bokdrols – like pearls, but more organic. Handle with care
~~~oo0oo~~~
Note: I go back to my posts to add / amend as I remember things and as people mention things, so the posts evolve. I know (and respect) that some bloggers don’t change once they’ve posted, or add a clear note when they do. That’s good, but as this is a personal blog with the aim of one day editing them all into a hazy memoir, this way works for me.
I’m murdering these as I find them, but they’re interesting while they are still alive. Take a look.
Mimosa pudica Native to the Caribbean and South and Central America, but now a pantropical weed. Found in the Southern United States, South and East Asia, Micronesia, Australia, South and West Africa. Not shade-tolerant, it is primarily found on soils with low nutrient concentrations. Like in the lawn of this Mtwalume beach cottage.
One of few plants that can ‘move fast.’ Not as fast as insect-eating plants like the Venus Flytrap, but pretty quick. For a plant.
A Red-lipped Herald snake visited this morning. It was enjoying the wet weather I suppose – we had a real downpour last night and this morning. So it was probly out hunting frogs. This was a little one, about 300mm long, I guess.
A couple days later an even smaller one made its way under the door. Played dead when he saw me. He also got shipped out to the garden.
What’s that bird!? I often wonder before realizing, Ah, It’s The Mongeese. And their mongoslings. The Banded Mongoose band, about 25 strong that have this coastal cottage garden on their daily route.
A busy bunch of all ages, they twitter and squeak to keep in touch as they rustle and skoffel through the thick undergrowth. Big excitement when they find a snail. They carry it to a wall then hurl it backwards between their back legs to crack the shell against the wall. Usually it takes a few tries before they get a good throw. Sometimes the first sign of their presence is the skoffel, crack! of them hurling a snail against the wall near the door.
If I’m outside and I move, or a biggish bird flies overhead, the big ‘uns will give an alarm call and they’ll scurry for cover at speed.
~~oo0oo~~
skoffel – like rustle; both are also first names for blokes, dunno why
Visitors? I’m the visitor. They’re residents! With the really cool scientific moniker Mungos mungo. So we’ll have to call one of them Jerry. They’re peaceful in their own colony, but fight fiercely with other gangs. Gang warfare! And how’s this? In the midst of a battle, females may have a quickie with rival males! Whoa! wikipedia.org
Planning ahead as always (not), we drove into Kaoxa Bush Camp hoping to find Virginia there to welcome us. She was nowhere to be found and her phone was on voicemail. So we booked into the SA Parks camp inside Mapungubwe, the first time I have stayed inside the park. Jess was pleased – the chalet had aircon! And it was hot. Even the eles sought shade:
I drove around Mapungubwe east, the more famous half of the park, and walked the boardwalk to overlook the Limpopo and into Botswana and Zimbabwe. Jess mainly stayed in the chalet. The day we left I drove the long way round to the gate, so she did see some of this interesting Eastern section of the park.
Then we moved on to Kaoxa. We drove down to Virginia’s home and found her. She asked us to bring cash, so we drove the 70km to Musina and drew cash as we needed to do some food shopping anyway. The tar road is in very good nick except for two patches near Mapungubwe with bad potholes. So 110km/h is easy, but when you see potholes, slow down drastically!
Good ceiling fans and great showers, a cool shady pool and lots of shade under thatch. A very special place is Kaoxa Bush Camp. Do support it so it can stay wild for ever! Best to book online.
The Kruger National Park is easy, convenient, good roads; most camps have camping as well as chalets; also shops, so Jess is happy; she can bail out of camping and book a chalet when the weather gets rough – in this case, HOT! And she did, she certainly did. We camped less than a week, we chalet’d more.
Following a well-worn trail we trekked up to Harrismith and enjoyed a lovely night at Pierre and Erika’s home. Again. Then on to the splendid hospitality of the Brauers in Tshwane, home of the ancestral Tshwanepoels. Again. Then a four-year reunion of six colleagues who met as first year optometry students exactly – gulp! – fifty years ago.
– 1974’s eighteen year-olds –
On to Phalaborwa and into the park. But not before I’d gunned the old bus up Magoebaskloof pass, passing a much younger Toyota and Ranger and causing a high-pitched squeal from under the bonnet. It sounded like a fanbelt and it stopped when I switched off the aircon. This made me happier and Jess sadder, so we spent the next morning watching handsome young rooikop Pieter fixing the belt tensioning bolt, WTMB. Jess confessed later she’d been watching his blue-overalled bum as he leaned into the engine bay.
