african bliss

Worth trying.......

2011-10-06T04:01:00.000-07:00

Honey is the only food on the planet that will not spoil or rot. What it will do is what some call 'turning to sugar'. In reality, honey is always honey. However, when left in a cool dark place for a long time it will "crystallize". When this happensloosen the lid, boil some water and sit the honey container in the hot water, but turn off the heat and let it liquefy naturally. It is then as good as it ever was. Never boil honey or put it in a microwave. This will kill the enzymes in the honey.

Cinnamon and Honey
Bet the drug companies won't like this one getting around. Facts on Honey and Cinnamon:

It is found that a mixture of honey and Cinnamon cures most diseases. Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of today also accept honey as a 'Ram Ban' (very effective) medicine for all kinds of diseases. Honey can be used without side effects for any kind of diseases.
Today's science says that even though honey is sweet, when it is taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm even diabetic patients. Weekly World News, a magazine in Canada, in its issue dated 17 January,1995 has given the following list of diseases that can be cured by honey and cinnamon, as researched by western scientists:

HEART DISEASES:
Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, apply it on bread instead of jelly and jam and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol in the arteries and saves the patient from heart attack. Also, those who have already had an attack, when they do this process daily, they are kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of the above process relieves loss of breath and strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada, various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as one ages the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and the veins.
ARTHRITIS:
Arthritis patients may take daily (morning and night) one cup of hot water with two tablespoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. When taken regularly even chronic arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the Copenhagen University, it was found that when the doctors treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon Honey and half teaspoon Cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that within a week (out of the 200 people so treated) practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain -- and within a month, most all the patients who could not walk or move around because of arthritis now started walking without pain.

BLADDER INFECTIONS:
Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder..

CHOLESTEROL:
Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of Cinnamon Powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water given to a cholesterol patient was found to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood by 10 percent within two hours. As mentioned for arthritic patients, when taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol is cured. According to information received in the said Journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol.

COLDS:
Those suffering from common or severe colds should take one tablespoon lukewarm honey with 1/4 spoon cinnamon powder daily for three days. This process will cure most chronic cough, cold, and, clear the sinuses.

UPSET STOMACH:
Honey taken with cinnamon powder cures stomach ache and also clears stomach ulcers from its root.

GAS:
According to the studies done in India and Japan, it is revealed that when Honey is taken with cinnamon powder the stomach is relieved of gas.

IMMUNE SYSTEM:
Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens the immune system and protects the body from bacterial and viral attacks. Scientists have found that honey has various vitamins and iron in large amounts. Constant use of Honey strengthens the white blood corpuscles (where DNA is contained) to fight bacterial and viral diseases.

INDIGESTION:
Cinnamon powder sprinkled on two tablespoons of honey taken before food is eaten relieves acidity and digests the heaviest of meals.

INFLUENZA:
A scientist in Spain has proved that honey contains a natural 'Ingredient' which kills the influenza germs and saves the patient from flu.

LONGEVITY:
Tea made with honey and cinnamon powder, when taken regularly, arrests the ravages of old age. Use four teaspoons of honey, one teaspoon of cinnamon powder, and three cups of water and boil to make a tea. Drink 1/4 cup, three to four times a day. It keeps the skin fresh and soft and arrests old age. Life spans increase and even a 100 year old will start performing the chores of a 20-year-old..

RASPY OR SORE THROAT:

When throat has a tickle or is raspy, take one tablespoon of honey and sip until gone. Repeat every three hours until throat is without symptoms.

PIMPLES:
Three tablespoons of honey and one teaspoon of cinnamon powder paste. Apply this paste on the pimples before sleeping and wash it off the next morning with warm water. When done daily for two weeks, it removes all pimples from the root.

SKIN INFECTIONS:
Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm and all types of skin infections.

WEIGHT LOSS:
Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast and on an empty stomach, and at night before sleeping, drink honey and cinnamon powder boiled in one cup of water. When taken regularly, it reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking this mixture regularly does not allow the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet.

CANCER:
Recent research in Japan and Australia has revealed that advanced cancer of the stomach and bones have been cured successfully. Patients suffering from these kinds of cancer should daily take one tablespoon of honey with one teaspoon of cinnamon powder three times a day for one month .

FATIGUE:
Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than being detrimental to the strength of the body. Senior citizens who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts are more alert and flexible. Dr. Milton, who has done research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, even when the vitality of the body starts to decrease, when taken daily after brushing and in the afternoon at about 3:00 P.M., the vitality of the body increases within a week.

BAD BREATH:
People of South America, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powder mixed in hot water first thing in the morning so their breath stays fresh throughout the day.

HEARING LOSS:
Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder, taken in equal parts restores hearing. Remember when we were kids? We had toast with real butter and cinnamon sprinkled on it!

You might want to share this information with a friend, kinfolks and loved ones. Everyone needs healthy help information ~ what they do with it is up to them !

what we have been up to...

2011-09-25T05:23:00.000-07:00

Our dam in the late afternoon

We have had such a busy last couple of weeks that to sit down to write and download pics, have seemed like too much of a task to undertake. I would rather spend the time chatting with Rae and family, with a glass of red wine in my hands, when having a spare minute!! I kid you not, we are busy from morning till 12 o'clock every night.
The most important thing I have learnt in the last few months, after going for a check up at the doc, is that I have a enlarged heart and then after going for ex-rays and then a cardiogram, I also have to have an aortic valve replacement operation. My aortic chamber is stretched to the max of 6.5 cm in diameter and stands the chance of bursting or rupturing, and then it will be all over, they say. It is 90% certain that I will need the op but I will still have to go for a catheter procedure to finalize the whole thing. Until that time, I will have to take it easy but those of you living on a farm know that it is easier said than done, especially with no labour to help you! I feel very positive about the op and obviously I would rather not have to go through with it but at the end of the day, the doc said that I would be surprised at how much better I would feel and that I have been obviously living with this condition for some time and do not know what its like to feel normal, so... role on op!

This winter so far, we have had so much rain which has been a real blessing, as since we have lived here, we have only experienced a drought which in the last two years has seen our spring dry up and our dams go dry. Lucky, we have a really good borehole that delivers 4500litres an hour and to that I have a pump fitted, that only draws 2500litres an hour so we can never overdraw on it and it has never given up on us, even if we have had to irrigate for three days in a row. Anyway, we now have full dams with the spring running constantly, creating a permanent river through our land and down into the Kouga River that feeds the Port Elizabeth metropole.

Another thing we have been really busy with, is since we have been living here, we have noticed a real need for a project to be set up to help the township animals. This we have now set up on our own, the main aim being to educate, sterilize, feed and to combate mange. In the beginning, we funded this ourselves but have since started a non-profit organization called J.A.W.S ( Joubertina Animal Welfare Services) and the local people and businesses are starting to contribute in the way of cash donations, old blankets, etc.We also are providing a shelter/kennel for all the needy dogs we come across.. This is in the form of barrels that are being donated by the local fruit farmers in the area.We cut off the front of the barrel, lay it on it's side and pop rivet carpets into them and then kit them out with a blanket as well. Voila... a lovely, practical shelter which the dogs love!

In the beginning when we mentioned the project to people, they were really negative and said that we would never get the support from the locals. This however, has proved to be quite the opposite and the support has been really great so far, with donations being recieved from the church, local petrol station, the welfare organision, local co-op, butchery, etc, and then of course the real blessing is that a vet from Karreedow has offered us a very good rate for sterilization, which is a vital element to this whole project. Since starting this project it has also become impossible not to get involved with the families that own these dogs because how can you help the animals without attending to the needs of the people. So, as a result, we now also work in a close relationship with our local welfare officer. It is amazing the change that we have already seen in the peoples attitude towards their animals and the pride they take in a healthy animal and all the wonderful kids we have met. We now are hoping to sell our farm to purchase another one in the area that would be better suited for kennels and also for perhaps taking taking in horses that might need to be rescued, etc. We have our eyes on a local farm nearby that has been on the market for some time and should we manage to sell ours, then we will put in an offer... wish us luck!

The other highlight this month was that our "Chamomile & Rooibos" soap was chosen to appear in an article on rooibos tea in the Fair Lady. We were very proud!

Another highlight for us was having our little foster child that we looked after for 6 months last year, come stay with us for the weekend. We were so thrilled to see him and enjoyed every minute! In the pic below, he is sitting on my scrambler motorbike, showing me what a triangle looks like. Luaan is absolutely nuts about motorbikes and spent most of the weekend happily climbing on.... and off.... on.... and off! He is growing up into such a beautiful little boy, totally adored by his now permanent foster parents.

Being spring, we have tulips that spring( ha ha) out in the veldt in a mass profusion of purples and yellows. They only open in the afternoon and are poisonous if injested by animals. Luckily, our horses seem to know that but we have a farmer nearby that wasn't so lucky with some calfs that he had brought in from a different region. Utterly beautiful though and one of our favourite times of the year.

The pic below is of Lulu's hooves. The picture was intended to be of her whole body with me taking it lying on the ground, but she's was so curious by the fact of me lying on the ground that she would keep coming up to me to investigate. So I told her that she would then have to appear on the blog "feet first" .

I had to refrain from cutting the grass which I dislike doing anyway, so that we could enjoy the spring flowers for longer. In fact, we have decided to leave the grass until they stop flowering.

It was also my youngest daughter, Rain's, 15th Birthday... she is on the left. She had a stunning birthday with her sister (on the right) and a bunch of friends down at the river and then upon returning, they all went for an outride.

Below, a gorgeous pic of the tulips with our neighbours house in the background.

We now have Pablo, our new horse as you know, so we have been going on a lot of outrides.

The other major mission we have been busy with, is collecting wattle droppers, or as is commonly known in South Africa, latte. This we will use to make our wire fencing more dog proof by placing them at fifteen centimeter intervals.This will firm up the fencing and will be narrow enough to prevent the dogs getting out. The only reason we are doing this is because when I'm in hospital for a few days, this will make Rae's life on the farm a lot easier with just one less thing to worry about. Below is our first little pile we have collected and Rae is busy stripping the bark off, then it is left to dry until we use them. By the way, we still have loads that we need to cut, bring home and peel, before we can even start and time is running out, especially since we still have a soap business to run which is incredibly busy at the moment!

In between all of this, I have also had three wild bee swarms arrive, for which I have had to quickly assemble hives. Below, is a pic of a swarm arriving and in the background is a catch box that is smaller than our hive box and is generally placed to catch the wild swarms, either in trees or anywhere in fact, or as in my case, the garage.

Below is a picture of a full frame of honey and in it you can see that all the honey cells are covered with a layer of wax. This is called the wax cap. It is what you look for when investigating your "supers" to see if your honey is ready to be taken out. If the cells have little wax caps on them, it means that the bees are happy with the honey in there and it's good for storage which means that it is ready for us to harvest. There is more to this business of the bees capping the honey but I will maybe explain it another time.

Pablo in the field of tulips, deftly manipulating his lips around the poisons tulips to eat the grasses in between. It is actually amazing to watch up close as they do it so accurately, you would swear they had eyeballs in their lips!

This is my daughters horse Gwho-Gwho, doing the same thing.

Gwho-Gwho

Below our spring water running into our little dam and as you can see, it is quite a little stream. Well, that's that, it 8 o'clock on a Friday evening and time for supper and a nice glass of red wine!

Somebody elses bee story....

2011-08-28T01:08:00.000-07:00

There have recently been postings regarding bees and their use in detecting explosives, probably the same procedures used in Angola to deal with landmines. You will most likely recall that the late Princess Diana was involved in bringing the situation in Angola to the notice of the rest of the world, she even visited the territory, and her selfless contribution in a way sparked the observations following, which I trust readers will find of interest.

