The Honey Badger

A few weeks ago we went to a game farm for a chilled weekend in the bush. Out of the city and into the bush is a welcome escape from the rat race and it is literally an hour's drive out of the city.

When the sun sets, the African bush-veld comes alive with sounds and the heavens light up with the Southern Hemisphere's bright stars. Nothing beats an African Sunset!

We walked with rehabilitated cheetah, we experienced the roar of a male lion from a distance 10 feet, we saw rhino up close and the mighty elephant came up to the open safari vehicle to take a closer look at the weird creatures with flashing items attached to their faces. Wild buffalo stared nonplussed as we came past their feeding spot under the thorn trees, while hyena laughed at our funny attire as we drove past the carcass that they had taken over from a leopard.

All these animals are unique, but the one that always impresses me the most is the Honey Badger. Here are a few interesting facts about this interesting creature:

• They look very similar to a skunk...in looks as well as having a gland at the base of their tail, which is used mainly to mark their territory, but in a tight situation, its biological knee-jerk reaction is to drop a stinky!
• They can dig like crazy and they will do it on anything...the ground, a tree trunk, a termite mound, and they have even been known to use tools to aid them. There is a video from The Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in South Africa which shows how a team of honey badgers used sticks, a rake, mud, stones, and pure determination in their attempts to escape from their enclosure!
• Their teeth are crazy strong...they can chomp down with enough force to break a tortoise's shell open!
• Ferocious, fearless, and pugnacious animals aren’t always the smartest, but honey badgers break the mold and are extremely smart!

The one trait that we can all use that the honey badger has, is it's thick skin....and, in order to be successful on-line, it helps to have a thick skin so that you can shrug off some of the comments that you will encounter along the way from some inconsiderate people....

Have you had some sour experiences yet, and how did you deal with it?