Our First Day

OK, there are just SO many photos to choose from and I had difficulty doing this post without adding too many. So much so, that this is one of two posts about our first day here....

On Saturday morning there was great excitement as the children got ready to leave on the Arctic Wolf Adventure Camp organised by my sisters husband. It was a simulated plane crash in the mountains on the farm and the children were the survivors. Children from the farm joined in as well as children from the surrounding towns. There were 15 in total, ranging from 6 to 14 years old. They were allowed to take a change of clothes, a towel and a blanket. Poor Z could not join in as he has to be careful with his collar bone for 6 weeks.

The girls were delighted to all be reunited as they have all been looking forward to being together on the farm.

The survivors set off, all piled in and onto the bakkie. It was a short drive from the cottage and then they were dumped on the farm road and their fun began. I was surprised that Eric chose to join in and spend the night with them. That left my sister and me with Z who was somewhat sad not to be going with all the other kiddies.

After tea and a chat at the main farm house we took him to see the foals. They are so beautiful!

We drove out into the orchards.....we saw the biggest dandelions ever and we picked and ate the juiciest white peaches straight from the tree....a taste that is indescribable! Z picked and ate them too and exclaimed that they were the best peaches he had ever had in his life (he has only ever eaten canned peaches!)

We picked and ate yellow desert peaches too. The trees are so laden with fruit that the branches are breaking under the weight of the fruit.

We stopped to admire the golden wheat which will soon be ready to harvest. The Free State sky was magnificent and the sun was beating down upon us....much later we measured a temperature of 33 degrees in the shade!

Before the sun became too much to handle we stopped for my sister to pick some apricots from the trees and for Z to see the baby marrows in the fields.

We came back to cottage for lunch and a dip in the neighbours kiddies pool. The two little girls that live there are just the sweetest little things! They frequently knock at the door of the cottage to see what is going on and seek out the company of my sisters children.

We decided that we needed to check on the survivors and that it would be good for Z to see where they were and what they were up to.....that requires another post of its own.