The Clever Pig has been Out-Clevered

Is out-clevered a word? Probably not, but it fits.

A friend of Dirk’s dropped in yesterday - truly dropped in, since he landed his helicopter just about 50 feet from the main lodge. His name is Lambert, but they call him Lammie. He’s a very talkative, interesting guy to have around, however this morning, Dirk admitted to us that his non-stop talking “drives me crazy.” You have to roll all your Rs to the get affect of how Dirk says it.

Dirk had invited Vern to do some culling, and Vern was pretty happy about that. I wasn’t sure I was going to go on the afternoon culling hunt; I was thinking about catching up with my pictures. Vern expressed his desire for me to go, and Lammie quickly sided with him, that “one never knows what we will see today, that we’ve never seen before.” I agreed to go, as I had already skipped a number of afternoon hunts. (I haven’t missed a morning.)

We loaded up on the Land Cruiser, with David driving, Vern, Dirk and myself on the high seat behind, and Zachie and Lammie behind us, standing. We weren’t looking for a wart hog or duiker! We were culling, probably for another gemsbok.........everyone that is except sharp-eyed Zachie.

About two minutes out of camp, Zachie made a sound, that to us immediately means - LOOK! Dirks tapped the window so David would stop. There, to our left, about 120 yards away stood a male wart hog. All we could see was his black face, framed with those white tusks.

Vern grabbed the 270, rested it on a pillow-type thing that Dirk threw on top of the truck. Vern aimed and pulled the trigger. The hog dropped in his tracks.

It wasn’t the biggest one. It ranks in the bronze category, but that’s okay. (Most of Vern’s trophies are in the gold category, with the impala a high gold, just under Namibia’s top ten.)

There was a round of hand-shakes and high-fives. Lammie tried to take credit, since he was the new guy along, but believe me, Zachie gets the credit for seeing that one, as has been the case most of the time.

They hauled him in, loaded him in a big plastic tub and took off, only to have everyone in the back yell! The pig had slid right off the truck, onto the ground. What a laugh. We loaded him a second time and this time he stayed.

Today we learned that Frankfurt airport is still closed. I’m not sure, but I think the airport may have opened and then closed again. The flights from Windhoek are really getting backed up. We’re not sure about our Wednesday flight. We just hope it goes with us on it.

Shirley