Partly driven by the fact that my blog host keeps recommending putting unusual words in the heading, but also because I feel guilty for not updating you on my transition to a self-sustainable living-off-the-land lifestyle. That is the reason for today’s heading.
I trust the father figure, (actually, “the Dad”), is inspired to pick up where he left off with documenting his life-tales. Start with a heading.
And if I have taken two paragraphs just for the introduction, then you must prepare yourself for a slightly longer than usual read. All this pent-up creative writing has forced itself to the top of the priority list.
I am now on day 34 of full-time farming. It gets trickier to count the days since crossing over into the second month.
My first suggestion to those considering a move away from the convenient city-based lifestyle: Do thorough scenario planning, identify all the conveniences you are leaving behind. Then allocate those tasks to someone on the farm, without increasing your wage bill, and leaving yourself the time you were craving when you led a city-based lifestyle.
TBH – City dweller turned full time farmer
The reason I say this, is that I have been so busy with mundane tasks, I’ve had no time to write. Little things like cleaning the house (ok, vacuuming at least), ironing the guest laundry (nothing beats sliding into freshly laundered sheets at night), moving the Chevre production from pasteurizing the goats milk, to the culture developing stage, to the resting in the fridge stage, to packaging for distribution, skimming e-mail headlines for any upcoming consulting work, housetraining the new puppy Weetbix, compiling a groceries list in a manner that “The Husband” can find everything in store (significant others: you know what I mean…..), attending to maintenance, and so on. These are just some of the examples that are much more convenient in a city where you can outsource with the swipe of a digital payment method.
Weetbix has gained 50% weight in the 2 weeks since we first weighed her.
If you have been yearning for updates (ok, yearning may be a bit strong of a word; but you get the gist), you can always follow my Facebook or Instagram profile. At the very least I have been able to get my daily fix of creativity in the kitchen with some great experiments.
I try and start each day with a YouTube Pilates class http://thegirlwiththepilatesmat, and managed to get my husband to join in on one or two (and the puppy).
Excerpts from my timesheet, indicate that since my last blog, I drove a return trip of 13 hours to a town in the North of Namibia, pursuing an interesting Agriculture based consulting opportunity. I hope I can update you at a later appropriate stage, because it has a massively positive impact for food security in Namibia, which I have been espousing as one of my reasons for taking up full time farming, in lieu of corporate life. The counter party was passionate about the topic, and has a well- constructed plan, so either way, best success to you.
There were more visitors to the farm over the long weekend, and it was cute to see the bonding between another corporate being, and an orphan lamb. I introduce Pit Jnr, and a new income stream for farming: Livestock leasing. 
I finally got round to invoicing the lambs I sold 2 weeks ago, and by then it was month end so time for management accounts, payslips, and the like. There is one bit of admin that is still cheesing me off. It has nothing to do with the Labneh, Chevre, Feta, Haloumi or Ricotta that is coming out of my kitchen. There is a certain financial service provider, who has so generously given 2 free months of a certain movie channel, which you can stream on 5 devices, maximum two at a time. Yet I am prevented from loading it on my laptop, so I am limited to a small iPad screen. Do you think either the movie channel, or the financial service provider has responded?
And as is the case with living and working on a farm, you may plan to be doing something for the day, but the best plans get sidestepped by more interesting opportunities, i.e., observing a livestock auction nearby. I did get a better price for my Kapaters two weeks ago than at this auction, which is the gamble you take with auctions, but I must declare, the burgers were a special treat.
Finishing off this 2-week update, is obliging Dad with a haircut (at his own risk), pickling the last Peppa-dews for the season, and making flyscreens for the new meat processing venue.
Please, do not let this exhausting update keep you from visiting. Farm work is optional for any visitors.
I list below 3 options to keep in touch. Feel free to request specific farming or living off the land topics.
- How to be notified when I publish a new post –> Complete the detail below.
2. Where to find my Facebook profile
https://www.facebook.com/TheGreatResetthorn/
3. Where to find my Instagram
Leave a Reply