The cuteness continues: a baby tortoise

Just in case the baby sunbird wasn't heart warming enough, here's a tiny baby tortoise spotted in the garden this morning.



Juvenile Angulate Tortoise Chersina angulata (Schweigger 1812). Adults get to about  the size of a man's outstretched hand, but this one had a carapace barely 8cm long.

Just for the record, this is a free-roaming tortoise. We're a stone's throw from the fynbos of the extended Table Mountain National Park. Wild visitors are one of the huge privileges of living here, and a very good reason to leave the bottom of the garden mostly natural. It also makes for a very nice view across our wild olives and Rhus glauca thicket, which could almost convince you you're actually inside the nature reserve as long as you don't look to the right where suburbia sprawls.

Just a baby sunbird

Fledged four days ago. At first just a tiny ball of fluff, completely out of control, crashing into the ground and cheeping plaintively while its parents fluttered around frantically . It's a miracle any birds survive their first day or two out of the nest in the hungry wild. Two days later, when this photo was taken, it was starting to fly and move through the plants confidently, even exploring flowers for nectar. But it's still very much a baby. The non-stop peep-peep-peeping makes it easy to find in the garden while its parents hurry around and bring food. I was lucky that the nest was right next to my vegetable garden, so I could watch the show from the very start, and they soon got used to me being a few feet away. Father, like all male Lesser Double-collared sunbirds, is small but spectacular, with an iridescent green head and postbox red breast, separated by a narrow band of the deepest royal blue. He seemed to spend most of his time on top of the nearby Cape Honeysuckle or the fence, showing off his disco plumage and singing his heart out. You could tell when baby hatched, because suddenly mom was around again, all businesslike, backwards and forwards between collecting insects and delivering them. Maybe, baby it will hang around long enough so that I can see it's going to be a shiny boy or a sleek grey girl.

Southern Double-collared Sunbird or Lesser Double-collared Sunbird, Cinnyris chalybeus (formerly in the genus Nectarinia).

burgundy magnolias picked from a forgotten and neglected tree

wild stock of Gladiolus tristis grown in pots, elegant and beautifully scented

a happy experiment for our garden, anemones in shades of pink, mauve and red (variety St. Brigid)

Sparaxis grandiflora, (bulbs from Kirstenbosch Plant Sale, March 2011)

A picture, from this early spring, because gardening and taking photos is currently more compelling than writing, editing photos and posting.

Summer is almost over

The frangipani are still heavy with flowers, but dusk creeps in earlier and earlier, and barefoot is not nearly as pleasant as it was a month ago.

happy sad Gladiolus

Last night a gentle rain fell all night. And in the morning everything was soft and wet and fresh. And Gladiolus tristis, whose name of course means the sad Gladiolus, was positively radiating contentment. And although it's normally only scented in the evening, on this overcast morning it is strongly perfumed.
Despite how delicate it looks, this Cape lowlands geophyte is tough, and from a handful of bulbs I bought way back from Adriaan Hanekom at the Caledon Fynbos Nursery, I now have several overflowing pots full, have given more away, and still have plants popping up in any soil that ever hosted them.

ready grown temptations

I'm a reluctant Woolworths shopper. I do admire their apparently genuine commitment to stocking sustainable and more ethical food, and certain items are definitely worth making a detour for —  waxy potatoes, their bulk packs of spinach and asparagus, organic dark chocolate and maybe the occasional free range chicken. But I am not ready to be one of the aspirational, and it must be said, mostly miserable looking masses, buying my ready-chopped veg, ready-made meals, all blemish free and over-packaged.

what Sundays are supposed to be

On final deadline for huge project. But managed to do a real Sunday anyway. At least I did actually work all day yesterday...

Olympia Bakery pastries — not the best in the world, but the almond croissant and hazelnut danish with a not bad takeout coffee get an awful lot of mileage out of the setting.

(photos of me by Rosie):

Then  a brief foray into spring at Kirstenbosch - the glasshouse and gardens all bursting with flowers, but this Cyrtanthus only just about to open. Graham Duncan somehow manages to coax these shy princesses to show us their stuff.