The Fight

I slowly wake, reaching consciousness, though it still feels a dream. Upon opening my eyes I see the tangled green beauty of a forest canopy. Small patches of sky between the leaves show the sky to be grey and overcast. My bed, not a bed at all; but an old stone bench, whose cold, hard surface, offers me no comfort.

Long thick grass, which has all but covered the bench, rustles against my naked body. Turning to stand up my eyes rest upon a brass plaque; its message obscured by times erosion still stands testament to somebody’s loss. Stepping stones, cracked, broken and barely visible in the undergrowth mark a way between the tall moss covered trees.

Intrigued I follow the stones, often tripping and falling as the way becomes increasingly overgrown. As I fight my way through the plants, not even sure where I am going or why I am pushing so hard to get there, my naked flesh bleeds as thorns and braches tear at it.

Exhausted and almost at the point of giving up the fight I reach a clearing. Leading from the clearing are two open paths leading in opposite directions. One direction reveals the now setting sun, almost on the horizon, and the other is nearly dark with the first stars just beginning to emerge. I stand in the clearing for some time. Though my cuts still sting; the painful part of the journey is past. Enjoying the reprieve, I contemplate my path.

Finally I begin to walk; away from the setting sun and into the darkness. Every end means a new beginning and tomorrow I will face the rising sun.

A series of unfortunate events caused by a rampant ecologist...

“I have known Lauren a long time she’s always been an idiot: sometimes more so, some times less so but always an idiot”. Chris Byrne

A friend once drunkenly sprouted this phrase that now has been adopted and is quoted regularly when I have ‘typical Lauren’ moments. I am apparently the dumbest clever person most of my friends know. After this week I’m inclined to fully agree…I, in the space of a few days, took out 4 cars, one electric gate, a garden wall, myself and nearly stole a car. My one friend truly believes I was somebody terrible in a past life because I have the worst luck of anybody he knows.

Last Wednesday I was on my way to a friend’s house, having just secured my absolute dream job. This job is the job that I would have put as being the job I wanted to have 10 years from now if all went well with my career. To say I was excited is an understatement. I was giddy as a schoolgirl, bouncing in my seat and grinning like an idiot. The one thing I was not doing was paying attention to the road. I slammed at full speed into the back of a row of cars waiting at a set of traffic lights.I caused a three car pile up. The car I hit was actually not owned by the driver but being borrowed and not insured. Luckily nobody except me was injured. My car however is a write-off and to be honest I’m lucky to be alive. The rest is a bit fuzzy as I had pretty bad shock and whiplash. All I know is that my friend Mike came and took care of everything for me. Mike also arranged for me to take his car (since he rides a motorbike and his lies idle) until everything with mine got organised.

Mikes car has sat for a few months in his garden untouched and to say it’s a little dodgy is an understatement. The windows don’t open, it has no air-con and the fan smells like a rat crawled in and died. So driving the 60 km from Johannesburg to Pretoria (a route I do about twice a week) in 30 degree Celsius weather is no fun at all. It also does not have a single panel that is not scratched or ruined in some way but the important part is that it drives. Also there was no spare tyre. Mike warned me of all these little quirks before handing over the keys and then I promptly drove myself to Pretoria to get to work. He also told me if it was stolen make sure it had enough petrol to get far away and if I crashed it to write it off since its insurance value was higher than the resale amount. Once at work I parked on the hill at the top of the driveway and went inside. I was just relieved I could get to work, since in a few days I would have to tell my boss I was leaving the company.

The storm of the centaury was brewing, the wind was blowing and the clouds looked ready to burst at any moment. Suddenly a huge clang followed by a bang was heard. We all ran outside and there lay Mikes car on the opposite side of the road against the neighbour’s wall. One detail Mike had forgotten to tell me was that the handbrake was dodgy. Mikes car had gone rampant and broke out of the office. As the storm broke I looked at the car, sat down and cried. Finally , after being coaxed up by my co-workers, I went down to inspect the damage and promptly locked the keys in the car (luckily I have ninja skills ands know how to break into cars really fast since I lock my own keys in my car so often). One burst tyre and dented boot. Not to mention the fact that the company’s electric gate was completely smashed and lying on the road. I phoned Mike to tell him and expecting a complete flip out instead he laughed till he cried called me a ‘nanna’ and chided me for not writing it off… The best part was at the police station trying to explain that when the accident happened nobody was driving, let just say the officer thought I was a nutjob.

