My world in a nutshell

A small part of my remaining garden which is as large as the one I had next door, except our home and outhouses fill a large portion

One crazy cat with his head through the fence

I am allowing Shadow to meander around the garden without the leash. I still keep and eye on him but he seems to be getting wiser and more confident as the days progress. (Notice how inquisitive he is!)  Perhaps in the New Year I'll be able to trust him to go outside on his own and remain within the garden area!

Eddy slides along on her ear enjoying the thick lawn. Angie keeps watch (no time for frolicking when you're the only dog on guard!)

Megan enjoying a roll on the lawn !

A juvenile Red-Throated wryneck spotted in the garden last week

Two weeks ago I posted about a "lifer" we spotted in the garden: A Red-throated wryneck. You can read about this here. At the moment these brood parasites are very active in the garden much to the distress of the Black- Collared barbets who's nests they're probably using "illegally".

A brood parasite (there are many in the bird world) does not have it's own nest. It lays its egg in another bird's nest which normally has the legal eggs in it, and flies off. The egg hatches before the original eggs and as soon as these hatch, the intruder nestling kicks the other baby birds out of the nest. Tghis bird is then raised by parents who have no idea that have an imposter in their midst. Often the parent birds are also much smaller than the fledgling. Above is a juvenile Red-Throated wryneck which the Black-Collared barbets were dive-bombing in an attempt to frighten it away from their territory. I didn't get a photo of the irate barbets and eventually the wryneck flew off across the neighbour's yard. It was back in the garden again the next day and is still around. I'm not sure whether it bred out in my garden and who raised it.

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A mid-week weekend

Can you recall with ease what you did on the weekend of 18/19 December? You never know when you may need an alibi! Gattina of Writer Cramps hosts the fun meme, What did you do this weekend? Do join us and tell what you did for the weekend.

Ironically, Grant and I seem to have our weekends mid-week. We left home (by car) on Wednesday in pouring rain and arrived at John and Debbie's home at 2pm. It was still raining and continued to rain during the night and the next day. Most welcome summer rains for the farmers.

We had a wonderful time and of course, took Christmas gifts for the little ones. We also popped down to Durban (a two-hour drive from the Berg) to see Grant's 82 year-old mum who is fit and well. Praise God for that!

We drove back to Marquard on Friday afternoon and spent a quiet weekend at home. Grant has had flu and been in bed for most of the weekend. A nasty strain has been doing the rounds in town for the past three weeks; I was laid low with the same malady last weekend !  I had time to do all my admin, filing and of course, blogging!

As it rained heavily the whole week (the sun eventually appeared on Friday) Grant and I travelled down to Kwa-Zulu Natal on four wheels instead of two

A very excited four-year-old (just visible behind his sister in the photo) watches as Granddad removes the front-end-loader tractor from the box. Granddaughter is holding her talking doll

Debbie and John kindly gave their comfortable bed on the mezzanine to me and Grant. They slept under the stairs on a camping mattress. Here Debbie is with their two youngest babies

The smallest female Hedges takes the steps down from the mezzanine one at a time!

The two oldest children had a grand time playing with their new toys on the lawn

Somehow, while we were away, Felix was frightened by something in or around the house. Don't ask me what! I spent the best part of Saturday afternoon hanging over the wall...

...trying to coax him down from the neighbour's tree.

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Hard day at the office

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