February | 2014 | The Fynbos Blog

Heat and Dust

Posted on February 25, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

As I write this the wind is howling outside, whirling around the mountain, roaring down the natural funnel that our little valley creates; rattling the roof and whistling through the chimneys. The days are hot, late 30s every day, and the land is dry and cracked. Typical end of February weather. A few drops of rain expected at the weekend, but realistically no proper rain until late March.

Hot summer evening with the haze of a summer fire visible in the valley below, the mountain to the northwest is the Paaderberg

The dogs enjoy a late evening paddle in Fox Pan with the evening sky reflected

In Northern Hemisphere terms this is late August, a time when few gardens look their best. And we don’t know if we’ll see much in the way of flowers for still another month. Yet we love the summer. The heat gets into your bones and is a pleasure when you grew up where it’s damp and cold. We went to a local wedding on Saturday and it was a splendid evening. Though the wind blew on the mountain in the valley it was still and warm and the reception was held on the lawn, with guests lounging and chatting on sofas and chairs scattered in the shade of the tall oak trees. A wonderful South African moment.

Last week we had an exceptional cloudy day. We woke during the night to hear rain hammering down on the roof and by morning we had a grey damp sky and mist. Of course the dogs and I got up joyously for a cool run. At last the proliferation of new flowers has stopped and the whole mountain has taken a moment to recover and to start again. The last two times we’ve been out we haven’t seen anything completely new. What we do see is new growth for the late summer season when the Protea Repens comes out and the Leucodendron puts on it’s lovely winter foliage the better to glow in gloomy winter days.

New Leucadendron salignum leaves

Leucadendon salignum, covered in new growth, glows in the cloudy light

The lovely Protea Repens preparing for a spurt of growth and late summer flowers

Protea with new growth. We shall only be able to identify it once it flowers

A day later it was back to summer. We had a host of guests to stay and a competition at the weekend. Tomorrow morning we will get up early, go off for a run and doubtless will report back on more heat and more dust…

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Helichrysum Days

Posted on February 7, 2014 by fynbosblog One comment

I try to write this blog at least once a week, sometimes more, with the aim of staying current with the flowering cycle on the mountain. For some reason the past 10 days have been particularly busy. We had a series of guests, family and friends, which is wonderful although it puts paid to quiet nights when we can watch TV and write blogs. Then horses and dogs have needed trips to the vet. The magnificent Seamus has had a bad time. He got a tummy bug, received treatment and then had a frightening adverse reaction to the treatment. It is a well documented allergy, but so rare that our vet had never seen it. Two days of worry later he is much better although his back legs are not working perfectly and we don’t know if he hurt himself, or if it’s a consequence of the neurological reaction he suffered from. He’s not in pain; he would tell us if he was, but it will be at least a few more days before he’s allowed running on the mountain again.

The horses were just getting all their routine annual innoculations, check-ups, dentistry and so on. All of which needs doing but is rather time consuming along with work and the guests. I must remember next year how busy this time of year can be and plan a little bit better.

Peter’s business has picked up and while we wouldn’t say orders are flooding in, the painful trickle has certainly become a steady trickle. Which should be wonderful except that labour protests are growing in South Africa and he had a sit in strike at the factory today. Fortunately it was resolved quite quickly. How frustrating finally to have some business, so that we can potentially pay more and afford bigger bonuses and instead be dealing with strikes and knowing our overseas customers are watching this and wondering whether SA is the right place to do business. That’s not to be negative, just realistic. Peter is brilliant at managing these situations and he will sort it out.

To my delight there are all sorts of happenings on the mountain which make running a pleasure. In particular several different Helicrysums are in flower. Plants that flower at this time of year tend to have dry looking or tiny flowers that can cope with the potential heatwave as you can see from these pictures.

Helichrysum Flowers

Helichrysum flowers – a different sub-species

Yet another variety to be found here on the mountain: Helichrysum flowers

A cloud of Helichrysum in the morning light, this one situated in the heart of the olive groves; they grow all over the farm

I started this blog last year in March when the first of the proteas came into bloom. So it is exciting to witness the burgeoning of protea life as the shrubs of Protea repens are covered in buds and will flower in the next few weeks. That, for me, is the start of our flowering year and I cannot wait.

The Protea repens is budding, a harbinger of summer's end. The first flowers will emerge well before the autumn rains

The Protea repens is budding and heralds the end of summer. The first flowers will emerge well before the autumn rains

We have exceptional sunsets at this time of year. Almost every night and it is a lovely time to walk around the farm. With Seamus on the sick list we haven’t gone far and last night I took this picture of the farmhouse with the pink mountains behind us.

Pink sunset on the mountains

Sometimes we can get strange effects of the light as the sun goes down, like this photo of the sun just dropping behind Paarl mountain. Taken a moment later than the one above there is a circular glow around the setting sun that was distinctive and I was surprised it was captured so easily by the iPhone camera.