I am always tickled by the look-alike skins of baobabs and elephants…from baobab trunk…

to elephant trunk…

Elephant Musings and water
A2
Acrylic on loose canvas

and the wrinkled limbs such as this foreleg…

and this tiny little leg disappearing into the baobab trunk below…has that baby really just climbed into the fork of this giant baobab!?

Baobabs endlessly fascinate me, each one as distinctive as the elephant characters we watch daily….subjects of many of my paintings…such as “Baobab Beauty”, acrylic on loose canvas, 90 X 90 cm:

 Baobab Beauty, acrylic on loose canvas, 90 X 90 cm

Baobabs provide total environments for birds, bats, insects, snails, bees and humans, a cornucopia of shade, shelter and sustenance….

Baobab powder is just one of the products that we love eating, (I love it on muesli with yoghurt and honey…)

…as long as it is sustainably harvested, as by our Changana mahenye community…

Elephants and baobabs are so alike, but the sad fact is that elephants also eat baobabs voraciously at certain times of the year!

Best way to protect a two-thousand year old baobab skin from an elephant is to give it a snug corset of chain mail, such as this being wrapped around our Gonarezhou baobab whom I have named “Mr Steadfast”…..

but unlike ancient medieval armour, this mesh link fence is gentle and unobtrusive, seen only at close range…

We are lucky to have the help of wonderful donors to the baobab fund managed by the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust, (GCT)…donors such as Chicago-born Barbara Kipper, lover of wilderness, art, travel, and all things African, (especially baobabs and baobab powder!) whose help has resulted in Mr Steadfast Baobab getting his corset of chain mail…

Leader of the baobab protection team, Bvekenya is a man with history...

he is the grandson of the legendary “Bvekenya”- Cecil Barnard, ivory hunter who roamed these parts and would have sheltered under these very thousand year old trees…

So, one more baobab of more than 50 protected baobabs so far is done and dusted in Gonarezhou….thank you Barbara!

But of course the elephants will continue eating……..

and eating…..

and EATING!…..

These gentle giants need more than 100 kg of food daily…

and that’s a whole new story….