The run-out on the year

1 Sep '08 7:49 am

Hi everyone!

My diaries have always been seasonal, but the last three months of 2008 I will treat as a unit, as a little over three months from now when we break for the December holiday, my career as a teacher will be over and my new life will begin. Spring and summer seem rather minor sub-divisions under those circumstances!

The last weeks have been the busiest of my life. As Romeo and Juliet moved towards performance, I worked 100 hours a week - 3 weeks of 14 hour 7 day weeks! But I achieved what I wished to achieve and the production was very successful and I am extremely proud of my tenth graders, who achieved remarkable success. In fact I was on such a high as we finished last Thursday, that it carried me through the 4-day half-term weekend and even the first day back at school, and it was only on Wednesday that I crashed to earth and thought 'Oh heavens, but I am tired!!!'

Now I survey my house, an even greater mess than before, especially as I rewarded myself with a home theatre set-up, and I can not only watch DVDs for the first time, but also again listen to my music on a quality system, my hi-fi having passed on 3 years ago - however there is now also a TV in the lounge (instead of the sleeping loft), and my SMALL, OVERFULL house is bursting at the seams with THINGS that need sorting. And quite frankly I don't have the energy right now.

Tomorrow we go on the annual backpacking trek up Serala, the second highest peak in the province. I will in the course of the week take my 4x4 up 4 times to the base camp, and tomorrow walk down the mountain just to walk back up it with the eighth graders. Difference is they will be carrying 5 days provisions including a tent, and I will have only my daypack. Then on Friday I leave for the annual Rotary weekend in the Kruger Park - so I really am on holiday this week, and hopefully, since I'll be coming home at night, I'll get to clear some of the mess...

But this is a gardening forum, and tomorrow is Spring Day...

Actually the last week has been very warm, and I write this at 9.30pm in shorts and T-shirt in front of an open window. Heat at this time of year goes with berg-winds, which are hot and miserable, and there is an immense danger of run-away fires... the biggest difference between our climate and most of the temperate world is that our springs are often harsh; dry, hot and windy - hotter than summer, when the rains bring relief. So my attempts at spring photos were not too successful - especially as my batteries ran out early in the walk. But here nevertheless are a few symbolic spring pics...

1 Sep '08 10:34 am

Good heavens Jack - shorts?! Our spring is also windy - the spring equinox winds tend to drive people and animals a bit mad. But we have rain too, and flash floods. And we're definately NOT in shorts yet!

We call those Cape Daisies! I have that exact one growing in an unloved area of fenceline known as the daisy chain (due to all the different hardy daisy plants that insist on thriving there). It is such a real purple colour, it clashes madly with just about everything else, but I'm too soft to pull it out! It will no doubt get to live another year. The blue-backed white ones are very popular in NZ, as are the whirly-gig ones with twisty petals. I've never known one to die!

I love the crab apples - I am busy trying to work out where I can plant a real weepy one. What is your one called? I love its red and white flowers. Just lovely.

Keep the spring pics coming Jack. Oh and well done regarding R & J! When do you officially stop being a teacher and become a nurseryman?

1 Sep '08 2:10 pm

Just reading all that made me exhausted !
Would you be able to show us a couple of pictures of the Romeo and Juliet performance please?
The atmospheric photo of the crabapple is absolutely beautiful.

1 Sep '08 6:32 pm

Congratulations, I'm glad Romeo and Juliet went well. (Some pics would be nice.)
Spring is hotter than summer? Wow.
Lovely photos. You had to include a crab apple! Just one more tree I've always wanted to have. The swamp cypress photo is my favourite, just lovely.

2 Sep '08 7:37 am

Sounds like you've been very busy alright, Jack. Looks like you'll be busy a while more. Who knows what your new life be like? Perhaps less busy? I won't be too far behind you. I'm looking forward to hearing all about it.

That's a great looking crab apple flower.

