Starting from scratch.

The Great Reset (of 2020), in 2021

Stage Fright – This is what I have this morning. I have not written in a few weeks, and now I’m staring at a blank sheet of paper. But its OK, sentence one is done (and now, sentence two). And that is how you get through a troublesome week in an industry that COVID has not quite killed off completely yet. That is also how you get through advanced level of studies, that will only end in October. By starting, and by taking a knee, and then starting again.

We are 20 days short of our lock down 1 year anniversary. It seems like a good time to take a knee. Slow down, check your status and your surrounds, and start up again.

Today’s taking a knee, consists of my first impressions for the day.

Octopus # n

Creativity got a breath of fresh air, and I should be done with Francois’ octopus by the end of the day. Sorry for the delay to the first grandson in a family of grand daughters who all had their octopi by the time they were born. That may be a good photo story – the octopi and their caretakers.

Tea in re-purpose-able packaging

Being environmentally sensitive and trying to reduce waste can be pretty. I found these delightful teas at our local Zero Waste store.

Zero-Waste (zerowastestore.com.na)

(No – I don’t earn any commission from the link, but I do hope I score some more waste reduction brownie points).

Taking the time to capture some thoughts, rants, or memories seems to be catching. I finally managed to convince dad to capture his childhood time capsule memories, and from the few I’ve heard, I think it is going to be quite funny. Imagine being smacked by a bunch of Ouma’s prize winning Kanna’s, trying to run away from your due reprimand, in a tiny garden.

Grandpa’s memoirs

One may think its just boring stuff to others, but reading through Grandpa’s autobiography was fascinating. Who knew that this proper English gentleman, who guarded Grandma’s infamous tea trolley and its cakes (with the grown up cakes on a different level that the kids’ cakes), was such a hell raiser in the muddy quagmire of Hopton Road. And later, repairing the telephone exchange stations after each bombing raid.

My technical garden advisor is on leave in the North, but I am happy to report that we are able to maintain a fair crop of corn. It is a bit of a struggle though, to keep the ground squirrels away from the ground nuts planted in between the mielies.

15 Jan 2021 vs 5 March 2021

Anyone see “Children of the Corn?

This plantation does mean the guest unit will move off the yard, but why not. We have space.

Then there is this keyboard. I know why E is in the state it is in, but what did F7 do?

I’m happy to report that the produce is starting to bring in some cash. Brinjals, rainbow peppers, Chilimelade and Japanese Mustard Pesto.

The sourdough mother plant is ready to produce the fresh baked wholewheat bread sandwiches that we enjoy for breakfast on the journey back to “the city” early Monday morning.

And we have our first born calf – Welcome Valentino. You win a portion of pesto if you can guess when he was born.

Valentino with protective Daisy

Talking about cows, we caught Mable supping off Daisy! She is a cow! Perhaps not the brightest of the lot, but very friendly, and very photogenic.

I’ll end on that pretty and productive note – The WiFi is frustrating slow today, as it had been for the last few weekends, and I’m losing my carefully crafted thread of thought waiting for the upload of the visual part of today’s blog.

Have a good week everyone!

Living off the land is much like living in the land

Always when I set aside time to write my blog, it is a bit of bother to find a way to start. And then when pen hits paper (so to speak) all the half-hidden concepts come out babbling like the crowd out of the stadium underpass after a great rock show.

The noise and excitement, the colours and chaos all get carried along the same intangible undercurrent of goodwill and shared experience.

And I am required somehow, to route this tide of ideas into streams and rivulets, until it has ebbed to a reasonably clear and logical train of thought.

All the words that are vying for the top spot in today’s blog, are provoked by a statement from a well-known person in the last week or so. I will not say who that person is, but I do think it is a sentiment shared by many. And it is disappointing.

They only complain about the corruption, because they are not also eating.

AN Onymous

Yes, of course. Is it not palpable? The unfairness of taking out of the benefit for many, to advance the interest of just a few?

To avoid any inconsequential analysis of abstract deliberations. Let me make it clear. Fishrot. Diamondrot. And the next rot that has already festered away at our collective ability to look after all of us.

If the money that was unfairly allocated to “The Six”, or nine, or however few it did benefit.

Who knows how much was actually involved? According to corruptionwatch.org.za it was around US$650m. US$. At today’s (poor) rate, that is N$9,750,000,000.

