Al Sorat Farm

15/07/2025

FB is being weird about sharing our last mobile vet clinic.

07/07/2025

There is a monkey in our neighbourhood. It's a southeast African savannah monkey, a vervet, who is likely very lonely since in the wild they live in groups of as many as 50 animals. If you check the article on it, this cousin of ours is a very long way from home.(https://animalia.bio/vervet-monkey)

This one seems to be on its own and has wandered through the farm on a couple of occasions. These are diurnal omnivores, so our mango crop is likely to take a beating. We have no idea if it is a male or female and we have absolutely no interest in catching and caging it. If we could convince it to be fed, I would consider it a win. That way maybe it would leave my mangoes and figs alone. Wonder if vervets like super foods like the kale that we grow in our vegetable garden.

Vervets spend most of their lives in trees, coming down to forage. I'm sure that the dogs would find it exciting but a vervet can hit 45 miles per hour and jump very high, so my odds are not on my dogs. Vervets also have some very impressive teeth, although they are not at all aggressive as far as we have seen thus far. We have some very impressive trees at the farm and we have been planting more wanting to improve our shade to sun ratio, so it's a perfect home for a monkey.

What did they say in the movie, Field Of Dreams? If you build it, they will come. We have been noticing an increase in the varieties of birds at the farm lately, so I guess that a vervet is to be expected. These photos were shot along our driveway after all the kids from summer camp left.

05/07/2025

05/07/2025

Not long ago, dogs were valued primarily for the jobs they performed, such as hunting, herding livestock, and guarding property, all of which required boundless energy and a wariness of strangers. But “as more city dwellers adopt pets, and cultural shifts have led dogs and people to spend more time inside, some behaviors that made dogs appealing to our ancestors have become maladaptive,” Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods wrote in 2024. A dog wary of strangers is tough to take for a walk, for instance, and gets consigned to a fenced-in yard where it can’t spend its energy. https://theatln.tc/YWRfWeSv

“Dogs have gone from working all day and sleeping outside to relaxing on the couch and sleeping in our beds,” the authors write. “Thousands of years of domestication couldn’t prepare dogs for this abrupt transition.”

Dog owners have attempted to correct for this by picking a hypoallergenic breed, a smart breed, a breed that is supposedly good with children—but the main thing a breed usually tells you is what your dog will look like.

“Service dogs are the exception and the answer to the domestication puzzle,” Hare and Woods write. “For more than a century, service dogs have had to sit quietly in a café, calmly negotiate the stress and noise of urban life, and interact gently with children. They can do this not because they are smarter than pet dogs, but because ... service dogs are uniquely friendly. Unlike most pet dogs, service dogs are attracted to strangers, even as puppies. And increasing friendliness seems to have changed these dogs’ biology, just as it did thousands of years ago.”

“We believe these changes are the early signs of a third wave in dog domestication,” the authors continue. “If dog lovers shift their demand from a dog’s hair color and tail length to their comfort with strangers and new places, this friendliness could quickly ripple through the population and become amplified with each successive generation … A breeding program that prioritizes a friendly temperament could show results within just a few decades.”

In the meantime, as the third wave of domestication gets under way, humans must continue caring for the pets they have now.

🎨: Fine Art Images / Heritage Images / Getty

05/07/2025

Still a few spots open for our birding activities this weekend!

Dayma's Birdings are SO back 🦆🦢🕊️🦜🐦‍⬛

We’re offering two birdwatching experiences this July in the heart of the city:

☀️Classic Birding
📅 Friday, July 4th
🕖 Early morning hours

Start your day with the sights and sounds of Egypt’s vibrant birdlife. This experience perfect for beginners and welcomes seasoned birders alike.

🌅 Sunset Birding
📅 Saturday, July 5th
🕔 Late afternoon till sunset

Wind down the week with watching birds during the golden-hour against a backdrop of the setting sun.

Spots are limited, book yours now!

link for details and registration:

https://forms.gle/BxEzSMMm9VpQVLEa9

05/07/2025

This evening, Jen's going to come home and compliment how good the donkeys look and how well I've removed all the weeds from around the side of the house.

She's going to compliment how well and easily our son went to bed and how well rested and mid 30s I appear.

I'm going to take all those compliments while encouraging more and feigning exhaustion while really, Im just embracing this whole passive parenting/farming thing.

It's called outsourcing and I've officially found a job I can work from home and do while working from home....from inside the home.

Image description: a 50 lb kid in grey pants and a blue shirt brushes a 250 lb mini donkey who wears neither shirt nor pants.

There's donkey sheds laying all around the grass in front of him.

David Asselhoff is God's gift to donkeys.

She's going to apologize

05/07/2025

Every ride begins alone.
Just you, your horse, and the silence.

But if you listen closely, you’re never really alone.

There’s the voice of your first coach, still correcting your hands.
The pony that taught you stubbornness is a virtue.
The old gelding who forgave every mistake you didn’t know you made.
The show where you choked. The test where you soared.
The trainer who left too soon.
The one who stayed too long.

You ride with ghosts.

Not the haunting kind—
but the kind that shaped your seat before you even knew you had one.

Every whisper of “more outside rein,” every instinctive half-halt, every gut-deep knowing that you’re off-balance before you even feel it?
That’s muscle memory and myth colliding.
That’s legacy, echoing through the contact.

We don’t just ride horses.
We ride moments.
We ride memories.
We ride with every lesson burned into our bones.

So next time you swing a leg over, don’t rush.
Breathe.
Feel who’s riding with you.

And ask:

Which ghosts are guiding your hands today?

05/07/2025

Julie Clarke donated this lovely swing/bed/chair to the farm yesterday. It is recommended for the under-thirty crowd who can get in and out of it easily, but my first thought was that it was a perfect spot for baby napping.

05/07/2025

01/07/2025

01/07/2025

Al Sorat Farm has been the host of Rural Wellness Initiative Egypt for over 12 years now. I can't believe that when we started out our medications only cost about LE 300 per month. How times have changed.

Finally PayPal has made it possible to get donations in Egypt, so if you want to help with our harness collar project or medications you can use paypal.me/MaryanneStroud

27/06/2025

Summer Camp will convene as usual on Sunday