Snow on the mountains

It rained all through Friday night. When we woke on Saturday, the mountain peaks were covered in snow. It rained all Saturday and that night as well. 

The temperatures have dipped somewhat with a low 8°C and only reaching 14°C during the day. 

As Ambrose posted yesterday, much preparation and protection is given to the horses' stables and Guinea Pigs dwellings to ensure they're warm and comfortable. The dogs both have tires lined with thick blankets and each stands on large doormats which I brought from Marquard with our last load. They are in the rondawel next door to us, with the door slightly ajar so that Skabenga can patrol the yard at night. Eddie sleeps way back in the rondawel behind the washbasin and is well-protected against the elements.

The cats? Well, the cats are either draped all over our bed or on asleep their own sheepskin donuts. 

 Cathkin and Champagne Castle with snowy peaks

 for the first time this winter 

 Leonotis leonarus (Wild Dagga) in full bloom 

against the snowy mountain backdrop 

 The roses are glorious at the moment too 

 Polygala fruticosa (Petite butterfly sweet pea shrub) flowering as well 

I hope you enjoyed seeing the winter blooms as well as the exciting snow in South Africa! 

HAPPY MONDAY TO YOU ALL ! 

A rose by another name...

On Saturday we had quite a downpour of rain. This is most welcome irrigation for our pecans. However some farmers (like our neighbor, DJ) have started to combine their maize crops and rain is not needed right now. We hope the sun soon dries out the moisture content of their fields and the harvesting can continue. 

Returning from my early morning walk with the dogs on Sunday, I stopped to photograph the raindrops on the rosebuds with the sun's rays lighting them up perfectly. 

I uploaded photos of two separate blooms and then, thinking of my friend, Sandra, who is the celebrated Queen of Edits,💓💁💙💚💋 I played around with Lunapic. 

The original rosebud

The second rosebud - note the spiderweb strand on the top of the rose

Rose color pen

Rose emboss

Rose lightning

Rose retro vintage

Rose surreal painting

Rose swirl

HAPPY MONDAY TO YOU ALL! 

My spring garden

Spring is here in South Africa. And I'm one of the lucky people whose garden hardly missed a beat during the cold, dry winter months. The reason for this (IMHO) is that I garden primarily with drought-resistant, hardy and indigenous plants and shrubs. I also have a wonderful gardener in John Tsie.  Since I returned to SA 18 months ago, he and I have revamped and reestablished the lawns, beds and shrubs surrounding the house. I taught John to make a compost heap way back in 2006 and although he'd neglected it somewhat while I was in Africa, he and I have recreated beautifully moist, black compost. This has done wonders for the ground when it is dug into the beddings and spread onto the lawn. 

One of the first perennials to flower as the weather warms up is the Banksia Rose. This isn't native to South Africa but boy, is it hardy and is it beautiful. Wherever you drive through town, this climber rose is flowering over fences and gate posts - in profusion. 

My Banksia Rose cascades over the gate posts every September through mid-October - as seen from the street

A close-up of the dainty roses 

Glorious against the sky

Bulbines - which are indigenous and my all time favorite perennial,  flower abundantly along the sidewalk outside my garden

The sidewalk from our motor driveway - John and I always plant swathes of the same flowers - to great effect

The garden along the driveway leading up to the motor gate

The view from my office window

A view of the front garden 

Looking back down the driveway to the patio and garages

A walled area off the patio - with bird feeders and holes that Eddie digs to lie in! 

Another view of the garden along the driveway

The back garden (which is the front garden from the patio, LOL) with the Melianthus cosmosus tree in the foreground

The view from the back garden along the side of the house - to my bedroom window where our three cats sit on my kist and enjoy the sunshine

Another one of my favorite indigenous perennials is the Gazania Rigens. This is a half-hardy ground cover which creates a carpet of beautiful soft green leaves with yellow flowers. It's native to Southern Africa but has been naturalized in other countries: the Central coast and Sydney regions of NSW and South East Queensland and the peninsula of Eyre 

Gazania Rigens

This is my world today - I hope you enjoyed it. You can read about other worlds on Our World Tuesday here as well. 

On a note from comments on my Saturday blog: I was asked what "moo-poo" was. It's cow manure/ a cow pat and Skabenga absolutely loves to pick a piece up on his walk to munch on as we return home! 

HAPPY TUESDAY TO YOU ALL

Last Weekend in SA

OMW I can't believe how time flies when you're having fun! LOL! I meant to get back onto my blog in the middle of the week already, and here it is Saturday and I still haven't posted. I've spent my days pottering around outside with my trusty gardeners, Simon and John and also taking photos of the many birds nesting and feeding in our summer garden. 

My last post was about dear little Tigger who was about to undergo surgery. He came through it very well and is still convalescing at his foster gran's house. Emily says she'll take him to her home in the township on Monday.

The patient relaxing in his foster granny's lounge

Emily replaces the mats in the bathroom where Tigger sleeps at night

 Chappie, our [obese] South African cat, is the reason why Tigger is ensconced in the bathroom while convalescing. She is totally unsociable when it comes to other animals. The dogs are very wary of her and as Tigger has such a gentle nature, I'd rather keep them separate

As mentioned above, I've spent lots of time outside with my garden helpers. They are actually wonderful men who continue to work without supervision   - for several months at a time - during my absence.  Recently we've had an abundance of rain in the Free State which was very welcome. This, in itself, motivates any gardener to dig in, turn over and add compost to the shrubs and existing flowerbeds.

