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The Banting Wars

Posted on May 20, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

It’s been a busy time at work and most of the time I’ve been chugging back and forth to Europe instead of spending this marvellous month of May on the farm. Last Saturday I took a day off and went with Liz to the Franschhoek Literary Festival where we saw a splendid debate between Prof Tim Noakes and Prof Lionel Opie, entertainly chaired by Dennis Davis.

South Africans will need no introduction to Prof Noakes but for the benefit of everyone else, he advocates a way of eating that is very low carb, medium protein and very high fat. He’s written a couple of entertaining bestsellers; it is the hot topic here and the large hall was overflowing. It was particularly fun to go with Liz as we sit firmly on opposite sits of the debate. I don’t agree with that way of eating at all (a serial dieter I’ve been through all them all, Montingnac, Atkins, Dukan and many variations thereof) and none of them help me to lose weight. I haven’t tried the “Banting” way, as Prof Noakes calls it, but as is the case with so many diets I don’t know anyone who has lost weight on it after the first couple of weeks or so. Some people claim to feel marvellous on it though and it may be true that it is a good diet for people who are diabetic or pre-diabetic. Perhaps also for people who eat seriously bad diets full of sugar and fast food in the first place. Noakes is highly persuasive and passionate and Liz thought he won the debate. I heard a lot of theories and a lot of conclusions but the facts didn’t seem to justify the conclusions. Proof once more that you hear what you want to hear! Noakes uses himself as an example all the time, so perhaps the only safe conclusion is that it may suit insulin resistance high performance atheletes like him. Opie pointed out that the ONLY comparative research on the high fat approach that has been done was recently in Cambridge. The conclusion was that a low-carb high-fat diet didn’t help the participants to lose weight, but in a group of talented Cambridge students, there was a noticable decrease in brain function, particularly memory.

So what has all this got to do with fynbos flowers? Well the flowers and the run go together, and all that goes with a healthy lifestyle, hence our interest in the debate. Liz and I followed all this talk of diet with a splendid lunch where she stuck to her Banting and I ate a smoked salmon rosti with a poached egg and hollandaise sauce. And we shared a divine bottle of Chenin Blanc.

On the way home the light was amazing and I stopped on the dirt road to take this photo of the shining grasses in the autumn vines which are at their most beautiful at this time of year. A golden highway in the winelands.

The shining grasses in May

Back on the farm I took the dogs for a long walk on the mountain as the sun started to set. Maebh and Jemima Chew set about hunting every last gerbil, full of glee and joy as they bounced around the place.

Jemima Chew and Maebh enjoying the evening hunt

We are moving in to the serious season for fynbos now that we’ve had good rain. One is another tiny lobelia – I didn’t have room to fit my fynbos book in my bag on this trip, but it is different from the one we posted a couple of weeks ago.

Lobelia

The Protea nerifolia is now in flower all over the farm and will continue to flower for months now. Quite a hairy chap, it’s always particularly handsome when it catches the light, as in this photo in the very last rays of the sun.

Protea nerifolia

I can be silly in my joy when my favourites emerge and I see them for the first time in the season. One of these is Microloma tenuifolia which has emerged winding its tentacles around a protea. This tiny flower is as smaller or smaller than the nail on my little finger, little flashes of pinky coral in the lush green fynbos.

Microloma tenuifolia

Rupert Koopman from Kirstenbosch kindly sent a comment to let me know that this daisy that I posted last week is Anthanasia trifurcata – thank you!

Anthanasia trifurcata

May Day, home, sunset and the warmth of the mountain

Posted on May 1, 2014 by fynbosblog 3 comments

Peter and I both agree that although we both hate leaving the farm to travel, usually for work, the best part is coming home. I’ve been in Europe for a couple of days. One night and two days in London; two nights on planes. I arrived home this morning feeling pretty horrible. This evening in anticipation of a gorgeous sunset, I took the dogs for a walk and the sky lit up with pink and orange out towards the Paaderberg as we walked on the most northern parts of the farm.

A painted sunset, 1 May 2014

I took a different path from our running routes and the slower pace of a walk meant that I saw much more than I do on the morning run. I must do these leisurely walk more often. Three separate daisy-like yellow flowers; always the most frustrating to identify, and a tiny little pelargonium, one of my favourite plants. The mountain was amazing tonight – the days are still warm, but the evenings cool and at dusk you can feel the mountain giving out the warmth it has absorbed during the day into the cool evening air, sending out blasts of heat that I walked through as I returned to the house. The dogs were joyous and Maebh’s pale coat glows in the evening light.

