LoL & ZUM

Ladies of Leisure, the onset... No idea what we are measuring, probably baboon spiders or dwarf aloes. Checking out Maud’s garden & getting cuttings was only one of the many activities we had to cover that day; being a LoL is a very, very hectic job!
LoL (the ladies of Leisure club) was officially born the day after this picture was taken. Maud missed that event, yes, busy busy busy, partying somewhere else. We have one male member (pun intended) – he’s afraid he’ll be stuck with men only, doing ‘bassadi not allowed’ things, and he definitely doesn’t like that. So we have to be all feminine and take pity on him.

ZUM by the way is the club that was started for Bram: ZUre oude Mannen.If there's anything going on there, it's Top-Secret...

Praying mantis.

Tears’ Birthday Braai – great company, good food, and a couple of drinks. And we got to show off our new cruiser:-)

Busy busy busy – the Sunday after Tears’ party we took the cruiser to Mokolodi Indigenous Nursery to get the tree aloe Maud had seen there a week earlier. And some extra bougainvillea. And of course another plant, four actually, managed to jump in. Then on to the farmers market – bit disappointing, cause there was hardly anything there. Except when you have an eye for the ladies of course. The market was next to Sandra, which provided the Dutchies with an excellent opportunity to get together for coffee, kruidkoek, speculaas, and, most important, a reunion with Jon, who just drove over from South Africa for a week. Our cruiser was properly Christened by Sandra & Rory with champagne – we had to drink it of course; don’t want the first scratches to be cause by breaking bottles...

March ended with two excellent rains; 42 and 24 mm, and some drizzle on top of that.

Everything looks so much better after a bit of rain!

Another prating mantis, enjoying Maud’s marigolds. The marigolds are meant to chase the caterpillars from their favourites, the citrus trees. Do they do that by attracting mantises who’ll eat the caterpillars, or are they actually caterpillar-repellent?

praying mantis: predators!

A leisurely Saturday afternoon with Jillian and her son PM – and a bite to eat, plus a sip or two of this and that. Jillian rarely has a day of, so it was great we finally managed a relaxed get together!

While the ladies were- extremely busy, Bram and Shorty crafted a new rear bumper for the cruiser. The first test trip starts Monday, second day of Easter yeah! We go to Mabuasehube (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park) with Mien & Bernard – loads of deep sand to cross. Guess it is really remote; can’t even find a decent link, but this on shows the South African side: we'll be on the other side of the border

After surviving that we’ll go to Jill & Berrybush to relax, hang out, and help out a bit – looking forward to that very much! Berrybush

2-seater

We got it!

We didn’t know what colour it would have... Yes, bought a car without seeing it cause we are lucky; we know people who know people etcetera, so if ‘our’ people say it’s a good deal we’ll take it. And it was fun, not asking about the colour, hitchhike with Jeff to the dealer, 170 k’s up north, and be surprised.

It’s so spotless – probably not for long.

We love the number plate – gives away in whose name the bluebook is haha.

Kalanchoe something, indigenous to  Madagascar, thriving in our garden next to the compost.
Maud just managed to identify it thanks to a great site about succulents

This Kalanchoe makes babies like there’s no tomorrow. One needs plants like that for swapping with the other gardening maniacs.

Still have to identify this shrub. For now it’s a Miena. It’s great to name plants after the one who gave you the cuttings – but some people give so much that it gets confusing, all those Mienas, Greetjes, Lindys, Jetskes and Peters.

One of our indigenous trees that already were growing on our plot in the beautiful cool morning light.

This cactus (a ‘Greetje’) is very easy to propagate, beautiful and mean. Of you come too close you’ll be covered in really nasty midget spines that are impossible to get out. So our second defence around the fence will be a row of these. Together with the first defence row, sisals, it will keep the goats well away from our nice, defenceless shrubs and climbers that are hiding the fencing.