News from the Vlei #36
Winter 2007 and life on the vlei never had it so good.
Snowy white cloud banks raised over the eastern mountains circled northwards and brought a mackerel sky and icy rain leaving the air clear and sweet.
August saw 44 mm of rain in a series of night time showers totaling 203mm, our mean annual rainfall, inside 3 months.
The landscape has become a magnificent garden and we cannot remember the sand and dust of previous summers. Fifty Red bishops make their way all along the vlei adding to the array of colours. The white cattle egrets sit in amongst the mauve vyygies and the goose’s eyes and the cows, or fly carrying twigs and grasses to the far reed beds. There the Egrets, Grey herons and Cormorants build their nests all happily mixed up together on towers of reeds next to the water.
Fish eagles cry and circle in the blue thermals above Boepenskop.
Hoepoes nest under the roof of the old cottage near the water.
Karroo scrub robins have been visiting adding their songs to the Cape wagtails, Cape sparrows, Cape Bulbuls and the Southern grey tit.
Some evenings a group of glossy ibis fly due north, their calls taking us into the African past.
Such was the News for August just before we ventured out of Africa and flew 6000 miles at 35000 feet to reach the lands of our forebears. In England we were feted by Jake and Mollie and Scarlett and Pia and Kim and then we were off to Wargrave to Mike and Annie’s lovely home and garden and feastings with Nick’s extensive tribe.
In France we stayed in Pete and Jo’s stone farmhouse in Lot amongst treed hills and shady lanes, and later in St Leger with all Nick’s progeny and Scarlett, we ate wonderful cheese and pate, found good red wines cheaper than our own
Our visit to the Libos market was a highlight of our brief tour de France, such fresh fruit and vegetables, varieties of cheese, fish, hand made soap, every conceivable type of food, clothing, dried herbs, freshly paella made whilst you watch.
We left the sublime innocence of the vlei and missed 5 weeks of late spring and early summer. During those weeks the flowers and the bright green faded into the sand.
Goose-loose and Genevieve and the nine geese from Paarl settled down and produced 10 goslings, the smallest of which is with Martin’s menagerie for safe keeping.
One evening a large flotilla of pelicans made its way along the reed beds, all 18 geese sailed proudly up the middle of the waterway and Corrie’s white ducks scurried along behind. The geese are expected to multiply exponentially and the ducks are likely to mix with wild ducks and compromise genetics; people have been heard discussing different methods of fattening these birds preparatory to consuming them.
Up on the mountain where last year we saw the jackals amongst the sheep, a small buck tip toed away from us and lay down in the grass.
Another hot evening, on the way over the mountain to have a dip in the cold Atlantic,
we found a young Dorper lamb alone and far from his herd.
We ensconced the lamb on my lap, turned the bakkie around and set off to Lena at Muishoek, phoning ahead to order a bottle of milk. On our arrival Stompie the Jack Russel tried desperately to wash the lamb which by then was frightened, hungry, unhappy and noisy.
Lena said he was no more than 24 hours old at the most and in his distress he was unable to drink, but within a week he was on his feet and declared to be most beautiful with black spots on his knees.
Across the vlei at Vensterklip, a fledgling monthly Saturday farmer’s market offers fresh organic local produce, pecan nuts, honey, lavender oil, good coffee, excellent food and a convivial meeting place. Our home grown basil pesto sold well in its season and we sell old books for the local animal welfare and meet all kinds of book lovers.
We have invested in a desert bike which carries us through the sand with ease and makes sense at 25 kilometers to the liter. We found a copy of “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance” in the library, which fully justified having a bike even without an intention to reduce fuel consumption.
We planned our house for solar and wind energy so recent retrogressions have spurred us on to find the best available technology, get off the grid and reduce gas usage for our hot water at the same time.
We have a sun stove which to my surprise cooks food to perfection, producing vegetable soup and lamb bredie with onion, garlic and tomatoes, brown sugar and Old Brown sherry or hot Mexican beans in a few hours. Solar cooking changes one’s relationship with the sun utterly; I have become a mobile sundial visiting the stove every hour or so and turning it to follow the sun’s course across the sky.
Thea gave us a hay box which squats on a shelf and keeps pots hot for 12 hours, cooking chickpeas for Nick’s “Easily the best in the Southern Hemisphere” humus or black lentils with salt and olive oil or oatmeal porrige.
In the back garden Mzonke’s collapsing dry stone wall terraces have been planted with peas, beans, beetroot, onions, carrots, parsley, cabbages, kale and broccoli.
The ongoing mole rat incursions have taken many camphor bushes and nocturnal insects have wreaked havoc on my leafy green lettuces, so it remains to be seen how much of our vegetables we will eat. As I write the cabbage and cauliflower seedlings have been de-leafed.
The end of autumn was presaged by all the signs; early morning vlei mist coming downstream, strong easterly winds, swallows mustering, (some of these too early this year and they fell from the sky in their thousands over Gauteng when an early winter snap caught them on the wing), frogs clicking under the barrels on the verandah, Emperor moths flying inside at night, termites gathering dry grass stalks and ‘Mot rëen’;
romantic misty night rain which drips off the roof and sustains the sandveld
The Spotted Eagle owl was heard but not seen, and distant nightjars foretold the recent rains which took us into winter and out again into champagne days.
The rain produced puddles down on the mud next to the reed beds which encroach inexorably on the vlei. Purple gallinules race about like arty hens quite happy to be seen in company with the noisy 19 Grey lag geese. The African spoonbills hunt small fish and aquatic invertebrates (according to Roberts), so now we know what is in the shallows of the vlei. Avocets, Stilts and Little Stints are all elsewhere, as are the flamingoes, which flew in one night and flew on.
For some reason a very tiny fox terrier has arrived to live with us. She is brighter and much more energetic than we, sweet natured and very quick. She sleeps in a basket with two of Nick’s old sheepskin slippers, a black and orange knitted Queen bee, one rawhide chew, an old marrow bone, a tatty tennis ball and a cloud of fluff from the unfortunate slippers.
This news needs to get out to my loyal readers. Love from Filly and Nick
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