Come Saturday I drove my friend Colby to a local venue where some bands were playing. We took the hubbly bubbly and chilled out until a band I wanted to see came on. At that point we packed the hubbly up and went to put it in my car so we could jam (well so Colby could jam since I was still injured and the best I could muster without pain was a wiggle). When we got there the front door was unlocked and I was convinced I had locked it but this is me, after all, so I shrugged it off put the hubbly in the back, locked up and went back inside. When we decided to leave, we went back to the car and my key didn’t work. Luckily Colby realised his window was open and let me in. Once inside the car we realised something was terribly wrong. All our stuff (except the hubbly) was missing. The windscreen was cracked, the radio missing, there were beer bottles every where and what appeared to be a sex toy on the seat. It was like somebody has broken in stolen some stuff, had a party, broken the windscreen and left. It made no sense but all I could think was “Mike is going to kill me”.

Freaking out, I climbed out the car and looked at it from behind. Tears welling up in my eyes I suddenly noticed that the back was not dented. It was in fact not our car… and yet it had my hubbly in it. Not once but twice I had climbed into the wrong car. After a brief confusion because the car guard was convinced I was trying to steal the hubbly and Colby and I were laughing so hard he must have thought we were mad, we found our actual car (fully as we left it).

So yes Chris I am an idiot…and this week in particular more so.

Natural warfare

Back in April I did some freelance work for iafrica and they asked me to write an article on eco-friendly gardening. The problem is I'm honestly the worlds worst gardener. Especially for an ecologist, a conserver of nature, I have killed far too many potplants and vegetables seedlings. It turns out, however, that you dont have to gardent to write gardening artcicles  because they published it.

The link to the online article is here: http://lifestyle.iafrica.com/article/613939.html but below is my version.

 A while back I decided to convert a forgotten area at the back of my garden into an organic vegetable patch. It was all going according to plan until, as I began to turn the soil, I uncovered something so horrible, so terrifying that I nearly gave up right then and there. I uncovered a creature that strikes fear into the hearts of most South Africans, a creature synonymous with terror and standing upon your toilet screaming, a creature that has been known to send grown men running: A parktown prawn.

While there are many species of king crickets in South Africa the parktown prawn, scientific name: Libanansidas vittatu , has achieved special acclaim among those in northern Johannesburg, whose gardens they commonly inhabit.

Now faced with this nightmare I fought the urge to run. As the little cricket, no bigger than my thumb lunged at my head, I fought the urge to hit it with my spade. And as it lunged at my head again the reason I flicked into the nearby shrub and not the neighbour’s garden was simple. I like spinach.

A single adult Parktown Prawn, can consume up to four snails a night and snails wreak havoc with my spinach. What is more, the parktown prawn also feeds on snail larvae, dropped fruit and dog droppings.

If I was going to go the organic route and have an all natural garden, I needed to accept it, Prawns and all. What most people, and often most gardeners, miss is that they key to a healthy and successful garden is a healthy ecosystem. If specific organism is eradicated or targeted in a garden then other organisms may also be mistakenly eradicated.

A common example is that of aphids and lady birds. Most chemical aphid poisons also kill lady birds, an aphid predator. Since the lady bird life cycle is longer than that of aphids it is likely the aphids will recover faster and be more numerous than before by the time the lady bird population in your garden has recovered. Usually a gardener will then apply more poison and the pest eradication cycle often continues until one is entirely dependent on the poison for aphid control. If simple repellent plants were instead planted alongside ones roses, to deter aphids, then the aphid population could be kept in check by natures own devices.

With this in mind, when a few days later I found a rain spider on the wall above my bed and I didn’t scream or reach for a can of deadly insect killer. I simply escorted the scary, hairy fellow outside because rain spiders eat parktown prawns.