"A Boer Maak a Plan"

In Afrikaans this means "A Farmer Makes a Plan."  It's akin to the saying "there's more than one way to skin a cat," but appropriately more austere.  Brett unleashed it on me in the midst of one of many mini-crises suffered on the acreage.  And it resonated as, over the course of 10 days, we farmers had to go from Plan A to Plan B to Plan C, using the materials at hand.  It’s appeal to me was both innate and romantic—I felt as if I already understood it as a way of thinking (problem solving 101), but was humbled still by Brett’s ability to graft his entire well-being (financial, physical, mental) around it.  Perhaps a farmer makes a plan for no other reason than that a farmer HAS to make a plan.  This tautology in no way detracts, though, from the respect I give to Brett and those cut from the same cloth who work within their means to the point of exhaustion--both of those means, and often, themselves.   

It's with that reverence I wish to share some of the tasks I undertook, or assisted in, or merely observed.  The common thread, from gardening to construction work, was the knowledge throughout that I was living and working and helping on someone else’s plan, and that plan was as complex and fluid as the life it supported.  It WAS life. 

 

An "orange dog" caterpillar--they feast on citrus trees.  You must hand-pick them and squash them before...

...this happens.  No pesticides means biological control is a must.  Right now it's up to us humans.

Pruning and training the grape vines--a very zen task.

Closer to the house, vines provide shade and aesthetic value.  Further away, they are planted with tomato and herb plants in permaculture fashion.

Brett and Jacob the laborer in cottage #4, in what will eventually be Brett's daughters room.  As of now, its just the rustic shower.

A friendly fellow reflecting off the door he helped hang the day before.  Doors are a piece of work!  Mortar and brick had since closed the gaps.

Compost ingredients:  water, greens (nitrogen), natural mulched material (carbon), grape skins (already fermenting a bit), and sawdust (emulsifier?)

Just made pile--now cover and wait about 3 months.  Just 2 days later, though, the temperature in the middle was hot to the touch.

A "sleuce gate," just finished.  Wood planks will slide in here to restrict or allow water to flow onto the field during flood irrigation.

The participants. Jacob is in the shadow on the left.  Bretto!  JG.

The next night between 1 and 6AM, and two nights after, I would help open and close the gates on this field and another.

Brett grinding away some scrap metal, making a plan come together...

...on the room of cottage #1, so that we could attach the solar geyser mount at the angle that optimized sunlight during winter, and was relatively simple to attach to the building.

First Impressions on Sustainable Solitude

When I had the confidence after about 4 days to tell Brett, my WWOOF host, my first impressions of the place, I think he was both amused and embarassed.  When I arrived, he was working on plumbing in a brick cottage (a former laborer's dwelling) closest to the dirt road.  It must have been about 1PM, and though the ride had been breezy, the farm and the cloudless sky around it were simply baking.  I could make out some shades of green in the garden growth to the left of the cottages, but it didn't suggest life.  I had been dropped in a tiny valley composed of a simple pallette of washed out greys and tans, and chalk.  There was a tipped over toilet outside of the first cottage--Brett would later admit that though it would eventually have a place inside, he had just stopped noticing it.  I noticed it every day, and could easily have moved it into the cottage.  But, it came to represent the surreal introduction to the place--how a sense of claustrophobia and rue had settled upon me from a boundless sky.  I lovingly kept it tilted over outside of this cottage #1, my cottage, my home for 10 days and nights.

My first impression of the farm actually started on the ride from Oudtshoorn to Ladismith that Brett had arranged, via his neighbor Andy.  In his 40's (like Brett), Andy's wardrobe alone placed him into a certain niche stereotype to which I had been exposed since Cape Town--the South African farmer.  You can spot one by their khaki (and rather short) shorts; earth-toned ankle socks bunched down unfashionably far to an always rugged pair of boots; and any variety of old shirt that could let breeze through and be worn several days in a row.   All but one of the farmer set I've ever met were either white English or (more commonly) white Afrikaner, but their exposed skin is usually as dark as that of the coloured folks'.  I still can imagine they have one hell of a farmer's tan, when and if they were ever to remove their clothes, which for some reason I can't imagine.  Andy also sported a hefty beard and a stylish sort of aviator glasses, and had athletic wrap rather loosely worn around one wrist.  The wrap was still there, similarly relaxed, when I saw him a week later.  It should be noted that Andy was actually.a game reserve manager, which served to strengthen my hunch that the wardrobe of the farmer has certain function, but also is at least some part fashion statement.