With our coolness restored and the 2017 Ford Ranger looking like a million dollars R600 later, we headed for Letaba camp, on the way spotting a ratel (honey badger) carrying its prey – a likkewaan (monitor lizard) about a third of its bulk. A special sighting! After staring at it in wonder, I remembered the camera just as it trotted off.
On the banks of the Letaba river, lots of hippos in and out of the water. About twenty floating while a dozen, including a small calf grazed in full sun on a hot day!
Herds of eles. We drove into one herd as we rounded a corner. Got flapped at by go-away ears on our close left and right. I obliged. Jess needs lots of space between her and eles, and I’m happy to oblige. I don’t need to interfere with their lives, I just want to watch them.
In Letaba I had a problem with the stupidest primate in the whole Kruger National Park. Homo sapiens. Me. I left my car door open for “just a minute” as I went to our nearby safari tent and a vervet got my nuts. My luxury tree nuts from Checkers. That primate is a big problem. Hopefully he can evolve and improve his focus and short-term memory.
More Homo sapiens grumbles. I am not a hunter. But if I was I would maybe consider missing (shoo-ing, not shooting) three kinds of animals in the Kruger: – People on their phones talking to Venda or Cape Town at a volume appropriate to the distance. One was telling someone to drink eight glasses of water a day, and take rehidrate morning n evening. *sigh* kak advice and I must listen to it. – Rugged camper okes using their fancy electric n mechanical camping aids, such as aircon running all night in they karavaan; Ryobi hammer nut-tighteners on their levelling jacks; and remote-controlled motorised jockey wheels! – Joggers plap plap plapping round camp panting and thinking of Comrades or Waai-tality points, checking their odometers and their heartache, you know the type. Otherwise I’m chilled. I wave at them and force a grin.
Beautiful dawn chorus in the mornings, the new members being Mourning Doves; the oboists in the background were our biggest hornbill.
Later I heard a sound I thought might be the Red-billed Hornbill tutting slower than usual, but it was an oom walking past on his way to ablute, and his left croc was squeaking.
Martial, Bateleur, Fish, Wahlberg & Brown Snake Eagles; Brown-headed Parrot, Puffback, European Bee-eater, Lilac-breasted Roller, Marabou Stork. Night sounds included nagapie (bush baby / galago) crying, Levaillants Cuckoo, Scops & Pearlspotted Owls; Crowned Lapwing. Hippos grunted and hyenas wailed.
In Shingwedzi camp Jess said, Dad! A snake just fell out of that tree! She pointed at about six mopani trees. I couldn’t spot it, but I know Jess spots things, so I walked towards the trees. A helpful Grey-headed Bush Shrike flew down next to the snake. The spotted bush snake fled up the tree trunk, and the bird buzzed off before I could get a pic of its beautiful colours. Oh, well, here’s the skinny lil snake:
We met up with the caravanners who’d helped with our mfezi invasion last year. They have now been camped in the same spot in Shingwedzi campsite for over fifteen months. They reported that the snake had visited them some time later, and been removed from their caravan tent by the same Ranger Shadrack, resident snake catcher.
On to Phunda Maria where we camped right next to the lovely pool; Twice a day we cooled down in the heat. Then Jess said, Whoa Dad! It’s too hot! booked a chalet and switched on the aircon.
That was ten days in the park and we left Pafuri gate after visiting the very special Pafuri picnic spot on the Luvhuvhu river and Crooks Corner where Moz, Zim and SA meet. I’d been flagged twice driving around by kind drivers stopping me to inform me my number plate was ‘falling off.’ It’s not, it’s just creatively attached, vertically instead of horizontally. But now two camouflaged soldiers with R1 automatic rifles stepped out of the shade of a baobab and told me the same alarming tale. I told them my same response, ‘Thanks, but I can’t fix it now as ibhubesi might eat me.’ Usually that got a sage nod of agreement, but these gents said, ‘Nah, no problem! You can get out here and fix it!’ brandishing their weapons. That put me on the spot. I hopped out thinking, I spose at this stage a rugged oke would haul out his full toolkit, start his generator, power up his drill and choose the right bolt n nut from his annotated collection. I opened the back of our camper and aha! Found what I needed to effect a permanent repair: Jessie’s pink sneakers.
