The crow first came to visit us one fresh autumn morning. It has to be said though, that autumn is not that big a deal in the Bosveld. Very few trees shed their leaves and daytime temperatures drop by only a degree or two. We have less cloudy weather than
Towards the end of winter our ground dries out. It does not dry out a little. It dries until a handful of dirt, pouring through your fingers, has almost no substance. Water poured onto the earth soaks away in moments while the sun beats down without mercy and without pause.
The Chinese have worked hard at keeping their population growth even lower than more developed western countries. Between 1980 and 2016 the Chinese one-child policy was stringently applied and its effect has been profound. That country’s population growth at the present time is still only 0.1% a year, the same
I have been feeling a bit down lately, but then, I fancy, has most of humanity. I have wondered what ails me and found the answer in what is for me an unlikely place. It was explained to me by a writer in the Essential California newsletter. According to him,
A few years ago Hollywood came up with a story they called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, apparently based on a short story by F.Scott Fitzgerald. In the story when Benjamin is born, he is lined, wrinkled and grey, looking like an old man. But as the years pass
He came from the city. Right away we could all see that. And he came with a mission. He was going to change Bultfontein, turning it into an industrial hub. He was going to be the van der Bijl or the Motsepe of our area, maybe even the Elon Musk.
When you live on a small holding outside of town, Tshwane in this case, life is a bit different to that experienced by city folk. For instance, the thoroughfares connecting us to the world are all old-fashioned dirt roads. They are uneven, rocky, severely corrugated and ignored by the city.
It came as a big surprise when for the first time I saw Jolyon’s new signage. ANSWERS TO LOAD SHEDDING, it said. I just had to go in to see for myself. He looked very happy and confident. “I am going to make fortune out of loan shedding,” he told
Last time I told you about Tramp. I found his free spirit both endearing and frustrating. He had learnt to survive in a hostile environment of farmers with firearms and big, aggressive dogs. They do not take kindly to a free spirit like Tramp running off with a chicken or
You cannot live out of town and out of sight of your neighbours unless you have dogs, at least not in our neighbourhood. Our closest neighbours each have five or six. Two older ladies who live some distance away have twenty-four and a man whose place is quite close has