Gordon's Garden Diary

29 Dec '07 7:57 pm

A belated Happy-Xmas-News, Gordon!

I spent the day as one of a party of 12 at my cousin's home across the road; my father and aunt each inherited a title deed from my grandfather, and my cousin and his wife long for the day they leave Johannesburg and, like me, live permanently on the mountain. We had a lovely day, with 5 of the 6 remaining elder generation (of 20) present - that in itself makes it all quite precious.

Whilst there I photographed the hydrangeas on the south-west (for you north-west!) side of the house - unfortunately in strong light and shade, so not great photos. But it proved to me that most of my hydrangeas get way too much shade. They are know in Afrikaans as Christmas Roses and this is explanation enough why!

May 2008 be a good year for you - with excellent health and many exciting challenges to face along the way!

Regards - Jack

30 Dec '07 4:31 am

What a good time I have had reading about all the Forum members wonderful holiday meals. However, it's making me feel famished even though I had oatmeal just a short while ago for breakfast. We are still trying to finish up leftovers at my house. There were only three of us here for Christmas dinner, but I made the usual amounts that would feed about 12. Turkey and southern style cornbread dressing with giblet gravy (white gravy with the cooked sweetmeats of the turkey and boiled eggs chopped in). For sides I made an acorn squash casserole, congealed lime salad, green beans, cranberry jelly and yeast rolls. Dessert was an apple spice cake with pecans, which I made with three layers so it was too tall to fit under any of my cake covers. I had to cover it with a stew pot; quite unusual, but it worked. Now, I have to lose those extra pounds that have settled on with all the rich foods ingested over the last month. It's a good thing gardening season will begin soon.

P.S. Gordon, I have been reading with great interest your plans for a commune life. It sounds so peaceful and rewarding. I think it is a great idea!

30 Dec '07 12:23 pm

Hi, Jack and Faith!

The weather seems quite strange here this winter - one or two terribly stormy days, then a lovely calm, sunny one, then back to 2 more days of storms, etc. The snow on the ground had all melted but now it's back again!! I've been sort of housebound for the last two days (ashamed, as a Canadian, to admit it!! Very Happy

) Normally I'm quite happy to drive in the snow, but my new car, in spite of having year-round tires, handles terribly in the snow here (very wet and slippery). I tried to get winter tires but the stores were out of the right size, so here I sit, saving money on gasoline, which is currently $1.04 per litre here. That's about $4.00 per U.S. gallon.

Now, Jack, tell me - are directions REALLY reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, or was that proviso of yours just to help orient me?? Isn't the direction to the equator always "south", no matter where one is?? Hmm. . .

And, Faith, your Christmas dinner sounded yummy!! I'm also working my way through leftovers, and, I must admit, getting rather tired of them!! I'm trying harder than ever to become a vegetarian before my visit to the "commune" at the end of March, but it isn't easy when one likes the taste of meat and when one's friends and neighbours keep on bringing over samples of wild meat, etc. One doesn't want to be rude. . . Rolling Eyes

. But I think I'll make it pretty well. Thank goodness I've always liked vegetables and I really enjoy trying new things and figuring out substitutes for common ingredients. Right now, I'm trying to discover how to make a normal white cake without eggs. I guess my New Year's resolution must be to find substitutes for lots of ingredients that don't change flavours of recipes too much!

Happy New Year, everyone!!

gordonf

30 Dec '07 1:24 pm

It has only been in later years that I have realised that the sunny side of Northern hemisphere homes is actually South...The South side here is the shady coldest side.
I think it also confused our early settlers of more than a hundred years ago when they arrived here from England and Scotland -they did not realise at first that North was the sunny side,so a lot of old houses(of which I am experienced !)have main rooms on the south side and are very cold.
Dixie.

30 Dec '07 4:56 pm

Thanks, Dixie!! I thought that South would always be the sunnier side of a house no matter where it was, since I thought that compasses would turn around south of the equator. Come to think of it, I guess they wouldn't since "north" always points to "north", so "south" would be pointing towards Antarctica, and the cold!! You learn something every day, eh?

Happy New Year!!

-gordonf

30 Dec '07 6:14 pm

Thanks, Dixie, for providing the answer before I got back here! In addition SA is closer to the equator than most temperate areas (but temperate because of our altitude: Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is snowbound despite lying darn near ON the equator!)Sequoia Farm lies 50km outside the Tropic of Capricorn which marks the edge of the 'sun overhead' part of the world, here at Kleinemonde we are about 1500km south of the Tropic of C.