He was thoroughly white English, and surprising soft-spoken and talkative.  We had in common an interest in biology, wildlife, and world events--though Andy's only media subscription was to his FM radio.  It also didn't surprise me, after the sea of visual impressions, that he was skeptical of governments and interested in self-sufficiency.  And perhaps it shouldn't have surprised me, either, when rather early on he asked me what I thought about 9/11.  I could only shrug, really--though not necessarily in disbelief--when he went on to outline a few of the "things he had heard." This question for me, written with verve on the dusty windshield of a bucky hurtling through the Klein Karoo, set up a trend of conspiratorial chit-chat that would end up in part defining my stay in the middle of nowhere.  First impressions, indeed.


07MAR2011 (day 1)

Peed in a treehole.  Rice, beans, and egg for dinner.  Setting porcupine traps in the lucern fields.  Iranian satellite TV with conspiracies to fill the gaps.  End times non-chalance. Heat.  Dirt.


08MAR2011

Brett has put on an instructional movie for me, "The Future of Food," while he prepares our future supper.  I have wanted to watch it, and have been able to recommend a few titles that might be up his alley, like "Food, Inc.," "Fast Food Nation" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma."

There are a myriad of ways to convey how the first 24 hours of my WWOOF experience has gone.   There's my host, who could receive pages of reflection and will certainly be included in my growing list of "Real South Africans."  There are, of course, the tasks I am and will be involved with, ranging from gardening labor to house construction (assistance).  There are the dogs, which are the thankfully the same as dogs anywhere.  And then there is the world around me--increasingly it appears that where I live is made up solely of rocks and dirt, and the water and food that can hide and grow here, the sun and stars which alternately have nowhere to hide, and me. Time will tell whether this is honestly sparse, or simply economical.  There is beauty in economy, after all....

a few grapes, wind, power house, hills. the solar panels are laid out to the right of the building

#4, #3, #2, and then #1 "cottages," through a caterpillar-mangled citrus tree

#1, with squash, grapes, corn, and sunflowers.  this water tank was the smallest of three. the bore hole for water was just next to it.

Pluto, a rascally Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy

there were also three miniature Jack Russels. They were all related and cute and weird

I'm trailing Brett, we both trail the sun, as we go to set the porcupine traps

what organics that can't be composted or salvaged, are burned.  Using sepia tone turned this into Brett's wild west glamour shot.

Please understand that this place became more beautiful, comfortable, and sensical with each passing day.  I look forward to sharing more pictures soon, along with a little more of what went on.  Cheers!

What goes WWOOF?

Me!  Today I will journey to a small, organic, start up farm (still in the Western Cape of South Africa) in a region known as the Klein Karoo (which I believe means "Little Valley").  WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and it has been one of my goals for pursuit during my months of travel in Africa.  The organization has participating farmers all over the world (there are almost 30 in South Africa).  The basic rule that applies to all is this:  show up and work for at least a week or two, and you will be housed and fed at no cost.  For me (and I reckon most other volunteers) it's secondarily an interesting and cheap way to travel, but primarily an exploration of ways to live sustainably, and a chance to learn the practical side of this off-the-land ideal. 

Speaking of practicality, I will very likely not be posting here as regularly as it's been (if you can call it that).  I'll be near a town called Ladismith (look it up!) that I'll hope to venture to by next weekend, and maybe use the internet.  So I haven't neglected my blog, folks, I'm just knee-deep in getting the raw facts for my next entry, and possibly thigh-deep in raw food compost.

I can't wait to share pictures and stories and lessons learned from this experience, so please stay tuned!