During 2002 my fellow field workers were Walter and Dina who at that stage had been assisting me for more than 4 years with no bee behaviour problems of any nature. During June 2002 every colony we dealt with became restive a while after opening the hive. I had given Walter a full set of dentures and thought that maybe he was not cleaning it properly, so without telling him why he and I blew into the broodboxes via hosepipes. No significant reaction followed. Then I noticed that the bees became agitated when Dina came closer and as the weeks passed this became more pronounced, in fact Walter and I were also being attacked when Dina was in close proximity, and their aggravation only subsided with Dina being sent away. The aggro bees would follow her, concentrating on her lower regions. The problem could not be cleanliness as Dina is particularly clean on her person, so I asked my wife to ask her a few womanly questions, particularly regarding the monthly event. Nothing of consequence emerged and the fury of the bees increased to such an extent that we could not do our scheduled work properly.

Something was obviously amiss and Dina agreed to visit the hospital in Riversdale. I took her there and when fetching her looked at the pills prescribed, told her to throw it away, and went to see if my personal GP had a gap.

Conclusion:- Dina was operated on within a week at Tygerberg Hospital in Bellville, her plumbing, which was riddled with malignant tumours, was removed, the operation was a complete success, she returned to work after the prescribed period, the bees do not mind having her around and all her subsequent tests for cancer have been clear.

A horsey Story

2011-07-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

Ever since playing "Cowboys and Indians" as a young boy, I have imagined living on a piece of land and owning my own horse. I would ride the valleys, cross the rivers and climb to the top of plateau's and marvel at the views, on the back of my trusty horse.
As the years went by, I went from being a "rep" of various products, poaching perlamone in the good old days (when there was so much of it, that you didn't think there was anything wrong with it), from plumbing, being a griller, waitering, doing odd bits of this and that, landscaping and garden maintenance, having a roadside nursery, running the first door-to-door food delivery business in Plettenberg Bay, to getting married to my beautiful wife and having three precious daughters... I would tend to forget about my dream.

But every know and then, I would see a horse or watch a "horsey" movie and that urge would get rekindled and awakened all over again and I knew it was something I just had to have. I must mention here that the three horse riding experiences that I had in the interim, never went that well but this never put me off!

So along with one of my daughters being absolutely horse mad and having a dream of living on a farm with her own horse, I now had the allie I needed to make my own dream come true! Also, as I mentioned before in a previous blog, that along with my dream of moving to a farm, I was also ensuring that my kids got to experience something other than than crowded shopping malls, movie houses, Steers for entertainment. I wanted them to experience the open space of nature and how they could exist in it every day and not just on an outing or on holiday. Maybe one day when they become adults living in the city and life is perhaps not quite what they want, then they will at least have an alternative existance to fall back on.

Lush and myself in the middle

After looking for a farm all over the Western and Eastern Cape, we were constantly drawn back to the Langkloof in the Eastern Cape, where we eventually found our little farm. My daughter Alex accompanied me of these "farm hunting" missions to the Langkloof and being crazy about horses the way she was, she would make me stop if we saw horses in a field and we would just stare at them over the farm fence and if they were close enough, we would go up to stroke them and tell them how beautiful they were! This particular time, however, was the first time she made me stop to take a photo of a horse standing in a field. Little did I know then, that a year later she would become my very own horse!

Beani's first morning on the farm

It was a year later that we were finally settled on our farm, now owning three horses that belonged to my daughters, that I replied to an advert stuck on the local farmers co-op message board, of a horse for sale. After phoning the owner and getting the directions, Alex and I set off to go and test ride the horse to see if it was a suitable choice for me to learn to ride on. She was beautiful and her name was Lush but after Alex had tacked her up and was walking her down the field, she suddenly went into a trot and then a canter and suddenly Alex was airborn, she went flying through the air and landed on her knees!! My heart came to a leaping halt, but she promptly stood up and climbed right back onto Lush, trotted back down the field toward us and happily announced that she was the perfect horse for me! The owner had also told us that his daughter had given up riding Lush, as she had been bucked off and was now to scared to ride. He said that she always seem to do it when going from a trot into a canter. Anyway, taking my daughters word for it, we took ownership of Lush. When we left, we both came to the realisation that this was the same horse we had taken a photo of a year earlier.
So, Lush became the horse I learnt to ride on.... in total, she bucked me off twice and the other times I fell off her was through my own stupidity and inexperience, but at the end of the day, Lush was the horse that I climbed mountains and crossed rivers with.
How I cured her of the bucking was easy, whether this was the correct way or not, I dont know but it seemed to work. I would go riding with my daughters and instead of me putting her into a canter, I would let her follow the "lead horse" into a canter and soon she trusted me to put her into a canter without the bucking.
Suddenly, after three very happy years together, she had an accident and I had to make the terrible decision to put her down. It was possibly the worst day, of my adult life so far and there will always be an empty space in my heart left by her, that will never be filled. Her fellow equine friends on the farm, "Gwho-Gwho", "Jack" and her daughter, "Lulu Long Legs" ( now nicknamed "Beanie"), spent the rest of the day after Lush's departure, just standing up on the hill staring down at the farmhouse and it was obvious that they knew Lush was gone. Although a beautiful sunny day, there was an oppressive silence for the rest of the day, as there was someone missing that had meant so much and will never, ever be forgotten by me or her equine family.

Mommy and foal

She did, however, leave us a beautiful gift... When we got Lush, we did not know she was pregnant but just thought she was lovely and fat but 'lo and behold, one lovely spring morning, there was Lush standing in her field with a lovely little Palamino foal. We named her "Lulu Long Legs" and somehow, as it happens with all people and pets that you love, they invariably get a nick name. Hers became "Beanie". So that day, in celebration of her birth, we decided to watch a "horsey" movie and the only one available at the video store was "Flicka" which we all thoroughly enjoyed, even though we had seen it before.

Pablo and bullet

The following day, we thought we would go and tell Lush's previous owner the wonderful news and see if we could find out who "Beanie's" father was. We then made the amazing discovery that a 35 year old stallion had been kept in a field with Lush for a while and his name was "Flicka".
It has been almost a year since I lost Lush and I have started to feel that I am ready for another horse and that I really need one soon, so every few days, I would mention it to my family, saying that I would really like to get another horse before I turn 50, hoping they would just somehow produce one!!. A couple of evenings ago, we got a call from one of Alex's friends in Plettenberg Bay, asking us if we would like to take on a 20 year old Percheron horse that had been used for logging in the Knysna Forest. He had been rescued by animal welfare three years ago, as he had been abused.

Pablo

Everybody was so excited and I could not believe how my silent prayers had been answered. Later that night while discussing the matter with my wife, a bit of apprehension set in, as we realized we would be taking on another animal to add to our already large menagerie of animals to feed and look after, especially since we are wanting to sell our farm and find a bigger farm. Then later that night, unbeknown to me, my wife, before getting into bed to read, said a little prayer, asking if this was in fact the right thing to do. Afterwards, she settled down to read her book, "The Horse Whisperer" by Nicholas Evans. She started reading where she last left off on pg.134 and on pg.135, the following sentence came up,

"His mother used like telling how, at two years old, they found him in the barn, curled up in the straw asleep, between the massive hooves of a Percheron stallion. It was as though the horse was guarding him."

If you have read the book, you will know it has nothing to do with a Percheron and this is the only time it is mentioned in the book. So the decision was made and he arrived 3 days later, all nervous and shaken from his 2 hour trip in a horse box.

Pablo and me going for a ride

Pablo has been with us for three weeks now and he is the most gentlest and sweetest horse you can imagine.

A kind eye

I really love him and he has stolen my heart in a very short space of time, I enjoy riding him but will take it easy because he is here to retire and forget about the abuse the past humans have put him through.

Riding off into the distance

Is this true

2011-06-30T01:02:00.000-07:00

Professor Ian Plimer (a member of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide. He is also a joint member of the School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering)could not have said it better!

If you've read his book you will agree, this is a good summary.

Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO₂emissions on our planet, all of you.

Of course you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress, that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow, and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans, and all animal life.

I know, it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of: driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your 50 cents light bulbs with $10.00 light bulbs...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in just four days - yes - FOUR DAYS ONLY by that volcano in Iceland, has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud any one time - EVERY DAY.

I don't really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in its entire YEARS on earth. Yes folks, Mt Pinatubo was active for over one year, think about it.

Of course I shouldn't spoil this touchy-feely tree-hugging moment and mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-recognized 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keep happening, despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change.

And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years. And it happens every year.

Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you on the basis of the bogus ''human-caused'' climate change scenario.

Hey, isn't it interesting how they don't mention ''Global Warming'' any more, but just ''Climate Change'' - you know why? It's because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bull artists got caught with their pants down.

And just keep in mind that you might yet have an Emissions Trading Scheme (that whopping new tax)
imposed on you, that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer. It won't stop any volcanoes from erupting, that's for sure.

But hey, relax, give the world a hug and have a nice day!

PS: I wonder if Iceland is buying carbon offsets?

African Bliss - a mens soap (a post by Rae)

2011-05-22T02:51:00.000-07:00

Dino having some fun with the reflections while waiting for oils to cool

For some time now, Dino has been nagging me to add a mens soap to our range as we have quite a few male customers that are enjoying using our soap and are conscious of what they put on their skin. We thought it would be a good idea to come up with a soap that has a strong, earthy colour as well as a spicy masculine smell.

oily reflection

We experimented with coffee to give it a nice dark brown colour, eventually coming up with a shade that we felt was right. My husband, Dino was really keen to dabble in the blending of the essential oils for the new soap and came up with a blend of cinnamon and a variety of African indigenous oils, as he is a keen lover of hiking and nature and constantly brings home little bits of plant sprigs for me to smell.

Working with cinnamon is not always an easy oil to work with and can cause your soap to sieze up rather quickly, as you can see in the above photo. Here we had to quickly pour the mixture (you can see it has a lumpy, grainy texture ) in the hope of saving it, but although we still used it ourselves, visually it was not perfect and after fiddling with the ratio's of the various essential oils, we succeeded! Beeswax was another ingredient we used in this soap and personally I adore any soap containing beeswax as it seems to give an incredibly smooth fine finish and a really creamy lather and it also lasts just a little bit longer than other soaps. As a result, we have a beautiful bar of soap with a fantastic fine, rich lather that leaves a lingering, spicy fresh smell on your body that any woman would find hard to resist and judging by the feedback we've had, it seems that woman love using this soap for themselves as well!

Next, we had to choose a colour for our label that would compliment our soap range and the colour of the soap, be masculine and also remind a person of Africa. We therefore decided to use a colour found in African art and fabric, the ocean and the sky and the result is the above!

Happy Birthday...

2011-05-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

My birthday was on the 19th of March which also coincided with the full moon that was coined "the supermoon", due to the fact that it was the closest it had been to planet earth in two decades, a mere 356,575 km. This to me still seems like a hell of a long distance but nonetheless, for the boffs, it was still something to rave about and for the astrologers, doom prophets and the like, it was also something to rave about but for us, it was just another stunning full moon.

On this special day, I was woken up by my wife with a cup of coffee and prezzies to open. Eventually, my youngest daughter, (pictured above) at the tender age of 14 and who has entered into the teenage years with the total sweet abandonment of a true teenager, woke up to give me my presents and beautiful homemade birthday card. This was followed by a lovely breakfast made by my wife, set outside under the Jacaranda tree. Enormous breakfasts like these are always reserved for special occasions and therefore always enjoyed.

Incidentally, our usual breakfast, depending on the season, is either strawberries, apricots, peaches, bananas and homemade yoghurt and honey, all from our veggie garden/orchard, or we have a "milkshake" made up of bananas, milk, honey, cinnamon and a calcium magnesium supplement. As winter sets in and it gets colder, we have a lovely warming bowl of jungle oats and cinnamon.

