Spring is on it’s way

We are starting to get lovely warm days, warm enough to wear a t-shirt and work in the garden. All of a sudden one starts to be aware that Spring is coming and that we need to be prepared for her. On Rustfontein that means hauling out the many packets of seeds we have stashed away and putting them into our boxes we built last year (wooden with clear pvc lids) to protect the new seedlings from the inevitable frost that can carry on until mid September, here on the river floodplain. It is the potential of every seed that is so exciting–seeing the orange butternuts, green beans, red tomatoes and purple aubergines laden in baskets waiting to be eaten and knowing they are healthy, organic veggies grown with love.

Through Winter we have put all our horse manure to good use and packed it about 10cm deep under all the fruit and nut  trees and as a mulch in all the herb and veggie beds. It has been slowly breaking down nourishing the soil ready for those seedlings.

We are planning a bigger vegetable patch on the Rustfontein side of the farm, Herman and Regan were out there this past weekend sowing carrots and beetroot seeds and setting up an irrigation system. As for me, I started to get a bit uptight about the state of my rather large flowerbeds in paradise so I have been diving in with my pruning shears, cutting away all the dead branches and pruning back ready for the spring growth (and not to mention pulling out weeds that seem to have crept in over Winter.)

In between all that pruning I managed to have a walk through the nut and fruit orchard. To stand and gaze at the bare trees covered with pink and white blossoms. It really is a sight to see and very, very pretty. Every blossom is a picture and is just perfect!

Poor Shadow has got Billary (tick bite fever) so he has ben put off all riding and exercise for 6 weeks plus I need to inject him every second day for a few days–not something I am looking forward to. He looks so sorry for himself, standing with his head down. I am giving him loads of attention and making him feel loved and cared for, the femine touch to faster healing!?

What I haven’t mentioned is the stunning Orange Marmalade I made this Winter. This is the first time making Marmalade –the Royale of jams!!! I never realised it was NOT jam with bits in. When my sister was here we made an even better one using our Ruby Grapefruit—perfect for that morning slice of toast!

Herman went off and did a course in making salami’s, coppa and italian sausage so I am sure that is the next thing that is going to hanging somewhere cool to cure!  Most proberly in the wine cellar–where, by the way, something very magic is happening in those vats.

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.

Holly and Mr Beeps

I see from the date of my last post I really am been kept busy with these renovations. The end does seem in sight and am starting to see our vision for Emily’s coming together. I will post some pre and post renovation pics in the next post. Our deadline is the 10th July —I do realise it won’t be perfect then, as perfect goes, but it must be habitable and able to sleep 17 people. It is a busy time!

Packed into our schedule of the farm and 2 very busy kids that have a lot of sport and going on, we have a new “Hanslam” or a lamb whose mother rejected it, she is called Holly. (an name of a character in a book Regan is reading). In fact we had another one as well, called Pixie–unfortunately she got pneumonia and only lived 2 weeks but Holly is fit and strong and a beautiful little lamb, settled nicely into her routine of being bottle-fed and chasing the geese.

When Holly was a week old we found a calf in the Backlands which was blind and couldn’t stay with his mother and was literally starving. So he became our first “Hanskalf”–a bottle-fed calf, that gulps down 2 litres of milk quicker that Holly can chug down her 500ml. We doctored his eyes and now he can see–I am not sure if perfectly but enough to chase Holly while she chases the geese!  He is so sweet and gentle and mellow. Sucking on our fingers or clothes at any opportunity. I am not sure what will happen as he grows and no doubt starts getting a bit pushy–the idea is to get him back up with the other cattle as soon as he is weaned (could be a while). In the mean time we are so enjoying having a calf in the garden.

Sundays are really lazy days for us–that means we don’t have to drive anywhere–no school, no sport.

For the kids this means having a pyjamas day–no getting dressed but hanging out in the sun, feeding the animals and enjoying being on the farm.

For us it normally means embracing the Slow Food Movement and preparing a meal that takes time, love and patience from our own produce.

Oh yes the calf somehow got the name Mr Beeps–it just popped out one day and it stuck.

Holly and Mr Beeps sleep together everynight curled up in one of the chicken teepees, keeping each other warm. Not sure if he will grow up thinking he is a sheep or if she will grow up thinking she is a cow or perhaps a goose!

The Nickster-a friend for Shadow

Finally have managed to get my dreadfully lonely (or so I thought) horse a buddy. But Shadow is being a complete cow,  trotting around, showing dominance, ears back, mock charging and behaving like a spoilt brat. And all Nikki (new playmate) wants to do is hangout. He is moping behind Shadow, following him around like a love-sick puppy begging for attention–or at least a welcoming look in his direction. No such luck, if horses could growl and bare their teeth that’s what Shadow would do. Snarling from a corner. And oh so loveable when I arrive, running up to the fence, nuzzling and demanding my attention–and this, after months of the “oh it is you” behaviour, “I suppose you can scratch my head if you really want to” attitude. Ha! He likes me afterall! 

