Cactus flower close-up (Echinopsis)

'Tis my faith that every flower enjoys the air it breathes! ~William Wordsworth, "Lines Written in Early Spring," Lyrical Ballads, 1798 

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My Cacti put up the most spectacular show of flowers last Winter and I'm hoping to get some beautiful shots again this year. They are an absolute delight to the insects, with sweet nectar accumulating at the base of the flower, luring ants, bees, flies, and even a few wasps. 

 Camera : FujiFinepix 2800Zoom - Macro enabled 

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I'll wait for your return...

Picture from Warwick Tarboton 

 For the past week or so my Greater Striped Swallows have been getting increasingly more restless until, finally, this morning they were gone - mother, father and two babies. Nobody to greet me on the bathroom wall, no twittering and chattering coming from the TV satellite dish, no more watching them throwing their little heads back and uttering their little gurgling song... I DO wish them a safe journey to their summer destination and I will expectantly be waiting for their return in September.... 

The Greater Striped Swallow (Hirundo cucullata syn. Cecropis cucullata) is a large swallow. It breeds in Southern Africa, arriving from its central African non-breeding grounds around July-August in the Limpopo Province, Western and Eastern Cape. It reaches Swaziland, Botswana, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal during September-October, eventually leaving the region around April-May. 

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The last Cosmos of the Season

The show of Cosmos next to the roads in our area hasn't been that great this year and now, as the flowers start to wane, the insects are making the most of the last pollen and the Autumn sunshine. Soon all that will be left is the yellowing leaves and dry stalks. 

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But I've been lucky - the birds carried a Cosmos seed into my garden and I've got this one, very tall plant that, even though it fell over because it is so tall, has blessed me with a couple of beautiful flowers. 

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April gifts

Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain.  

~ Doug Coupland 

 W&N watercolour

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It's April already and it feels like just the other day that we heralded in this new year of 2012. I can already feel the change in the season and I watch as my Swallows get ready to leave again. They have successfully reared two lovely babies again this season and I've watched them grow into two beautiful teenagers, often sitting on the wall surrounding my bathroom, chattering and twittering away and not even budging when I go out to fill the bird feeder. This trusting behaviour they certainly learnt from their parents, who have no fear of me at all. 

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It IS something to own a Pheasant

Through the uncut grass on the elm's hill 

It is something to own a pheasant, 

Or just to be visited at all. 

Across the garden 

now beneath the bird food 

You peck your lordly selfish portion, 

Chest out, head back, all colours blazing. 

Your Lady Hen still follows meekly to the fare 

- Unknown 

My Pheasant sitting on a rock on my patio 

John, from Midmarsh Jottings's wonderful post on the visitors to his garden, in particular the Pheasant, reminded me to post a picture of my Pheasant, which we rescued from somebody trying to sell him for the pot. This is an introduced species into South Africa, probably from the U.K., where it is also a non-native bird that was first introduced by the Normans in the 11th century as a game bird. Here in South Africa they are sold as pets and kept as ornamentals in Aviaries. 

Even though he would wait at the front door for his daily tit-bits and even venture into the lounge, he never really got very tame and would spend most of his day skulking under the shrubs in my garden with his female, who only ever ventured out once the coast was clear and not a soul in sight. They spent many wonderful years with me and unfortunately the male died of something unidentified and the female took wing shortly after that. 

The Congo peafowl is Africa's only true native pheasant, according to the Arkive website. This bird, discovered in 1936, lives only within the Congo rainforest region. 

A pair of Congo Peafowl at Antwerp Zoo Photograph from Wikipedia  

Henry skulking around the garden 

Henry and his female in the garden 

The very elusive female Pheasant 

Henry softly calling to his female to come and check out his chosen spot 

 Henry running for cover as the gardener approaches

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You ARE free

“Come along then.” said Jonathan. “Climb with me away from the ground, and we’ll begin.” “You don’t understand. My wing. I can’t move my wing.” “Maynard Gull, you have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way. It is the Law of the Great Gull, the Law that Is.” “Are you saying I can fly?” “I say you are free.” 

- From Jonathan Livingstone Seagull 

Seagull - W&N watercolour on X-pressit 300gsm 

I've just read "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull" again for the third time, and every time I discover another lesson... 

• You are free. 
• You’re so free, you can choose bondage. 
• You are so free, that no one can do anything to you. 
• You are so free, that you are the only one who is causing anything to happen in your experience. 

The seagulls at Durban Harbour or St. Lucia, way up on the North Coast of KwaZulu Natal (South Africa), is a constant source of pleasure for me. I just love feeding them, watching them swoop down to collect tit-bits and squabbling among one another for the best pieces. Their innovativeness knows no bounds and one must actually watch all your possessions very carefully or they'll have your beach bag's contents strewn all over the beach.

 Their favourite junk food seems to be hot chips with tomato sauce - I sometimes buy ten packets to take to the beach with me - and offering that sets off a frenzy like you've never seen! And they're not shy to stare you RIGHT in the eye, something I find utterly fascinating! And they do have expressions - intention, curiosity, weariness, guile, craftiness. And it shows in their eyes when they're relaxed and contented, full to the brim with hot chips.

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Rhinos on my doorstep

The only way to save a rhinoceros is to save the environment in which it lives, because there's a mutual dependency between it and millions of other species of both animals and plants. 

