An Offer of Marriage

New neighbourhood story up on the farm website: An Offer of Marriage. Hope you enjoy it! (This one is almost 100% a True Story - or as true as memory will allow after an interval of about a decade.)

Braamekraal Webstuff Changes

Wiki URLS Have Changed

I've changed the way that URLs are handled in the wiki that handles thefarm website content so that they're more human-readable. This means that some of you (and it seems that I have quite a few regular readers - Thank You!) may have bookmarks in the old style. From my testing these should still work fine, but if they don't, please re-bookmark. Drop me a line if you're stuck...

Blog Changes Soon

In similar vein I am planning to replace the blog software I've been using forever. The old system is just too clunky and ugly to continue using, so I'll be replacing it as soon as I can make time to hack up some nice templates for the new software. The big trouble is all my old content... (Indeed, the poor access to old content is one of thr motivating factors for moving to newer, better software!)

Moving the content from the old system to the new will take a whole lot of time, and I can't seem to find an easy way to automate it. So I may end up losing old comments, and it may take quite some time to move the older posts. In any event, my planbe blog link is highly likely to change...

Advertising? What Do You Think?

I've resisted running ads on the farm website and blog up to now. It is not a commercial site, and I hate the idea of cheapening it. Then, too, I strongly hold the stance that The Whole World Is Not Your Billboard. Not everything is for advertising. Not everything is for sale. (I've been known to remove random real-estate boards from fences in prominent public eye where they're clearly just taking a chance.)

But! Times are (very) tough and money is tight. I'm not sure that the site drives enough traffic to earn even a little bit of money from running ads, but the idea of some small revenue (however minor) is sounding increasingly attractive.

So: I'm asking you - my regular readers and friends - what you think. Pleasecontact me directly or leave a comment. Is it worth risking the integrity of the site? Or am I blowing the risk aspect up too large in my mind? How do you feel about ads on the Braamekraal site and planbe blog?

Snakes Alive

Myah the little doggie alerted us to something mysterious under the carport...

At first we could not see it, but it is snake season, and pretty hot, humid weather, so they're the first thing we generally think of if we don't see anything obvious. A bit of cautious looking about by me - in my bare feet and shorts, so quite careful - and I located the snake under the bushes just behind the carport.

A quick call to my friend next door, Brett, and he popped round with his snake-catching device and bucket. Brett is well known locally as a Snake Guy, and has caught a couple of snakes around our place in the past.

Had the snake been a Boomslang (lit. "Tree Snake") we would probably have just left it alone, since Boomslang are very shy and basically non-aggressive, despite their deadly venom. Puffadders, on the other hand are very aggressive, so not a good idea to leave lurking with the dog around.

I freely confess that I am terrified of snakes. Something in my Lizzard Brain that just freaks out in the presence of a snake. So I'm very grateful to Brett for dealing with the snake for me! He releases them in remote locations where they will thrive, far away from where they're caught, since Puffadders will travel up to 5km back to the place they were.

Still, they're at least more honest about what they're about than some human snakes I've come across.