Winter

So it's winter now.  And one fall/winter day, our neighbors started hacking off the tops to their trees.  Literally, just hacking them off.

And later that week we learned why.  (Their timing was impeccable!)

Not that it bothers us very much.  But that sort of makes us the bad neighbors that don't keep their yard nicely maintained.  And as we know from previous posts, Namibians value a nicely raked yard.  But we decided we can justify our lack of yard care since we don't have small children to do the work for us (unlike most).

Being the opportunist that he is, Patches decided he would enjoy the new sticks.  The bigger the better.

An extra challenging throwing stick for Kevin.

And retrieving stick for Patches.

(Note: We don't actually have a thermometer or the Weather Channel so the following are approximations.) Winter days here have been beautiful, probably in the 70's. But nights get down to the 30-40's so it's pretty chilly when we first wake up and walk to school. So another benefit enjoyed by Patches is the chance to be our energy-efficient bed heater many a night!

It's funny how after maybe 9:00 in the morning when the sun is starting to really shine, it's nicer to be outside in the sun than inside the house (or classroom). Sort of the opposite of winters in the northeast where we aim to hide indoors and as close to the heat source as possible. At home typically we are making a break for it and running from the heated house to the heated car to the heated office, etc, etc. But of course, we don't use heaters here.

Other things winter brings us and our homes are what appear to be shield ("stink") bugs about a quarter of the size of the buggers in PA. You just can't keep the things away. And they still stink (when crushed). My learners were telling me about them and the best way they could explain their unique trait was by saying "they are puffing." And "puffing" is another way of saying having gas.