Bewilderbeast Droppings

Homeful Again

So I sold my forever home and bought a camper. ‘Grey Nomad,’ I thought. Well, I soon found out: A Nomad I Ain’t. Also not grey. It’s gone white. Here’s what’s wrong with being a nomad: Weekends, long weekends and school holidays. Suddenly rocking up without a booking is frowned upon.

So the three years on the road turned out to be around twenty months travelling and the rest comfortably holed up at a special low-low beer-money rental in Broose’s 4-bedroom 3-bathroom beach cottage in the metropolis of Mtwalume, KZN South Coast. The only hard part about loafing on the Souf Cose was that niggling feeling that I really should be looking for a place, a home.

So, in stits and farts, I did. Nottingham Road. Fort Nottingham, Mtwalume, Shelley Beach, Hibberdene, Pennington, I looked; One place in Scottburgh was under R900k for absolutely everything I needed, two bedrooms, big deck, fully furnished, all appliances, aircon, two huge TVs, the works. Owner desperate to join his daughter in England. Pennington got a second and third look – lovely village – but the commitmentphobia held up. After much dodging, I did look at Howick, the Southern Hemisphere’s largest above-ground cemetery. I would definitely not have, but Tabbo made me promise I would, and then he died, meaning I really had to. So I went.

AmberNow, AmberThen, AmberGris 1 through 7, AmberNyet, AmberNever, Eagle something, St Johns the baptist, etc. No. Just NO. Then the town, where a number of grey-haired biddies thought, At Last a Buyer! as I praised their lovely homes and what was great about them. All true, but that did not mean I was about to reduce my savings by two to three million. Sorry. Then I had a clever procrastinating thought: Kick for touch! I asked to rent a place so I could see if I could live in Howick. No problem, I was introduced to a new tannie. She had plenty of places to rent, but ‘the daughter may be a problem,’ she said – Jess was with me by now. Thanks Tannie, You made it easier. Bye, Howick.

On to Mtunzini. Now I got serious. This is a lovely plekkie. Near all the Zolooland reserves, the forests, the coastal resorts. Great birding. Like Pennington, off the main road, so quieter. Better run than the South Coast towns, so this looked right. So I looked at homes. A lot of homes – R2.4m to R3.6m. Oh boy. Well, I’d rent out part of the property to help with an income, right? What am I thinking? Me, the world’s worst landlord.

What I should have done is go back to my checklist: 1. Spend less than the R1.99m I got for my Westville home – a target long abandoned cos of arched eyebrows as estate agents showed me better places in better locations; 2. Be as much off-the-grid as possible; 3. Have good comms – cellphone or fibre; 4. NOT behind a gate of any sort; None of the expensive homes ticked all four.

I’ve an idea Jess! Let’s procrastinate; kick for touch! So we rented a lovely 4-bedroom 3-bathroom wooden cottage at the edge of town bordering the forest for five months. All the while lovely kind Dee, KZN’s most patient estate agent stuck by me, patting me on the head and saying moenie worry nie.

In the end I did what I always do: Ignore the checklist and go cheap, eventually buying a lovely small pozzie on leased land for R1m and I’ll show you the pros and I’ll ignore the cons. It was cheap; It has great solar power – one 6KVA and one 3KVA; It has two water tanks; it’s fully furnished, all appliances, lots of toys; it was cheap; a small garden rigged for automatic micro-irrigation twice a day. All I have to do is rip out the azaleas, columbines, daffodils, daisies and other weeds and plant the right stuff; Also get rid of a mess of flower pots, hanging and earthbound, many garden gnomes and two concrete table and bench sets out of four. And as I mentioned, not expensive.

It is lock-up-and-go. OK, it’s behind a gate in a caravan park, true. I can’t have it all, but I can have savings in my pocket! Two out of four’s not bad. And I don’t have to shop for anything! I hate shopping, and there’s more than enough stuff here for a lifetime. Goodness Ntuli and Strongman have stayed on working one day a week each and have taken a bunch of excess stuff home with them. Willie from Sondela Second hand Stuff Store brought a trailer and carted away two fridges, a deep freeze, a tumble dryer, a bed/couch, sundry other stuff and gave me some cash.

