Awalk in the veld
The dogs go nuts as soon as I step out onto the front stoep and put my cap on my head. We go for a stroll in the veld at around five every afternoon, and they know it. The two sausage dogs called Geitjie and Noetsie resemble yelping aquarium seals that have just noticed a bucket of sardines. Misha, the Labrador, seems to shed her years at the prospect of being taken for a walk: tail wagging, smiling from floppy ear to floppy ear.
The frenzied dogs guess, incorrectly, that we’re heading to the left. When I start taking steps to the right instead, they make sudden Uturns, the sound of dog nails skidding on cement. They dash past and ahead to the gate, where they wait impatiently for me, the furrow that brings water from the spring to the farmstead.
