My 2015 Christmas tree

So I did have a Christmas tree, though clearly a Charlie Brown of a tree. I totally decorated it (apart from the lights) with beaded tree decoration from South Africa.

A very tall tree. It went all the way to the ceiling.

And I had batteries operated lights in it

Here are the ornaments

An angel

One N'debele angel and one N'debele woman.

Stars and Christmas trees.

more angels

slose up of the N'debele angel... my favourite ornaments this year.

A giraffe behind the angel

I haven't had a tree in years and years, and I really enjoyed putting it up

Thinking of My Two African Boyfriends

I have excellent taste in men. In Johannesburg I have not one but two boyfriends and not only are they good looking but they have great personalities.

For some reason, I am thinking of them today and kind of missing them.

Here is M and the oldest of my boyfriends, Zondie.

This is The Beast a super cuddler sweet guy.

Zondie loves football and is already pretty good at it. 

If I can say so myself, I do have fantastic taste in men :-)

In Transit

Alright, I am inside the O R Tambo airport in Jo'burg. I have passes security and passport control. So so far so good. However I did not get my boarding pass for my second flight, the one to Canada. I gave myself time, enough time I think, but......

Sunny warm day here, th cold front is over. It is nice to leave Jo'burg on a nice day.

Random Photo of June 2015

Adventure With Elephants

During my road trip in South Africa I actually went to Adventure With Elephants. I normally don't like going to touristy things like this, especially since animals are often unhappy in things like this, but I asked around about it and everybody thought that it was great. SO I went. And it WAS great.

 You get really close to the elephants and get to interact with them.

Yes I did put my hand inside his mouth and touch his tongue.

The photo below is my favourite, in fact it is my new wallpaper on my laptop.

 And then you get to go for a little walk.... well you sit and the elephant walks

In summer you can swim with them, but this time of year the water is so cold that even the elephants don't want to go in.

Rock Dassies from Augrabies Falls National Park

Rock Dassies (also known as Rock Hyrax - Procavia capensis) look a bit like marmottes. They are the closest relative to elephants. They climb trees to get to the green leaves and I have to admit that even though they are great climbers to me they seem totally out of place in trees. They are not called rock dassies for no reason. They do leave in rocks in big groups.

They have two weird little front teeth. In fact those teeth are tusk like and are their incisors just like elephants, whereas other tusked animals (like the warthog) have tusks developed from their canines.

See what you think about them in trees.
They like the green leaves and are able to eat them even with the serious thorns of the acacias trees.

Look at the way they are able to balance

Particularly amazing considering their toes

And I even saw one in a quiver tree.

 Here is another weird thing about dassies. They have at least 21 different vocalizations, including trills, yips, grunts, wails, snorts, twitters, shrieks, growls, and whistles. Males also sing complex songs that can last for several minutes and serve a territorial purpose, like bird song. When researchers looked at how males put together different syllables (wails, chucks, snorts, squeaks, and tweets) to compose a song, they found the order of the syllables was significant; that is, dassies songs make use of syntax, the manner in which different elements are combined. They also found dassies from different regions used different local dialects in their songs. (from wired.com)