Harvesting Honey

Yesterday we were able to harvest  liquid gold from five of our ten hives. The earlier harvest–October/November was a disaster, our area has been very dry for 2008 and the farmers were experiencing a mini-drought. Needless to say this makes the veld very dry with very little veld flowers and the bees then use their honey up for food. In November there was zero honey—for anyone in this area and there are a lot of people farming with bees out here. Lovely, open, unspoilt fynbos for delicious organic, wild honey.

However the bees have been pretty busy since then, we had a couple of good days of rain and the veld burst into flower giving the bees plenty to do. Yesterday, Oom Louis, the local bee expert and most passionate person about bees and honey that I know, came to give us a hand to harvest five of our hives.

The honey was dripping off them, giving us all much delight and very sticky fingers. Freshly harvested honey tastes like gold–liquid gold–with sunshine, flowers and light stirred in—there is no other description for it. We all stood around sucking pieces of honeycomb, oohing and aahing, giving thanks to the bees. Truly the food fit for kings.

Oom Louis took all the honey to spin out into buckets (no heat is used — to keep the honey rich with all it’s properties) when we get it back from him we will bottle it and have it for sale.  Need to quickly do a label for it.

 Yummy, yummy honey!!!!!!

Target Shooting

Last week I had one of those days when  you just couldn’t deny that we are living in Nature’s space. First there was a huge frog in the swiming pool pipe and a crab stuck in the Kreepy Krawly, then there was the snake.

I have the chicken food stored in black plastic bins, there was always mice in the feedroom but were kept  to a minimum by the cats. Since getting the geese the cats, having been pecked and hissed at a few times, have given up on the feedroom, seeing it as a danger zone. Hence the mice have been getting a bit out of control and had chewed straight through the plastic bins to get to the corn. I had gone into the feedroom to feed all the poultry and noticed a movement through the chewed hole, dismissing it as the mouse , I stuck my fingers in the hole to pull open the lid.

There inside was a Cape Cobra, coiled, awake and inches from my fingers.

A Cape Cobra is a highly posionous and lethal snake, if it bites you, you have only twenty minutes to get to a doctor. As we live a fast driving twenty minutes from the closest town, I really do not want a Cobra hanging around the farm near our children, livestock, dogs, workers or ourselves. The desicion was made to shoot it, which we did.

I then thought it would be a good idea if I learnt  to shoot–I can’t always rely on Herman to do it as he is often not here. So the family went up to the backlands of the farm and we all had a lesson in firearms and did some targetshooting. Even Keya (age eight) had a go and managed to hit the target. Herman is an excellent instructor and I managed to hit bullseye with a good grouping—everything on the board. That’s fine for me to hit a snake!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last thought—-the snake did manage to clear out the mice.

First Muscovey Hatching

We have two white Muscovey (Macou) ducks called Elvis and Priscilla. The male was called Elvis because of his comb of hair that stands up whenever he is excited (the kids one day just popped out that he looks like Elvis). Obviously his mate had to be Priscilla. I have also told the kids that we will not harvest any pets and in their minds it means if they have a name they are a bit safer (they did spend a day trying to name all the braai hoenders/broilers).

Priscilla has been sitting quietly in her own little teepee for a while now on eleven eggs. Everyday washing herself and wetting her breast feathers to keep the humidity right for the eggs.

Muscovey ducks sit for thirty-five days on their eggs, longer than the geese and a whole fourteen days longer than chickens who sit for a mere twenty-one days.

Yesterday she stood up in the morning and I was so excited to see a wet, yellow bundle amongst her eggs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By yesterday evening there were ten little ducklings around her. Mostly yellow, some with a little black and pink beaks. One egg hasn’t hatched out and the last one to hatch out wasn’t able to move under Priscilla to keep warm. Waterfowl seem to be quite strict in the sense that the chick must move to the mother if she moves and keep up. Possibly in nature it is a way of ensuring the strongest survive. Anyway, we cheated a bit as we saw it was very cold and put it under the infra-red light for the night–it was a lot stronger this morning and I replaced it with Priscilla, hoping it will be able to keep up with her.