Next stop Nthakeni Bush Camp where owners Kobus and Annelise have set up lovely duo Gloria and Thelma to run their own Thusani Shack Restaurant independently.
– “owned and operated by Gloria & Thelma with love” –
We enjoyed two full English breakfasts and two huge suppers of their homegrown chicken, pap, veg & salad; then beef stew, rice, veg & salad. The third night we just sat outside our chalet and burped.
– Muriel and Jessica –
Now, after about six nights camping and seven in chalets, we headed west – on to Kaoxa Bush Camp and Mapungubwe National Park, where Bots, Zim and SA meet, and David Hill’s mate has a wonderful bush camp.
Like your car is in intensive care for three weeks, having various internal organs replaced – nothing that’ll make it look faster – the best thing you can do is find a Boutique Hotel . . see mine above.
. . with provided chauffered transport to get you around to where you need to be . .
. . with gourmet meals, DSTV n Wifi included, posh outings to pubs n restaurants, all-inclusive in the low-low fee. Even the Willowvale at no extra charge.
The gorgeous hostess more than compensates for the grumpy security guard on duty. Phone me for details.
~~oo0oo~~
– me n the grumpy security guard were both born to Methodist Mothers Mary – who features in the song –
I have some pious friends. This is true. I even had a pious wife, and Mom Mary Methodist is pious-plus. Although she did have to confess to twenty-five blissful godless years thanks to her Mom Annie. Two of my friends, one in Tshwane and one in Durbs, have even changed from being normal upstanding beer-drinking citizens to bursting out in yarmulkes. I wonder if Mart also chants stuff on Fridays? I know he sold his ’65 Mustang, shame.
One friend said an Anglican Lent course was boring. Well, hullo-o! But instead of saying, ‘Of course it’s boring!’ cos I’m polite that way, I rather offered the following sage advice:
You should develop n cultivate more sins, so Lent can be more meaningful.
I think that’ll help, even though it goes against my usual advice that giving advice to others is a complete waste of time.
You can’t believe the old goats who turned up fifty years after we all arrived in Joburg’s famous Eloff Street, some seeing its wonders for the first time. The girls looked great, the okes too (back then), with our hair as long as theirs. Blowdried. With natural colour. It was first year optometry school, 1974!
Now we’re ancient old wrinklies with lots to share, like how we all have aids – walking aids, hearing aids, seeing aids and lots of teenage aid trying to work our cellphone apps. There was some dispute as to whose was the A class and whose the B class. Ours was the A class.
I had to block my ears at the amount of exercise and diet advice flying around. Doesn’t everyone know Oscar Wilde told us that advice is only good in the giving? No-one actually TAKES advice! And someone- was it Winston? – said when he thinks of exercising he has a lie-down till the feeling passes.
Lovely grub – thanks Zena! – and just like in the olden days, wild drinking. We piled into the gin. Here’s the damage six healthy adults can do to a wimpish gin bottle:
I got my Truck With A Tent back after it spent three long weeks in intensive care. At last and Yay! One glance at its portrait and you can see my spend on a new clutch was well worth it. Looks good, nê?
So now we head north again to visit friends, then the northern, less-visited part of Kruger Park. At Crooks Corner we’ll peer across the border into Mocambique and Zimbabwe. In time we’ll exit Pafuri gate, then head west to Kaoxa Canp in Greater Mapungubwe, where we’ll peer across the border into Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Sally forth! My pink daughter Jessie-Jess will be my navigator, booking agent, critic, wildlife spotter and caterer again. Yay!
~~oo0oo~~
postscript: All went well till I gunned the ole bus too hard up the Magoebaskloof pass, beating a new Ranger and a new Hilux round the bends. Suddenly a screeching whine. Dammit, I thought, though Jess says my language was stronger than that. I pulled over. Still the whine. Switched off the aircon. Silence. The next day in Phalaborwa handsome friendly young rooikop Pieter fixed it. He said the tensioning bolt had come loose and nothing about a loose nut at the wheel. Jess confessed later she’d been staring at his bum as he leaned over the engine bay.
