More ramblings of the mind

This past weekend I entertained three Italian friends who are currently touring South Africa - it was such a breath of fresh air to have the house come alive again. Liz has been back in WA  for coming up to 10 months and I have been in danger of  becoming a recluse, so to have the house suddenly bursting full of European energy has meant a lot to me. Thank you my friends.

Several years ago my daughter Julie went to a clairvoyant for a reading. It must have been during the last few years of the 1900s, for I had been separated from my then wife for several years. Julie told me that the medium had told her that her father would meet someone from overseas and spend many happy years together. I took the news with a pinch of salt, having resigned myself to spending my autumn years in South Africa. Since then a lot of water has passed beneath the bridge.

Julie moved to the USA, met and married Jake and is now the proud mother of three beautiful children in New Hampshire. Then on Christmas Day in 2001 I received an email from Liz in reply to an ad I has placed in one of those dating services. We chatted for several months, and to cut a long story short, she flew to South Africa, I was divorced from my first wife, and on May 2nd 2005 married Liz.  We are completely compatible soul mates, and in the 10 years we have been together have not had bad words once.

By the time I rejoin Liz on the other side of the Pond I will have spent 40 years, give or take a couple of months, in Southern Africa. The first nine were spent in what was then Rhodesia, where the people, white and black, look the same and even sound the same as down here, but are so completely different. Everyone was friendly and no-one was afraid of a little hard work. I had dozens of friends in Rhodesia, but can count on one hand the number of true friends I have made in South Africa. My Italian friend has persuaded me to watch the movie The Truman Show, in which he likens the role played by Jim Carrey to that of the typical South African, oblivious of everything outside his immediate environment.  I will watch it with great interest.

I have recently been commissioned to write numerous articles on Positive Thinking and related subjects. For several years I have taken a close interest in Quantum physics, the science of physics at a sub-atomic level. Billions of dollars are spent each year in  Quantum physics research, and scientists have shown that many of the phenomena that are known as paranormal can, in fact, be explained quite logically at quantum levels. These include such phenomena as telekinesis, near death experience, telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, ghosts and UFOs. There is also wide belief, though not yet proof, that our consciousness is a quantum event. This would explain why, when I am chatting with Liz more than 10,000 miles away, we frequently think and say identical things at the same moment. in time.

What is Time, anyway? Well it is the one commodity that is given to each of us for free. We each have a limited amount of it, and so it is in everyone's best interest to make the best of it. Think of all that wasted time when you are stuck in a traffic jam - that used to be the best part of 2 hours a day when I lived in Midrand. Moving to the Eastern Cape did away with all of that. Unless I drive into Grahamstown or Port Alfred I am lucky to see a dozen vehicles a day. But think of all that extra time I have. I cannot believe how much time is wasted - if only people thought about it a little more, they could completely change their lives for the better, like I did.

The Migratory Season is upon Us

Some of this blog may only make sense to people who read my posts back in November regarding our visiting swallows. It seems that the Migratory Season is about to arrive. About three weeks back our two parent swallows announced to the world the arrival of three offspring, and they have been carrying out flight practice over the last three weeks. It has been an eye-opening and enlightening three weeks. Where there were two swallows swooping low over the garden, now there are five. One entire morning was spent in teaching the young to fly high in the sky, yesterday how to cope with strong winds.

Every day at precisely the same time the family of five arrives back at the nest after a day's training. They perch on the wire I had erected 2 years ago before, one by one, entering the tunnel that leads to their nest for the night. One of the young took a little time to master alighting and entering the tunnel, but is now a master. As autumn approaches I am expecting them to have, one day, flown away, just as my wife is to do in a couple of weeks.

Yes, Liz is returning to the States, and in 2 weeks time will be jetting over the Pond to pave the way for our relocation. She will be staying with her daughter, Dena, who was good enough to pay for her ticket. Thank you Dena and Andrew! Liz will be changing her still-official (in the USA) name to mine, and then applying for my spousal visa. Unfortunately I still have to sell the farm. Potential buyers who came to view it on Sunday have just phoned to inform me that it is just a little too far from Grahamstown, where they have a business. They have, though, offered to take Jack and Bob, our two cats. I will wait until Liz has left before taking up their offer. I want to be ready to up and leave when the time comes.

A Mud Home in the Eastern Cape

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.

© Michael Mason, Martindale Farm November 2011.

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

Black Sunbird
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

Jackal Buzzard
Countless and nameless raptors soaring above the farm

Martindale Farm is currently for sale. For details see here

© Michael J Mason 2011