Mothering Sunday
Many people believe that Mothering Sunday is a relatively modern invention but its roots go back much further than the modern festival launched by an American woman at the turn of the century. Anna Jarvis had devoted her life to caring for her mother and decided that it was important to have a special occasion each year to acknowledge how precious mothers are. The first Mother’s Day Service and celebrations in the United States were held in West Virginia in 1908 and five years later Mother’s Day became an official holiday throughout America on the second Sunday of May. Carnations are also associated with Mother’s Day as she took carnations to the service as they had been her mother’s favorite flowers.
However, the European mid-Lenten celebration dates back to the Middle Ages when in Catholic Britain it was custom for servants to visit their Mother Church (where they were baptized) on mid-Lent Sunday to make offerings at the high altar. In the “Gentlemen’s Magazine for February 1784, Nichols, an English writer, notes that when he was an apprentice the custom was to visit his mother, a native of Nottingham, on mid-Lent Sunday.
Another writer in the same volume says: “I happened to reside near Chepstow and heard for the first time of Mothering Sunday. The practice was for servants and apprentices on mid-Lent Sunday to visit their parents an make them a present of money or a trinket or some nice eatable’ Indentured servants and apprentices would sometimes travel many miles to present their mothers with gloves, a traditional gift or even a posey of early spring flowers from the fields through which they trudged, if they had no money to spare from their meager wages. There would be a special meal which broke the monotony of the Lenten fast and a Simnel cake was baked.
In Leckford, near Stockbridge in Hampshire, England, Mothering Sunday was called Wafering Sunday from the wafer cake impressed with a seal that young people offered to their mothers on this occasion. A special iron used to impress the cakes had two stamps, one on which had three locked hearts surmounted by a cross enclosed within a circle. The other had foliate ornaments on the other side. They were made red hot and the wafer was branded with them by someone employed especially to do this job.
May you spend a wonderful day with your family and loved ones surrounding you!!
I remember one year when my son was about 7 he gave me a card which read:
"This year for Mother's Day I thought I would give you a choice: Breakfast in bed or a clean kitchen"
Needless to say I opted for a clean kitchen as in order to make a scrambled egg, a slice of toast and a cup of coffee, he dirtied almost every single pot and pan in the house!! LOL!!
It is a very small one with a wingspan of less than half an inch but it had there interesting wings and almost thorn-like appendages on its legs.
Please excuse this bad shot but it is the only other one I have and as it was dark, I had to use the flash which messed up the colors in the body.
The Cluster Fig had its fruit on but it was not quite ripe yet so the birds would have to wait another few days for their meal.
The Quiver Tree mainly grows in very dry areas and was named by the Bushmen people who make quivers out of the trunks.
A very eye-catching patch.
The Euphorbia protects itself with these huge thorns. One of the species gets huge white flowers on which only blooms at night and is visited by bats for pollenation purposes.
A shady and tranquil spot......
Over one of the ponds was this interesting looking stalk filled with seeds.
I have no idea what this is called but they are very pretty.
Most of the ponds had these cute ducks on them.
I saw it land on a tree but rather high up so I went and found a chair to stand on and grabbed my camera at the same time.
As you can see, I was still a lot below them but the pictures came of fairly well so I thought I would post them. They can be enlatged for more detail. These insects have the longest legs!!
...... and the moths hatch from that.
Depending on what they are fed, the silk is either yellow or white. The silk shop has their own farm where they breed the worms and gather cocoons by the thousands.
Now here the story splits and I will give you the explination as given to me by Africa Silks...
Once washed, they are stretched apart as far as they will go an attached to this aquare wooden frame.
Mopani worms are also used and woven by Africa SIlks, the processing of the silk being more labor intensive than the silkworm. The wild Mopani worm does not feed in captivity, therefore the cocoons are harvested from nature. Their cocoons are very hard and nut-like and involve a long process to be washed, brushed and spun into threads, ready for weaving.
It is fairly small, probably less than 1/2" in diameter but it was very protective.
The egg would probably hold a 100 or so babies in it.
Their egss are laid and lay over for the winter so hatch when summer comes around again.
They feed on both tough and soft grass.
As you know I am not a birder, but I wanted to show you this one. Unfortunately the breeding season is over so the male has lost most of its color but the bright, metalic spot you can see on its shoulder is what the whole of the top of his head lookes like in summer.
But hey, beggars can't be choosers and I am happy that I at least got SOME shots of it. :)
They are usually solitary or in pairs amd found in most parks and gardens where they mostly feed on the abundant Aloes to be found growing.
They are very vocal and will chase other Sunbirds away from their food source. This one below is almost a good picture of it taking off.
We had an ice skating competition on and I decided to see if I could get some pictures to share. Once again, it is something I had never tried to do before but wanted to see what they would come out like.
Now there were a lot of difficulties involved in this:
WOW!! What a task this turned out to be and you can see the awful results. About the only thing I got right was that there is no blur of movement but with using ISO1600, everything is very grainy and the colors are not correct.
So, somebody out there please help and tell me what I SHOULD have done!! LOL!!
All I can say it that I could at least show you their lovely costumes they had on ..... well maybe .... if you look close enough and can ake them out in this mess!! LOL!!
