Old Farmhouse Renovated
The house sleeps a total of 18 people, this includes a small outer cottage with it’s own bathroom. Anyone renting the house will have acess to the river which allows for kayaking , swimming and excellent bird watching. Acess to nature walks on the 640 hectare rehabilitated fynbos farm with kloofs, springs, caves and wildlife.
There will also be opportunities to buy any organic, home grown or made produce that would be available eg. meat, eggs, jams, honey, marmalade, fruit, veggies, wine and whatever is taking the fancy for that moment.
Catch up and first guests.
I am sure everyone is thinking that this blog is no longer active as I haven’t written for two months. In my defence a lot has been happening–we went on a fantastic trip to the Botswana side of the Kalahari and I turned 40 with a pride of 15 lions through our campsite
twice, I then had my gorgeous sister here from Australia——
who was my right and left hand in helping me finish Emily’s (our renovated self-catering old farmhouse) and invited a whole group of our slick city friends to stay there for a week-end to test it out for us. Nobody wanted to leave and it turned into a rather long weekend of catch up with a lot of red wine–so satisfied customers?
This past weekend we had our first paying customers, a group of people who had organised a kayaking, hiking, cycling competition ending on the farm.
It was really lovely to see the farmhouse being used and everybody having such a good time.
I thought for the next post I am going to pile on the photos and give you all a feel of what the guesthouse looks like and what we have been doing with all that paint and second hand furniture.
Farm Life and Country Living
Herman and Margie live on a farm in South Africa–this is their blog on country living, eating honest food from the land, farming with guests and creative expression.
We moved here in June 2004 from Cape Town, it was our holiday house set on 3 hectares of ground along a wide meandering river on the south coast—a year later we bought the neighbour’s farm–now called Rustfontein.
Rustfontein is 630 hectares of fynbos, wildlife, views, open spaces and quiet.
On the farm we have (so far)
2 adults (us)
2 children (age 13 and almost 10 )
2 dogs (Bella the Beautiful-a Rhodesian Ridgeback- and Sunny the “very badly behaved,chicken thief, Jack Russel”)
2 budgies
3 cats (Pumpkin and Zazoo–both ex-Tomcats, orange in colour and great rat catchers and a little throw-away cat called Vaaitjie, blackish with a pure white undercoat, the sweetest thing.)
15 hens, 4 roosters
1 Macou duck (Muscovey)
40 odd sheep (“dorpers” bred for meat not wool)
50 odd cattle (Bonsmaras)
2 horses (Shadow and Llwyd- pronounced Louie)
When I look at this list all that seems short is a pig and maybe a goat? And some easy to pluck ducks apparently the Macou are hell to pluck—and I keep on coming across some delicious duck receipes.
We have finalised the renovations on the old farmhouse on Rustfontein, as well as the shepherd hut which is on the “backlands” –what we locals call the part of the farm that runs into the hills away from the river–the fynbos and wide open spaces part. We rent out the main house for holiday makers and the hut as an adventure sleep-out for those who like get up close with nature.
We like to feed ourselves as much as possible from what we can grow and produce ourselves (all organically of course) so we have a little farm kitchen were we cut, chop, cook, bottle and label all under the name Rustfontein-Guest Farm. This produce is also for sale to our guests. Honey, greenfig preserve, marmalade, jam.
Life is busy here in paradise–but it is a lifestyle we choose , to be honest and true to the land and our surroundings and to bring our children up in touch with nature, well grounded and to know we are supported by Mother Nature. To have the skills to venture out into the world with a true knowledge of how things really work.
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