Game Farm Blues

Back from the game farm, where all we did was drive around looking for animals, eat, and drink. Life is tough. The farm has no predators, so none of the lodges have fencing around them. The animals are very shy during the day, but as soon as the sun goes down, the hyenas and jackals screamed like women in pain all around us as we chatted by the fire pit (not a pleasant sound.) We barbecued almost every meal, and I think the "pot bread" was the most enjoyable, which is yeast bread cooked in Dutch ovens over coals, with coals also placed on top of the lid. It makes sense that everything was cooked in Dutch ovens, eh? and not the stinky kind, you perverts...We saw kudu (similar to large antelope, makes excellent jerky, or "biltong"), wildebeests, rooiboks, bunnies, jackals, giraffes, and other types of wildlife, but it was pretty quiet, since we didn't go on midnight or pre-dawn drives (WAY too wasted all the time.) We'll definitely see more animals, though, once we're down in Kruger Park south of here (including predators), but it was very relaxing, especially after a hectic week of preproduction meetings and such. Today I went to the equipment house--literally a house overlooking Johannesburg. We're very very spoiled in the States. Only the highest end productions use hydraulic dollies, and when I told the (cute) rental associate that my school had two Fisher dollies he rolled his eyes. Hard to imagine that we're spoiled at UCLA...I finally learned all the terms, and I think my favorite is "bambino", equivalent to a "tweenie", or a 650W unit. Anyway, enough production talk. My favorite part about the game farm--showering outside with the sun beating down on me. Awesome awesome awesome.