We did some close up shots of Micro with my new Nikon D3100 and I am so amazed with the results. Hannes took these beautiful photos and you can just see these were taken by a pro!
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Category: Miscellaneous
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We can fly!
Day 11
We flew today!! Micro amazed us with her natural ability to just take off and fly. I thought today was the day we could go outdoors and introduce her to the big world. She walked around but never took her eyes off me. She wanted to fly into my lap, but instead she took off and just went straight up – onto the roof’s gutter!! I think she was shocked herself!! Hannes climbed up to get her down. Whew! She still has lots to learn, but we try again tomorrow!
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Micro is growing
Day 10 : These last three days Micro is showing signs of becoming a fully fledged dove, in fact a Lemon Dove (Columba larvata) AKA: Cinnamon Dove or Forest Dove – we known it as a lemoen duifie. She sits on my shoulder after I’ve fed her and we walk around the house together. She is testing her wings and her balance is improving. But she still gets tired quickly and after a while, her eyes close and I put her back into her box. She snuggles down and I cover her with her blankie!
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Baby Dove is doing well
Day 6 & 7
Micro, our little baby dove survivor, is part of the family now! She whistles in the morning like someone whistles for attention – so very cute. Hannes is making sure she gets all the flying practice in – we don’t want her to be prey for any larger birds when she launches into the big outdoor world. I have also tried introducing her to the chickens, but they are all far too curious and quick to take a bite of anything that is in my hands – so we will leave the introductions for another day. All in all she is thriving and donig well.
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I love creative gardening – you know, when people do creative things in their gardens with plants and planting vessels. Like these two old boats filled with vegetable plants and the other with Nasturtiums. A friend of mine was in the little fishing village of Paternoster on the Cape West Coast recently and they stopped off for coffee at a little place called “Oep vir Koep”. (For our non-South African readers, “oep vir koep” literally translated that means “open for buying”). Its a very quaint little place and popular because of its uniqueness. Here you can buy local delicacies such as fig preserve, snoek, bokkoms, koeksusters (a sweet pastry) and other local brands.
I would love to get something really unique and different to place somewhere in my garden … maybe an antique wheelbarrow overflowing with some pretty flowers!
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Boat with Veggies
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Boat with Nasturtiums
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Baby Dove has a Name
Day 5
Baby Dove has finally got a name. We decided to call her/him MICRO. It was a fitting name with all the photos taken through the Macro lens. It was taken with a medical Micro Nikkor 60mm f2.8. All the doctors use it in labs for very accurate photography – one of the sharpest lenses in the world. So, now you know why my photographs are so spectacular – it is to do with this very special lens – and the best teacher in the world too (my hubby!!)
Ok, so Micro is looking more and more like a dove. She is preening and plucking daily and has the cutest little peep – calls me from a distance! Well fed and perky, makes for a very content baby bird. She now knows she has wings and we did a first flight practice today. Hannes had her on his finger and got her flapping. Very tired baby afterwards! It was a tough flying lesson. She is now fed and in her box for a little snooze.
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So I have to brag a bit here – thanks for the beautiful photograph entitled “Rose for you” that you sent me last night! Its beautiful – the rose and the photograph!
For our readers … the rose is from Barbie’s garden and she took the photograph with her new camera and new-found talent for photography. How beautiful is it? As a lover of roses it was the perfect e-gift for me! I’m such a novice gardener that I am frankly very wary of trying my hand at maintaining a rose bush in my garden so I often buy roses to put in vases in my house. Maybe one day I will feel confident enough to actually have one in my garden.
Have a wonderful gardening week!
xxx
I welcome these wonderful creatures in my garden – chameleons. I have not seen them around of late. Actually, I have only seen two in my Dad’s garden. So, how they came to live in my garden is a funny story. There were two young boys running around the neighbourhood ‘selling’ them – I guess for pocket money. Shame, so we were their best ‘customers’. We paid R2.00 for small ones and R5.00 for big ones. We eventually had to tell them nicely that we have enough chameleons, because they were at our front gate every 5 minutes! We eventually stopped at 25 chameleons!
Most of them have moved on or were prey for the butcher bird. We still have 5 or 6 in the potato plant (which is now a tree!) and the rosemary bush. And onle of them had babies! The baby chameleon pic was taken by my wonderful hubby – Hannes, the professional photographer.
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Baby Dove Day 4
Up again early and Baby Dove is now fully into her feeding routine. She is now preening herself after her feed, so content and happy in the palm of my hand. I still want to find a name for her! Peep will not do when she is a fully grown turtle dove. You can see the feathers are now ‘sprouting’ and her tail feathers are developing. She climbs into my hand and nows that I’m the mommy. She is so cute – Hannes is also taken by her cuteness!
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Trip to Ferndale
Armed with my camera, intent on taking photos and doing a proper review for the blog, I headed off to Ferndale Nurseries in Constantia this afternoon. But first I stopped off at Biggie Best because they are having a sale and I saw some nice pots there a few weeks ago … I bought two great pots. I couldn’t believe the prices – I wanted to get one and ended up getting two, plus some other nick-nacks (yes, another candle holder!). The reason for the pot-buying mission is that I’ve been looking at lots of photos lately of beautiful gardens and I notice that often they put a grouping of pots with different plants in them within a flower bed … and I think it looks beautiful, so I want to try that somewhere in my garden. I see they mix different pot types together and it looks good. I’m not sure I can get it right, but I have to try.
So with the two new pots in my car, I headed off to Ferndale and arrived at 3:40pm as they were closing the gates. They close at 3:50 on a Saturday apparantly (why not 3:30 or 4:00 – no, they close at 3:50). But the kind guy at the gate let me in, so I had all of ten minutes to grab a few things. So no “review” and no photographs of the nursery today. But I got my big sprayer (4 litres) which I will put to the test tomorrow. I also bought myself a few plants … I’ve been wanting a Clematis in my garden forever and bought a lovely one – it is Clematis “Nelly Moser”. (see pic).Also bought some pretty ground cover called Big Ben – hypoestes phyllostachya splash red – it’s got variegated leaves with red, I think it will add some interest at the back and it apparantly thrives in partial shade. Great for filling in some blank spaces I have at the back. I also bought two small Agapanthus “new blue”. I don’t know why – I have plently of Agapanthus in my garden but those two called me and said “buy me, buy me”, so they came home with me. They are a lighter blue than the ones I have so they are a bit different. I think these might go into one of the new pots.
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Clematis “Nelly Moser”
The Nelly Moser Clematis is a flowering vine that can reach as much as 12 feet in length, with off-shoots from the main vine reaching out 3-4 feet. Best displayed on a trellis, arbor, or other climbing fixture, the blooms start in late September and can continue all summer long. Nelly Moser offers a starburst shaped bloom 5-7 inches across with white ruffled edges and pink-colored pedals that grow in profusion. [/one_half]
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Agapanthus “New Blue”
A midsized variety with leave forming a compact mound of 20-30cm. The flowers stand 40-60cm in height. The individual florets are much larger than most other agapanthus. This results in a very nice display of colour despite the individual heads having slightly fewer florets than some varieties. Tolerant of wide soil and water regime variations. Can be grown in full sun or light shade.[/one_half_last]
I hope to get these all in the ground tomorrow.