Michael J Mason

A Visiting Amphibian

2012-02-22T02:08:00.000-08:00

Living out in the African Bushveld, one expects to see plenty of wildlife – sometimes though the wildlife is not quite what one would expect. We have a – here I hesitate to use the word “pet”, so let’s say “tame”, we have a tame frog – I think from studying pictures that it may well be a Tremolo Sand Frog. It measures about 9 to 10cms from nose to tail (i.e. legs NOT extended). It is a frequent visitor to our lounge, hopping across the room while we are watching the goggle box. When we don’t see Froggie of an evening there is sometimes evidence the next morning that he has been around the night before. This is usually in the form of gathered dust or cobwebs in Katie’s bowl of drinking water, or occasionally in the form of a calling card, usually solid but from time to time liquid. Katie is our white shepherd, by the way.

The other evening Liz called me to “rescue” Froggie. He had somehow found his way into our bathroom and was hopping around the base of the loo looking for a way out. I caught him in a plastic container and put him out onto the lawn, still wet from a recent rain shower. The following morning, as I was feeding the cats, there was a splash as Froggie jumped out of their water bowl. It didn’t take him long to find his way back. Our pets generally ignore Froggie. The two cats are just not interested, although Katie occasionally gives him a quick sniff if he happens to cross her path. Living in the countryside does have its rewards.

Exclusive Customized Templates

2012-02-16T22:34:00.001-08:00

My Copywriting and Design website is now offering individually customized templates for Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Blogger, DotNetNuke, ASP.NET application and CodeCharge Studio. Prices start at $150 or R1000. Visit the website for further information.

Positive Thinking

2012-02-07T05:03:00.000-08:00

I don't think that anyone can dispute the power of positive thinking. It is the basis of many prayers, schemes, spells and of much corporate teaching. I can personally recall a number of times when positive thinking has, in one way or another, altered my life. The big question, therefore, is not whether positive thinking works, but rather, how it works. I place it on a par with telepathy or with ESP. The former I have personally witnessed many, many times, as I have positive thinking. I rely on others for any facts regarding ESP, but have no misconceptions about its existence. Without actually trying to communicate, I frequently find that I have been thinking of the same thing at one and the same time as my wife, Liz. Indeed before we actually met face to face, we frequently chatted on the Internet - she in Colorado and I in Johannesburg. I would frequently (not just once or twice) be thinking of a particular item or idea (such as the Red Sox) when through the ether would come the question "Did you see the latest Red Sox game?". That was over a distance of 9,000 miles. Today I can be thinking of closing the curtains when up will stand Liz and do just that, with nothing being spoken at all.

I think it's all to do with Quantum mechanics, or that dark or hidden force or whatever. I'm happy with the idea of identical happenings many thousands of miles apart being instantly linked by that quantum forcefield. I don't profess to understand it, but am happy to accept the theory as being a fact. I believe that the same concept is responsible for ESP and indeed, positive thinking. I will try to add an article about this concept to my website.

Mike's Copywriting & Design

2012-02-02T01:40:00.001-08:00

I Dreamed a Dream

2012-01-29T02:16:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamed a dream, and it made me think long and hard about the brain, about the quantum theory and about time. But about my dream - the characters in it were drawn straight from my distant youth. There was Alf Withers and his wife, whom I will call Mrs Withers, as I cannot recall her first name. Alf and his wife kept a greengrocer’s shop across the road from my birthplace, Dennis Lodge, where I was to spend the first few years of my life. They had three children, Alf jnr., Chic and Patricia. I remember Mrs. Withers for her “I’ll just go and put the kettle on for a cup of tea” each time my mother went to buy vegetables. The kettle, as I recall, sat on a huge (to me) Aga stove in a room to the rear of the shop. There was also an outside loo that was occassionally stocked with the tissue paper that had once wrapped individual oranges - a welcome change from the usual scraps of newspaper and a foretaste of the first toilet tissue! Dennis Lodge still stands (52°28.205’N 2°09.262’W), and is believed to be a dentists' practice, although the Withers’ shop has long been demolished.

