#Lens-Artists

Waiting For Rain…In Kenya Past And Shropshire Present

Maasai Mara with desert date tree

We’ve been living back in the UK since 2000, our years in Africa increasingly faraway. And yet…

And yet this spring and summer in Shropshire we’ve been very short on rain. The temperatures, too, have recently risen after a cold and windy spring. My gardening self grows anxious. Several times a day I do the rounds of my vegetable plots, checking on the kales, chard, beans and potatoes, the onions and leeks, examining the greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers for signs of stress. My hands are always dirty, soil crushed under nails, as I prod the soil, testing for moisture levels around the plants.

It makes me think of Kenya days, pastoralists like the Maasai depending on rain to replenish the grasslands for grazing, cattle their life-blood in every sense; village farmers waiting for the November-December small rains for sowing; for the long rains March to May to bring the crops to harvest: lives and livelihoods dependent on monsoon weather systems that are nothing if not capricious.

Nor is this new. Oral history accounts, some going back two or more centuries, make reference to periods of drought and famine. One type of oral record is the memorized male circumcision list that survives in some communities. The rite was carried out every ten years or so, and the given year commemorated by some notable event. Food shortages were often inferred.

For instance the list for Maragoli in Western Kenya has 1760 as the time of Kgwambiti. Our Maragoli house steward, Sam, interpreted this as people behaving selfishly like animals, suggesting a food shortage. Likewise Vuzililili for the year 1800, a time when small insects fed on large insects. Then in 1900 Olololo-Lubwoni – refers to a time when jigger fleas (olololo) infested people’s feet, implying that that households were dusty and not swept properly. Lumbwoni is a very thin sweet potato, also suggesting drought and lean times.

Another remarkable source of rains failure evidence is the revised historical events calendar used in the enumerators’ guide to the 1969 Kenya census. At this time many rural householders would have been born in the 19th century, or else reckoned family chronology according to particular past occurrences. For semi-arid Ukambani, a drought-prone region in southern Kenya, it was generally agreed that there had been six significant periods of famine in the 19th century: Ngovo (1868); Ngeetele (1870); Kiasa (1878); Ndata (1880); Nzana (1883) and Ngomanisye or Muvunga (1898).

In the past, too, it transpired that the Akamba people had established emergency strategies via extended kinship allegiances. This involved moving from the worst stricken areas and, for a time, living with relatives who were not so badly affected, or who had their own water-holes. Rules of reciprocity of course applied; this was not charity.

It was important, too, that in pre-colonial times the Akamba had a sphere of far-flung connections through their hunting and trading activities, one that extended into what is now Tanzania. This increased the scope for finding sanctuary from drought-stricken regions, but of course was curtailed when the colonial administration consigned each ethnic group to a designated reserve, basically drawing a line around the territory that each community apparently occupied at the time when the British arrived; self-determination being duly cancelled by a line on a map.

But perhaps the most compelling evidence for the enduringly random state of weather across East Africa is the deeply embedded cultural phenomenon of the rainmaker. Every community had them; perhaps still does. They were often rich and powerful individuals. And contrary to what may be imagined, the forecast of rain was mostly based on informed careful observation of natural phenomena, including the movement of clouds, wind directions, dew formation, the behaviour of particular hygroscopic plants and trees that respond to rises in ground water, the arrival of particular species of birds and insects. Such observations informed planting decisions, the particular crops chosen, the times and places they were sown.

It’s tempting to think our Met Office could learn and thing or two.

And so I ponder again on our lack of rain. Our lives do not depend on the success of our garden produce. The Co-op’s daily deliveries of fresh food are two minutes’ walk from the house. I anyway have an outside tap and a clutch of watering cans. The water is always there. (Or at least it is for now). A luxury however you look at it. But even so, the daily sight of parched soil does seem to trigger some bred-in-the-bone alarm system, all those generations of farmers and gardeners in my family tree worrying…

And so the sky-watching continues, the hopeful eyeing up of every darkening cloud.

And probably also, in the not too distant future when the rain comes, there will be the ungrateful complaint that it doesn’t seem to know when to stop.

Lens-Artists: Stormy This week Beth wants to see scenes of storminess.

