Another Wwoofer arrives

Our next WWOOFer has arrived – Tommy, a horticulturalist from Brighton, England. A very agreeable chap who is occupying himself with weeding, building compost heaps and making more baboon-proof wormeries. (WWOOF actually stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms – a way for young people to travel and work in exchange for food and accommodation). For us it’s a form of “free” labour, a way to meet interesting people, learn from others’ experience, have a sense of community and a means to get stuff done on the farm without the “slave/master”-energy connection…

Mila is happily settled in grade 1 and we are aiming to get her and Luke to sleep in their own beds this year. We have been following the “attachment parenting” route since birth (which has also involved them sleeping in our bed) but they are getting so big now, that we’re going to be focussing on a bit of “detachment” in 2010!

The baboons came back after their mass destruction and managed to get the remainder of the edible plants: peas, beans & squash, leaving only the herbs….The children’s joy and delight in eating peas and beans from the garden has given me such encouragement though, that we won’t be deterred by a few primates – Tommy will be planting lots more seeds next week…

Living the dream

News from the forest is that things are quietening down after quite a social festive season. One of the benefits of living where we do is that we get to see many of our loved ones when they come down for holidays – we catch them when they’re relaxed and get to spend quality time together. We end up squeezing a lot of social gatherings into a short holiday season, so December was not really a time of rest for us. It was utterly wonderful to share our new space with our dear friends and family.

It was also great to be officially on leave (a perk you miss when you’re self-employed). It was initially challenging without the busy-ness of the daily routine, but I did manage to do some painting, planting and domestic DIY, imagining myself as the subject of one of those reality shows on the Home Channel!

Christmas day was a strange one – the first Christmas without my mom’s physical presence (she was spiritually also rather busy with seasonal stuff). Being married to a Jew and having no family around on the day, I thought I would let it pass me by. Mila (now 6) had also figured out the Santa Claus scam a few weeks before and so the usual Christmas traditions had started to disintegrate.

We were having a pajama day, carting trash around the farm with the trailer until Mila called us inside at around 3 pm. She had decided that we should also have a Christmas lunch like all our neighbours and had set the table with fancy serviettes etc. She made a throne for herself at the head of the table, was dressed as the queen and so we ended up having Panatone cake for Christmas lunch, served by her highness….unusual but strangely good.

On the morning of the 31st, Kevin and Mila were (rather ungracefully) attempting to cut down 2 smallish wattle trees using a combination of blunt hand saws and axes, when our woodcutter neighbour heroically appeared wielding his chainsaw. He zapped the little trees in a flash in an act of good neighbourliness. We had intended on reciprocating with a bottle of wine and R50, but he asked whether I have a hair cutter. His brother (who used to cut his hair) died 2 years ago and he had no means of having a hair/beard trim and so I ended up giving him a hair cut and sending him proudly into 2010. A bizarre end to a rather challenging year!

The baboons have been circling the house on a daily basis over the past month. Mushroom and Fettucini (the dogs) have been doing a good job at keeping them at bay, assisted by us banging pots, shouting and shooting at them with Luke’s “kettie” (which recently broke). We’re contemplating a paint ball gun, but these tactics only help when we’re at home. A few days ago, the dogs were outwitted by an intrusion on a morning when there was no-one on the farm. The trespassing primate/s broke the kitchen window, ripped down the gutter and attempted to get into the kitchen (also breaking the liquidiser and a sprouting bottle) and ended up destroying the wormeries and numerous plants including ALL the lettuce, spinach and tomatoes. They also ran off with an ice cream container filled with a nasty concoction of whiskey, HOT chilli sauce and fruit/vegetable cuttings we left for them…take that! Another plan in process is the hanging of lion poo in onion bags all along the fence. “Where does one get lion poo from?” you might be asking yourself. Well, the Cango Zoo in Oudtshoorn sells them in jam jars at R20 a pop! And if that fails, we’ll have to figure out how and where to electrify.

Another fun (albeit less dramatic) project we’re undertaking this year is the establishment of chicken and rabbit accommodation…

Mila is off to Grade 1 next week (still at the marvellous Montesorri school with Luke) and we trust that 2010 will be a good one, filled with rainwater showers heated by the power of the sun! Living the dream…

Settling in

This past weekend marked our official homecoming as we celebrated with a house warming festival – a marathon weekend party with some guests staying over in tents and others crashing on couches and the even the office floor! It was a sheer delight to welcome all our new friends and neighbours to our Space of Love.

