LOA

I will be taking a leave of absense from this blog.  I have started another blog to help the residents of Cape Town who are about to hit Day Zero.  

Day Zero is when the 5 dams which supply Cape Town hit a collective total of 13.5%.

It is the day when level 7 water restrictions take effect and when everyone within the Cape Town metropole is limited to 25 ltrs (+/- 6 gallons) of water / person / day.  That 25 lts must include what they need for drinking (hydration), food prep, hygiene, cleaning, laundry, pets, etc and also covers what they use at the gym school and workplace...

It is no mean feat.

Day Zero is currently expected to hit on 12 April 2018.  Should weather conditions remain hot and windy, evapouration will bring that date forward.

All the hints and tips I'm sharing on this new blog are from the members of the Water Shedding Western Cape facebook page.

Having them all in one place, makes them easier to access - and removes the negative, complaining posts that tend to abound in public forums / facebook groups.

Necessity is certainly the mother of invention!!  I'm blown away with the amazingly innovative ways that people have come up with to reduce their water usage.

You're welcome to join in - you never know, one day you too may need some assistance, or idea's on how to live with 25 ltrs / person / day...

https://wswchintstips.blogspot.co.za/

Manna from...

...heaven.

On the 14th / 15th November the heavens finally opened and dropped some desperately needed manna from heaven on our smallholding.

How much water. in the dam? Nada.  Zilch.  Nothing.

January 2017 was dry.  Dry.  Dry.  Dry.

The dam was so dry that even the bentonite "seal" cracked open

We were teased for a week beforehand as Norway promised rain. 

And I checked 4 different weather forecast sites - twice a day - for that week - just to make sure that no ruddy high pressure system got in the way of the moisture laden cut off low.

(https://www.weather-forecast.com/locations/Swellendam/forecasts/latest, https://www.windy.com/ and https://www.yr.no/place/South_Africa/Western_Cape/ and the weather ap on my phone.)

I was absolutely OTT, much to RMan's amusement.

He chose to wait and see what happened.  Not me.  I want to know so that I can make prior arrangements - like "RMan, please, pump the ruddy contents of the lower tanks to the higher storage tanks.  Pleeeeeease."  (He did 😀  T'was easier than having me constantly nag him...)

Norway's weather site predicted over 33mm of rain for the next week

The sky turned a promising colour...

When the sky turns this colour I KNOW rain is about to fall

...and, sure enough, the rains fell...

I haven't seen heavy rain fall on our patio for a long, long time

...and fell.

Our dam finally started filling up

The dam started filling up nicely...

Wow!! Doesn't that look amazing 😀

...but didn't quite overflow.  Plus, ALL our rain water tanks are now full again.

Filled to the brim with rainwater and run-off

Happy and contented - for now.  One good rainfall does not a drought break.  But it will certainly help to add some much needed moisture deep in the ground.

One of my favourite views of the dam

We have no further rain predicted for the next two weeks, and the dam has already receded as the bone dry banks absorb the water.

I spotted bees thirstily gulping and a Proischnura rotundipennis (damselfly)

But, enough water will remain so that the birds, wildlife and insects can wander over for a gulp whenever they need to.



P.S. kymber - thanks for all you've done so far, but please - don't stop the nekkid rain dances.  We were fortunate to have rain fall where we are, but the water catchment areas need rain - and LOTS of it...

Not just honey...

We have all been aghast at the recent monsoons which have affected some many people in the east.  And the horrific hurricanes currently pounding the Caribbean / USA.

So much (excess) water elsewhere, and our extreme drought is ongoing.  

Are there still any climate change / global warming deniers out there...?

Thankfully, even though we are seeing higher than normal Spring temperatures, the heat of summer is not yet belting down on my seedlings.  We'll be collecting another few loads of wood mulch this coming week - the beds are in need of a top up.