2 Sep '08 6:55 pm

Would it be too rude to request a photo of the spring knees? Shorted, of course... Great to read your ramblings again, Jack. Here's a handy little phrase (hackneyed and trite, but who cares?) you can repeat one hundred times before you go to bed each night:
'There is life after teaching'
You'll absolutely rock at teaching-retirement this time! Cheers, and please put some R and J pix up.
P.S. Have you ever written a decent spring poem? Or tried to?
M

3 Sep '08 3:20 am

You took me by surprise, Moosey - I had to reread your request 3 times before I figured it... it's been a while etc. Actually my legs have always been my best feature, but after walking first down, then up the mountain yesterday (yes, I know, I tend to do things differently), I can tell you: I was amazed at how ready for bed I was by 8.30 last night!

As for spring poetry, here is a favourite, always appropriate in our lovely valley in September. Just a pity the 50s and 20s have been reversed, and then some...

Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of trees the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now of my three score years and ten,
twenty will not come again.
And take from seventy years a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom,
Fifty Springs is little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

A. E. Housman

A further rambling: Doubly the Border Collie, he of the beautiful face and mane, gradually got his nethers, which I was never allowed to brush, into an ever-worse mess, until the dreadlocks on his flanks congealed into -well what? Hamburger patties? Coir blocks? When he waved his tail it looked as though there were 50 leeches attached to it. So last week he went to the doggy parlour and was shaved from the neck back. He looks more than a little ridiculous. Luckily he can't read, and I regularly remind him that he is my beautiful boy, even if his tail is thin and crooked...

As for the many requests for R&J photos, I am flattered at the interest. Here are a few. And next I will include a few pics from the first two days on the mountain, whence I must return tomorrow morning at six...

3 Sep '08 5:54 am

This week we are in the veld with the grade eights. Yesterday I took my vehicle up the mountain to the base camp: 1 hour on the last 18 km! I don't know how they will manage without my 4x4 next year... then I walked down 11 odd km to meet the group at the bottom of the mountain, taking photos along the way. Then I climbed with them, at times pushing the stragglers - all were carrying 5 days supplies, and ascending 420m to base camp. Then I returned for a Rotary board meeting... before 9 I was in bed, exhausted.

This morning I joined them on the slopes where they were cutting down pine trees that have become invasive, in a previously plantationed area. If you look at the slopes in the panorama, you can clearly see the virgin veld on the left and the ex plantations on the right. Over the last 8 years we have cleared much of the invaders on these slopes - a proud achievement!

On GoogleEarth you can find base camp here: 24degrees 00' 07.41"S 30degrees 03'52.11"E - immediately to the right you see the virgin veld, and we are camping in what was 20 odd years ago a pine or gum plantation.

6 Sep '08 7:47 am

I can't wait to see all the wonderful new spring pics from both you and Moosey, Jack. I have to admit I was very slack myself this summer with postings. Actually, I was away from my own gardens so much that everything looked a little untidy all summer.

I really enjoyed all the pictures of the play and also the camp outing. What a wonderful thing for these young people to do, clearing out invasive species.

As for retirement, I can heartily recommend it. Just don't forget to enjoy your time in the gardens. I know you will be just as busy as ever, because that is just your nature.

10 Sep '08 4:10 am

Yes, SOOO much is happening, but I am not getting into the garden to photograph the details... wisteria, spiraea, azalea, assorted blossoms... and leaves leaves leaves.

This spring has been the windiest in years; hot, dry, desicating winds that have caused many fires, although so far none in our immediate area. It is a scary time of year! Over the weekend I was in the Kruger with the Rotarians. AS we went to bed on Friday a wind came up which within minutes grew quite fierce. A fancy concertina gazebo was trashed and several tents had to be rescued. The Park is dry and the winds have made it look even drier - but still it is lovely. I include a few pics as I know they always go down well!

Meanwhile my house is still a mess and in need of cleaning and SORTING and PUTTING AWAY - and tomorrow week my marks must be in, and I have done precious little marking this past term. So there is yet again a busy week ahead... will it ever let up? I long for unhurried walks in the gardens, and the time to get stuck into things Crying or Very sad