Cobra(s) in the Container and a Porcupine on the Porch

 I’m cowering in the kitchen (with “baby goat” and Spike, “the dog that’s not our dog”) as Paul and our friend Tim empty out every item in our container (the trailer of a tractor-trailer truck that we use to store camping equipment and valuables). Tim is kitted out in extra-large Hollywood style dark sunglasses, long pants and a long sleeve shirt and armed with our “gentle giant” (long-handled snake catcher) as he goes into our container for the second time in as many days to try to find (and remove) a Mozambican spitting cobra (hence the glasses as they aim for your eyes when they spit their poison). 

 

This particular saga has been going on for several days when Paul first spotted the thick body of a yellowish snake slithering under some jerry cans for fuel and water transport in the back of the container. Getting near the end of the day and my pleading to “NOT GO BACK IN THERE!” (I’ve still got a little PTSD since I almost lost Paul to a wave in early September which broke his neck in three places), he locks the container for the night vowing to “make a plan” tomorrow. 

 

When tomorrow comes, Tim volunteers to go in and see if he can get him out. At 81 years old, he assures me he has less to lose. I think we should abandon all our property and move! 

 

Consulting our snake books that evening (that’s right we have “snake bookS”), Paul convinces himself that while it looked like a (deadly) Cape Cobra, those aren’t really in our area and the book reassures him that Cape Cobras are often confused with (harmless) mole snakes. I treat all snakes as if they could kill me. It seems like a reasonable approach. 

 

So, on day two of the snake saga, Tim goes in looking to remove a “mole snake” with Paul as his back up assistant (much to his chagrin but on my insistence). I’m not sure exactly when they figured out it WASN’T a mole snake…perhaps when it flared its damn cobra hood or maybe when it started spitting what the snake book calls “copious amounts of venom”. The thing was terrifyingly big, defying the 4-5 foot estimate our trusty book tells us it typically is. Trapped in the gentle giant, dragging the remainder of its body down the sandy driveway, its hooded head spitting in all directions, Paul and Tim relocate it outside the ostrich farm and we hose Tim down when he returns before the “skipping necrosis” of its venom starts to rot his flesh or destroy his eyesight. We naively assume that saga is over. 

 

The next morning (day 3 of the snake saga) we begin packing to head off into the bush for a couple nights of camping so that Paul can to do a star show with his two telescopes for clients. I go in the container to grab my duffel bag to pack. I get tent poles, the bedroll, etc. When Paul goes in to get “Lexie” his 10-inch Meade telescope he’s met eye-to-eye with a snake perched on top of the case. What the what! Did the thing come back? Is there a hole in the container it’s sneaking in through? I burst into tears. Pleading my case again to simply abandon our house and all of its contents. There’s really nothing in there that is THAT important! Paul insists he’s going in to try to get it out. I INSIST he is NOT! It’s one thing to think you’re headed in to remove a (harmless) mole snake and another to go BACK into a container to remove a known deadly cobra! 

 

We call Tim. He’s ready this time with the appropriate snake removing costume. They carefully begin removing items from the container. Bedroll, tent, poles, boxes, Jerry cans, tools, nuts, bolts, suitcases, etc. This goes on for hours. They are both sweating like crazy in their closed toed shoes, long pants, long sleeve shirts…Paul even has on giant work gloves that go up past his elbows used to trim thorny bushes. Our yard looks like the container threw up. Everything is sprawled out across our “yard”.

Paul keeps saying, “it’s always the last place you look” and my thought is, of course it is because when you find the poisonous snake, you stop looking! With just about everything out of the container, they are about to give up. Tim is wondering if Paul’s vision is okay after that head knock in the ocean. Maybe he didn’t see what he thought he did. They’ve looked for holes in the container that perhaps the snake came in and out through and there are none. And at the moment they are about to throw in the towel, so to speak, a slight movement in one of the few remaining boxes catches their eyes and there he is! It hurries to conceal itself more, sneaking under a shelving unit. Rods and wood pieces are used to push it out of its hiding place enough to grab it with the gentle giant. The only good thing about snake removal from the container two days in a row is that I had a second chance to video the removal (see below). And, low and behold, it was NOT the same snake but probably its mate, a much smaller male with the classic black bands under its neck. Despite its attempts to escape the box used for transport it TWICE, they get it secured and Tim agrees to drive him far away from the farm and set him free (you couldn’t pay me to get in a car with a deadly snake in a box!). I breathe a (tentative) sigh of relief and we begin the arduous task of putting everything back into the container. 

