Ashleigh Whaley
July-Aug Activities:
Homeschooling.
It has been a hectic two months of homeschooling sports, mainly polo, with loads of weekend travelling. Thankfully, the children have learned to homeschool around their sports, travel and other activities.
We have pushed hard through these last two months, trying to get a lot of school done, just to keep up with our academic goals.
Mom’s Health:
My health has finally improved, to the extent that I am now able to get through a whole day, without having a midday sleep. Â However, I do find that I need a day of complete rest, at least once a week.
Field Day:
We took a day off school, to experience a wonderful field day of crop spraying on the winter wheat. It was an action packed day of observation, learning, plus catching up with some friends.
Polo Commentating:
Ever since the children were quite young, we’ve encouraged them to commentate at our polo matches and they are now becoming quite experienced.
Commentating is certainly a wonderful skill to learn, which will open other doors for them in the future; as well as giving them the necessary confidence for public speaking.
Polo Write Up:
As part of the junior open polo tournament, the children needed to write a short summary about themselves. This I made them do on their own, as an additional education task.
Homeschooling Arts and Crafts.
Polo Mallet Repairs:
Murray John and Paula Joy enjoy being able to repair their polo mallets, as and when they break. They are now starting to repair other people’s mallets and will slowly grow this little business.
Lunging Ring:
The children set about making a new lunging ring for the horses, complete with deep sand footing. They designed the ring and then had the grooms help them measure and complete it. Murray John used the farm pick up to transport the sand.
Horses.
With polo practices one weekend and polo tournaments the next weekend, it has been an extremely busy and horsey two months! Subsequently, the children have been spending the first part of their day checking and feeding their horses, before they start school at 7am.
In the afternoons they spend their time training ponies and/or packing for the polo weekends. We are now travelling with 12 horses and 6 grooms, including a driver.
The children have recently been pushed up a polo division, so they are now playing a faster game, with more experienced players.
They have both thoroughly enjoyed this new challenge, – and they and their ponies are becoming stronger and better at playing the game.
They both participated in a curtain raiser game, before an international polo match in Harare, where a ladies team played a school boys team. It was a great game to watch! In the end the girls beat the boys, in a sudden death chukka.
Pony Masters:
Paula Joy and Murray John were asked to become pony masters for a visiting Kenyan team. They where required to made sure that the players ponies were all tacked up correctly, to be ridden in the correct order.
They loved this experience and certainly enjoyed meeting the players from Kenya.
It was an amazing education in horsemanship, as well as being a people management lesson.
Homeschooling Sports.
Cricket.
With very short notice, Paula Joy headed off to the U19 Zimbabwe women’s cricket trials.
She had become rather rusty, however, by the end of the three days of trials, she was playing much better and made the final 24 girls in the squad. Well done Paula Joy!
Golf and Gym.
The children have now returned to their cricket and gym lessons, each and every day that they are in Harare.
They really love gym with Keegan and their cricket coaching with Coach Joel. The next few months will be spent doing loads of gym and cricket, as the polo season comes to an end.
Amongst all this activity, they have also managed to play a bit of golf…
July-Aug Adventures.
Farm Life.
The farm is always a busy place with lots happening. The winter wheat is nearing the end of it’s growing period and tobacco land preparation is underway.
Tobacco seed beds are now ready for the planting to start in late September.
A new banana plantation is growing well, as the banana harvesting continues.
Farm fires continue to be a very stressful experience, with everyone on the constant lookout for fires approaching the farm.
Murray John is often seen around the farm, measuring the lands with his GPS, while riding his motorbike. He absolutely loves being part of the farming setup! Â
The kids also love to camp out on the farm over the weekends and they are often have friends join them.
Zimbabwe Economy.
The Zimbabwe economy continues to fail and there is now virtually no local currency available. Everything is, once again, moving back to the US Dollar.
This is causing a huge increase in prices, making life very difficult for everyone.
We can only continue to pray for our country and for economic stability to one day prevail…
With the poor economy, farm dams are constantly being netted by fish poachers and we are always having to remove illegal fishing nets.
Travel.
With travelling plans set for September, we are all extremely excited to be heading off to the Zambezi River for our annual camping trip. We look forward to sharing this wonderful experience with you all!
“Trust in the LORD and do good, Then you will live safely in the lad and prosper.” Psalm 37:3
God bless and do take great care of yourselves.
Please leave your comment below….
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