It seems that in small rural communities like we live in, the mention of a birthday in passing conversation, days or even months in advance, does not get forgotten and for the rest of the day I received visitors from our surrounding farm community, bearing gifts such as homemade boerewors, droewors, homemade lemonade, cake, etc. All in all, it was a fantastic day which ended with a brilliant full "supermoon".

It was a day that I was truly grateful to experience and I did not mind at all that I was turning another year older...

what the heck!

2011-04-29T05:14:00.000-07:00

Please someone help me, I am so sad.....I can't see my followers , they seem to have disappeared and I can't seem to resolve the problem. Dani.... I am thinking that maybe you can solve my problem

dodging snakes and drying herbs( all in a days work )

2011-03-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

The day started like any other day, for this time of the year.... with me wondering around the garden looking at what needs to be picked, stacked up or watered. It was about 10am and the temp had already reached a comfortable 26 deg C with no sign of letting up. I decided to go and water our olive trees on the north facing slope behind our house. This gives me more or less a clear view onto our veggie garden below, where I could see "Molly Katz", our German Shepherd, snifflling around in the shade house. I presumed she was after a lizard but a few seconds later I heard her bark and thought that she must have a cat cornered in the long grass, so I reprimanded her and told her to go and lie down. We have nine cats that she is obsessed with and she keeps a beedy eye on them all day long and as a result, they are confined to the stoep area where they have an dresser that is their resting place during the day. Only at night when Molly is away in "lala land" inside the house, can they go and do their thing.
Anyway, it was only when she slunk away that I realised that she never barks at the cats and usually just whines excitedly, giving herself away and that earns her the reprimand from me to leave them alone. By the way, she has never hurt one!

When I called and asked her, "What is it Molly", she responded by going back to the area and engaging in a little dance, lunging forward a couple of steps, then retreating backwards... then lunging again with the odd bark. She ran about 10m towards the veggie patch when it suddenly dawned on me that this could be a snake!!! So jumping the fence between us, I ran and warned her to stay back and when I got to within 5m of the veggie patch, I saw this beautiful, majestic Cape Cobra. I shouted to Rae, who was in the house, to bring me the camera and my homemade snake catcher. In the meantime, I searched frantically for something to trap the cobra with and spotting a rake, I used this. All went smoothly with the cobra safely caught and like with all other snakes that we catch, I hopped onto the back of the bakkie, snake in hand (not literally), with Rae at the wheel begging me to be carefull, as she always does! We drove about 5km away and released it. At this point, we always marvel at their beauty and feel happy that we did not have to kill it. This is about the 10th snake that we have caught and released since living here. Some of them have been dangerously close, e.g. striking at Rae as she unsuspectedly walked past, another coiled under the dust pan in the kitchen and one that reared up at our daughter who was collecting her horse tack in the garage.

The rest of the day went by peacefully, collecting herbs out the garden and tying them in bunches and hanging them in the garage for drying. Herbs like basil, taragon, sage, rosemary and thyme, all get hung up to dry for the winter months when growth is slow and fresh picking is not really bountiful anymore. Once they are dry, I blend certain ones together to make herb mixes for pastas or chicken dishes. Believe me, they are a whole lot better than any shop bought herbs, with loads more flavour.

SOME WEIGHTY ISSUES TO CONSIDER....

2011-03-12T01:39:00.000-08:00

The following I copied off Natural News. I wouldn't mind some comments on this.

NaturalNews) If you look around what's really happening in our world today, there's an inescapable pattern that curiously emerges: Much of what's going on is simply unsustainable. It can't go on for much longer, in other words. And it must collapse due to the laws of economics or physics.
Here, I've put together a collection of twelve systems that are utterly unsustainable on our planet. Each of these twelve is scheduled for some sort of collapse or shut down in the coming years. They range from economics to medicine, population and the environment. And interestingly, the collapse of just one of these twelve would have devastating consequences across human civilization. What happens when two, three or ten of these things collapse.

1) Debt-based banking and economic systems
There's little question that our global fractional reserve banking system is headed for a catastrophic collapse. It's a system based on debt rather than sound money principles, and the laws of economics dictate that the global multiplication of money and debt is entirely unsustainable.

This system will collapse, and when it does, it will be so large that the economic devastation will be global. Governments have actually made this worse, of course, by bailing out the dishonest investment institutions that have made the situation worse. The coming financial collapse will teach humanity some hard lessons about honest money.

2) Conventional agriculture and "rape the planet" farming
The current agricultural system that feeds the planet is simply unsustainable. It is a "rape the planet" model that clear-cuts forests to grow GMO soybeans that feed factory cattle which are turned into processed meat. Even the plant crops grown through conventional agriculture depend on chemical fertilizers from sources that are running out (fossil fuels, phosphate mines, etc.).

Furthermore, the mass application of chemical pesticides, fungicides and Monsanto's Roundup chemicals is destroying the viability of soils while polluting the world's farms, rivers, streams and oceans. This system is unsustainable. When it collapses, humanity will learn (the hard way) that only sustainable agriculture can sustain human life on our planet.

3) Mass-consumption economies based on buy-it-and-trash-it behavior
When children are raised to be good little Americans (or Canadians, or Australians, etc.), they're taught to consume more stuff. In America, it was even called "patriotic" by former President George Bush. To support your local economy, you're supposed to go out and buy stuff that you don't need, then chuck it into the trash after you use it, then go out and buy more!

Virtually the entire first-world economy is based on this idea that people need to consume more stuff, then throw it away, then consume more. That's what all the corporate advertising is for, to convince people that they are inadequate unless they buy and consume more high-priced cars, designer jeans, electronic gadgets and throwaway home cleaning supplies. This system is insane. And it cannot continue indefinitely.

4) The accelerating loss of farming soils
There's a great documentary you need to see on this called Dirt. (www.DirtTheMovie.org) It explains the value of dirt (soil) and why conventional agriculture methods are destroying the dirt upon which our civilization depends. We even wrote about the movie here: http://www.naturalnews.com/031597_D...

No dirt = no food. Get it? And the dirt is disappearing at an alarming rate, thanks to the unsustainable practices of conventional agriculture, with all its tilling, soil destruction, poisons and GMOs. I wonder what the people will plant their seeds in when all the cropland dirt is either dead or gone?

5) The mass poisoning of the oceans and aggressive over-fishing
Oceans ecosystems are collapsing. This isn't some future prediction, it's happening right now. Ocean acidification is destroying the coral reefs and mollusks all across the globe. At the same time, human civilization treats the oceans as giant planetary toilets into which all the toxic chemicals of modern civilization are flushed: Pharmaceuticals, pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals, hormone-disrupting chemicals and a whole lot more.

Massive fish die-offs are becoming increasingly common , and fish populations are plummeting across several species. We are beginning to see the results of mankind's ongoing poisoning of the oceans.

6) Mass genetic pollution of the planet through GMOs
It will be the great, dark legacy of our modern civilization: The widespread genetic contamination of the planet through the use of GMOs.

Genetically engineered seeds are spreading their altered genetic code all across the world. The DNA of GMO crops is now detectable in soils, foods and water systems. What's the upshot of all this? It's a big unknown, of course, and that's the frightening part: No one before has ever "played God" with the planet, right out in the open, and then observed what happens after a few years (or decades). Thanks to companies like Monsanto, we are the experiment, and no one know if it might ultimately lead to something like a widespread crop failure or even the alternation of natural web-of-life interactions across multiple ecosystems.

And if genetic pollution causes problems, how do you "clean" that pollution? You can't! Genetic pollution endures. Once crops become infected with GE seeds, it's all but impossible to eliminate the DNA contamination.

7) The drugs-and-surgery conventional medical system
Big Pharma's days are numbered -- based on economics if nothing else. The monopolistic pricing, the deadly side effects and the corrupt, criminal operations of the industry make it all utterly non-sustainable.

Big Pharma and the whole chemical approach to medicine is bankrupting companies, cities, states and nations. No nation can economically survive in the long run if it keeps spending its money on Big Pharma sick care schemes. Ultimately, those nations that hope to survive will need to ditch Big Pharma and return to natural medicine and preventive nutrition.

That day is coming. Sooner that you think, probably.

8) Widespread pharmaceutical contamination of the human population and the environment
Until the day comes that Big Pharma collapses into ruin, the pharmaceutical pollution of the planet will continue. Right now, pharmaceutical factories in India (which export their pills back to the states to be sold as brand-name drugs) are dumping untold thousands of gallons of dangerous chemical drugs into the waterways there (http://www.naturalnews.com/025415_w...).

In the U.S. and Canada, the water near every major city is heavily contaminated with pharmaceuticals. (http://www.naturalnews.com/025933.html)

The situation is so bad that Big Pharma's chemical runoff threatens the future of life on our planet! (http://www.naturalnews.com/029314_w...)

Fortunately, this sad chapter in human history will soon come to an end.

9) Runaway human population growth
Here's the one nobody wants to talk about. But make no mistake: The human population growth we see right now is entirely unsustainable. The available of cheap food and fossil fuels over the last century has contributed to an unprecedented population explosion that is now nearing its end. There are only so many acres of farmland, after all, and only so many acre-feet of water to irrigate it.

Don't misinterpret this, however, of thinking that I support some sort of population reduction measures a la Bill Gates and his quote about reducing the world population by 10 - 15 percent through the use of vaccines and health care (http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_v...).

Unlike some of the truly evil world leaders, I don't believe in killing off human beings just to reduce global population. Rather, it makes more sense to teach sustainable living practices along with good parenting and well-considered parenthood. Strangely, most of the new children brought into the world today are not the result of stable, well-prepared parents choosing to have children, but rather the unintended consequences of casual copulation.

10) Fossil water consumption for agriculture
We just published a story on this issue, talking about how the Ogallala Aquifer is running dry, threatening the agricultural output of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and even parts of Colorado and Texas (http://www.naturalnews.com/031658_a...).

This is a global issue, affecting India, China, North America, South America and nearly every nation that produces any significant agricultural yields. Fresh water is running out all across the world, and while additional water supplies can always be created through desalination, for example, that's a very expensive way to replenish the water, and it's almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels (see below). Even if you could build enough desalination plants to irrigate the world's croplands, the resulting food prices would still result in mass starvation by those who couldn't afford the food which might cost ten times the current price..

11) Fossil fuel consumption
I realize this is a highly contentious issue, with some people claiming that there's an "unlimited supply of oil" in our planet because it's replenishing itself all the time. This idea simply doesn't square with what we know: The Earth is a finite object, occupying finite space. Inside it can only be a finite amount of fossil fuels. The recharge rate of fossil fuels is on the scale of millions of years, meaning we can't simply wait around for more fuel to reappear if we use up the current reserves.

There is convincing evidence right now that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, has been lying about its output capacity for at least the last decade. It can't reach its production targets, and there is reasoned speculation that its own best-producing oil wells are approaching their end. Even if oil remains available for a few more decades, it still becomes increasingly expensive oil, meaning that everything else down the supply chain becomes more expensive, too: Food, fuel, consumer goods, etc.

The era of cheap fossil fuels is coming to an end. Although fossil fuels will no doubt be around for several decades more, the cheap stuff is long gone, it seems. The citizens of Earth will soon need to find an alternate way to power their cities, cars and businesses in the 21st century.

Oh, and by the way, solar probably isn't the answer, as solar panels depend on rare earth metals that are entirely dependent on Chinese mining operations (http://www.naturalnews.com/028160_r...). Wind energy also hasn't panned out as it should have. And the governments of the world continue to suppress free energy technologies such as Cold Fusion, which has now been proven to work by even the U.S. Navy..

12) The widespread destruction of animal habitat
Here's one that drives some people nuts. What? We can't keep clear-cutting the rainforests to plant genetically engineered soybeans?

Not if you want the planet to survive, actually. There's a delicate web of life on our planet upon which human life ultimately depends. The more animal habitat we destroy, the more it ultimately comes back to haunt us.