Hippos Under The Carpet…

This past week at Lens-Artists, Tina has wanted to know what we were thinking as we took our photos. This led me back to the old Africa album of vintage slides and photos from when we lived in Kenya.

The header photo did not scan too well, but it was such an unexpected moment, it still makes me laugh.

There we were driving along a dry savannah track in the Maasai Mara, the only water (or so we thought) some distance away in the Mara River, when suddenly we were alongside an even spread of water-loving cabbage weed. Weirdly, it seemed to be growing on a level with the grassland. No sign of the water underneath though, and so no sense of depth…

…until up popped the hippos to give us the once over as we passed. It was hard to take in. How could such huge animals have squeezed themselves under this seeming thin layer of weeds. It conjured a surreal image of a large living room with a huge pile rug and numberless unseen hippos lurking underneath.

Of course you can tell what I was thinking here: African plains with zebra crossing.

A spot of yoga anyone?

And now who remembers the Bisto Kids advert? That young lion on the right seems to be savouring some delicious aroma; probably not gravy…Aaah! Wildebeest!

Lens-Artists: The first thing I thought of… This week Tina sets the challenge. What were you thinking when you took the photo.

Serenity ~ Inside And Out

There are vistas that manifest serenity – at least as seen through human eyes. (I mean who knows what fervid biological imperatives are playing out beneath the calm surfaces of things).

This distant view of the Great Orme from Anglesey was shot on a late December day, the air so still there is barely the hint of a tide. No clouds either, and the sun warm enough to go coatless and believe the seasons have fast-forwarded to June.

Another ‘still waters’ scene. An end-of-summer sunset in Kalamata. I watch a naked man wade into the rose-tinted shallows of the Messenian Gulf, talking on his cell phone.

And a third sea-serenity scene: another December, this time long ago, a tropic summer afternoon on the Manda Strait; Lamu, dhow captain Mzee Lali dreams.

Then there are things that induce a sense of serenity in me. This unruffled cloud for instance…

The close-up view of hawthorn blossom and the scent of lilac…

The gentle fragrance of bean flowers and pleasing thoughts of beans to come…

And the all embracing company of trees…

…whatever the season…

Lens-Artists: Serenity This week Egidio at Through Brazilian Eyes sets the theme. Please pay him a visit.

Breaking the rules: more by accident than on purpose…

I’m not sure what was going on when I took this photo. An unintended composition, methinks: camera aslant; subject leaving the scene; shooting into the sun. An all round combination of errors, but then I also quite like the end result.

Here both the camera person and the subject were on the move, in other words, me snatching this shot of an uphill cyclist through the car windscreen; caught on a bend in the Llanberis Pass, North Wales.

Next at Plas Newydd, Anglesey in late December, taking a photo when there wasn’t enough light and leaving a twig in the way:

Taken on Newborough Beach back in March: too much negatives space; subject out of focus and also leaving the frame. But then that’s kite-flying for you.

And camera on the wrong setting for a winter’s day on Seaton Beach, Cornwall. It seems to have created an oil painting effect:

And last but not least of strange creations:

It took me a while to work out what I’d done here. Basically it’s a photo of a frosted spider’s web stretched outside the window of other half’s old Wenlock shed. But you can see both the shed interior and the reflection off the window which seems to show neighbouring rooftops and some of the garden.

Lens-Artists: Break the rules This week Ritva tells us to break the rules. See her post for some inspiration.

Cinematically Cornish

This week at Lens-Artists Sofia calls for a cinematic approach to our photography.

This is what she says:

“There are a few things that give a photo that cinematic feel: camera angles, bold and high-contrast colours, light, locations, just to name a few. The main objective is to take a shot that is part of a story, there’s mood and a sense of location; our image is but a snapshot of a much wider situation.”

The first four photos here were taken one bleak spring day on the edge of Bodmin Moor near Minions in Cornwall. This, Great Britain’s most south-westerly county is a land of dramatic vistas: of high moors and rugged shore-lines. There are stories everywhere, layered through time like the ‘pillows’ of this granite tor, known locally as the Cheesewring.

