Our Homeschooling Adventures and Activities from April-June 2023.

April-June Activities:

Homeschooling.

Life gets extremely busy from April onwards; as we head into the winter polo season.

Family Visits.

April began with visits from family, so the children took a week off school to enjoy their cousins. This was followed by an April houseboat trip on Lake Kariba, accompanied by grandparents and a grand uncle. We had an amazing week of fun, family time and awesome fishing!

With two weeks off in April, it was back to school for May and June.

The polo season is the busiest time of the year with the kids having to be organised and prepared for fortnightly tournaments. They often have to take Fridays off school, to pack and get organised.

Mum’s Health.

My health is improving weekly. It is slow progress, which I have had to accept and work around. Thankfully, by the end of June, I was able to get through a whole morning in the school office. This was a huge achievement and I really enjoy feeling stronger.

Farm Field Days.

Often we have companies travelling to the farm, to demonstrate their equipment. We recently had a drone spraying team on the farm, which was a great day of learning for the children.

Murray John so enjoys any new technology and finds drones most fascinating.

Agriculture Show.

The yearly ADMA show is the children’s favourite show of the year. They love spending days looking at all the stands and meeting new people.

Homeschooling Arts and Crafts.

Repairing Polo Mallets.

With the children playing more and more polo, they really needed to learn how to repair their mallets. Subsequently, we spent a day with some polo friends, learning how to deal with broken polo mallets. We then needed to purchase the necessary tools.

This new activity is very exciting and something the children want to become proficient at. Eventually it will turn into a small business for them.

art and craft old milk urn and old gumboot.

old gumboot and tea pot made into pot plant holders.

The children both helped put together the table decorations for our club’s annual polo tournament.

Horses.

Polo season.

For the months from April to September, polo becomes our main focus. With the polo season now upon us, the children have to make sure that all the ponies are fit and ready to travel every weekend.

With tournaments as far as 5 hours away, weekends often start on a Friday, as the ponies need to travel ahead of us.

This year 12 horses will travel each weekend, accompanied by 4 grooms and a lorry driver. There is a heap to organise and prepare! The children can do all of it, except for the driving. They truly love the experience and are now becoming truly organised.

Player Award’, which she so deserved. Well Done Paula Joy!

More Tournaments.

With three more tournaments, over the next few weeks, the children’s polo kept improving and they managed to win them all! They have now moved up to the B Division, where the game gets faster and more technical.

At the last B Division tournament, Paula Joy won the ‘Best Playing Pony Award’, on her great pony ‘Royal Revenge’, who is an ex racehorse.

Horse Injuries.

Unfortunately, with horses, there are often injuries. As we live very far from vets, the children are slowly learning how to treat their own horses.

Constant attention is required, in order to treat any cuts and abscesses. Paula Joy’s best pony ‘Royal Revenge’ experienced a severe pole cut, at her first tournament, which needed to be treated for a whole month. Fortunately, the pony has healed very well.

Homeschooling Sports.

Golf.

Golf lessons and rounds of golf continue, as and when we are in town. The goal is to keep the children’s game improving. They shall return to more frequent golf, once the polo season ends.

Other Sports.

Farm soccer and cricket training will resume in August, once the days lengthen.

April-June Adventures:

Farm Life.

Camping at the dam.

Over the Easter weekend, the children took their tents and headed off to camp, at one of the farm dams. They so enjoy being out in nature! In the evenings we adults joined them for ‘dinner on the rock’, whilst sitting around the camp fire.

Soya Crop.

The soya crop is due to be combined in April, followed closely by the planting of wheat. Winter wheat is also planted behind the irrigated tobacco crop, so it’s a very busy time of the year.

Tobacco Crop.

The tobacco reaping ended early, due to heavy rains. The winter season is the time for grading the tobacco and for weekly tobacco sales. Sadly, the tobacco yields are down, due to the very wet season.

loading tobacco bales onto the lorry for sale.

Winter Wheat Crop.

By mid May the wheat was all planted and the combine was back harvesting the maize crop. Thankfully, maize does not mind the wet conditions, so the yields were up.

Farm Fire.

In mid June we had a massive fire blow onto the farm, which caused an afternoon of chaos, as we all rushed to help extinguish the blaze.

With one 40 hectare maize land still to be combined, it was imperative to control the spread of the blazing fire.

There is nothing so scary as a raging bush fire!

Murray John drove the tractor and water cart, whilst Paula Joy raced around on her pony, scouting for any small emerging fires.

With the very dry grass and high winds, all we could do was fight the blaze, and pray…

God came through, at the very last minute, as the wind suddenly changed direction. It was an amazing miracle to witness and one we shall never forget. Thankfully, no one was hurt and all ended well.

Zimbabwe Economy.

Just as one thinks the economy can’t get any worse, it surprises us by falling even more. Inflation is again running wild, so local currency has to be spent immediately…

10800ZWL Bond cash for the toll gate. This is the equivalent to USD$2.

The power cuts continue, resulting in only half the proposed wheat crop having been planted. It is not viable to grow wheat, whilst having to irrigate with generators.

We continue to pray for an improved economy, whilst helping those we can, through another season of economic chaos.