They will settle down though and I am convinced Shadow will come round to realising life with a friend is far more exciting. It is quite surprising for me that my docile “perdjie” is the dominating force of the two. I thought Nikki would be the one to boss Shadow around, prehaps in horse psychology Nikki is moving into Shadow’s terriotory and therefore he needs to assert his “kingship”. Actually that ain’t even horse psychology.

Anyway will post later how it all goes and some more pics of the growing herd!!

More Fire

I remember telling someone the fire was out–well it was– just, smouldering until Thursday afternoon. Then did we panic. It ran up the kloof, where I was standing taking photographs, within three minutes—and over the koppie, running straight for the river and our houses!   Wildfire!  I think just see the photos.

While the fire was raging I had to drive the twenty minutes into town to fetch Regan from school, on the way in Herman phoned me in a panic to say I must get home ASAP as he was starting to evacuate, filling the car with important files and documents.

Keya happened to be at home with a stomach bug so the picture on the right is what I arrived home to, after racing these dirt roads. My poor eight year old daughter bravely hosing down the roof, while ash from the fire drifted all around, looking for a roof to ignite.

 

On the right is a picture of the fire breaching the koppie above our house. The fire truck full of water and waiting to do what they do.

After this picture was taken the fireman burnt a “front fire” on the patch of green in front of the truck. This is what stopped the fire from burning further down into the houses as the “front fire” burnt up to meet the wildfire which then had nothing to burn. Quite a brilliant concept and so simple! Of course the direction of the wind needs to be taken into consideration.

Below on the left is Herman watching the fire (one does a lot of watching) with the tractor and it’s tank of water on standby and on the right, burning trees.

Nether-the-less, we survived the day and so did the houses. Three days later there are still plumes of smoke rising from smouldering tree stumps and the ankle-deep ash is still warm but we have had a little bit of rain now and everything has quietened down.

Another adventure in paradise?

Hmmm—-fires and floods, the real dangers of living in the rural edge.

Fire in the night

Yesterday our back neighbour was burning his veld (a regular occurrence this time of year, veld must be burnt periodically and these months on a hot, windless day it means the fire will be hot and it will burn clean). Inevitably the wind does pick up during the day, causing a fair amount of anxiety for us thatch-roofed owners. These neighbours of ours are the old type farmer/pioneers a bit above and below the law depending which way one looks at it. In their defence they were burning about 5kms away from us, but fire can run, not trot or canter I mean flat out gallop, chased on by a stiff South-Easter. By late afternoon it had reached our fence-line in the backlands and burnt about 100 meters into the fynbos. Luckily our land has very little Rooikrans left so we were able to contain and stop it from running further in.

Veld fires in this area are left to burn themselves out with a careful eye kept on them by the farmers. There isn’t the infra-structure for serious fire-fighting, a few guys with a red truck that holds a lot of water is as good as it gets. Their main job is to protect houses, dwellings and buildings. If things really get scary they will decide wether to get a larger team in from the nearest big town–one and a half hours drive away.

So yesterday evening the wind died down and a careful eye was being kept with the inevitable phonecalls between the farmers keeping in touch. We have seen many fires since living here, some very scary, others just scary but always exhilarating, and we have learnt when to panic and when to watch. Last night we were just watching as it started to burn down the kloof behind our and the dairy farm next doors’ houses. The sky red and orange, contrasting with the dark, inky background.

This morning four-thirty the dairy farmer phoned to say it was closing in. We woke up to smoke and falling ash, very dangerous for thatch roofs, and the sound of a roaring beast as it worked its way through the Rooikrans in the kloof, exploding trees and plumes of twisting heat and smoke. Well, the kids definately weren’t going to school today!!

Up on the roof went Regan with a hose-pipe,(pic  above on the right) via a tree, to wet down the thatch so no spark could ignite, while Herman got all the workers out of bed to go wet the guesthouse, cellar and cottage roofs on the Rusfontein side of the farm. After making strong coffee all round Keya and I slipped out to go get some photos. The local fire team already out , the main worry for the dairy farmer’s house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One good thing about fires is the reminder of the sense of community that surrounds us. With everyone arriving with their bakkie load of workers to help as well as the local Farm Kitchen bringing coffee and freshly filled sandwiches for everyone.

