Owls

Before Woodside Village was built the Marsh Memorial Homes had a large tract of land that they owned which was covered in nasturtiums and old oak trees. When this piece of land was offered on a long lease to the developers of Woodside Village a retirement village was established which meant removing the oak trees that I believe were the perching spots and probably the nesting areas of Spotted Eagle Owls.

Behind my cottage is a block of flats three stories high.One evening when we first moved in a Spotted Eagle Owl was perched on a pinnacle of a section of the flats. Sadly this was to be the first and last sighting of an owl around here.

I am adding an image of a Spotted Eagle Owl taken by cell phone at Stellenbosch University from art student Oliver whose accommodation faced onto an old tree where the owl was perched. Oliver also produced a drawing of the owl.

More of Kgalagadi

One evening after dark when I was in bed & Charles was out looking for owls in Mata Mata Gale was resting on the stoep she noticed something moving across the paving making it's way towards the door of our bungalow.Next to the door that was open the step for me to use when getting in & out of the landrover was placed.It is a heavy box type step with fairly large holes drilled in its side to make it lighter in weight.
Gale soon realised that this was indeed a snake but luckily did not panic. She informed the neighbours who immediately recognised it as a Puff Adder.They noticed that it was entering through the holes of my step luckily.It could have entered the bungalow without being noticed where Charles had made his bed on a blow-up matress on the floor, or if it had not been noticed entering the step Charles would surely been bitten when lifting the step handling it through a slot in the top of the step.These snakes have deadly venom.

Parks Board officials were called & asked to remove the snake from the step that was no easy task as the box part of the step was enclosed which meant that the Puff Adder had to be coaxed out through one of the holes.It took some time but eventually took the hint & slithered out,was caught & placed in a bucket & taken back to the veld.

We saw a cobra slithering up a bank on one of our outings that was about 7 feet in length & bright yellow.I have never seen such a beautifully coloured snake & such a length before.I am not fond of any type of snake, have not studied them so could not identify it.

A rather tragic event was that of a wildebeest giving birth to it's calf as witnessed by Carroll, a friend of Charles. The wildebeest was struggling with it's effort of delivering the baby when it suddenly collapsed and died.For two days we went back to the spot where the wildebeest lay dead hoping to see vultures or other animals feeding off the carcass.Only on the 3rd day we noticed that some attempt had been made to eat it and sure enough there was a huge lion lying on the side of the road in the shade of a tree looking very full and contented, almost with a smile on his face. He had certainly had his fill and there was plenty left.

When I wrote about the ground squirrels and the mongoose I should have mentioned how they came to drink from a downpipe that often dripped water from the roof due to condensation.Will show a photo of that as well as pictures of wonderful sunrises and sunsets at Nossob and Mata Mata.

I had a look of the preview of all of this. Not quite as I thought it might be but it's O K at least I can say from My Fair Lady, "My God, at last she's got it"

flowers of Kgalagadi after rain

These lowers appeared overnight after rain.The lilies only lasted 24 hours but the yellow Devil Thorns along the roads & in the veld last much longer.The yellow flowers are actually the thorns and will stick in your feet if you are bare footed.
This is my 3rd attempt at trying to post this with the photos.If this doesn't work I'm giving up until I can get some advice. Things have changed from past posting when I had no trouble at all.

Kgalagadi Tranfrontier Park cont

I don't know what happens but every time I try to add a photo everything goes wrong.Will try again.

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Charles, Gale & myself left Cape Town 30th Dec 2010 at 7am.The journey was long & hot arriving in Upington about 5.30 that evening.Our first night was spent on a farm just outside the town.It rained nearly all night which the days following much cooler.

A visit to this park was new to me.I found it rather bleak with many dead trees in the dry river course.Water is scarce but many people had contruibuted to the sinking of boreholes to provide water to the animals. These were located near to the wide river bed where the water table is most likely to be high.