Although we missed the presence of now distant loved ones, it was amazing to have a congregation of our new community – we are truly blessed to have accumulated such beautiful relationships in 2 short years. And our fellow tree-hugging bohemian neighbours make us feel right at home!

The party ranged from dancing to the tunes of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, to monochord and singing bowl sound journeys, constant camp fires and golf on the lawn (where we actually aim at hitting the ball into the dam – things are all a bit different on Farm 119!). We even had sweet saxophone sounds drifting over the forest late Saturday night…

At times I just revelled in sitting back and watching our new life unfold with this party (hopefully the first of many), signalling the kick-off.

Next will be Luke’s birthday at the beginning of December, followed by the holiday rush and some potential woofers who want to stay for 2 months. We’ll grab Chunkie (our revered builder) before he runs off for the holiday to install some shower doors and the Morso fireplace (which has started to rust in the container where it’s been waiting for a house for past 18 months!). Then we’ll be ready for Season…

You’re welcome to visit!

What I did not mention in this portion is the additional of puppy no 2: a 5 month old Jack Russell/Daschund combo named Fettucini, adopted from the Animal Welfare. Mushroom & Fettucini are a very vibrant pair and delivered a half decomposed monkey/baboon to our front door a few days ago! We had originally thought the dogs (and children) smelled foul due to kakiebos (a bad smelling weed), only to discover a few hours later that they were covered in dead monkey! Needless to say, much washing ensued…

Our next wildlife adventure came in the form of a baby puffadder which was found in Kevin’s make-shift generator room. It lived in a bottle on the kitchen counter for a day and was released only once Kevin had had his way with it (photographically speaking). This is snake season….

Then yesterday we found a scorpion while gardening….I am slowly becoming more accustomed to the great outdoors and all God’s creatures!

On the gardening side, we have some peas which will be ready for harvest soon (planted by our woofers), as well as beans, lettuce, spinach and herbs. What percentage will constitute the baboons’ share is still to be discovered, but the dogs are helping to deter them somewhat (sometimes assisted by Luke bagging a pot with his toy hammer!).

Mila is performing in her ballet concert this weekend (so there has been much excitement, rehearsals etc.) and she insists on wearing her new school uniform to school (although she is only required to wear it next year when she moves up to Grade 1). Luke is having his 4th birthday party next week…they are both well and happy.

We’ve decided have piercing/tattoo Christmas presents this year: Mila is having her ears pierced & Kevin & I will get some tattoos - Luke will be the witness.

Season is almost upon us – lots of friends and loved ones will be sharing our beautiful space, star gazing on our container roof deck and helping chase baboons away.

Happy holidays!

Home!

It is with much joy and gratitude that I report our final homecoming to Farm 119!

After 2 years of planning, hoping, praying and doubting, having our bond cancelled, experiencing the economic turmoil of the world (being off the beaten track did not shield us from that one) and my mom’s sudden passing…..we are now home. I am overcome with a deep sense of peace and well-being. We moved in last Wednesday after which we were welcomed by a resident baboon who found his way into Kevin’s office on Thursday morning, swung on the roof beams and crapped all over the curtains!

Nevertheless, it has been pure bliss waking up on our own land every morning. I’ve forgotten how great it is to have you own home – to wake up on a Sunday morning with an unlimited list of DIY possibilities to fill the day! Having built a new house using recycled windows & doors also means that we have the best of both worlds: plumbing that works but beautiful old items in need of loving restoration. It seems our belief in reincarnation stretches to buildings as well!

The floor (recycled wooden parquet) is absolutely gorgeous, the 3 basin kitchen sink with fancy taps is an utter delight and staring at the various views through the windows and doorways keep us entertained for hours. We are also making acquaintance with the intricacies of a solar geysers (we previously used gas) and realised after the first cloudy day that we definitely need the gas back-up!

We also collected our new family member on Saturday: Mushroom is an 18 month old cross between a Labrador and an Alsatian and was so named by the old lady who found her as a puppy in the forest when she went to look for mushrooms. She keeps the kids busy while we get on with our DIY endeavours. She is slowly getting used to the cows – the neighbours weren’t too impressed with her incessant barking in the early dawn hours of Sunday morning!