At the moment with the help of back-burning all houses and buildings are safe. The fire is still burning but with the South-Wester starting to blow it is now burning away from the houses back into the kloofs and backlands. The valleys looking like volcanoes with billowing smoke and flaring edges.

On the right  if you look closely in the right hand lower corner you can just make out the fire-fighters bakkie with it’s red light–this gives you perspective on the magnitude of a veld fire out here.

Now we must just hang in and hope the wind doesn’t swing back again, the danger definitely not over. The water barrels are full and everyone geared in case it should burn down into the valley where our spring is, burning all our pipes and again bringing ash that could ignite the thatch roofs.

Adding sheep midwifery to my cirriculum vita

Easter weekend has come and gone here on Rusfontein with the normal influx of family and friends visiting and enjoying the stoep and fine farm hospitality. This means food, more food and a fair amount of wine (not to mention the tasting of the young Rusfontein wine and port, now sitting nestled in their oak vats in the soft, dark cellar.)

On Friday, after working Shadow a bit I noticed that one of the heavily pregnant ewes had been walking around for quite a while with a lamb’s head showing but it didn’t seem to be progressing. Now much to the children’s amusement a lamb’s head poking out of a sheep’s vagina (is that what you call it if you are talking about sheep?) while she is giving birth is quite normal. The mother can walk around and lie down and huff and puff like this for quite a while before the next time you look she is licking her newborn lamb. This mommy, however had been walking around for what seemed longer than usual and from a little distance away the lamb didn’t look good. The embryonic sac had broken, the ears were free but there was no sign of life.

Herman caught the sheep ( I would like to say gently but a hugely pregnant ewe still has a bit of speed) and wrestled her onto her side on the ground. Luckily I had brought a pair of surgical gloves in my jean’s pocket, somebody was definately looking after me that day, I had had a sneaking feeling that a sheep was going to need assistance. So there we were in a field of sheep, Herman holding on for dear life and I had just placed my gloved hands inside the sheep when our friend Desiree arrived , clean, gorgeous, blonde, ironed and fresh from the city. “Hi guys!!”  “Hi Desiree–good to see you, could you grab hold of this sheep’s leg while you’re standing there!”  Bless her–she did. 

On inspection I saw the lamb was indeed dead and there was  (just like Lamby)  another lamb stuck with it in the birth canal. At this stage my cityness crept up on me “I can’t do this” .There was a lot of blood and birth things going on and Desiree suggested calling a vet but this is the country and a religious holiday-everybody was most probably in church and three quarters an hour a way.-We are now farmers, we had to do this, resourcefulness and self-sufficiency is about relying on oneself. You have to do what you have to do. With a big breath I pulled the lamb out–not as easy as it sounds–knowing it was dead was a bit easier as I wasn’t going to hurt it. I then eased the head of the other lamb out, still in an embryonic sac, not knowing if it was alive or not. The mother was exhausted and wasn’t pushing at all. We decided to break the sac–which we did, no response–I then freed the little ears and as I did  it suddenly shook it’s head and started to breath, what a moment. This realisation of life gave me the strength to place my hands back inside the sheep and this time I realised I could go a lot deeper, almost elbow length as I placed them gently around this little body and eased a new life into the world, the mother summoning strength to push at the same time.

There we stood, the three of us, a sheep and a newborn lamb, basking in the glow of new life. The mother was quick to stand up and lick and clean her surviving offspring. Within minutes it was standing and nuzzling at her udder ready to drink. I have spent so many years feeling ungrounded and disconnected from our mother, the Earth. No longer. Peeling off those surgical gloves, picking up a spade to go dig a hole, to bury the dead lamb, I am present, grounded, humbled and very much alive.

Dorpers–our choice of sheep

Just over a year ago in Dec 2007  we bought  eleven sheep–Witkop(white-head) Dorpers– a hardy South African breed. Dorpers are a breed developed by the Department of South Africa for arid regions of our country, though they are highly adaptable and thrive in most areas.

They are a meat sheep that require no shearing as they shed their own wool in spring and summer. They are known as fast growers, excellent mothers with a lean and tender meat that has a mild flavour. They were developed from the Dorset Horn and the Blackhead Persian. One gets a White Dorper (Witkop) and a Swartkop (Black headed) Dorper. In South Africa 85% of the Dorpers are Swartkop. Dorpers are the second most popular sheep in South Africa.

Of the eleven original sheep , ten were young ewes and one was a young ram with very good breeding. Herman sourced them from a farm near Montague in the Koor area.  Having made four camps on the fertile flood plain of Rusfontein and sown a mixture of perennial clover and rye, they spent a week in each camp. However they could not get through all the grazing so February last year Herman got ten more from Prince Albert (Klein Karoo) but this time Swartkop Dorpers. Still the grazing was too much so he got in another nine from a local farmer–also Swartkop. At this stage we only have adult one ram–Jonus (christened by one of the labourers–why? beats me) but he is a fine specimen and grown into a fine young man that works his ladies, producing good offspring.