Could that have helped educate a few of the children included in our population of 2,5m? Or build a fairly robust structure in which they could go to school? Who could them empower themselves to feed their families? Or maybe buy a few doses of vaccine? Or invest in exportable renewable energy for some valuable foreign exchange, rather than allowing foreign oil guzzling countries to ransack our pristine countryside in the search for oil, which anyway needs to stop if we have any hope of surviving climate change?

Yes, anonymous person. I am complaining because I am not eating. I am not eating the fruit from a food secure sovereign state. But let me know if you need any home remedies for your indigestion.

The purpose of this blog as a whole, resolves around living off the land. But to live off the land, you must also live in the land.

Who was it that said, no man is an island?

No Man Is an Island is a 1962 war film about the exploits of George Ray Tweed, a United States Navy radioman who avoided capture and execution by the Japanese during their years-long World War II occupation of Guam.

And because this post is not so pretty, there are no pretty pictures to add. So, let me include the poster for the movie, as a tension breaker.

The actual idiom is much more intuitive than I had thought until I had found this on the web.

This expression is a quotation from John Donne’s Devotions (1624):

“No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.”




https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/no+man+is+an+island

That says it all, I hope you were able to glide along the gist of my torrent of thought and arrived at the same tranquil loch of logic. No man is an island. You are your fellow man; your fellow man is you. Do not take from your fellow man, what you do not want taken from you. Help your fellow man, to help you.

3 lessons this weekend, in the veggie garden, and in life

I have been feeling the inspiration growing in my mind since yesterday’s harvest in the butternut patch. And this morning, after a “Tête-À-Tête” with my technical advisor working side by side, I can no longer delay, The dishes will have to wait until I have penned the three things my veggie patch tutored me on today.

  1. The sweet things in life will take over.

It was the first enlightenment of the weekend, while harvesting butternuts. I was looking forward to placing a supply order with Fruit & Veg City for the hundreds of butternuts I have been carefully watching since the first tentative flowers.

The first ever (successful) butternut harvest

We even repurposed yards and yards of netting to protect the butternuts from the critters that come during the night. This seemed to pay off as you could see the vegetables slowly ripening without damage.

If I had blogged 2 years ago, you would have known that at the time, I was looking forward to some butternut infused kudu steaks, seeing as the kudus decided it was not for my consumption. So it was particularly precious to see the fruit vegetables of my labour appearing before my eyes.

And this is gooseberry forest AFTER I had decimated it

I did have a good harvest, but came to the realisation that I was only harvesting around the edges. There was no harvest from the centre of the patch? Why? Because the gooseberries had taken over.

And that is the lesson. I left the gooseberry that survived from last season, in one small corner of the patch. You know, for the occasional sweet treat. Over delicately infused mascarpone and a sweet aniseed flavoured syrup. Or a handful of fresh vitamins as you stroll through the garden.

Lo and behold. Believe me when I tell you gooseberries Self-Propagate. Profusely.

Johannes – My technical advisor – holding our harvest from a patch the size of a 12 seater dining table.

Lesson 1: You have to appreciate the sweet things for when and where they are appropriate. And not allow them to dictate how your life develops (or does not develop…..)

PS – the first harvest kitchen experiment was 100% homegrown. Except for the cheese. Mable has to come to the party for that to happen…

An experiment in butternut and red pepper. If you are going to wrap it in foil over the coals, like I did, you do it for the steamed texture. But I was after the intensity of taste, that grilling by direct heat brings, so next time I will rather bake/grill it in the oven.

2. Sometimes you have to action a tough call.

So here I was, blissfully appreciating the greenery of the carrot tops, making my vegetable patch appear vibrantly verdant.

Carrots have to be thinned out. And I hear my inner hippie voice say : “NO! Live and let live!”. But that can’t always be. By allowing the unrestrained sowing of carrot seeds to persist, the carrots are too close together, and they have no space to develop.

So you may sacrifice a few tentative carrot sproutlings in the early stages. But it is for the greater good. The rest of the carrots can grow to be big strong (and useful) suppliers of nutrition.