Now, I'm not in favor of the insane green police and the UN's freedom-stealing efforts to pigeon-hole human beings into centrally-controlled behavior boxes. The key here is finding ways for people to live in balance with nature while still maintaining their freedoms.

And that depends on education. We need to continue to teach people how to make sound decisions about where they buy their wood furniture (to avoid the slashing of old-growth forests). We need to teach people who eat meat to buy truly free-range, grass-fed meat rather than factory-farmed meats that depend on soybean mega-farms. And of course, we also need to make people aware of the benefits of getting more plant-based foods into their diets where possible, because when properly prepared, plant foods provide a lot of nutrients with a smaller ecological footprint than most meats.

I'm not against those who eat meat, by the way. I just think that people need to consider where their food comes from no matter what they're eating, and then take steps to reduce the ecological footprint of the food they're choosing to consume. The best answer to this is to buy local food. In fact, I would argue that eating some beef steaks from a local farmer is more ecologically sound than juicing up organic fruits and vegetables grown and imported from Chile (unless you live in Chile, of course).

That's an arguable point, of course, and opinions differ sharply on this, but I believe that we really need to focus on eating local foods just as much as we do on what we're eating. Personally, I don't eat cows, but even for the plants I consume, I'm working hard right now on growing more of my own so that I'm acting with integrity -- "walking the talk" so to speak -- to be aligned with what I'm advocating for others.

While we're at it, one of the best ways to reduce the destruction of animal habitat is to grow your own food by turning your yard into a garden. Reduce your demand for store-bought food and you unquestionably reduce your ecological footprint on the planet.

So those are 12 of the biggest things that are entirely unsustainable on our planet right now. Human life depends on most of them. It makes you wonder: How will humans survive when these systems and resources upon which we depend have run out or collapsed?

That is a question we'd all better be asking ourselves right now. Because the age of cheap fuel, cheap money, cheap water and cheap food is fast ending. The future of life on our planet will require something far more evolved than the infantile, selfish and self-destructive mindset that humanity has so far demonstrated.

Debt-based money systems don't cut it. Burning up all the fossil fuels is only a fool's abundance. Medicating the humans and animals with toxic, synthetic pharmaceuticals is a form of medical insanity. These things will all come to an end.

The question is: Who will survive the end of these things and be around to help shape the next society which must operate with far greater humility and wisdom?

SUNDRIED (SHRIVELLED...) TOMATOES

2011-03-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

This year I have had the most success with growing tomatoes. This I attribute to the copious amounts of water I give them, comfrey compost tea and spraying them every 5 days with a 10% milk/water solution. When it comes to watering tomatoes, it"s no use watering them willy nilly everyday, or every other day with a little bit of water! Make a good basin around the plant, or if its a bed with 3 to 6 plants in it, then turn that into a large dam and put a hose in there on a slow trickle and let it water for half an hour. The kind of trickle I mean, is one that would fill a bucket in say, 5 min.

If you have the means to grow your tomatoes under shade cloth, then do it and tie a string around the base of the plant to the top of the shade house and train your plant up this. I use a 40% shade cloth, as this lets through enough light and provides enough warmth for them to florish. I read somewhere that tomatoes don't need as much the direct sunlight, as they need warmth, to produce and from my above experiment (see above pics), this seems to be true. For hardiness, I planted Roma tomatoes, as they also seem to be the best for canning, jams etc.

Above, you see my buckets of comfrey liquid compost. To make this, you take the comfrey leaves and pack them in the bottom of a bucket up to a third of the way up, place a brick on top of the leaves to weigh them down, then fill it up with water to the top. This you leave for two weeks. It is said that you should dilute this mixture by 10% with water before use, but I diluted it by a 5% and used it once a week. It has the most organic smell you have ever smelt!!! In fact, when a person first approaches the area after the 2 week brewing time is over, it's hard not to believe that someone has not taken a dump (to put it mildly!!) in the area, because boy... it smells potent but luckily it soon disappears after application. So put lids on the buckets to contain the odour and don't let your hands get wet by the mixture!

the lovely Roma tomatoes

Cut them in half and lay them on a bed of salt (coarse salt ) and put them in the sun for about four days. Just remember to bring them in at night and put them back out in the morning.

The above picture is after two days, two trays like this made two jars and less... if you are tempted to sample as the days proceed. We found various ways of storing them on the internet, with lots of different opinions as to which would last longer. In the end we settled for:
1. Packing them into a jar with some basil, filling it up with olive oil and store in a cool dark place.
2. Putting them into a zip lock bag and closing, leaving a little opening to suck as much air out as possible thereby creating a vacuum effect, closing it and popping it into the freezer.

The end product.

A Spectacular End To A Hot Day

2011-02-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

Star and Picasso

Today was one of the hottest and most humid days of the year, so far and I hate humidity! On days like this very little gets done around the "plaas". We do the bare essentials, such as watering the veggie garden, providing water for the horses and making soap, of course. The rest of the time is spent on the internet, reading in front of a fan and waiting for the temperature to drop to a manageable degree, so that we can venture out again. On days like this, one feels like a vampire, the moment you open the door and put your face out into the sun, you feel like cringing as it hits you! Anyway, the day never really got any cooler, until finally at about 5 pm, we got some cloud cover and I decided to take the dogs for their daily walk followed by a game of sticks.

Bullet

No matter how hot, or how cold and wet, they're always keen and for this reason I could never let them down. Come rain, hail, thunder and lightening, or some other kind of weather catastrophy, its as if their entire day is spent lying around and biding their time, waiting for their walk. These pictures are of them at the end of todays walk.

Star, the only girl out of a litter of 7 puppies

So, I walked dogs and then put the horses into their field. Star never lets me out of her sight and is always sure to be there when I look around. If by chance I have not noticed her then she will let me know of her presence by giving me a gentle nudge with her nose.

The horses

Lulu long legs

Colonel ( alias: Gwho- Gwho )

The start of the show was with the clouds drawing in from the west.

Then we had some really majestic light illuminating the best parts of the clouds.

Star was also there, in fact the whole dog and human family to watch this display.

As you can see by the number of photos that I took, I was hoping to capture some of the beauty, I was obviously enjoying this and was in complete awe!

This is a close-up pic of a section of the clouds, just too beautiful.
Once the show was over, we sat on our stoep with a gas stove and fried some egg plant steaks, dipped in batter, with salt and a squeeze of lemon juice, accompanied by a salad and a lekker glass of red wine. Incidently, our entire meal was from the garden, including the lemon. Later, after supper, we experienced a short thunderstorm, just enough to cool the earth down for a good nights sleep.
The next day was another STINKER........

I Dig Potatoes..

2011-02-09T11:03:00.000-08:00

When planting potatoes, you first have to get your moere! This is the Afrikaanse word for seed potato and is usually used as an insult, especially amongst the South African drunken fraternity, or very cross and angry South Africans!
You then put these "moere" in a black bag and place in a warm spot for about two to three weeks, in which time they will have sprouted some roots. They are then ready to plant. I also interplanted my potatoes with aubergines, as this is a good companion plant and I must say, this works like a bomb.

Plant them in holes about a hands width in depth, below the level of the soil. I also put comfrey leaves in the bottom of the holes (the holes must be about 60 cm apart), with a layer of soil above. I also dust my "moere" in ash and then cover with soil and water well. After about three weeks you will see a bit of life peeking above the soil. When your plant reaches about 15 to 20cm above the ground, you mound up the soil around the plant to about the 10 cm mark and as it grows, you keep on doing this until it starts to flower. I actually only did this "mounding-up" of soil twice and then waited... and watered... and watered!
Once they flower, you then wait until the flowers start to wilt and the plant looks like it is in dire need of water. In my experience, this also the time to stop watering them (this is only my second potato crop, so maybe I am wrong) and wait for the plant to die off, then carefully dig them up, bearing in mind that all the potatoes stick close to the stem of the plant. Our potato bed was about 7m long and 90cm wide and gave us 3 of the above boxes, full of potatoes. The aubergines are still growing in this bed and I am about to plant spinach with them as well. Once you have eaten your own home grown potatoes. you will be loathe to eat market potatoes again.

My next door neighbour, a farmer, Tienie Kritzinger, reckons that my veggie garden looks like the Garden of Eden, as everything is interplanted and weeds that get pulled out, I toss back into the bed as a mulch. But I love it, as once things start to grow and bear fruit, you have to walk around and search between the folliage for goodies! When you do come across some edibles, its a surprise and an adventure. Sometimes, I wish that for a moment, that I could shrink to just about 30cm tall and go clambering through our veggie garden, sniff my earthy smelling beetroots, give a ripe tomatoe a fat hug and sit under the shade of a pumpkin leaf and contemplate, maybe even have a well deserved snooze......

our little blessing of 2010...

2011-01-30T11:20:00.000-08:00

no fear when it came to horses

One evening, we ask Rain our daughter, to go and borrow some sugar from our neighbour, who is the welfare officer of Joubertina, our closest town. After a while she returned in a state of excitement and asked us if we could please come and look at the cutest little boy next door. Tossie, our neighbour, had told Rain that she needed to find a tempory foster home for him, as his mother was not in a good space and asked if Tossie could find a home for him for 3 months..

After a busy morning

My wife and myself looked at each other and after a few seconds of, "should we, shouldn't we", we decided to go check the little chap out. Well.... I was not prepared for what greeted us. There was this cute, fragile little blond boy of 17 months, sitting silently in his pram, looking completely lost and vunerable and so obviously in need of some love and stability, that I was instantly filled with emotion and holding back the tears, I said to Rae that we should take him and then I turned around and walked out the door to have a good sob...

Did not like his hands dirty

For three days, he was a silent, meek little chap that ate well, slept well and much to our concern, did not "poo", no matter what we fed him to urge it on. Then suddenly on the 4th day, all hell broke loose and loose it was! From then on, there were no more problems in that department! Initially he showed obvious signs of a traumatised upbringing but as the weeks went by, he soon started changing into a happy, noisy little boy with a great sense of humour and an appetite second to none.
Our lives obviously had to adjust enormously, as we had totally forgotten what is was like to have a toddler around again. Our farmhouse, for starters, was definitely not toddler-friendly and breakables had to get put away, as well as the lovely open shelving in the kitchen had to get closed up! Occasional sleeping-in and Sunday afternoon siesta's became a thing of the past and night times became something to look forward to, as he literally begged you at 7pm sharp, for his "botty" and he would go down without a peep till 6am the next morning. His speech also developed in leaps and bounds, his first clear word being "Star", one of our dogs names. In the morning, after he had just woken up, you would be greeted with a cute little exclamation of " hi!" and a broad grin... and so our day with Luaan would start, with a big smile and all the enthusiam he could muster.

Loved collecting horse poo

We also had the amazing experience of having a little boy around, having only ever raised three girls and wow, is it different! Rae was convinced he had behavioural problems, as he tended to bash everything, take everything apart, tried to jump off tables, etc, but friends of ours with sons, assured us that this was all totally normal! He constantly had a bruise of varying shades of blue, somewhere on his forehead!
His mother would still see him about once every two weeks and that experience taught us the MOST important lesson of all. Even though his life with her, so far, had been a tough one and he'd been with us a full month already before she was allowed her first visit, he was overjoyed to see her and cried bitterly when she left. It was so difficult to witness this but it taught us the valuable lesson of conditional love...
In the end he stayed with us for six months, with still no sign of his mother trying to improve her situation, if anything her situation deteriated and he seemed to react less and less each time she visited.
Luaan is now with permanent foster-parents, who adore him and are really hoping to be able to adopt him eventually. Luckily for us, we have become friends with them, sharing the wonderful bond of Luaan. They make sure we get to still see him regularly, we will always be part of his life and have the role of his extended family and having him for holidays, weekends, etc, and when his new "mom and dad" need a much deserved weekend off!

What's cooking....?