The Seanic Routes, take 2

*Copied and edited from Seanic Routes, take 1*

*South Africa has coastline on both the Atlantic and Indian oceans.  Currently, I am within far-off gazing distance of the Indian, but I've only touch the Atlantic so far.  The Cape Peninsula, which runs south from Cape Town, has received historical affection as the southern tip of the country and the continent.  This isn't actually true--the real tip is Cape Agulhus, which I can almost see from my current location in Hermanus.  The Cape Peninsula is certainly noteworthy, though, since it harbors Cape Town and does protrude drastically into the ocean, meaning rough sea-faring for the ships that needed to turn that corner of the world.  The peninsula also creates a large bay, called Valsbaai, or False Bay, which opens to the southeast of Cape Town.*


This post will cover the parts of the Cape Peninsula that I have seen.  I never made it down to Cape Point, but went to a couple of beaches on the False Bay side of the peninsula, then drove across it with Saranne and back up to visit some places on the Atlantic side, just south of Cape Town.  Here are those places.

Boulders Beach, in Simon's Town.  Large and chilled penguin colony makes the people flock

protective mother/sheltered chick.  it honestly looked dead for a while but I think it was just being thoroughly sat on

march of the penguins

the babies

after crossing the peninsula, this is the coast--mountain meets ocean, with curvy road in between

through the looking glasses

me looking this way...

...Saranne looking that way (north towards Hout Bay)

 

the sunset from a tiny hidden beach near Camp's Bay, just south of Cape Town on Atlantic

Yarrr

Saranne's enganged friends Andy and Liz were baptized early in the morning in Muizenburg, a surfer's exurb of Cape Town

ritualistically going down before marriage

now they are totally ready. did I mention it was windy like Chicago and cold like iced tea?

the Seanic Routes, take 1

The pictures and times have really been adding up, so here is the very first of what might be many relays about my forays into and around the beaches, oceans, and bays of southern Africa. I know the good visitors to this site don't just want to see pretty pictures, so first, some geographical and nautical context for e'erbody in da blog.

South Africa has coastline on both the Atlantic and Indian oceans.  Currently, I am within far-off gazing distance of the Indian, but I've only touch the Atlantic so far.  The Cape Peninsula, which runs south from Cape Town, has received historical affection as the southern tip of the country and the continent.  This isn't actually true--the real tip is Cape Agulhus, which I can almost see from my current location in Hermanus.  The Cape Peninsula is certainly noteworthy, though, since it harbors Cape Town and does protrude drastically into the ocean, meaning rough sea-faring for the ships that needed to turn that corner of the world.  The peninsula also creates a large bay, called Valsbaai, or False Bay, which opens to the southeast of Cape Town.  This is the warmest the water will get in the Western Cape.  The true Atlantic ocean waters up the west coast of the country are quite cold, even now in the summer, as are the waters surrounding Cape Agulhus.  This hasn't so much stopped me from swimming, as it has stopped me from having much sensation whilst I do.

Saranne and I took a road trip a couple of weekends ago to the "west coast" of the Western Province.  Basically, a handful of similarly charming but also distinct fisherman villages turned bed & breakfast weekend getaways.  Every town is built around a smally bay, and seems to hug the sea.  The interior of the coast is flat and arid, and filled with desert adapted wildlife.  Where the land meets the ocean is much like the desert behind it, except with lots of boulders, a few nice little beaches, and beautiful grass-shrub sized plants adapted to both seasonal drought and constant sea-spray. 


Enough of the jibba jabba!  On to the photos!

the sleepy town of Yzerfontein (Azer-fon-tane)

maybe the coolest tree thing I've seen down here, and an island (Yzerfontein)

Saranne looking across the bay in Saldanha

the Atlantic ocean, accessed via the West Coast National Park.  It looked just like that in the other direction too

wild escargot on the same beach

A park called Tittiesbaai; a picture series of discovery of and accordance with the wild Atlantic

part 2:  huh?

part 3: yes

part 4: YES!

part 5:  from a more relaxed view

looking south from a perch on the same park

tiny fisherpeople, big sea

should I get in?

this is probably far enough

a picture through my looking glasses