That was the question I asked myself, which I should have asked the person (or anonymous group of persons) presenting me with a challenge this week.
It related to why someone else (or another anonymous group of persons) did not have to go through the same hurdles as I was presenting, to get what he/she/they wanted.
It is simple really:
Do what is right.
Because it is the right thing to do.
Let me put it into the one-dimensional perspective that was part of the presentation to me. Do not think someone else has it better on the basis of your half arsed biased comparison. You have clearly not considered all the factors. You have clearly not seen the shoes they are wearing, never mind walked a mile in them. There is a very apt saying, which I believe in as much as good karma and bad karma: “Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it”.
Let me now put it into a developmental perspective that I strive for every day. Want something? What have you done about it? Did it work? No? Still want it? Then do what you need to do, to bring it about. In other words, drop the “entitlement” attitude. Even when you are entitled to something, lets take a bank mortgage as an example, you still must do something (in this case fill out hordes of paperwork, and prove all manner of credit reliability) before you can access even your own access bond. Another example, clean air and water. It is a most basic human right, is it not? Not if you pollute the air and the water. So do your bit, and yours will come to you.
And please:
REFUSE single use items
REDUCE waste and pollution
REUSE packaging, bottles
RECYLE make the minimal effort to split your dustbin into two –> recyleables, and genuine waste.
Surely, that is the quintessential heading as per WordPress standards – not too long, get your reader’s attention in the first three (and the last three) words, with a sputtering of unusual words.
Let me introduce you (unless you are one of the privileged few who knows through personal experience) to !nabbas.
At the same time, I will also give a grammar lesson. In fact, let me get that out of the way, because strictly speaking, I am not actually qualified. The ! is not in the wrong place. That is a lesson I can only give in person, because how else would you write the click sound that brings into being the smells and memories of a Kalahari red sand treasure.
The huntress
For truly the !nabba is a treasure.
It has a very short gathering season, and then, only in the specific combination of enough (not too much) rain at the right (not to early, not too late) time, and temperature (no longer peak summer heat, but also not yet winter).
Samuel and his haul
I guess the season this year lasted 3 weeks, given that our team are no longer proffering these treats for a spare bit of cash. And the cash they work hard for. !nabbas cannot be cultivated. You take a guess where you may find (sorry, I am not going to divulge the secret whether it is on the north facing, or south facing slope) the treasure half buried near the roots of yep, you guessed it, Senegalia mellifera. Otherwise known as “an African thorn tree”.
This tree looks innocuous in this picture, but if you look carefully, you will see that the (albeit) small thorns, go in opposite directions, and are curved as an extra special design.
What this means, if you get hooked, you can’t move. Move backward, the other thorn gets you, move forward again, thorn number one gets a better grip. Move sideways, thorn number two gets a real twist in … clothing, hair, flesh & bone. It is a hazardous exercise, this truffle hunting exercise.
Caught in a trap (and I cant get out – oh baby) – Are you hearing Elvis Presley too?At source
Success!
Street value of N$1,400 to N$2,100
A good scrubbing
And yes, looks are deceiving. Here you can see what looks like lumps of clumps. But a good scrub under running water, followed by a patient peeling and second wash, reveals the earthy goodness, that is somewhere between a mushroom, and a potato. That is my most independent description.
The professional peeler
Not that I am plugging any store, but you can find your recycle-able brushes at Zero Waste Store in Windhoek. Zero-Waste (zerowastestore.com.na)
These are too hard to come by, so we don’t often go into magnifique concoctions of !nabba soup or such. I can imagine that a “cock-a-leekie” soup would be a scrumptious treat, bringing out the flavour and the texture of the cherished “mother of earth pearl”. I have had it grated fresh over pasta, which was very good.
We simply fry it in butter – ala Julia Child – . Salt & pepper, and of course, some of my dried Japanese Mustard herb.
“”With enough butter, anything is good
The steaming option
You can be a bit more artery conscious, and use less butter, but keep the lid on to effectively steam this gem.
I have to refer you to a friend, if you do not believe that simple, brings out the best of this nugget of goodness of the earth taste.
“Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have drama if it’s done right. Even a pancake.”
If you are struggling with a lack-lustre appetite, you must see this movie. I can guarantee your next baked beans on toast will be a masterpiece.
Farm Fresh Feast – x 2
Onda oku tala later
Oshi li wete ni nale.
(more or less: (given my propensity to pretend I’m a linguistic expert) “see you later”)
It is just over a year ago, that we were locked down full throttle.