Simon, with fork in hand, and John kneeling in the background, tend my garden as lovingly as I do

I hope you're all having a great weekend. I'll be back tomorrow with more photos of our last weekend in South Africa.

Back home in Mwadui

At last I'm able to sit at my desk and do a post. We arrived home late on Monday but between then and now (Friday), it's been all systems go. Apart from getting back into the swing of the Guest House operations, I've visited my friends on the WDL camp, bonded with our [now five cats] and spent wonderful hours in the garden with three of said cats. 

Speaking of my garden, it rained in Mwadui while we were away, and with dear Michael tending the flower beds and lawn, and cossetting the herbs and vegetables, it is a lush wonderland of greenery and welcoming coolth!

The lettuce, parsley (flat-leafed and moss) as well as the basil, fennel, sage and oregano was bursting out of the containers. Michael and I have transplanted all the small lettuce plants to beds in the garden

Michael had the privilege (his word not mine) of watching Ginger in the garden every morning in between sweeping, watering and tidying the patio. Shadow, because of his disobedience and near-death experience last month, had to remain indoors with Ambrose for the three weeks we were out. Shadow seemed very happy when I took him out for the first time again on Tuesday morning. Ambrose, of course, just followed his Unca Shadow and Dad Ginger around the garden. 

Shadow was thrilled to be outside after three weeks indoors. Michael kept saying Shadow is enjoying his freedom again!

The two little kittens have grown into enormous teenagers. Tipsy now weighs 5kg while Topsy tipped the scales at 4.4kg. As soon as the weekend is behind me, I'm going to arrange for the vet, Dr Mwaluko from Mwanza to pay us a visit. They both need their Identipet chips inserted and to have their inoculations administered. They both need to be snipped. Then I can think about slowly integrating them into the Hedges Cat-society in our house! (They both still occupy a sealed off part of our house while the "big" cats have use of the rest of the house!)

Quite amazing to thing that these little guys have grown...

... into this  (Topsy playing with my camera lens cover)

and this! (Tipsy, who is larger than his brother, taking a swipe at my camera lens cover)

 Topsy relaxing after an evening of playing hard

 Tipsy poses beautifully for me! 

Here's wishing you all a wonderful weekend ahead!   

Starting a Garden

Last week Amanda, our younger daughter-in-law asked if I'd help her start a garden for Louis and Wendy, friends of ours from church who have just moved into a new house.  No problem to me;  gardening is one of my passions. I've also been thinning out and cutting back in my garden, so we had lots and LOTS of shrubs, trees, perenials and succulants to plant in Wendy's garden.

Some of the plants we took from my garden: setaria (an indigenous grass which attracts the seed eating birds in the late summer/early autumn), plumbago, bulbines, cotelydon obicalator (which the sunbirds love) and tulbaghia. We also had four white stinkwood saplings. This indigenous tree grows to ten meters tall and makes a lovely shade tree. I always have saplings in my garden from the many mature trees already giving us pleasure in my garden,  so wherever I can, I dig them out and give them to other gardeners

On Tuesday (one of the days my gardeners don't work for me) John and David arrived and we loaded the plants and garden tools into the back of my little pickup and tootled off down the street. (Wendy and Louis live around the corner from us), met Amanda and our little grandson (who was very good all day) and set to work.

Not ten minutes into the digging and clearing, Amanda and I asked Louis if we could fetch Simon who sits on the corner at the bottom of town (with many other jobless men just waiting for a day job) to help us. Louis agreed, we fetched Simon who was thrilled to know he would receive pay that day, and with the three men working, Amanda and I were soon able to place the plants in strategic places for John to plant.

This garden was dead - no-one had lived here for two years and before that I don't think the garden was tended either

Digging, clearing and removing grass roots and stones

Amanda moved our little boy from the push chair into a camp cot and placed him outside under the tree

The three men make short work of the unkempt grass and weeds in this garden

Grandson and I share a funny moment! (BTW, he loves a camera and strikes a pose when he sees me with mine)

John starts to plant the plants we'd brought from my garden. I always tell a person who is trying to establish a garden to plant as much as possible (always trying to stick to indigenous and water-wise) just to establish the garden. Later on they can eradicate whatevery they don't like, or move plants around in their garden - I won't mind at all!

By midday we had the first bed planted up with hardy shrubs, perenials and succulants

Shrubs and perennials planted along the fence

When the gardeners were finished with the first section of the garden, they worked their way around one edge to the front garden. The driver of the grader stopped to talk to my gardeners and I jokingly asked him to bring his machine into the garden and help us!

Our little boy was still cheerful and sweet-tempered by the end of the day

Not only is Wendy's garden showing some form and order, (John and  I will take more plants to her tomorrow) but Wendy has agreed to have Simon to work for her on a Friday. I 'm thrilled that he has another day (he works for me on Wednesday) that he can earn a little money and I'm sure Simon is pleased as well!