Exleym.com

Here are some email notes that I have sent to my family, a journal of sorts:

(July 5, 2006)
i'm having a blast, and all the clients are a lot of fun. i poured more concrete this morning, and then i took one of the guys wives on a game drive around the property and we saw some awesome stuff. the last few days have been devoted to catching a guinea fowl alive to put in the trap for the lynx, which we've been seeing tracks all around the farm. catching that guinea fowl has been my job, and so far i've caught a sand grouse, two hornbills, a frankolin, and a dead monkey that nick and one of the clients put in the trap as a surprise for me. it's a lot of fun over here, and i think you and jesse need to come over here for a hunt some time. i have been picking up a bit of afrikaans, and although what i know would be useless in the city, i know most of the language that i need to know as far as farm life goes. i hope the rodeo and all that goes well. we did in fact celebrate the 4th of july here, but since nobody around here sells fireworks even though they are legal, we just had party poppers that made a big mess in the lodge. it was cool though.

anyway, take care and i hope everything is going well. love, exley

(June 28, 2006)
you're kiddin about the live horses right? i have a hard time believing that you rode one, but that's pretty cool. i'm not sure i am gonna follow in your footsteps there, though. internet is running 20 kbps today, so it's a nice treat.

either of those options sounds great to me about getting from dc back home, so whichever one you think will be easier is fine by me. thanks a lot.

we have a new group in from new mexico, andt they are mostly recurve bow hunters. it's pretty cool, and it's really nice being able to just drop them off in blinds and leave them for the day unless they shoot. when it is rifles we have to drive them around in the cruiser all day. i'll email that guy now, since the internet seems to be working. love,-exley

(June 26, 2006)

hey pop. i am getting your emails but here's the catch. the internet here is really spotty and usually works for about 10 minutes at a time and then will not work at all for a good period of time. when it does work it gets between 4 and 12 kbps, so i can't get much done. i try send out the emails i have preprepared before i get online first, since they usually work, and then i check my emails and respond. if the internet gives out before i have a chance to respond, i usually don't have time to wait for it to come back before going out to help angus or going with nick and the clients.

it's a real pain in the ass, but i'm honestly trying the best i can. sorry if it seems like i'm ignoring your emails or anythign, as i'm really not.

i think i would give my left leg right now for a t3 with wireless for my laptop.

hope things are going well in montana, love, -exley

(June 24, 2006)
here are two pics from my hunting trip here in RSA. The lynx was shot on Jesse's birthday, May 24, with a Ruger M77 rifle shooting .300 Win Mag Ceroccos, and the Impala was shot with a South African knockoff of the Mauser K98 chambered in .375 H&H and shooting Swift A-frames. Both were killed with one shot. The impala was shot on the 19th of June and measured 24.25 inches. Things are still going great here, and nick missed a jackal this morning, so he can no longer torment me about the hyena. hope all is well back in civilization, and i look forward to hearing from all of y'all.
--Exley

(June 14, 2006)
why you gotta remind me of food like that? over here, there are triped draped on the barb wire fence that they break up and eat once they're dried out. that and lots of toast. they actually do eat grits as well, which is great, but they are drier than ours, and thus too hard to truly truly enjoy. and they eat them for dinner, not breakfast. weird stuff. i mailed the tickets about a week ago, so they should be there eventually, but i couldn't tell you how long. yesterday we saw a hyena track in the sable pen (sable calves are worth about 10,000 US each) and so we spent the day trying to kill it. we had two trackers in there, and angus and i sat around near the fence, waiting for it with rifles. right as angus and i gave up around 4:30 and were heading back, they jumped it and it ran towards one of the fences. i managed to get a shot, but it was about 200 yards with a little .243, and i missed the first time due to just plain bad shooting, and then i had another shot at it while it was running away, and i missed that one too. that really pissed me off, especially missing the first one, which should have been a pretty easy shot. oh well. it dug out of the pen last night and ran away, so at least it's not in the pen with the sable anymore.

things are going great here. i'm doing a lot of work still. today, i broke a hammer on a coal chisel, trying to take up some concrete. i was just hitting it and the head fell off. these metal shafted hammers turn out to be epoxied together at the top. go figure. well, i gotta go. lots of love, and i'll see you in 6 weeks.

love, exley

(June 12, 2006)
it turns out i am not going to Mogale's Gate right now, as angus needs me to stay here and do some stuff for him, but he and i will be meeting nick back over at the other camp for a week or so on thursday. until then, i will still have email and all that stuff.