The tor has its own stories of course. The first is one of weathering over millions of years, wind and rain driving into its crevices. Then there is the Dark Ages tale, from the post-Roman times when Christian missionaries were beginning to make their presence felt. The proponents of new faith were not always welcomed, and so the formation of the Cheesewring is explained as the result a quoit-throwing contest between Uther the giant and a saintly missionary named Tue. If Uther won, then the Christian must go. Th giant lost of course.

The Cheesewring name itself has different derivations – either a straining device for making cheese, or else relating to cider brewing wherein the press of apples to a pulp is referred to as cheese.

There also some mystical notions, for it’s said that if you come to the Cheesewring as day dawns you will see the top ring turn three times. Which makes me wonder if that crow might have something to say on the matter.

Below the Cheesewring we step back into the remnants of a prehistoric landscape: three Neolithic stone circles called the Hurlers. But as to that figure apparently hovering on the horizon – who knows what time stratum he belongs to.

Looking through the Neolithic circle we come to another narrative: one belonging to the 1850s – 1890s when the South Phoenix Mine was churning out train loads of copper, a time when over 3,000 people were employed here – women and children included.

There is more about these stories at an earlier post: ‘Hurlers and Miners: 6,000 years of heritage on Bodmin Moor’ HERE.

Cornwall does have its own cinematic history. Several Cornish based novels by Daphne du Maurier have made it to the big screen, some in duplicate versions – Rebecca, Frenchman’s Creek, Jamaica Inn, My Cousin Rachel. Her deeply disturbing short story,The Birds, is also set in Cornwall, although Hitchcock chose to transpose it to San Francisco. Du Maurier’s works are usually classed as romances, but they also have dark undercurrents, sometimes touching on the paranormal, their settings the wilds of Bodmin Moor, brooding mansions, sheer-drop sea cliffs, rocky coves and crashing surf.

So here are some more Cornish photos, taken one gloomy December, and with a little nod to Daphne du Maurier’s sensibilities.

Lens-Artists: Cinematic This week Sofia at Photographias sets the theme.

We’ve Been Having Blue Sky Days…

They arrived with the spring equinox on March 20th…

… days hot in the sun, but ice-cold in shade, as if the air came straight off a snow field…

…yet so enlivening, it had us one day walking (instead of driving) to the builders’ merchants on the edge of town…

…spotting, as we went, wild cherry blossom, the bright white blackthorn that is everywhere in drifts on farm hedgerows, and then the distant green of wheat fields and fresh grassland.

Meanwhile, the town lanes and gardens have been aglow with magnolias, daffodils, pussy willow, forsythia, camellias, fire-red japonica…

…and the cherry plum by the house has day by day been turning from pink to bronze, as blossom flutters off and gives way to leaves.

And so the Shropshire countryside has been drowsing in a haze of vernal glamour: an earth dream of a perfect spring come to life.

The blue sky days turned into weeks, three to be exact. Long enough for us to grow used to blissful weather, to think it ours forever.

In the garden, our faces turned often to the sun, we noted the little pear tree begin to flower…

…and the old apple tree by the compost bin burst with buds…

…that then begin to open…

…just in time for Sunday’s full moon and a complete change in the weather…

Today there is grey sky, racing rain clouds and a piercing wind that gusts down the chimneys. It feels like winter when we walk to the shops, clad in sweaters, quilted coats and woolly hats. We’re cast adrift in seasonal confusion. Bereft. Abandoned by spring. How could she do this when we so loved the sun, the light, the crisp air?

Ah, well. The weather people say the wind should lessen tomorrow, all but doubling temperatures from 6 to a soaring 11 degrees C. There might also be a view of the sun on Easter Sunday morning, but little to see in the following week. Instead, there will be rain, of which this gardener and the nation’s farmers are much in need. So it goes. All chop and change. Perhaps blue sky spring will be back in May.

Lens-Artists: abandoned This week Anne sets us the topic ‘abandoned’. Please see her post for more serious cases of abandonment.

Weather’s Untamed Ways…

…from heavenly ethereal to eerily supernatural:

Herewith some recent views across the Menai Strait – from the island of Anglesey above Beaumaris to the Welsh mainland.