Seamus and Maebh in the fynbos

The Pelargoniums flower here all year round; different plants in different months. Identifying the subspecies is hopeless, but each one gives me great joy.

Autumn Pelargonium

As for the yellow daisy-like flowers. There are three, all on the same road, within 100 metres of one another. The first is an Osteospermum spinosum I think.

Osteospermum spinosum?

The needle-like leaves could be telltale

The second has these splendid clustered flowerheads with gorgeous curly stamens on the tips, with a soft grey-green hairy leaf. You would think that would suffice to identify – but no.

Clustered yellow flowers

Something about the flower makes me think Helichrysum but the leaf says not

Something about the flower makes me think Helichrysum but this thick hairy leaf says not

And the last is a perfect yellow daisy, with clustered spiny leaves. I love the way that these three plants tell me how far I’ve come on my fynbos journey. A year ago they would have looked the same to me; the way your friends’ two dogs both look the same to you, but are completely different to them. Now the differences jump out at me, yet I still can’t identify them. I love that too – that the fynbos journey is without end. I’ll probably never be able to identify every single plant on the farm, a mere pinprick within the Cape Floral Kingdom. But I won’t stop trying.

A perfect daisy, but which perfect daisy?

It's a small shrub with little needly clustered leaves

It’s a small plant with little needly clustered leaves

Torrid days and windy nights on the mountain

Posted on April 17, 2014 by fynbosblog 2 comments

The Western Cape sat under a torrid heatwave last week and over the weekend. I watched the new plants in the garden anxiously, hoping they wouldn’t give up the ghost on us but with plenty of watering they seem to have survived the worst. It suddenly cooled on Monday, still sunny but a good 10 degrees cooler – 28 is very different from 38. And cool and damp in the evening, enough to need a sweater. With the cooler weather came the wind, howling and screaming around the mountain, stronger at night, trying to get the roof off, blow the trees down and blasting the autumn leaves off the trees.

Yesterday I had an early start dropping Peter to the airport, so I couldn’t run and by the time I got home in the evening after a day of meetings and errands I’d taken a pill for an incoming migraine, which also precludes running. So the dogs and I went walking instead. The wind howled around us, but the mountain was beautiful, glorious even, with the sun setting in the western sky. I sometimes wonder why I don’t take crisper photos, and last night was a good reminder of the answer to that. I defy anyone to take a perfectly crisp photo when the subject is leaping, dancing or even merely quivering in the wind. Still, with a lot of patience we captured a few flowers in between the gusts. This time of year is exciting with lots of new growth and even flowering bulbs starting to push their way above the ground. Some of the flowers we won’t see until August are already sending forth their shoots and it’s fun to recognize them as old friends.

An old friend from one of my earliest blogs is this, very common, plant. Last year I incorrectly identified it as a Crassula but I know better now. There is a resemblance to the Metalasia family, in part because of the rolled leaves with tufts of smaller leaves in the axis. But the the flowers don’t fit. Another for the unidentified file though it is irritating when the species is so common.

Unidentified and very common

The same flower in close up – impossible to get a perfect shot in the howling wind

The evening light in the olive groves was stunning

Even at the end of the summer there is still plenty of water coming down the fall

The wind took out our wifi connection, so this is written and sent in an early morning hurry from Cape Town International. We are off to the bush for Easter.

Sunny Days

Posted on April 7, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

With Peter away Anna, a Swedish friend, came to stay the night and we started the evening with a sunset walk on the mountain. We finished the evening, needless to say, with far too much wine and lots of chat! Anna is a proper walker and I wanted to capture some flowers I’d seen out running so we set off in the gorgeous evening light with a specific aim in mind. As always the mountain was stunning in the evening the dogs were bounding with joy as we chatted and walked.

Metalasia densa is not particularly beautiful or charming but it is very common. The book says it is winter flowering, but here it seems to like the summer’s heat, or maybe it’s because we’ve had a wet year. In either case it is everywhere. Like so many flowers that are not necessarily beautiful at a distance, it is rather lovely in close up.

