Quacker Ducks

Just wanted everyone to know that after a LOT of searching I eventually got some Quacker Ducks-in fact I got 12 of them. They are happily installed with the chickens and geese, delighted with their little dam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Notice how happy they look–their little beaks curve upwards!!

Spiced Peach Chutney

Our peach harvest isn’t so prolific this year but I have managed to spare a few, from being guzzled straight down or thrown into a peach cobbler, to make a batch of spicy chutney.

Last year my sister was out visiting from Australia and we made this receipe with nectarines, substituting half of the sugar with our own organic fynbos honey. It has a distinct spiciness with the honey rounding off the flavours. Brilliant with a cheese platter, especially with camenbert.

This year my daughter and I made it, sitting on the stoep, peeling the 4kg peaches chatting about school, baby bunnies and life in general from an 8 year-old’s perspective. She helped me stir, flavour and spice this “girly chutney” and made me promise I would consider calling it the “mom and daughter chutney”.

We again added our own honey so it has that rounded flavour but it seems to be a lot spicier than last year-maybe it has something to do with the mood of the head chef?

Here’s the receipe it is taken out of a South African cook book–The Farm Kitchen

2kgs peaches (stoned and peeled)

2 Granny Smith apples (peeled and chopped)

2 thumb-sized pieces of ginger (peeled and grated)

4 cloves of garlic (peeled and crushed)

2 medium onions (peeled and chopped)

1x410gram chopped tomatoes

600ml wine vinegar

600gram sugar

30ml sea salt

10ml ground cinnamon

15ml grated nutmeg

15ml ground white pepper

Place peaches, apples, ginger, garlic and onions in a food processor, blend. Not too fine. Transfer to a large pot and add remaining ingredients. Bring to he boil, reduce heat to medium and leave to cook for at least an hour—until thick and gooey. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking. Spoon into sterilised bottles and seal.

Shepherd’s Hut

The old Shepherd’s Hut is about a two hours walk from the main house on Rusfontein.

Starting at the house, the walk takes one into the kloof enabling you to explore the spring and the stream that flows from it. Past Porcupine’s Cave and a short, steepish climb gets you onto the old cattle track. The track overlooks the caves and overhangs which were once used by the local Khoisan people.  While walking the cattle track to the top of the plateau there is plenty of Fynbos to see, wonderful views over the river valley and many birds to look out for–from Eagles to SBJ’s (small brown jobs!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above left is a photograph taken from the cattle track, overlooking the river valley and above right is a photo of some of the caves to be seen on this walk. If you look really closely you could spot the old bamboo ladder. This was used 50 odd years ago by the locals to collect honey from the very large beehives that are in these caves.

 On reaching the plateau one has a panaramic view from Stilbaai to Riversdal, with the famous Sleeping Beauty in the distance. From there you pass the old ruin on your right and walk down into the valley of Poplar Trees. (Local heresay is that Wikus’s grandfather was looking after sheep up here and left his Poplar walking stick in the ground which grew into a tree and hence a small little wood of Poplars.)

You walk across the valley and up a short scramble to arrive at the Shepherd’s Hut–a cute A-Frame house used by the shepherds and flower pickers in it’s hay day. They used to sleep up there all week and come down for the weekend. Below are pictures showing the before, during and after of the restoration of the thatch roof.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The original name for this type of house is the Hartbeeshuis—-nothing to do with the heart of an animal but from the Khoisan word Harub (meaning Biesies) and the Afrikaans word Biesies (thatch plant-type of restio)—Harub+Biesies+Huis—Hartbeeshuis.

These simple houses were built on remote farms where building materials where hard to come by.

We are busy making it ready as an overnight hut for anyone interested in a rustic experience, night sounds or stumbling across a Bushbuck in the moonlight.

Floods

Sitting here today with a howling wind and driving rain it is hard to forget that this time last year we were flooded out — through the house.

After a very dry winter up here the farmers are desperate for rain-the veld is extremely dry and dusty and the bokkies are visiting my luscious garden, nipping off the juicy rosebuds–I try to be gracious afterall it is because the veld is dry and the vegetation poor–they are hungry!! 

Every year ,sometimes twice a year the river “comes down” . In other words we have a flood—the roads are closed and we are farm bound for a day or two–very exciting as the kids can’t get to school! Some jetties are lost and boats are washed away.  However last year on the 22nd November the river flooded and we had a spring tide that pushed up the estuary causing the river to rise another 2.5 meters that then flooded through our house, garden and farmyard with it’s muddy, brown water.

When the river subsided because of the lie of the land, the water was stuck in a pool around our house which we then had to pump out for four days. All very exciting — we canoed on our lawn and had 50cm fish swimming around. However, Day 3 of operation cleanup and all sense of humour was lost–no electricity, dead chickens, mud everywhere, a rotting smell of stagnant river water and everything wet—never again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above left pic shows the flood around our house after it had subsided-when in full flood it was over 2 meters deep in that little cottage. On the right shows the river coming down through the end of the estuary –where you see trees you are not normally able to see water at all, as it is little streams hidden by reeds.

Well–3 days later –I wrote the above on the 12th and today is the 15th—we managed to live through another flood. All chickens and livestock moved to higher ground and the entire household contents moved to the upstairs rooms and piled on top of each other. We slept lightly, Herman and I sharing the hourly vigil of climbing out of bed, donning the headtorch and checking the height of the water as the again Springtide pushed up the very flooded river through the night. At 1am Herman moved the cars up to higher ground in ankle-deep water and at 2am I moved my last little hen that was sitting “vas” on her 9 eggs, refusing to vacate. However Mother Nature was kind and dawn saw us tired and muddy but dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well—the boat did end up on top of the gazebo and the jetty flipped upside down.