2010-12-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

An unexpectedly cold day arrived and we were confined to the four walls of our little farmhouse today, but happily so, as we desperately needed the rain that our fellow country men have been getting in the Cape. On the itinary for the day was baking bread, making jam and getting a soap order together. Above, is a picture of myself grinding our own wheat to make our own bread. Once you start to eat your own bread from freshly ground flour, you will never enjoy shop bought bread again. This process is as simple as buying a grinder and buying a 50 kg sack of wheat (if you dont have your own homegrown wheat). A 50kg sack goes a long way on for an average family of four. You can also grind mealies and have your own polenta or mielie meal and this combined with produce out of your veggie patch, makes for a very healthy and self-sufficient lifestyle.

Above is the dough, ready to rise. After a bit of practise, this bread only takes 15 to 20 min of preparation, about 2 hours of rising time and you will have fantastic wholesome bread. Not to mention the lovely aroma eminating through the house, while it's baking in the oven. The smell of bread baking, is one of the aroma's that every family member and friends will remember, whenever they think of homemade bread. If you are in the vicinity when our bread comes out the oven, Rae always makes sure that you get a nice chunky piece with a fat spread of butter, to stave off the hunger that the oven smells have brought on. If you don't get any and try to steal.... there are serious repercussions!

Our beautiful wrapped soap, ready to go off to a customer. In the background you will see a big block of soap that has just come out of the mould, that I am still going to cut up.

Rae has the apricots simmering on the dover stove, 2kg of apricots ( from our own trees) gives us three huge mayonnaise jars and one little jar of jam. Just a word of advice, it seems that you can't do more than 3.5kg at a time, as the jam then seems to go dark brown, or even black.

More simmering. Its the perfect day for the stove to be going.

"T-bone" the dog, taking advantage of the lovely warm stove. As a matter of fact, this is his permanent spot throughout winter. He had a hard time staking his claim on this crate, as we have now have nine dogs, compared to the three we arrived here with.

Yummy, yummy apricot jam simmering, whohoooo.

Our "Fynbos" soap and the "Olive & Coconut" soap, all nicely cut up and ready to go off to the curing room for 4 weeks.

Rainy weather outside with fruit trees and the beehive being buffeted by the rain

My dog "Bullet", alias,"Bully" or "Mister B". Bullet and T-Bone are brothers.

The Jacaranda tree is also taking a beating, can you see the carpet of fallen flowers.

Bread's out and I must say, they look like a pair of hot buns. Below we have the loaves along with the apricot jam. Right now, it's just getting dark and we are all holed up inside, in the kitchen with all the dogs, all nice and cosy with the little black belly Dover Stove, our supper on top and everyone nice and warm, with the falling rain outside.

Back to school for some

2010-05-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

Something that I have omitted to blog about, when it all happened, is the decision of both my daughters to go back to school. I have three daughter’s, my eldest had already finished school by completing her last year at home on the Cambridge system. The other two both did 3 years of home schooling which consisted of starting with a year of Clonard, a South African system, followed by 2 years of borrowing school text books that were relevant to each of their grades. The reason for the last 2 years of their home schooling being so relaxed and basically done at their own pace, was that we couldn’t find a curriculim that was both affordable and satisfactory to us. When you search the internet, you find all kinds of home schooling systems beckoning you with fancy websites and impressive curriculims,.but when you investigating a little deeper, you find out that they are not what they promise, or sometimes it just takes going as far as trying to contact them and you get no joy, well, enough said!
So, for the 2 years of home schooling, our daughters did all sorts of things which included, spending copious amounts of time riding their horses, being taught art in return for horse riding lessons, taking off into the mountains on some adventures of note, learning to do basic book keeping, baking and selling their successes at the local market, learning to play guitar and sing, planting and growing vegetables, attending and taking part in a local musical concert, etc and also keeping to their own schedule of actual school work.

Suddenly, as 2010 drew closer both Alex 17 and Rain 13 both decided that should the opportunity arise, they would like to go back to school. In some ways I was absolutely mortified, because the whole reason for them doing home school is that I always felt that the public school system seemed to be a bit of a farce, like leading the lambs to the slaughter, churning out little robots with no imagination and no ambition to follow their hearts but rather what society and the mass media pump into them. Making them fear being different and not conforming to the masses, but that’s just me!

So… with Gods grace and our love, it all fell into place.

It was Alex that decided that should she be able to go straight into Gr.12, she would go for it. She had left public school in Gr.7 and thereafter had written no exams except tests that we had set for her. This we felt was a tall order but to cut another long story short, we managed to get her into Gr.11 at Camps Bay High School in Cape Town, where she is flourishing and doing very well. She lives with my wife’s sister’s family, who very generously offered to open their home to her. Her cousins are also at Camps Bay High with her. The reason for her going to Cape town to finish her schooling is because only option then, locally, is an Afrikaans high school. This obviously meant that her whole curriculim would be in Afrikaans.

No sooner had we set this in motion, we then got approached by our local Domini to tell us that because of the insurgence of English speaking people into the area, the local high school had decided to accommodate English speakers by supplying them with English text books and the teachers would also make the effort of explaining when asked, in English. This all tied in with our next door neighbours moving back to their family farm after ten years and offering to take Rain into school every day. So it was a done deal and Rain went off to school!

I can’t help thinking how this whole school thing came together, for both our daughters, with very little effort on our parts, just as if it was all just meant to be. So I put my faith in God and decided to go with the flow…

Incidently, putting your faith in God does not always mean things will go smoothly, in other words, according to the way you think it should go. If you remember to look for God in every avenue of your life, be it in the good and the bad, the light and the dark and the night and the day, you will be sure to find Him.

So after the first term of school for Alex in Cape Town, she was back for school holidays with her friend Georgia Brisco. They managed to get a lift home with a local lad who is studying at varsity in Cape Town. At the end of their 6 hour drive home, I met them in the middle of the night, at the beginning of our dusty farm road. It was a crazy experience, being pitch dark and not been able to see each other outside of our vehicles, or in my bakkie, as I have no inside light. Having not seen each other for about three months, I was curious and dying to see her in the flesh, holding her close and listening to her happy and excited voice! This might seem all quite dramatic, but we are a very close and loving family. So it would be another 7 km before we could see each other in the warmth of our farm house kitchen, with the rest of the family. Once we were all together, news was swopped, supper was eaten as a family (almost… our eldest daughter is living and working in Cape Town too) and life was great.

I am happy to say that both my daughters reports were exceptional and after a term of school, they were both loving it. The family had a brilliant school holiday together, along with Georgia, who felt like family within the first couple of days. Then the holidays were over and everything returned to the new, normal way of our lives with the kids at school, back to telephonic communication, facebook, emails, homework and our foster child, but he is another post that I might, or might not write about….

A beezy time on African Bliss Farm

2010-04-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

A year before we moved to our farm, African Bliss, which is situated in the Kouga mountain range, I decided to do a course in bee-keeping in preparation for our big move to a farm where I could finally explore my interest in the little beezy creatures.

I travelled from Plettenberg Bay to Cape Town for the course and spent a few days with a colourful little gentleman by the name of Marchand and his wonderful wife, Jenny.

The course covered everything that would set one up for being an aspiring beekeeper, such as, hive management, honey extraction and different types of hives, as well as the history behind beekeeping. We also briefly touched the topics of apitherapy and the aspects of beekeeping as a commercial trade. All in all it was a fantastic and extremely enriching course.

By the time we finally moved to our farm in the Kouga I had already enthusiastically purchased a number of empty hives, some new and others second-hand. For those of you who have been following our stories, you will remember that we arrived here in the beginning of winter last year, which is supposedly not the season to catch migrating swarms. A migrating swarm is one that is formed when an existing swarm becomes too large or there is a shortage of food and so part of the colony sets off with a newly made queen in search of a new home.

Now, I must just tell you, after doing the course one feels pretty confident to handle just about any bee situation you can think of until you get your first swarm. The day a migrating swarm flies into one of your vacant hives and makes it their home, you just feel so honoured. I now have obtained 11 swarms in this way and I still feel so special and lucky to be landlord to these little beezy insects. Also, when you see bees pollinating your flowers or collecting nectar from your orchard or veggie patch you get such a warm feeling from thinking that while you are providing them with pollen and nectar with the plants you grow, they, in return, are ensuring your existence by making sure plants bare seed and continue their existence. Of course, there is also the huge bonus of getting their honey which, along with beeswax, we use in the making of our 100% natural soaps and body bars.

From my whole experience with the bees so far, I would like to tell you about a particular week of events that led to me taking a day off.

It all started when I awoke one morning as the sun was rising. I looked out my bedroom window as I always do, to see the colours that the new day has brought, but what do I see lying on the ground below the jacaranda tree? A swarm of bees all huddled into a tight ball around a branch that had fallen out the tree! The swarm had obviously stopped on the branch overnight, but had been too heavy and with a bit of wind in the night, the branch had snapped and fallen to the ground. It was not a big swarm but I was excited! First I woke my wife and begged her to role over and peer out the window at our new tenants-to-be. Then I went to fetch my youngest daughter, Rain (who does not get grumpy at being woken up too early) so she could come and share the experience with me.

Out we went, myself still in my long-johns, and she in her pyjamas, to fetch an empty hive. As you may have gathered, we had no protection on in the form of bee-suits or gloves which some of you may think has to bee dangerous, but when they are swarming they do not readily sting, so long as you are gentle and non-threatening towards them. To hive them, you put the box in front of them with a ramp leading up to the entrance, then they all start to move up the ramp into the box. To head in an upward direction is something they just naturally do. I then demonstrated to my daughter, Rain, that you can gently stick your hand in the swarm, or let them crawl over your hand as they head up the ramp and you won’t get stung. It is amazing to feel these little buzzy balls of energy, all with the potential to sting you, moving over your hands with the single purpose of getting the queen in safely and then getting beezy with “setting up house”.

This is the morning when all the unfortunate events started happening. Because I never got stung when I first brushed my hand through them , I become more daring and with the carefree attitude of Jamie Oliver, I swooped my hand through the upward migrating swarm and ZAP- ZAP, I got stung on the arm! Then and there, I learnt that when dealing with a swarm on the move, there are still boundaries to be kept at all times!

Later that day, I went to go and check on my other hives and noticed that some of the bees were behaving rather oddly. In from of a few of the hives, some of the bees were very busy on the ground (my hives are only 30cm off the ground on cement blocks). Upon closer inspection, I noticed some of the little guys were wrestling with ants and I realised that I needed to help them urgently. Not wanting to introduce any more poison into this world of ours, I found out that ants are acidic and do not like an alkali environment. Off I went to town and came home with a large bag of Bicarbonate of Soda. I cautiously approached the first hive from behind, (wearing no protection again) and sprinkled the powder around the entrance, very carefully, so as not to upset the bees. Later that afternoon, I went to do another check on the hives and although the situation was much better, the ants were still around. So, now highly irritated on my bees behalf, I fetched the bicarb and poured a nice fat stripe across the entrance to the hives, all caution thrown to the wind! This I had to do to four hives and on the fourth one, ZAP, I got stung on the back of the head. The abovementioned exercise got carried out while the bees were flying in and out of the hive, so naturally some of the powder landed on them! I decided then to stay away from the hives for the rest of the day. The next morning, I was out early inspecting the hives and I saw that the bees, obviously not impressed with the powder across their landing strip, had removed it and the ants were still a bit of a problem. I then came up with the bright idea of dissolving the bicarb into water and wetting the ground in front of the hive with a watering can. This seemed successful and only the hive in the veggie garden got slightly agitated and I ran into the house for cover with miraculously no stings! About an hour later I ventured out to go and water my vegetables and in a state of utter contentment, focusing on the water droplets leaving the nozzle, travelling thought the air full of love, beauty and life, soaking into the soil, down to the roots of my veggies… when the whole blissful moment came to an abrupt halt with a buzz and a ZAP to the eyelid. Again, I ran for cover, waving my hands around my head. I guess not enough time had passed for them to have forgiven me!