The main camp Twee Rivieren is the largest camp situated at the main gate.We stayed one night & began our journey though the park early in the morning with overcast skies.A blessing as this is the hottest time of the year.It remained cloudy nearly ever morning usually with a little rain at night thoughout the 7 days in the park.
Charles & I went out in the mornings when it was cooler for 5 - 6 hours looking mainly for raptors although were pleased to see animals mostly Red Haartebeest, Springbok, Wildebeest,cheeter(from a distance)a few giraffe & 3 huge lions.Gale remained in camp as she is not all that keen on a lot of travelling especially on the dreadfully corrugated roads in the park.

Nossob was the next camp.We stayed 3 days. We were lucky & had a corner bungalow.All around us were many ground squirrels & their burrows as well a 2 mongoose.The squirrels were a delight & so tame.Although they were not to be fed, they were by others and myself on biscuits & even crisps that they took from our hands standing against us on their hind legs.

Nossob is a well run camp. The sunrises & sunsets were spectacular I suppose because of the clouds that gathered in the early evenings until morning.Charles went on an early morning walking trail for 4 hours once that he found very interesting & informative.The raptors became more frequent especially the beautiful chanting
goshawk that out numbered the others at about 4 -1.Occasionally we spotted lion spoor but none were sighted in this area until we left Nossob on our way to the next camp Mata Mata.

My Garden

It's a long time since I last wrote. I have been very busy reconditioning & selling Christmas cards for charity but this is the last year that I will be organising the project. Two reasons why.One, because not a single person wants to take it over from me and secondly the cards are not selling very well because most greetings are sent by e mail.

The heading of this post is 'My Garden'. For the last nearly 3 years I have kept compost worms in boxes in my garage & still looked after by Gale & Christina.The worms must be very happy as they have been breeding profusely, suppling me with ample worm T now called leachate and wonderful black gold, their castings.I add it to my gardens & watch the plants flourish especially a small rhubarb plant that was given to me and which is now becoming a delicious monster.It's leaves are enormous and the edible sticks are quite long & thick that Gale pulls & cooks for puddings with ice cream.We love the taste.

Adding worm leachate & castings does not enhance the soil immediately, it may take a year. It can be combined with home made compost made with the help of Fitzgerald my part time gardener.I use the left over vegetble peelings that the compost worms don't like,weeds & lawn mowings & store it in a compost bin. When full I add horse manure with straw that is mixed in & then placed in milk crates to mature for a few months.Being in a retirement complex we are not allowed to construct compost heaps as such.Putting the stuff into crates keeps it tidy & out of sight behind a hedge.

It's all very well having a healthy garden but with the Cape summers that have very little or no rain, watering is a constant worry especially when I go away.The complex has a sprinkler system that should spray every 3 days except for the week ends but as it only runs for twenty minutes it's not really sufficient.I just hope I can revive plants that have wilted when I return.

Watching a TV series by Justin Benello,a chef & most of all a person who loves to know where the food we eat comes from, visits farms that have turned to organic farming on a big scale after they dicsovered that their soils had become hard & their produce less because of chemical fertilizers that were introduced to the market after world war two.

I would like to know how the farmers make enough compost to spread onto their lands other than saving what would possibly have been ploughed in or discarded.Manures of all types are a must and added to all waste material, mixed with soil and formed into 'windrows', (long rows of continuous compost) kept well watered which in turn heat up destroying harmful bugs and when cool can be added to the land.It must take a long time for the first windrow to be ready to use and for the soil to return to it's natural self.

This makes my heart feel good.Reminds me of my days of farm work when 'muck spreading' and a little agricultural lime was the only fertilizer added to the soil.
I know that vegetables do not taste as nice as the pre-war vegs did or even during the war when my father kept an allotment using the droppings as fertilizers from the rabbits & chickens we kept.

That's all for now. I'll try to keep up more often with other news especially after returning from a holiday in the Kalahari Gemsbok Reserve at the end of this month.

Comment Again

On my previous blog I mentioned that you might have to have a Google Account to be able to write a comment after a blog. Well, you don't have to but in the "Select profile" text box you still have to click the tick and select Google Account on the drop down menu.