Let me place you in the time scale. I was born during WWII and lived with my mother at Dennis Lodge, my paternal grandparents’ home, until soon after my father returned from France after the end of hostilities. I recall, it must have been after things got back to normal, making forts out of old banana boxes in a storage building to the rear of the Withers’ shop. (What did people do with old wooden banana boxes – you could hardly send them back to the Caribbean?). Chic was to marry a Dick Garrington who became one of the Midlands’ first importers of VWs. Alf jnr., whom I recall was the owner of a scrambler bike and played the trumpet, stayed in the business until well into the 60s, maybe even later, for I remember him delivering vegetables to The Bell Hotel, which was to become my home from 1960, when my parents took over its management.

I was to become quite good friends with Pat, even though she was several years my senior. I remember cycling the 20 miles each way to Worcester and back with Pat and two of her friends, Dalveen and Liz, when I was 14. Pat was later to emigrate to Australia, never to be heard from by myself again. My dream brought back memories from more than 60 years ago. I wonder which little part of my brain could have been storing them for all this time. I was only thinking the other day that a mere ten times my lifespan, going back in time, saw the attempted extermination of the Knights Templar in France. What a tiny drop in the vast ocean of time-space my life is. Still things amaze me. Liz and I still have a quantum thing going between us. Only this morning I was thinking “I must go and open the curtains” only to find Liz doing just that immediately after I had thought about it. Quantum Physics continues to have a great influence on my all-too-short life. I am a firm believer that it can explain so many yet-to-be-explained occurrences.

Edited version 2 1/30/2012 after some input from my sister, Suzane.

New Chapter

2012-01-23T01:57:00.000-08:00

Enough sadness! Sandy is now in greener pastures and running around chasing rabbits (or whatever they do over there - knowing his preferences here on the farm he's probably chasing chickens). Sandy brought joy and happiness to both Liz and myself, as well as the many others who knew him. It is now time to start a new chapter. We will remember him with all the love and fond memories he so richly deserves.

Now it is time to concentrate our full efforts into the relocation to NC. We will make the move this year, come Hell or High Water. We had a couple of queries about the farm over the weekend, so we'll keep on with the promotions on the Internet and elsewhere. By the way, if you would like to see our farm you can do so at its own website here.

Fond Memories of a Best Friend.

2012-01-21T01:03:00.000-08:00

I have been putting off writing a new post - maybe my mind has been a little too preoccupied. Sandy passed to the other side some time between 11 am and 11.30 am local time. He had not been able to use his legs for two or three days, and we made the decision a couple of days ago to phone Dr de Bruyn to arrange for the inevitable. He was meant to pick up Sandy yesterday morning but was called out to a farm on an emergency. We had been giving Sandy a morphine based pill twice a day to attempt to ease the pain a little. I can't help feeling that if we had not had that biopsy done he would still be limping his way around the farm.

Maybe this was all in the Universal plan of things. We were going to take Sandy and his daughter Katie to America with us - that was the plan. Sadly it has had to change. This is a sad week and a sad day. We will miss you, Sandy. Rest in Peace and wait for us on the other side.

Sandy Mason

2012-01-14T01:49:00.000-08:00

Sandy is a White Shepherd – he came to our cottage when he was just a couple of months old at Christmas in 2003. There was a note attached to his collar saying he wanted to adopt us as his parents – we had looked after him while his then owners were away on holiday, and he had become completely attached to us. Sadly, a few weeks ago our local veterinarian, while examining him to see why he had been limping badly, had found a large growth in his bicep. A biopsy was taken about ten days ago and the lump was diagnosed as being cancerous. Sandy was dropped off at our farm by the vet on the Friday evening, and for a couple of days was very weak.

He has recovered somewhat, but still has to get around on just three legs, and is obviously in much pain. Liz and I have been struggling over when the inevitable must happen, which is very sad because Sandy is more like a son to us than a dog. He has a personality, and has had a long standing disagreement with one of our male cats, Bob, over who is the stronger alpha-male. Now he has a sad look in his eyes - it’s almost as though he knows now that he will not be coming to America with us. There are times when he is quite lively, especially when he starts barking at passers-by and running as best he can on three good legs. The strain on his good legs is beginning to show, probably aggravating the arthritis in his joints. We will make his last days as comfortable as we are able to, and will probably keep on putting off the inevitable. Sandy will be remembered after he makes the journey to the other side – maybe we’ll meet up again, I hope so.