So we’re settling in to our new log cabin and loving it. Jess is thrilled, which helps a lot; the small place has four aircons and nine mounted fans – a clue to what summer will be like in Zululand! Three TVs and a jacuzzi which delighted Jess. One drawback she really didn’t like was the poor comms. FINALLY! she said in desperate relief, when we got fibre. It took ALMOST THREE WEEKS, Dad! We’ve elected not to hook up the satellite dish – it can sommer sit there as a status symbol.

Oh, and Jess got a lovely, relaxed, unfazed welcome.

~~oo0oo~~

Forest Fibre

I thought the bright blue cable running from tree to tree along my back fence was probably the internet fibre cable; Turns out it is indeed, though the local vervets know it as a convenient safe highway well above marauding dogs and hopefully, cruel shooting humans, bastids.

Yesterday the Telkom techie came to connect us. AT LAST! shouted Jessie, the two to three weeks we’ve waited had taken forEVAH! and she nearly died!

So now we’re connected to the world, which is only right for citizens of Mtunzini, as three sea cables land here: SAFE linking South Africa, Mauritius, La Réunion, India and Malaysia, and EASSy, linking Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa, (both Telkom) and SEACOM, between Eastern and Southern Africa and linking to Europe and Asia (Liquid Telecom Neotel).

“We” spliced the cable, found the tiny thin glass fibre inside all the protective layers, and annealed it with this cool piece of kit. And Voila! we got fibre! OK, so actually Patrick from Telkom did it all.

There’s the router top left in the picture of our lounge/kitchen. We’ve been limping along with 0kb to 4Mb intermittent data rate. Now we have a steady:

Update: Well, not so steady. It’s still Telkom, so we now vary between 0KB and 20MB. They drop the ball quite often, forcing techies out at night and weekends to repair the damage at overtime rates …

Six beers, Five guys

Driving back from Kruger Park we were listening to Jessie’s music. She plays a mixed bag including some sixties n seventies favourites of mine. She also plays some Country & Western which is not my best, but Beer Never Broke My Heart is a hoot and always gives us a laugh. Long Leg, High School, Beer Never Broke My Heart I would belt out until I learned it was actually Long neck, ice cold beer never broke my heart!

Then she played a new one and my ears pricked up at the first line:

Six beers, five guys - (A Long Way - by Luke Combs)

Hey Jess, I said, That Reminds Me Of My (slightly misspent) Youth!

Raiders of the Lost Saab

Pssst, I don’t really think our youth was misspent. Stephen Fry nails it when he says, Education is the sum of what students teach each other between lectures and seminars. Certainly I got my best education in high school outside the classroom from Steph, Pierre, Larry, Tuffy, Fluffy, Lloyd, Gabba and others; and often after the sun had gone down.

~~oo0oo~~

Jess took the feature pic of the sunset in front of my nose as we drove south through the vrystaat. Visible is the duct tape holding up the window, necessary as the windy-windy mechanism had gone phut. Took a long while, but I eventually found a replacement window mechanism – not easy when its a seventeen yr-old model. Seems they don’t keep all car parts for that long, I dunno why.

~~oo0oo~~

Zap! thbbpt!

That’s the sound of the drongo in my backyard catching a butterfly then spitting out the wings while chewing the wriggly part.

I know, I must ID them, I will. Gotta rush right now though. Never put off till tomorrow what you can put off till Wednesday Week.

Here goes, fingers crossed:

Southern White-barred Charaxes – Charaxes brutus natalensis

Green-veined Charaxes – Charaxes candiope

~~oo0oo~~

Pffft! didn’t seem right for spitting or thpitting something out. Calvin & Hobbes were more thbbpt! and so I’ve changed to thbbpt!

Please Release Me . .

. . Let Me Go

I’m now pretty sure I’ve seen Gaboon Adders in the wild. Truth is, I’m more sure Gaboon Adders have seen me in the wild on my hikes in Dukuduku, Cape Vidal and Mtunzini forests over the decades. I just never spotted them, as they’re so incredibly well camouflaged.

