Some days you get stuff done, others not so much….

It started off this morning at 6am; lots of lion roaring close to the house. As both Michel and I were just about awake our eyes opened in a flash and I was up looking out of the window trying to see if he/she/they were on that side of the house while Michel was pulling on his clothes. As we had a lion kill next to the house last week we are now extra alert to the sounds, and this sounded like it might be another one. The monkeys were calling in alarm, so we knew he/she/they were close!

We both went outside to determine where the sound was coming from, Michel to listen and I went to observe the monkeys. Michel found him first, and we could see him from the house, no kill. But we got a few shots after climbing up to the top of the watertank for a good vantage point.

We then got a message that more lions had been seen on our property nearer the entrance, so we hopped into the game viewer to go and have a look. One male was still there, but the other male and 2 females had moved off. It started to get crowded as a couple of other lodges came to join us (3 vehicles - yes, we are spoilt!), so we decided to head back to the Lodge to finally have our morning coffee.

Unfortunately the kettle wasn’t working, a problem with the electricity supply. One phase was down, meaning some things work, like chargers and lights, other things like a/c, kettles and microwaves don’t. So while Michel put a pan of water on - love my gas stove! - I tried to call the power company to report the outage… and tried, and tried, and tried….. It wasn’t until an hour later that I realised I didn’t have any airtime and couldn’t call or message anyone, including the power company.
I go out to the workshop to ask Michel to put some airtime on my phone.... and almost trip over a monkey lying next to the path! He’s just lying there; limp, eyes shut, breathing heavily. When I crouch down next to him he opens his eyes but makes no attempt to move. I look to see if I can see what’s wrong, Michel thinks he sees burnt hair, but we have no idea what that could be. Otherwise no signs of anything wrong. I remember seeing him earlier this morning, he was the last one to go out foraging and looked fine then.

He was in a fairly shady spot and it was not too hot, so we decide leave him in peace and check up on him every so often. After about an hour I decide to bring him some water, so I do that and he drinks it down greedily. Somehow this also brings him round as suddenly he gets up, moves away and starts growling at me, I’m just glad he is better. After a few minutes he seems to be fine and scampers off, away over the lawn and off into the bush to look for his family, leaving us wondering.

We don’t have to wonder long however, we’re just discussing it when the power comes back on. I go out and see the guy from the power company finishing up work. I asked what it was and he tells me it was a blown fuse.

I tell him that it has been an eventful day what with lions and monkeys… And then we both come to the same conclusion: the monkey probably somehow short circuited the power, blowing a fuse and blowing himself of the electricity pole at the same time!!!  I hope he learned his lesson, in the meantime I’m going to call him Sparky!

And all that happened before 11.00 am…  I just wonder what this afternoon will bring :)