ANC to Sacrifice Animals

2012-01-05T06:19:00.000-08:00

When I heard this morning on my local Eastern Cape radio station that the ANC were planning to sacrifice animals in church during their centenary birthday celebrations in Bloemfontein this coming weekend, I could scarcely believe my ears. Indeed, I had to check out the information before writing this article. I guess that I should now be worried as to whether this news is covered by the much debated Freedom of Information Act, or whatever it is called. I found the confirmation in an article in The Citizen. Apparantly the Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, leader of the small fundamentalist African Christian Democratic Party has slammed the ANC leardership and is snubbing the celebrations for their "adherence to ancestor worship and offering sacrifices to the spirits of the dead".

We live in a supposed civilized society, and associate animal sacrifice with countries such as Haiti, where Voodoo is commonly practiced, or with ancient civilisations that no longer exist. I suppose that we should now be prepared for this uncivilized practice to occur on a regular basis. After all, the corruption and mismanagement associated with the neo-apartheid practiced by the ANC deserves to be classified in such a manner.

The Passage of Time

2011-12-31T03:15:00.001-08:00

Faster than the blink of an eye, 2011 has come and gone – well, almost. In a little over 12 hours (at the time of writing) we will be in a whole new year. It is unfortunate that Time has the habit of running out on us – sometimes quicker than we would like it to. Indeed, always quicker than we would like it to. Time is something that each of us is given at birth. It is a commodity that, if wisely used can appear to stretch out. Time appears to pass more slowly the younger we are. When we are in the autumn of our years it passes all too quickly. I recall reading somewhere, sometime, that some part of the brain compares the passage of Time with the total length of Time we have experienced since birth. I guess that makes sense. I am now at the age where I have stopped counting my birthdays – I merely try to guess how many I have remaining. I recall that in my youth I often wondered whether I would be alive to experience life in the 21^st century – well, I have now lived through eleven years of it.

2011 has seen time run out for a number of individuals whom I personally considered evil – Osama bin Laden, Gaddafi, Kim Jong-Il are the three that come to mind. There are plenty more evil leaders still hanging on to Time – Mugabe immediately comes to mind - he can’t have much Time remaining in his coffers. And there’s that chap in Syria, what’s his name? It would be nice to be a god and to be able to pick out Earth’s most evil characters and just snuff out their candle. It doesn’t work that way though, does it?

What about the celebrities who passed to the other side during the passage of 2011? There were actresses Elizabeth Taylor, Dana Wynter and Jane Russell, Apple founder Steve Jobs, actors Peter Falk and Pete Postlethwaite, boxer Joe Frazier, IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon and Betty Ford, widow of former president Gerald Ford. The list goes on of course, and I have named only a fraction of many celebrities who are no longer with us.

The year has not passed without its disappointments of course, the greatest of them being that of failing to find a new owner for the farm. We thought we’d sold it just a few weeks ago (see “Sold the farm – whoopeeeee!” blog) and at a good price – even shook hands, but then their bank refused or at any rate failed to come up with the money. We had hoped to have been celebrating tomorrow in North Carolina but – well, it just wasn’t our Time. So what now? First and foremost I want to get Liz to Louisiana to her daughter’s. I may have to beg, borrow or steal the money for her ticket (any takers?). She actually has a job offer in NC right now, but will have to turn it down. Meanwhile I am building up a valuable potential client base on the East Coast. Liz will be able to spend the time, until my eventual arrival, changing her name and applying for a spousal visa for myself. And me? Well I’ll let you know tomorrow – if I have the Time.

Internet dating

2011-12-25T00:40:00.001-08:00

Exactly ten years ago today I received an email that included the following script

“Just came across your ad. Looks good!! Sorry, I just need someone to chat with once in a while….. Sorry. Hope you will email me back and we can have the opportunity to learn one another. Just a thought really!! Hope to hear soon. Me.”

