The Witch Balls & The Japanese Maple

It’s always the week that makes November worth celebrating. I’m referring to the spectacular display in my living room in the first ten days of November when my Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) transforms itself from a tracery of green to brilliant shades of apricot, coral, gold and scarlet.

 I don’t have any curtains in the front room, just the maple outside, but the jewels in my window are the blown glass witch balls I hung there eight years ago. Not to ward off bad spirits or protect my house, as is the apparent historic use of witch balls – though that would certainly be a side-benefit. Rather it’s that eye-popping contrast of the fall colour pigments of the maple (anthocyanins and carotenes) with the refracting light from within the blown glass that makes the window seem more like a dynamic art installation than a potentially kitschy folkcraft display.

Kitsch. That’s what I was worried about a decade ago after impulsively purchasing a case lot of select witch balls from Iron Art in Ohio (at the time, I was allowed to place their minimum wholesale order, but they’ve since set up a retail site called Iron Elegance, and they also have a wide network of retailers). I’ve never been a fan of window coverings if there’s a view to close out – whether the lovely tree in the front garden or the panorama of the entire back garden from my kitchen window. Let the neighbours stare, I don’t care; nature is more important to me. But glass witch balls aren’t stained glass panels; as lovely as they might look, how would I hang them?  I decided to go ahead and if I didn’t like the look, I could remove them. So I bought three wall-mounted metal cup racks featuring leaves and birds and a couple of small hooks for the larger middle window, then spray-painted them all dark-teal to go with the woodwork. I screwed them into my window frame, then, using fishing wire, I tied the balls at various levels in the upper part of the window.  And as the sun shone through them that first November 2013, I was completely enchanted.

I have always loved the look of blown glass, but the first time I saw it used in a garden was in 2003 at my dear friend Virginia Weiler’s home in North Carolina, where the work of her friend John Nygren hung in her tree.

And during a 2008 garden writers’ tour of Portland, I was intrigued by Lucy Hardiman’s wonderful hanging glass display.  I thought about how I might achieve something like this at home, but it seemed to me that the cold winters and winds in Toronto might be too severe for an outdoor display.

CORNING MUSEUM OF GLASS

In September 2008 we visited the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York and my love affair with glass continued. (You can read my blog about the museum here.)

From Dale Chihuly’s ‘Fern Tower’ in the lobby…

…. to the 1905 Louis Comfort Tiffany window of hollyhocks, clematis and the Hudson River, all that survives from the 44-room Rochroane Castle, built for Natchez oil and cotton millionaire Melchior Stewart Belthoover in Irvington, New York…

… to the exquisite forest glass or ‘waldglas’ drinking glasses made in northern Europe from the middle ages to the 18th century using tree and fern potash whose iron content lends the green hue…

… to the sleek, modern work of Italian and Finnish glass artists…. 

…. to a mosaic Mediterranean glass bowl from the 1st or 2nd century BC, I loved it all.

At the conclusion, I even had the opportunity to blow my own glass ball – with a little help from an expert.

MURANO

Two years after visiting the Corning Museum of Glass, we were in Venice and decided to tour the island of Murano with its famous glass blowing factories.

The tour was set up by our hotel with the pick-up and boat ride to the island courtesy of one of the glass furnace factories, so we were obliged to begin there. After a long, interesting tour of the firing floor, we visited all the display floors beginning with the most expensive sculptures and chandeliers at the top (nope!) and descending to the affordable cufflinks!  But somehow we ended up ordering six of the most beautiful, gold-rimmed glasses you’ve ever seen, which were mailed to us weeks later. I also wrote a blog about this memorable day.

After the obligatory furnace tour ended, we walked around the small island, visiting the interesting glass museum and window shopping. I found a jewelry shop owned by a young woman busy making earrings and beautiful blown-glass bead necklaces.

One of those became my Christmas gift from Santa that year.

Walking on, we came upon this spectacular sculpture by Simone Cenedese called Comet Glass Star. Then we had one of our best meals on our entire Venetian vacation, at a little workman’s osteria on Murano.

The Magic of Light in my Window

Though ever more humble, I still find myself sitting in my living room on those days when the sun shines through the fall leaves of the maple….

…. and hits the splashes of colour in the witch balls.

I even made a video a few years back to try to explain it.

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Today there’s freezing rain outside and soon snow will be in the forecast in Toronto. On the snowy November day when I photographed the window, below, the leaves hadn’t even fallen yet.

And I recall vividly the winter wonderland look of the tree after our devastating ice storm of December 21, 2013.

Sometimes, when I have holiday lights on the maple’s branches, I stand in the front room looking out in the darkness. The witch balls even look festive at Christmas!

In late winter or early spring, I can often catch the resident cardinals in the maple tree.