We’ve just returned from a week’s stay on Ynys Mon. It was our first March visit to the island, our usual time-slot being late December, and our arrival coincided with both the spring equinox and a spring tide. In fact we had never seen the low tides so low. When the sea went out, sand banks never glimpsed before, became exposed.

You can just make them out in the first photo. This reminded me of the tales of the Roman invasion of Anglesey around 60 CE and how Governor Suetonius Paulinus equipped his army with flat bottomed boats to deal with the uncertain depths across the strait. But it is possible, too, that there are/were low-tide paths, known only to locals. Perhaps Suetonius Paulinus found himself an informer. The conquest anyway was bloody: the object to smash the power of the Celtic tribes’ druid priests who made their last stand on the island.

There’s more about this at an earlier post: Island of Old Ghosts.

For the mystically or meditatively inclined, you can see how weather watching can enthral; you never know what may happen next; all the elemental forces conspiring: the ever changing light, coastal winds, cycles of convection and condensation, the lunar-solar ebb and flow of tidal waters.

So much weather in a week on this tiny corner of the planet. We had hot sun, biting winds, cloudless blue skies, deep gloom, rain (though not so much for Wales), drizzle, mist, stormy and glass glittering seas.

Late one afternoon we watched, with some sense of awe, as this white cloud moved low along the mainland shore, spilling out like dry ice till it reached the Great Orme headland.

And then one evening…

At other times the mainland looked gauzy. It could be a mirage. Or there again it reminded me of the magic painting books we had as children – the wash of colours emerging from the empty page.

Lens-Artists: Wild This week Egidio at Through Brazilian Eyes wants to know what wild means to us. Go see what wild means to him.

Catching The Light And Finding Home

I took the header photo on March 11th, the last rays of sun over Shropshire-out-of-Wales, lighting up the first sprigs of cherry plum blossom. I have only recently identified this tree: Prunus cerasifera nigra – a native species that lives just over the hedge outside our kitchen window. Every day now, and especially when we sit down to eat, we are watching it with special attention. For it seems this tree, which I had started off disliking (for reasons explained below) has become a household treasure, albeit one ‘borrowed’ from the roadside verge next door.

When we planned the kitchen extension (to replace an ageing conservatory attached to our newly bought old house) we did not think too much about the view. The site was tight, constrained by planning regulations, conservation area considerations and an overgrown hedge (although it has been cut back), and so we assumed our new big window would mostly look out on sprawling holly and hawthorn.

But now we find we also have a tree-view. And though I’m not so keen on pink, I cannot deny its loveliness, and especially at sunset. For this was another unplanned aspect: the only possible position for the window meant it faces due west.

Two weeks ago the branches were still black and bare, a skeleton mesh against wintery skies. One week ago, with the sudden sunny spell, if we looked hard, we could spot tiny slivers of pink on breaking buds. This week we have the first blossom, a good two weeks later than last year, when our February 24th view through the landing window looked like this:

So much for all the talk of this spring being sooner and warmer etc etc than other springs. Not so in Bishop’s Castle. After the week of warmish weather, the polar vortex is now rolling out cold, cold air day after day, and the cherry plum’s impulse to flower feels arrested somehow. But then that’s alright. A slow flowering will be just fine.

Last spring, as the building work progressed we watched the blossom cloud give way to foliage production. Next we had a dense, dark, rustling canopy, the leaves almost black at first sight, and not very pleasing. When viewed from outside, the tree cast a pool of deep gloom over the garden steps which I found depressing. But then come August and the kitchen all but done, we found ourselves sitting down to supper with an unexpected light show.

Two months on – and another unexpected view – a November snowfall and an abstract work that made me think of Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm, which I think we once encountered in the New York Met, where we’d gone to escape an unanticipated May heatwave.

And so in our new home, with passing moments, hours, days, and months, (two years in August), we are coming to know our closest neighbour, the cherry plum. Its fruits are said to be edible and good for jam. I managed to discover a single one last year. It was deep red and round, bigger than a cherry, with a firm skin that seemed to scrunch when I bit into it. It had a sweet-and-sour taste that made me think of Chinese plum sauce. Back then I did not know about its eating potential, and anyway I think the tree has grown too tall for elder scrumping forays.

