Some of this “absence” time has been utilized doing a road trip and hopefully you are ready for the onslaught of more obscure observations and “ongoings”/ “going on’s” in this neck of the woods.

Today on this 09/09/09 day I decided to make it a warthog day. Being able to observe these strange animals in their natural habitat again, made me realize how much character they actually carry off to our human eye. We were in the Addo Elephant Park near Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape and warthogs seem to be one of the featured animals besides your elephants and Kudu’s.

Is it in their walk, or the little tail that points in the air, or those strangely positioned tusks that convey an element of danger, or the kneeling on the front legs to reach food; whatever the mannerism one cannot help but smile…

One of the reasons I went for the tiniest porcelain bowls of Katherine Glenday was the transfer of the warthog and her caption in it “oh I feel so ugly today”…

Not to mention this weird and wonderful carving from alien wood of this warthog, the ears, tail and tusks are removable, {don’t ask} …

This one is really a happy warthog in the mud; it had us fooled for a minute as we assumed it wasn’t alive; with sharing this mud bath with enormous elephants you never know…