At that time of year, when the tree hasn’t yet leafed out, I especially appreciate the detail and colours of the blown glass, whether blue…

…. or green…

… or a glass so clear you can see the tiny grains from the glass-making process.

And then, suddenly, it’s June and my “living” living room ‘curtain’ is back in place, its leaves energized by the power of the sun and the glass balls refracting all the light that’s left over.

After I gave the witch balls their every-three-years wash last week, I watched them turning for what seemed like hours. I’m sure there’s some Galilean law of reciprocal motion about what happens when you twist a sphere suspended by a wire, but it seemed even more magical, as if they were rotating in sympathy with the fluttering leaves on the maple. So I’m ending with this magical moment, which I’ve set to music by the very generous T.R.G. Banks.

Safari: Kicheche Laikipa – Part 3

If you’ve read my first and second blogs on our safari at Kicheche Laikipia, in Kenya, you’ll know that it is now late March 2016, on the cusp of the rainy season. We’re the last guests in this intimate 6-tent camp near Nanyuki, which will close for the season in just two days.   This morning we’ve slept well and are ready for the 5:30 am knock at the tent door and the tray of coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits. Within 40 minutes of waking, we’re with our guide Albert Chesoli out on the savannah, awaiting the sunrise. As yesterday, Mount Kenya is clearly visible on the horizon; later in the day, it is almost always shrouded by cloud.

Mount-Kenya-before-sunrise

Slowly, the sky turns pink….

Pink-sky-Ol-Pejeta

…. and finally, the sun rises. Though we don’t have the lovely giraffe silhouettes we saw yesterday, there’s always something interesting on the horizon at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, like these zebras grazing amongst acacia trees in the distance.

Sunrise-Ol Pejeta

It isn’t long after sunrise when we’re rewarded with what is our best sighting in all of our safari excursions. We spot two cheetah brothers (Acinonyx jubatus), the remaining pair of three brothers born six years earlier.  They are amazingly synchronized in their behaviour, heads turning at the same time….

Cheetas-Ol Pejeta1

….lying down at the same time, then meandering off through the grasses together to sit, one marking a tree to establish territory.

Cheeta-Ol-Pejeta6

Albert positions our van as close to them as possible, then turns the engine off. For the next half-hour or so, we are utterly absorbed watching them in this quiet corner of Ol Pejeta.  Like the cats they are, one sharpens his claws on a dead tree trunk….

Cheetas-Ol Pejeta2

…while his brother watches for prey, preferably an antelope or gazelle straying from the pack.

Cheetas-Ol Pejeta3

What beautiful markings on their faces!

Cheetas-Ol Pejeta5

Soon they begin to relax – a snooze, perhaps, in their future.

Cheetas-Ol Pejeta4

The cheetah brothers are so transfixing, I’ve been switching between still photos and video.  Because of weight restrictions on the small planes, I only brought my ‘small’ camera, the Canon PowerShot SX50HS with its powerful 50x zoom lens (now replaced by the Canon SX60HS with 65x optical zoom), but it’s perfect for recording these two stunning animals interacting playfully and lovingly with each other like the bonded 6-year olds they are.

When it appears that lolling around wrestling and grooming each other, rather than hunting, is on their agenda, we turn on the engine and head back out on the savannah…..

Ol Pejeta Conservancy

…. but the other animal sightings this morning are somewhat anti-climatic after our cheetah experience. We decide to stop for our picnic breakfast, and Albert finds us a clearing near a spring-fed stream and prepares to sets the table.

Albert Chesoli-Kicheche Laikipia-picnic

This morning’s menu features Scotch eggs, a delicious combination of spicy sausage and boiled eggs, with crepes and mango chutney.

Safari breakfast-Kicheche-Laikipia

As I sip my coffee, I notice a little glimmer of bright-red in the grasses. It’s the tiny flower of an indigenous hibiscus, H. aponeurus. In my later reading, I discover this little flower was used by the Maasai in witchcraft!

Hibiscus aponeurus-Ol Pejeta

Besides the acacias, the other predominant shrub on the savannah is Euclea divinorum, which is widespread on the African continent.

Euclea divinorum-Ol Pejeta

The morning has warmed up considerably and many of the animals seem to be hiding from the heat. So we drive back to camp – pronounced Kee-cheh-chay – to put our feet up for a while before lunch.

Kicheche Laikipia Sign

After lunch, I read on our tent porch and watch a cape buffalo at the water hole. But when I approach with my camera, he galumphs off through the mud…..

Tent-overlook-Kicheche

….. so I photograph the cattle egrets on a dead tree instead.

Egrets-Ol Pejeta

In mid-afternoon, I’ve arranged to meet William Wanyika, who not only works in the Kicheche camp administration but is the resident beekeeper, something he’s been doing for most of his life. (Photographing honey bees is one of my great passions.)

