Childhood Memories: Our Old Garden

Assalamu Alaikum everyone!

Today we wanted to do a post showing you some photos from our childhood home back in the UAE. We grew up in Ras Al Khaimah which means 'Head of the Tent' in Arabic. Ras Al Khaimah is located in the northern part of UAE and has the most fertile soil in the country. It even snowed up in the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah a couple of times, masha'Allah! Although we didn't see the snow, on a clear day we could see the mountains from where we lived.

When we first moved in it was just a small dusty town but it expanded and changed a lot over the years. In the early years we would see herds of goats and camels in our neighbourhood streets. And at night, packs of wild (and some abandoned) dogs would roam about scavenging. We all loved animals growing up and were always watching David Attenborough's wildlife documentaries and reading books. Our garden was the place where we spent most of our time. Since we had a lot of trees, masha'Allah, it attracted a wide range of birds, insects and other animals.

We kept chickens for many years for their eggs. The entertainment you can get from chickens is unbelievable. They all have different personalities and don't always get along. Some are bossy, others greedy and some are sweet and good-natured. Ours never failed to make us laugh.

This one was older than Sumayyah and was usually just known as The Cockerel. He was the only rooster we ever had and we used to call him the King of the Garden. That's because he had a very regal air about him; though he was actually quite humble and, at times, comical too. Masha'Allah, he was so patient, calm and loving towards his wives and chicks.

This was Coco (one of his many wives) and the only chicken that had babies. She was a good mother, masha'Allah.

Our mother had a pet tortoise named Hajar.

She was easy to care for as she spent most her time underground hibernating.

Our neighbours kept goats, chickens and ducks outside their home. We would see them often and sometimes, when they were let out, they would visit our garden and eat our trees and flowers! But we didn't mind.

As we mentioned before, our garden attracted a lot of animals. Here is a photo of Sumayyah feeding some pigeons. We tamed them and named them Flicks and Specks. These two ended up staying, had chicks and brought many more pigeons to our garden. There were around 7 to 10 pigeons visiting eventually. They were quite comfortable around us, mostly because we had food and pigeons are greedy birds.

Once our mother found this wild parrot on the floor outside and it seemed unable to fly. We fed it and it stayed with us for a few days before it regained its strength and flew away.

Masha'Allah, we were amazed by how bold and clever it was. It learnt that every time it dropped its food we would pick it up, so it began dropping it purposefully. So naughty!

 Since we had chickens (and sometimes chicks), cats often came to our garden and we had to chase them out. This one we named Katniss and she was allowed to stay as she didn't bother the chickens. She was a street cat and a brilliant fighter, so she ended up keeping other cats out for us.

She even brought her kittens to us and one ended up living in our garden. Sometimes we fed them but often Katniss would hunt and bring back food. We named the kitten Katherine but we called her Kitty for short.

Katniss and Kitty snoozing.

Masha'Allah, our garden had two Date trees, a Henna tree, a Neem tree, a Tamarind tree and another tree we didn't know the name of. The Tamarind tree, in particular, brought most of the wildlife to our garden. It was the youngest but grew to be the biggest.

At some stage there was a big beehive in it and this attracted these lovely green birds. We looked them up in a book and found out that they were called Green Bee-eaters. They were so beautiful, masha'Allah!

This is what they looked like.

Here are some clearer photos from the internet.

Even in a desert there are many different creatures to be found. The trick is to welcome and encourage them, then sit back and let them find you. It requires patience and understanding; you just can't rush nature.

Looking at our post we realised that it makes it look as though things had always been this way, or that it was easy for us to gain the trust of these animals. It only shows you the end result but in actual fact we spent hours 'taming' many of the birds and other animals. We practically lived in the garden, especially during the holidays!

We didn't have a TV or smartphones and things, so we had to entertain ourselves. This was a good thing though, alhamdulillah. It taught us to be more creative and to use our imagination. Our old garden will always be one of our favourite childhood memories, insha'Allah.

We hope you liked reading this post and getting a glimpse of the place where we grew up. We will see you in our next post, insha'Allah.

Wassalam,