Flora kingdom of Rooshoek

At least once a week my mother and I go out to the veld to pick flowers for the house.
Every week the flowers are different. As the season changes so do the plants in our veld.
Every time we go on our flower expedition we find new bulb plants pushing their heads through the soil. It is such an exiting time for us to discover every small little plant and all the varieties of plants. With the help of " Field Guide to Fynbos" compiled  by John Manning, we have discovered and learned almost every time we go into the Veld, everything from beautiful different grasses and flowers to shrubs and succulent plants.

At the moment the pink Erica's and the new green of some of the other fynbos make a spectacular show.
The Veld looks and smells fresh and new.
 Here and there the Proteas are also coming into bloom. At the moment we see Protea repens and Protea longifolia.
Still, it is only the start of our flower season and I will update the blog as the season progress.

It remains a source of amazement to me that God has seen it fit to place me on this amazing farm, where every small flower is testament to His amazing work!

Easter at Rooshoek

With the falling leaves Easter has arrived!
We started Good Friday with a  family communion in the garden. Although it is always nice to celebrate a long weekend it is important that we never forget  exactly why we are having these holidays. A Friend this week told me that one must never forget that God looks after the "clear" of heart and not the perfect. For this I am thankful because every day I am confronted with just how imperfect I really am.  Thankfully because He died on the cross I am not expected to be perfect but I am forgiven!

On Easter Sunday we had a lovely family picnic in the Oak forest and being there, I can again only thank God for blessing me with the beautiful farm and supportive family. 

Hiding the eggs in the garden for the farm children is fun and oh, so exiting for them. My mom and all the ladies working in the house created a beautiful Easter show and lesson for the children before they were sent on a major Easter egg hunt. 

Misha and I ( because of the icing lessons) created the Easter eggs and I think we had more fun making it than they did hunting and eating it!

 My little mouse looks friendly... 

Misha's looks a bit scared as is appropriate in a house with six cats!

Easter is also a time for reflecting on one's life. We, during this weekend had friends visit us, whom we have not seen in years. Life has, in the six year since we last had a good get together, taken strange turns for all of us.  

My wish to all this Easter and for the rest of this year, is that they never forget that they are blessed by the love of friends and family and Our Savior, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross just for you. 

Be Blessed.

Olive harvesting

The time has finally arrived for us to harvest the olives... for me this is a totally new experience... because it is something I have never worked with before.
Luckily I have blessed with Jan, our foreman. He has harvested olives every year for the last twenty five years on Rooshoek... and also some neighbours who are very interested in our olives and gives a hand wherever they can.

Rooshoek olives are 100% organic. We have not been near them with any chemical sprays or fertilizer. We also sort of inherited the trees quite late  in the season so they are quite difficult to harvest.
The trees have not been pruned in years and as such we have problems to reach the fruit. In this process we use small rakes, like the ones Jan is holding in his hand on the photo. We are also cutting the trees so that with our next harvest we do not have the same problem of reaching the fruit again. Basically all that happens in our harvesting process is the fruit is shaken and raked from the trees and a team of woman picks it up from the nets on the ground.

The olives are then put in crates and taken to the press where the olives are being pressed for the oil. We pick everything not just the ones that are dark. For the oil it is not necessary to select the fruit according to color. We expect a yield of about 141 liters of oil from one ton of product. Will tell you later what the exact yield was. 

We have two different types of olives on the farm and we are picking the olives for laying into brine a little bit later. These olives will be picked into water so as to prevent any damage and excess bruising to them.

At the moment the excitement of our first olive harvest is causing a stir on the farm and we are enjoying every moment of it.

Autumn is in the air

This morning I was driving in from Stellenbosch and in a conversation with a friend about the beautiful days we are having I remarked that there is something different in the air... Autumn has arrived.
The leaves are slowly being painted yellow or red. The air has a crispness to it.
The mountains looks as if had been hand painted  on a piece of paper and then stuck on a canvass of amazing blue skies, the edges crisply reflecting the beautiful, beautiful shades of gray and green..

