Day 8 to 12 of 365 – Farming as an expert generalist

The title of today’s blog tells you the full story of this week. In all naivete, I believed I would farm in the mornings, and spend the afternoons with fulfilling creative pursuits. But the thing is, as a farmer, you must do something of everything. There is no marketing department to look after the blog, there is no despatch department sending livestock to market, there is no invoicing department making sure each transaction is billed as it occurs. As a farmer you spend the morning caring for the livestock, the afternoon doing the marketing, and tomorrow (hopefully) attending to dispatch. Maybe on Sunday you can catch up with the paperwork.

Monday the 8^th of May started a bit delayed.

My seat was taken, so attending to admin while the workers were gathering the goats for their health spa started late, but at least I could weigh in on my sheep for market.

There is a saying : if you want to know if a goat will be able to get through a fence, take a bucket of water and chuck the water through the fence. If the water goes through the fence, so will a goat.

The goats were too dispersed, and the team decided to park goat spa till Tuesday. So, I made a batch of hot sauce, by popular demand; and a batch of the most delish cream Labneh, a new goats milk cheese product.

Tuesday morning was again spent on corporate matters while the team went searching for approximately half the remaining goats. The, whole, morning; goat finding…… water –> fence = goats –> fence.

The afternoon spa was less complicated than the sheep workday, and we quickly identified the “kapaters” to be prepared for market. Any suggestions how to explain “kapater” to an international audience?

Note, no mention of the sourdough starter, for a reason….

Wednesday was quite simply, uninspiring. A morning of housework …. Farmer –> generalist. And in the afternoon, I departed for the city, taking one staff member with who also had business in the city.

City being a relative concept. This particular city is the largest city in the country, with a population of 2 million. That is the population of the country, spread across 825 square kilometres! The city has a population of 460,000.

So, attending to business is a swift affair. Not so much that things move fast , but rather that everything is close together. It takes 15 minutes from anywhere to anywhere else. Provided there is no traffic (like school lunch hour). Then it may take 30 minutes. .

So tomorrow, Friday day 12, will see me breathe a sigh of soul satisfying contentment when the soles of my bare feet connect with the bare earth of Doornboompan.