Tuesday 25 February 2014

Magic's ride home


MAGIC'S RIDE HOME



PSV Magic


Magic is a pure bred Arab stallion (Sidi Ladid x PSV Epic) born on 16th October 2003 near Graaff- Reinet.

 
In 2012, my daughter Joy worked at Perseverance Endurance Stud (PSV) near Graaff- Reinet. There she fell in love with Magic.  So when Laura was looking for somebody to take 
care of Magic, who better than Joy.  The 
only problem was to get Magic from
Graaff-Reinet to Rookwood. Nevertheless, 
the opportunity arose when both Laura and 
Bob Seegers came to compete in the 
Hogsback Endurance ride. PSV Magic was 
then loaded into the horsebox with PSV Matrix
and PSV Karoo. 




His ride was to cover the 70 kms distance from 
Hogsback to Rookwood.

 
Flasks filled with hot water, sandwiches and bananas and more importantly water for Magic were loaded for the long ride home.  Although being part of a strong endurance line, he has never participated in any endurance ride so this distance was going to be a good test for his bloodline.


Accompanying Magic and Joy gave me an opportunity to take a closer look at the countryside around me.

 




 The first little guy who posed so nicely for me was that of one of the many LBJ'z (Little Brown Jobs), - the Wailing Cisticola. 
                                                                                  




  
Barn swallows and House Martins



 The day was warm and the storm
 clouds  were building. This normally means there are strong thermals and the BarnSwallows, the Swifts, and House Martins were  making use of this while catching the  insects in the atmosphere.  From early  in the morning I drove passing many a telephone line, filled with these little guys.





As we approached the tarred road linking the R67 to Cathcart, a thunderstorm seemed to be moving in behind us.  This was when I noticed a water spout, something one does not see every day.



A water spout.
  Magic was tiring as he had already covered 36 kilometres.  We stopped at the turnout to give him a break and then the rain came down.  We decided then to walk him along the tarred road to the halfway mark of Jonathan Amos-Brown's farm.
 

                                                         It was Sunday and the road was quite busy, but Magic seemed not too stressed about the traffic.  He only showed interest in the 'other' horses he met along the roadside.


 




the long uphill
                                                             




 



It was a long uphill walk of 8 kilometres before we reached the turnoff to Jonathan Amos-Brown.






By now it was mid afternoon and another storm was brewing.  Fortunately with the long row of trees, the lightning strike right next to them chose the trees instead of the weary walkers.  We left Magic in the 'hospital camp' at the Amos Brown's farm.

 
Monday was too hot so we opted to let Magic rather do his final journey of approximately 30 kms on Tuesday.  He was very pleased to see us and so we set off.  The day turned out to be quite humid and the veldt was oozing with water from the recent rains.





After a long uphill and pit stop for water, we were nearing our other farm, Duncraggen.  The skies were again filled with swifts and rain also seemed to be imminent once again.  We passed the turnoff to Duncraggen and headed down the very rocky road towards the Bushmen painting bend.
rocky downhill from Duncraggen



Magic enjoying 'Forty winks'



 


Here we stopped for a bite to eat while Magic had 'forty winks'.


Magic approaching Modderlaagte













We were now heading for the home stretch, however, there was still a long uphill before we reached the Modderlaagte turnoff.  Magic seemed to have gained the extra endurance his breed is known for, and could be pushed along quite nicely.


 
We passed the QF 37 and knew that counting down; 
QF 28 (Rookwood) would be less than 10 farms to go.



A pit stop at the Hilton church for water while watching the storms brewing behind and ahead of us was necessary.  Magic now had only one more uphill,namely, Sugarloaf hill and the it was the downhill run into Rookwood.
Scrub Hare

 
Just before Rookwood an early 'riser' a Scrub hare popped out.
There are numerous hares around and normally they feed early evening and morning.  This chap was out a little too early.




 Upon entering Rookwood the telephone lines were 'covered' with Barn Swallows and House Martins (possibly unbeknown a sign for the very heavy rainfall imminent that evening!) and they continued to fly ahead of us all along the line.
 




Barn Swallows on telephone line



At home we unsaddle Magic and safely put him into the camp below the house to enjoy the lovely green grass of home.  Later that evening Rookwood was subjected to one of the heaviest downpours in many a year.  Of this I will write about in a later blog.

A week has passed and Magic has settled.  He has been introduced to Cash (one of Joy's other horses) and after galloping around for a while, they are now both quite happy with each other's company.




