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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.

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

Wild windy summer sunsets

Posted on December 11, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

I never get tired of looking at the view from the balcony and because we look west we have wonderful sunsets. Tonight’s was special by any standard. I took this photo just as the sun had gone down – no filter, just the last light of the setting sun reflected from the clouds onto the dam.

Sunset over the dam

We had Christopher, the brother-in-law, to stay and before he left I offered to take him up the mountain and show him the flowers. All spring we’ve had a wonderful time showing our guests the wonders of the mountain fynbos flowers. That time has passed. He loved being up on the mountain but the flowers have become sparse and less interesting to the casual visitor. A really passionate gardner might still enjoy it – for the less passionate there is merely fading and die back and the fucundity of the land has passed into dryness survival mode.

It doesn’t mean that there is nothing of interest out there, I’ve often mentioned that yellow daisy-like flowers are among the hardest to identify. This one could be the rock daisy, Heterolopis, or perhaps Leysera. If I see it again which is quite likely we’ll take a closer look.

Heterolopis or Rock Daisy?

The wind continues to blow – it has been more than a week now, which is quite unusual and not a let up in the forecast. The dogs love it particularly the wolfhounds and here is Maebh standing in the wind, allowing it to stream through her coat.

Maebh poses in the evening light, letting the wind slip through her coat

Jemima Chew on the other hand finds her solace in water and the permanent streams. She loves to wallow and lie the flow and then stands up, looking about her, thoroughly pleased with herself.

Jemima Chew – life is good

As Christopher and I chatted and walked I kept my eyes open for anything new and exciting, expectations low. And here we are, hidden beneath some fynbos scrub, this exquisite pelargonium. There are nearly 300 subspecies, 150 in the fynbos region of which only 20 or so are in the book. This one is so lovely, the colours, the delicate shape of the petals. I would be tempted to move it to the garden but my fingers are not the greenest and what if it’s the only one? I only ever transplant the very common flowers, anything that might be rare, special or precious belongs on the mountain.

A Pelargonium we have not seen before

Babinia Fragrens, the Harbinger of Spring

Posted on July 26, 2013 by fynbosblog 2 comments

I got home on Tuesday morning and of course my first thought was to get up on the mountain and see new flowers though I didn’t achieve it until late in the day.

Every year as we reach the end of July, the coldest and wettest six weeks of the Cape year, a flower emerges that is for me the harbinger of spring. Like hearing the first cuckoo, I always note where and when I see the first Babinia fragrens. These crocus-like flowers cover the farm, they are everywhere – and the bulbs are particularly loved by porcupines. Last year I was running up a steep hill on the farm when I came across a 300 metre stretch of road where a happy porcupine had wandered up and dug up every single plant to munch on the bulbs. There are plenty to share and it was fun to think of him happily crunching not far from the house in the night as we slept.

Babinia Fragens, the first of the year

Next up was this delicate white flower. I didn’t get a great picture of it – I think it’s a Cape Snowflake, to give it it’s common name, but will pop it into the research folder and see if we can get a better shot. These are quite common so I’m sure we’ll see more.

Opposite the Cape Snowflake, the water was tumbling in huge volumes down the waterfall in the evening sunlight – there’s been a lot of rain while I’ve been away.

One of the other wonderful sights of late winter and early spring is the Lebostemum. Another very common flowering shrub which flowers now and for several months. I have tried several times to transplant these to the garden, but they have a long fragile tap root and even very young ones invariably die. They are magnificent shrubs and flower in blue, pink or anything inbetween.

Lobostemon fructicosus

We wanted a good view of the sunset and went to the highest point of the farm on a road we don’t often run. This wonderful combination of Protea nerifolia and Protea nitida blocked our route at one point and forced a detour.

Protea nerifolia and Protea nitida in the evening light

On the detour we came across this stunning Erica with little pink bell-like flowers in full bloom. Pink ericas with bell-like or urn-like flowers are like yellow daisies, there are an aweful lot of them and they are hard to tell apart. Thanks due to Jemima Chew who stood behind them, making them much easier to photograph!

