{"id":1580,"date":"2023-07-31T19:01:48","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T17:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2023-07-31T19:01:52","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T17:01:52","slug":"king-of-the-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/?p=1580","title":{"rendered":"King of the Night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I live in a small town in the eastern lowland, or Lowveld as it is called here, of South Africa. It is a pretty town that has expanded around farmlands of Macadamia Nut trees, blueberries, forestry around dams and lakes which provide great venues for weekend barbecues and fishing times. White River is well treed and one or other species is always in bloom. Right now Erythrinas, also called coral trees, give a warm glow to cool winter days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We are close to the western border of the Kruger National Park \u2013 it takes a little more than thirty minutes from my gate to the Numbi Gate entrance \u2013 and occasionally we are given an adrenalin rush as reports of lion, or elephants, escaping the confines of Kruger to go a wandering. The highway to Mozambique has been brought to a standstill while indolent lions are darted and returned to their side of the fence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The predominance of vegetation, lures inhabitants of the natural world, especially the feathered variety. The call of the Fish Eagle, the whistle of Goshawks, the discordant rattle of guinea fowl, and a plethora of sounds in between are the music of our life. Birdsong even rises above the sound of traffic, which is constant as I am close to the main thoroughfare to Mbombela and the large motorway joining South Africa to Mozambique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During covid times we had a hippo wandering the town which caused much excitement until he was caught and taken to a safe watering hole. The other day I narrowly missed a duiker that shot out into the road in front of my car. Many of the housing estates have antelope and dogs and cats seem to live in Edenic companionship with impala, zebra, nyala, kudu, and, on one estate, the shy and elegant Sable Antelope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of weeks ago a new call arrived in the deep of night \u2013 a young cockerel vociferously broadcasting his manhood for hours on end. My house overlooks a park that boasts a small stream and a fair-sized pond and this young Romeo has claimed the area as his own. Soon everyone was talking about the rooster who crowed all night, and there were mutters of \u2018the pot\u2019 being a good end to his rambunctious yodeling. I finally caught sight of him about ten days after first hearing him. What a handsome chap he is! Sadly, he is camera-shy, so I have not managed to get a good picture of him.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I have called him Rory, Rory the Rooster. I feel I have the right to name him as he has decided my small garden is the perfect hangout where he can languidly recover from his long nights. And this is how I realise why it is he is so vociferous all night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South African energy company, Eskom, has been run into the ground by mismanagement and corrupt officials and can no longer offer a constant supply of electricity. To manage the shortfall, we, the citizens and consumers, are subjected to what is called \u2018load shedding\u2019. For a certain number of hours each day our electricity is switched off. The length of time is determined by a schedule based on the degree of shortfall. Schedule 4, the most popular, means we are without power for two and a half hours, three or four times in a 24-hour rotation. During these outages, nothing works; traffic lights go off, ATMs, cell signals, and internet providers frequently are affected \u2013 crazy times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other night we were on the 9 pm to 1130 pm downtime and all was silent apart from the crickets, the odd cry from the Spotted Thick-Knee in the park, an occasional whoo-hoo of the African Wood Owl. The lights came on, and within a couple of seconds, Rory was enthusiastically crowing his greeting at the new day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I yelled out of the window, \u201cIt\u2019s load shedding, Rory, the sun isn\u2019t coming up for another 6 hours. Go back to sleep before someone puts you in a pot!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rory\u2019s antics put me in mind of an incident with a chicken a few years ago. I was with an outreach missions team in Mozambique when I heard two of our members arguing happily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am going to catch one of these chickens \u2013 it will taste good with peri-peri, barbecued,\u201d said Wynand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cForget it, you will never catch a township chicken! Those guys are too clever, too fast!\u201d Louis replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With those words, the challenge was on! The banter spilled over the days of our stay until the last day dawned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louis smirked, with a humbug measure of victory: \u201cYou haven\u2019t caught your chicken yet, Wynand?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will catch a chicken, you will see!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On our way back to camp that afternoon, Wynand said he was taking a detour to buy souvenirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He arrived half an hour later, triumphantly bearing a white chicken in a cardboard box. \u201cWhere\u2019s Louis?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duly summoned, Louis arrived and was silent as he looked at the hen in her box. \u201cNo way, you didn\u2019t catch this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did,\u201d said Wynand. \u201cWith these two hands. And her name is Henrietta!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louis shook his head. \u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, the truth came out. In Mozambique, roadside markets sell chickens from large cages, and Wynand had caught Henrietta, but in the cage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The leader of our group arrived shortly afterward and was bemused by the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaking his head he asked, \u201cWhat are you going to do with it? We can\u2019t take it through the border!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive it to Paulo.\u201d The local pastor and our host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Paulo arrived to bid us farewell, as we were leaving at daybreak, Wynand told him the original story \u2013 \u201cI caught this chicken and proved to Louis that I can catch a township chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paulo was horrified. \u201cWhere did you find this chicken?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlong the road.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWynand, this chicken belongs to someone\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, it was walking along the road, there were no houses nearby. And I am giving it to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. This chicken belongs to someone. I am not taking it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI promise you, it is fine. I am giving you this chicken; her name is Henrietta.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want your phone number,\u201d Paulo responded to gales of mirth from all of us, at which point Wynand came clean.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Convinced he would not end up in jail for stealing someone\u2019s chicken, Paulo accepted the gift with dignity. But Paulo\u2019s mode of transport was a small motorbike, so how to secure a chicken? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We wrapped her in a plastic bag to catch any poop and nestled her into his backpack and the two of them took off into the night, Henrietta looking quite excited at her new adventure!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like having Rory around, although he is a noisy boy, and I really do hope he doesn\u2019t end up in someone\u2019s pot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I live in a small town in the eastern lowland, or Lowveld as it is called here, of South Africa. It is a pretty town that [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}