Saturday, January 30, 2021

Lesser Striped Swallow and garden pleasures

 Dear Blogger friends. This week our area in Central Drakensberg has been much cooler with lots of rain. Fortunately Skabby and I have managed to get out for our walk once a days which is a treat for both of us.

Two weeks ago a pair of Lesser Striped Swallows started building a nest in the corner of the veranda above Ronnie's office door. 


With a good supply of mud around, the swallows have built a sturdy nest in the corner of the veranda

It's rained every day and then the sun comes out. This always means that everything grows like mad, not least the grass. John has a ride on mower and Nurse has mowed all three gardens every two days! 
Nothing as welcoming as a newly mowed lawn 
Ambrose and the other cats LOVE the garden - as he mentioned in his post last week
Ditto Skabby the dog
My first agapanthus in this garden! 

I'm linking to Saturday Critters with Eileen here 

HAPPY SATURDAY TO YOU ALL! 


11 comments:

  1. Hello Jo,
    The Swallows nest is cool, they are pretty birds. The lawn does look nice freshly mowed. Cute photos of Ambrose and Skabby enjoy the garden and lawn. The last flower is gorgeous. Thank you for linking up and sharing your post! Take care, enjoy your weekend! PS, thank you for visiting and for the comment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The swallows did a good job building their nest, they wasted no time. I love the smell of freshly cut grass. Your flowers are looking good. Enjoy your weekend, Jo. Stay safe!

    ReplyDelete
  3. your climate is similar to ours, when it rains our plants grow super duper fast. love seeing your green grass and precious pets

    ReplyDelete
  4. Green, lush and lovely. And a big hooray for walks. Our agapanthus are out too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Jo! Glad things are looking so lush around your garden - and agapanthus are my favorite.
    The swallows' nest is interesting indeed - I recall seeing similar ones when in Australia also. I have a post up showing my garden birds yesterday - we had a little snow so I was at the windows for hours with my camera!

    Here's the link -

    https://abreathoffreshair-mary.blogspot.com/2021/01/all-it-takes-is-dusting.html

    Stay well and safe.
    Hugs - Mary

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Jo - garden looking green and good - and I love blue agapanthus so much but don't have much luck growing them here, winters perhaps too cold.
    That's an interesting swallow nest.
    We had snow Thur. and I was at the window for hours with my camera capturing the colorful birds in the garden!
    Go here to view. . . . . . .

    https://abreathoffreshair-mary.blogspot.com/2021/01/all-it-takes-is-dusting.html

    Stay well and safe.
    Hugs - Mary

    ReplyDelete
  7. Nice photos, oh Scabby is a cutie! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. A different kind of swallow than what I'm used to, but the technique is similar.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Jo, so good to hear from you. Just been back to catch up on your news. Did you have any adverse effects from the cyclone? Your furry family look healthy and well, Skabby's water bowl made me laugh it's so big and perfect to cool down in after a walk. Are you still in lockdown over there? After almost a year of no community cases we had one today so for the first time since last March we're going into lockdown for five days, feels so weird! So it's not there also, we're having a long spell of high 30C's, can't wait for March. Take care 💜

    ReplyDelete
  10. So envious of the Agapanthus. Ours are curled up hiding from the cold weather up here in California. We have ours in two big clay pots and last year we got 15 blooms, which is the most we have ever had. It is almost too cold for them here, and maybe a little too wet, but I sure do enjoy them. Our 2 kitties say hello to all of your kittles. They are not too interested in dogs, though, so they left Skabby out.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ah, that life giving rain that makes your mountains so green.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting my blog and taking the time to leave a comment. I appreciate your feedback. Jo