One of the many ericas that flowers with a tiny pink bell-like flower

The Cape Sugarbirds are in full mating feathers at the moment and they are having a lovely time in areas where the proteas are thickest. Their tails are so long they can hardly fly – that’s the males of course, the females look drab and take their pick. I haven’t yet managed to get a really good shot of one but hopefully it’s a matter of time.

I don’t believe we have posted and recorded this protea which is now in full flower.

Protea – indentification will be confirmed in a further posting

Finally – another sunset. As dusk gathers and the sun sets you can see the mist from the Berg River gathering on the valley floor. No wind, the light is stunning and in the far distance table mountain and the whole of Cape Town is covered by a dark wall of cloud. The rain is coming.

Philosophical musings, buchu and wild rosemary

Posted on July 13, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

I don’t remember all that much about my schooldays, more important things have happened since. But I clearly remember one lesson. Mr Clifford, the science teacher, was explaining the structure of an atom. Someone asked the inevitable question “but if we can’t see it, how do we know it is there?” “Ah”, said Mr Clifford tapping the table in front of him, “but how do we know anything is there, how do we know this table is here? But”, he said, “that’s philosphy.”

That question really caught my imagination, and years later when I was studying philosophy at Trinity College Dublin, I read Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosphy where that question about the table comes under discussion. As does another question: that of truth and knowledge. Simply put, I know all bachelors are men because that lies within the very meaning of the word men “bachelor”. Similarly, can I know that all swans are white? No, I have to keep seeing swans and noting their whiteness. One day I’ll go to Australia, or the zoo, and see a black swan. Whiteness is not a defining factor of swans; that was Russell’s point.

It was buchu that led to these musings as the dogs and I ran this morning. We grow buchu commercially and I always have the notion that buchu flowers are white. As we peaked at the highest point of the run and headed down the moutain (always a very happy moment in the morning run) I suddenly saw this flash of lilac.

Buchu – in this case a hybrid of Agthomsa Crenulata, with an unusual mauve coloured flower

I stopped at once, and low and behold it was a little buchu plant, a hybrid from the farm, with lilac coloured flowers. They were hard to photograph in the dim morning light – I can’t wait for the days to lengthen so that photography becomes easier in the early mornings when I run. Where did this purple come from?

In referring to the books, buchu, or Agthomsa as it is properly known, can indeed flower in mauve. Rather like a swan can be black.

The buchu harvested on our farm is mostly a hybrid. The oils are distilled from the leaves and is used in the European food flavouring and perfume industry, mostly for its strong blackcurrent flavour and smell. Here in South Africa it is used medicinally, it is one of the oldest medicinal flowers in the Cape, indeed in the world. Personally I believe in its natural anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties and I love its aniseed, fennel like flavour and drink a cup or two most days.

Agthomsa crenulata hypbrid: this plant is farmed here and harvested for its essential oils

The other highly aromatic plant on the farm at this time of year is the wild rosemary. This grey scrubby bush used to irritate me, but no longer. Running my hand down the leaves and smelling the rosemary scent, seeing the lands full of shrubs and this exquisite, delicate flower has become a winter joy.

Eriocephalus africanus or wild rosemary

Wild rosemary has taken over this land on the lower slopes of the farm

We are enjoying a mid-winter break at the moment. Winters in the Cape can be long and stormy and sometimes quite cold. This year we are enjoying a warm July. Here in Africa the temperatures are as warm as an Irish summer – over 25 degrees during the day. It’s a bit confusing for the poor plants though and I’m sure we’ll see some strange flowering dates as a result.

The mornings are clear and lovely. As we ran we saw the first rays of sun over the Simmonsberg to the South West. A joyous morning.

The first rays of sun on the Simonsberg

Proteas, Montinea and another glorious sunset

Posted on July 7, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

Most of this Sunday it drizzled, a slow cold Irish-type drizzle, the kind of soft grey day we don’t often get here. We huddled up in the study before a blazing fire and watched Andy Murray win the tennis at Wimbledon. He wrapped it up pretty quickly, and by the time he’d finished it wasn’t yet dark and I felt in need of exercise after a cold damp weekend, so I put on some running shoes, to the delight of the dogs, and set off up into the mountain with pounding paws and wagging tails leading the way.

