Have the fires stopped ?

The fires seemed to have burned out for the time being, but there are still a lot of pine trees still standing. We have a Berg Wind again today so there has been another fire warning from the local firefighters. I think all the Vynbos shrubs that have been partly burned should now be cut level with the ground as they are so dry and can still burn. There are quite a few holes in the ground which look like Snake holes but they are where the shrubs used to be before the fire.

It has only been a few weeks and a lot of the vynbos is starting to grow back. We had a wake here for the firefighters that lost their lives during the big fire. The town was filled by Bikers on Harley`s and filled the main  road for most of the day. Last weekend was the turn of the Municipality and local residents, this was much quieter and smaller.

While i was gardening I heard these women singing in the distance and it sounded like a mass march but I was so surprised at how few arrived. The singing was very good and they were very well behaved even though they had to wait a long time to get their voices heard.

I think  this blog should have today`s Sunrise.

To show how ridiculous things have got, I will put a joke that was on a newspaper web site.

It is still very puzzling that 26 fires started in many different places at the same time. There have been some arrests for arson and theft from farms and buildings that were evacuated. The disappointing thing is that articles were stolen from the very places that were trying to help the victims of the fires. These were items like a coffee machine, pressure cooker, hot plates and other kitchen ware. This may cause people not to help next time we have an emergency.

I am still getting Hestony trucks parking outside with their refrigeration motors running all night. This time I was lucky a the Police agreed that he couldn`t. It was a restful night but I think the chicken in the back had defrosted a bit by the time he left in the morning.

 

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Digest 478.

Another day another blog. I wish I could get back to the days when at least one a day was published. I think a lot of people click on likes as they do on twitter and facebook because it is so easy on wordpress. I have tried to comment on these likes but have only twice had a reply, can anyone comment on this. When you get a like sometimes there are 3 blogs written underneath, why are they months behind the current date. I find to get their latest blog is to bring it up on the address bar and delete everything except the user name and wordpress.com.

I still take a photo of the sunrise most mornings if it looks colorful. Many times it is just plain orange and the sun just pops up over the mountain with a glare that makes photography impossible.

The Burchell`s Coucal is one of the birds that frequent the garden very often. They seem to like fresh meat as they have been seen with large snails and big spiders. We have a lot of small birds in the hedges outside the walls and I suspect that they are partial to young fledglings, as there is always a lot of noise when they go down there. As you can see, there are a lot of variations to the Coucal. I have seen a red one in the bird book but never seen it in the garden.

Being near the Police Station is quite lively as there are plenty of marches every month. These are always accompanied by a brass band and start in the high street and come up the hill. As there have been a lot of child rape and killings in certain areas they are protesting again. The fist time, it was midnight when they started the protest and went on for two hours. The singing was the same as for all the other protests and was very well harmonized, it was just the wrong time of day.

After 20 years I thought this was beyond belief that someone would carry a banner with “Give us back our freedom“ . This went on most of the day and was started by one of the main unions. This was a complaint that too many rapist and murderers were getting bail and re-offending so they wanted the bail revoked on these people.

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