Blogging from fynbos fairies to mud

There are no fairies at the bottom of our garden. Perhaps a solitary fynbos fairy? 

A weaver with the sparrows

Sparrows bathing

Very WET sparrows

The garden is filled with the hustle and bustle of living creatures. Sparrows, Cape and house, weavers, Cape and masked, pin-tailed whydahs, laughing doves and pigeons in a great chattering swarm festooning the ash trees for four o’clock. Marching across the verandah and banging on the window – OY Din-ner! Mousebirds, Cape robins, fiscal shrikes, white-eyes and sunbirds serve themselves from the garden buffet.

Birds busy at lunch

A little whimsy in the kingfisher. Well, it’s a bird with a fish. The next round of tadpoles are growing little legs. The kingfisher, the feathered one, stops off to check for lunch.

Our resident kingfisher

Esther'sBoringGardenBlog battles to use Blotanical. There are good days, when you walk to the bus stop admiring the roses along the way, and the bus arrives on time. OK days, when you run like hell, miss the roses, but you do catch the bus (Blotanical is a bit, slow ... then I open another tab, do something else, while the wheel grinds extremely slowly, until it says LOGIN). And the days when no matter how fast you run, the bus has already disappeared around the corner. Or no matter how long you wait, there is, NO Bus. As Charlie Brown said – Wouldn’t you know it? Everything coming up roses, and I planted BEANS!!  (Try again tomorrow!)

The Lady Aragon

M'sieur Chocolat

We have two cats, a little old lady, and a feisty young man. He managed to find himself a Chocolat-sized space amongst the mother-in-law’s tongue Sansevieria.

To my Google Reader I have added Post Rank on the advice of Kirsti. Here the logic is – we are busy people, so we’ll just read what other people are choosing to read. But, I read what interests me – 9 out 10 eat McD, but I’m the tenth, vegetarian, don’t do fatty fast food full of iffy additives.

A moth, not in my insect book

There is tiny life. Moths, bees, ants, spiders, crickets and beetles.

Garden lizard on
cotton lavender Santolina

And scaly life. Lizards, geckos and snakes. Striped mice and, below ground, mole-rats.

Is the honeymoon period with blogging over? Beleaguered posts. What shall I write about? – LastFrontierGarden in Alaska, or haven’t been to my blog for AGES! People who spend the day on the computer – Fehlt mir noch – to spend my leisure time here too – GardensEyeview. I know when I worked at the computer all day in the library, me time was spent reading and knitting. Something real and hands on, creative. Not with my imaginary friend Nell Jean in virtual reality behind a computer screen. But Lost in a good book. Defensive posts – bloggers do have a life Kirsti@Kikolani, need to earn a living.

Hippo-pot-a-miss on Ungardening Pond

When we first lived in this house we 'ad MUD!

'Some people think the title of this song is irrelevant

But it’s not a-relephant

It’s a hippopotamus!'

If you know Flanders and Swann sing along, if not, enjoy. Now a little white hippo-pot-a-miss dozes peacefully on the shore of Ungardening pond. And Uncle George smiles in the sun.

Pictures by Jurg and Diana
words by Diana of Elephant's Eye
- wildlife gardening in Porterville,
near Cape Town in South Africa

(If you mouse over brown text, it turns shriek pink.
Those are my links)

June wildflowers, birds and bees

When I reread Tuesday's poem, I found japonica and bees. Fitting in to my post for Wildflower Wednesday in Pollinator Week. Today's plants are all indigenous to South Africa in the spirit of Gail at Clay and Limestone's meme, EXCEPT the Japanese flowering quince and the fig and ash trees.

Listen to Henry Reed himself reading his poem, with Frank Duncan (as the lecturer). How strangely wonderful is modern technology! This is from a BBC broadcast in 1966. Text found at solearabiantree.

 

NAMING OF PARTS

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
          And to-day we have naming of parts.

