{"id":376,"date":"2009-01-03T08:45:06","date_gmt":"2009-01-03T08:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tonymcgregor.wordpress.com\/?p=158"},"modified":"2011-08-05T10:30:30","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T10:30:30","slug":"sweet-the-rain%e2%80%99s-new-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/2009\/01\/03\/sweet-the-rain%e2%80%99s-new-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet the rain\u2019s new fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-173\" src=\"http:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/files\/2009\/01\/garden-112.jpg\" alt=\"garden-112\" width=\"398\" height=\"265\" \/>The past few days in Pretoria have been rainy, not the torrential rain that has plagued the Western Cape and caused such disruption, but good rain has fallen nevertheless. As always, such rain brings new life to a garden, new leaves and flowers and insects. Our small garden has become a joyful place, a place of little joys and delights that recall for me the words of Eleanor Farjeon\u2019s popular song \u201cMorning has Broken\u201d:<br \/>\nSweet the rain\u2019s new fall<br \/>\nSunlit from heaven,<br \/>\nLike the first dew-fall<br \/>\nOn the first grass.<br \/>\nPraise for the sweetness<br \/>\nOf the wet garden<br \/>\nSpring in completeness<br \/>\nWhere his feet pass.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-174\" src=\"http:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/files\/2009\/01\/garden-093.jpg\" alt=\"garden-093\" width=\"497\" height=\"331\" \/>The grass underfoot has indeed become springy, and a wonderful vibrant green. The trees surrounding the garden have taken on a new look, as though they have put on new clothes in honour of the arrival of summer.<br \/>\nBirds, especially the masked weavers, have become very active in the garden also. The weavers collect long strips from the palm tree leaves to weave into their intricate and beautiful nests, many in a small area, to try to please their picky wives.<br \/>\nHadeda ibises dig great holes in the lawn in their search for earthworms and other delicacies. And on every leaf and petal shiny drops of rainwater glisten in the sun.<br \/>\nI took out my camera and wandered around the garden just clicking away at anything that looked interesting to me and the accompanying photos are the result. I\u2019m not sure of the aesthetic value of the images, but for me they are eloquent testimony to the arrival of summer.<br \/>\nTony McGregor<br \/>\nPretoria<br \/>\n12 November 2008<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-170\" src=\"http:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/files\/2009\/01\/garden-090.jpg\" alt=\"garden-090\" width=\"497\" height=\"331\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The past few days in Pretoria have been rainy, not the torrential rain that has plagued the Western Cape and caused such disruption, but good rain has fallen nevertheless. As always, such rain brings new life to a garden, new leaves and flowers and insects. Our small garden has become a joyful place, a place [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","amazonpipp_noncename":"","amazon-product-isactive":"","amazon-product-single-asin":"","amazon-product-content-location":"","amazon-product-content-hook-override":"","amazon-product-excerpt-hook-override":"","amazon-product-singular-only":"","amazon-product-amazon-desc":"","amazon-product-show-gallery":"","amazon-product-show-features":"","amazon-product-newwindow":"","amazon-product-show-list-price":"","amazon-product-show-used-price":"","amazon-product-show-saved-amt":"","amazon-product-timestamp":"","amazon-product-new-title":"","amazon-product-use-cartURL":"","amazon_featured_post_meta_key":"","_amazon_featured_alt":"","amazon-product-template":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pretoria","category-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":439,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions\/439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}