Three stings in three days in a row, I was starting to think that maybe I should stay in bed and take the day off. By now the whole family are standing in the kitchen and laughing at me while Rae, my wife, removes the sting from my eyelid. That night it rained and the next morning was a glorious sunny day. I went outside and hallelula, the ants were gone and the bees were beezy as always. I felt safe again in natures playground. It was with this happy feeling, looking a sight with my swollen head, eyelid and forearm, my daughters and I decided to go and move our horses to new grazing We decided to ride 800m down the road, bareback. As I was pretty new to horse riding and had learned that bareback riding at a trot is not suitable for the male species, I was not keen but my daughter assured me that cantering was the answer, as it was a much smoother pace. So, off we went at a canter and she was right, it was easier but the horses all cantering together, got a bit excited and to cut a long story short, I fell off! Nothing broken, just scratched and feeling great for not being dead. So, day four and another injury and while my wife tended to my wounds, she advised that perhaps I should just go and lie down for a while. I nearly took her advice, except there were things that needed to be done in town. So, after wounds being patched up and a change of clothing , I was strolling to the bakkie when I felt something crawling inside and up the leg of my shorts. I absentmindedly swatted it…... ZAP! Yes, it was another bee and I got yet another sting. I turned around right then and there, went inside and removed the sting, saw my wife’s flabbergasted face and went to bed, where I remained until the next morning. It was great and the spell was broken!

On a final note, the following day I went to the local co-op to buy some more bicarb (just in case). While I was standing at the counter, there was an old farmer standing next to me. After a while, feeling his eyes on me, I greeted him and raised my swollen forearm and told him that I’d been stung by a bee. He then replied (in Afrikaans) that he’d noticed my arm and had thought what strong looking arms I had, not noticing that there was only one that looked like that! With that, everyone in the queue burst out laughing.

I must just say, that I have been stung again since those four days but you get used to it and I don’t swell as much as before!

Its the first day of autumn on African Bliss Farm

2010-03-23T04:24:00.000-07:00

We started off our day by flattening our mielie field stalks, so that they can decompose through winter and add organic material to the soil. All cobs that had not properly developed, we collected and put them in the drying shack, so that they can be used as a supplement feed for our horses, which is not such a bad thing in these times of drought. We then cleared a bed of basil and spent tomatoe plants. We managed to save some tomatoes and with the basil, Rae bottled some pesto for the winter months ahead, as well as some for now. Because we don't have pine nuts, we us almonds from our almond trees. When you live in a rural area, you have to improvise! In fact, we make hummus that started off pretty close to the original recipe but has now morphed into a hummus that has the Conterio signature all over it and tastes absolutely delicious. The rest of the basil got tied into bunches and hung in the drying shack, we also intend to collect the seeds off the flowers to plant again next season.
In the middle of all this activity, my neighbour phones to let me know that he spotted a lone baboon moving in the direction of my beehives, which are situated behind my house. So I bang down the phone and rush out to confront him, only to find that his superior senses must have heard, smelt or even seen me, long before I saw him and he was ambling off in direction of a clump of prickly pears with what only can be described, as the coolest and most arrogant swagger in the animal kingdom. He then sat down in the midst of them, plucked off a ripe jucy fruit and proceeded to eat it, while casting me a contemplative "whats up" look. It was only when Rae, my wife appeared, that he decided it was time to leave the property. Its weird because she does not look at all scary, but maybe in the baboon world she does, what with the curly hair and dark sunglasses!
By now it was lunch time. We ate homemade wholewheat bread, with wheat that had being ground by myself, bread baked by myself, homemade hummus, homemade basil pesto and tomatoes from the garden, all made into a wholesome sandwiches. We then retired for an afternoon siesta. Aaaaaa..... the life I tell you.

When we awoke, Rae decided that seen as we had so many almonds, she was going to make biscotti to go with some coffe later on. All went well and the biscotti was sitting in the oven for drying and I was outside busy with the horses, when I heard Rae scream. This is not uncommon, as she does regularly scream for one or other reason and usually its just one shriek followed by a, "Dinoooo, please come and get this spider out". But on this occasion, as I waited for the "Dinoooooo", all I heard was a bang, clash sound followed by another shriek. I then knew this was serious and was met by a panic-stricken Rae shouting, "Cape Cobra!", after which I flew into a flat spin and because she had screamed the way she did, all the dogs went pouring into the house. So I instructed Rae to get the dogs out and I went and fetched my snake catcher which is always close at hand for such emergencies and believe you me, there are many but this is the first time we have had a snake in the house. To cut a long story short, while kicking an 17 year old cat out the way repeatedly because she was so fixated on lending me a hand, the snake was caught. It was the most angry Cape Cobra I have ever had to deal with. I later learnt, while we where eating our biscotti and drinking coffee on our stoep and reflecting on the nerve racking experience, that Rae had bent down to pick up her dust pan behind the kitchen door and discovered the cobra was curled up underneath it, he got such a fright that he reared up at her and she shrieked and dropped the dust pan on him. No wonder it had been so angry, I mean who would not be!

The promise of rain

2010-03-02T03:34:00.000-08:00

This is just a pic taken on a blistery hot day with the promising rain clouds forming, and indeed it did rain.

More happenings on the Kouga farm

2010-02-26T00:36:00.000-08:00

In our area we have group of people that have started growing a varity of plants for the production of essential oils, aswell as one guy that has built himself an essential oil distiller. So slowly but surely a new industry is starting to grow inthe area. This is great as the main industry is fruit, which is all run by big farms as this is the only way to make money out of the fruit industry with the profit margin being so small on fruit unless you exsport. So now the guys with small holdings of 10h and less are growing crops for the essential oil market and are then forming a co-op to sell their oils thru. We already purchase some of our oils through them and knowing the induviduals involved I therefore know that no pesticides are used and they only use EM( effective micro-orginisms) This improves the soil by giving it a kick start to replenish all the organisms in the soil that make food available to the plant and improve soil structure. This suits us down to the T as we prefer using plant material that has not been adulterated by pesticides and chemical fertilizer.

One of the growers grew a small area of german chamomile on their land and asked me to put it thru my small two kg still to test for azulene, this shows itself as a blue oil and has anti- inflamatory properties, analgesic and calming properties superior to normal camomile. This is therefore sort after by the cosmetic industry and they are prepared to pay good money for this oil. As you can see the tests were positive and they have now planted larger areas. Its actually quit interesting as chamomile oil has the same weight as water so therefore to seperate it in quantity, requires a far more specialised process than straight distilling.

I am back.

2010-02-07T12:27:00.000-08:00

Well after a long hot and busy summer, what with endless soap orders (we are not complaining!), entertaining friends and family, I'm finally getting the time to sit down and write on our blog again. Now that things have calmed down and are a lot quieter, we are having the time to get back into the veggie garden once again!

The last two days have been the hottest we've had this season. Late this afternoon, when we finally felt brave enough to venture outside again, I went to inspect the state of things in our veggie garden. While walking around the mielies, I realised to my utter dismay, that while I thought I had been watering them sufficiently over the past two days, it hadn't been enough and we are going to loose quite a lot of plants, including some of the pumpkins, butternuts and melons that had been interplanted amongst the mielies.

Oh well... it's a constant learning curve, this change of lifestyle we've chosen and we are all healthy and happy and still harvesting and eating plenty from the garden!

a day in the garden

2009-11-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

About three weeks ago, the whole family enthusiastically climbed into the garden for the day, including my eldest daughter, Jesse, who is usually not on the farm except for weekends. Durng the week she stays in Twee Riviere, where she is doing an apprenticeship in objects conservation. On this day, we took out the last of our broccoli and harvested a whole lot of carrots, onions, garlic and more coriander seeds.

Beds were cleaned out to make way for new seeds to be planted and we planted up seed trays with as much variety as possible. I took the above photo and started writing this post 2 weeks ago, as we have had lots of soap orders to work on, various boring and not so boring distractions and everytime I would sit down at the computer and maybe write four words, I would hear a "honey, suppers ready" or a "Dad, I need the computer" or we would just lose our internet connection... Anyway, most of the above seeds in the tray have now germinated and are ready to be planted out.

Below is my daughter Jesse. She is twenty years old and wants to preserve her delicate skin until her old age, hence her total cover-up to protect her from the sun. Her jeans, incidently, had a hole in the knee and later she came to show me, to her great disappointment, that her knee had been sunburnt.We all had a good laugh at her consternation.

Death by Rain Conterio (Age 13)

2009-10-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, I heard the screech of brakes, I turned around to see a car spinning out of control, only a couple of meters from a small boy, who was frozen in shock. Next thing I knew, I was running, running like I'd never done before, right into the middle of the road. I slammed into the boy, knocking him out the way. Then the car hit me, I saw the look of terror in the drivers face. I was flying through the air. I hit something hard, but I felt nothing and my eyes only saw black. I was all of a sudden floating and I couldn't move my body, my own body felt foreign. I felt small and vulnerable but I wasn't scared, all my worries of life had vanished. Was I dead? Could death really be so quick, quiet, still and painless, it was more simple than life. Maybe I would float around in this black void forever. This was why life was so difficult, so that someday, you could appreciate the prize at the end, quietness, simpleness and stillness. I smiled to myself.... this was easy!

gwho- gwho the movie star

2009-10-31T02:15:00.000-07:00

Its funny... a person moves to a farm and the closest place is a dorp called Joubertina, next to Joubertina is another little dorp called Twee Riviere, or as some of the Afrikaans folk say, it should now be called Two Rivers because of all the english speaking people that have moved there in the last two years. My daughters thought they would not make any friends out here but they have actually made quite a few! My middle daughter, Alexa, has got herself involved twice a week learning about the movie busines, learning how to be a director, how to use a camera, story boarding, production manager, wardrobe, acting in front of the camera, editing, etc.

The reason for this wonderful opportunity, is that a couple who have recently moved here, Lex and Michelle Faure, have decided to make a movie about self-sufficiency based on one of the local families. This family has 7 kids and are seriously self-sufficient! They have a lot of tricks up their sleeves that we could learn from, as they have been at it for the last 12 years. The Faure's have asked all the children of family and friends who are 15 years old and up, to participate in the making of the movie from start to finish.

Hence the pictures of Gwho Gwho..... he is my daughters horse and he is starring in the movie! Here he is, nice and clean after being washed and groomed for the shoot.

8 days after planting the mielies

2009-10-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, the potatoe plants are bursting forth with much vigour and a definite predisposed understanding that it's time to grow like mad!

...and so is it with the mielies. It is truly amazing how these little seeds have the blue print in them to grow into these long stalks, that end up extruding these cobs, with many more seeds that we then eat and can even save till the next season to plant and start the whole miraculous cycle all over again. All this locked into a round hard mielie pip and all it needs is a bit of dirt, water and light.

Here is a Globe artichoke that I planted in February from seed. It is truly an amazing time of the year because suddenly, things that have been dormant and looked pretty much the same all year, are reminding me of the reason why I planted them in the first place and I am deeply humbled by God's resourcefulness in the way that He provides.

Coriander seeds collected and dried, to be used in a grinder to flavour our food. It has the weirdest flavour that you dont really take to immediately, but once you do, it becomes highly addictive. Generally you will probably first be introduced to it in Mexican dishes. Finally, it is also used as a detoxifier that rids the body of all heavy metals.

Above, our apple tree begins to blossom...beautifully!

