Yesterday Anne and Jane, our gardener, drove to Meru Town to buy seeds for our vegetable garden. While they were away, I set up the umbrella on our deck. That was an involved process. First, deal with the bats. There were four with yellow bellies, about the size of rats and sound asleep. They fell off the underside of the umbrella as I opened it, almost on my head. They curled into bat fetal position and then groggily crawled away. Next, I removed the umbrella from the table and set it on the ground upside down to set the splines in place. I had to sit on the splines to press the center ring down far enough so that I could put a pin in to hold it up. Then I got a hose and Clorox and cleaned the bat droppings off of the table, yuck. Once I put the umbrella in place, I was ready to sit back and enjoy the view.

Since our house is on one side of a narrow gorge with a stream at the bottom, our view is to the other side about 200 yards away. The hilltop opposite is, maybe, a ¼ to ½ mile away. As I sat on the deck with binoculars, I watched three white rhinos, a buffalo, and several waterbucks wander across the hillside.

There is a small watering hole just below the deck, about 50 yards away, which has attracted waterbuck and impala, so far.

In addition, we have frequent visitors to the deck, the previously mentioned bats, birds, and brightly colored lizards.

As we get pictures of wildlife from the deck we will post them. Right now we are often too surprised to grab our cameras before the equally startled wildlife flees.