Blowflies

There are a few things in nature that can turn your stomach, the blowfly is one of them! Perhaps even worse are their larvae, those stinking, crawling, wiggling maggots! They are associated with disease and nobody likes to see fly eggs, blows, on their food!

Christmas 1955 was the year that Henry was gifted his microscope and the first thing he peered at was the leg of a blowfly, which he unceremoniously ripped off a captured blowfly. His mother had told him that blowflies carry germs and she was right, there they were plain to see! Henry’s Mum had a standard treatment for maggots and flyblows! Pouring boiling water over them! She called the flies ‘bluebottles’ and went to a lot of effort to keep them out of the house and away from food. Her lessons sunk in.

Out of the classroom and into the forest, Henry continued his training, and his first summer was spent at Hamner Forest on the foothills of the Southern Alps.

‘Hang your jersey in a tree boy!’ Was the first advice he was given. Woollen sweaters have that woolly smell, especially when damp, so become a target for blowflies to lay their eggs. Hanging the sweater in a tree was sound advice because although the flies lay their eggs, birds come along to peck them off. Left on the ground the eggs are not so accessible for the friendly birds.

As a member of a twelve-man team, Henry took his week-about turn at being the camp cook! To keep eleven, make that twelve including their would-be supervisor, hungry and discerning young men culinarily-satisfied was a steep learning curve for Henry and that old unoriginal saying, ‘Who called the cook a bastard?’ followed by the retort, ‘Who called the bastard a cook?’ was many times dragged up! Gordie, for example was caught out roasting corned beef!

Cooking cabbage is like writing invitation cards to blowflies! They are attracted to the smell and Henry understood why his mother had insect screening on the outside door and all the kitchen windows. There were no such luxuries in the old, abandoned farm house he and his mates were camping in. Cooking was done over a coal range, only no coal was provided so one of the cook’s duties was to collect and chop firewood. There was no fridge for the meat and butter, but there was a fly-proof meat safe on the shady side of the house. Flies loaded with eggs dive bombed trying hard to gain entry to the safe whenever the door was opened, which was why Henry had to wash small maggots off the sausages he was about to cook! Nobody knew, or took crook so he kept mum about it. Their camp was miles out of town, so Friday night was shopping night but by the end of a very warm week, a shoulder of mutton had gone green! Henry knew the boys would taste that it was off, so remembering school lessons about sailors, he rubbed pepper into the meat before roasting it. There were no complaints.

Blowflies became Henry’s nemesis when he began farming sheep. Not so much with his adult sheep but with lambs. Lush grass growth causes loose bowel motions, which sticks to the wool and becomes attractive to blowflies. They lays her eggs and the maggots quickly grow, seeking a diet of not poo but fresh, living meat! The first sign is that the lamb will become itchy caused by the gnawing, which soon becomes irritating, so it will try to scratch and fidget in annoyance. The next sign is the area the maggots are chewing on becomes blackened because the wool is dead. The remedy is to shear the wool down to the skin on the affected area, removing the maggots in the process. Then spraying with an insecticide to kill any missed maggots or unhatched eggs. It is a dirty, stinking job but left untreated, the lamb will die. Unpleasant for the farmer and lamb alike!

Obviously prevention is the best option and that is drenching for internal parasites and ‘crutching’ - keeping the bum area clear of wool. Also a regular spray of insecticide, or dipping the whole animal is worthwhile.

Any wonder then that Henry does not like blowflies in the house? They have no insect screens at the back door, instead he grows marigolds there, which have a natural insect deterrent. Beyond the house he keeps a baited fly trap - Gordy’s Flytrap by name and it is very successful! There are a couple of important things to remember when it comes to flytraps. Using a dead rabbit as bait is most effective, but it must be under water. The trap is a 20 litre bucket with the Gordy’s trap device in the lid. If maggots hatch inside the trap, they release a pheromone to warn files that the area is already being used, thus warding them off! The rabbit is only the initial attractant, the dead flies’ bodies rot and stink attracting more funeral-goers. Not such a pleasant thing to sit near a back door or a barbeque area!

Henry happily embraces Mother Nature, but like most, he detests all things to do with the bloody blowfly!

The Magic Carton

Dad’s lawnmower broke down so after a lot of muttering and cursing, he even kicked it once or twice, he knew he needed to buy a new one. The girls, Meg and Daisy had been nagging him for weeks about getting a pet rabbit, so Dad built a cage with wheels and put the bunny inside, he was quite proud of himself! It was his version of an organic lawnmower! His invention didn’t work very well, the grass grew faster than the rabbit could eat it and Mum complained about getting wet feet when she hung out the washing. He did think of getting more rabbits but he did anything about it, he saw a picture in some junkmail showing a super-duper powerful lawnmower.