Japanese flowering quince
with bee
LAST June, today is winter, grey wet and cold.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this

Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
          Which in our case we have not got.

Winter branches
Ash and fig

This, is a detail
from one of the pictures in the collage below.
Raindrops on Tecomaria

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
          Any of them using their finger. 

Malachite sunbird on
Cotyledon orbiculata

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
          They call it easing the Spring.

Hemizygia transvaalensis
(sage family from the 'old Transvaal')
Pink flowers, retaining coloured calyx
after the flowers fall!

Bee on Hemizygia

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
          For to-day we have naming of parts.

Euryops pectinatus
with grey leaves
and a crab/flower spider lurking

Red Tecomaria, mauve Tulbaghia, blue Felicia
Pink Joy Crassula ovata,
orange and blue Strelitzia,
ruby Lachenalia rubida

Who would have thought that schoolgirl would three decades later have a japonica of her own?  I remember sitting in a classroom at Camps Bay High School, listening to a maths teacher droning on about trigonometry. Just a meaningless word to me today. While a row of surfing boys along the window seats, gazed out to sea, and evaluated the waves for the afternoon, when life would happen again. One boy who had a mass of dark waving hair over his shoulders. Not allowed in school. He had it down to a very fine art. Gathered the hair up into a TINY bun with a few hairpins! I only know that, because, just once, his bun fell apart.

Pictures by Diana and Jurg
words by Diana of Elephant's Eye
- wildlife gardening in Porterville,
near Cape Town in South Africa

(If you mouse over brown text, it turns shriek pink.
Those are my links)

Today we have Naming of Parts

Anne Perry's quintet was written around the First World War. I have just finished the fourth book – At some disputed barricade. A poem we learnt at school was Henry Reed's 1942 'Naming of Parts'. I have always been fascinated by the fact that widgets and gizmos and thingamajigs do have precise and particular names, if that is what you work with.  

Dani is moving to the farm, but that farm needs a name! Like pub signs, as you drive across country, South African farms have intriguing names, that could and do tell a story. Just outside Porterville is a dairy farm, called Gelukwaarts. The waarts bit is obvious – forward  – This Way! For Geluk you need Dutch or German (and they got it from the English luck!). Happiness. Imagine driving along, heading for home, and turning where the sign says – This Way to Happiness!

Black Stork Island

I have had fun naming the bits of our garden. We started in the first garden with Pickwick’s Ridge. In that new garden the only shade was on the heap of cut and fill under invasive alien Port Jackson wattle. There I used to sit with cat and book, in the grateful shade.

Had to twist the arm of Pam's English Cottage Garden, to convince her that it is fun to name parts of your garden. You blog, you enjoy words, so … Bluebell Creek was born.

The Lady Garden at Deb is another named garden that springs to my mind. Oh and Jack at Sequoia Gardens – he does  naming of parts, and tells the story.

Karoo Koppie

I was asked – what is a Karoo Koppie? Our Koppie is inspired by the real thing in the Karoo.

Mediterranean sun Circle,
with lemons

The Mediterranean Sun Circle – grew out of needing, something, to break that long path. And our young lemon is bearing fruit with enthusiasm.

Aragon crossing the bridge
over Plum Creek

Rain gardening against floods meant we needed to organise somewhere for the rain to go when it buckets down. We dug Apple Creek and Plum Creek. Our little bridge serves a purpose, to cross Plum Creek.

Ungardening Pond
Uncle George glad to get his nose
above water again, after the rain!

Looking thru Tecomaria
across Ungardening Pond
to Rest and Be Thankful

Friends are offended that I call Jurg our Ungardener. But that is why it is Ungardening Pond. What is described mechanically in engineering terms as hard and soft landscaping – I prefer to call gardening (that’s what you do with plants) and Ungardening (building a pond and swales and paths and a Karoo Koppie and a Folie …). Without the Ungardening ours would be a Yes dear, very nice, garden.

