The Dry Season Rolls On... and on..

The dry season rolls on. Cloudless blue skies look down on a haze of dust that has completely obscured the Drakensburg Mountains from our view. Warthogs and monkeys continue to follow us beadily through the windows.

Last night I forgot to latch the front door before going to bed. It was closed but not latched. The front door is two enormous railway sleeper pages, held together with a kind of welded giant u-bolt that slips over the handles.

So this morning I met a monkey in the passage, who fled through the small gap in the front door. In the kitchen and dining room the tables and floor were covered in broken corn chips, like an orange snow storm had blown through. A packet of cookies left by last weeks visitors had been discovered; a half eaten cookie lay abandoned in the haste of retreat, between the kitchen and the front door, in a nest of crumbs;

The pile of washing up from last nights (late) dinner had supported a precariously balanced dish of strawberries and meringues; somehow every strawberry had been picked off this dish without upsetting the balance – impressive! This raid had been in whisper mode! And thank you monkeys for not leaving a fresh poo for me to step in – obviously they had had a relaxed time prior to discovery.

The less adventurous monkeys who had stayed outside, were looking extremely agitated and seemed to beg recognition for good behaviour.

A knock on effect from all the hungry and desparate animals; is the damage to the trees. Elephants eat trees. Its one of the things they do. Why are people always surprised, shocked , outraged when they see a tree that has been eaten by elephants? If there was plenty of lush green grass they would of course prefer this, but there isn’t and they need to eat. Meanwhile humans can scrape roads, move trees that are in their path, or block sun from the pool, or whatever, at whim. But when an elephant eats a tree there is a lot of tut tutting, and mutters about ‘too many elephants’ – I am on the ele’s side, in this, by the way .

However, I must say that when you see a tree that has been tusked, and the bark peeled off in great strips, it looks sore – like an open wound. And when the feeding process has totally ring barked a tree so that it is doomed to die – that is sad.

The predominant tree here is mopane – which has a leaf shaped like a butterfly. It gives us wonderful golden fall colours at the start of winter. It is hard wood, but not the most favourite, so tends to be left till last. Favourites are the lovely knob thorn acacias which have prominent knobs all the way up the trunk; and give off the most beautiful scent when in flower; marulas, which are soft wood but yield copious sweet fruits which the elephants love; comipheras (sp?)– which are spikey, unfriendly looking but extraordinary and beautiful too; Dalbergia or zebra wood which has HUGE SPIKES so must be awful to eat. In fact just about everything apart from mopane. All these sustain the browser species like giraffe and kudu, year round. Elephants can switch when the grass comes up.

Another culprit is the porcupine. He has been eating bark but from a lower level. He has munched into the bases of many trees, leaving raw open orange wounds. This year he seems to favour the Tamboti tree – which I always thought was semi poisonous? At least we cannot cook on it in the fire because even the smoke on our food will make us very sick. When carved though it is aromatic – a bit like sandalwood.

And of course we cannot end this blog post without mentioning our friends the monkeys. We had two guava bushes growing outside the kitchen door. The monkeys use these to perch on while watching us move food around the kitchen. Guava trees are a ‘problem’ tree in this country and it is forbidden to plant them. They grow easily from seed – as these two did. The monkeys have now bitten the bark off these trees all the way from ground up. So that’s the end of that.

So sorry trees – we know you are having a hard time too, but summer IS coming…..