Metalasia densa, a rather scruffy shrub

Metalasia densa, the flower in close up

To my great joy this gorgeous Erica has burst into flower at the top of the mountai. This is Erica nudiflora, delighting us with a flash of pink as we crossed the road at the top of the farm. Anna is great company, very chatty and interested in everything and she finds my enthusiasm for these floral finds quite entertaining. She was very tolerant of having to interrupt both walk and chat while I try to photograph flowers in the fading light and the wind.

Erica nudiflora

The flowers of Erica nudiflora in close up

Of course proteas are the statement flowers on the mountain and the fabulous Protea nerifolia is coming into flower. I am sure we’ll have many photos of these over the coming months, the flowering season is long and they are particularly beautiful, with their pink petals and shaggy beard. This is the first of the year, taken at the lowest point of the farm.

Protea nerifolia

Leucadendron salignum?

This picture comes from an early morning run over the weekend; I couldn’t resist the morning light shining through the the new growth of this Leucadendron – most probably salignum.

And this last photo was taken yesterday evening, Sunday, as the sun set behind Paarl mountain and the valley was golden pink. We’ve been having amazing weather since it stopped raining.

Sunset over the valley

Protea Repens, the iconic Sugarbush

Posted on March 30, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

If there is an iconic flower on this mountain, indeed in much of the Cape, it is Protea Repens. The book says it flowers all year round but on these mountains this flower is the precursor of autumn and as the days shorten and a damp chill scents the air, these creamy, sometimes pink tipped flowers open all over the farm. The common name is sugarbush and very often they are full of bees feasting themselves on the nectar. I like to think that our honey at this time of year must come mostly from from this source.

This morning was spectacular, blue, green and golden, and the dogs and I set off for a gorgeous run with the objective of capturing some images of Protea Repens as it dominates this flowering moment. With the rain we’ve had there will be more to see before long.

The national flower of South Africa is Protea cynaroides, the King Protea and with it’s huge and gorgeous flowers one can understand why. I was interested to read in my research that until 1976 the national flower was in fact Protea repens. It makes sense, it is stunningly beautiful, ubiquitous here in the Cape and there is something glorious about this shrub that chooses to flower in the arid season of the year when all is dried and shrivelled, all colour gone and which continues to flower all through the winter. We will see more of these in the blog, I can’t resist how they catch the endlessly different light on the mountain and in the months to come we’ll see great banks of them flowering all over the farm.

Protea Repens – if you look closely you can see the feasting bees

A pink and white Protea repens catches the morning light

A pink and cream Protea repens catches the morning light

Light shining through a large Protea repens sighted at the top of the olive groves

The same shrub covered with creamy white flowers

Wolfhounds slipstreaming in the wind and glorious early autumn sunsets

Posted on March 4, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

Two lovely runs this week. One on a cool damp morning with the new growth of Leudadendron salignum glowing green in the grey light once again and bounding dogs enjoying the autumnal weather. The house is full of guests and it’s lovely to get up early, go for a run and enjoy my own company and that of the dogs, returning to a social breakfast full of chat and laughter before we get on with the day. Our guests are terrific, they know their way around the house and on Monday’s run I returned home to a delicious breakfast of poaches eggs with english muffins, avocado and olive oil, all prepared by Niall before he took himself off for a morning of work.

This morning was the perfect opposite in terms of weather, a typical hot dry windy morning with the heart monitor showing the heavy weather I was making of pushing up the mountain against the howling wind. The wolfhounds love the wind and stand face on, enjoying the feel of it slipping through their shaggy coats. As ever on a hot day, they enjoy a quick water break at Fox Pan as we run up the mountain and you can clearly see the wind ruffling their coats.

Seamus and Maebh enjoying water and wind

Although flowers are not prolific I can see the Cape cycle starting once again. Having grown up in the Irish climate where winter is winter and spring gets off to a slow start, this Cape climate is always a little strange to me. The slowest period is during the hot summer months of January and February. As the weather cools and the rains arrive, the whole mountain bursts into life, the flowering season starts again, lasts all winter and reaches it’s apotheosis in the spring months of September, October and November. Having been through the cycle once I am alert to the signs that the new flowering year is getting ready to launch. Murlatia hysteria is a real stalwart, along with the Salvia africana it really does flower all year long without a break, but now in anticipation of the rains it seems to be showing more blooms than ever. Here it is in the morning sunlight.

