Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Going home

This new moon sees many changes afoot in the life of the forest dwellers…we finally gave notice to our landlord and we will be making our homeward journey before 31 October. Our carport-2-house conversion is going very well – it’s is extremely exciting to stand on the new floor and see the walls go up. Our clever builder, Chunky, managed to figure out a way to fit a kids’ room into the design, so we won’t all have to squeeze into one little bedroom after all! It will be a tight fit, but there’ll be less floor area to sweep and there’ll only be enough space for things to be in their place, so no space for mess (or so I hope!).












For more pictures: www.digitalfactor.co.za/farm119aug

And so we’ll leave behind the old farmhouse that has been our off-the-grid training ground. Over the past 2 years, this house has been witness to our many moments of joy and bliss as well as our deepest despair, loss and sadness. It certainly feels as if we have worked through a lot of karma in this place. As they say in my mother tongue: ”dit was lekker, maar nou’s dit klaar!” It is with much gratitude and great excitement that we move forward on the journey…We say goodbye to the old gas geyser, wall cracks and temperamental septic tank. I’m sure we’ll miss our spacious bedroom and daily interaction with horses (the cow on our farm is pregnant, by the way).
On the vegetable front: Luke and I had a wonderful Sunday lunch in the garden last week when Kevin & Mila were on a Jo’burg jol. We feasted on our garden produce of 3 types of lettuce, some rosemary and fennel. Then, a few days ago, we had visitors…the baboons (who supposedly don’t eat lettuce) ripped out and demolished every last one of our 6 beautiful plants! So we’ll have to start again…I’ll try spinach this time…I’ve heard they don’t like it…