follow your nose

Pretty little pentzia incana - the quintessential smell of the Karoo. The honey fragrance of vygies on a sunny afternoon; delicate sweet-lime perfume of tiny ivory-coloured orchids; the intoxicating, invisible but almost tangible cloud around a flowering num-num; and now, that rich heady, robust note of a pure, aged balsamic vinegar that tells you that, somewhere very close by, under a euphorbia bush, there's a fruiting Hydnora africana. Pushing up through the karoo-soil, its chocolatey bulb opening to deep luminous orange, it glows against the dull dusty grey & green of its hide-away. My delight at finally spotting it, as nothing, I'm sure, compared to the pleasure of the small nocturnal harvester whose tracks I will find here tomorrow morning.

Living in the margins #1

Full moon in the Karoo, and the night-jars calling.

There's a little karoo shrub that only begins to release its fragrance when the comforts of the day have gone. Pure, heady vanilla which richly repays my blundering into thorns, sniffing my way through the veld. Unspectacular little bush by day, although prettily covered in creamy-yellow flowers - it is a flamboyant performer, in secret, when people are sleeping.

Of course, its performance is not for my sake. Its perfume is not aimed at attracting my attention. I am irrelevant. A chance passer-by, surprised & delighted by this encounter with a life-system that doesn't require my attention, or my approval. Left alone, it is sufficient unto itself.

Like so much else in the natural world - Life busy living. While people are sleeping.

Life is richer in the margins.

the beginning (continued)

By the time we found it, it was late autumn. Now you know what autumn does to grapevines - and there was this stone courtyard, vine-covered. Catabwa-grapes - but we didn't know that at the time. In fact you won't believe how little we knew about what we were blundering into. But we did know one thing. We'd found it. Kyloe.

We didn't ask about the climate, the water, the soil. Nothing. It was enough that it had drystone walls - and that, on the other side of those walls, it was just veld. Real dusty, scratchy, rocky Karoo veld. Which means of course that we should have asked those questions about the climate (vicious), the water (not enough - not nearly enough), the soil (requiring earth-moving equipment for doing anything at all.)

Blind ignorance is a wonderful thing - it brings it own rewards. We would not otherwise have been stupid enough to plant a persimmon tree. And yet here we are now, rewarded with yet another ridiculously generous crop on this little tree. I share with the mouse-birds, & remember the grandmother who gave me my name & my love for the Karoo. And for persimmons.