This has a further effect: we don't have the long summer and short winter days most of you know. Our longest summer day is under 14 1/2 hours long, which I assume makes the shortest over 9 1/2 hours. I think that there are a few plants that never acclimatise here because of this. It also means that on the whole the sun follows a much more directly overhead trajectory from east to west, resulting in higher UV etc, as further from the equator the rays slanting in through the atmosphere travel much further and get filtered out much better. You could say that our sunlight (and thus light) is harsher as a result. In addition we have a much less subtle differentiation of the planting areas around a house: an east wall will be blasted with morning sun. A west wall will be baked in the afternoon heat. A north wall (your south, Gordon Wink

) will be coolish in summer if it has a slight overhang because the sun will be overhead, and beautifully warm in winter when the sun is lower. This is often exploited; I remember my bedroom as a child: the huge window literally filled the floor with sunlight at midday in midwinter, but no sun ever fell into the room in mid-summer. And lastly a southern wall will always be cool. The house at Kleinemonde where I write this from faces South over the view. We sit out under the balcony - the overhang is about 1.5m, and there is shade all day. Just what I need with my complexion: although my first ancestor arrived within 5 years of the white settlement in the 1650s, and I have several ancestors who were Indian or Malay slaves, not to mention a Latvian Jew, my germanic looks are not designed to cope with the African sun!

30 Dec '07 7:05 pm

Hi, Jack - Now, I'm a bit confused once more; In the Southern Hemisphere, when you look at a compass, does the end of the needle marked "North" point towards the equator (hence "north") or does it point towards Antarctica? I've always been under the impression that it would always point towards the north pole, no matter where on Earth it was. Is this wrong?? Argh!! Now I'm REALLY confused!! Very Happy

Happy New Year!!

-gordonf

30 Dec '07 9:48 pm

And no, we DON'T feel as though we are walking around on our heads! Laughing

I remember my dad explainng to me when I was about 5 that we are like ants on an orange, walking round and round the world without feeling we are hanging upside down when we are 'on the bottom' - bottom only being a concept because north is always placed 'on top'. I bought into his explanation up to a point... I pictured us all walking around on the INSIDE of the orange's skin - otherwise we would fall off the world. Now consider the cosmology of that one Exclamation

31 Dec '07 5:40 pm

Well, Jack - I always DID think you were all a bit upside-down Very Happy

! But so far, nobody has answered my question about the compass needle pointing north. Is it some sort of a secret to get us northerners to come there as tourists to find out??? Hmm. . . Very Happy

By the way, I think you must be a very inventive sort to have visualized us all walking around on the INSIDE of the world. I sure never thought of that!!

By the way, how's the garden growing? It's -1C. here tonight, and the night is still young, so it should dip to -3 or so before morning. The roads are all crunchy with frozen snow/slush from the melt today, so I can hear every vehicle that goes by very well! Joey was slipping around on the ice-covered ponds during his walk today - once he fell, spread-eagled, onto the ice. Boy, did he ever look funny!! This should be very good for my tulips and hyacinths sitting outside in their pots for later forcing inside. As soon as it warms up a bit, they'll think it's spring and begin putting up leaves and it will be time to surround the shoots with toilet-roll collars to make them stretch toward the light. That prevents short, stubby flower stems. Once the collar are on, I'll close the cold frame over them to keep out the rain and to warm the plants up during the daylight hours. Then in about a month, I'll bring them into the warmth indoors to bring on the blooms.

I have company coming for New Year's dinner, so I need to go shopping tomorrow. Other than that, I plan to have a quiet New Year celebration. Thank goodness the longest night of the year is behind me and the days are becoming longer again!

Happy New Year to all!!

gordonf

1 Jan '08 12:30 am

Hi, again, all you Southern Hemisphere folks!

WELL . . . It's 4:15 in the morning as I write this to let you know that over the past few days you have all seen the results of a head injury in my writings! I just awoke to the thought, "Of course - THAT'S what they meant!!" South of the equator, the "north" compass needle still points north, but the sunny side of houses would, naturally, be the north as well, since that's where the bulk of the sunshine is coming from! Just as you said, right? Very Happy

This head injury of mine occurred 6 or 7 years ago but just when I begin to think it has finally healed, there it is again! It's as if one of the connections in my brain becomes short-circuited for a time, then suddenly reconnects again (making ME feel quite stupid in the process)!

I can't explain how frustrated this north/south thing has made me feel! I knew that there was something that was wrong with my reasoning, but I couldn't figure out where the error was. Actually, I still haven't discovered what made me get so off-side, but then, it's the middle of the night and I'm still half asleep!! Rolling Eyes

Anyway, thanks for putting up with me in such a nice way!!

Cheers!

gordonf

Gordon's Garden Diary

Post- Christmas - and Christmas Roses

Getting hungry!

North/south

North/South

That North-South thing

North/South - Confusing!!

North is up!

But What About the Compass Needle???

"I can see clearly now. . . "