I had some damage to my plants – I wasn’t quite quick enough to secure them from the cows and lost half a fuchsia and some of my azalea plant to the curious bovines! But they are now safely stored in the new greenhouse which turned out to be a converted sukkah (a temporary structure which we erect to celebrate the Jewish festival of Sukkot).

There is still much to be done on Farm 119 – we’re expecting some more woofers and our revered builder will hopefully return soon from a well-deserved holiday. But the journey has finally begun….

We are truly blessed.... (and love our flushing toilet!)

Completing the house

And so after almost 2 weeks, we bid a sad farewell to our wonderful woofers. They leave behind well dug and composted beds planted with previously pot-bound plants and a variety of vegetable seeds; piles of collected cow dung and compost heaps, painted and varnished decks and a rhino-boarded children’s room. It is actually quite unbelievable that these tasks (which loomed and weighed on my consciousness) could be swiftly completed by such fantastic new friends in exchange for tented accommodation and some food… if this is the alternative to capitalism, I’m all for it!
We shared a potjie around the fire on their final evening, accompanied by our builders and lovely neighbours. I listened to Thomas (our landlord/neighbour) and Goldie (the woofer) playing guitar under the stars and felt humbled and grateful for the Universal order of things. How things always seem to turn out perfectly in spite of our plans.
The house is nearing completion and is coming together quickly now with finishing, plumbing and electrics. I still can’t quite believe that after 2 years of planning/hoping/praying/obsessing we will finally be living on the land and a new chapter of our rural integration will begin.
I have rearranged my working hours so that I work 6 hours instead of 7.5 at 80% of my pay. With eliminating a lunch break, I now finish at 2 pm and gain 2.5 hours of daylight. This has opened up an entire chunk of the day to spend playing cars with Luke, sewing Barbie dresses with Mila and communing with my plants. Mila had her 6th birthday party recently – also a “goodbye” party for the house we’ve called home for the past 2 years. Organising a birthday party without the help of my mother was very daunting but ultimately empowering. Following in Papa Tony’s footsteps, Mila has become quite the equestrian, while Luke (in keeping more with my ancestral line) is rather obsessed with cars and swear words (which he calls “square” words!).
Kevin is gallivanting again – he did the Whale Trail hike, followed by Cape Town where he opened another exhibition at Exposure Gallery (at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock). Without him working and printing at the office we’ve had lots of power for watching DVDs and surfing You Tube – when the cat’s away…
As soon as he returns the packing will start in all earnest as we prepare for our homecoming.
More images: www.digitalfactor.co.za/farm119oct

Much has been happening on the farm. I arrived yesterday to find a digger loader preparing a large hole for our septic tank, the final walls on the house raised and our new WOOFERS painting and preparing vegetable beds. I had never seen so much action on the farm at once – it was rather overwhelming but thoroughly exciting!
Our wonderful WOOFERS (Neta and Goldie) arrived a few days ago after spending some time at the Kula Dharma eco-community in the Eastern Cape. With all the woofing requests over the past months, I lost track of who’s who and so I was expecting some tough German girls, but they turned out to be a delightful Israeli couple from a Kibbutz near Haifa who can teach me a thing or two about farming! We provide them with food and “luxury” tent accommodation (and dry toilet) and in return they get onto all those jobs that I haven’t been able to. Kevin also has someone to share humus and Hebrew jokes with.
Kevin had a very successful exhibition in Johannesburg and is off to do the Whale Trail tomorrow after which it’s Cape Town and another exhibition, so he’ll be missing out on some of the action on the farm.
We’ve been spending a lot more time on the farm and it’s really starting to feel like home – the kids have also started painting their room and constantly want to know when we’re moving in. Our rent runs out at the end of October so we’ll be in our new little house before then! After 2 years of uncertainty, it’s quite unbelievable that things are finally coming together.
Kevin and I and the kids, Chunkie (the builder), his assistant Garth (and his dog) and our two woofers all sat around on the office floor last night feasting on some soup that Neta had made – there was a real sense of community. No doubt my mother had a hand in this most marvellous blessing…

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…