Autumn days, and... Do you remember Ms Bo?

There’s a distinct and very chilly nip in the air as though the ice goblins are out there, ready to nibble off your toesies and fingies and nosies and the tips of your ears. It does not bode well. I think, despite the fact that the sky is blue and the sun is shining, we’re in for a bitterly cold winter. The Australian Cherry tree has blossomed, messily, three times so far. It is now so heavy with cherries that I’ve had to lop off branches that were hanging down into the driveway.

An abundance of pink

There is a dense sludge of cherries all over the driveway and the garden (we have three Australian Cherry trees). The last time the trees fruited prolifically it snowed on Table Mountain – which is pretty unheard of. This time there are even more cherries. The garden critters seem to know something too. We’re getting something like 30 guinea fowl turning up for food every morning. That usually only happens in deep midwinter. I think they’re storing up. The squirrels certainly are. They’re even burying grapes…

Young squirrel getting the hang of "gardening"...

They’ve bred in hordes this year, throughout the season and there are still nursing mothers out there.

Mama Squirrel - one of many...

There are even a few less welcome visitors out there pretending to be harvest mice…

Rat tales

Everything is gathering and stockpiling for winter. I’ve never seen activity quite like it. Even the predators are more prolific and determined than ever.

Juvenile gymogene in the gum tree- I'd never seen one before...

African Goshawk - now a regular - and very determined - visitor

The Silhouetted Hunt
- goshawk chasing the doves -

There are even trees and shrubs in the garden that are bearing berries and fruits that I’ve never seen bear anything other than leaves before. I might well find that I have to go into hibernation - and knit Ms Bo a woolly scarf…

And talking of Ms Bo…

You may well remember there once was a very small and abandoned baby guinea chick who looked like this…

Ms Bo shortly after we took her in...

Well, today Ms Bo is doing just fine, thank you.

Ms Bo, this morning...

She’s grown beautifully and is about three quarters of the way to being full size. For her age, she is still undersized, but on a good diet of mealworms – we’ve found a pet shop on the other side of town that sells them in large tubs of wriggliness – she’s done well. Her love-hate relationship with us persists. Going near her cage is enough to send all of us into a frenzy of nerves – she, as she beats herself against the sides of the pen, us as we worry about the damage she’ll do herself. The other day she manage to break the tip of her beak in one of her hysterical lathers. Not that it stopped her from snarfing the worms we had brought – once she was sure we were far enough away. The strange thing is that if she gets into the covered part of her “house”, she’s perfectly happy, once she’s done hissing, to be stroked into a gentle slumber.

Ms Bo and Friends

For the most part, she’s not short of company. For the last week there’ve been something like thirty guinea fowl – including the ever-present Ba-kaaka Nostra, hanging around in the garden. And that means the lawn looks like all hell where it’s been scratched over, dug up and had roosting holes planted in it. I suppose it is, at least, well fertilized… We’re hoping in the next month or so to be able to release Ms Bo – into the company of the Ba-Kaaka – but that will depend on what the avian vet thinks.

Ms Bo's new Beau - he's a bit of a silly bird, this one...
(Note the parental disapproval...)

The Ba-Kaaka Nostra - destroying the lawn, again...

Searching for Autumn

Much inspired by some of the lovely autumnal shots I saw on several blogs last year, I decided to try and capture some autumn colours of my own. Only I forgot one small detail. We tend not to have much of an Autumn. We seem instead to go from summer to winter with nothing more than a vague murmur inbetween. So many of the trees seem to keep their green foliage until the first big blow of winter, at which point, giving themselves a good shake they shed their clothes and stand in glorious nakedness for winter. But that waywardness didn't stop me from trying to capture a glimpse of Autumn anyway. A trip to the arboretum and vineyards just up the road produced the the images below. Some are experimental, with me trying to capture good bokeh on some of the shots.


And since I'm not feeling overly creative in the words department right now - yes, I know, a terribly sin for a writer to admit, but there you go, it happens, I thought I'd share this with you - while you're enjoying Spring!

ODE TO AUTUMN
by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.