Having been separated from my first wife for more than ten years, I had placed an ad in excite.com personals – not wishing to end up a lonely old man like my father had, I had been actively engaged in looking for a soul mate for quite a while. A few months later Liz flew to South Africa and we have been together since then. In May 2005 we were married, and in all the time we have been together have not had one fight. I am sharing this story to illustrate that it is possible to find one’s soul mate on the Internet. It’s all about positive thinking and maybe a little luck.

Pre-Christian Christmas

2011-12-23T00:14:00.001-08:00

One of the things that the elders of the Christian churches have taken great pains not to tell us is that the season that we have come to know as Christmas was, in fact, celebrated as a festival many years before Christianity was invented. It is no coincidence that Christmas falls at the time of year that it does, for the Northern hemisphere's winter solstice is an annual event that pre-dates today's organized religions. This is the time of year when humans saw the Sun at its lowest point in the sky, the time of year when the trees had lost all of their leaves, and the fields were barren. The solstice was celebrated in different ways, but the common theme that extends over many different cultures and periods is that of the Mother Goddess who, known by one of her many names, gave birth to the Sun itself, a theme that was adopted and adapted by the early Christian elders.

Many of the rituals associated with the Winter solstice have been embraced by the new religion. Fearing that the light of the Sun would never return, some of the Northern cultures lit great bonfires and burnt Yule logs. They hung burning torches from the trees, and decorated their homes with evergreen branches in order to persuade the apparently dead deciduous trees to grow again. It was a traditional season to give hospitality to family, friends and even strangers. Sadly this has given way to the commercialized money-making season that has come to replace the original reasons for the festival. This feasting was originally an annual magical ritual held to guarantee good harvests in the following year.

May I wish all my readers a prosperous 2012.

The Silly Season

2011-12-16T01:04:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the annual South African silly season. The season when all (well, most!) of

South Africa

closes down for three or four weeks. I thought it appropriate to write today about how the season regularly, without fail, lets down the general public by allowing supermarkets to run out of stock. But first, let me tell you about our local supermarkets.

Liz and I have this small farm in a locality called Martindale. We don’t actually farm, but rather use it as a lifestyle home. The house is huge and has been here for several generations – it started out before WWll as a shop on the corner of the dirt road that goes up to Peddie, and has been added to from time to time by different owners. Our closest supermarkets are either in Grahamstown or Port Alfred, each about 38kms away from here. It used to be that during the school holidays we would shop in G’town and during the annual Arts Festival we would choose PA. In each case this was to avoid the crowds. The supermarket we most often use has always been dictated by its demographics, but since the opening of the new Rosehill Mall on the road out of Port Alfred to Port Elizabeth, we have been more and more using the Super Spar there. It’s cleaner, the aisles are wider, and it is altogether a more pleasant place to shop.

I noticed a couple of days ago when I was doing our shopping that the silly season had started. The aisles in Spar were narrower, having been lined with rows of Christmas goodies to tempt the Vaalies who are down for the season. Port Alfred, even though short on hotels, is a magnet to hundreds, if not thousands, of seasonal tourists, many of whom either own a second home down here by the sea or rent one for the season. The town will be full of big Mercedes, Beamers, Audis and dozens of 4 x 4’s for a few weeks. Forget about finding a parking space near to the town center for the period. Fortunately the new mall is out of town and has plenty of parking.

Which brings me back to stocking up the shelves. Every single year – there’s been no exception, and it happens all over the country – in the days leading up to and after New Year, you will find the supermarket shelves becoming depleted of stock. Out at the farm we are fortunate – we know what is going to happen and usually stock up before our local supermarkets put their prices up for the season. The one item I have noticed is always missing from the shelves is dog food – whether tins or dry pellets, the shelves are guaranteed to be empty by about 3^rd or 4^th of January, and will remain empty for several days. The silly season will end when the schools go back in mid January. Meanwhile Liz and I will mostly stay at the farm, taking in Nature, and planning our future in North Carolina.