Pani's Falls

The very first Ungardening project was Pani's Falls. Fait de main. Pani is the Sanskrit word for hand, and the name of the man who worked with the Ungardener.

Rest and Be Thankful
(warts and all,
with our new neighbour's caravan)

Rest and Be Thankful

From the verandah we look across to Rest and Be Thankful. This has acquired a jarring white caravan to break the view. The three trees we planted to build a bower are now plenty big enough to coax together, and blur the caravan out of sight. Then we will see – garden water garden mountain. That is what we work towards. Gelukwaarts.

Gelukwaarts
This way to happiness!

Thinking of Chile as the ash cloud from the volcano circles the earth, passing Cape Town.

Pictures and words by
Diana of Elephant's Eye
- wildlife gardening in Porterville,
near Cape Town in South Africa

(If you mouse over brown text, it turns shriek pink.
Those are my links)

Second blogaversary with favicon

If I want our elephant to Look At me!  - everything must be just so. Mid-winter. Midday. No haze, no cloud between us and the sun. As it was, two years ago, when I started this blog.

Pink Oxalis and a guineafowl feather

Small things amuse small minds. If you are in a reader or email you’ll need to click thru to a browser – so you can see the tab for Elephant’s Eye – and the TA DA 16x16 favicon on the tab, instead of the same old same old nasty orange B all blogspot bloggers get. Unless they fight back. Blogspot customize-your-favicon. Thanks to Ari Herzog for teaching me what this teeny tiny thumbnail is called.

1. Choose a square picture. A VERY simple picture. An icon for your blog. Mine is blue sky and mountains.

2. Convert to ico. Select 16x16.

3. Whinge, tear out hair. Clear cache. Run CCleaner.
4. Try again.

5. Works on my laptop for Chrome and IE. Doesn’t work on his desktop … Clear the cache AGAIN, today it works!!!

He startled a flock of guineafowl as he walked along the vines

Filter bubbles. This TED by Eli Pariser is intriguing, I just watched it again! I had no idea – (putting aside when we do it, and both in the same browser) if you and I Google exactly the same question … Google knows ‘all about you’ and uses 57 signals to give you YOUR answer and me MY DIFFERENT one. It isn’t one size fits all.

ClustrMap now offers real-time-dots for recent visitors. 

Taking the picture for our new 2011 header

Waiting for rain? Listen first. Then watch, to see, what you heard!

Houdconstant dam 

A Blogroll, like a garden, needs weeding and pruning and refreshing. Some have got a life, caring for a friend, had a baby, started a nursery/art gallery.  

I thought we could have vine leaves for the header, but ...
Yesterday! Now, I'm in three layers by the fire.

My Google Reader has folders. If you blog more than once a day you are in my Too Many Posts folder. I read Blotanical posts here first, then go and pick. New blogs – BlotSprouts – go in their own folder, to decide later if they will stay.

Shiraz vines below Olifantskop

And Ungardeners, because there is another world out there beyond gardening. Helps to keep everything in perspective, and remind me why I like Blotanising. Valeri dyeing2sew and Teresa thecottageonthecorner, I met at Blotanical. They have both moved away and would love comments from old and new friends. 

Shiraz all the way

Introverting about your blog stats can tell you as much, or as little, as you need to know.  

End of the line in Porterville

I’ve looked at clouds

From both sides now

From up and down

sung by Neil Diamond

or Joni Mitchell

That switch still works
He tried it

Plan your blog for loyal readers, who don’t want to wait for all the old posts and bits of bling to load. Tools.pingdom test your blog. We just want to read your words and see your pictures. Plan your blog for new readers, tell us who/where you are. Loyal or just come, plan to entice us to just one more post …

Railway line between houses and farms in Porterville

If you have a blogaversary post in June link up. Tx to thesundialgarden and her Saturday-cuttings for introducing simply-linked.