‘I’ll have one of those!’ he decided.

It arrived one day from Amazon in a big cardboard carton! It was a souped up, super powerful lawnmower that you didn’t walk behind, you flew behind it! Well it went so fast, you had to! The girls thought, nah, a lawnmower is a lawnmower and not being petrol-heads, ignored the roar of the turbo-charged engine! They were busy on their mind-numbing electronic devices! But outside Dad held on grimly as the lawnmower roaring across the lawn, his body horizontal behind it and with no apparent control at all! It was a spectacular sight!

Granddad was visiting and was amused, (he laugher his head off actually) and inspected the carton and said to the girls, ‘You know, this could be a Magic Carton!’ Both girls looked up from their devices when they heard the word ‘magic’.

‘Hop into the carton Meg,’ Granddad said, ‘see where it will take you.’

Meg hopped into the carton, not because she wanted to but to be polite to her Granddad. She rocked in it and wiggled her bum to and fro, but nothing happened. So she climbed out a bit disappointed.

‘Hmmmm,’ said Granddad, ‘you have to imagine. It’s a bit like a dream but you are awake. It’s all in your head. Here, Daisy you have a go. Pretend you are, um, you’re driving Mummy’s car.’

Daisy climbed into the carton and she got it straight away! She had watched Mummy driving her car so she knew exactly what to do! But she wasn’t going to drive any ordinary car, oh no, she was in a fast yellow one with no roof! She made the noises of driving, ‘Brmmmm, brmmmmm!’ and ‘Screeeeech’ when she jammed the brakes on! She wiggled the pretend steering wheel, left and right as she avoided other cars!

Then she had another idea, she thought how cool it would be to ride in Kristof’s sleigh! She wasn’t going to be Anna though. She liked Anna ok, but she really liked Elsa so she just imagined she was Elsa in the sleigh with Olaf telling them where to go! They whizzed through the snow and she rocked so violently that the carton tipped over and Daisy fell out!

Meg saw the fun that Daisy was having and wanted to have another try.

‘My turn now,’ she said, ‘my turn now. I know what to do!’ She actually hadn’t thought of what she wanted to be riding in and the first thing that came into her head was the Queen! Well they had been singing the Jubilee Song at school! So she sat up regal-like sitting the coach saying, ‘Clip clop, clip, clop!’ and waving to the crowd.

‘Look! They are waving at me!’ she shouted excitedly.

‘Hop in with me Daisy!’ Meg called, ‘let’s go somewhere together!’

Daisy hopped in and Meg said, ‘We’re in a time machine, where do you want to go? But I’m driving!’

Wow, what a fancy time machine it was with its levers and cogs and a flash double seat and with a tinted windscreen!

‘I want to go to see Dinosaurs!’ said Daisy emphatically. And with a shudder they were off, spinning through time!

They saw all the dinosaurs that they had heard about at school and had seen at the museum but they didn’t get too close to T Rex, Meg thought that he might be too dangerous! They decided to fly just a bit higher than him to give him a fright!

They could just about do anything in the Magic Carton: fly a jet plane, ride a horse, rocket off to Mars, be like Dr. Who in his Tardis, go underwater in a submarine or even float in sky by balloon over the Serengeti watching elephants and giraffe

It was good to see the girls having fun and imagining what they would like do and where they would like to go! Grandad left them to it and had a cup of tea waiting for the lawnmower to come back from the park down the road.

He smiled at all the fun made possible by a simple Magic Carton – that wasn’t magic at all!

Savannah

I like the h on the end of the word, h is for home and the savannah is the home of much wildlife! You are not allowed to walk freely in most National Parks, but outside the parks there is plenty of savannah and the same possible dangers exist, but you have to realise that whatever happens is on your own head. And there are risks. The tip given in the health manual provided to us was, ‘If a lion attacks you, don’t struggle and allow it to eat a limb, struggling usually excites it!’ But you don’t necessarily have to walk through the savannah to appreciate it and you can experience it from a vehicle on some of the main roads. I’m no Attenborough, but I share his interest in nature, I have no doubt he would describe savannah better, even differently, but still, count myself lucky to have experienced it in my way.

The most common trees in the savannah are Acacia trees and this is my first difficulty, I know most by botanical name and perhaps the Swahili name, but no so much the English, common name. However even the English names will mean little to the average reader. There are many species of Acacia and the one most known is the flat-topped ones that the giraffe feed on, but not exclusively. The obvious name for the tree is Umbrella thorn. Most African Acacias have thorns, and some of them ferocious! There are many trees species in the savannah, among them still remain the occasional African Blackwood, occasional because have nearly been wiped out because they are used for carvings sold as memorabilia to the tourists. Shh: Jacaranda is easily carved and the white wood accepts black shoe polish readily. And that’s good!

