Braaivleis, sunny skies and ladybugs.

In the name of Allah The most gracious, The most merciful.

Algerian Globe Artichoke (Waseemah Mdoka)

Today is one of the most beautiful summer days that we have had this year, Thank you Allah. The hay fever is a bit of a damper and the price to pay for all the sweetpeas, foxgloves, Peruvian lilies, delphiniums, lavender, poppies and other flowers that make the garden picturesque. The ever sneezing gets us all down a bit especially when the wind fans the pollen around and even makes some of us wheezy.



drying seeds (Waseemah Mdoka)

But then one walks down strawberry lane and the sweet smell of ripe sunkist strawberries fills the air, I forget that I said I am duk of all the strawberries and then I pick a blood red juicy one. I don’t even stop to rinse and sink in my teeth. Just one more and then just one more - I break promise after promise. I get to work with removing the poppy heads, the little roofs lifted and before the wind gets a chance to scatter them, I cut them off at the legs and prop them into vases. I am so storing them for next year and giving some seeds to friends just like my friend gave me. I am tempted to shake them out into little jars but then I remember the story of Nabi Yusuf AS and I decide to store them on the stalk. Thinks I will have to find a way to wrap them without spilling seeds.  



Waseemah is busy with her photography lesson in the garden learning to lean in close to take pictures in nature; bees are mulling in and around the borage flowers. I ask her to take pics of the Algerian Artichokes so I can show you and she screams, “ladybugs!” There are ladybugs all over the artichokes, bees dipping in borage nectar, butterflies dancing around the foxgloves – yep its summer and even the insects are in season.

 There are just too many functions that need attendance and today I opt for a quiet Sunday and buckling down to my studies, I have five readings to complete. I lie, it can never be a quiet Sunday here what with me inviting everyone to fetch some vegetables. So it’s a lazy Sunday with kids prancing down rows of strawberries. For lunch I start to make butter chicken because it’s so quick to cook and deliciously light; ask someone to make roti and my son in law lights a fire for a bit of meat. I bake ciabatta-like bread for early evening and steer clear of dessert because I had too much of  those marvelously fluffy cinnamon doughnuts served by AA Caterers at the IPSA Symposium on Environmental Justice yesterday.

Strawberries from our garden

After lunch and that lazy cuppa I take my 40 something steps (more like 4000) round and round on the property. I need the exercise before the wind comes up again and I resist the tendency for siesta. When everyone has left for home and Qur’an lessons are being prepared for school next day, we wind down. The garden needs a good hosing down, I take a leisurely shower and then we have a final visitor, Hamza who grows his own strawberries too. We swap strawberry stories and advice about how to get them to grow stronger and bigger and in the meantime we are busy filling a bowl of pickings. He is enchanted with the bees in the borage while I totter on heels; I guess the juiciest ones were waiting for Hamza.

The sun starts sinking fast, birds fly over low and bees zoom back to their hives. The Wolverine and Leo have had a fabulous day of pampering from all the young ones and lay stretched out on the couch outside. The sky turns reddish, the mu'athin calls and it’s time to sign off and post later. 

Grow food and be moderate with desserts.

Yasmine