Muraltia heisteria

I cannot resist taking photos of the gorgeous Leucadendron salignum, particularly when it’s been raining which seems to set off the glowing green. There will be many more photos of this gorgeous plant during the course of the winter. It has begun its flowering season already.

Leucadendron salignum

One could do a whole blog just on grasses but as the are hard to photograph really well I tend to ignore most of them. It’s a technical subject and I have a couple of books, but not the time to identify this one which has just come into flower all over the mountain, especially in high, rather damp places.

Grasses with yellow flower

I’ve identified this as a member of the Helichrysum family. I’m still not sure that’s right but I can’t find anything else that it resembles. The flowers don’t seem very helichrysum-like to me, but I can’t find anything else that it resembles. As I was taking this photo just above Fox Pan, I realised that the dogs were very interested in the plant and really getting in to have a good sniff around. So I stopped and looked and you could clearly see that something had been lying up on top of it. Makes perfect sense, this plant is growing in front of a large protea, so it’s protected from the back, sheltered overhead and looks over Fox Pan and the whole mountain so whatever lay up there obviously felt completely safe and its lucky I didn’t run past at the wrong moment with the dogs. I presume it was a buck of some kind, we see lots of them and the dogs often put them up and give chase, but they are far far slower than any buck and don’t even try that hard. It’s lovely to see evidence of the animals who share this farm with us, whether it’s picking up a porcupine quill on a road that I’d only run the day before and imagine him shuffling up there in the dark, or seeing a plant flattened by a buck contented after her drink at Fox Pan and enjoying a rest on the mountain.

Is it Helichrysum?

We get the best sunsets at this time of year and I always try to capture and share the good ones. This was over the weekend as we sat on the balcony enjoying the house cocktail, gin and tonic with Campari.

Another perfect sunset

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.

Sunset over Paarl rock

The Bartinney Angel

Posted on January 27, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

This blog is all about the wildflowers that I come across when I’m out running on the farm, and in almost a year of blogging I have never felt the need to deviate from that. Even as the profusion of flowering dies back there is so much to describe on a run, the air, the light, the dogs, the water, the weather, and always a flower or two to talk about. Indeed I have a new blog almost written and ready to publish.

Yet I am going deviate. Because on Saturday I saw the most extraordinary sight, too ephemeral and too gorgeous not to share. We were at a party in the Kylemore valley, about 30 KM from here, along the Helshoogte Pass. It was a perfect day, pure blue sky, not a cloud and for once not too hot. We were enjoying cold wine and delicious braai in a friend’s garden. Liz, another friend who lives in this lovely Kylemore valley, came over to me and said “there’s something I want to show you.” We went around to the back of the house and she pointed up into the mountain. There, carved out in a meadow full of shining grasses, is an angel, the Bartinney Angel.

Bartinney wines have an angel on the label, based on a sculpture by Dylan Lewis. Now they have carved their angel into a meadow of the lovely shining grasses. Breathtaking.

The Bartinney Angel

An evening run

Posted on January 19, 2014 by fynbosblog 2 comments

Our friends and family who follow this blog or drop in from time to time know that I spend far too much of my time on planes and away from our farm. My work as a management consultant is part time, but sometimes very intense. This has been an busy couple of weeks, working on a project that distracts me from the normal concerns of life and pulls my focus to what matters, in other words, the work that earns the money, in part at least, to pay for it all.

The project is winding up, although it took most of the weekend to finish the work for a demanding client. The last report went through to Johannesburg as the sun started to set and on went the running shoes, up went the dogs tails and off we ran.

Mostly I like to run in the mornings; it gets exercise out of the way and is such a satisfying way to start the day. Yet there is something extraordinary about the evening run. Especially on an evening like this. The sky was perfectly clear, the light diffused with damp. For January it is not hot, warm, certainly but not hot. The wind has dropped and the stillness on the mountain is like a deep breath taken, not yet released. The intensity of the light comes across in this picture taken above an alley of hakias and pines that serve as a windbreak with the setting sun behind them.

We have magnificent buzzards, Forest Buzzards we think, nesting in the trees along the drive. They are migratory and territorial and return year after year. The two of them perch on trees either side of the dam and screech gleefully, joyfully at one another. There is nothing quite like the call of an African raptor. We think one of them has a sense of humour. He perches on a tree at the top of the drive, and dives off as we pass, flying along the valley. Maebh chases him, imagining he might come into reach. At the bottom of the valley he turns, and flies back up again, close to the road, where Maebh joyfully pounds along beside him. Its so funny to watch and begs the question, do birds have a sense of humour? Probably not; but sometimes you wonder.

