Merensky High School

Today is the DAY! JohnD joined his sister at Merensky High School, for his Grade 8 year... She is now in Grade 10.  They have a few weeks of orientation... his phone has been taken from him (and all of the new hostel grade 8 kids) and will hopefully be returned on Friday...  This sure is a quiet house now! :( Missing them both terribly!  It was a very long December holiday, and they were ready to head off.

Lake Kariba House Boat!

What a spoil, and what a treasured experience we had. My sister and her family, Jenny and Derek Zartmann, with Michael and Kyra, spoilt us with 5 nights all together on a house boat in Kariba. We travelled up through the Beit Bridge border (only one hour to clear through both sides!) on the 2nd of January. We spent one night with them on their KweKwe farm, and then we all travelled up to Kariba on the 4th of January. We had lots of rain, and a few storms... but it was such an incredible and memorable time for us all. The kids did loads of fishing, and I even tried my hand at it a little! I have to proudly boast that I caught the very first TWO tiger fish..... yes they were little, but they qualified as TIGER!!!!

ZIMBABWE - This picture we saw over and over again...

 The Men were all getting the fishing tackle ready... serious stuff! This was the down stairs portion of Djoya. Our floating "Caravan" had two full bathrooms :) The kids slept down here when the rain was too much upstairs!  For the rest of the time, we all slept on the upstairs deck.

 JohnD "chilling"... looking forward to getting his fishing rod in the water!

 My beloved sister Jenny! I don't know how you do it all Jen. You are truly WONDERWOMAN!

And her Kyra ... so grown up now.

YES! That's a "Fishing for a Mission" Shirt!   Ken had warned me he was not going to shave until he had caught a fish, so we were ALL relieved when he reeled this little one in! 

 Even Scallywags caught!

 This must be what heaven is like!  MINUS THE MOZZIES! ;)

The heavy rain made fishing challenging, as the water was quite dirty in places... but there was no lack of enthusiasm.

 This was a GOOD day! Nyummy !!!

 Our Treasures!

 

 Cooling off at the back of the boat.... we certainly couldn't dive in to cool off... too many crocs!

Our dearest one and only Derek Zartmann... THE MAN - who made it all happen for us! Thank you so much! Treasured memories for a lifetime. xxx

Michael and JohnD ... such great buddies. Both of these young men start their High School Career this week. Good Luck Mr Mike Man! He will be going to Peter House, in Zimbabwe... also boarding.

YES! This was the VERY FIRST TIGER caught in the five days! I sure let them ALL know I caught the first one!  I'm way too competitive not to maximise whatever I can  ;) 

Our "Floating Caravan" as Micaela called it!  The Djoya. Can take a maximum of 12, and really quite a cleverly designed monohul.

JohnD was the only one to catch a "bottle nose", quite an interesting fish!  He also "won" for getting the biggest tiger and bream!  Michael won for the biggest Cat Fish! AND the MOST FISH TOTAL!  He is a fishing monster... reeling them in one after the other. Just has the touch.

JohnD and Michael with Stanley, the Captain.  He certainly was amazing in his patience with us all, helping bait our hooks, unhook our fish, and continually coming up with plans to catch more FISH! 

Well, we are "nose to the grindstone" now, in preparation for our annual Feb USA marketing trip. We drop the children both at Merensky tomorrow morning, and thus begins a new era in our lives.

I hope to convince JohnD to put his uniform on ... so that I can get a picture for you all!

The Last Post... 2014

We have spent the whole day working the cattle.... January 1 is the next breeding season, so we had to have all of the cows that have calved and heifers injected, and separated, ready for their next three months with the bulls.
We are all totally bushed!  We came home late, filthy, and tired... but at least we know that it is behind us.  With so few staff members on duty this time of the year, it's all hands on deck!
We wish you all a very blessed and happy 2014.  May your barns and vats be filled, may your home ring with laughter, and may the peace of Jesus abide with you!
We send our love from Africa

 Well our Scallywags shot her first animal. Guided by JohnD, she made a very good one-shot-kill on this management Impala Ram.

Micaela's big smile! She made a great shot, and was very excited!

"Lady Lou"

And "Camo"!

Christmas 2013

A very Happy Christmas to you all, near and far. As the whole world slows down and the year winds down, this time is always one for reflection... As we look back on the Faithfulness of our Heavenly Father, we CELEBRATE not only HIS ETERNAL GIFT OF RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM, we can also celebrate our own personal relationships!  We certainly are blessed with so may precious and treasured family and friends - right across the world. Each one of you is precious to us, and we value your place in our lives. THANK YOU!  May the year ahead be one of breakthrough and joy! May your lives Glorify Him always! We love you.

