The Happy Couple

The groom is one of the young men who work at my farm with my horses. He's in his mid-twenties and his bride is from our nearby village. They were married after years of preparation on June 17. One of my horses was ill, so I couldn't make it to the wedding but Mohamed's cousin borrowed one of my cameras to take pictures of the wedding.

The Gardener

This is Khaled, one of my gardeners. I can't understand a word he says to me even though theoretically we are both speaking Arabic. He sort of mumbles a local dialect that leaves me searching for an interpreter. But he has a wonderful face and the plants like him.

The Only Place To Be

The temperatures for the past two days have been ridiculous! We've been sweating through days of mid-40's C or around 110 F. Too bloody hot. On days like this the feluccas do good business, carrying dehydrated weary Cairenes out onto the water for an hour of peace. Photo by Kelly Anderson

Hiding Place

Suppose you wanted to hide a very long wooden boat on a stone plateau. Where would you hide it? If you were an ancient Egyptian, you'd dig a large hole in the rock and put it inside, naturally. The Solar Boat museum near the Great Pyramid holds a reconstructed cedar boat that was found in a pit like this on the other side of the pyramid. They were willing to work for a good hiding place.

These Shoes Were Made For....

They are probably made for decoration but in the old days the wealthy women of Cairo did wear sandals similar to this (though possibly not made of silver) to the baths or even in other versions in the streets. Like the Japanese sandals that kept the feet dry, these would have done the same.

All Day Glories

These gorgeous lavender flowers are a form of morning glory. They grow in bushlike bunches rather than on the climbing vines that most morning glories have. The bushes grow so readily that green sticks pushed into the mud at the edge of a field quickly give rise to a flowering hedge that can be cut in the fall and dried for firewood. The roots immediately put forth new growth and the trails are rarely lacking in floral accompaniment.

Donkey Delivery

Anyone who thinks that donkeys are stupid is really missing something. Out here our beasts of all burden are used to deliver things from a farmer's house to the fields and back again. This little guy was just truckin' along the dirt road on his way to the fields with a load of manure. We saw him happily eating lunch about 10 minutes later.

Do It Yourself Shade

Apologies to blog friends but I was in New York City for the past ten days visiting my offspring.

This shot was taken, as many of our photos are, on the highway as we pulled up behind a truck carrying furniture and a workman who decided that balancing a drawer over his head would provide enough shade to protect himself from sunstroke. Now if we followed rules here, we would never have these great scenes to meditate on.

Death Defying

So the boss said that one of the lights on the overpass wasn't working right and I should get out there and fix it. So we drove the truck out and parked it next to the overpass blocking the left lane of traffic and all these people kept getting upset with us, but there I was standing in a metal basket working on 220 volts of power. All in a day's work.

Fixing a Flat

The cart isn't up on blocks, but the owner might well be shopping for a new tire as I saw him go into the store to talk. Although I have a donkey wagon of my own and have had to buy tires for it, I was still taken a bit aback by a horse and cart at a tire store...but where else would you buy a spare?