We now have anything between 50 and 60 sheep at a time, depending on what is born and what we slaughter.On the left is a pic of the first triplets to be born on the farm. The  photo above is a picture of Keya with “Lamby” on the right and a day old lamb on her lap. Lamby was our first Hanslam–a lamb that is bottle-fed. The birth of Lamby was my first real farm experience. Herman happened to be away from the farm and one of the workers came to tell me that there was an ewe that was having trouble giving birth and that the head of the lamb was out but it was stuck and it was dead. I immediately phoned the vet (Dr.Schaap–I kid you not) to ask for advice. He nonchalantly explained how to feel for the feet (above the head) and to get both feet before trying to pull out the lamb. If I didn’t get the feet there was no way any amount of pulling would be able to remove the dead lamb—If I was unable to get the feet then I was to cut the head of the dead lamb off!!!!  Well–Hello–I don’t think I would be doing that—so would it be possible if I could bring the sheep in so he could do the deed?  Sure no problem was the unperturbed answer as I sweated and panicked and gulped for air into the telephone.  Off I went armed with a pot of Vaseline to find the sheep, with much help from the workers we caught her and were able to investigate her rearend, swollen and torn she was in a sorry state. I delegated the Vaseline job to Wikus (our worker), while he slid his hands around the dead lamb’s head to find the feet we saw another little lambs head just behind the dead ones, stuck in the birth canal. I had reached my limit–so we bundled the poor ewe into the back of the bakkie and headed for the vet. Luckily he was able to remove the dead lamb using no chainsaw or any other horror movie type instrument and deliver the second lamb which miraculously was still alive. So Lamby came into our lives.

Lamby was terribly weak and unable to suckle , it is very important that the newborn lamb gets to drink the colostrum so there we were Friday evening, Herman holding down a sheep while I scuffled in the mud beneath her with a baby’s bottle in one hand and the sheep’s teat in the other–aiming this much needed substance into the bottle. Friday night–milking a sheep!!! Sundowners on Clifton has nothing on this.

Lamby became part of the house, loved by the children and the dogs alike. The cats had a bit of a freak out, turning into fuzzy balls of orange and white at the slightest “baa”. He grew up and his pee started to smell like very strong sheep and he was impossible to house train so he spent time in the poultry camp, still getting his three bottle of milk a day and then we graduated him back into the camps with all the other sheep–so at least he could learn sheep behaviour. He is quite big now and still comes running to the fence if you go visit, so now we can say we have had a Hanslam.

Of course the reason we have sheep is for meat.We wish to eat free-range, hormone free meat from animals that have lived happy lives and lived out their natural instincts as sheep. Last year we slaughtered our first two and had lessons from a local on the different cuts and how to cut them up. It was a very good grounding experience for the entire family–the first one where the kids really saw where their meat comes from and how it is processed. Keya did refuse to eat our lamb for a while but she is used to the idea now and can’t resist her father’s delicious braaied chops.

Since then we have slaughtered quite a few, for ourselves and family and friends. Everyone enjoying our very tender, juicy and subtle flavoured lamb. Herman and I do all the cutting up of the different cuts ourselves with a little bandsaw and all the packing as well. A good, honest product that we feel noble and proud of, knowing our sheep are cared and tendered for, living stress free lives.

Shadow–Shadow–Shadow

I have had a few requests for some pics of the gorgeous, white (sorry-dappled grey) creature that lives in my garden and gives me such pleasure–so here goes — WARNING–this blog is a Shadow overload.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What more can I say–if a picture paints a thousand words?

Then eight thousand beautiful words later.

Rusfontein Honey

I wrote earlier about harvesting our honey. We had sent it off with Oom Louis to be spun out of the combs and it had come back in plastic buckets weighing about 40kgs. The next job was to strain it, therefore removing any small bits of wax that were still in it.

We had a hand-made wooden sieve for this purpose, had bought bottles and made up a label.

We spent the afternoon with our friend Paul, pouring this liquid gold through the sieve, bottling it by hand (a soup ladle and kitchen funnel were very handy for this), sticking on labels and tying raffia—80 odd bottles later, we have a wonderful product  to sell and exchange with. Stunning, organic, unprocessed, raw, natural, unheated, hand-bottled,  gift from the flowers and the bees–Honey!!! And the way the bees seem to be producing this is just the beginning.

 Of all the things we have grown, processed or produced this pure product gives me the biggest buzz (excuse the pun!)