I hesitate to say we see something new every single time we go out, but it does feel like it. On Wednesday we came across this Montinia caryophyllacea by the side of the road as we ran up the mountain. I’d taken a picture of it, but these white flowers are hard to photograph when there isn’t enough light. Today was a bit better, though I still need to go up in full daylight to get a better picture. There seems quite a lot of it coming into flower so I’m sure we’ll find more in better light.

Montinia caryophyllacea

That part of the mountain is covered with Muraltia heisteria – it’s not supposed to be flowering at this time of year but this does seem a perfect match. They are lovely, the colours vibrant in the evening light. We’ve seen these before; their vibrant colour means they deserve the occasional picture as they are long flowering and dominate the winter months.

Muraltia heisteria

I’m learning to question everything, and although our Protea nerifolia does come in cream as well as pink and this is probably nerifolia (looking at the leaves) we need a bit more research to be sure. It’s a lovely flower and there are hundreds of these shrubs flowering on the farm at the moment. The house is filled with vases full of proteas, leucadendrons and oddly enough the most wonderful camelias which thrive in the acid sandstone and decomposing granite (and lots of good compost) of the garden here and flower all winter long.

Protea (nerifolia?)

Quite quickly it was far too dark to take good pictures of flowers and although I saw the first of one of our favourite late winter shrubs, we will have to wait another day for a photo (that’s today’s new flower). As the sun dropped behind the Paarderberg mountain, we trotted quietly down the montain, remembering to turn around from time to time to see the glow reflected in pink and orange on the moutains behind.

There is something emotional about a sunset. This evening the air was completely still, quite rare here in the montains. After a rainy day, the sky cleared and the sun broke through, flooding the mountains with colour. The river and dams in the valley reflected the deepening sky. The smell after the rain is clean and scented with flowers and rain, washed and pure and you want to breathe deeply, happily. We were so glad to be up there this evening, thanks to Andy who polished off his victory in time for us to catch this glorious sunset on the night of his even more glorious victory.

Sunsets and Pelargonium

Posted on July 3, 2013 by fynbosblog 2 comments

This morning’s surprise is this lovely Pelargonium. When I’ve had a series of new sightings I’m not necessarily expecting something new every time I go up on the mountain and I’m delighted when we (the dogs and I) come across some enchanting flower waving its petals at us in the dawn light. This is another of the mysterious Pelargoniums – I was so pleased to see this one, and thought we must be able to identify it, it’s so clear and distinctive. Well, I must tell you it is not in the book and a visit to Kirstenbosch with the hopes of a specialised book on Pelargoniums (or is it Perlargonia?) is on the cards very soon. This doesn’t appear to be in the rather good Fynbos Field Guide where 24, presumably of the most common, of the 150 fynbos subspieces occur. This farm is a source of lots of different sub-spieces of Pelargonium and Ericas. I will catalogue them and maybe work through them over time…

The farm sits on an East West Axis, and from here, 70 km away through the clear air, we see Table Mountain, behind which the sun sets in the spring and autumn months. Some nights, at any time of the year, the sun floods the mountains behind us with pink light. It’s not every night, in fact it’s not common at all. Last night I was working away at my desk when an instinct brought me out to look at the light – sure enough, pink mountains. I grabbed the iphone, ran to the dam wall, pursued by delighted dogs, and took this photo. We’ll see have better and pinker mountains to come, but this is the first I’ve captured for the blog. It’s about the flowers, but it’s not all about the flowers.

The Rooi Afrikaner or Gladiolus watsonius – a technical blog

Posted on July 1, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

For at least four weeks I’ve been frustrated by this glorious red gladiolus.

