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Stoep Chat

’s weekly stories, observations and conversations from Knysna and beyond.

28 November 2019

The Owls and Buzzards of an Elgin Apple Farm

On an apple farm in Elgin there is a big hok with unusual occupants. In one section are two jackal buzzards and in the other, four spotted eagle owl youngsters. It’s feeding time. Jessie…

On an apple farm in Elgin there is a big hok with unusual occupants. In one section are two jackal buzzards and in the other, four spotted eagle owl youngsters. It’s feeding time. Jessie Fagan walks into the hok with a bakkie of food that only raptors could find delicious: raw chicken legs and dead day-old chicks. The owls perk up. “This one is George and that’s Fred. Some school kids named them after the twins in Harry Potter,” Jessie said. Jessie holds out a chicken leg and George grabs it in his beak and swallows it whole. After another…

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21 November 2019

Baardskeerdersbos: The Dorp Named for a Beard Shaver

Baardskeerdersbos is a tiny dorp in the Overberg region with an intriguing name. Literally translated it means “beard shaver's bush”, apparently named after a solifuge, a spider-like creature that is said to cut off…

Baardskeerdersbos is a tiny dorp in the Overberg region with an intriguing name. Literally translated it means “beard shaver's bush”, apparently named after a solifuge, a spider-like creature that is said to cut off hair to use for nesting material. Who knows if it really has trimmed some sleeper's beard, but it makes a good story. Baardskeedersbos is small, just over a 100 people according to the 2011 census, and began as a single farm, Baarscheerders Bosch, that was surveyed in 1831. Most of the locals have shortened it to simply B'Bos. Once a month the B'Bos locals hold a…

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7 November 2019

What a game. What a win. What celebrations all over

South Africa that will continue with the Springboks’ nation-wide tour as the 2019 Rugby World Cup winners. If you were reading these words last week, I bet there would be some who would not…

South Africa that will continue with the Springboks’ nation-wide tour as the 2019 Rugby World Cup winners. If you were reading these words last week, I bet there would be some who would not have thought it possible that the Springboks would beat England 32-12. England were the strong favourites – and we had lost a pool game. And then we won the final! It was just what South Africa needed, wasn’t it? It appears from commentators that two men were key to securing the victory: Siya Kolisi, the first-ever black Springbok rugby captain in South Africa’s 128-year rugby history–…

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31 October 2019

What Did We Do Before Sell-By Dates?

I love homemade soup, but on top of a mountain after a long day’s hike, instant soup is fine. So I was a bit sad when I found I had left mine behind on…

I love homemade soup, but on top of a mountain after a long day’s hike, instant soup is fine. So I was a bit sad when I found I had left mine behind on the Swartberg hike two weeks ago, but one of the other hikers kindly gave me one of her pakkies. “Better check the sell-by date,” she said. It was March 2017. But here’s the thing: what did we do before sell-by dates? We looked, we smelt, we tasted. If it was all okay, we ate it. Which I did with the soup and it was perfect. What…

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3 October 2019

An Iceberg the Size of London

World Cup rugby, global climate marches, and flooding in the Garden Route – a newsy week. The item that made me prick up my ears was about an iceberg the size of London –…

World Cup rugby, global climate marches, and flooding in the Garden Route – a newsy week. The item that made me prick up my ears was about an iceberg the size of London – 1,636 sq km – that broke off from the Antarctic ice sheet last week. It brought back memories of the time I saw first-hand the crushing effect of this ice sheet. Like many people I guess, I had thought of the ice sheet as something stationary, but I learned that it is actually moving seawards all the time – so slowly you cannot see it or…

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26 September 2019

Anyone heard of penis bones? Well, therein lies a tale.

What made me think about them was a piece I read last week in Nature journal’s research highlights about the first-ever recorded fossilised tracks of baby sea turtles that were found right here on…

What made me think about them was a piece I read last week in Nature journal’s research highlights about the first-ever recorded fossilised tracks of baby sea turtles that were found right here on the southern Cape coast. The little fossil “flipper prints” were made by baby turtles that had hatched 100 000 years ago, and were scurrying across the beach to reach the relative safety of the ocean. It gives me goose flesh to think that we can still see the tracks these little creatures made 100 000 years ago. Finding fossil bones is exciting, but there is something…

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19 September 2019

The Child-Sized World of a Rock Pool

One of the delights of childhood for those lucky enough to live near the coast is peering into rock pools. I think it has something to do with a rock pool being child-sized, where…

One of the delights of childhood for those lucky enough to live near the coast is peering into rock pools. I think it has something to do with a rock pool being child-sized, where a youngster can see a whole living world in a small space. I remember the fascination of watching tiny fish dart among the seaweed, and the thrill of touching a finger tip to a sea anemone and watching it whip away its coloured tentacles, and then slowly unfold them again once the “danger” had passed. Rock pools are wonderful outdoor classrooms too. But what if your…

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12 September 2019

David and Goliath, and the Man Across the Table

David and Goliath battles, about the little guy taking on a huge fight against all odds, have always intrigued me. Many of us are drawn to this scenario – one has only to look…

David and Goliath battles, about the little guy taking on a huge fight against all odds, have always intrigued me. Many of us are drawn to this scenario – one has only to look at the number of Hollywood movies that have capitalised on this sentiment - probably because so many of us have at some time in our lives felt done down by the big guys of the world, who wield the money and the power – but are not necessarily right. I was sitting across from one such “David” this week. His name is Mark McVeigh, a 24-year-old…

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29 August 2019

I Heard a Whale Breathe from My Sofa

Last night I heard a whale breathe. I was not on a boat. Not on the beach. Not even on the harbour wall. I was lying on my sofa in my sitting room in…

Last night I heard a whale breathe. I was not on a boat. Not on the beach. Not even on the harbour wall. I was lying on my sofa in my sitting room in False Bay when I heard it. When I think about that, it makes me laugh with delight. That I can lie here late at night and hear the life-breath come out of one of these massive creatures that live thousands of miles away in the icy waters of the Antarctic, and that swim across the vast Southern Ocean in winter to calve along our coast. It…

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