Our First Ox

Last week we had a situation we needed to address. One of our young oxen (tollie) hadn’t been properly castrated and had one very virile testicle. Our prize older bull was having to compete with him for the cows coming into season. This ended up with them chasing each other and the cows,  thoroughly upsetting them all. This could mean we’d possibly lose the opportunity to have the cows covered or them getting injured in the process. So the decision was taken to “take the young ox out”. We had previously tried to take him to be slaughtered, wanting to try our hand at the meat thing and he had jumped right over the two meter railing on the bakkie, hit the ground running and disappeared into the veld.

As the cattle live in the “backlands” they roam the 630 hectares far and wide and live a beautifully peaceful existence. We decided that in would be best to shoot him out there and then bring him down to work the meat. This would be the least stress for him (and us).

Herman has a good aim and was able to bring him down with one shot. The trouble was to load him onto the back of the bakkie—well there was six of us and we couldn’t budge him.(a dead weight of 300+kgs)  Luckily we have builders working on the guest house at the moment so we could get four more strong men to help. With a lot of effort we were able to lift him onto the bakkie and drive him down to the “butchery”.

I am not going to go into the details of skinning an ox, disembowling and cutting up but that is what we did. A lot of work and very interesting, a very real lesson in anatomy, once you get over the beginning feelings of squeamishness.

The ox is then cut into four and hung in the cooler room for two weeks to mature. Thereafter we can process it. This means to mince, make wors and cut steaks. We seriously need to get our wors recipe up to scratch and see if we can borrow a larger wors stopper.

From Vegetarism to Self-sufficiency

For the past 20 years I have been one of those  ”on and off”  vegetarians,  having grown up in suburbia,  meat was something that was bought wrapped in clingwrap on the supermarket shelf and an animal was something that lived and breathed and needed to be loved and cared for. (ie. a dog or a cat ) Therefore there was no connection between an animal and actual meat on my plate — I couldn’t marry the two and therefore decided it was best not to eat meat. How could I buy into killing something that needed to be cared for?  Therefore how could I eat an animal?  

However my decision was not based on true experience but rather projected human emotions, I found myself feeling quilty about enjoying meat when my resolve lapsed in the face of a crisp oven roasted chicken or a tender lamb chop straight from the braai.

Moving to the farm I continued this frame of being–only having chickens for eggs and when the roosters became too many I  pointed the offending ones out to Polina (a local lady that works on the farm and lives from the land) and disappeared for the day to the closest “big” town. Returning to a quieter yard and a slightly more stocked freezer. Most of the time I let Polina have them all.

Living out here — the fresh air and natural rythms of nature — seems to change one. Death becomes more acceptable and just part of life. Having experienced spring lambs been stillborn, chickens been eaten by various wildlife, cows dying of botulism  and losing a dog suddenly to tickbite fever all helps to put death in perspective. There is no doubt that it is sombering– as new life is elating, death is sombering.

I have recently decided it is senseless for me to try be a vegetarian out here on the farm,  the real honesty of being out here is eating our produce–meat included. The strangest thing is that connecting the animal to what is on your plate makes more sense and funny enough easier. Knowing that this animal has had a good life and that it was cared for and fed well. Processing the meat ourselves allows us to honour the animal and give it the place of respect it deserves. Something I could never understand until we did it–and now it feels ok (and honest). Living from the land.

That being said I decided I needed to step up to the plate and be part of the next “harvesting”  of two of our roosters. Herman did the deed very humanely while they were calm and stroked lovingly, swiftly breaking their necks. Then Polina set to work showing this city girl how to pluck and clean — quite an empowering moment and fascinating!

I am feeling quite pious about  this new turn in the journey to be self-sufficient.

On the left is me being shown the ropes by Polina–notice the ever hopeful Jack Russel at our feet—his favourite past time is finding ways into the poultry camp for a free meal—luckily the geese seem to have sorted that out!

Making Wors

Wors–sausage

Boerewors–Farmer’s Sausage and what every South African living overseas dreams about–hot coals, a beer in one hand and that sizzling smell of a “boerie” been thrown on an open fire.  A  juicy, fat  sausage that explodes in your mouth when bitten into.