Gladiolus watsonius

The species is easy to identify, the subspecies has been confusing; our first sighting was at the end of May and the book says it doesn’t flower until August. Even the more detailed encyclopedia says that it flowers from July to September. Furthermore it grows in clay and granite slopes in renosterveld. We have granite and sandstone slopes which is a subtle but important difference when it comes to fynbos. Over the weekend I got more serious and looked more closely – the only possible suspect was Gladiolus priorii. But Gladiolus priorii has a yellow throat and although I didn’t have a photo of the throat, I was pretty sure it’s not yellow. I couldn’t really bring myself to believe that we have a previously unidentified Gladiolus on the far, tempting though it might be.

Today I picked one.

It had fallen over a bit on the bank above the drive, it’s a bit tatty and it was time to take this whole process of identification a bit more seriously. And I can reveal that Gladiolus watsonius has one particular distinction. The lowermost leaf is narrow and H shaped in cross-section. No I didn’t get the scalpel out – I’m not that much of a geek yet. It’s pretty obvious just looking at it.

The lowermost leaf of Gladiolus watsonius

We have a positive identification – it may be the wrong time of year, it may not be quite the right soil-type but there is no doubt: Gladiolus watsonius likes Du Toitskloof and it likes our farm. It flowers when it chooses to and it’s not going to change, so the sages who write the books may need to change a word or two.

Gladiolus watsonius

Flowing Water and Fowers – 28 June 2013

Posted on June 29, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

Home. The desert sands of Qatar behind me at last. It was a shock to return to glorious green after the thick humid sandy air of Doha. It seems it’s done nothing but rain since we left home three weeks ago and the farm has a rich sodden feel to it, with water roaring through the river and tumbling down the waterfall. The roads are in need of maintenance, full of rivulets and potholes but the seeds I planted in the garden before we left have all sprouted into healthy young plants and the fynbos is settling into a winter burst of life. Seamus, the senior wolfhound, is joyous at my return and cannot bear to leave my side.

The dogs and I went for an evening walk, inspecting some of our usual routes, the dogs looking for new smells, and me looking for new flowers. We started down in the stream below the house that leads to the damn. The banks are lined with Arum Lilies at this time of year. Just as the luminous grasses have disappeared the lilies flower along the rivers and roads all winter and their beauty speaks for itself. We have a few months of them ahead, and there will be a lot more pictures to come.

Arum Lilies

The great thing about this blog is that it focuses the mind on home, on the magnificence of this land and the plants that grow here. I’ve seen Chasmathe all over the Cape, they remind me of the Montbretia that grown wild in Ireland, another South African wild flower that grows all over Ireland’s verges and banks in the summer. At first I thought it was the same flower but Montbretia doesn’t grow in this part of the world, it belongs further north in a summer rainfall area. This Chasmanthe is lovely, another of the anchors of a certain time of year, this winter time, when growth is rich and lush and yet only a herald of things to come.

Chasmanthe, most likely floribunda, but to be verified

When we moved to the farm eight years ago this little red creeper was one of the first flowers to awake my interest in fynbos. The flowers are tiny, smaller than my little fingernail and they appear suddenly in midwinter, winding around the stems of thicker fynbos. Despite their tiny size the jewel-like coral jumps out of the greenery and draws the eye. We will have them until mid-spring or later, all over the farm.

Microloma tenuifolium

We could hear the waterfall long before we saw it – with the rainfall we’ve had in June the rivers on the farm are roaring and the land feels replenished.

As we walked along the new road that leads to the waterfall this enchanting sight greeted us. I don’t know what to say or even think about the

pelargoniums; though are stunning, charming, and endlessly delightful the sub-species seem impossible to identify. Our new road is a pelargonium nursery and they thrive here all year round. At least this one allowed me to take a good picture – gracefully gleaming in the evening light.

Pelargonium – subspecies unknown

Pelargonium

The books have a few pelargoniums but they don’t seem to flower at the right time of the year. We have dozens and the best I can do is document them and find a real expert. Some of those that I’ve transplanted to the garden are doing really well, perhaps that will help. They are endlessly endearing. My grandmother grew them, pelargoniums and geraniums, nursing them through the Irish winters. She would have loved this place; not lush like Ireland with it’s dense choking green; more selective; intense; dramatic – she would most definitely have appreciated the drama. It was her birthday on 22nd June, just after midsummer. I was in Doha, so missed the shortest day of the year on the farm. Today is the shortest day we will see this year, and this is the most north-westerly sunset, far over the Paarderberg.