God rules

2009-10-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

Today, a funny thing happened... I dropped my daughter off at film school in Twee Riviere and then proceeded to my prayer group that gets together every Wednesday. All went as usual and the meeting ended well. Just before I went shopping, I had a person come up to me who said that God had put it in their hearts to give our family a blessing in the form of cash, I was most taken back. I immedietly turned it down, confident that clients had paid cash into our account and that I would not need it.They insisted... saying that God had put it in their hearts, so I humbly accepted and thanked God for his kindness. Still unsure of what to do with this cash/gift, I went off to the autobank anyway, to draw cash for horsefood, dog food, people food, petrol, etc... only to discover that we did not have sufficient funds to complete our grocery shopping... Amazing hey?
I ended my day with a swim in the Kouga River with dogs and family.

rainbow in the kouga

2009-10-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we were invited to our next door neighbours 80th birthday party. "Oom Willy", as he is known to everyone, has made the transition from Plettenberg Bay to the the Kouga wilderness, that much easier for our daughters, as he has become their adoptive oupa (grandpa), as all our family is in Cape Town, or scattered as far as London, New Zealand and Canada. Just to mention a few of the things that he has done; pitching up at our kitchen door at 7am on my youngest daughter Rains birthday, brandishing a freshly baked chocolate cake, adorned with pepperment pieces and smarties! Another day, he arrived with his newly purchased flapjack maker and batter mixture and proceeded to test it in our kitchen (much to our girls delight!) and we all ended up having a "flappies" feast .

When we walked home from Tienie Krizingers home (where the party was held) we were treated to the beautiful sight of a rainbow, Gods version of the "Sword in the Stone".

aartappels en mielies by Boer Dino.

2009-10-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

Remember in my last post I mentioned that I would first have to add the compost and then I would decide what to plant, well... today, myself and my daughter Jess, planted plenty of mielies, lots... as we are expecting lots of guests over December and mielies will be the order of the day, but if we get fed-up of them (gatvol!) we can always grind them and use it to make mielie bread and polenta, an Italian dish that one can have in many variations.

Ten days ago, in the same area as the mielies, we planted two rows of the humble and wonderful potato, originating all the way from South America and now grown world wide, as a staple diet for many cultures. If you enlarge this pic you will see the the seed potatoes (as they are called) have begun to sprout and are looking very healthy. Once my mielies have popped up, I am going to plant beans alongside the mielie stems, as this will aid the climbing nature of the bean and as the bean is a nitrogen fixer, it will in turn aid the growth of the mielie. In the rows between the mielies, we will plant butternuts. This is also great, because the leaves of the butternut are plate-shaped, they keep the ground between the mielie rows nice and shaded, thus keeping the ground from drying out. Right... thats all for today, time to get warm as the weather is turning to bbbbrrrrr freezing.

what every peasant needs

2009-09-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

I had already written all of this out, when the slipstream lost its internet connection (I therefore lost everything I had written) and as I was not in the mood to write it in the first place, I had an absolute fit.So, here we go again... I bought our Merry Tiller for R1000 and as it's name states, it tills the ground and loosens everything up. Apart from loosening the soil, it also shakes one's lymph glands into action and the rest of one's body... who needs a spa! Above, you can see the effect it has, (believe me, the ground was hard and compacted!)... great hey.

A job well done, thank you Merry Tiller. I will let you know what I plant when the time comes, but first, the compost.

horsing around in the kouga

2009-09-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

One day while changing my tyre I had ghwo ghwo, my daughter's horse, come to check out what I was doing, apparently on recomendation from my mare, Lush, in the background. She's always worried about my DIY work and also likes to make sure that what ever I'm doing has nothing to do with food. She has a HUUuuuge appetite and wouldn't like to miss out on a snack!

I then had to explain to him exactly what I was doing, but he still felt that he should butt his nosy nose in and tell me exactly what to do step for step even though he was repeating what I had just told him! I think he was just trying to keep his clever status in front of Lush, obviously trying to impress her.

He then told me that, as I had the wheel off, I may as well check to see if anything else needed attention under the bakkie. What a nerve coming from a horse! I had to admit though, that he did have a point.

He then whispered into my ear that, once I was finished could I please, if I dont mind, thank him loud and audibly so, Lush could hear. I then understood for sure that all his hanging around and commenting was definately to impress young Lush.

Once I had thanked him as he had asked, he looked at me and said, "thanx bro" and walked off with Lush into the veld.

I must say it was nice to have Gwho Gwho's company while changing the tyre, as well as helping the guy out to impress his girl.

catch a bee

2009-08-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

It all started yesterday when I decided that I would plant out my strawberry plants, accompanied by the buzz of my usual lady friends, when Rae came rushing out to tell me that a swarm was gathering on a branch in the Jacaranda tree next to our house. Well, later for the strawberries I thought, as I ran closer to see if I could possibly get to them and without to much effort, get them into a box. As I was considering all the options, the branch snapped under their weight and they landed on the ground. Great! Time to switch to plan 'Bee', considering that I had not quite hatched plan 'A', in my excitement of gaining another swarm of bees.

Plan "Bee" hatched quickly and I went and got an empty hive with some wax sheets in. By this time, the swarm had started to re-swarm again, in the branches of the tree above. My only hope was that the queen was still in the bunch on the ground and thus could be lured into the hivebox or broodbox as it is correctly called. In the picture, you can see the part of the swarm still on the ground and it looks as if they are starting to migrate up the ramp into the hive.

Well here they are definitely on their way. I hope the qeen is happy and they will stay.

Here is the main queen and she is the one that we all have to keep happy! Rae is just making sure that all goes well.

Yup, there was definite rush for the entrance, as the girls were all amped to resume their various duties. The swarm that was regrouping in the branches above, was by now getting noticably smaller as they too were now entering the hive. It is actually quite amazing how they seem to keep a bunch of girls in the air, flying around constantly, so that one is never quite sure of how many bees, are in fact, going into the hive. I suppose also to deter any potential predator's attention from the main body of the swarm as they are also (I imagine), in their most vulnerable state at this stage.

Here it almost looks as if they are been sucked into the entrance, in their rush to get in.

Well the girls were in and when I went to go and check on them this morning, they had cleaned out the interiorof the hive, this was evident by the bits of debri they had thrown out and it looked as if their path of flight was heading straight for the flowering heather on the hillside ahead. For a similar story on my bee adventures, check out "Shared Earth Magazine" issue 2. Well... back to planting strawberry plants, yummy.

Evening of Entertainment - by Rain (13)

2009-07-28T09:53:00.001-07:00

The June-July holidays were great!! I arrived back from a friend of mine who lives in PE and was happy to hear that our long time family friends were coming to stay for a couple of days. We had not seen them in a long time, so everyone had changed and grown up, but in another sense it seemed just the other day we were visiting them at their house in Cape Town, which had actually been 2yrs ago.

On the day they were to arrive, we waited in anticipation for their white kombi to come driving down the road to our little farm house. When they arrived, we went out to meet them and help them carry their bits and pieces inside, after a fluster of hugs and greetings. It was that night, in the middle of a delicious supper, that the idea for a show came about, everyone was to participate, including the adults! Everyone thought it was a great idea and immediately began plotting what they were going to do…

The next to two days was just practice, practice… When the night finally came, we first ate supper and then wrote down everyone’s names on a piece of paper and put them in a hat, for as usual, no one wanted to go first. First act was me and my sister doing a dance, which was followed by skits, poems, dances and the much anticipated act that the fathers were to do. No one had ever seen them practicing so it was a mystery as to what they were going to do…. And guess what they sang , “Doe ray me” it had everyone in laughter! When the show was finally over everyone was tired and beds were calling. IT WAS a GOOD night!!!

Spring is a coming

2009-07-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

Although arrival of spring is still a month away, we are seeing some tell tale signs in the buds on our fruit trees, that look like they are building up with energy for a colourful explosion. So, with this big hint from our fruit trees and the days getting noticably longer, we are rushing around making bigger beds around our trees to hold "cow poo". We get the manure from a kraal in town that we drive past on our way to the local post office, where we post off all our soap orders. So, to make the trip even more worthwhile, my two daughters who always insist on coming along, don their gumboots and take along a shovel of their choice, so that we can bring back a load of what makes me very excited... "black gold "

I call it this because to build the soil up with manure, is the best thing a person could possiblyo.This sets all the little organisms back in motion that comercial fertilizers have totally destroyed, also, adding this as a mulch each time helps keep the soil cool in summer thus retaining soil moisture and providing a happy enviroment for all the good bugs. Commercial fertilizers (n.p.k) tend to force feed plants via the means of soluble salts, that bypass all organic means of the plant obtaining its nutrients. The plant therefore zooms into growth but with serious weaknesses in its cell walls and nutrient deficiencies that opens up the plant to attacks from fungi and bugs. Then one has to start using pesticides, fungicides, more fertilizers and all this to the detriment of our bodies, our planet and our fellow creatures.

This I've put as simply as I could and I suggest that if you want to grow food, then educate yourself in the following; mulching, manuring, earthworm farms, crop rotation, companion planting and plant by the seasons only, as God knows best what we need to keep us healthy throughout the year, after all it is all His creation and by observing nature, we can learn a lot.

YAY.... A new soap for spring!

2009-07-15T01:36:00.000-07:00

At long last.... we've been discussing "a new soap" for some time now and have just launched our new addition to the range! After a long drought in our area, the rains finally came and the smell of the flowering geraniums filled the air. If you have experienced this, you will agree that this is a very heady and uplifting fragrance, that evokes an incredible sense of wellbeing.... and so came the inspiration for our new soap, a Geranium Poppyseed Scrub. This is a great soap to start the day with, or to wind down with in a lovely warm bath or an invigorating shower! We also decided to throw in some poppyseeds to give an extra scrub, perfect to get rid of all that winter dry skin. This is fast becoming the family favourite and Caitlin, our graphic designer, once again did a wonderful job with the label.

yummy sunday

2009-06-01T04:46:00.000-07:00

Okay..... so we got our stash of wood on Saterday and were planning on doing the same mission on Sunday, but during the night, the rain started to fall in a light soaking drizzle that just kept on going till Monday morning. So Sunday we decided to all sit tight in the kitchen/diningroom near the little black woodstove (which was keeping us all very cosy) and enjoy what the rainy day would conjure up.

As usual, whenever at a loss at what to do and especially when we are all stuck indoors, our minds all seem to turn to...... our stomachs! What is it with rainy weather and eating! Our youngest daughter Rain and I decided to check out a blog we came across by mistake the other day called, "Big Black Dog" blog. This has some amazing recipes and interesting stuff on food. Not sure if the name for her blog comes from her two Rottweilers, or from her incredible looking big black stove.... but her family must certainly eat very well.

We found a recipe for sweet dough "butterflies" which Rain and I had fun making in our cosy kitchen and needless to say everyone enjoyed eating! If you're into food, take a look at her blog.

Winter arrives!

2009-05-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

Finally, winter arrives with avengeance. After enjoying temps at night, of nothing less than 18 deg. and daytime temps of 26 deg+ and with veggy seedlings still sprouting left, right and centre... suddenly (literally overnight), temperatures have dropped to -1 deg at night and daytime temperatures are not getting much higher than 17 deg, with an icy wind to back it.

So today the whole family decided to get involved in a little wattle eradication, to feed our little black-belly woodstove through the cold nights ahead. This little stove serves directly and indirectly, a multitude of purposes. First of all, it is a good reason to go and do some alien vegetation control, it also warms the house up, providing a real "winter has come and it's time to get cosy" feeling, we also use it for cooking instead of gas and finally, we use the ash it produces in our garden. It even has a little water heating device on the side which we use for hotwater bottles, dishes, etc.

So, although it's so primitive and old fashioned, if used correctly, it is actually quite a "state-of-the-art" when it comes to rural living.

48 already....???

2009-05-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday morning, I was woken up with hugs and kisses from my daughters and a steaming cup of coffee from my (still) sexy husband. I lay there totally amazed that I was the ripe old age of 48... Last night my husband and I wondered, where has the time gone, suddenly we have teenage children, the oldest is already 20 and is supporting herself, the next one will be leaving home next year and then there'll just be one child left at home.... plus all their pets of course, which will remain behind!