Jess and I were invited by Snake Releaser Dean to accompany him to release one he had been called to catch in Mtunzini village. About a metre long and about as thick as my scrawny upper arm, he was a beauty. Beautiful camouflage colouration with a dead forest leaf and shadows motif.

Just look at that pale head, looking just like an autumn leaf.

He moved off after Dean had prodded him out of his usual ‘when in trouble, freeze’ mode. Very soon, he was hard to find . .

Mary & William

Mom told me she has just read* about her namesake and William, joint rulers of England.

William of Holland (Prince of oranges and lemons) and Mary of England were husband and wife and co-monarchs or something. Also cousins. This came about after Mary had got rid of her father as king of England. He was unpopular, see. Can’t have that in a democracy.

My mother Mary then said William wanted to leave England on his ship once upon a time to visit across the channel (to his native Holland I spose, to visit his Ma?) but he couldn’t: There was no wind for his ship. It wasn’t like nowadays when you can just get into a ship and drive off, she says, the wind had to be right.
…

As I know little detail about the fakery called monarchy, and less about that little island offshore of France, and even less about sailing, I had to look up some history for once.

Seems there was a husband-and-wife team that ruled the small island, but the William who had no wind might have been another William 800 years earlier, in 1066. So she may have mixed up her Williams. Well, if they’re going to indulge in endless cousin-fuckery and nepotism, they’re going to end up with a slew of Edwards, Charles’ and Williams, aren’t they?

Instead of original names like Cnut. That’s better – and a more accurate description, seems to me.

If its accuracy you seek – though I think accuracy in history is a wish more than reality – you’ll get more from wikipedia than you’ll get from me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_II – where my Mother Mary is proved right: There was a time a ship was delayed in its departure “due to bad weather” pertaining to the William in question. The one who was probably actually Willem or Wilhelmus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror – also a ship delayed due to no or wrong wind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut – actual name. These looters should have kept it.

~~oo0oo~~

Thought: Those two could have done a lot of good if they’d made joints legal while they were joint rulers.

*Mom must have recalled this, as its been a couple of years since she could read – central vision gone.

Mom Mary Call

A cure for your smoking habit

On our call last night we spoke about smoking and stopping smoking and Mom remembered this from wayback Harrismith days in the Seventies:

Ernie van Biljon was a great character, full of smiles and laughs. He was the Rotarian who arranged for me to go to America back in ’73. Mom says they were at some function in town and Ernie was saying how he was worried about his smoking; and how everyone, including “The Englishman,” as he sometimes called Margie, his lovely wife, wanted him to quit. “But I won’t know what to do with my hands!” he complained.

Well, Mary had an answer for that: “I’ll show you what to do with your hands,” she said, “Here, put them together like this,” Ernie dutifully followed her instructions. “Then put them between your legs like this,” said Mary, putting her hands between her legs. With his mischievous grin Ernie said, “OK,” and made to also place his hands between Mary’s legs, causing great hilarity all round and distracting everyone so he could carry on smoking unchallenged.

~~oo0oo~~

One Tree One Day

.. Three Big Birds

The Southern Banded Snake Eagle’s loud calls kak kak kak-kak-kak-kao, and the Black Sparrowhawk’s persistent rapid chip chip-chip, attracted my attention. The two Palm-nut Vultures were silent.

~~oo0oo~~

A male Southern Mocker Swallowtail fluttered in but wouldn’t sit still.

A Citrus Swallowtail too

On another day, an Olive Sunbird kicked up a huge fuss and I searched, hoping to spot a snake or an owl or whatever was causing such rude language. Nothing. The Sunbird then went quiet and hopped onto this strelitzia flower for a drink.

~~oo0oo~~

Makeover

Off with the camper

Leaving the bakkie looking naked

A big rust-removal exercise; Eighteen months based within a stone’s throw from the breakers had rusted the 3yr-old camper’s weak points. Replacement with stainless steel was called for. Hinges, clasps, washers, hoist hooks, etc. New struts to lift the roof; Some sandblasting and powder-coating; A new Brad-Harris electric point; Removal of a slide-out washbasin setup; And back together again as in the feature pic. Gerhard and Vincent and team at AHA did us proud.