I belong to a Facebook group called Water Shedding Western Cape.  Some other members of the group - and the membership is diversified - are all trying to afford rain water tanks to help them mitigate the effects of the water restrictions which have been imposed on the City of Cape Town.  Level 5, is, I believe, the highest level, and that state was declared a couple of weeks ago.  Level 5 equates to 87 ltrs of water / person / day.  87 ltrs = 22.9 gallons.  Consider 87 ltrs per day and then think of :

1  showering (no bathing allowed)

2  flushing toilets

3  washing hands after going to the bathroom

4  washing clothing / bedding

5  brushing teeth

6  cooking

7  washing up dishes

8  washing the floor

The members of that Facebook group are becoming very inventive on how to "recycle" their water - via standing in buckets to capture their shower water for toilet flushing, capturing the wash cycle water from their washing machines in order to, again, flush toilets, capturing the water from washing their hands - again to flush toilets.  And catching as much of the reduced rainwater that falls in whatever containers they can lay their hands on - be that pots and pans, buckets or rain water tanks - ranging in size from 500lt to 5 000 lt.  Those that are lucky have pools - they're either covering them with as inexpensive a cover as possible to prevent evapouration, and / or they're attaching flexible plastic "tubes" to the gutter downpipes in order to steer any rainwater to the pool.  We all know that an empty pool is difficult to circulate and the water will, in no time at all, turn green / breed mosquito's if left standing.  Plus, a pool can be used as a massive rainwater tank - to flush the loo / do the washing - if necessary.

But, it's not only people who are affected by the drought.  Never mind the grain / produce farmers, cows, sheep, goats - they all feel the effects of the drought when their local watering holes dry up.

And, the most important workers on this planet are affected too.

Thirsty bees will try and find the smallest
 drop of water they can during a drought

Bees.

They will fly for miles to find a drop of water.

And, by way of thanks for the important tasks they fulfil - for us - on a daily basis, all we have to do is put out some water for them.

A simple sugar water bird
 feeder will not only quench
 the birds thirst, but the
 bees will drink from it too

They are not fussy and demanding, and will happily help themselves to some sugar water from the bird feeder bottles.

Clever - a simple piece of netting in order to save the bees from drowning

The suppliers of these recycled bottle bird feeders now provide a small piece of net to place between the drinking spout and the stopper in order to prevent the bees from entering the bottle and drowning.

Small enough to prevent bees from getting through, but big enough
 to allow the sugar water to freely flow

If you can't afford to purchase a bird feeder bottle, a simple bowl of water, placed in a shady spot in your garden, will suffice.

A simple bowl of water, filled with rocks to allow the bees safe
 access to the water, and placed in the shade.  It is that easy to
 say thanks to the bees who work so hard for us.

On Thursday, during our weekly trip to town, we stopped off at our local honey supplier.  Waiting for the honey to be decanted into our recycled jars, I took a browse, and came across this which was for sale:

Being of an age where any, and all assistance is gratefully received in my quest to assist my skin to retain some level of moisture / slow down (further) wrinkle production, I bought myself a small bottle.  After my shower I applied a few drops to my face and got on with my day.  Horrors - the propolis / beeswax / honey content must've been enough to trigger a signal, for 8 bees decided that the inside of our house was worth investigating.  I reckon I better save this tissue oil for nighttime use only.  I don't want the bees coming indoors fruitlessly looking for a non-existent source of bee food...

I recently came across a advert for a movie which is due for release in November.  

http://www.morethanhoneyfilm.com/

There is a short preview of the movie on the link I gave under the pic.  I can't wait until it is, hopefully, available to the general public...

I suggest you set yourselves a reminder for November 😉

Wake up call

I seem to be quite negative in my postings lately - my apologies.  But I think when life hands you lemons you still need to gather the lemons together in order to make lemonade.

Image source: Digital Globe
Images collected on June 14th show the devastation from
 the unprecedented wildfires in Knysna, South Africa. The before
 and after comparison show near-infrared images displaying
 healthy vegetation in red, and burned areas in black/gray.

The recent catastrophes (storms and fires) in the Western Cape have been horrific to experience / watch.  300 kms of the picturesque Garden Route was completely obliterated.  Hundreds of thousands of people lost everything.  11 people are known to have perished in that fire, and who knows how many animals.  Thankfully, in anticipation of the storm, the provincial government closed schools on Wednesday 7th June.  Thankfully, because 135 schools were damaged...

 RMan and I are now hyper aware of how vulnerable we all are, and will, where possible, take measures to prevent a major calamity of this type from negatively impacting us - as far as we possibly can.