 - David Attenborough 

Sketch in my Moleskine 200gsm A4 Folio Nature sketch-book 

When taking my grand-children to Lanseria Airport, we pass by a game farm just a couple of kilometers from where I live, and these two Rhino were grazing right by the fence, so I stopped and did a quick sketch. They didn't seem bothered by me at all, I was just on the other side of a rather rickety looking game fence, which I'm sure they could demolish with a step or two, should they so wish! And I was thrilled to see that they still have their horns, so many are being removed to thwart poachers in a conservation effort of these magnificent animals... 

Sometimes we're lucky enough to see the Lions close-by the fence, but I've never left my car to try and sketch them! 

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Replenish your Soul

Watercolour flowers in terracotta pots on a vintage pine table, which I bought many years ago at a second-hand shop - processed in MS PowerPoint. Back-ground texture by Kim Klassen

Imaginary sunshine spills through the window in my potting shed, lighting up some potted plants on my Vintage Pine table. A potting shed is one of the greatest pleasures of life, a place where you can lose yourself, have contact with Mother nature, pushing your hands deep into the soft soil, creating life in a pot. A place where you can talk to the flowers without getting funny looks. The potting shed is the heart of the garden. It's here where the day begins and ends, where plants get their start, where creativity springs forth and seed packets whisper "Spring is just around the corner!" 

Ideally potting sheds are small outbuildings dedicated solely to gardening activities. Yet, you don't really need a separate structure to pot and propagate. All you need is a sheltered bit of functional space where you can comfortably work and wile away the hours. And replenish your soul. 

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Hedgehog Babies

HOW DO HEDGEHOGS FEED THEIR YOUNG? 

From birth, the mother feeds her babies with milk. She has four pairs of nipples, which seems more than adequate, even for a large litter. However, the mother herself may be short of food, especially in a spell of dry or cold weather, and so unable to feed her entire family. Approximately one in five of all baby hedgehogs dies before it is old enough to leave the nest. 

Info from "Everything You Want To Know about Hedgehogs - Dilys Breese"

 

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough that Hedgie and Sethlong had a litter of eight babies, all of which survived! I started handling them from an early age, with the result that they even started coming out of the grass whenever I called, curiously peeking to see if I have any of their favourite snacks, meal worms. And as soon as I put the worms into the bowl, they would run over and hastily crunch them all up, snuffling around the bowl to see if they missed any. When they were a couple of months old, I found a lovely home for them in the huge aviary at the Krugersdorp Game Reserve, where they were well fed and safe from the raging winter fires we experience here every year. 

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Practicing cactus

(A warning: If you have any propensity towards cactus love to begin with, moving to the desert will increase it exponentially!)

A long-standing passion - a passion most people find utterly boring and something only a cactus-lover will understand - THE LOVE OF CACTUS. So maybe this post is not for you, but if it is, read on!

It all started in the 1980's, when my (well-meaning) father gave me three Echeverias in a pot. I couldn't turn them down and hurt his feelings, but I had NO interest in those three succulents! When I got home, I hastily stuck them in the ground in some far-away corner in the garden, hoping they would disappear.

Echeveria glauca

A few months later I was working in the garden and decided to do something about that 'little lost corner' of my garden. Upon investigating, to my surprise, the three Echeverias had multiplied and there were dozens of them, all displaying the most gorgeous little pink bell-shaped flowers on long stalks. I was hooked! I mean, forgotten and neglected, NO attention whatsoever, yet they blossomed forth with the most gorgeous gifts. I felt so guilty I almost cried!

Now those spiky flat coins and furry ground knobs make me go nuts. Finding a new specie not in my collection is like striking gold - my stomach churns, my heart starts pounding and I just HAVE to have it!

I can spend hours fiddling with my cacti and succulents, removing seedlings and siblings from the garden and potting them in terracotta pots, I have displays all over the house, on various patios and in my garden shed. You'll find them on window sills, tree stumps, on little tables, in terracotta pots, jam tins, glass jars, buckets, cracked coffee mugs, on wooden palettes, on my desk, next to my computer, in fact, anywhere there is a flat surface! And heaven forbid I come across someone selling them at a market stand, I could buy up all their stock!

'They' say "It takes real guts to love a cactus!", but I have found it the easiest thing in the world!

I need to get some more!

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Prickly... (Cactus Echinopsis oxygona) - a Dung Beetle brooch hand-crafted with black glass jewels, silver wire and silver solder, sitting on a little piece of driftwood . bird's nest in Abelone shell (Perlemoen)

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and smooth.... (Echeveria elegans)

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prickly... (Aloe ciliaris)

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and smooth... (Haworthia Cymbiformis)

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prickly... (Aloe ferox)

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and smooth... (Gasteria)

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prickly and smooth... a collection on a wooden palette on my Patio. Rat-tail cactus far left and front right - Old Man's beard behind that, Aloes and Echeverias in metal tub.

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mostly smooth... Gasterias, Echeverias and some cacti on a Vintage Pine table in my Flower Room

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prickly... My latest acquisition - A cactus in an enamel bowl surrounded by four Haworthias and a tiny succulent peeping through the pebbles

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smooth - Echeveria glauca in an old concrete cast

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