Oh to Plough the Fields and Scatter!

We are enjoying lovely hot summer weather, but luckily here on the coast we usually have our 'air conditioning' blowing to keep us cool. The temperature between here and our nearest town, only 12 kms away, varies between 4 and 6 degrees! For instance, on Tuesday I went into town to do my one-afternoon-a-week volunteering in the local Hospice shop. When I left here it was actually quite chilly, 23 degrees with the wind coming off the sea. In town it was 29, with no breeze at all and I was so hot that I had to buy a cooler top to wear! And a couple more just in case! But, I am veering off the topic as usual!
I have always wanted to grow my own vegetables. My dad had an allotment before we left England, and he kept us going with veges almost the whole year round. I dabbled in vege growing over the years when the children were growing up, I sprouted mung beans, had saucers with watercress, and the odd struggling pot with parsley and basil on the kitchen window-sill. I planted old potatoes that had been in the cupboard too long and were enthusiastically sprouting, and like the poem, I dreamed about 'nine bean rows and a hive for the honey bee'. So, when we moved here and I was faced with a garden to plant from scratch, I planned to have a thriving market garden like you see in the shiny magazines!

Our Fully Qualified Camping Dog!

Our boy is famous.......again!! Towards the end of last year Rob took out a subscription to a magazine called 'Caravan and outdoor life' and we read it from cover to cover every month. We have actually used a couple of their ideas in Gemsquash too, Rob sawed off the end of the table which gives us more room inside (I told you it was compact!) and yesterday he fixed a wooden roller towel holder on the cupboard. We just have to remember to make sure that the towel is firmly held closed with an elastic band, as it has a way of unrolling itself with movement and I have visions of opening the caravan door and fighting my way through half a kilometre of roller towel ready to escape! Anyway, I decided to write to the editor of the magazine with a little story about our last camping trip to Clanwilliam, and how Alfie was a Fully Qualified Camping Dog!

Our hot dog looking like Road Kill!

It's Raining Starlings!

We have a metal roof with a fairly steep pitch, (as the building regulations lay down here in our village,) so when birds land in any number, they tend to make a huge noise as their claws scrabble for a hold on the shiny metal and it often sounds like hail on the roof! At this time of the year we have a multitude of Starlings around, either the European or the pied variety. The European ones were introduced into Cape Town by Cecil John Rhodes in 1899. Interestingly enough, they are limited to the Cape Province and have not spread into Gauteng at all, clever birds! When they are changing into their breeding plumage, the males look as though they are wearing polka dotted waistcoats!

Can you see the polka dotted waistcoat, nearest the camera!

Bats and Wind Turbines.

A few months ago we bought a bat box. We haven't put it up yet though as it is very heavy and must go on top of a 5 metre pole! We have bats in the (no, not the belfry) old farmhouse buildings next to us, and we watch them in the evenings fall out from under the roof and fly off to consume as many mosquitoes and crop eating insects as they can! Apparently they can consume their body weight in insects! (I can do that with chocolate cake, but I'd never fly afterwards!) Bats are also responsible for the pollination of an amazing list of nut and fruit trees, as well as helping to promote the spread of new trees by pooing while they fly and letting the poo drop onto open ground! Unlike birds that poo in trees! I wanted to find a picture of bats to insert in my blog, so I happily Googled 'bat pictures'. Well, I realised that I should have been more specific as I ended up with a screen full of Batman and Robin in various poses (hmmmm!), old pictures of a pop group called 'The Bats', cricket bats, cricketers holding bats, cricketers running with bats, and a few real bats thrown in for good measure. See below!!

Real bats..thanks to 'africam'