There are lots of different receipes for Boerewors, most include spices such as coriander seeds, cloves, pepper and vinegar or Worstershire sauce. Almost all of the receipes also call for a Butcher’s spice–this we realised is the secret ingredient as this contains a fair amount of MSG  with salt, a little bit of spices and then bulked out with cereal (wheat).

Herman has been wanting to make his own wors for a while and has been collecting all the different spices and ingredients as well as pre-packaged Boerewors spice to try figure out the specific spices without the MSG. One thing we have figured out is that Boerewors bought from a butcher or a supermarket can contain anything (all offcuts and as our neighbour kindly put–ears and ovaries)  what makes it taste good is the spice mix (and the MSG?)

So–can Herman make a good tasting Boerie without MSG and flavour enhancers? The history of Boerewors (according to Wiki) is that it originated from our Dutch descendants in Limburg–a poorer community that had a lot of game  in their diet and used all the animal parts in their food. When it became South African is unsure but it was being made before the Great Trek in the 1830′s as the Voortrekkers used to dry the Boerewors (droewors) to take with them. Obviously the recipes have changed and evolved over the years but what seems to stay constant is the coriander seeds, vinegar , spek (pig fat) and natural pig intestines for casings. Coriander seeds, black pepper, nutmeg and cloves where all available in the Cape Colony perhaps this was the major influence for the specific flavour of Boerewors.

Today was the day to try this out. Herman had bought 6kgs of beef and 4kgs of pork and packed out all his packets of spices, salt, bulk Worstershire sauce, brown vinegar, coriander seeds and pre-packed spices. Sitting with his everpresent calculator( to work out amounts and weights) with all the researched recipes we had accumulated, we set to work.

The first job was to get all the meat coarsly minced–luckily the small bandsaw that Herman got from a local has an attachment for mincing. In no time at all, with the help of Regan and his friend Peter, we had trays of freshly minced beef and pork. Herman was working on a ratio of 3:2 (beef to pork). 

 

 

It was decided that everyone could make their own kilogram of wors, using their own unique blend of herbs and spices. Once each kilogram was mixed and stuffed into the casing (Herman bought a sausage stopper at an auction for R50) we fried it and sacrificed it to the “taste panel”–pre-teens are ruthless!!!

Herman had first attempt–and got a 4 out of 10—too much like a beef sausage and a bit bland. We than added chopped spek to the next batch and Regan and Peter’s sausage scored higher respectively–around 7. Keya spent a long time with the morter and pestle and ended up with a very nicely spiced sausage and scored an 8. Unfortunately she is unable to remember her secret, personal recipe so it will forever remain a secret. I was busy ploughing through baskets of plums, making plum jam so I opted out of the Boerie Competition.

Herman and I finished up the last kilos with a mix of 1:1 beef to pork with extra toasted and ground coriander seeds added. It tastes good but the texture isn’t quite right–still too much like a beef sausage. The next batch we will try more handcut spek, larger casings (we were using sheep and the sausage was a bit thin) next time we will use pig intestines (yes—natural casings really are intestines stored in salt!!!) , the meat also needs to be more coarsly ground and we need to be more heavy handed with the spices.

On the left is a photo of Regan excited about stopping his unique Boerewors and on the right is Keya using her feet to hold the mortar while she is busy with her own special recipe.

A fun family day all round, resulting in a freezer packed with wors.

Conclusion–if we want to slaughter one of our Bonsmaras and work the meat ourselves we need to be more organised and have a mechanical sausage stopper as 300kgs is a whole lot more than 10!!

The Arrival of Shadow

Well–the festive season is past with no casualities apart from a few extra kilograms! So I hope to get back to blogging on a more regular basis now. 

Today is a good day to begin as today is the day Shadow arrived–the first horse in paradise. He is a 10 year old Nooitgedacht (a real South African breed) with a little bit of Perchuron–hence the lovely thick neck. He has a fantastically broad back, perfect for this beginner rider!!

Herman quickly hammered up a split pole fence in line with the poultry camp, so he has a lush, green paddock  along the river just 60 meters from our house.  Next week we will start the “proper” paddock with an arena and stable on the Rusfontein side of the farm. I can’t wait to be able to ride him up into the Backlands and explore the farm on horseback—–but I think a bit of practise riding  on ground level first will get my confidence up.

                                                           

 

I think he needs a friend!!