Louis showed me where to go. ‘Head South, young man! Along the edge of the Namib via Karibib through the Naukluft to Solitaire,’ he said. He’s lived in Namibia for forty years so I did as he told me, despite him having led me astray the week before. You know what locals are like: Go Straight, You Can’t Miss It, they always say. Keep the Namib on your right and the rest of Africa on your left, you can’t go wrong! they say with their head thrown back, eyes half closed and a beer in hand. This time he was right. I only meandered off the beaten track once, but that was to see where a dotted line on OrganicMaps led to.
(Plug: Don’t use google or waze (google bought waze). Use OrganicMaps. Good people).
Well, Louis was right! Solitaire is an oasis with ice cold beer and wifi hovering around under thatch. It’s owned, I was told by an American in a wheelchair, by his Dad. He represented USA in wheelchair basketball at the paralympics. I think that’s what I was told by him and his wife in the spacious cool shady pub. I do know they dish up just the right kind of fuel, food, beer and wifi that you need on a road trip, so it’s a popular spot. Also, it’s a long way to the next places to chill, and those don’t do these essentials nearly as well.
So I pulled into a lovely campsite for the night, which became three nights cos who wants to leave?
Views around, and a small flock of quelea flying past. Sociable Weavers in camp – here’s one of their communal nests some distance south of Solitaire, nearer Helmeringhausen.
– another Ford bakkie salutes mine as I leave Solitaire – mine’s the white one –
Notice the Morris Eight open-top 2-door tourer in the feature pic?
Schoolfriend Louis is nuts and has no handbrake. He gets onto a bicycle, the kind that don’t go unless you pedal, and rides 2150km from Maritzburg to Wellington along the Cape Fold mountains – it’s too far, it’s non-stop and it’s ridden offroad – exactly where you can fall off your bike and graze your knee. But he has a beautiful farm just outside Omaruru, so I visited him despite this disconcerting evidence that he can make some worrying decisions.
He and his neighbour have dropped their boundary fence and cut bike trails on their huge properties, including ones that go up the Omaruru mountain. Like I said. Luckily he took one look at the fine physical specimen I am and he chose to show me around in his oversized 4X4; the kind you drive if you’re nervous of sitting vas. It’s called ‘toyota,’ which is the Herero word for ‘invincible.’
Then he parked at the foot of the Omaruru Berg and made me walk.
– Louis’ snug cottage was once a milkshed! – He serves beer now, thank goodness –
I got a lifer I had dipped on in Namibia in 1986, Rüppell’s Parrot; and a lifer thanks to splitting, Damara Red-billed Hornbill. I dipped on another sighting of the Hartlaub’s Spurfowl. Next time.
Procrastination R Us. Eighteen months after my driver’s licence card expired, I was refused a hired car, the first real consequence of the expiry. Plus fines in Hazyview, Mpumalanga and Port Alfred, Eastern Cape. And a stern admonition near Ondangwa in Namibia: ‘You must go back to South Africa and get your new licence and then come back to Namibia. You cannot drive like this!’ This prompted me to finally move my butt.
And damn! Less than two hours after being dropped off at the gate at Rossburgh by friend Bruce, I was done. Easy and pleasant. All that dodging, delaying and avoiding was unnecessary. And the fine for being so long overdue was . . zero. No fine, no fuss. Only friendliness. One day I’m going to consider giving up my chronic procrastination.
I’m legal again. And my new mugshot is not much worse than the old one, just a lot more forehead.
~~oo0oo~~
Sox weeks later I went to collect. Done in twenty minutes. Would have been ten if I’d known by osmosis what the lady told me when I asked after being in the wrong queue for the first ten minutes: ‘You must go to the window.‘
Red: Where I applied – Yellow: The window– the window –
I grew up in Darkest Wildest Africa to the sound of a lion roaring in the evenings and the early mornings. Some of this is true. Just not the ‘Darkest Wildest’ part. I would lie in my bed at 95 Stuart Street in Harrismith, and if the wind was right, there’d be the clear, authentic sound of the ‘King of the Jungle’ roaring in the background. Except of course he didn’t live in a jungle and he didn’t really do what I’d call roar – he went uuuuunh uuuuunh uh uh uh uh like lions do. Here’s how that came about:
On 1st June 1955 I was exactly two months old and in other notable news, Mr CJ (Bossie) Boshoff was appointed as parkkurator of the now well-established President Brand Park by the Harrismith Municipality. It seems to have been a happy choice, as his entertaining letter about the history of the zoo attests. It was written in November 2005, fifty years after he’d established the zoo. He moved to Harrismith to take up his new post, and stayed in the Royal Hotel while his council house was being renovated.
