Not Fisher Price

My housekeeper's son is figuring out walking but he wants to move faster than he can reasonably do so on his own. One of the villagers took some old nails and scrap wood and made this tricycle walker for him that he pushes around the garden. He still falls over but it's sort of slow motion.

Supervising the Workman

Time for a cute overload.  Nadim, my housekeeper's son, has learned how to crawl and is working on walking, which has its hazards in a house with stone floors, so we dump him in the garden at every opportunity to take his tumbles on sand and soft grass. Yesterday he discovered a shovel left behind by the men who are plastering the upper floors of the house and was determined to pick it up, much like he does with a broom in the house. Needless to say, more work is needed. I'm sure he will be much less eager to wield a shovel when he gets older. One of the Danes and our Pit cross decided to lie on the sandpile to supervise...and, in the case of the Pit, to apply frequent licks to clean sand off his face.

Handmade Tools

 Most of our farm tools are handmade by the blacksmith down the road. Handles are bought separately and often don't quite fit. In this case we needed to remove the stump of a dead palm and the axe handle was loose and had to be secured with iron shims. Stump was removed.

The Tools of the Tbone

 

We were blessed last year with a male water buffalo calf who was named at birth Kofta for the delicious barbecued ground beef fingers that are prepared here. It may seem a bit harsh to some, but there really isn't much you can do with a male water buffalo unless he's something really special for breeding...and Kofta wasn't. He lived with us for a year and was much loved and petted, but as he approached his first birthday the testosterone began to flow and he was much bigger. When something the size of a VW bug decides to play head butt with you, it's time to do something. My assistant/driver/Man Friday/Photography Elf Mohamed brought his butchering tools, many of which are handmade and razor sharp, in to work and we now have a freezer full of Kofta. And he is quite tasty.

Taking a Rest

A street cleaner in Giza rests on his palm broom as traffic crawls by in the usual afternoon snarl.

Colourful gardening

Wheelbarrows are quite simple to make and despite the cheap factories of China, most of them in Egypt are still made here. And Egyptians like colour. So why shouldn't your wheelbarrow match your flowers? The wooden poles in the barrel are handles for tools that are also made by hand by our blacksmiths