By the way - our farm is for sale at a giveaway price. This is a chance for someone to make a metaphorical killing. Contact me for details.

The Great Letdown

2011-12-08T02:37:00.001-08:00

Well, it was too good to be true. At the time of writing, the sale of our small farm in Martindale has fallen through – all because of the banks. We have not yet given up hope, but we have decided to accept a much lower price if the prospective purchaser still wants to buy. We have also dropped the price on all of the websites on which the farm is advertised. This is even more of a disappointment as we had arranged for the freight company to come out and requite for moving all of our goods. Ah well!

One good thing did come out of the episode though. We went through the entire house sorting out the good from the bad. Piles of books ended up being given to Headman, the local Xhosa man who does odd jobs around the farm and doubles as the preacher on Sundays. In fact he is now the new owner of such junk as old computer keyboards, modems, switches and so on. He told us in his broken English that he was going to use them to start a museum at the local farm school – maybe some good will come of them after all. The school is on church land a couple of hundred metres from our main house, and has about 12 or 14 pupils and just the one teacher. If nothing else the house is now much tidier, the walk-in storage room has been cleared of all rubbish for the first time in six years, and everything is sorted and ready for the freight movers.

So where are we now? Liz is very depressed because the chances of her seeing her grandchildren for Christmas have fled out of the door. I, too, am somewhat depressed over the whole affair, but at the same time have to be positive. As Robert Burns once said “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley”. So, where are we? The price is down and we’re doing some active marketing at a lower price as well as having one more go at the prospective purchasers. I am a firm believer of Fate. We were obviously not meant to sell the farm at the price we were asking at that particular time. There is a time in the universal scheme of things when we will sell and will relocate. A little more patience is all that is needed.

2011-12-07T02:12:00.000-08:00

Planning the move

2011-12-02T05:30:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since my last rendition, but not one without its happenings. Liz and I have had our smallholding on the market for the best part of three years now. As you undoubtedly know the property market has been down in the dumps since the World recession three years ago – so much for our timing! However our perseverance has, hopefully, at last paid off. We have an offer, which we have accepted, and it is now down to the banks and the lawyers.

Knowing that we will be transferring possession at the end of the year – our purchaser begins a new job close by on 1^st January – means that we have little time to get our things in order. The two of us have been going through the house sorting out what we will take with us, what is to be given away, what is to be sold, and what is to be left behind. When we first decided to sell three years ago we planned to take with us all, or at least most, of our furniture. This includes a Blackwood four poster bed and two Blackwood single beds. These are the three items we will most regret leaving behind. The cost of freight is astronomical and will eat into our meager profit. However we should hit North Carolina with enough for a reliable automobile and a sizeable deposit on a house.

For the benefit of any clients that would like to continue using my services – nothing has changed. Existing clients will probably continue to receive a favored rate, but my rates will surely have to be raised to be more compliant with existing rates in the USA and UK. Our ultimate destination in NC has yet to be finalized. We had thought of Murphy, but the town is probably just a little too off the beaten track. We have been concentrating on the Lake Lure region, where there are some nice looking properties. The final destination may well depend on whether Liz is offered a job at a specific place – It’s good to be flexible. Keep watching this space and note the gradual move towards American spelling.

Sold the farm - whoopeeeee !

2011-11-26T23:52:00.000-08:00

I have been a little lax in writing for this blogspot for a couple of days. Not really because I was lazy, but because Liz and I have had a couple of house guests. An extremely pleasant and friendly couple – in fact a younger version of us to the tee (is that how the phrase is spelt?). Anyway it was an extremely fruitful weekend which ended up with us all shaking hands on selling the farm. Riaan and Juan Mari are an artist/musician and a medical doctor respectively, and will be moving in by January 1^st when she takes up a position at a local psychiatric hospital.

We just knew that there was a buyer out there somewhere – it turns out that they were hidden away in Bloemfontein in the Free State. They will be just perfect for Martindale Farm and have said that they will take on Jack and Bob, out two neutered cats. Now we just have to wait for the banks – hold thumbs. Hope to get Liz across the pond before Christmas and I will follow when the financials are all sorted out. I will not have too much time for writing during the coming weeks. We have to sort out all the stuff we are sending over and must carry out a few small jobs about the house before the handover.