But wait, first impressions of the savannah is the background noise, it’s always there. It’s the cooing of the doves. There are a few species of Dove and it’s difficult to tell which is which and there are pigeons too to harmonize, but the sound is distinctly African. Quickly following the first impression is the heat, the dry heat. You can feel it drying the moisture in your nostrils! Mostly it is dry place, which gives way to the other impression, glare. Very often there is a haze, caused by the heat and also by smoke from cooking fires, but the dried grasses become yellow/brown, so although the sun’s glare is dulled by the haze, the reflected glare from the grasses makes unprotected eyes ache. There is also radiant heat rising from the soil.

Termite mounds stand out and are scattered throughout, usually red, some much taller than me. Termites mine out all the organic material from the soil so the remaining minerals dry like bricks in a kiln. The larger animals tend to sit in shade during the heat of the day and where there is enough soil moisture to support them there are the larger trees. The Baobab, who doesn’t like the Baobab, for most of the year is without foliage, which is why they say that God planted it upside down, with its roots sticking skyward. Fig Trees are a food source for monkeys and baboons and the smaller herbivores benefit from what falls or is knocked from the tree. Fruit and leaves from the Sausage Tree as well as its edible red flowers are another food supply and the hard, sausage-like fruit releases a juice that kept a little bit of cancer on my ear from needing the surgeon’s knife. The Fever Tree with its yellow bark is one of the larger Acacias and is an indicator of ground moisture. So-called, Fever Tree because medicine was concocted from its bark to combat symptoms of malaria but more reliable remedies are available these days.

The big flies that have a nasty habit of biting you are the Tsetse and they can even bite through your clothing! Tsetse are the carriers of sleeping sickness in humans and out in the savannah they are difficult to avoid. Insects are everywhere in the savannah with butterflies and moths being the most obvious because they are often spectacularly coloured and flap their wings but even a casual glance will reveal all the others. There are many species of grasshoppers, greens, brown and grey, the locust is one of them but not always in swarms. In seven years I saw just one huge swarm. There are the dung beetles and other colourful beetle-like bugs all busy sustaining life. It is mainly insects that support the bird population.

I sent a short video of the morning chorus, and received the reply, ‘Beautiful sunrise, but I don’t like birds!’ Well you can’t win ‘em all, and I know people have different phobia, but still I’m sad that some people don’t appreciate birds – I hope they don’t influence their children! But how can I effectively describe some of the savannah birds? Like so many apples hanging on a tree, Acacias are sometimes so adorned with grass bags dangling in thin threads, these are the nests of weaver birds. There are fifty or more species and the majority are yellow or at least have some yellow. The rarer Jackson’s Widowbird is a weaver but is black and has a tail that is at least twice as long as its body. The Superb Starling is about as big as a common starling but its head, back and wings are a glossy green or teal, it has a thin white band across its upper chest, chest to bum is orange and white around its bum. It is as it a child coloured it in a book.  

The biggest bird, other than the Ostrich, is the solitary Kori Bustard, which stands about a metre tall, they are usually alone and difficult to see because they are grey with a brownish back. They have stout running legs and I have never seen one fly. Another loner is the Secretary Bird, which is almost as tall as the Kori Bustard but much leaner. She, aren’t all secretaries she, is another grey bird with a black back and a Lone Ranger red/orange mask. Feathers sticking out the back of its head are a bit like Dennis the Menace’s hair. Its diet is snakes and other small reptiles.

By no means the last but enough is enough there is the chattering Guineafowl, Kanga in Swahili, gregarious and common, they are grey with white speckles and a blue head with red markings. They thrive in captivity and their eggs, while a bit smaller that household poultry, taste much the same.

Of course there are there are the mammals so Zebra and the antelopes may well pop up at any time, there is always danger that there are predators but big cats and hyenas are not as common as you might think. Baboons with their threatening teeth and red bums are quite common. My mate Mbise used to think the red bum was caused through sitting on hot rocks! And I read an account where Baboons attacked and killed a village person over a water dispute during dry times. The other common monkey is the Vervet, small, but with a human-like face and flamboyant blue testicles. They are pests in coffee plantations, stealing the ripening fruit, so boys are employed to throw stones at them! They can be aggressive little tykes, I took some kids to Lushoto where one Vervet male decided he wanted a drink from one of our Coca Cola bottles and I had to threaten him with a stick before he would let us pass.

The savannah is diverse and perhaps deserves a better description, but if this stimulates anyone to Google some of the wildlife or flora   I have mentioned, my recommendation is the Lilac-breasted Roller, go on have a look.