The Christmas berry or Chironia baccifera is in full flower now. I’ll post it later in the year, covered in glorious red berries. It’s a lovely shrub, I wonder if I could take cuttings and grow it in the garden? unlikely given my ungreen fingers.

Chironia baccifera

I can’t believe how stunning the red heath, or Erica abietina is looking all over the farm. Where other flowers retreat in the hot weather, and the fecundity seems beaten down by the harsh light of the summer months, this plant defiantly produces it’s best flowers and looks magnificent.

Erica abietina, Red Heath is magnificent in the summer months

As we ran down the mountain I was conscious that it was hot and stopped to wait for the wolfhounds. I keep a close eye on them in the summer heat. I don’t want to lose one to a snake, or sudden dehydration, which happens in this part of the world. Here is Seamus catching up with us while Maebh keeps an anxious eye.

Maebh waits for Seamus in the hot evening light

Meanwhile this slightly bedraggled daisy-like thing seems to like the hot weather. On the north side of the farm there are quite a few of them, though they have proven strangely difficult to photograph in focus. This is about the best we can do. I think it’s Felicia aetheophica, which grows all year round.

Felicia aetheopica

As we ran down the mountain the sun set directly behind Table Mountain. If there are moments when I count my blessings, this definitely was one of the them. The light was amazing, the dogs had gone for a welcome break in Fox Pan and all was well with our world.

The sun sets behind Table Mountain, 60 km to the west of us

Two Irish Wolfhounds and Jemima Chew enjoy the cool water in Fox Pan

Just as I stopped to take this photo these little pea like flowers grabbed my attention. I think it’s a type of honeybush or Cyclopia, but I’m not sure which one. This is new and to my amazement means that we have still found a new flower on every single run.

Cyclopia or Honeybush

Watsonia, weather and a resolution

Posted on January 6, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

After one of the wettest winters in memory we’ve been expecting a hot, windy dry summer. So far it hasn’t materialised. There was a lot of wind before Christmas, which is typical of the Cape, but over the Christmas period itself we had perfect weather, still days with little or no wind and temperatures that didn’t rise above 32 or 33. After New Year we expect all that to change – the Christmas guests leave and the oven goes on. Typically in the second week of January the thermometer soars to 40, sometimes more in the valley below and the dogs and I gratefully retreat to my air conditioned office.

Not this year. As I write this on 6th January 2014 it is pouring with rain outside and the temperature is a cool 24 degrees. The rain is set to continue for the next few days and for once I’m actually grateful to be catching an early flight to Johannesburg on Wednesday and hoping to miss the worst of this most unseasonal summer stormy weather. I expect we’ll get the heat soon enough. My mother is staying with us and we went to Cape Town this morning to purchase some new outdoor furniture for her sunbathing – not much chance of that in the next few days so she’s off to Simonstown for a few days of less rural life.

Our fynbos runs continue to surprise me. Running down the drive late last week a flash of coral caught my eye and I stopped to admire a little group of Watsonia that is flowering on the bank. This bank along the drive really is fynbos heaven, it seems to capture water and most of the interesting things that grow elsewhere on the farm thrive here. This one looks most like Watsonia coccinea although it might easily be another of the many fynbos subspecies.

Watsonia coccinea

Although we’ve seen this Microdon dubius before I can’t resist posting another picture. It’s in full flower at the moment and these yellow-purple spikes are all over the farm, lighting the roads and profilic in the buchu lands.

Microdon dubius

The next couple of weeks are going to be taken over by a work project that will take most of my time and much of my energy so blogs might be in short supply. This year our Christmas/summer break was curtailed by a project in Stockholm in December and this one in Johannesburg that starts a week before I’d planned to get back to work. We are driven by the client and grateful to have them, but sometimes a holiday break would be nice!

Even a short holiday on the farm is a joy – the dogs love having us aournd, lots of friends come to stay for a night or three and we are blessed to live on this mountain.

As work takes over again the Fynbos Blog resolves to carry on in 2014, with the aim of capturing even more of the amazing diversity of flowering shrubs and bulbs that flourish on this little farm.