Is this the First Mud Duplex?.

2011-11-23T02:47:00.000-08:00

The Mud Home story continues. This morning, before breakfast, Liz noticed that our two small friends were entering their reconstructed nest by way of the old tunnel. The new tunnel is now about half the length of the old (see latest pic) and is parallel to and adjoining the old. The big question is this – is this the first swallow’s nest with two entrances? My guess is that there cannot be too many that have been recorded by camera, which is why I have placed a watermark on the photograph. If anyone reading this would like a copy of the original please contact me.

I was doing a Google search for photographs of swallows’ nests a few minutes ago and was horrified to find that there are companies that actually specialize in the extermination of swallows. The ones I came across were in Florida and California. Watching the fascinating way that our two little friends have meticulously built up their home day after day has only left me more than ever at wonder with the great mysteries of our Universe. Life, however small, is a wondrous thing.

Black Tuesday

2011-11-22T03:54:00.000-08:00

Not being a journalist, I have yet to grasp the full meaning of the Freedom of Information Bill, but from the comments I hear on Radio Algoa, our local radio station, if the Bill is passed into an Act today by parliament, then today will indeed be known in future years as Black Tuesday, for yet another nail will have been hammered into South Africa’s fast-growing coffin. Often misquoted, it was Lord Acton who said in his Historical Essays and Studies that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” I have witnessed close up in what is now Zimbabwe what the misuse of power can do. Sadly it seems that South Africa, a beautiful country that looked as though it had a bright and colourful future under Madiba, is showing all of the signs of going in the same direction.

When my American wife Liz first arrived in this country in 2002, I made a point of telling her some of the signs to keep a lookout for, signs that had reared their ugly head in Zimbabwe in the late 1980s, signs that would eventually trigger our relocation to more acceptable climes. Now those signs are here. Reverse apartheid, corruption, bribes and mis-management in quasi-government agencies and local government, and ministries that have all but ceased to function. I recently had to wait eight months for a computer generated printout of my marriage certificate, and then only after a personally addressed letter to the Director of Home Affairs. This seemingly simple task is something that would have taken less than five minutes in any developed country.

The Freedom of Information Bill, if passed into law, would be a blatant misuse of authority that would prevent South Africa from ever being a truly democratic society.

The two G’s – Gullible and Greedy

2011-11-21T02:29:00.001-08:00

Maybe I’m becoming completely paranoid, but every time I see one of those marketing ads on DStv, I say to myself, and sometimes to Liz, “How can South Africans be so gullible as to fall for that?” The “that” can be anything from a collection of see-through storage boxes to the latest product I witnessed, a flexible metallic vegetable holder that can be used for blanching vegetables and the like. “R99!” I ventured, as we waited for the price to be shown. Liz was beaten by the screen, which came up with the incredible R149.99. Liz’s first remark was “You can get those in Wal Mart for 99 cents.” – Liz is American and knows her Wal Mart prices. I know she’s right because we actually have a similar contraption in one of the kitchen cupboards that I bought in an Abu Dhabi souk some 25 years ago (my, how time flies!). In those days I paid just a couple of rupees – certainly less than the equivalent of R10. I think I’ve used the device three or four times all told. This type of product appears all too often on our television screens. The target of these clever marketing ads is the gullible South African who has never ventured outside the country’s borders, knows no better and must add this invaluable contrivance to his or her collection.

At the other end of the scale, and this is something that can probably only be seen by visitors to South Africa, is the business that overcharges for a product or service. I have for many years held the opinion, not always to myself, that the world’s worst banks are all housed in South Africa. No bank in any other country (to the best of my knowledge) charges for putting money in the form of cash into your account. The excuse used to be “Oh, but someone has to count it.” Recently one bank that has introduced a new ATM that counts your cash decided to make the account holder pay for this once-free service, even though the ATM counts the cash. No doubt the excuse will be something like “Oh, but we have to check that the machine is correct!”. Even the government gets in on the act. How many South Africans are aware that this is probably (and I would stand corrected here) one of the only countries in the world in which you have to have a license to own a television set (other than the United Kingdom, I am informed).

