SOON THE SOLSTICE MOON

Soon the solstice moon will be full. I shall be in Johannesburg, not here to see it. More’s the pity. Somehow the solstice and equinox full moons have always meant more to me than the events themselves… perhaps literally it is the turning of the tides, even though I sit at 1400m (4500ft) and 300km from the closest sea, and over 1000 miles away from the sea I know and love…

In the above photo, taken from the arboretum at 5.30 this afternoon in the growing dusk, you can see the Big House and to its left Trailertrash Cottage.

 I love winter. (Mostly. Last night it depressed me.) I particularly love this view in winter, the view from The House that Jack Built’s big window. (More or less – this was taken from the terrace under the Water Oak.) The traceries of trees are reflected in the water, some late colour coming from a swamp cypress, and for the rest the palette is reduced to dark greens and neutrals. The angles of the earth, overlaid all summer, support the vertical trunks of trees. Light and frost will now play on these surfaces, and I will only tire of them at the end of August, when all starts to change anyway.

This afternoon the dogs and I went on a walk, our first real walk in 12 days. We took along my new camera to test especially its low light potential. We were not disappointed. Whilst on Samaria one of the plates connecting the batteries on the old camera was irretrievably lost in the dust. It will take weeks in Johannesburg to repair. I thought a cheap and compact  point-and-shoot was the solution – one which could take low-light snapshots in a way my bulky 12x zoom (and rather ancient) Canon S2 can not. I bought the entry level Canon A490 and took it on its first real outing…

This photo, taken in the gloom of the steps up from the bridge – always a difficult place to get enough light – proves that it was a worthwhile choice. Besides having a much shorter lens which lets through more light, the camera  can go up to ISO 1600, 4x as much as the old S2. This I think was taken on ISO 800, but strangely it is not indicated in the properties of the photo.

 Here is The House that Jack Built in its meadow, and beyond Freddie’s Dam with the bridge visible over the left side of the cottage… a stone cottage in a meadow on a dam in a valley on a mountain…

 

This photo of Mateczka – now seven months old and a lovely animal – is clearly shot at high ISOs, and there is no detail to her fur. But it is the kind of snapshot I would never have got in the poor light with the S2, and a rather lovely snapshot it makes. I look forward to less self-conscious photography with the new camera!

 

 

 Here is The House that Jack Built as seen from the bridge. With a little imagination you can see the moon reflected in the right hand gap between the trees. I could see it clearly, but you will have to accept my word on that one!

Silver-grey fur can be both a memory of glories past and a promise of beauty to come… wisteria seedpods and magnolia buds.

 And purple-grey is a highly fashionable colour, although my mother lovingly and simply referred to these flowers as ‘Old-fashioneds’ – aged Salvia leucantha finds a new subtlety after the frost…

 We spend a happy hour or more in the garden; Mateczka dashing through fallen leaves with all the joyful indulgence of the young when making a noise, Taubie and Stompie – our two old ladies – plodding along contentedly, and Monty (who believes himself the alpha-male of the valley despite his six-inch legs) dashing off to investigate before running back and jumping up against me adoringly. 

And thus, as the chill becomes more and more noticeable,  we reach home and heat…

 

WEEKLY PIC: JAN10 -WEEK 1

SUNRISE ON A NEW DECADE

and may it be a wonderful year!

 

WEEKLY PIC: NOVEMBER WEEK 5

My first sight as I woke this morning: the icon of my garden, the bridge, washed in the clean early sunlight of a summer morning after rain. Woken by the Piet-my-vrou cuckoo calling anxiously for his wife. “Peat may frow” – Pete my wife. Why his wife has a man’s name, and where she’s got to that he has to call for her so incessantly through the heat of summer has worried me since I was a little boy,  but I don’t think he trusts her in the balmy holiday weather of high summer…

 

More and more to see as spring kicks in!