Pictures by Jurg (and Diana)

words by Diana of Elephant's Eye
- wildlife gardening in Porterville,
near Cape Town in South Africa

(If you mouse over brown text, it turns shriek pink.
Those are my links)

Red, yellow and bare

The Western Cape on a good winter day. Not one of the cold wet grey days. But one of the lovely blue sky sunny days, walking thru our garden in June. Jeans and T-shirt midday.

Red aloes … on our Karoo koppie. That says winter to any homesick South African.

Pig's ears, red aloe

We inherited Pride of India, Lagerstroemia. The leaves blaze as the low morning sun catches them.

Lagerstroemia, Pride of India

I am revelling in the Nandina which is flourishing bunches of flamboyant red berries. Barely managed any in the Camps Bay garden.  As far as I know, they are not invasive here. It also appears that no one is inclined to actually EAT those berries, which helps against invasive ideas.

Nandina, heavenly 'bamboo'

Yellow … swirls from turning fig leaf, our Tahiti lime tree, new cultivar yellow aloe, the first blooms on the Oxalis – for the chartreuse side.

Fig leaf, Tahiti lime
yellow Aloe, Oxalis

To the blazing gold fig leaves about to fall, the reeds and grasses turning umber, and the buttery yellow Tecomaria backed by tangerine plum leaves – for the gold side.

Fig leaves
Grasses, Tecomaria with plum leaves

And bare … we inherited two HUGE thirty year old mountain ash trees. Allowing us to enjoy the drama of bare branches traced against the blue sky.

Mountain ash trees, with restio seeds
and Ungardening Pond

Bare yes, but also, green winter snow. Everything, each tiniest gap, filled with Oxalis leaves and the sprouting winter grass. (What the wheat farmers destroy with herbicide, before planting cereal crops …) More indigenous/native flowers on Wildflower Wednesday. Or join  Blogger-Bluten-im-Juni now.

To the front door, Chasmanthe in ash planters
looking across the Karoo Koppie to the Woodland Walk
across the pond with yellow Euryops

The Leucojum bulbs having explained to me the snow in their name, are living below the shelf, at the back, against a south facing wall – with light but no direct sun. And they are sprouting! We have pink Oxalis, mermaid turquoise Lachenalia. Buds on the Eucharis or Narcissus? And bulb leaves in every shape and form, promising more flowers. The March lilies are now pushing out their After Leaves.

Pink Oxalis, bulb leaves, March lily leaves
Narcissus? buds, Lachenalia, Leucojum

Paradise And Roses has been tidied. Perennials pruned, and those cuttings tucked in gaps. Great North is at long last waking up, and making flowers. Up there. So I’m cutting flowers with LONG stalks to bring them back down to where we wear our eyes and noses and cameras and hands, thank you!

Great North rose bud

Filling in the gaps in the centre, Mr Venter.

Octagonal centre of
Paradise And Roses garden

Imagine that you stand at the sundial, turning slowly, to look down each of the four paths in turn.

The sundial in the
Paradise And Roses garden

We have roses to pick, and to enjoy in vases. Some for my mother in Cape Town yesterday.

Papa Meilland, Karoo Rose, Alec(/Alistair)'s Red
pink Pearl of Bedfordview
yellow Casanova

It is winter, and last night the disgruntled Ungardener and confused cats complained about NO FIRE! Aragon sat, on the corner of the rug, where it is always nice and toasty of an evening. Not last night … When I went to bed instead of feathers flying, M’sieur Chocolat was agreeable to sharing the chair with Aragon. Grammar really feels the cold in her old bones, and her paws like ice cubes.

Aragon BY the fire
not usually THAT close!

Bona nit, dear readers. I’m off to make our dinner. 

Pictures and words 

by Diana of Elephant's Eye

- wildlife gardening in Porterville,

near Cape Town in South Africa

(If you mouse over brown text, it turns shriek pink.

Those are my links)