Browsing through my Pinterest boards I notice that without thinking about it too much I've collected images that take me back to a very happy time during my childhood and with the help of all these amazing artists I am able to tell my story.
Even at a very young age I loved and studied birds....
Bird rearing became an integral part of my life on the farm.
The farm workers knew that I would look after any creature that was wounded or tossed out of it's nest on a stormy night. In the beginning many of them died which broke my heart but I found out everything I could about caring for them (my brother was a font of useful information) and soon I became very good at it.
One particular incident still makes me smile. After successfully releasing a family of weavers to the wild I was delighted that they still came back for the odd visit. Over time the visits petered out and I thought they had forgotten their ties with humans, but early one morning when the Zulu induna (headman) was walking down to the milking sheds there was a confusion of sound overhead and out of the mist a whirring flutter cluster of weavers landed on his head. He nearly passed out from the shock! When he told us about it later we rolled about in hysterics. Since it amused us so much he told the story often and it was just as funny with each telling.
There might be a time in my dotage when I'll become the bird lady again :-)