Nelson Mandela

Wow. We stand with our entire Nation - and can only say a huge big THANK YOU FATHER, for the blessing and legacy that we have all come to enjoy, though Nelson Mandela's unselfish life. We know that ONE PERSON truly can make a difference. We also know that a life dedicated to Christ, can be extraordinary, and change nations!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello to the special folks who still check in to see what’s happening in the bush!
I mentioned in my last post, the switch to Windows 8 has left me feeling devastated and frustrated beyond words. My entire address book of contacts has vanished. Please… if you have a moment send me an email on my new addresses, and I will reply as soon as possible.  Please also send to me your newest contact details : cel telephone number, home telephone number, current home address and best email address.  I also have been unable to transfer the emails… at first we tried Windows Live Mail, but there was a mess up with the transfer. Then we tried Outlook 2010, and that’s even worse.
I have also learned that the email address shiawela@gmail.com is completely unreliable. My outgoing messages from this account seldom get through. Apparently this is seen as a foreign language and is blocked by spam filters online – the message won’t even reach your spam folder in your email app! In some cases I have to send an email five or six times before it is received. I have opened two other new email addresses, so please be sure to add joanneball21@gmail.com and joanneball21@outlook.com to your address book so that my emails will actually get through to you. 

Aside from all of that!  We would like to wish you all a very happy THANKSGIVING!  We pray that you are blessed to be with your families, and are able to celebrate together.

We took our first five studd heifers to Klein Kariba for our Northern Nguni Club Auction. We learnt so much through this experience, and enjoyed a weekend away with the kids at the resort.

 We have done some thatch maintenance at the lodge. This has taken WAY longer than it needed too. We sadly had to switch contractors, as the initial work done was despicable.  The two valleys on the main lodge roof have been leaking.  One valley they have now actually removed the grass and put in a zinc gutter.  The gutter works really well, except that the weaving of the old thatch with the new thatch has not been done efficiently, so it needs to be done again… the mess is indescribable.  

While we were busy working on the rondavel roofs, JohnD discovered the #3 room has a little tenant - a Genet was living in the roof above the bathroom. He has his own entryway above the geyser!  This is a first for me! We certainly have had other little critters living in the lodge rooms in the past, but this is a first! I would say he is a welcome guest, as he would keep the mice and shrews away, and certainly wouldn’t mess inside at all. J

 We had the joy of Belk Daughtridge and Ann visit with us last week…. They have visited the Victoria Falls, Kruger, Venda, Tzaneen, and are now in Cape Town.  We were blessed with lovely weather while they were here!

We were also blessed in August with the visit of my family from Scotland, Potchefstroom and Zimbabwe.  What fun for the cousins to all be together again… both my generation and the children’s generation!

During the September School Holidays, we completed the cattle craal as a family!  Ken had done so much work on it last year, but then was stopped by very painful tennis elbow, and very painful shoulders.  We have been seeing a Chiropracter that uses the activator and this has helped him so much!  As we were unable to go away, we all decided it would be a good project to tackle.  It was lots of hard work, and it probably took Ken slightly longer with myself and the kids helping him, but we sure do enjoy seeing the fruit of our labor!  All that is left now is for the scale, body clamp and loading ramps to be built / installed.  Not sure when that will happen, but for the rest, the craal is working beautifully!

Nicol, Karia, Jean and Wynandt came to visit for a few days! What a joy to see them all again, and to have fun watching the little people.

We are coming up for Micaela’s 16^th birthday tomorrow. I can’t believe that my baby is already is 16! She has a few friends coming over for a few nights, so it will be fun to have the house full again. She has planned all sorts of things for them to do, so we are looking forward to it all.

 JohnD is now taller than Micaela!

Camo is getting bigger and is a source of much laughter and joy! He is quite different from any of our other little dogs.  He and JohnD are well matched for their energy levels!

 Rick came to see us again, and brought Joseph Smithson with for a some fun management hunting.

During the drier months this year, like usual, we fed the Kudu and Nyala daily.  Ken came up with an awesome idea for feeding bins for the game. These hanging feeders are kept off the ground so the warthogs cannot get to the feed. For the browsers they work really well, and they are so inexpensive. By using recycled  tires, we get four or five feeding bins – depending on the size we are making.  We got JohnD involved and we asked around town if others would be interested to sell them. Well, it turned out that JohnD made about 50 for orders! What fun.  It kept him out of mischief for a while. Now with the rains having come, we are not feeding any more.

JohnD had his year end “concert” performing on the drums. We are so proud of him! I sure hope that this clip will load
Okay, so this rather longwinded update has you slightly caught up… I am hoping that all of the news and the few photos will make up for the months of silence!
Big hugs to you all, have a WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING, and please write when you can so I can add your address, and hopefully you can add my new addresses.
Fondly,
The Ball Family

Windows 8 ..... (did you hear the sigh?)

So with my "trusty rusty" finally just too old and too tired to work any more we are now on a new machine, and a new system. Pity it can't be a new user too... as this bird needs to go for lessons! I am not kidding. Each time I sit down to do something really important, I leave this machine feeling like I have just climbed Everest.... with my brain!
I am not going to complain too long.
I have NOT managed to transfer all of my data successfully - despite taking it to the professionals... some stuff has just gone!  I have no clue where to look for it all. :(
Hopefully now that I can find my way round it, I can catch up on all of the things that have not been critical!  Sorry to those of you who still check in on us now and again. I hope you will regain hope. More news and photos to follow soon.
BIG HUGS