23. BIRDS AND BEES

The Bird bath

I eventually found the right spot for the bird bath and I found the bath.  Kevan had this big cement pot type thing just lying around, he graciously donated it to the garden and the birds, but we had to carry it all the way from his house to the garden, uphill all the way - that was my exercise for the day!  We also found a beautiful old tree trunk for the base. It turns out that you can see the bird bath from the garden entrance, from the main gate and from the house. It was not exactly planned that way, as I said, I was waiting for the bird to tell me where to put it and they picked the perfect spot.

We have a lot of bees around and more and more seem to be moving here every day, love them, but sometimes they are just in a bad mood, like this morning, you cannot come near them.  Riaan was cleaning out some vegetation behind the house and he got stung on the forehead and Dharma (Niki’s dog) got stung on the backside.  Kevan says they are more aggressive when they have lots of honey to protect. I was a bit of a coward, I just stayed far away, will talk to them when they are calmer. Yes, I know you think I am a bit Looney, but I promise you I talk to birds and bees and they respond.

I think we are being “invaded” by bees because it is probably the only farm in the area that does not use pesticides.  I have also noticed a new hive in the big old Aloe Tree in the garden.

There are no volunteers here at the moment, so progress is slow, but it is all good. Anne and I sat down yesterday just to co-ordinate our Diaries, for arrivals and departures of guests, members and volunteers. In October we pick up steam and November and December are going to be two very busy months. So we will enjoy the peace and quiet while we can.

It also looks like we might be moving out of the main house and into one of the other houses/cottages on the property.  There is a family of six joining us in November and they will need the house much more than we do. The main house is also a bit like a train station, always a coming and a going, so we are quite happy to exchange space for privacy.

San (him and his family will be joining the community soon)

This, depending on where we move to, might mean that we will soon be doing a bit of building, with natural material naturally, more than likely Cob, it is such a lovely material to work with, you can get very creative. Wood and bamboo are also options we can look at. 

One of the available cottages is really just a rather big round space, with a bedroom upstairs. We will have to build a kitchen and bathroom. This does mean that we will be roughing it for a while, but Riaan and I are both looking forward to learning to work with cob and other natural materials.  We are lucky in the sense that there are a lot of people around with a lot of experience in this regard.

I will obviously still be involved in the main garden.

Progress in the garden