a bunch of people in a long time, so sharing bathrooms, kitchens and living areas is very new for me. I really like the people I’m here with, which makes it pretty easy. It’s not as communal as something like Burningman but we are able to be together yet have our own spaces. So far, it works. For instance tonight I cooked a spicy vegi stir-fry next to Max, who cooked goat and some African porridge thing, next to Harry who cooked some bacon for her salad, etc etc. We watched Africaan TV and had no idea what they were saying, but we were all joking and playing with the pets. Elena, the Italian, doesn’t speak a lot of English so I have to make sure the way I say things she and Max understand. Max says I ‘don’t have a delicious language’ because I say fuck a lot. I told him to fuck off. :)