We are currently rectifying the damage that was done to our house by the gale force winds which we experienced - barge boards ripped off / destroyed and roof tiles blown off.  To say that the winds were scary is an understatement.  Add to that runaway fires...  We did have a fire spring up in the nearby village during last Saturday's gale force wind, but thankfully the fire department managed to sort that out - only God knows how they did it.  That fire damaged our Internet tower and we were without a connection for 5 days whilst the tower, wiring and the equipment was replaced.

My heart bleeds for those affected in the garden route - the 1 000's of homes and lifetime memories lost, the lives lost...  Just too terrible.

In our area we all received the Overberg Water Drought letter with our water accounts recently. Drought restrictions and penalties are now in force.

A link to Duivenhoks Dam which supplies us with water 
(https://www.westerncape.gov.za/general-publication/latest-western-cape-dam-levels)
shows that the dam is still reflecting 62% (as of 2/6/2017) so personally, I have not been too perturbed.

However, on looking at my rainfall records, a different picture emerges. (see image below).

Rainfall records from Nov 2013 to June 2017

What this means for our summer season time will tell...

For those of us that grow our own vegetables / fruit bearing trees a tip I'd like to share is that Sutherland Sawmills in Swellendam sells wood mulch (fine and coarse) for +/- R50.00 a trailer load. We did this last summer and have found that placing a thick layer round our veggie beds / base of our trees helped them to conserve water during the hotter months thereby assisting in ensuring their survival and their intended function i.e. food production. As wood mulch apparently temporarily ties up nitrogen in the surface of soil against with which it has contact, ways of replenishing that nitrogen is through the addition of an organic nitrogen supplement e.g. alpaca, horse, cow, chicken manure and even human urine - even (non-seeding) weeds will fulfil this function for as they break down they return to the soil what they have taken from it in order to grow.  I know that very few of my readers live in our area, but I'm sure if you Google you'll find a sawmill or bulk mulch supplier close to you.

Helping each other helps all of us enjoy our individual patches of heaven 😀

Anyone have any other water saving / disaster avoiding tips that they'd care to share?



Note to Sol if you read this post:  Permission to view your blog is denied to me ;)  Maybe you need to send me another invite?  

Cape of storms...

2 days from hell.

140km / hour winds.

Some rain has fallen - but much more is needed to ease the drought.

Snow covering most of the mountains of the Western Cape.

And a runaway gale-force wind fuelled fire which has almost destroyed a town of 77 000 people - Kynsna, Western Cape (http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/live-knysna-evacuation-underway-20170607 and http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/gallery-cape-wildfires-20170608)

Terrible.  Terrible.  Terrible 😭

Bear with me...

... whilst I recover from a second (nasty) bout of bronchitis this year (courtesy of a 3 year old grandchild's playschool).

I have some stunning news, but can only share it once I receive what I am waiting for.

In the meantime, here is a teaser of sorts... 😉

Mid-to-end April 2017

Bearing in mind that we are supposed to be in mid-winter in just over 2 months time, I have absolutely no comment to make about this...

Mid-April 2017 predicted temperatures

... apart from the fact that this is not usual.  Not usual at all...

Add to that these rainfall figures, and you know exactly what is happening here...

The rainfall figures so far this year are very, very worrying...

All that will help is prayers.  Lots and lots and lots of prayers.  Please.

Water wise boundary decor

I started this blog posting back in July last year when we first started on this project...

RMan and a neighbour, E, used to do the installation and maintenance of the potable water system, and the reading of each individuals water meters in our smallholding communnity.  Even though there are 150-odd smallholdings in our area, we are not "formally" recognised by the local authorities as a "settlement" and are thus not entitled to "services".

Whilst travelling to do the water meter readings RMan spotted these plants growing at the entrance to once of the smallholdings.

I'm sorry I didn't get a pic of them in flower - they looked seriously impressive!

However, RMan did pick up some of the fallen flower buds / seed carriers.

No exactly sure how to propagate agaves,
 I just plonked the base of the "flower" into
 some potting soil and hoped for the best...

Not finding any info online on how to propagate agaves, I just plonked the bottoms into a pot of soil in effort to try and grow them, so that, if I am successful, we could then place them, together with some aloe plants, along the front (dirt road) fence of our property.  They may not look like much sans flowers, but they are certainly water-wise, and will help to distinguish our property from the others nearby.

Aloes with red flowers...

