Van Stadens

I need a bit of time to process it all, it was quite a topsy-turvy day. It started by Ellie being confused and getting out of bed an hour early and that gave us a head start. It was quite an interesting drive, when we left home it was 14 degrees and by the time […]

Some careful planning ahead of this bitterly cold day, on arrival it was only 12 degrees with a nasty wind blowing. Fortunately it warmed up a little later. We first collected water at the arboretum, the stopcock had been open all week and no leaks, before going to the lookout picnic site to clean off

In hindsight we shouldn’t have visited the Reserve today to show Nick and his girlfriend what we have done lately as it turned out to be a bit of a downer. It started at the entrance circle. We had enthused about how well it was coming along and how Goodman had promised for the staff

Quite a day (again). Charles from Fat Tracks had promised to be at the reserve at 10:00 for another try-out of the freshly mown tracks so we got off to an early start to paint some benches before his arrival only to find that they were way too wet from the dew. Fortunately I had

Strange day, got a lot done and yet it didn’t feel like that. Got underway quite early and happened to arrive at the same time as Rob and Jenny who went to Ms White to talk about aliens. Not very conclusive as she does not seem to have a grip on reality. We cleaned and

After Sunday’s relaxing time trying out the cycle tracks and picnic for fathers day it was back to the grindstone today. Started off with some corner post supports in the Gem, some bee killing, removal of more wire mesh and broken pipe moving on to cleaning up last weeks logs and branches of the Widdringtonia.

Some great surprises today, as we entered the reserve we noticed that a lot of the proteas and ericas on the left had been cut down. Obviously Goodman has decided that this was better than taking a chance with a deliberate fire. There are a lot of seedlings coming up already so soon it will

This was an our monthly meeting, announced as a gardening exercise. Better turnout than usual with Keith and Cathy, Michelle and Rasheed joining us. The plan was to weed in Jenny’s circle, it took a while to get everyone in gear. Neil got going with the chainsaw to trim some smaller strelizias, Susan did her

Needed to be a bit earlier today as Jenny’s helper was working for us today. It didn’t quite work out that way as Jenny’s meeting only started at ten and she needed him till then. I had to prepare the brush cutter anyway and then it turned out that the new blade didn’t fit so

No pics today, too busy for that. The day started of with a meeting with Goodman, mainly to get permission for the biking trails which he was quite happy with and to meet the new students. It remains to be seen whether the students will be a help or will take up even more of