This coming week we will start with the harvest of the olives and I will write another blog  about this... however today on this beautiful Saturday I will just enjoy the rich autumn shades. Soon though we will complain about all the leaves that we have to sweep... but for now while they are still clinging to the branches... we will enjoy the kaleidoscope of color they are blessing us with. 

Hunting the Pigs

Today we are living on Rooshoek for exactly four months. What an event full four months this has been.
This week alone we have had a snake in the garden, said goodbye to our friend from the Falklands and last night we had wild boar hunters.
The Hunters we actually have quite often but these ones actually shot a wild boar. The first one shot since we moved here.
It rained the whole day yesterday and the evening air was quite cool so when Billy called at around nine I thought he was calling to tell me that he had finished hunting because he was dying of the cold but no ... the hunter had shot his pig.

Although I realize that some of my readers might frown about the hunting of the animals but please remember that we are farmers and these pigs are classified as vermin.
The wild boars were initially imported from Europe because they were the only natural enemy to a moth that was destroying the pine plantations.
Unfortunately there was no natural enemy to the wild boars and they soon became a pest.
We now have a situation on Rooshoek where they destroy fields of produce and sometimes even come as close to the house as our front lawn.
The meat we use for all kinds of "organic" pork cuts and use the meat fully.

The meat quality of the pigs are excellent and contrary to what one would believe it not a white meat but red and tastes almost like a cross between beef and mutton.
The pig weighed in at 123kg and after it was slaughtered we had 68kg of good quality meat  left.

Today as a postscript I am adding this beautiful picture of the pig's teeth that Billy sent me just yesterday. We cleaned it for him but he took the beautiful picture above.  I know plenty feral pigs will be shot on Rooshoek, but because this was the first, it would always hold a special place in my memory.

Our Owl

About  a week before we moved to the farm, we started coming to the farm every day to clean  the house. One day while having a picnic lunch on the front lawn we became aware of a very interesting ( and interested) audience.
From his nest in one of the oak trees  a baby owl has fallen. With his big big eyes he watched our every move.  The next weekend heavy rain fell and we were all worried that he will not survive, but he did.
His mom fed him on the ground and he became "our" owl.
Recently he was so tame he would actually come sit next to us on the steps or at night sit in the tree in front of Misha's window.
When our friends from all over ( even Italy and the Netherlands)  visited and  he was the most photographed item on the farm. He became out pet and we loved him. He had the most amazing eyes and sometimes he would look at one with eyes that looked almost human.
This morning we found him dead. We don't know what the cause  of death was but we suspect that he was killed by the grape harvesters, because they are still very superstitious about owls.
It is heartbreaking

that such a beautiful creature had to pay with it's life for something that  has no relevance in this day and age.

Tennis- the Rooshoek way

The game of tennis on Rooshoek is nothing like any game you will see on Wimbledon or Roland Gaross.
The Rooshoek version is also exiting and eventful but always different and the spectators... they are amazing.
Ben, our labrador loves tennis balls... not just loves, adores, so despite our best efforts to keep him in the house, he somehow always manages to escape.  the sound of the tennis ball hitting the court just drives him completely "bezonkers" ( mad)  and  I swear, he will find a way out of a high security prison to play with a ball.

So we made Ben our ball boy. He runs after every ball and the brings them to the server. Amazingly sometimes he would bring three balls at the same time(like on the photo). He would bring them to ones feet and then... one, two, three he will pop them out. ... And he is quick!!!  Off course after a while the balls are disgustingly wet and heavy with doggy drool and when one hits it... it goes splat... all over one! All the while Oscar, on the outside of the court is barking like mad, mainly because Ben is allowed inside and he is not.

Our night time game takes a completely different turn. For some reason, unknown to me, when the light goes on at the tennis court, hundreds of crickets come out to play. The five cats finds this challenging.  Like Ben chases every ball, they make it their mission in life, to chase every cricket on the court. This makes serving and playing quite tricky, because they have no concept of the "no cat allowed on the court while the game is on" rule.
So imagine the game... two rather unfit humans, one mad ball chasing dog, a loud dog spectator, five cats a lot of crickets. It might not be Wimbledon but it is quite a spectacle!