Isn't it funny how your tastes change.  Before we had our smallholding I used to think that these types of plants, and aloes, were damned ugly.  Now I understand why they are grown - for their hardiness, drought resistance, and striking feature qualities.

... and aloes with yellow flowers

Fast forward from July to March 2017 and this is actually what was planted along our boundary this week:

The successfully rooted Agave plants
http://www.southafrica.net/blog/en/posts/entry/a-spiky-kind-of-beautiful

Kei apple trees
https://www.plantzafrica.com/plantcd/dovycaf.htm

Spekboom - propagated from our existing plants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulacaria_afra
Also, I understand that spekboom is excellent at
 carbon fixing - so, to help reduce our carbon footprint,
  I need to grow as many as I can, I reckon.

Home propagated lavender

NumNum bushes
https://www.plantzafrica.com/plantcd/carisbispin.htm

Geraniums propagated from our existing plants

The boundary fence March 2017 - it looks like nothing at this
 point in time, but I have high hopes of a stunning boundary in
 years to come.
 We have planted groupings of 14 plants / section so it
 should make quite a feature - once they are all grown up... 

We have planted groupings of 14 identical plants per section, so in years to come it should, hopefully, look stunning! 😉

Three of the plants are edible (Kei apple, spekboom and numnum) and all are waterwise 😃  Which is just as well as our drought continues and we have had only 5.5mm ( .2 of an inch) of rain since the 12th February...😟

Although I have never served spekboom in a salad or soup for our personal consumption - yet - apparently, alpacas can also eat it.  Due to their carbon fixing properties I'd love to plant up a whole field of them...  (Don't tell RMan, but I think I'm going to surreptitiously get that going.)

You can read more about the history of South African agaves here.  It's a pity that neither RMan nor I drink tequila... ;)

Consequences of Insane

I'm not meaning to harp on the topic, but just want to show you the consequences of below average rainfall last winter, and non-existent rainfall this summer...

8 January 2017

The pic above was taken on the 8th January 2017 - a very sad looking dam indeed. 

There is evidence of nocturnal visitors in the exposed mud

A week later...

The state of the dam on 16th January 2017

What was interesting was to see what nocturnal visitors had left a sign of their visit / search for liquid refreshment in the wet mud.

But, it's not just the land which needs some moisture.  There is another very important part of the equation which is suffering.

Bees - clamouring round a rapidly drying lump of clay on what used
to be the bottom of our dam - seeking any moisture they can find

 Even the bees are battling to find water.

Bird bath / water bowl below the lemon tree.  In times of
 plenty it is a bird bath.  In times of drought, it is merely
a water bowl filled with anything to help retain moisture
 for the birds and the bees

 I have a "bird bath" / water source positioned below a lemon tree - the bees are making use of that.

Close up of the bird's water bowl - I added bits of wood
 chip to aid the birds access to the water, and to try and
 prevent excessive evapouration

Taps, which recently spewed out water, are being requisitioned for whatever remnants recently passed through the damp spout.

Damp taps - another important source
 of moisture for the bees

 This is the state of the land: 

Crisp and dry and depressingly brown... :(

 And, as for the dam...

The state of the dam on the 23rd January 2017.
The white which is visible on the bottom is no longer water,
 but is an indication of the bentonite which we added to
the dam to try and help seal the dam floor

A different angle of the dry and cracked dam floor

The dam is in a very bad way.  It has not run dry since we added the bentonite.  Now - it is a cracked mud hole in the ground.

These cracks in the mud at the bottom of the dam are at least 7 - 10 cms deep

At least the dried out cracks allow us to see the bentonite we added way back in May 2013.

The birds - they're fine.  I have various water bowls scattered around, as well as the sugar water bird feeders which we ensure are always topped up.

Our 8 X 5000 lt rain water tanks?  They certainly helped, but we'd need a 300 000lt reservoir to provide us with enough water to see us through a summer.

Following below average rainfall for quite a while and the distinct lake of manna from heaven this summer, the Western Cape is in a full blown drought situation with less than 40% water left in the dams which supply our towns.  That equates to less than 88 days of water left for the inhabitants of the Cape Town metropole.

Rainfall graph from November 2013 to date

Prayers, rain dances, whatever rocks your boat - please do any of them.

We need rain - urgently...!