Let me honestly declare, that I was in, there is no other way to say this, “a tizzed up state”. I had visions of zombie apocalypse in the streets of Windhoek. Admittedly, Windhoek does not really count a s a city, rather a small collection of towns. But still – deserted streets, looted and abandoned storefronts, milling my own flour from the one stalk of sorghum I found in the yard. Yep, full on “end of days”. It was so bad, that I could not watch my usual move fare of dystopian futures, the flavour of that month being Handmaid’s tale. It was simply too close for comfort.
Organic pharma
Our farm staff had their daily “CORONA education and training”, vitamin supplements and personally crafted masks in the event they had no choice but to leave the confines of the farm boundaries.
Mask production line
I did not go as far as stocking up hundreds of rolls of toilet paper, but pasta, flour, butter, and sugar featured quite highly on my staples stockpile.
Now, a year later, I sat back this week, and thought about all the “goodwill” and “self-reliance” that was created by COVID-19. I am happy that the dolphin’s frolicked through the canals of Venice. Or that Flamingos were covering lakes in India. Experts and professionals offering their services for free, whether by way of calming meditation apps, or how to videos; and general talking to each other through social media, neighbour windows, and over distanced fences.
You often saw visual confirmation that the absence of people was a good time for our mother earth to take a breath.
What else has transpired? Lots of baking, which means my own authentic home-made baked goods is not quite so exclusive anymore, but you know what, I love seeing the auras of pleasure of discovered abilities beaming through the CORONA casing of restrictions.
I also learned about myself, that I can procrastinate – professionally. To the extent that I rope in my lockdown mates into workshopping a priority list.
Professional Procrastination
Since then, things have changed, and remained the same. Commonly called an Aenigma. Certainly, a greater degree of cleanliness and basic hygiene than before C-19, with some less stressful focus on covering yourself from head to toe than at the introduction of C-19. But elsewhere, like India, is back to the basic suffering and death.
A little more empathy for poorly staff members, with less knee jerk complete lockout and whole building sterilisation if someone sneezes. But the abuse of “I think I sat next to a CORONA virus on the bus and can’t come into the office today” has replaced the “common stomach bug”.
What I wish to see now, is progression from that enforced global stock take period.
Puzzles – one of those great CORONA winners….
I do not have puzzles going at the moment, but I have acclimatized that newly strengthened attention-span brain muscle, to studying towards a module of a post graduate degree. Which I will use to generate income when I get closer to my early retirement living of the land goal.
Working from home was wearisome for several reasons, but it has taught me how to lock myself away for a very productive day.
Carbon emissions have reduced radically, because “very important people” have been introduced to the idea that the world will continue without their in-person presence at regular board meetings, so meetings have become more focused on the essence of the matter at hand.
An ever so tentative trickle of tourists have returned to the wide-open spaces of Namibia, and I wish to see more. Many more.
I continue to learn from all the webinars (which is shorthand for “seminars I would not have attended prior to C-19 due to travel and time requirements”) but miss the refined nuances of networking during 100+ public events.
This week I took my vaccination, and happy to report that there is nothing to report. If I were prepared before to take a yellow fever vaccination just because I was travelling to Indonesia or Uganda, why would I not take a CORONA vaccination? Let me take this opportunity to compliment Lady Pohamba Private Hospital and Ministry of Health and Social Services. It was very well organised, very well thought through, and I bought pancakes & tea just because you were not abusing the captive 15 minutes waiting post injection audience with unethical pricing.
It feels like we have mostly moved on from this life lesson, but I worry that we are losing some of the values we learned from this life lesson.
What newly discovered (or rediscovered) skill did you carry forward from our universal scolding to sit in the corner and think about what we had done?
I have not written in weeks. And you can tell by the way this blank page is intimidating me. But the words, and their subtleties are vying to get out. So, I must persist.
Why I have not written is a mundane, yet lofty reason. Mundane because I was studying, and lofty, simply for the reason of being able to do something I can do, better. Not for any externally observable qualification. Yesterday was my first test, and it has been a fair score years since I had to write tests. Under the added stress of not knowing whether the Wi-Fi would hold up to be able to get, and submit, my test. But it did, and I am thankful for it.
And there I have my theme for today. Seeing at is Sunday, it would be appropriate to spend this time in the Church of Thankfulness.
There are a very many things for which I am not yet at an altitude of thankfulness yet. Impending tourism company COVID loan relief repayment being one of them.
But there are a very many things I can sit here and appreciate individually, and collectively, for the serenity (and scenery) it brings to my heart.
First, thank you Alanis Morissette.
Thank you for the Wi-Fi for yesterday. Note, yesterday, not today, because today it is off.
You see, as thankful as I am, I still have a rich vein of caustic sarcasm running through me.
Balance in life is what I call it, and it is another thing to be thankful for. After all, how can you appreciate the dawn, if you have not made it through the night.