Next project a new windscreen and some major rust removal for the 17yr-old Ford.*

~~oo0oo~~

*Done. By PG Glass and Willie the panelbeater on his farm between Mtunzini and Empangeni. Now for a new electric window windup mechanism for the drivers door.

Shingwedzi Camp KNP

We took the eastern vlei route northwards, from before Mopane camp – the road less travelled. Lemme check the map: It’s the Nshawu waterholes route and leads past the Grootvlei dam and Shibavantsengele viewpoint on the Mocambique border. I loved it. Some open plains and vleis for a change from dense Mopane trees and Mopane scrub. Many herds of zebra and wildebees, some waterbuck, a few impala, and a few huge ele bulls…

Also Chestnut-backed Sparrow-lark on the gravel roads and flocks of Wattled Starling (some in full wattle).

At Shingwedzi, a Hamerkop, a juvenile Little Sparrowhawk hunting, Green Woodhoopoe, Golden-tailed & Bearded Woodpecker, Red-billed & Yellow-billed Hornbill, Arrow-marked Babbler, and a noisy early morning Hooligan’s Robin (actually White-browed Robin-chat),

A Rock Monitor Lizard came to visit Jess at the chalet. She told it to footsack in ruder language than that.

Rescued! After eight days of blissful peace I started worrying. I remembered the long spanner I need to free my spare wheel from under the bakkie is in the camper in Pretoria. A flat would leave me stranded. I approached a sensible fellow Ford Ranger driver who is headed out on a wilderness walk tomorrow and he rescued me in a jiffy. Now I have a dusty spare wheel inside the cab where I can get to it, the nuisance of its bulk almost guaranteeing I won’t have a flat.

Jessie followed the route of all (OK, this) weevil, calling me across to photograph it. She then bravely also took pics with my camera’s super-macro. In my pic you may notice the bugs eyes are wider cos there was a lot of wheezing in getting down on my knees.

A pair of Bennett’s Woodpeckers foraged right outside our chalet.

That’s it. After ten lovely nights in Kruger we’re on our way home.

~~oo0oo~~

Olifants Camp KNP

We followed the right bank of the Letaba south-eastwards towards Olifants camp, driving with the flow then hit the left bank of the Olifants, flowing even browner and more strongly. Now we’re driving against the flow, the confluence of these great Lowveld rivers somewhere behind us.

Four ‘Thunderbirds’ crossed the road (Ground Hornbill), three of them flying up into trees; new antelope seen: Kudu and Nyala.

Twenty five eles came down to drink below me as I drank coffee at the Olifants camp restaurant while Jess had a nap in our chalet. Five wandered back into the bush while the big Ma led the others, including smallies, across the wide and swiftly flowing Olifants river. Lovely to watch the crossing. Every now and then a little one would disappear underwater and the rest would wait till they found their footing and emerged again, trunk held high.

Tracking & Signs of the Wild

Signs of carnage on our stoep! A kill? Looks like a big eagle caught an old grey and white goat and plucked out all it’s fur.

Oh, hang on, cancel that. I just remembered Jess gave me a haircut. She cuts the parts I can’t see. Back there. Behind me.

~~oo0oo~~

White-bellied Sunbird, Paradise Flycatcher, African Firefinch, Kurrichane Thrush, Bataleur, Marabou & Saddle-Billed Storks, Fish Eagle, Wahlbergs Eagle, Goliath Heron, House Sparrow, Brown-crowned Tchagra,

Yellow-bellied Sand Snake spotted by Jess in camp.

Where, Jess?

Here’s what I see between our bungalow and the neighbours. The arrow points to where Jess is saying, “There, Dad. A snake!”

True’s Bob, thru my Zeiss binnies a beautiful slender snake about 800mm long. Grass snake? Whip snake? I’ll have to look it up. WhattaSpotter is Jess!

Psammophis subtaeniatus the Western Yellow-bellied Sand Snake feeds on lizards, frogs, rodents, birds and snakes. One of SAs fastest-moving snakes, he can wikkel! Ours was peaceful as he explored nooks n crannies, freezing motionless if we moved. Emerging from exploring a deep hole, he showed his butter-yellow belly. Amazing coloration: Camo patterns on his upper third, stripes the lower third, and that yellow belly!

