A young Gymnogene was on the woods again, hunting for frogs. The waever bird were not happy about it, and the young eagle was bombed relentlessly. The big Monitor Lizard passed by too, but they didn’t seem too concerned about him (which is strange, as Monitor Lizards certainly eat weaver bird eggs, and therefore would not normally be welcome, whether there is a nest or not.)
You can tell from this dried out piece of elephant dung, that the poor beasts do not have much left to feed on, just course dry grass.
Late in the evening, we took a walk in through the thick bush to a huge Meru oak tree at the far end of the property. What an ancient giant it is, with wonderfully gnarled bark where elephants have gouged into the tree in generations gone by. In a dry place like this, where there is not enough water to allow it to grow quickly, the tree is probably hundreds of years old. (Baobabs have been known to grow faster, but only in areas of high rainfall or artificial watering. It is estimated that the oldest Meru Oak are a couple of thousand years old, but they are very difficult to age because their soft, pulpy wood does not grow in rings.) The massive tree is a home to all sorts of smaller organisms: there is a busy beehive in one of its hollow branches, and many large spider webs (some growing over empty obsolete honey combs). You can see where honey hunters in years of old have driven in wooden stakes to allow them to climb the tree and retrieve their booty. The light and the clouds were gorgeous as the sun sank lower in the sky, and even the dead oak flowers with their rich white colour, were beautiful.
As we headed homewards, and rejoined the dust track that meanders back to the main road, we came across some elephants. Even though they were a distance, I took a photo nonetheless, for the elephant is one of my favourite though i have never been this close before.
_03_8-16-02.JPG)
In 2003 after KCSE I developed the bad habit of burning weed in unusual places. Weeding was an habit I had picked up in Meru School [where it was OK to blaze until 2002]. My home is in Tiania but on this hot January day I was in Meru Town with a friend. Halfway through the day we decided to light up so we went to Imenti forest. The weed was the seeded kind. In a minute of lighting up I plunged into Looney Tunes universe the forest became cartoonish green with colour running and my friend was turning into an hysterical hyena.
ReplyDeleteSo far things were going better than planned, I had never been so happy to be thirsty . Weed, unlike beer, does not turn you into a philosopher, instead you are just happier than any philosopher would advise. But while we were slipping into this better than fable awesomeness, a huge fat menacing mountain of gloom descended into our perfect world.
A lone elephant was crossing Meru-Nanyuki road when it almost collided with a speeding pick-up truck. Not that we could see it but we heard the melee . A huge yelp from the animal and a tyre burning screech by the vehicle should have warned us of trouble. But altered mental states meant we could not react until a rolling house sized mass of meat and tusk was bearing down on us . By the time we saw the elephant it was almost trampling on us. We tried to run away but the thing was too fast for us. It caught up with us and trampled us to our deaths. The elephant was too frightened itself to care about us so when we ran it did not follow us. I doubt if it had I would be overtyping this anecdote.
January is usually the last month of uruora so bushes are lush and sturdy with rainwater. This is what made our day a total nightmare. When you are running from an elephant you just run. In doing so we ran into neck high "elephant" nettle [ thaa e njogu/ thenyi e njou}. A broad leafed stinging nettle that leaves you scratching two days after an encounter.
If you have photos of the beauty described above they eagerly awaited.
thanks alot hoover photos coming soon
ReplyDelete