By mid-summer this sun will set far to the South of Table Mountain.

My love of botany is definitely inspired by her, and by my stepgrandmother, both of whom were dedicated and knowledgable horticulturalists. I thought of them both this evening as we descended in the gloom. Two women, one Irish, one English, both Catholic, both of whom were born in one world war and raised their children through the next. Gracious women, much loved, characters, who instilled in us both values and manners. They loved their gardens and gardening brought them together, unexpectedly and into a lifelong friendship. They admired one another and both of them would like to know they are remembered and that they continue to inspire us.

The Ericas are coming out all over the farm and I have not yet identified this one – a detailed book on Ericas as we as Pelargoniums is most definitely called for. The Erica family runs to 660 subspecies in the fynbos region, so we can’t expect to identify them all, but it will be fun to see how many we have on the farm and I will start a library page on them soon.

Stormy Weather 4 June 2013

Posted on June 4, 2013 by fynbosblog One comment

We have been having the most dreadful weather. Day after day with torrents of rain and low cloud on the mountain, we can barely see a flower, never mind try to photograph one in the gloom. This morning when I woke up there was silence. No rain drumming on the zinc roof. If I don’t run for a few days I feel horrible and miss it and worse, I know it will be harder when I do get out there. It’s cold, there is probably snow on the mountain above us but the thought of fresh air and happy dogs was enough to get me up and into running things. I took the precaution of wearing a rain jacket on top, in case the deluge came.

In the gloom and the early light I didn’t expect to see much and it’s true that there is nothing new. I suspect we need sunshine and a little warmth to encourage flowering. One plant that has come out in profusion is the wild rosemary. The tiny white flower is too delicate and subtle to capture in the half light of the early morning but they are everywhere and will be the subject of a future blog.

Jumping out of the gloom are the lime green leucadendrons and Maebh the wolfhoud (pronounced “mave” as in “wave”) chose to position herself photogenically behind them. I think she may be taking lessons in modeling, she’s certainly getting better at posing fetchingly for the camera.

The leucadendron was particularly stunning in the morning light – a photo of the mountain shows the green shrubs glowing in the gloomy morning.

Close ups give you an idea of this lovely wild, winter flowering shrub.

The proteas start flowering even before the rains come, typically in late March and continue for months. They love the rain and the flowers gleam white while the buds can be bright pink.

Protea Repens

Another pink protea is the nerifolia which flowers prolifically at this time of year. I went up this evening to see if the evening light would let me capture the waterfall and chanced on this one as the first rays of sunlight we’ve seen in days caught it.

Protea Nerifolia

Peter told me that with all the rain the waterfall would be looking spectacular. There is a story to this – when we bought the farm this entire area was covered in alien vegetation. We started a programme of clearing those trees, hundreds of them, and revealed an old road, which must have lead up to the pass over the mountains, and this beautiful fall of water from a permanent stream. We’ve planted some indigenous trees, continue to do the clearing and we’ve seen the most amazing resurgence of fynbos in this area. The fall is hard to photograph as it sits in a crevasse that blocks the light, you can see the shadow – at this time of year the late flash of sunlight sneaks into the crevasse and nearly catches the water, so at leasst you can get a sense of it. There must be a moment when the light is at just the right angle and I’ll endeavour to be there when it does.

It’s raining again now, but as I walked home in the last of the light the sky seemed to hold a promise of better things to come. After 10 days of almost constant rain and increasing cold we’ll welcome a little sunshine. This photo of the road that leads from the main farm down to the farmhouse wouldn’t win any prizes, but I like the gleam of wet on the road and the glimpse of blue in the sky. We need this rain in the winter, it keeps this land fertile and the more rain now, the better the spring flowers will be. The dogs and I hope for better things and brighter runs for the rest of this week.