ANIMALS IN MY STREET

The street I live in is an elliptical one and we overlook an open lawn that runs along one of the main roads to enter town. Regular readers are familiar with what I call the Urban Herd as well as some of the donkeys that roam through our town at will. I start with a donkey resting on the grassy verge while its companions were grazing on the lush kikuyu grass growing further along the street.

One afternoon I was alerted to the baleful sound of this bull calf bellowing mournfully “where are you? where are you?” outside my front gate, whilst its companion sought comfort from the tree trunk behind it. They had become separated from the rest of their section of the Urban Herd and were feeling lost, lonely and abandoned. I am pleased to report that it wasn’t very long before they were united with their respective mothers as the herd wandered down from grazing a short distance away.

There are many occasions when even adult members of the Urban Herd become separated from the rest because they are concentrating on eating something delicious – as this cow, which is eating fallen jacaranda flowers on my street.

Here is a small portion of the Urban Herd grazing on the open lawn below our home. The housing development and bush in the background is where the wild fires raged not that long ago.

Sometimes the Urban Herd work their way right up to our street. These ones are on the corner. Note the cattle egret on the right of the photograph.

To end this brief look at some of the animals that frequent the street where I live, is a picture of twin calves outside our back gate. Some of you may be aware that if twins are born of the same sex they are likely to be as normal as any other cow or bull. However, if one is a bull and the other is a heifer, they are known as Freemartins. In such a case the bull will grow up to be fine but the chances are stacked against the heifer as she is likely to be sterile.

RAMPANT ALIENS

South Africa has its share of alien plants that have not only thrived here, but their rampant growth poses a threat to indigenous plants; some have proved to be toxic to animals; some threaten our water courses … most are not easily got rid of. This problem is shared in other countries too as plants are brought in by collectors or keen gardeners because they look beautiful, or because they grow quickly and can be utilised for wind breaks, forestry, the tanning industry and so on.

This large garden – probably once part of an even larger estate – contains an interesting mixture of indigenous plants, such as aloes and Spekboom, growing alongside alien trees like the tall pines and eucalyptus trees that tower above everything.

A variety of eucalyptus trees still line some of the streets in our town. Since a small forest of them were removed from around the small dam over the road from us, there has been water in it more often than in the past (drought years excluded).

I see pictures of Tradescantia zebrine trailing from pots on a variety of nursery sites, both here and abroad. Talk about rampant growth under favourable conditions! This plant has just about covered an entire section of my garden and is almost impossible to get rid of.

Mexican poppies (Argemone subfusiformis) are pioneer plants that infest areas of disturbed soil and can be particularly troublesome in cultivated land too.

The flowers of the Common Morning Glory (Ipomoea purpurea) are particularly showy and yet this creeper invades woodlands, waste areas, arable land, roadsides, river banks and coastal dunes. There are thick curtains of it in some places that will obviously compete with indigenous plant species.

Long-leafed wattle (Acacia longifolia) was initially brought into South Africa to stabilise dunes. Well, its rate of infestation is phenomenally fast and whole forests of it have grown up along the country road I often travel along. Where some landowners have gone all out to chop it down and clear it from their land, only bare ground is left: nothing has been able to grow up in between these trees.

GIMLE GÅRD MANOR HOUSE I

One cannot help noticing the very elegant Gimle Gård Manor House soon after entering the Botanical Gardens in Kristiansand. This historic home was built in the 1800s and belonged to the family who owned the large estate which now incorporates the Botanical Gardens and has been turned into a cultural museum.

The grand gate leading into the estate, part of which has been turned into a fascinating botanical garden.

It was closed on our first visit yet so intriguing that, after having explored the spacious gardens with other museums, we were determined to return and booked a guided tour of the house. Unfortunately, we were the only English-speakers present and so the tour went ahead in Norwegian. I thus cannot give you many details, but hope to entertain you over time with some pictures of the interior.

One of the many metal heaters seen throughout the manor house.

These functional heaters are beautiful too.

This one has a definite regal air.

The home is filled with interesting objects, such as this brass table telescope.

This metal-bound wooden chest must have a host of tales to tell!

SOME BARE NECESSITIES OF LIFE

I have already mentioned the installation of a buffer tank and pump to tide us over the periods when our domestic water supply dries up. Our inverter should be installed soon that will assist by providing some electricity during the ever longer periods during each day that we are without. A large number of businesses and private home owners have gone as far as erecting solar panels on their roofs to harness the sun to provide electricity – we are not there yet.

It is a sad fact of life that one has to erect burglar guards on one’s windows these days. These are in our lounge, where I once caught young thieves red-handed as they were trying to steal our television and decoder.

Another sad fact – and necessity – is having home testing kits for Covid at hand: the brouhaha over the pandemic might have gone away, but the virus hasn’t!

Then there is the wonder of Wonderbags that keep on cooking one’s food – or keeping it warm – once load-shedding has kicked in.

Farm gates are a feature of rural areas – mainly to keep domestic animals from wandering into the roads.

Staying with electricity – its presence or absence tends to dominate our lives – are the various wind farms that have sprung up all over the country. This one at Waainek was touted as easing our town’s electricity woes … funny how all that was ‘forgotten’ or ignored once the population had been duped into agreeing to have the skyline blighted. No-one is able to quantify any benefits the town has received.

Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities, old Mother Nature’s recipes

That bring the bare necessities of life …

Song by Bruce Reitherman and Phil Harris

GRAHAMSTOWN HISTORICAL CEMETERY

A large number of our principal citizens gathered in Church Square yesterday afternoon, with the many immediate friends of the bereaved family, in order to follow to the grave the funeral of this lady, whose decease was recorded by us on Monday last. The ceremony took place in the Wesleyan Cemetery, the neatness and beauty of which bear testimony to the kindly care of Mrs. FLETCHER, with whom (as well as with other members of her family since her illness) it has long been a labour of love to attend to the adornment of the last resting place of so many of our early colonists and their descendants.

Extract from The Grahamstown Journal Wednesday 5 April 1882.  [Bolding of words is mine].

The Wesleyan Cemetery forms a part of the larger cemetery in Grahamstown that is often referred to as the ‘old cemetery’ as the ‘new’ one is situated much further away. Look on in horror at what this historical cemetery looks like today:

This overgrown unkempt cemetery filled with historical graves that provide a capsule of the history of the town is not only scattered with litter, but has been vandalised and it is in fact unsafe to clamber through the weeds and bushes on one’s own. Ironically, a strong metal fence, fancy gates and a sturdy lock guard one roadside frontage, whilst the fence has been torn down elsewhere as people have made a path through it – a shortcut into town.

Most of the rusty metal railings surrounding graves have either been broken or removed – doubtless to sell as scrap metal. This is one of the few that has survived such an onslaught. For how long?

We had visited the cemetery with out of town friends who were looking for graves with a family connection – a very difficult task under the circumstances. Not many graves were still upright and in a fairly good condition like this one:

An astounding number of gravestones have been deliberately pushed over:

Given the climate and the age of the cemetery, it is probably natural that some of the sun-baked bricks would erode – although we felt that some were being deliberately gouged out:

Even the marble lion atop a memorial honouring men from various regiments who had died while serving during various Frontier Wars has had part of its face smashed:

Sadly, this is the fate of many cemeteries, especially those in rural towns.