This is why you need to thin out carrots once they have sprouted

Lesson 2: Man up, put on your big girl panties (whichever is appropriate in your case 😊 ) and thin out those babies. If you are fortunate to have a few chickens on the loose, they will very much appreciate those very same timid sproutlings. And the circle of life continues.

3. Sometimes you have to wait.

Inaction is probably my biggest tyranny of strength. And by that I mean, I cannot sit idly by and wait for things to happen. If they don’t happen, and my action won’t change that, I change the target. So it is tough for me to utter the words “wait”.

Two types of Ombidi

But take the case of the Ombidi here. Ombidi is a collective noun in one of the local languages, for types of veld food. I understand from my technical advisor, that it is plucked, boiled, then dried to save for a later date. Or first dried then boiled for use? I don’t recall, and I have not tasted it (yet).

But the point is this:

Lesson 3: The plant is ready to eat. But if you harvest it now, it wont have prepared for the future yet. So you wont have a harvest to eat next year. So take a knee soldier. Appreciate it, care for it, and it will care for you over the longer term.

(I’m sure I can apply that analogy to the greed behind Fishrot and other pervasive corruption in our society today, but this is a glorious Sunday. I’ll deal with those cheats next week.)

I hope you take from today’s blog, the little things that can make your garden sustainable, and share the lessons that will make our society honourable. And eat your beans.

Reflections on the bounty of mother earth

It is a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I feel abashed for not writing over the last few weeks. What with COVID, holidays, family visits, back to the office and all that, I could find a dribble of excuses. But I do not fancy petty reasoning, so I will not.

With Pink in the background, for inspiration for today, related to living off the land, I am turning to my photo album.

A very slow network….

Except that the network is so terribly slow, so my iCloud is taking time to download.

This blog may take some time.

The self-sufficient kitchen has kicked off big time.

The difference 5 months makes – 25 Aug 2020 vs 24 Jan 2021
Those sticky bits on the end, are the mustard seed pods of this Japanese Mustard

What I have been peddling as rocket, turns out to be Japanese Mustard. With the tiniest seedpods.

Perhaps next weekend, I will try my hand at making mustard. In the meantime, we are enjoying these piquant bites in our salad, as plucked just before dinner.

Basil pesto – If you are interested, I will be happy to hawk my wares to you.

Anyone for farm fresh Basil Pesto? Delish in Pasta, on Ciabatta, breadsticks and so on…

Here I am displaying my first “food” harvest. Eggplant of two types. Black Beauty and Eastern Fingerling. You should be able to tell which is which.

Black is the new vegetable

And I do not recall buying multi-coloured green peppers, but here they are. Black, palest yellow, and the usual green. And they taste as sweet as a red green pepper.

  • The next generation of Brinjals will be available soon.
The difference one month makes – 20 Dec 20 vs 15 Jan 21

Although not quite ready, I also tried my first ground nut yesterday (otherwise known as Peanuts). They are going to be a hit.

The leaves above ground, that feed the nuts below ground

And then there are the butternuts. The golden tanned skins are begging to be picked, and it is an internal struggle of patience vs eagerness. Do I wait until the vines have properly dried, or do I pick them now already?

We are preparing the ground for alternating rows of Salamanca beans and Roma or Plum tomatoes, ending with a row of Artichokes. We will report back in about 3 or so months.

Now that the greengrocer-shed has kicked off so successfully, Johannes, my intuitive horticultural technical advisor, has decided we are going to expand beyond the shed, with an open field of corn (Rundu Mielies) interspersed with ground nuts (which makes an excellent ground cover) and the occasional watermelon.

The Husband, and The Technical Advisor, analysing the first rain of 2021.

There are many reasons to appreciate the progress on our farm. My top 3 must be:

  • My justified black thumb reputation is finally being archived in the chronicles of the long gone past.
  • Should society collapse (it was touch and go there for a minute with Capitol Hill) I will be able to feed our household, and trade for other essentials.
  • Soul satisfying earth beneath the soles of your feet. It was Gabril Khan, (apologies for all the previous times I attributed this quote to the famous cricketer, who I had met (funny story there….), rather than the Lebanese poet) Khalil Gibran who said:

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play with your hair.

And then there are the chickens. But I will leave the welcoming of Hank, Hanna, Hester, and Henriette (also known as lady Hank) for a next article.

And so, quite easily, I have completed 521 words. Just goes to show, sometimes you may not know where you are going, but as long as you start, you will get somewhere.

