Intrepid photographer.

Intrepid photographer at work.

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The three females in my life, Lady on the left, Tombi in the middle and Sissy far right.

Sunrise.

Stopped on the way to work this morning to photograph the sunrise.

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Stood for several minutes in the cold wind waiting for the sun to appear.

Sol wins again.

Again almost no comment.

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The big picture. (A panorama of 4 photos stitched together) In this photo are several hundred kilometers of the Drakensberg mountains on the horizon.

African sunset.

Old sol in all his magnificence.

One hundred and eleven photos between the second photo and the last one.

Sister moon.

After a lot of brother sun, now it's sister moons turn.

These photos were taken 3 days ago at full moon.

No comment.

That is apart from the fact that these amazing sunsets predict a drastic change in the weather.

No choice.

I just don't know what title to give this post, I wasn't going to take another sunset photo ever! But I just had no choice but to record what I saw.

There are 31 photos between this first photo and the last one. None of these photos have been changed in any way.

The lord paints I just record.

Here be dragons!

I have dragons prowling around my front door, well miniature dragons if I had to be really honest.

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Portrait of a skink, (not a lizard) don't ask me what the difference is.

Delicate perfection in every detail. When the light strikes their scales at the right angle they shimmer with a coppery iridescence, you can see a hint of it behind the eye. This fellow is not quite 4 inches long.

Heading for the flower bed next to the veranda to find some unwary insects for lunch. When threatened skinks can shed their tails which wiggles and thrashes about, thus distracting the predator and allowing the skink to escape. A new tail soon grows to replace the one lost.

Birds & butterflies.

Saturday morning and the dogs and I went for a walk, took the camera just in case.

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Last of the summers survivors, wings starting to look worse for the wear.

Will have to buy a book on SA butterflies so I can identify them.

These are tiny flowers but the obviously have enough nectar to satisfy this butterfly.

Cape sparrow, the seeds on this dried out bush were this birds breakfast.

Action shot, reaching for a seed.

Africa beautiful continent.

Another day in Africa.

Looking north, north east, reaped soya bean fields. This is a minimum tillage farm and no plowing is done. These fields will be planted shortly with winter wheat after ripping and harrowing.

Giants castle with a cold front rearing it's cold head behind the 3,300 meter mountain.

First light, last light.

Took first light photos, sunrise and last light photos.

First light.

Sunrise. "Red in the morning ...", and all that, well I suppose it figures the weekend is just around the corner.

Last light.

Lanner falcons against an African sunset.

While on our usual late afternoon walk the Italian leprechaun and I spotted this pair of Lanner falcons. These raptors are considered near threatened, yet there are several pairs on the farm.

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The pair sitting on the central pivot.

These photos have been severely cropped so the quality might not be so good.

Almost unreal.

Epitome of loyalty.

Tombi is never far from me, at the moment she is lying with her head on my left foot. When we are out walking she is always right at my heel, the other three are off doing their own thing but Tombi is right by me.

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Photo by E Bucceri.

Me sitting behind my camera waiting for the sun to set and Tombi just as intent sitting right beside me. Two of the other three can be seen in the top left hand corner, Bruno is off somewhere in this wide expanse hunting mice.

Just another African sunset.

Well maybe it's not just another sunset, every one is unique and no two the same.

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Breakfast at the mall.

The Italian leprechaun and I made one of our trips to the big city this morning. First thing was breakfast and coffee at our favourite coffee shop.

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Cuppa chino first, didn't know the barrista had a soft spot for me. So good I ordered a second cup.

Never a truer word printed on a paper coaster.

A months supply of cholestrol, "the great South African breakfast", but to quote May West, "A little bit of excess is good for you", but as someone once said, you can't buy happiness but you can always buy bacon".

Noah's ark.

Lessons learn't from Noah's ark.

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Three photos.

Three photos, one day.

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Moon in a pink sky.

