Wednesday, 22 March 2017
Monday, 20 March 2017
When it rains in Nieu-Bethesda
A couple of weeks ago I headed up to Nieu-Bethesda in the Karoo Heartland with a colleague for a tourism meeting. En route we encountered the Fish River in full flow at Jansenville, puddles and pools next to the road approaching Graaff-Reinet and a very wet village at our destination. The word Karoo comes from the Khoi language and means Place of Thirst, very appropriate for this arid region. So it's not often that you see puddles of water in the road throughout the village. Something I photographed with pleasure.
But puddles in the road wasn't what drew the oohhhh's and aaahhhh's from us though. It was the Gats River that runs through the village. It wasn't just running strong, it was running very high as well. So high in fact that it was over the low water bridge. Seeing all this water in this arid region totally made up for the fact that there wasn't any sunshine and blue skies to take nice pictures, which was part of the mission for the two days we were in town for. Tourism meeting and nice pictures to use to promote Nieu-Bethesda and the Karoo Heartland.
My companion on the trip, who is also a part-time mermaid, just couldn't get enough off all the water. Luckily she didn't let her legs get wet, otherwise we could still be looking for her somewhere downstream.
Saturday, 18 March 2017
Jojoba oil -- another kibbutz breakthrough
.
In the basket are bottles of 100% pure natural jojoba oil, which apparently does wonders on the skin and hair.
I'm sorry now that I didn't splurge and buy some when our group toured Kibbutz Hatzerim.
The kibbutz grows the bushes, harvests the beans you see above, cold mills them and makes the oil, which is really a liquid wax.
They presently make 1/3 of the world's production of jojoba oil.
Most is exported to big cosmetics manufacturers, but the kibbutz keeps a little to sell on the premises and online.
The kibbutz cultivates thousands of dunams of jojoba, and the area is set to expand.
(The dunam has been standardized in modern times to mean 1,000 square meters, but in Ottoman Turkish times the word dunam meant "the amount of land that could be plowed by a team of oxen in one day.")
Weeds are not a problem because there is so little rain here in the Negev desert.
No herbicides are used.
Drip irrigation lines are buried 12-15 cm below the surface; each bush has its own dripper, invented and produced by Kibbutz Hatzerim, so it gets all the water it needs directly to its roots.
It is computerized so each plant gets individual attention.
Rows are four meters apart.
At harvest season in the autumn a tractor goes down the row, its silicon arms shaking the bush until the beans fall.
Then with big brushes made in nearby Kibbutz Ruhama's brush factory, the jojoba beans are swept up.
Our kibbutz guide said they harvest ten tons per day.
Processing is then done inside the kibbutz with cold milling, much like in olive pressing.
Pollination is by wind only.
At Hatzerim 50 female plants need only ONE male, whereas in the world it is more like 8 or 10 that are pollinated by one male.
To learn more about this interesting plant and the Jojoba Israel company, see their website (in several languages).
In Israel we pronounce it kho-KHO-va. And you?
.
(Linking to ABC Wednesday, for J-day.)
.
In the basket are bottles of 100% pure natural jojoba oil, which apparently does wonders on the skin and hair.
I'm sorry now that I didn't splurge and buy some when our group toured Kibbutz Hatzerim.
The kibbutz grows the bushes, harvests the beans you see above, cold mills them and makes the oil, which is really a liquid wax.
They presently make 1/3 of the world's production of jojoba oil.
Most is exported to big cosmetics manufacturers, but the kibbutz keeps a little to sell on the premises and online.
The kibbutz cultivates thousands of dunams of jojoba, and the area is set to expand.
(The dunam has been standardized in modern times to mean 1,000 square meters, but in Ottoman Turkish times the word dunam meant "the amount of land that could be plowed by a team of oxen in one day.")
Weeds are not a problem because there is so little rain here in the Negev desert.
No herbicides are used.
Drip irrigation lines are buried 12-15 cm below the surface; each bush has its own dripper, invented and produced by Kibbutz Hatzerim, so it gets all the water it needs directly to its roots.
It is computerized so each plant gets individual attention.
Rows are four meters apart.
At harvest season in the autumn a tractor goes down the row, its silicon arms shaking the bush until the beans fall.
Then with big brushes made in nearby Kibbutz Ruhama's brush factory, the jojoba beans are swept up.
Our kibbutz guide said they harvest ten tons per day.
Processing is then done inside the kibbutz with cold milling, much like in olive pressing.
Pollination is by wind only.
At Hatzerim 50 female plants need only ONE male, whereas in the world it is more like 8 or 10 that are pollinated by one male.
To learn more about this interesting plant and the Jojoba Israel company, see their website (in several languages).
In Israel we pronounce it kho-KHO-va. And you?
.
(Linking to ABC Wednesday, for J-day.)
.
Wednesday, 15 March 2017
I'm In?
The St. Louis Fringe had a kick off party for the 2017 season Tuesday night. It was held at The Dark Room, a wine bar-restaurant-photography gallery in Grand Center.
Didn't know it before, but most of the performers in the festival are chosen by lottery (illustration below). The policy was that the first five entries got in automatically. Someone, um, screwed up the spreadsheet this year so the first seven entries got a bye. A change for this season is that there was a "curated" selection, with several performers chosen by fringe management and consultants. The remaining entries were left to chance.
This is DDare Bionic, a DJ and rapper (some music here), at the moment he learned he was in. Happy happy joy joy. I'll be sure to catch his show during the festival in August.
Tuesday, 14 March 2017
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