~~oo0oo~~

Letaba Camp KNP

We’re back in the Kruger Park as we wait for our camper to be de-rusted. Staying in chalets, to Jessie’s delight.

Late afternoon view across the Letaba from the restaurant stoep.

Restaurant Scops owlet – right above one of the outdoor tables.

Four kingfishers. Here’s the Woodland:

The Letaba eles and squirrels and monkeys were all well-behaved. The daughter not so much when I said Hey, Smile! in the elephant museum.

Lots of tree squirrels in camp. One darting across my path looked different. Turned out to be a Dwarf Mongoose living under the spreading root mass of a palm tree.

Owls: Verreaux’s Eagle, Barred, Pearl-spotted, Scops. Doves: Red-eyed, Mourning, Laughing, Ring-necked, Green Pigeon. Kingfishers: Grey-headed, Woodlands, Pied, Brown-hooded. Storks: Openbill, Marabou, Saddle-Bill. Barbets: Crested, Black-collared. Herons: Grey, Goliath, Striated.

Grey-headed Bush-shrike, Retz’s Helmet-shrike, Puffback, Yellow-breasted Apalis, Green-backed Camaroptera, Grey-headed Sparrow, FT Drongo, Water Thick-knee, Natal Spurfowl, Egyptian Goose, Blacksmith Lapwing, Lilac-breasted Roller, White-fronted Bee-eater, Fish Eagle, White-faced Whistling Duck, Palm Swift, African Oriole, Grey Go-away Bird, Yellow-billed Oxpecker, Violet-eared Waxbill, Indian Myna, Ground Hornbill,

Then the peace was disturbed by a flurry of phone calls where we could barely hear each other and a stream of messages I couldn’t reply to. Very poor comms. All were accusing me of getting older on April Fools Day, some using rude language like ‘septuagenerian’ is there even such a thing? Time to move camp…

~~oo0oo~~

KNP – Kruger National Park

Taxi Wars

In Harrismith Pierre told me about local man Willie’s fish n chips shop for our takeaway easy meal. Willie gave me a non-stop rundown on life the universe n everything while his chef did the cooking.

Now I needed white wine and in my hurry to get to the bottle store I looked left, looked right, did not look at my reverse camera monitor – I would have seen it was filled with Toyota Quantum – and reversed right into an innocent taxi parked behind me, smashing his sliding door window to smithereens.

Witnesses to my skill called the driver. He was very nice about it, but said Please Call My Boss, Mr Khumalo. He’s a nice man.
Mr Khumalo was indeed a gentleman, he arrived in minutes and showed me where a glass fit place was, just 100m away. In fact right where Pierre’s Dad’s Massey Ferguson and Datsun agency used to be, many moons ago.

The tannie who owned the joint said, Don’t worry I’ll fix it. She ordered a whole new window on her computer and announced, That’ll be R800. I asked, And to fit it? R800 all-inclusive, meneer.

Phew, what a relief. Amazing.

I Worked Hard All My Life

. . Apparently

Today, a sudden thought popped into Mom’s head (first time I’ve ever heard this):

I remember when you were little, Lina or Selena was off cos it was Sunday evening and you were washing the dishes. And you said,

“Mom! This is not a job for a little boy.”

Background: As a kid I was certainly spoilt and did very few chores. All my clothes were washed and ironed, my food cooked, my dishes washed, things got done – as if by magic, but actually by Lina Mazibuko and then Selina, and by Judas Thabethe, Anna and Jan Radebe, then July.

So I was probly suffering terribly! The effort! The injustice!

~~oo0oo~~

Safeguarding Sound Science, Climate Change Edition

Reblog from pandasthumb.org – thank you

Safeguarding Sound Science combats misinformation, disinformation, and misconceptions about climate change with actual science. In the 7-episode Season One: Climate Change Edition, Mat Kaplan (Senior Communications Advisor of the Planetary Society and former host of Planetary Radio) talks to scientists, teachers, and other experts to explore who’s behind some of the more insidious efforts to…
Safeguarding Sound Science, Climate Change Edition

Bewilderbeast Droppings

Homeful Again

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Forest Fibre

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Six beers, Five guys

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Zap! thbbpt!

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