 

 

We’ve had a lot of activity on the ostrich farm since I arrived in early June. Ostriches have been mating (it is quite the dance, I’m still trying to get a video). Impala come to drink out of a water bucket near our outdoor shower. Elephants have routinely roamed the farm at night eating seedpods of acacia trees, stripping tasty bark off limbs and leaving spoor (tracks) and shin high piles of poop that deter us from making our normal walk around the farm. We check the freshness of the poop piles before cautiously walking down to see the Boro River which filled overnight in mid-June. 

Ostriches waiting to be fed at the fence

     

Impala drinking from water bucket

Flooding of the Boro River

Spike on our daily walks

Sundown brings a six-pack of bush babies emerging from a hollowed-out pole on our porch. The earliest riser looking as curiously at me as I look at him out the window of our living room. After stretching and scaling the beams to the highest point on the porch, they spring into the mopane trees launching themselves in death defying leaps from one tree to the other like popcorn escaping an unlidded pot on a stove. Five going in one direction and the sixth headed in the opposite way for their nocturnal forging. 

 

Bush baby emerging from pole

Things don’t quiet down in the deepest of night as several mornings we awaken to find the metal ostrich feed boxes dragged across the yard and tipped over to release its content for midnight snacking. For the life of us, we cannot imagine what is strong enough to drag the boxes which weighs in at about 25-30 pounds. A honey badger? So, when I’m awoken at night by Spike’s barking, I get up to see what’s happening out there. And, as I peer out the living room window, what do I see? A GIANT porcupine on the porch trying to claw his way into the box. I don’t know why I thought porcupines were the size of large racoon but boy was I surprised to see this thigh high creature standing there (they can weigh in over 50 pounds). I rush back to the bedroom to get Paul up to have a look. He must hear us because as we look in awe at his size, he rattles all of his quills to full height and does what I’m calling the “porcupine shuffle” that would put the best of speed walkers to shame, speed shuffling across the yard and down the path. 

 

Drag marks from porcupine dragging ostrich food bin

 

White Faced Owl

Of course, the biggest animal excitement we’ve had on the farm is the arrival of “baby goat.” (I’m already too attached and can’t bear to give it a real name.) Returning from our morning walk around ten days ago I hear what sounds like a child crying frantically near one of our neighbor’s homes. Following the wail to the source we find a tiny tiny baby goat so small that it’s practically two-dimensional. It still has its umbilical cord attached. I scoop him up in my arms and carry his featherweight body back to our house. We call the farm manager, Joe, who says it showed up yesterday and he has asked around and no one is claiming him. We’ve got to feed him. Joe brings a bottle and nipple, Paul runs to the Agrifeed to buy powdered goat milk and before you know it, I’m bottle feeding a baby goat that follows me around like a dog. 

 

This is not okay!

Spike took out some of his resentment on his toys (the blue bits were an elephant)

Brotherly love

 

Just to be clear, raising a baby goat is a sh*t ton of work (literally). We’re bottle feeding 4-5 times/day. He freaks out if I’m out of his sight (runs around the house screaming for me!). Without Amazon 48-hour delivery, I’m resorting to old dish towels and binder clips fashioned into a diaper (which cut down on some of the mess when he comes in the house). Spike is not so sure about all this… The long-term plan for “baby goat” is to be bottle fed until he can eat on his own (Google says 6-8 weeks) and then hopefully he will join the farm manager’s goat herd. In the meantime, I’m especially enjoying “goat parkour” where he launches himself in jumping fits off any elevated object.  

 

My heart breaks when I think of leaving all my African loves (Paul, Spike and Baby Goat) next week. I really have to stop following in love with things that live in Africa.