The Fynbos Blog

We have had heavy rains over the last few days – up to 40mm in some places which is high for this time of year.  Some years the rains don’t arrive until April yet this year it has rained a little all through the summer.  The farmers are not happy – these are the Cape Winelands and the farmers depend on the heat to ripen their grapes.  This year they have struggled.  The olives on our trees are sparse and slow to ripen, and we hear it is the same everywhere, even with the big producers.

The fynbos isn’t listening.  At least not yet.  After months of daily flowering and the expectation of something new and exciting every time I go out, I haven’t seen anything new for weeks.  The Protea Repens is the one thing that is in flower and it is stunning.  It needs a proper expedition to photograph it and a blog of its own.  But little else.  Until yesterday when I was driving up the drive and saw a tiny little spike.  We are a bit chaotic at the moment what with Peter away, my horses injured and needing nursing twice a day, and the farm truck out of order which means I had to do the village school run today.  But when I got back this afternoon I called the dogs and we went to inspect.  What a stunning little thing.  I have no idea what it is but I was so happy to see it.

Unidentified autumn flower

Later this evening we went for a gorgeous run around the farm.  No special light, nothing to photograph in terms of flowers, just cloudy skies and still air.  There is nothing I like more than these moments, the evening run with the dogs, the smell of the mountain and the call of the Cape Eagle Owl in the pine trees as we come back down the road through the half-dark to the house.