I still think of myself as a kind of young and cool mom.... until I catch a glimpse of myself in a windows reflection or mirror and realise with a shock.... I'm middle aged and have (almost) grey hair and due to the fact that I don't buy magazines anymore, don't have a T.V. and don't even have a radio.... I'm now completely ignorant to the latest fashions and music and I'm definitely NOT so young and cool anymore!!!!

BUT.... what I do have at my ripe ol' age, is a husband that I still adore, 3 beautiful girls who still take the time to make me handmade birthday cards and phone me, a wonderful farm in the mountains and a job I adore, making soap....

So.... for now, I will settle for being a cool middle aged person, grey hair suits me better anyway and what freedom not to have to worry about colouring it anymore (so bad for you and the enviroment!) and maybe one of these days, I'll be a cool Granny........

making comfrey oil

2009-05-25T00:59:00.000-07:00

This my friends will be a valuable lesson... so pay attention! Bare in mind that this is all based on our own wonderful experiences with this herb, which we decided to try after reading so much about it.
Firstly, you have got to start growing the stuff, not just for using in creams and oils but for the garden too, as it has stacks of nitrogin and piles of minerals in it that your plants will just love! As we live in a very hot and dry climate and not knowing what to do with our grey water, I decided to make a Comfrey bed at the outlet. It seems that Comfrey needs a lot of water to keep it lush in our semi-Karoo climate. Comfrey plants should be easily obtainable from any nursery. Before we get started, I must just tell you that I'm also planting it around my fuit trees as a living mulch that I constantly harvest by trimming off the new growth and chopping it into the ground, LIGHTLY, as well as leaving it on top and in and around my your flower beds. Perhaps you can even add it to your earthworm farm (incidently I have not done this and on second thoughts, don't do this, it's a stupid idea.....)

RECIPE FOR COMFREY OIL

METHOD: 1. 750mls pure sunflower oil or olive oil
2. Harvest 500gms of comfrey fresh (or 250grm dried)
3. Put them all together in a double boiler( one pot standing in another with water)
4. Simmer on a low heat for 3 hours
5. Remove and once cooled, strain and store in dark bottle or jar

This you can use, in a 20% mix with almond oil, or aqueous cream, or more olive oil, for bruises scrapes and sprains. This ratio was given to me by the little old lady (who lives in a shooo?) from Krakeel, who introduced me to this wonderfull herb. I just use a 50/50 mixture and sometimes even neat, I guess it all depends on your skin, ie: you might have some odd skin sensitivity.

Here's a tip: Rather than (as I have discovered!) trying to shove 500grm of fresh leaves into a pot (stainless steel or glass) and trying to make it fit, it's easier to dry it first by threading the leaves together and hanging them up and then use.
Here is a photo of one of the many butternuts that came up in the same bed and were totally healthy, the seeds must have washed down our drain.... halellula, yummy, yummy!

Metal Bird by Rain Conterio (age 12)

2009-05-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

We aboard the metal bird,
who's big and bold,
strap ourselves to our seat,
ready for a wild fleet,
we leave the ground,
as well as the city sound,
passing tall trees,
buzzing bees,
stretched seas,
we are surrounded by a mask of blue,
we dip and dive,
we look out from our metal dome,
to seas and skys,
that have been often flown,
but still unkown......

Its a sign

2009-05-07T07:38:00.000-07:00

Friends of ours, Nic and Gabi and their 40 thousand kids, love coming to visit us from Plett on a regular basis. This we thoroughly enjoy, as it is always a time to catch up on all the goings-on in our old home town. One Friday evening they arrived late, as they had to gather their 40 thousand kids after school, sort out the dogs, then... oops, one dog suddenly went down with bilary(tick bite fever), so off to the vet. So, to cut a long story short, they arrived and after a lovely supper, Nic and Gabi disappeared out the kitchen door and into the night... and I thought to myself, "Well, if the passion gets you, it gets you" and I grabbed my glass of wine and looked around at their 40 thousand kids and hoped that it would be quick, whatever it was that they were getting up to. Anyway, it was not long before I heard them bumping at the kitchen door... Oh my gosh, I opened the door slowly and saw their beaming faces, one behind the other and between them they were carrying a sign. Nic, being a signwriter, had made us an amazingly beautiful sign with the name of our soap business, which is also the name of our farm and the following day was spent marching up and down the perimeter of our garden, trying to find a suitable place to put it up. The sign incidently, did not go up until 4 months later.

Now the beautiful sign is up and our farm has its identity "AFRICAN BLISS". Helping me put it up was my brother-in-law John, my aunt Gwen and the rest of the family standing around putting in their two cents worth...

The Basic Steps of Soapmaking

2009-03-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

So many people are curious about the soap making process, that we've decided to show everyone a basic step-by-step method that applies to all soap making recipes. We use a process called the "cold process method" using a variety of pure natural oils, chosen for their various qualities they give the finished soap bar. Some oils give a nice lather with big bubbles and some give a great creamy texture with fine bubbles! Obviously, we also choose oils which will be good and healing for the skin. Making soap is actually a lot like cooking BUT exact measurements are really important, so if you are one of those casual cooks that like to chuck things in, your soap will flop, things have to be weighed to the gram!!!! When you first start out it's pretty daunting, we had quite a few disasters along the way, believe you me it's really sad when you peep at your soap the next morning and it looks like "aliens brains"...
You also have to experiment with essential oils as well, as combinations that smell glorious to you before you add it to your soap mix, can smell utterly gross in your finished soap the next morning! The soap process does change things. Basically soap is a result of mixing an alkali (diluted caustic soda in water) and an acid (your oils) together and the reaction that occurs is called saponification. Please note! To everyone out there having a fit about the caustic soda part, you cannot make soap without it. .... but the reason why soap has to sit and "cure" for 4 weeks, is that by the end of that time, the caustic soda has neutralised and is no longer present in the final bar !!!
The following steps and photos are just to give everyone a rough idea of the process, we have photographed a small batch being made, which was just easier at the time.

STEP 1.
Weigh out all your base oils ( coconut oil, cocoa butter, beeswax, etc) and put into a stainless steel pot and melt over a low heat. An accurate scale is absolutely essential for soap making, digital being the best. Once everything has melted, put aside and allow to cool.

STEP 2.
Weigh your sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) and water. Slowly add the sodium hydroxide to the water and then rush outside (the fumes are awful) and gently stir till its all dissolved. Wear a mask and gloves while doing this and be very careful when handling this stuff, you also do not want to trip over a cat or child with a jug of this in your hands. Let it stand in a very safe place to cool down.

STEP 3.
You need to now have your pot of oils and your sodium hydroxide solution at the exact same temperature. No easy feat, I can assure you but you get more practiced with this as time goes on.... The temperature recommended can also vary from soap maker to soap maker and recipe to recipe, its best to find what works for you and your soap.

STEP 4.
Now that your two mixtures are at the same temperature, pour your sodium hydroxide mixture slowly into your oil mixture, beating as you pour, using a hand beater or a stick blender (which is what I prefer!). When it's a small batch the hand beater is easier. Keep blending until your mixture thickens to a stage called "trace". This is when you can trickle some of the mixture across the top and it leaves a faint line that sits on the surface. This is the signal that a reaction has taken place and that you have basically made SOAP! This is then also the stage when you can add your essential oil combo's, any spices and herbs that you may want to use for coloring and texture. Again, this is also tricky, as not everything survives the soap process and often doesn't come out the way it looked when you put it in! When I first started to experiment with making our Green Tea Soap, I thought I would be so clever and throw in some actual green tea leaves from the opened tea bag, for a wonderful and interesting texture.... well I ended up with a beautiful soap full of black bits.... we didn't mind using it and a lot of our friends liked it too, but I didn't think it would go down well with a customer unwrapping their soap for the first time... but you learn what works and what doesn't.

STEP 5.
Once you've added your essential oils, etc this is also the stage you can add an extra small amount of oil (shea butter, almond oil, grapeseed oil, avocado oil, etc). This is called "superfatting" and will give your soap extra skin-pampering qualities. You can now pour your soap into a mold of your choice. Many things can be used, old yogurt cups, plastic trays, pvc pipes, cartons, etc. Ive always preferred a simple chunk of soap to the fancy molded look but that's just me... If you are using wooden molds, you have to line your molds with thin plastic. Then you pour you soap mixture into your molds and cover with a piece of cardboard and an old towel to insulate it. The soap sits like this untouched for 24 hrs after which you can take it out and cut it into bars. It is always nerve-wracking to check under that towel the next day... has it worked or not!

I think that's why I enjoy making soap so much, you can never get too complacent, as soap making is not an exact science, unexpected and surprising results can happen, things can come out wonderfully... or not! It's creative and addictive and sometimes I feel just like a witch, stirring her cauldron.... and when people tell you how much the soap has helped their skin or how amazing their skin feels after using the soap... well there's nothing better than that!

a day on the Kouga river

2009-02-17T07:10:00.000-08:00

It was with the arrival of Nic and his clan on Friday night, coinciding with a raging thunder storm, that we decided should the weather let up for Saturday, we will go on a hike along the Kouga River that slithers its way past our farm in the valley bellow, all the way through the Baviaanskloof Mountains to supply PE with its water. So the next morning, even though the weather was still miff, we launched into the hike. The hike itself was only about 12.5 km during which we had a thunderstorm with lashing rain and we even had to do a bit of swimming. Due to the weather, it was only myself, Rain (my youngest daughter, a fitting name for the occasion) and Nic that undertook the mission. The hike, although not long, was just long enough that we went through the first stage of the walk all chatting about this and that and marveling at this and that, then the silent part where everyone was just sort of lost in their own thoughts and only communicating on the path that should or should not be taken. Then on the last part of the walk, Rain drew alongside me and told me how much she was enjoying the walk. This was followed by an in depth description of the movie, "The Beach", we felt close!
I think walks in nature are so important for the soul, it also gives us a chance to marvel at Gods creation and I think it's what He gave it to us for, to enjoy on our days off, to recharge - so look after it!

fetching Alex (I love living here...)

2009-02-10T02:39:00.000-08:00

Our daughter Alex went for a couple of days to "De Vlugt", which is on the famous Prince Alfred Pass (built by Sir Thomas Bains and the Italian prisoners of war), about 70km from where we live. She was visiting her friend, who's folks own "More Equine Adventures". They also do out rides, (as we do) and they breed warmbloods and sport horses. Myself and Rain, my youngest daughter set off. About a 3rd of the way down the pass, we stopped at a spring that someone cemented in, a very long time ago. This was obviously for the use of weary travelers, which we were, as we had been travelling in temperatures above 30 deg c in my old Izuzu bakkie at about 80km per hour, as that is where she feels most comfortable. This spring has got to be the best water I have ever tasted and I always make a point of stopping and filling a bottle or two to take home. In De Vlugt, I joined my daughters and their friend on a quick outride. The horse I rode was the most humungous horse I have ever riden and I was quite nervous, as I have only been riding for a year now but nontheless, she was a beautiful and gentle shire/thoroughbred mare with the name of Lulu. On the way home, we stopped on the pass at one of the many little pools for a cool-off swim and then back on home to the our little "plaas". Its random days like these that make me appreciate living out here, in nature, with family, horses and pets.

african bliss clan

2009-01-16T02:41:00.000-08:00

a photo taken on the 3rd of january 2009.This day was very special to us as it was a day when our wedding vows were renewed.

Welcome to african bliss farm

2008-12-06T04:27:00.000-08:00

So here we are in the Kouga mountains! A place we found after many trials and tribulations, spanning over a period of 3yrs and nearly throwing in the towel more than once (but only for about a week), in our search for a home that would be good for the whole family. Our search eventually brought us here to our little farm, with its skies so blue it makes your mouth water, stars so bright that it allows the soul to travel and a landscape perfect for adventure. Here we chose to settle for now or maybe for ever, one can never be sure.......