As park curator, the thought came to Bossie that he could do more. Maybe, he thought, he could: ‘n kampie in die park aanlê waarin n paar wildsbokkies kon loop wat ‘n aantrekking vir die publiek sou wees.
make a fenced paddock and keep a few antelope in it to attract the public!
Once he was given the nod by the town council, he chose an area about one hectare in size just above the Victoria lake, and put a fence round it, then put a road round the fence so people would be able to see his planned wild animals from their cars much like in the Kruger Park. First, though, he’d have to bekom some wildsbokkies.
obtain – somehow – some antelope
His first inmates were a mak ribbok ooi – a tame mountain reedbuck ewe (‘rooiribbok’), two fallow deer and a tame aap mannetjie – a male monkey, likely a vervet. A female baboon named Annemarie, a tipiese raasbek boerbok – a typical ‘loudmouth’ goat!, and a blesbok ram who he thought was behaving a bit oddly – nie lekker op sy pote nie. On enquiry he discovered it was onder sterk brandewyn kalmering.
Not steady on its feet – it had been given a strong dose of brandy to tranquilise it!
Next he was offered a lioness from one of the Retiefs from Bergville; the asking price was fifteen pounds Sterling, and as with all finances, he knew he would need council’s permission and a formal decision. He went instead to Soekie Helman, as he knew Soekie’s “voice was loud in the council at that time.” He’d got to know Soekie when he stayed in his hotel. Soekie’s decision was a confident: “Buy the thing and we’ll argue later.” They did. Bossie soon noticed this five month-old pet was gentle for a while and then would ‘suddenly get serious,’ so he realised a strong cage was needed fast. Two high brick walls were built at right angles with a roof on top; a semicircular front of strong iron bars made by town blacksmith Pye von During was installed from the end of one wall to the other. A big bloekomstomp was placed on the floor of the cage (you can see it in the feature pic above), and a brick shelter was built in the back corner. The roof of that inner shelter became the lions resting and outlook spot.
This was the concrete stage on which the poor male lion you see in the picture, the one I heard in my youthful bedroom would soon be lying; and daily roaring his pent-up frustration over the hills of Harrismith.
bloekomstomp – gumtree stump about 3m long and maybe 700mm diameter I would guess
Next thing Henrie Retief (Thys se broer) phoned from Bloemfontein to say he had bought a male lion which he was donating to what was now undeniably a zoo (not just a wildskampie) on condition that if ‘something happened to the animal one day’ he would get the pelt! The lion-lioness introduction was – according to Bossie – ‘Love at First Sight!
The male lion grew up and his roars could be heard all over town, ‘to the top of 42nd Hill,’ says Bossie, and certainly at 95 Stuart Street where we lived. The lioness fell pregnant but died in labour. The male watched them closely as they removed her body. She was soon replaced by another from Bloemfontein, who was placed in a separate cage for two months so they could grow accustomed to one another, but – alas! says Bossie – when they introduced them, the male killed her with one bite! Later they got new lions: A male and two females. Bossie said they had to ‘wegmaak’ the original male – kill? sell? Did ou Henrie get his pelt? Wait – The Chronicle of December 1959 says there was talk that ‘a local farmer’ would take the lion in exchange for two blesboks which would be swopped for three lions from Bloem! So it seems Kerneels Retief got the first lion?
Bossie’s zoo later got two wild dogs and a warthog from South West Africa in 1959, swopped for two mahems – crested cranes. In 1965 the Natal Parks Board donated six impala and two warthogs. I wonder which of those three warthogs became ‘Justin’ the famous one the Methodist minister Justin Michell would feed and talk to on Sundays after his sermon? I’m guessing Justin the warthog probly listened to him a lot more attentively than your average Harrismith Methodist, as the reward he got was immediate and yum; not just the vague promise – but no guarantees, nê – of later eternal life.
In January 1964 three lion cubs were born. One was killed the same night, the others were removed and raised by Mrs JH Olivier. In 1966 the Chronicle told of two five month-old cubs for sale. These cubs had ‘been involved in a hectic incident’ a while before when two African attendants were tasked to remove them from their mother and she attacked them! Workman’s Compensation, anyone? And was the story suppressed when it happened?