Last rays of the sun setting these pine needles aflame.

Two hours later, moody moon, with earth shine on the dark side of the moon.

More snow on the Drakensberg.

This is our third or fourth snow fall on the Berg this winter, and winter hasn't really started yet. Must be global warming, I mean climate change, to be PC.

On Friday on Saturday we had heavy, almost non-stop rain, for 24 hrs, rain at this time of the year means snow on the Berg.

Looking west, a photo of snow on part of the Berg. Looks as if there is enough snow up there, (10,000 feet +) to ski, just don't ski over the edge. The farm in the foreground is the neighbouring farm just to the east of where I live. As you can see I live very close to the Berg.

Same scene just zoomed in a bit. 

I took about 30 photos and every where you look you see trees. South Africans are great tree planters, the Worlds largest man-made forest is in SA, and this forest is planted in our largest city, (strange as it may seem) Johannesburg and it's suburbs. Other cities in SA are not far behind, Pretoria,(the administrative capital)* is known for it's hundreds of thousands of Jacaranda trees, a sight to behold in October when the whole city turns purple.

*South Africa has three capitals, (not counting provincial capitals, 11 of them) Cape Town the parliamentary capital - parliament meets there-, Pretoria the administrative capital, and Bloemfontein the judicial capital, seat of the *Supreme court.

* Supreme court, not the same thing as the US supreme court, our equivalent the US Supreme court is our Constitutional court.

Dream scape.

African dream scape.

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HDR photo of a sunset I photographed about two weeks ago.

Funeral of a friend.

On Saturday I attended the funeral of my friend Neville in the local Catholic church. Neville was what is know as "Coloured" (mixed race) here in SA, black as the ace of spades with his equally "Coloured" wife who was blond. I've known Neville and his wife for more than sixteen years, a more gentle and caring man I have yet to meet. His wife, daughter and three grandsons were the centre of his life, his world. 

Neville was a man with a wicked sense of humour, he could find something funny in the worst of situations, Neville's laugh was infectious, when he laughed you could not help yourself, you would find yourself laughing with him. Feeling bad, talk to Neville he would soon make you feel better, got a problem, discuss it with Neville, between the two of you a solution would be worked out. No matter how busy he was he could make time for any one.

The church was packed and there wasn't place for the proverbial mouse, Black, White, Indian, "Coloured", Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, (and every shade in between), Hindus, Muslims, and Pagans, all there to pay tribute to the man they loved and admired. If you want to know what a man was like during his life, attend his funeral. Looking across the packed church I thought to myself, "This is what heaven will be like, "every race and tribe" ".

The service was led by the Arch Bishop of Bloemfontein, a black man with an imposing presence, broad of shoulder and broad of girth, with a deep melodious voice - a preachers voice. It wasn't because Neville was an important man, (in the greater scheme of things he was Mr No Body like the rest of us) that he merited an Arch Bishop for his funeral service, no, they had been friends since Neville was a young man and the Arch Bishop a lowly parish priest.

The funeral service was called a Resurrection Mass, and the Arch Bishop with his beautiful voice delivered a gospel filled message of the resurrected Jesus, (and the hope  of those who believed in the resurrected Jesus). No one could have any doubts as to the fact that this was a Christian funeral service full of hope, not one of despair. Even an ex Calvinist like myself could not find fault with the content. 

After the service I thought how blessed I was to live in a country like ours, with it's diversity of people and cultures. I have friends among all race groups and among some that I count as best friends are Muslims. I feel very sorry for people who live in bland single culture, single language, single race countries, about as interesting as tapioca pudding. 

It always amazes me when I hear of countries overseas where people complain about immigrants changing the culture of a country. They enrich a culture and if the local culture disappears or is weakened it couldn't have been worth much in the first place. 

Giants Castle, Drakensberg.

This mountain is about 60 km's away from where I was standing to take the photo.

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The peaks of Giants Castle at 3000 meters plus.