It’s not just big business that is accused of being greedy. My next door neighbour is a European who spends several months each year in

South Africa

. This man is an investment advisor, highly educated, and something of a philanthropist. He decided to build a house in the Eastern Cape, where he has invested in some land. The price he was charged by a local architect and the quotes he received from local building companies were, apparently, laughable. So much so that he has put his project on hold. It reminds me of another local resident of European extraction who did build a house here. He came up against a similar obstruction, and ended up flying a handful of artisans in from Europe to build the house for him from scratch. The total cost of the house including airfares was in the region of 50% of what he was quoted locally.

I am not gullible, and I’m certainly not greedy. This blog will probably do nothing to change the situation, but at least I have the satisfaction of airing my views to those that care to read them.

Mud Home takes a new turn

2011-11-19T02:09:00.001-08:00

It seems like every morning I am presented with a new surprise by my two small friends. If you can make it out on the inset photograph, it appears that they have decided to bypass the old tunnel and may even have blocked off its inner end. What is certain is that they are now starting to build a new tunnel parallel to the old, and are progressing at quite a rate. It is now six days since the two tiny birds started their construction work, now nearing completion.

One of the joys of living in the countryside is to be able to witness Nature close up. I have tried recording the two swallows chatting to each other, which they seem to do every time that they arrive back from their source of raw material and perch on their wire, ready to add the next minuscule brick to their fast-growing mud home.

More on the Mud Home issue

2011-11-17T03:41:00.000-08:00

I feel obliged to my two little friends to write a sequel to my previous blog, since they have been so busy over the last three days. So busy, indeed, that they have almost reached their pre-decorating stage. I apologise for the quality of the photograph, but it is possible to make out the darker colour of the mud that has yet to dry out. The pair spend several hours each day flying back and forth to one of our two dams (about 200 metres each way), and there is evidence that they must start soon after dawn (about 0430 at this time of the year) since there is always new construction when we sit down for breakfast at 0800.

I have no doubt that our two little friends will complete their construction job over the coming weekend, and next week we'll see them scavenging for feathers, dog hairs and the like in readiness for a clutch of eggs.

A Mud Home in the Eastern Cape

2011-11-14T01:27:00.000-08:00

I have moved my domicile many times, and have lived in places as far afield as the north of Scotland at the one extreme and South Africa’s Eastern Cape at the other. That’s where I live now, with my American wife, two white shepherds and two domestic cats. One of the greatest joys of living nearly ten miles from the nearest tarmac road is the plethora of wild birds, and here on the farm we have a good cross section of them. Our more common visitors are the Blackeyed Bulbul, the Fiscal Shrike and the Hoopoe, although I have listed some thirty-odd species seen on our 18 acres farm at the end of this article. Today I want to write about just one pair of birds, because they are our favourite.

When Liz and I moved into Martindale Farm in 2005 there were the dried mud foundations of a swallow’s nest up under an overhanging porch. It was not until November of 2010 that a pair of Lesser Striped Swallows started rebuilding this mud home, laboriously flying back and forth with small mud balls in their tiny beaks until after some four weeks they had rebuilt a perfect nest, the main “living quarters” being some 15cms across where it joined the wall, tapering down into a 20cm long tunnel that served as the entrance, the whole nest being some 35cms from wall to entrance. While building the nest the pair had used our Christmas lights, which were strung along the front of the porch, as a perch. By mid December the pair had finished their home and were busy lining it with bits of dog hair (our shepherds were molting) and feathers shed by our free-range hens.

I was loathe to pull down the lights after the twelve-day Christmas period of grace ended, but when I did, I replaced the perch with a thick piece of heavy-duty electric wire, which they soon became used to, as did their three babies, soon to be hatched. As the end of summer approached in early 2011, our pair and their offspring took of for climes unknown, presumably somewhere in Europe.

