"The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" Charles Darwin

Life is slowly settling into a routine but we are mindful of routines as neither Michael and I are strictly routine people! However, we do try and start our day with our early morning coffee at around 06h00 and then figure out our plans for the rest of the day. The mornings are gorgeous .......

with swallows gracing us with their presence (so hard to capture) and our resident Fish eagles calling.....

                                           

We spend time trying to identify bird calls ....... we have so many and are now becoming more familiar with them and are becoming better at identifying them (but are still pretty hopeless!)

The Black Stork and the European Bee Eater have become our firm favourites at the moment. They are both magnificiently beautiful birds. Very different but spectacular. 

* see under Interesting Articles on Blog page

The European Bee Eater

When we first arrived Otto and Christine (who are farmers living closeby) gave us our first gift  - a beautiful planter box of herbs. We were thrilled and so Michael and I created a space on our top verandah ( my very favourite space!) where we thought the herbs may be a bit protected from both the heat and the wind. Hopefully,they will be as happy in this space as I am!

On the same day we had to get rid of all our boxes so we decided to burn them upstairs! It proved to be more challenging than we originally thought and I had to get the hose and spray the walls above the mantle piece so that it wouldn't burn.

We walk a lot - mostly at the end of the day when it's a bit cooler and have found so many interesting creatures. This little tortoise has become a firm favourite and seems to enjoy the garden space up near the road. 

On one of our walks we came across this spider which was digging for ants - really fascinating .....

On Sunday we left early with Reena (another friend who lives on the farm) for a beautiful walk up the mountain. It was here where we encountered these little red beetles which according to Reena only come out when the Wild Plum bears fruit as this is what they eat! However, I havent been able to verify this so I'll leave it up to you to decide!

 

* see under Interesting Articles on Blog page
The Wild Plum

Notice how dry the river bed is😢 

Scorpions are also becoming our latest friends! I was vacuuming our bedroom the other day and lo and behold out popped a tiny scorpion! Michael quickly made a trap and we caught it and put it back into the bush. However,this morning we had another one - much bigger though!

Michael's trap: Jug and chopping board!

Got him!

Playing with UV touch and seeing it's skeleton 

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We also have many resident spiders but one which we have become particularly fond of is, as far as I know, known as the 'Yellow and Black Garden' orb spider! Although it's name is hardly exciting he is a spectacular creature whose web we watch with enthusiasm each day!

For those of you who have been following the saga of the wheel - IT'S UP ! A new strategy and when the plumber was here on Saturday (trying to sort out our plumbing issues)  he was roped in! And now it hangs proudly ....

I popped into PE for a couple of days to spend time with my mum ( so good to be only 4 1/2 hours away) and I came back loaded with my favourite things -

Wonderful succulents

Different types of geraniums, lavender and compost

Prickly Pears 😀

It's been kind of hot here........

Our old fashioned thermometer measured way above 'blood heat'!😁
(37 degrees!)

so to the river pools we went.......

And now to read my book at the moment  

             

                 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in                    This Strange World

by 

Elif Shafak

 

in my favourite space

 

From me in the karoo ..............💓💓💓 

"The home gardener is part scientist; part artist; part philosopher and part ploughman" John R Whiting

Gardening, as many of you know, is my best partime activity. But being able to garden in these very harsh conditions takes a lot of hard work and I am learning so much as I start to learn things about my environment! Water is critical and it's about balancing the water which we have from our borehole (we would be foolish to believe that it was never ending when the river is bone dry) and nuturing the plants. 

So my big question : Is it thus right to create a lavish garden which looks spectacular or to try and maintain the veld and create a garden within that space? 

We've decided to do a bit of both for now: watering to keep the veld alive for the natural inhabitants around but have spaces where we can become creative artists too. All watering happens once a week early in the morning or late evening when it's cooler. We continue to pray for rain.

So the first thing we do every day (sometimes three times a day) is put on suncreen and a hat! Suncreen is almost like our daily moisterizer as well as our body lotion! I can see we will become experts at the best brands as gardening here is harsh on our skin. 😎

We also never garden without industrial gloves and implements which are particularly hardy! We have learnt that by buying inexpensive equipment just doesnt last so we spend the money glady! Michael is never far from a pick or a chain saw!

One of the first gardening chores we did, was to decide where to plant the two Yellow wood trees which we had brought from Durban! Crazy I know but we loved the Yellow wood in our back garden at 28 Riverview Road so we thought that we should try and see if they would grow here! We choose a spot in front of our septic tank for the one (where we have already planted a Wit Karee which seemed to be doing exceptionally well). We will have to see how it does as it's very exposed and we've come to realise that all plants grow in clumps where they protect one another and grown stronger. Perhaps we should be learning more from nature about how to work well with one another. 😉

The other one we planted in a much more protected and sheltered spot just off our verandah. In fact, the Rock coalwood* we planted for Michael's 50th (the tallest one in the background) and its just taken off !

* Added link under Interesting Articles

You may also notice our pool pipes have become useful although not attractive😢! All our grey water comes through these pipes into our garden! We only use earthsap products or triple orange which work well with the environment. I havent come across any other enviromentally friendly products so open to any other suggestions. 

I decided to get into a more creative mode and re-dug and re-sorted the little garden at our front door. Believe it or not but this tiny little project took at least three hours to complete and it was very very hot! But the dogs love to come and drink from the bowl and since the photo was taken, I have planted some geranium in the planters above the tap and am praying they will grow!

💓💓💓 Relaxing after a morning's work

We love creating spaces so one of them is in the river bed where we have set up a 'braai area'. We absolutely love it but it needs some tender loving care so we set out two evenings in a row to do some bush/road clearing. It is so special to see how a little bit of energy and hard work makes such a difference!

A glimpse of our Sunday morning breakfast after we had cleared the space! We'd be so happy to show you all when you visit

Michael chops wood with his chain saw from all the dead acacia trees. We reuse the bought wood packets and recently our 10kg dog food packets have also come in handy! 

Another space we created is our 'sundowners' spot up on top of the mountain.  We decided to take our very treasured braai up ( some of you may recognise it!) and leave it there. Praying the baboons don't think it's their new toy!

Nothing like a watermelon gin!

We are now starting to plan our veggie garden but in the meantime we are getting delicious watermelon, melon and green pepper from Hein who lives and farms on the property. (Last night the buck got into his little patch and ate all his new green pepper and watermelon! The trials and tribulations of being a farmer)

😢

Bread from The Accidental Baker - our best kept secret thus far! Definately worth a stop if youre ever around on a Saturday morning

https://www.facebook.com/theaccidentalbakerco/

Wild jasmine all in the veld 💓

 

Learn every day from the people around you - we are certainly learning so much

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