Cosmos in South Africa

Cosmos in Mpumalanga, South Africa

Every March and November respectively our countryside explodes with colour when pretty pink and white cosmos flowers bloom in late summer. They grow easily in the soil at the side of the roads disturbed by the road scrapers widening the verges.

Cosmos is a genus of about 20-26 species of annual and perennial plants in the family Asteraceae, native to scrub and meadow areas in Mexico (where the bulk of the species occur), the southern United States (Arizona, Florida), Central America, South America south to Paraguay and South Africa

They are herbaceous perennial plants growing 0.3-2 m tall. The leaves are simple, pinnate, or bipinnate, and arranged in opposite pairs. The flowers are produced in a capitulum with a ring of broad ray florets and a center of disc florets; flower color is very variable between the different species.


Cosmos next to a stream

Cosmos, along with many of our succulent and aloe species, have become regarded as indigenous in South Africa and bloom in various colours - white, pink, cerise and red - no yellow in South Africa.

It's against the law to pick the flowers next to the side of the road, but Cosmos seeds are now packaged and available at most nurseries. Growing them in the garden is easy and they make a wonderful country-style cut-flower arrangement.

"Cosmos" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree

Cosmos flowers is a favourite subject of, and has inspired, artists throughout the years and have been depicted on many a canvass.

Cosmos growing wild in the country-side (photo by Jo-Ann Kruger)

White Cosmos


Cosmos growing wild next to a stream



 

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Pappa Goose Condolences

(Click on image to enlarge to read it)

A note of condolence I received from the Vet where I had Pappa Goose euthanized on the 5th September 2009.

"Remember me
When I was at my best
Please do not mourn
For I am at rest
Where I feel No pain"

South Africa's Flowers

'Namaqualand Daisies' watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree©
(Click on image to enlarge)

In nature there are many phenomenon's but very few as spectacular as the Namaqualand daisies.

Namaqualand! 100% Big sky country. Extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the west of South Africa to the small town of Pofadder in the east, north from the great Orange River and south beyond Garies, Namaqualand is indeed a vast and varied region.

During the arid summer months it is difficult for the tourist to imagine the phenomenon of the yearly wild flower appearance.

After the winter rainfall, Namaqualand dons her coat of many colours and for a brief moment, the wildflowers invade the countryside. Countless poems, novels, paintings and prose have been dedicated to this annual shower of God's colour.




Before the flowers appear


At the end of winter (Click on image to enlarge)

Let's Live the Life of an Eagle

Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, Not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life.

A positive attitude causes a chain - reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes.

It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results.
Let's change to make a change!!!

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

"If you focus on results, you will never change.
If you focus on change, you will get results."

FARM TALK - Pappa Goose - In Memoriam

I look at life as a gift from the Universe. Now that it is at an end, I have no right to complain.

---Unknown

My sketch for today - in memoriam of Pappa Goose - 1991 - 2009.

"Pappa Goose" watercolour on Visual 140gsm - 05/09/09 Maree©

Pappa Goose, an Egyptian Goose, was brought to me to take care of him in 1991 - don't know how old he was - he had one gammy foot as a result of fishing gut being entangled around his leg and severing the tendons and nerves, causing his foot to pull backwards. I was lucky to have the pleasure of his presence in my life for 18 years when, finally today, I had to have him euthanized because his legs were riddled with arthritis and he could hardly stand up anymore. If there is a Goose Heaven, I'm sure that's where he is now.

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Veld fire tragedy

I think this is where the fire came from
(Click to enlarge)

Today we've just had a huge veld fire sweep through our property, defying all fire breaks, being pushed forward by a strong wind and turning the landscape to black charcoal. On the other side of the fence is our neighbour's property with the fire now just behind them.


The Crowned Plover was forlornly screeching for her young, where she had a nest somewhere in the grass in the black area in front of her. Smoke is still rising in various places and the ground is still hot to the touch.
(Click to enlarge)


The Herons making good use of the misfortune, scavenging for dead insects


An abandoned burnt nest


The North side of our property.

New Name for Black Eaglet

They mature so quick but live longer

It is amazing the pace with which the young chick has grown over the past three months.

It has completely shed its white fur and has become brownish and on 24 August 2009 it took its first flight. The Verreaux (Black) eaglet has thus far been fed by its parents but it must now learn to hunt and fend for itself before the parents start chasing it away around December. It will then be forced to find its own territory. It only has a 20% chance of surviving to adulthood but if it does it can live as long as 50 years.

The (IEC) Incredible Environmental Crew is pleased to announce the results of the votes for a new name of the eaglet at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, Roodepoort, South Africa, as follows:

Miracle – 6
Imbalenhle – 8
Lone Star – 4
Thembeka – 2

Ladies & gentlemen let us without fear or favour declare that Imbalenhle will be the name of our new resident.