How to Feed this Menagerie!?
Suddenly food was an issue! How to feed the growing menagerie? They started charging adults a sixpenny entrance fee. Kids were free but had to be accompanied by an adult. Most of the meat for the lions was supplied by generous farmers. He mentions oom Frikkie (Varkie?) Badenhorst whose dairy had no use for bull calves and donated these. Mostly it was on a ‘yours if you fetch it’ basis, so Bossie would have to travel all over the district to keep his lions in meat. Farmers would donate their horses once they got too old to ride. The fact that many of these had names, and that they were still ‘on the hoof’ and looking at him when Bossie arrived didn’t make matters any easier for him.
One such was Ou Klinker, a Clydesdale used in the town’s forestry department. Piet Rodgers, the forester, told Bossie he could fetch Ou Klinker – but only when Piet wasn’t there! Bossie says usually when the shot was fired the horse’s legs would just fold and they would drop on the spot, but not old Klinker! When the shot went off he rose ‘like a loaf of bread and fell as stiff as a pole,’ says Bossie. And then he says ‘dit was baie vleis!’
that Clydesdale was a lot of meat!
The local police also phoned whenever they came across road kill, and the health inspector Fritz Doman would tell him whenever he condemned a pig with measles at the abattoir. One guy even offered a dog on a chain. But surely Bossie didn’t . . Oh, yes he did! But the lions ‘het nie baie van die vleis gehou nie,’ says Bossie. They did like the pork, however.
didn’t much like the dog meat
So you see!? it’s True!
And so now you know I really did grow up listening to a lion roaring uuuuunh uuuuunh uh uh uh uh as I lay in my bed in Darkest Wildest Africa except for the ‘Darkest Wildest’ part, back in the day.
~~oo0oo~~
Originally posted here as the story of Harrismith Zoo, where there’s more detail on the zoo itself, the many other animals, and the man who started it. I couldn’t resist modifying and personalising the story here!
Most of this source material comes from Harrismith’s Hoarding Historian Biebie de Vos. who asked me to write the zoo story. Thank you Biebie! Much would have been lost if Biebie hadn’t saved it.
. . but as a friend wrote, ” . . I have such a sense of dread for 2024″
I share her foreboding. Among many other things we just had COP28 – where we “address climate change.” And it was held in an oil-producing country and chaired by the CEO of an oil company. And the newly-elected chairman for COP29 also worked for an oil and gas company for 28 years. Don’t worry – they are good people and they really ARE trying to reduce use and sale of their primary $$$-producing products! Yeah, right. And most people nod sagely and slate Greta Thunberg – or anyone else – when she DARES to speak truth to power. Fuck me!
Here’s what COP has managed in twenty-plus years, us FOOLS:
COP28 agreed to reduce fossil fuel use verbally, while actually arranging to produce more, drill more and burn more. Our grandkids are fucked. They’ll have even more wars and poverty than we have now.
And then we’re having elections, in which people will be promised services like water and electricity and be disappointed. Again. What could possibly go wrong? *sigh*
A quiet week in the Soutars’ Mtwalume cottage on the KwaZulu Natal south coast. Tom joined Jess and me for a few days. On xmas day we enjoyed a lovely lunch, expertly sourced by all of us in a supermarket about 25km away. Pre-cooked gammon, me-made veges and Tom-made pasta. Jess probly did pud, but we can’t remember what is was.
– Larry in Ohio called my delayed timer pic “Four Hams” –
My hair is mussed as I’d just come down the chimney – dunno what Tom’s excuse is . .
– Jess took this one, showing more of the lounge – I will get round to that paperwork one day –
Some people have engineering brains, some only believe their own eyes.
I explained clearly. You guys weigh about 60kg. This harness can hold 1000kg – a ton; the cable attached to it holds a ton; the safety cable, also one ton. The main cable it attaches to has a three ton breaking strain, and the spare cable alongside it that your safety cable attaches to, also three tons.
Tom said, I’m not crazy, and stayed in the car. Jess clipped on, hopped off and went WHEEE!
– Ooh. I compressed the video, which has compressed Jess vertically! –
Bewilderbeast Droppings 