Hacktivate

Our garden is full of all sorts of delights. It is big - about 70
meters wide and 70 meters long, which apparenlty is about a hectare. We
have lots of fruit trees including a mango, a banana, and a monkey
brain (???) tree. There is a tall section of bamboo, and flowers pretty
much all over the place. Our vegetable garden is pretty rough, but our
herb garden is just outside our kitchen and really pretty impressive.
Rosemary, mint, oregano, chives, and lots of smelly, tasty things we
haven't been able to identify yet.
It is also the home to quite a few creatures that I have managed to see, and tons more that I have yet to see.

You
have already met Ted, our black mamba. You might recall the black
mamba's description from Kill Bill volume 2. Quentin exaggerated by
saying you have just 15 seconds to live after being bitten, but it is
the fastest most dangerous snake in the world. So that's Ted, and now
he's dead yo yo yo.

A few days ago my gardeners came to my office
window telling me that there was a toretoy here. I thought it was
another person at the gate ready to show me their references and ask if
they could be my cook. But no, there was a marvellous tortoise in the
middle of the lawn hiding in his shell. Eventually he came out and
wandered back to his home in the flower bed next to our wall. At one
point he went into his shell near some rocks, and it was impossible to
tell the difference between it and the rocks. Hence I have just decided
to name him Rockie the tortoise.

Not
far from Rockie's home lives Boy George. I am pretty sure Boy George is
a chameleon, but Georgina thinks he is a monitor lizard. We had a
monitor lizard at Ufulu Gardens, and they look like fat snakes with
legs, and Boy George has way more style than that. In the picture he is
pretty green, but I think it is because he had just been on the lawn
when I took his picture. He is about two feet long and mostly hangs out
on the trunk of our monkey brain tree. On his tree he seems pretty
content, and happy to have his picture taken.
Amp is our three
legged toad. He lives in the drain between our garage and kitchen. He
mostly comes out at night, but this picture was taken when his home was
disturbed by a stick meant to be probing Dead Ted.

Of
course there are tons of birds around. They seem quite a bit more
active and noisy than birds back home. This goes for the little birds
with long white tails as well as the gigantic crow like things that
look like they are wearing white scarves (white necked ravens according
to my guidebook). It will be quiet, and then 10 birds will all arrive
together going about their business. We put out some stale bread, but
they don't seem interested - a stark contrast to the ducks, geese and
swan we fed from out balcony in Oxford.

We
also have lots of snails. These are huge snails - about 4-6 inches
long. They slime up our tree trunks and leaves. I am thinking about
referring to them collectively as the Jabbas - but I am open to
suggestions.