This year the pair returned, and one morning in early October we found the main living quarters of the nest lying broken on the concrete stoep, leaving only 20cms of the tunnel intact. It is now mid November, and a few days ago the pair began rebuilding their home, advancing the walls a few millemetres a day. There is still a wide gap between the “work in progress” and the inner end of the tunnel, but after dark we have seen their tail feathers protruding from the tunnel, which must be where they are roosting. We have come to know their small talk to each other as they perch on their wire, and we are now once more looking forward to the pitter patter of tiny feet.

The following is a list of birds seen (or in the case of the Nightjar, heard) on our farm.

Pintailed Whydah

Longtailed Widow

Hoopoe

Yellow Weavers

Blackeyed Bulbul

Sombre Bulbul

Blackheaded Oriole

Forktailed Drongo

Redwinged Starling

Cape Glossy Starling

Redheaded Quelea

Greater Doublecollared Sunbird

Greyheaded Bush Shrike

Fiscal Shrike

Cape Rock Thrush

Cape Wagtail

Blackcollared Barbet

Trumpeter Hornbill

Crowned Hornbill

Redbilled Woodhoopoe

Brownhooded Kingfisher

Speckled Mousebird

Lesser Striped Swallow

Cape Eagle Owl

Knysna Lowrie

Purplecrested Lowrie

Martial Eagle

African Fish Eagle

Secretary Bird

Stanley’s Bustard

Spotted Dikkop

Yellowbilled Duck

Egyptian Goose

Sacred Ibis

Hadeda Ibis

Hamerkop

Blackheaded Heron

Countless and nameless raptors soaring above the farm

Martindale Farm is currently for sale. For details see here

Updating Websites

2011-11-13T04:09:00.000-08:00

Well over 90% of all websites, once up and running, are forgotten about by their owners in the sense that they are just left as they are with little of no updating ever carried out. Unless new content is added to a website and the source code optimized for search engines, the website will attract little attention. It will certainly never be found in the first few pages of a Google search. If you have such a website, maybe the time has come for a little updating, and this is one of Mike's fortés.

One of the easiest ways of updating is to add a few pertinent articles that are scattered with the correct concentration of keywords (about 2% to 3% is a good figure). Older websites that were written in html code or a simple css system will both look and function better if they are converted to a cms (Content Management System) format, such as Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal. Mike is no only well qualified to write articles for your website, but can also convert it to a cms site and if you wish give the website a brand new look.

Contact him through the Contacts page here for further information at no obligation.

Michael J. Mason

2011-10-18T02:54:00.000-07:00

Mike was born at 6.00 a.m. on May 26th, 1940 to a modest middle class English family in the small village of Amblecote in the West Midlands of England. By coincidence this was his mother's 26th birthday. He saw little, if anything at all, of his father until the termination of hostilities at the end of WWII. His education started off in a modest way, until in 1950 he was packed off to boarding school, a never to be forgotten gesture by his maternal grandfather, Blockbuster Brooks, who gained his nickname from the bombs he designed and built during WWII.

After his schooling Mike, who had failed to make the grade that would have enabled him to enjoy a career in medicine, tried his hand at banking and laboratory work, the latter in the field of solid fuel rocket motors. He later settled on an early career in the armed forces, in which he became a successful air warfare and air weapons instructor. After serving in the Fleet Air Arm in Buccaneers for a little over eight years, Mike emigrated from the UK to what was then Rhodesia, remaining in the field of aviation, specifically in Air Traffic Control.

After Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and started the downhill trend under the new ownership of Robert Mugabe, Mike took his family, now consisting of a wife, a stepson and a daughter, to South Africa. This was after a brief stopover as SATCO at Biggin Hill Airport, the UK's busiest general aviation airport. Mike spent further time in ATC in Johannesburg and Abu Dhabi before becoming involved in computers, a field in which he has been involved in, one way or another, since 1972. Today Mike has a new wife, Liz, an American from North Carolina. He is semi-retired, and spends his time writing content for the Internet and designing websites. Mike and Liz plan to relocate to NC as soon as they have sold their Martindale, EC, Farm. Mike's own websites include mikescopywriting.com, info-nc.com, news-splash.com and The Masons.