insomniac pic

argh sorry - here's the missing pic again. Am off to try Lorac's
suggestion of Blog in Draft...

sometimes this way works and sometimes not........

insomniac

Insomnia. Lying there..thinking. looking out the window through the branches of the leadwood tree to a sky spangled with stars. "there are holes in the sky where the rain gets in, they are ever so small thats why rain is thin" (anon?) is that where starlight comes from too? oh dear...now where did i dredge that one up from - somewhere deep in the grey matter where it should probably stay.

sigh. The mind gets naughty - starts thinking of things i could be worrying about. What about this one? ha - it tries to push my buttons. Sometimes it works and i spin off on a trail of the worst case scenario. Mind has to be disciplined now - Stop That!! 

I was once in Wales and saw some sheep escaping from a field by jumping over the gate. Really.  We had to avert our eyes incase we started counting and fell asleep right there and then.

Ok try to meditate. A trick i learned from Holey Vision blogsite some time back.. picture a blue velvet wall and write your name in full on it with the palm of your hand. I have tried this often and it does work - although not always the first time.

I am picturing blue - deep midnight blue - like the sky outside. Was that a lion? I strain my ears to hear the distant murmur of a roar.  Apart from that the night is still, quiet, frozen.  

Back to the blue wall....deep dark blue velvet -see it, feel it. The pile is deep and soft...

The first one awake this morning was the francolin - his football rattle type call ripped through the stillness of night breaking the spell that had been cast on every living thing.  A coucal, the rainbird, calls from the forest island - a descending scale of notes that sounds like musical wine being poured from a bottle.  Lions call again from over in the east - a whole pride.

I am wrapped in a warm caccoon of blankets. The icy wind blows over my face through the open window. If i move, my precious warm air escapes. But movement is inevitable  and the ambient temperature of my caccoon drops steadily until I am ready to make the break for wardrobe and warm clothing. The sun rises through a dramatic carpet of purple gold brocade clouds. Coffee warms my hands and the day comes into being.

I hope yours is a good one!

Fwd: the missing pictures

Begin forwarded message:

>
> apologies dear bloggy pals - everytime i think i have the picture
> upload thing worked out it proves me wrong! anyhow here are the
> missing pics from the last couple of posts

>> first the spider-hunting wasp crawling up friends hairy arm - that
>> spiders body is bigger than the wasp..ugh..(actually i think the
>> wasp was bigger than 10mm)
>>
>> followed by sunrise and palm tree - from Selinda Sunrise post...sigh
>

horror story - not for the squamish

not for the squeamish!  here is a real life horror story found on my very stoep one sunny afternoon.

Spider Hunting Wasps - this one about 10mm long with glossy blue wings and red orange eyes and feelers - was found wandering around carrying a heavy burden close to the underside of its body. Obviously a prey item it was looking for a place to stash it.  On closer inspection it was the body of a spider - probably a wolf spider -

it was still alive but the wasp had removed its legs (ugh sorry - i am squeamish about this) having immobilised it with a paralysing sting.

We dug out the insect books and according to information the plan this wasp has is to bury its prey in a crevice or safe place and lay an egg inside it.  After about ten days the egg will then hatch and feed on the

immobilised but still living spider before spinning a cacoon around them both.  It will then lie dormant for some months until conditions are right for it to emerge and perpetuate the history of its species.

sorry but it gives me the chills - and though truth may be stranger than fiction - there are some human stories that horrify in similar ways.  Its the paralysed victim scenario that i cant quite deal with i think - even though i know everything in nature has a role to play.

just thought i would share that with you. Oh and check your neighbourhood, these wasps do not only occur in Africa!!!

water world

Water - bright bands of blue threading their silken way between spikey
grasses, filling up sandy burrows, wrapping round tree trunks,
spilling onto roads. Floodwaters from heavy rain in Angolan highlands
are pushing into Botswana's northern waterways. Channel beds that
have been dry for more than twenty years are being tickled into life
by fingers, arms, whole torsos of clean clear water. Flocks of birds
mark the headway. Bands of marabou storks stand sentinel - a flock of
pelicans wheels in settling amongst the marabou, waiting for the fish
that must follow.

The Okavango River forms the worlds only inland delta in the kalahari
basin of Botswana. It is a miracle of life as a whole pulsing vibrant
river fans out forming islands and oxbows before disappearing into the
sand. From space it looks something like a birds foot. From the air
it is a wonderland of blues, greens, white sand, herds of animals -
great and small, patterned and plain, and great flocks of birds.

Water is life and here a myriad of life forms exist under the water,
on the water, at the edges, in the forests and plains surrounding the
water, and in the air above.
In all the old photograph albums of people who have lived for years in
Botswana there are the inevitable photos of floodwaters - saturated
grasslands and forests, overflowing pans; in a desert country the
arrival of new water is far more interesting than the world events
happening far away. It has to be recorded, measured, discussed.

To the east of the Okavango is the Kwando River that flows through the
Selinda area into Lake Zibidianja and then on to Linyanti and the
Savuti Channel.
The two rivers are linked by a dry channel bed known as the Selinda
Spillway.
With recent water levels rising water has been pushing into the
Spillway again from both sides. Speculation is rife as to whether the
two shall meet again this year. It is 27 years since the Spillway last
flowed in any direction. The tradition is to light a fire in the
middle - when they are close - and let the floodwaters put out the
fire. Progress is being watched carefully and wagers are being taken.

ok geography lesson over for today. I hope i can upload some pictures
of water, then we are off to the Spillway to see how far the water is.

selinda sunrise

The lions kept us awake last night. They were calling all around. So we were awake early. It was cold - kalahari winter cold that takes your breath away.

Only thing to do was to jump in the car, put the heater on and go out to see what we could find. It was dark but daylight softly threw light on the scene and all too soon the drama of this.....sunrise and palm tree.

have a great day!

 

things on the road and in your eye

More pictures than words this time but just to share some of the strange scenes around here.