Understanding The Subtle, But Oh So Important, Differences Between Star Wars, And Star Trek

For those who may not know I’m a Trekkie, you clearly have not read my blog.

Here are a few hints.

  • My tattoo
  • That time I had a feature role in Star Trek
  • The Borg
  • Locutus of Borg (ex Picard)
A selection from previous posts

My logo is a patam. This is a symbol used in formal Vulcan writing, to start sentences.

The patam orients the reader unambiguously as to the direction of the writing. It also sets a formal tone and imbues the text with a sense of propriety and respect.

Why today’s topic? It has taken me a fair interlude since a Family day feast on the neighbours farm, to ruminate over the reply to my response on what my tattoo means.

A group of us were talking about this and that, and when asked what my tattoo meant, I responded with the Vulcan Greeting .

I was met with a round of blank stares. What do you mean, you don’t get it? This is the most famous of greetings, even more apt now in our social distancing times, and you do not know?

Exasperated, I was about to launch into a long monologue to explain some very essential basic life truths, when a bright graduate (obviously bright, because she responded more or less correctly) countered that it was “You know, that Spock dude”. Well done Natasha!

A few moments of silence followed. What? Still no comprehension? Natasha to the rescue again “You know, from Star Wars”.

?

?

?

If you are a Trekkie, you will understand the time it has taken me to regain my composure.

And that us why I like Uwe. Because he persisted, and wanted to know what the difference between Star Wars, and Star Trek is.

So, for Uwe, Natasha, my Dad, my neighbours, and the uninitiated:

Yes, they both transpire in space. They both have movies and TV series under their respective franchises. I do like both, for the imagination and creativity that is flaunted in the depictions of alternate beings and technology.

They both have “wisdom & logic”.

In Star Trek, Spock is the Vulcan, who is a race of supremely logical, and non-emotional humanoids. And it is that logic I find so appealing. And of course, that infamous coma inducing pinch. Not to mention mind meld abilities.

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true.

Star Trek – “Amok time”

Yoda is the wisdom. That truly short green little man in a brown cloak, with a mean light saber fighting technique.

“NO! Try not! DO or DO NOT. There is no try”

I found this very elegant description of the difference on the web.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-essential-difference-between-star-wars-and-star-tre-1754297235#:~:text=Star%20Wars%20is%20about%20fighting%20the%20Man%2C%20and,lured%20into%20war%2C%20while%20the%20little%20guy%20suffers.

Star Wars is about fighting the Man. Star Trek is about being the Man.

Star Wars have exciting fight scenes, lots of explosions, rebels and so-on. Whereas Star Trek (although not without its fair share of action) is more about the Prime Directive.

This guiding principle prohibits star ship crews from imposing their own values or ideals on alien civilisations, using their superior technology. Now is that not a value system we can apply much better in our society? Capitalism? Nah, seems to have failed us. Communism did not make it. Socialism is not the all-encompassing solution either. Etc. How about we simply do not impose our will on others, but rather focus our energy on encouraging mutual understanding?

But I digress.

Back to some basic differences.

The main characters in Star Wars are (Spoiler Alert – stop now if you want to experience the iconic plot twisters) Luke’s father ,  Luke Skywalker, his twin sister Princess Leia, R2-D2 (also known as Artoo-Detoo ), his companion C-3PO (yes, you guessed it: See-Threepio ), Padme Amidala and so on.

Star Trek characters – How on earth am I going to limit this to one paragraph?

Obviously, Spock. Then the captains (of each series): Hard to pick my favourite between the Captains Janeway, Picard, Cisco, Kirk. And I guess I must include Captain Archer, although I do not think he matches the ethos. And lately, Captains Pike and Saru, of the new series, which astounds with its technology.

There cannot be any beaming-me-up, without Scotty. Doctors (real life and holograms) on each ship, the profits-above-all-else Ferengi, the fearsome Klingons, including Worf. The Borg, Dominion, and a new species I still need to identify in Discovery are among the bad guys.

…. I feel the pressure of a toastmaster at a wedding, leaving out the toast to the mother of the bride…..

My tattoo

Now I must quit. If I have not lost you already.

Live long and prosper. This is the meaning of my tattoo, and the ethos of my Self to Others.