The presumably patient sewing lessons of Mother. While the sometimes-tedious row upon row of sewing and finishing off seams take up time, the joy in handing two more babies their personalised octopi stuffed with well wishes from the heart, make it worth it.
Octopi in the making – if your favourite colour is yellow, and you are reading this, you should expect it in the post this week. You know who you are 😉
Ziggy made it. While my big boy Boerbok goat no longer comes crying for his weekly bottle of milk on a Sunday, meaning I do not see him often, he is a well-adjusted individual within a social network of happy goats.
Ziggy at just under 3 months
My peanuts. Ground nuts, sounds so much more authentic. They are now dried, and though take up lots of volume in the process, makes eating each individual nut all the more appreciative/appreciated. I would think now is an appropriate time to thank the heavens on behalf of the fieldmice too. (See – caustic vein and all that)
Peanut Gallery
The end product
First cup of sanity
This fresh cup of good filter coffee.
The first of the day is always, always reason for thanksgiving. No caustic remarks for this one, unless you are on the wrong side of that first cup.
And the award goes to…. The farm. Even saying it, fills all the gaps between my atoms and negative/positive ions to the brim with a peace stuffed with cows (including No-No), Daisy & Valentino, Mable, Ganamede (the new young bull) and number 18 (the “experienced” borrow bull from the neighbour), with goats (Kruispad Cecil and his papers, ewe X, Cecil X and his fellow young gun rams who have been dispatched to green pastures with their own herds, the twins, the triplets and their always pregnant moms, with chickens (the gifted Hank, Mrs Hank, Hester and Hanna as well as the 20 well trained boy & girl chicks, the staff and their horses and horse carts and love for the animals and Agri produce, and now I need to stop before I mention the successful vegetables and related produce I have been marketing. For that, there is a separate page.
Morning walks
The sermon is over, but the message remains. Go forth, live long, and prosper.
I think my WordPress headline analyser tool is going to have an apoplexy with that title. Too short, not enough familiar words, not enough complex words. Basically, not enough words. And the sentiment? I will give an update once I have done my spellcheck (which I forgot to do last week, hope it wasn’t too painful reading….)
Today’s blog is about moving forward. Not in any real great philosophical life epiphany sense. More practical – how to move forward with the DBP product range.
I am going to work out how to add a product page to my blog, which will feature the ingredients of each batch. The reason is simple really. I made the labels too small, and my handwriting looks like a zombie apocalypse footprint.
Beginning of the month salticrax
End of the month salticrax
It gives a great opportunity to also add some recipes. For example, what all you can do with pesto (other than heaping spoonful’s of the stuff onto whatever crackers you can find in the “end of the month” cupboard.
Anyway, back to my product range:
The launch of the DBP brand
Japanese Mustard Pesto. Out of stock for the moment, but I am toying with the idea to make JMP infused pasta. Simply boil it up (home-made pasta cooks in 2 minutes), toss in some cocktail tomatoes, maybe some salami, and voila!
Dried Basil. Preservative free, no harmful pesticides (unless you are a fly, and you do not like apple cider vinegar). I feel a recipe coming up involving pasta & cream.
Dried marjoram. Same principle. Will follow into production in 2 weeks’ time.
Chamomile tea. I just need to check exactly how much to add to each cup, in the dried format. Once I have done that, it will go into retail.
Natural pesticide for your home. Marigold (aka Stinkaster) makes pretty flowers and keeps the bugs off your produce.
Dried mint. Coming soon. Would be used for mint tea (ate too much? Try some DBP mint tea before retiring).
Fennel seeds. For use in baking – I think I will do tomorrow’s “road-trip-back-to-the-city-sandwiches” on a fennel infused sourdough bread.
Mint tea in the making
My supply source.
Where the wild things grow – Mint. Also found some surprise tomatoes and produce yet to be identified. Can you see Moringa in the brand’s future?
It is a bit of a mix between free range (mint), and carefully tended greenhouse. But its all good. All natural, no harmful pesticides nor artificial fertilizers. Only good old fashioned cow dung here.
The greenhouse
My retail outlet.
Well, at this stage it is a small little farm stall just outside Windhoek. In my typical goal orientated style, where I perhaps pay less attention to such minor details as distribution channels, I have not actually gotten to formalising this though. I will venture the name once have convinced them to stock more of my product. And once I have convinced them to administer my waste reduction return your glass container for a discount on your next DBP purchase. Work in progress.
For now, its back to the day job while I bed down this alternative living off the land self-sustaining lifestyle.
PS – yes, headline analyzer gave me a score of 28 out of 100.
. Salt & pepper, and of course, some of my dried Japanese Mustard herb.
Yep, full on “end of days”. It was so bad, that I could not watch my usual move fare of dystopian futures, the flavour of that month being Handmaid’s tale. It was simply too close for comfort.
