Rain In Zimbabwe
- 23/1/2013 <--Prev : Next-->
Ooooh I love that smell of rotting vegetation !!
I also love the smell of dryness, but I can put up with the rotting aroma for a few months while the dams fill. The good news is that there has been some inflow into the dams, not enough yet to make us jump for joy, but enough to get one's hopes up a tiny bit thankfully!!
They closed the bridge at Beitbridge this week because it was looking as though the Limpopo could be running so fast it might go over the bridge or indeed cause structural damage!! Now how exciting is that, wait till I ask HeeHoo if we can go and have a look at the rivers and the dam levels, a favourite occupation for Bulawayans on a Sunday, I can imagine his face when I tell him it's the Limpopo I want to see, its only 350km away after all !!
I also received a photo today of Maleme Dam spilling, such excitement, our spirits have been lifted tremendously with all this glorious rain.
The countryside goes into crisis mode when there is too much rain. The vibrant bougainvillea take on that cute, bemused look as though they are peeping out from under their damp demure fringes, raindrops festooning their brilliant, cyclamen pink petals.
The petunias have a distinct look of distaste on their pretty faces, their bonnets are dripping and despondent, and the roses have their ears laid flat back like cats in a downpour!!
And it does not matter how much water one pours on one's garden in the summer, nothing make the difference that the rain does.
But the slugs and snails !!!
I have never seen such gigantic mollusks making their way determinedly towards my coleus, my aggies and my clivia!! I am exhausted with having to wake up at 4 am before the Heuglins Robins are awake, in an effort to collect the deceased snails before the birds get to them!!
The millipedes are out in full force, also munching their way through the garden, but I always feel it necessary to forgive the millipedes somehow!!
The lawns are turning yellow with the lack of sunshine and the deprivation to the soil. They are taking absolutely no notice of the nitrates being brought in by the rain....
HeeHoo and I drip gleefully from one room to another, climbing over the buckets that have been put under the roof leaks, rushing out to the rain gauge every so often to measure.
Even walking in the rain is a thrill, watching the illegal mealies grow inch by inch on the green belts, watching the late Jacaranda trees bloom, admiring the giant kigelia pods growing furiously on the sausage tree. The roads under there street lights are alive with industry as the flying ants pour out of their nests in their multitudinous millions, and the predators wait nearby licking their lips in glee.
Frogs and toads come a-hopping night and day, morning brings the hungry insect eating birds, and many folk are found nearby collecting the fat, juicy, protein-filled termites, once their wings have been discarded.
Sleeping in the rain is even more exciting and hypnotic; it has been many years since we were treated to day after day, night after night, of soporific soaking.
The ground is totally waterlogged and the talk in town returns constantly to the possible positive inflow into our horrifyingly low water supply dams. Thankfully the pipeline from Mtshabezi dam has been
commissioned, giving us a few months grace, but the position is still extremely precarious and our knees are fair worn out in prayers for rain!