i am working on the stuff for bob, and i'll try to put a little bit of info for it on the cd i'll send you, so you can put it online. i didn't get to see the game on friday, but if there are anymore coming on espn, please let me know, and i'll make sure to get time off to watch them.

thanks again for all your help.

love, exley

(June 10, 2006)
I am going with Nick and Sarah and several clients back up to the highveld and then back over to the other camp (diepspruit) over in the bushveld, where i was earlier this summer. as a result, i will not have internet or phone for the next week or 9 days maybe. i hope things are going well there, and i hope the tigers continue the same way they've been going.

dad, if i don't get back in time to tell you in real time, happy father's day, and if i do, then ignore what i just said. i'm having a blast, and getting along well with the clients, who are from connecticut. still no luck on an 18 year old female client, but my hopes are still high.

i love you all, and i'll talk to you when i get back to Mpofu.

-exley

(June 7, 2006)

hello everybody,
i sure got some good new pictures today that i'd like to send you all. we had a game capture day today, where we were darting and tagging certain animals that angus wants to keep for breeding stock and darting and transporting other ones to different locales. to do this he brought in a vet with a dart gun and anaesthetics and a game capture pilot and a 2-seat helicopter, which i got to go for a ride in twice. that's the first time i've ever been in a helicopter, and i think it may be an addiction. it was one of the coolest sensations i've ever had. i got some cool pictures of the lodge and the house from above. so today has been a complete success.

i will probably mail you a cd pretty soon, or maybe i'll wait until i have a few more cool pics to put on it, but either way, it won't be too long.

nick and i are going to go shoot a big impala ram over on this other property if we get a chance, since we know where he likes to hang out in the mornings, so i may be able to add that to the pix.

i am fine now as far as clothing goes, as it is warmer here than in the highveld. i have also borrowed a jacket and a KCI vest from Angus, courtesy of terry. CDs can be purchased in town for 4,99 rand which is about 85 cents, so mailing them is not necessary.

(June 3, 2006)
everything is sure going great here. i'm having an awesome time, and i'm working hard. the people are great, too, even though i only see four people on a regular basis. that's okay, though, and everything is going well. i almost shot a monster impala yesterday, while nick and i were going over to scout out this other property that they just got hunting rights for. the lynx i shot was a male, and it was about 80 yards out, so it was a pretty easy shot, especially with nick's .300 Win Mag and it's custom trigger that's like 2 pounds. angus's office is filled with his trophies from outside of africa, and you would not believe this place. he has two musk oxen, a mountain lion a bear, a javelina, a pheasant, and two big mountain goats full mounted, and then he has a bison, a 9 point whitetail, a mule deer, 2 elk, a scandinavian boar, a water buffalo from australia, and several european deer shoulder mounted in the office alone.
then all his african trophies are down in the lodge, and they're too many to count or list.

anyway, it seems that i get saturdays off, as jenny is still not awake, and angus said i could sleep in as late as i wanted, which means that i got up at 7:50 instead of 6:50 and still felt like a slob. farm life seems to be doing me some good, and i'm getting a ton of work done for them, as well as squeezing in a run or a jackal hunt (they eat the baby antelope and such) or going looking for impala with nick, in the evenings. it's a lot of fun here, and i look forward to hearing from you about how awesome it is to be in montana. you and jesse and i have got to come out here sometime for a week and go hunting, as i think you would both love it.

(May 28, 2006)
Hey, I just now got to Angus�s farm, and so today is the first day I have had access to email at all. Sorry for not sending anything sooner. It has been great here, and I�m having loads of fun. Work starts tomorrow. Up until now, I�ve been hunting, or kinda. I have yet to kill any of the plains game, but I have all summer to do that. However, I did whack one caracal with Nick�s .300. A caracal is a big lynx like cat (�rooikat� in Afrikaans, which means red cat.) It�s huge, and I�m going to have it mounted. I�ve ridden with Nick (Angus�s son in law, who was our PH, professional hunter,) and Terry�s friend Dave, who I think has killed everything in Africa this week. Last night, Terry shot a lion that had escaped from Kruger National Park. One arrow, and it was down in ten yards with a single arrow. I like all the people here, and I�m having an absolute blast. I now have email, but it�s on dial up so I�ll probably only check it every other day or so. Hope everything is going well and I look forward to hearing from you. I love you all, Exley