Our beautifully mown lawn that leads down to the river is covered in 20cm deep mud—but our house is dry and clean and all livestock well, alive!!!

Now the weather bereau is predicting further floods in 5 days time–hmmmm.

The Nece-scary Fire

Rusfontein consists of 630 hectares, of which 3 hectares lies on the fertile floodplain–the other 627 odd hectares stretches away from the river up into kloofs and onto a plateau which us locals call the “Backlands”. Most of the farms along the river do this, the value of the farms is based mainly on the strip that lies next to the river. The Backlands are veld. In otherwords you can put a few sheep or cattle up there and farm thatch and lately fynbos flowers but that’s about all. So for agricultual purposes it is very poor. It is also difficult to manage in the sense that the highly invasive Rooikrans species (Acacia cyclops) that originally was brought in from Austalia to stabilise the sand dunes, thrives here, takes over and kills off the Fynbos. It’s seeds can lie dormant for 30-40years and are further dispersed by birds and ants.  Fynbos is the main contributor to the Cape Floral kingdom which is the smallest but richest of the six world plant kingdoms. For Fynbos to thrive it needs to burn every few years for seed dispersion and rejuvanation.

In 2005 Rusfontein’s Backlands was 90% Rooikrans forests and hadn’t burnt in any living locals’ memory.

Backlands Job List—Priority no 1—-Burn!

Pictured on the right is an example of what the Rooikrans looked like–these trees are twice the height of a Landrover and as you can see nothing can grow underneath them. It also didn’t allow for visibility on the farm- it was impossible to see the wildlife as you had maximum of 2 meters visibilty on most of the farm–you stared straight into dense, thick Rooikrans.

 

The fire was planned for Monday, 21 March 2006, firebreaks were created, all the relevant government departments informed and fire fighters were notified and on standby. After much planning and anticipation with a hefty dose of nerves. We were ready!!  

Typically there was a last minute beauracratic hitch and we were not issued a fire permit on the day of the planned burn. After such a  build up we felt flat and extremely disappointed with the thought of waiting another week and sent everyone home. Needless to say some or other higher power intervened and struck a tree with a bolt of lightening at 4pm, and over the next four days proceded to burn our farm not only the half we had planned to burn but also the half we had NOT planned to burn.

Not to mention the neighbour’s Backlands and the neighbour’s nieghbour’s Backlands–and the neighbour’s neighbour’s neighbour’s Backlands!

The towering smoke and inferno from the burning of those pesky Rooikrans could be seen kilometers away, lighting up the sky at night with brillant red and orange.

Thank goodness for the gift of rain on that Thursday when our world could return to some sort of normality. No more standing on the house’s thatch roof with a hose, no more ash fallout and no more sleepless nights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Above left is our friend Vaughn inspecting the post-fire damage and above right the lunar landscape we were left with after the burn. It looked devasting, everything was covered in grey ash with burnt trees standing straight with their sharp edges. However, nature is amazing and always prevails, within 6 months the veld was green again and a large variety of Fynbos could be seen coming through along with all the wildlife. Below is a photo of the veld a year after the fire with a Steenbok tucked away in the long grass.

Life Dream or Nightmare?

When we bought Rusfontein in mid 2005 we were in for a challenge. It was severely neglected and very rundown with little or no maintenance. The “backlands” were overgrown with the invasive Rooikrans and had managed to kill off 90% of the natural and unique fynbos of this area. The agricultural section –the area where actual organised farming can take place on the fertile flood plain was overgrown with knee-high Kikyu grass and weeds. The three man-made dams that were supposed to channel the spring’s water into the river and create a bird sanctuary had all collapsed and stagnated, creating a marsh and mosquito haven.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture above left shows the different farm houses and fertile flood plain that runs down to the river. Where all the brown/grey reeds are, is where one of the dams stood.  The picture above right shows some of the piles of junk that had accumulated on the farm from the previous owner. We removed sixteen ten truck loads of rubbish!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above picture on the left shows a close-up of the actual state of the land and above right the state in which the buildings were–this is what we call the Garden Shed. With all this long grass it was snake heaven.

The first job was to fill in the dams and to flatten and level the plain back to it’s former self–at the same time to re-channel the spring’s flow through the land to the river. We put in a 15cm diameter pipe that we laid on top of the ground while the bulldozer worked, allowing us to move it around to acess all areas of the ground while keeping it dry. At a later stage we built a proper channel, cladded with stone for the water to flow down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above left is the kids sitting on the bulldozer (after hours) in a now flattened field and above right is a Cape Cobra that was unfortunate to find it’s self under the bulldozer—I said all that long grass was snake heaven!! This certainly was a large and quite mature snake (it doesn’t look like it in the picture but it was over 6 foot long with huge,very long, brown fangs)-We have no idea how long it had been hiding away in all that overgrown grass while we casually traipsed past in our sometimes very bare feet!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above left shows the closing in of a dam and above right the farm once all the dams are closed in and the fruit trees are starting to be planted (about Sep 2006)—one can also see the river and the wonderfully close proximity of it. Stunning for swimming and canoeing–since it is part of the new Marine Reserve no more fishing is allowed but the bird life, flying fish and otters are all worthwhile watching out for. We even had a seal up here one year breeding her pups.

Spring-when nature truly shows off her abundance

It is one of those glorious days on the farm–the kind of day when you have no wish to be anywhere else but here. Working in the sun, feeling the heat thaw out the last of the winter chills. And even standing still you know that Nature continues to do her thing. Everything is GROWING and flowering at an alarming rate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is a pic of the Kithen Veggie garden–small scale veggies for our use, around about 5:30 every evening we wander in to pick what we can for supper. So far this spring we have eaten Asparagus,Beetroot, Rocket, Spinach and all different types Lettuce and just about to pick Brocoli and Peas.