I always say that early spring is schizo around here – all colour and no green. Bleached by winter cold and drought, grasses are blonde and trees are grey. Suddenly colour arrives like a rash on the first azaleas: one looks at it in fascination and surprise. Of course the first blossoms on the trees are magnificent, and of course – almost grudgingly - I get pleasure from those first azaleas, but it is only a few weeks later when the many trees start pushing young leaves that spring becomes overwhelmingly beautiful to me!

The pictures above – a view and two details – I took yesterday from the veranda of the big house.  As I’ve been living there since early September rather than in my own house due to my mom’s health, I’ve been able to observe the daily – make that hourly as the light shifts! – changes that make this view so rewarding. Here for instance is a view on the 13th, when suddenly the afternoon backlighting caught the young leaves on the first of the oaks to green up. It gives some idea of how much changes in two weeks!

The view from my house has been the subject of a few shots too: I do get to take the occasional walk, and my dogs sleep at home and so get let out every morning at ‘photo time’!  This is the one month in the year when I consider giving the bridge a fresh wash of white – surrounded as it is by flowering cherries and almonds, azaleas and Viburnum plicatum, it seems a little drab. For the rest of the year I like its ‘dull white’ look.

Here is another shot of the icon of my garden, taken a few days earlier from my front door. The bowl of scented freesias stands on the stone plinth in line with the bay window. In our sheltered valley reflections are often near perfect.

This early morning view shows the quality of the reflection and the greening of the trees across from my home; the centre of the view from my big bay winow is in line with the left edge of the photo.

To continue the theme of greening (or in this case reddening – or wining?), this opposite view from the above one, taken nine days earlier, shows the first silvery brown leaves on the Acer palmatum atropurpureum. The grass of the meadow which only days before waved between the house and the water, has been cut and the dogwood (Cornus florida) in the right foreground is flowering properly for the first time this year. I grew it from seed off my own trees!

To end off, a view up from Alfred’s Arches to the big house. One morning one wakes up to a garden that is no longer wintery; Erigeron karvinskianus with its white daisy flowers from pink buds self-seeds most beautifully all around my garden and contributes hugely to the blowsy, accidental overlay of the formality which I so love. Down the steps to meet me comes Doubly, the Border Collie.

 

Weekly pics: September week 1

1 September is Spring Day in South Africa - usually cool and miz after some great weather in August. But this year all is by the book, and it is a glorious day. So which of the many Spring Brides to show you? No douts: Prunus cerasifera 'Hessei' the tri-coloured Prunus. Her flowers are minute, single and fleeting. But they are plentiful and she has the most unusual and distinguished leaves of them all. Also she caught the sunrise before I dashed of to work this morning, so I could photograph her. Besides, surely the days of demure brides who only later show their true colours are not completely over...

Breaking the rules slightly, here she is again, this time in full leaf,  from the website of Plantentuin Esveld at Boskoop in Holland; Boskoop is well worth visiting if you have a passion for plant propogation! Visit the nursery at http://images.google.co.za/imgres?imgurl=http://www.esveld.nl/plantdias/59/59937.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.esveld.nl/htmldiaen/p/prches.htm&usg=__i_Zn177nQjo6D8E086r51SBF9Oo=&h=600&w=800&sz=148&hl=en&start=37&sig2=3vVN_PInuwEmmgLvMrtARA&tbnid=tYhBF2hpKgC39M:&tbnh=107&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvariegated%2B%252B%2Bprunus%26imgsz%3Dsvga%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26start%3D20&ei=EQSdSqGuMIzH-QbzvbiPBA

Here she is again, photographed last week (cheating!) after some very soft rain. Each flower is only about 1cm across and shy to open fully. If you can find her, plant her. Prunus cerasifera 'Hessei' is slow to establish because of her low chlorofil count, but a dependable and trouble-free shrub or small tree thereafter. At the risk of being bashed over the head - with a saucepan - this blushing bride makes a good wife!