The run-out on the year

30 Nov '08 7:30 pm

Hi Gordon!
That particular iris has very short flower stems and long floppy leaves, which is why one cuts them back - to see the flowers better.

Start of summer/winter is linked to latitude - the closer to the equator, the longer the summer and the shorter the winter. In addition, the closer, the less marked the seasonal changes are. My garden is very unusual for a South African garden in that it is so overtly seasonal. I would say on my farm summer starts late October to end March (5+ months), autumn lasts till late May (2 months) Winter is till mid August (2 1/2 months), then there is a dreaded period of dry, often scorhingly hot transition with strong, often hot winds, the worst part of the year, that I would not elevate with a word like 'spring' and then spring is from mid September to late October - about 7 weeks.

Now you do the same!

4 Dec '08 12:58 am

This morning I took this photo. As I write it is all officially over. Actually I still have two or three loose ends to tie up, and a lot of sorting through nine year's material in order to leave an understandable stock behind... It will happen in between other activities over the next days.

Tomorrow morning bright and early I must be on site in Tzaneen where earth moving equipment is on site and several tons of top soil, moved when the dam was scraped, is being moved back into the garden (see last weeks post for a picture) - so I need to be there!

4 Dec '08 2:37 am

Remarkable clarity in that reflection as well as wonderful lighting. Best of luck with the new project and congratulations on your retirement from teaching.

4 Dec '08 6:33 am

Good for you! Finally, a nurseryman again. Applause

The new garden project needs a new thread!!

4 Dec '08 8:26 am

Congrats from meeeeeeeeee.

4 Dec '08 11:48 am

Congratulations on the end to one fulfilling career and on the start of another one, Jack!! All the best to you!

-gordonf

4 Dec '08 4:10 pm

Congratulations and best wishes for you in your new pursuits!

5 Dec '08 5:52 pm

Your wishes are greatly appreciated. I think the main reason I am so confident and happy as I embark on this new venture is the knowledge that around the world people are routing for me - ex-colleagues, Rotarias, Mooseyites, etc. etc. I will start a new thread - under Garden Tours seems the most suitable - today. Yesterday, popping in first to do some shopping and then to get fuel before leaving Tzaneen, I was asked to help with the new garden of a friend from Varsity days, the local librarian, and then excitedly promised a chance at a new shopping mall being built by friends - again parents of ex pupils. All in the course of idle conversations. I know that often these networkings don't come to fruition, but I couldn't but be on a high as I left town at 6.30pm to return to the mountain! ... a whole shopping mall, conceived as 'a beautiful place'...!!!

29 Dec '08 4:47 pm

I am amazed... I have gone walking in the mountains, and not posted any pictures. I have been in the garden - and not posted any pictures. I have been so busy, what with my new life and the holiday season, and I've been thwarted time and again by appalling internet connections - and the result is that I'm not even aware of how scarce I've been around here. Just a few more days, to make up for time lost and to finish off this thread. So, in a not very chronological order: here are some highlights of recent walks.

29 Dec '08 5:23 pm

Here is a story.

More than 20 years ago an uncle and aunt went walking and a little way off our farm, discovered a little path into the thickets of a little valley, followed it – and found themselves not only in a dense little indigenous forest, but also on a steep slope with huge trees towering over them. And then they discovered the graves.

In those days they were indistinct mounds of stone, occasionally with an indication of a headstone; what marked most clearly were decaying plastic wreaths and old enamel mugs and plates. On my third visit my hair stood on end: hydrangea flowers had very recently been strewn across the graves. In the trees above me the scratchy squawkings of the Knysna Lurie, our most beautiful and harshest sounding bird, added to the eerie sense of not being alone. Under a thin sprinkling of leaves on one of the graves I found an unopened packet of cigarettes… I felt certain that whoever had put it there was watching me, and I was violating a sacred place.

We inquired of the neighbours. It was the burial ground of two families who have been on the farm with them since the 19th century, and the rituals were a strange mix of Pagan and Christian. I got talking to an old man, who with old Phineas, our foreman, was one of my gardening gurus and he told me more. As his generation passed away (I saw his grave yesterday), things changed. At first crude hand-written headstones were added to many graves. Then the access path was opened up, taking away the sense of secrecy, if not the sense of awe. Yesterday I was there for the first time in two or three years. Several conventional granite headstones – a big thing with black people these days, replacing many of the subtler and less enduring links with their departed – have been added.

I took Felicity, my parents’ care-giver, there on our daily walk, without any prior explanation. I let her lead the way the last few meters, and she too experienced the awe and amazement when first one stumbles upon the graveyard, even though it no longer gives the impression of being lost in time. And strewn across the graves, as I knew they would be just after Christmas, were a great many lovely blue hydrangea flowers.

The run-out on the year

Summer etc

Start of a new life...

Congrats Jack!!

Thank you all!

Three weeks on...

A Sacred Spot.