Magic and Cash getting to know each other






Friday 14 February 2014

To Fly or Not to Fly

Over the years I have had numerous raptors species that have come to me from various parts of the Eastern Cape.  Sometimes I am extremely lucky and can re-release them back into the wild but often they have permanent damage to their wings or some other parts of their bodies, that this is then not possible.
Cape Vultures catching thermals
This past week has been a busy week with injured birds again. My first call was from a person who informed me that they had found a Spotted Eagle owl caught up in the barbed wire fence.  Sadly this is something Spotties tend to do sometimes.  Often they hang in the fence for a long time before they are rescued and by then the damage to the wings is beyond repair.

Cape Vulture

My next call was from a farmer, Mr Alwyn Raubenheimer from Cookhouse.  He had come across a Cape Vulture that was unable to take off.  She had collided with transmission lines of Eskom and has suffered permanent wing damage.

She will never be able to taste the wide open spaces in our skies again.




Although her life will be destined for VULPRO where she will go into a breeding programme to help this species survive, Mr Raubenheimer made my day when he made the following comment;


"I feel honoured to have vultures flying around on my property"

Mr Raubenheimer, likewise, I feel honoured to be able to interact with people like you!

Wind farm near Cookhouse
Wind farm near Molteno






This vulture was picked up near the wind farm that has been erected near Cookhouse.

One just has to ask yourself if these birds really stand a chance with those blades when they are at full speed?





Tuesday 4 February 2014

Water a precious resource on any farm

Over the past week, large parts of South Africa have been receiving good rains, which for some parts of our country has been wonderful news as they have been experiencing very very dry conditions.  .

Rain is always welcome but I can distinctly remember trying to negotiate the muddy, slippery gravel roads in my first year of February at Rookwood.  I was teaching at that stage and would have to travel 35km of gravel road every afternoon to reach home.  Having grown up in an urban tarred

environment, sliding on the clay-type soils we have, was common practice but I certainly did not like this.  However as the years have flown, one learns to master these minor challenges.







I told you about the two rivers we have - one called the Mbelandla and the other the Tuli.  As to which one owns which name, is debatable as our neighbour George Filmer, who grew up here, names them differently to what the map has them recorded.  The Tuli/Mbelandla rises on Mapassa and Rookwood is the second on the list of farms it runs through before meeting up at the fountain with the Mbelandla/Tuli.  They then join forces and flow into the Swart Kei beyond the boundaries of Rookwood.   The Swart Kei ultimately joins the White Kei to become the Kei River which flows into the sea north of East London.

 

Over the years we have had these rivers run dry and at other times they have come down in flood.  There are small fountains that do feed the rivers during the dry period but possibly the biggest fountain on the whole farm is where they meet.  This area is registered as a Natural Heritage site called Mhoge (named after the cycads present - Encephalartos friederici).  This area is home to numerous bird species including the bishops and weavers as well as the Cape Clawless otter.  In another blog, I will share my story of Charli the clawless otter I released there.


The cussonia species on the kranzes above the fountain


The fountain area at Rookwood

Cycads on the hill above the fountain





















This fountain has never dried up and one is be able to spot the Chubby-headed and Goldie Barbs in there or even higher up in the river when it is running.  This is a sign of a clean unpolluted river.  The previous owners used to pump water from this fountain area up to the house (at least 1km away) and somehow fish eggs must have landed up in the reservoir behind the house.  These fish have been living in the reservoir for years now with the Giant Kingfisher coming to feed at times!!  We do not draw water from either of these rivers for any form of irrigation as they are not sustainable enough besides there is other life that depends on this water.  Both rivers are used for stock water when the cattle, sheep or goats are in those camps.
Possible Red-finned minnows?


Recently I came across some interesting fish in the river that originates from Mapassa side.  I have not been able to identify them but have been told they are Red-finned minnows.  They were eating on a cow that had died when she got stuck in the river during our very dry October this year.  She was trying to chase whatever was green in the river and was in a poor condition at that stage.




Both our rivers at Rookwood are not flowing that well at present as the rains have not been that good.  If it does rain heavily then we can here them run and it sounds like the sea.  The most important thing is that they flow fairly cleanly taking very little topsoil with them.

Klaassmits river near Lehmansdrift Queenstown

The river running at Rookwood.


The photo on the right is of the Klaassmits river in the Queenstown area - note the amount of topsoil being washed away.  This is a 'cancer' of our precious resources in South Africa.










Although this river is not flowing as strongly there is far less soil being washed away.












I certainly hope that we will get some more good rains this summer at Rookwood and many other places.   One thing we must remember this is a precious resource which we do not need to abuse.