But never mind. It has anyway inspired me to think more kindly about our horrid hedge, and how to deal with some ugly gaps just beyond the window. I’ve discovered cherry plums are good for hedging so I’ve recently planted three white flowered saplings, hoping that (in the not too distant future?) the blossom will cheer both us and passing neighbours. And maybe there’ll be fruit too – for us and the birds.

There are other bonuses of course. When I was out on the far side of the hedge preparing the ground for planting, there was much chatting with locals who wanted to know what I was up to. And indeed, why I’d come to live in Bishop’s Castle, and where was I before. All good questions and a good start too to feeling, after a few unsettled years, that we’ve at last come home.

Lens-Artists: Life’s Changes This week Anne sets us a theme rich in possibility. Interpret it as you may, but first see her post for an inspiring tale of personal development.

This Made Me Smile ~ Once Upon A Time In Kenya’s Highlands

It seemed the greatest gift for this nosy writer when Graham said I could go with him to survey the Kikuyu farms just north of Nairobi. Yes, yes and yes. I would be delighted to look for smutted Napier Grass. And hold the clipboard. And manage one end of the tape measure.

We were all set then, along with Njonjo, senior driver for the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, where Graham’s crop protection project was based.

It was the time just after the late 90’s El Nino rains. The Rift escarpment roads were terrible, many of them washed away. In other places great chasms had opened up, or the roads were strewn with boulders brought down the hills by flash floods. But this was also home territory for Njonjo. He had ancestral land there. A farmer then, when he was not employed as a driver. He anyway handled the Land Rover with great skill, and astonished us, too, by simultaneously negotiating giant pot holes and spotting plots of smutted grass growing many metres from the roadside behind kei apple and winter jasmine hedges.

Njonjo and Graham

Trading centre after El Nino rains

Of course, after a fine spell, the roads baked hard into gullies and corrugations. This next photo shows one of the Rift Valley lanes on the edge of the escarpment. You can just make out the valley bottom through the far haze:

I don’t recall why we were all out of the Land Rover at this point. Probably Njonjo was asking directions. Even locals have problems finding their way across the ridges. Anyway, this was the moment I met this lovely young man:

Small-holder farms at Escarpment, in the Rift’s shadow, Mount Longonot in the background

As we jolted and slid along the country lanes, Graham was using a GPS to select farms at random. When a location was chosen, Njonjo then took further charge of operations and went to find the owner of the farm, and talk them into admitting a couple of wazungu , who would like to look at their Napier Grass.

Over the weeks of the survey it became a matter of pride that no one turned us away. In fact the opposite was often overwhelmingly true. Wherever we went, we were met with great courtesy, mugs of tea and presents of farm produce: plums, pears, sugar cane, a cockerel. We had brought useful information that must be reciprocated. Njonjo was particularly adept at fending off serial invitations to lunch, and did so without us seeming too rude. Otherwise the job would never had been done.

This farmer gave us sugar cane

One chilly morning Mrs. Njuguna served up mugs of hot chocolate before we went to examine her napier grass plot

Napier Grass (foreground in both photos) is an essential animal food crop for small-holder farmers who zero graze their stock. Zero graze means they have no access to pasture, but grow plots of grass wherever they have space, including on roadside verges, and then crop and deliver the grass to their animal pens. (Commercial tea gardens in the background). Most farms (shambas) are on ancestral land that has been subdivided down the generations and may be only a few acres or less.

By now you’re probably wondering what Napier Grass smut looks like. You will also have gathered that in this context, smut has nothing to do with off-colour jokes or questionable practices. (That said, everyone found it hugely amusing that Graham was doing a part-time doctoral thesis on smut). It is in fact a fungal disease that attacks grasses, including maize and sugar cane. On Napier Grass it becomes visible when the plant begins to flower; the florescent parts look as if they have been dipped in soot.

Two happy plant pathologists: Graham with Dr Jackson Kung’u admiring smutted grass growing on a road reserve in Nairobi, as spotted across a busy dual carriageway by Njonjo.