For more information on these birds visit www.blackeagles.co.za

Getting into a Lather

SELF-ANOINTING



Self-anointing seems to be triggered by smell or taste. The hedgehog twists and turns, stretching out its tongue to lick foam all over its body. My Hedgie used to sit on my chest, licking my skin until he started frothing at the mouth and then smearing it all over his quills. He would also do the same when he came upon a cigarette but in the grass.



This hedgehog has come across a well-worn leather shoe. After sniffing it for some minutes he is stimulated to self-anoint.

Crows

Coco

I had a Black Crow as a pet for 20 years (Coco was 27 when she died after having a stroke) and I absolutely love these endearing and highly intelligent birds.

Something we can all learn from animals - when I used to take food out to feed her (she ate almost anything under the sun, with a staple diet of minced meat), she would eat her fill, but carry on taking food from me after she was satisfied and dig holes and hide it, to be searched for and dug up later when she was hungry again.

She absolutely loved gardening with me, following in my tracks and plucking out seedlings as fast as I could plant them, leaving a trail behind her, to be discovered by me as I returned to water them all. Her favourite was finding bugs as I dug up the garden, especially cutworms.

She had built up quite a vocabulary and to friends' and visitors' delight, they would be greeted at the front gate with a very convincing Queens English "Hello. Come in" followed by bellowing laughter. She provided hours of entertainment and it was a great loss for me when she died.

The Cape Crow or Black Crow (Corvus capensis) is slightly larger (48-50 cm in length) than the Carrion Crow and is completely black with a slight gloss of purple in the feathers. It has proportionately longer legs, wings and tail too and has a much longer, slimmer bill that seems to be designed for probing into the ground for invertebrates. The head feathers have a coppery-purple gloss and the throat feathers are quite long and fluffed out in some calls and displays.

A group of crows is called a "murder," though this term usually appears in poetry or similar literature rather than ordinary usage.


"Coco" my Black Crow - She used to take this stance and make a ka-ka-ka sound, like the horn of a car. It must be a natural sound of theirs, because I've heard crows in the wild doing the same thing.


Cape Crow (Black Crow)


Common Ravens on the grounds of the Tower of London


Crow in flight


Hooded Crow


Daurian Jackdaws

FARM TALK - Spring Fever, Summer Madness

Spring fever and summer madness happen on a smallholding over-night. The one minute you're still in the grip of ice cold frost and the next minute the first rains have fallen and everything is blossoming and needs to be cut or trimmed, dug over and fertilized and everything hatches or gets born at the same time.

Calves are frolicking in the field and the ducks and geese are busy leading their ducklings and goslings through the garden on a never-ending search for insects and tasty buds (including the newly-planted seedlings in the bed borders!).

The Koi fish are also spawning in the pond and thousands of tadpoles have hatched to the prior songs of their parents, lullabying us to sleep every night - there is no sound like water bubbling over the waterfall and frogs serenading one another at night to put you into a peaceful state of sleep, awaking fresh and raring to go early the next morning.

Dragonflies appear out of nowhere and provided your pond water is healthy and passes their inspection, lay their eggs in the water, and the next generation lives as Naiads (dragonfly nymphs) under the water for the next couple of months until they crawl out of the water onto some tall
plants, shed their nymph bodies and emerge as the spectacular dragonfly, once again claiming their territory as their parents did before them.

 

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Imagecredit 

--> A mole I caught in the garden was summarily evicted and moved to the other side of the garden wall (I apologise for the poor image quality, but he was very aggressive and just wouldn't stay still to be photographed! And those teeth are enough to scare the pants off anybody!)

--> But now also starts the never-ending fight with the moles, leaving fresh mounds of earth all over your freshly-mowed , immaculate lawn. Our smallholding is totally poison-free, so every home remedy and alternative method for eradicating pests has been tried and tested, from 2L bottles of water lying on the lawn to loud music being pumped down the tunnels to hose pipes filling the tunnels with water (with the assumption that the wet and noisy conditions will be too uncomfortable for them to bear and they will therefore surface on the OTHER side of the wall, out of the garden). Alternatively, one succumbs to the daily mounds of fresh earth, raking them down and all over the lawn as a top soil treatment.

Image credit 

As far as moles are concerned, the Golden Mole is a welcome visitor, as he is carnivorous and eats all the cut worm and other harmful insects, whereas the Rat Mole is the one being chased from pillar to post for his habit of eating the bulbs and roots of everything in his path ... but what a wonderful sight to see a mole surfacing at night, grunting and scratching around under the safe cover of darkness (or so he thought!) until he is swiftly scooped into a bucket (those teeth are lethal!) and released the next morning far away enough to, hopefully, not find his or her way back again (and after much soul-searching and worrying about any possible babies that might be left behind and abandoned, common sense prevailed and hearts were hardened and the thought swept out of our minds in favour of a mole-free garden.)

Snakes are treated with similar love and attention, being caught and released in a far-away, safe environment or, in the case of a Mole snake or Brown House snake, being left to their own devices, as rats can be a big problem on smallholdings with all the food being served up for ducks, geese, chickens, etc.

And so summer, and the life-cycle of a smallholding, starts once again!

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