William Wanyika-beekeeper-Kicheche Laikipia

William shows me the flowers of the abundant euclea, which are providing most of the nectar flow for the bees at the moment….

Euclea divinorum flowers

…and I ask him to talk a bit about his beekeeping while I videotape him. What a treat to have this opportunity to learn about something I’ve chronicled at home.  Here’s my video – sorry about the buffeting wind.

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Black-Chested Snake Eagles-Kicheche Laikipia

As we get closer to the Sweetwaters Chimp Sanctuary where the majority of lodges and hotels are, we find lots of crowded safari vehicles on the road; one driver pulls close to tell Albert about a lion sighting nearby  On our way to find it, we come upon a bull elephant (Loxodonta africana) drinking at a pond. It’s clear by his partially-unsheathed penis that he has also recently been (or is about to be) urinating. From his vantage point, Albert doesn’t think he’s in musth, but with my telephoto lens I can capture him at a safe distance and later see that there are secretions from the temporal glands at the side of his head which seem to indicate that he is.   If so, his urine contains much higher levels of testosterone than usual, and dribbling it around signals his musth status to other males.

Elephant-Ol-Pejeta

Unlike the female elephants that congregate in matriarchal communities with grandmothers, daughters, aunts, female cousins and the youngest male and female calves living together, young male elephants are kicked out when they reach their adolescent years (about 14) and will live in “bachelor clubs” with other males and a dominant bull male, from whom they learn behaviour. When females are in oestrus, musth males can detect it from far away.

Once the elephant saunters off, we go in search of the lions, finding them resting in the trees near the road, likely waiting for darkness before going hunting. So we drive on.

Lion-Ol Pejeta

Next we find a pair of grey-crowned cranes (Balearica regulorum) doing their courtship dance….

Grey-crowned Cranes-Ol Pejeta

….and a southern white rhinoceros drinking at one of Ol Pejeta’s water troughs….

Southern White Rhinoceros-Ol Pejeta

….and some newborn zebras, below. The common (Burchell’s) zebras (Equus burchellii) usually give birth during the rainy season in East Africa. The mare will separate from the herd before delivering in order to protect the vulnerable foal.

Zebra & foal-Ol Pejeta

Albert points out that zebras have evolved long enough legs for a newborn that when standing behind their mothers (and combined with the visually confusing stripes), lions cannot easily detect them.

Zebra mother & foal leg height-Ol Pejeta

As we drive on, we see a group of safari vans parked along the road, all the cameras trained on a lioness She yawns…..

Lion-yawning-Ol Pejeta

….then saunters off, and we decide we’re a little tired, too. Time to head back for a drink – the traditional safari ‘sundowner’ – before dinner.

Tomorrow, we fly home and this is our final sighting at Kicheche Laikipia and Ol Pejeta Conservancy.  But I’ve collected video of a lot of the animals we’ve seen over the past few days, and put it together so I can enjoy the feel of the savannah here any time I want.  I hope you enjoy watching it, too..

On our last morning, we sleep in a little (no safari drive today) and have breakfast in the main tent before packing for home.

Camp breakfast-Kicheche-Laikipia

We say our goodbyes to Andy & Sonja Webb, and Albert drives us into the little airport at Nanyuki and watches until we’re safely up in the air. These flights are often milk runs, and the sleepy passengers settle in as we head to Wilson Airport outside Nairobi via a stop at Lewa Downs, where we began our Kenyan adventure one week before.

Air Kenya plane

As we fly over Laikipia, I gaze down at the landscape below us.  The patchwork farm crops…..

Laikipia-Aerial2

….the wheat fields…..

Laikipia-Aerial3

…and the great forests and acacia-dotted plains of the conservancies and parks where Kenya’s magnificent animals roam free.

Laikipia-4

It is a land like no other, and one we’re so fortunate to have experienced.

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Postscript:  Given the vagaries of airline schedules, a total of 41 hours will elapse between awakening at Kicheche Laikipia and going to bed In Toronto.  To pass some of the hours before our Nairobi-London leg, we’ve booked a day room at Macushla House on Nairobi’s outskirts, where we stayed for 2 nights more than a week ago on our arrival in Kenya from London.

Macushla House1

We can sit and read in an easy chair….

Macushla House3…while enjoying the unique furnishings, like this cool owl support post….

Macushla House4

Or sip a gin-and-tonic at an outdoor table with lunch…

Macushla House2

…after a swim in the pool.

Macushla House5

Eventually, it’s time to brave Nairobi’s traffic to Jomo Kenyatta airport to begin the flights home to Canada. As always, East Africa has bewitched us, its people have enchanted us, and its majestic animals have served as powerful reminders that there are still beautiful places in the world where ‘wild’ is more than just a word, it’s a covenant with nature.