The diseased grass isn’t apparently harmful to the animals that eat it, but there are serious implications for farmers who rely on it for zero grazing. In time, smut weakens the plant and so less and less leaf mass is produced. The spores spread on the wind, although Graham thought the most likely source of infection was due to farmers unknowingly giving cuttings of infected plants to their neighbours. The only solution is to dig up the plant and burn it.

Farmers, predominantly women, were keen to hear anything and everything Graham could tell them. Impromptu roadside smut seminars became a feature, Njonjo providing lectures in Kikuyu or Swahili for those who did not speak English. Graham also distributed information sheets. We never seemed to have enough!

On some of the farm visits, it was inevitable that Graham would be consulted about other plant diseases that farmers had noticed. Here there’s some problem with the fruit trees.

The farmer’s daughter watches us. Her father had handed her one of Graham’s smut information sheets: the school girl in the family…

The Kikuyu uplands are mostly 5-6,500 feet above sea level, the settlements strung out along ridges. Although at the tropics, early mornings and evenings can be cool, and especially in June and July, when there may also be fine rain and fog. Some of the highest settlements at around 7,000 ft are in the frost zone, the landscape’s bleakness, with bracken growing along the roadside, reminding me of Scottish uplands.

All in all, Graham’s smut survey was among the highest highlights of our seven year stay in Kenya. Although not everyone was always keen to speak to us:

Lens-Artists: This made me smile Ann-Christine is making us all smile with this week’s theme.

The Grateful Gardener

We have snow here in the Castle. We woke up to it early yesterday. What a shock. Snow in November. It’s much too soon. I’d seen the weather forecast of course, but was expecting only a spot of sleet that would soon melt away with the global boiling, not several inches of real snow, the sort perfect for snowballs.

Anyway, it’s not the snow I’m grateful for, but I do love the brilliant blue sky it’s brought with it. And also this golden Rowan tree in its white cocoon. It stands just outside our garden, and provides us with some borrowed treescape. And it, in turn, has recently been much loved by the birds, especially the blackbirds. Before the snow came they were busily stripping the stems.

I’ll miss the berries when they’ve gone. On bright autumn days they light up like jewels. This is how they looked in early October. A tree full of joy. Thank you, Rowan.

The snow fall also focused my eye on the latest garden addition: a Jelly King crab apple tree. Yesterday morning while sitting at the kitchen table eating my porridge, I could see its clutch of red apples glowing like little beacons at the bottom of the garden. Time for a photo then, and to say how very pleased I am with this Halloween birthday gift from my other half. Thank you, Graham.

It came a few days before my birthday, delivered in a tall box to the front doorstep, whither I was directed to investigate the new arrival. Once I’d broken through the cardboard, I was surprised to find the little tree had come with eight tiny apples still firmly attached. There were also a dozen loose ones in the bottom of the box, sadly not quite enough to make crab apple jelly, but filling me with high hopes. I decided to keep them as a spur to locating a wild tree. I thought I knew where there was one. And so it proved. Last week I found a fine crop of fallen apples in a patch of woodland on the way to the builders’ merchants. We now have crab apple jelly. No need to wait for the little tree to do its stuff then.

And speaking of stuff – we still have some of the salad variety growing outdoors and in the greenhouse.

This year I’ve grown Red Radicchio endive. For the past few weeks it’s been growing fatter by the day, and as temperatures lower, the more red it becomes. I’ve been plucking the outer leaves with hopefully plenty more to come. In the greenhouse I have tubs of red Chinese mustard, Moroccan Cress which grows like a cut and come again lettuce and a few oakleaf lettuces. Also some lettuces out in the garden, though they may have succumbed to the snow. Likewise the marigolds. But it makes me very happy to find a bowl full of fresh salad leaves in late November. Thank you, garden.

And one little plant that is standing up to the snow, once I’d dug it out it earlier today:

These sweet little hearts ease type pansies have been flowering for weeks and weeks in a pot on the garden steps. And they’re still going strong. They were a gift from my sister. Thank you, Jo.

Lens-Artists: Gratitude This week Tina sets the theme, both timely and thoughtful. Please visit her ever lovely blog.

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge