Petrichor and planting

OK, I have my first “writers block”. But persistence overcomes resistance, so let me use the auto function on my phone to write for me.

Autocorrect

Err, perhaps not.

Let me rather share my anticipation. Come up to the lab, see what’s on the slab, its just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right…

The definition of sardonic – Tim Curry as Frank N. Furter

And there you have today’s life lesson – sometimes you have to jump to the left, and other times, step to the right. Like this week, when an external event, caused me to indubitably look within. What was the real reason for me tentatively taking steps into a different direction? This different direction is yet another branch of “exploring options”. Separate, yet connected at source, from the other options that form, and will form, the substance of this blog.

This other option is a potential different job, still very much in the vein of making a difference, but it comes with a bag full of politics, and besides, who likes the tax man anyway? Let me take a step to the right.

And just like that, I have inspiration for the next blog – using song lyrics to convey a concept. The very connectedness of things. Nothing in isolation, one thing informs the next and so on. I wonder what the other me in alternate universe number nth to the nth is doing right now.

Perhaps there is one alternate Talita, who knows exactly whether the rocket can be planted next to the Japanese mustard? (Anton, you can come in here with your mass of knowledge). And that you do not have to bother trying to seed the cabbage and cauliflower right now, because soon it will be too hot (Thank you Jens).

Seed capital investment

Any and all advice is welcome.

I do not quite suffer from macrophobia (the fear of long waits). But I cannot procrastinate. It is impossible. Thus, I started for the following reasons:

  1. Spring has sprung, and is that not the perfect time to start one’s vegetable greenhouse income stream?

The list includes (thanks to the administrative planning support of Marthana…)

Place your orders
  • Our “mulch” is coming along nicely. (Sensitive viewers, please look away now). The magic of grass fed cattle by-product, recycled.
  • My anti-poaching double perimeter is in place.
  • Plumbing works installed. Thanks to The Husband.
  • We have had our first rain for the season. 4 mm in total. Now I do need to construct some context to this. I was in a board meeting with a colleague from Zimbabwe, who runs a banana plantation. I was expressing concern with the lack of our rain of the season before last. I was saying we need an average of 300mm, and we had only had 68mm. She was non-plussed, that is not particularly concerning to her. Until I said we needed 300mm a year. She has that in a day!

So this year is off to a good start, if we started 2 months early, with 4mm in one weekend.

The petrichor is abundant.

Petrichor – A pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.

That is the “dry” dictionary explanation.

Let me put your nose in place. It smells of earth, well fed nutrient rich soil. It smells of wholesome fresh sheep droppings, feeding our umbilical cord with mother earth.

It smells of camel thorn seed pods waking up.

It smells of hard physical labour (of love) tilling the soil.

It smells of new beginnings.

It smells of feisty yellow weaver ladies, indignantly destroying an untidy nest being built by a dutiful yellow weaver fella.

Neighborhood squabbles

It smells of brisk morning walks in the veld.

How I have longed these long winter months for you, the sunshine in my life.

Springing into the future

I am sorry, that was the best word play I was able to come up with, given that today is first day of Spring.

It is a little bit like my first blog, where I try and contrast the sugar and spice, to a well matured curry. It is a little like that song from my childhood, which directly translated, goes something like this:

Lyrics from my childhood

Yes, perhaps it is cheerfully spring, but at the same time, the bitterly cold wind is blowing through the deserting streets of Windhoek this morning.

And yes, I do mean to say deserting, because yet another long-standing shop down Independence avenue, has closed its doors forever. So yes again, there are some good things to celebrate, such as the dawn of new life. However, at the same time, we still have not been able to accommodate this Corona virus into everyday life. The change is substantial.

But let me change tack there. After all, I have a diminished capacity for pessimism. I grant myself a few self-indulgent moments of “woe is me”, and then it is back to making it work.

Because of the essence of it. Whatever that it is for you, whether it is the essence of beauty, or life, or joy, or truth, or play. Make it work. Make work of it.

My dad asked me again last night, why I decided to become a farmer. Slight correction, I am still becoming a farmer, not all the way there yet.

It is a difficult one to answer, other than, it was suddenly there. Not so much in a Satori or Kenshõ way (which are Japanese terms that convey enlightenment in a flash), but more in an “id est” kind of way. That is. Therefore I am.

I should have made that a Haiku.

Maybe I still will.

(Darn it, again, missed the Haiku again with one word 😉.)

Who knows what circumstances and experiences all contributed to the “id est” in my heart, and in my soul?

I do recall the moment that it revealed itself to me. Thanks to an old friend (Dicky is not old, but he is an old friend….) who simply asked, “but why don’t you buy the farm next door”.  Indeed, it was that simple, why don’t I?

Ok, there was a fair amount of convincing “the husband”, but that is the thing with “id est”. It is, and therefore it will be.

My “soon-to-be-greenhouse” – Place your vege orders……

Now I must just “id est” my vegetable greenhouse to become a reliable source of income, and option number 2 will unfurl its full potential.

Just like the buds of spring.

A collection of buds, from a collection of friends.

Happy Spring Everybody!

This is farm life

It’s the middle of a work week, and, I must admit, not usually my most creative state of being. However, it being Heroes’ Day, an unexpected “manuscripting” windfall has struck.

Heroes day is recognised by the United Nations, as Namibia Day. So as a nation, we can enjoy a day off from the COVID imposed workday interruption. Yes, while that sentiment is perhaps not grammatically nor commercially correct, that sentence is called a “double whammy”.

This site will remain an ensemble of contrasted impressions, which is so very reflective of life.

Good morning sunshine

8.am ish: The morning started with coffee and farm fresh rusks, meaningful conversations, and good inspiration for my second blog and more to follow. I did not have any intention to insert links leading you down the rabbit hole that is surfing the web, but I will be sharing sites that are linked to inspiring individuals, and inspired lives.

About 9am: Moving swiftly on to fixing a leaking toilet, which involved:

  • Step 1: identifying the problem: the thingy with the rubber seal must surely be in the wrong way round, in the other thingy thingy that screws back onto the pipe. Surely, because why would a thingy wobble loosely when screwing it back in. Surely it must feel fitted, so that screwing it back in does not put it out of alignment.
The joys of Vulcan logic
  • Step 2: implementing the solution: a call on “the husband” to bring his pocketknife and his person to the table, so to speak.

Skip to 9.45am – and the “commune” has split. This part of the story illustrates an excellent example of how we should have been working, and how we will not only survive, but thrive, in these perplexing times. Collaboration.

Friend A is off to feed the sheep with browse plus, and some seed pod treats for the livestock.

Husband is busy solving the water pump issues, which is pretty much critical as we need to get water from the reservoir, into the tank, to the house, before our lunch time guests arrive.

Me, I do what I do best – mop up during crises times. Have taken over the potjie which needs to cook for at least 3-4 hours. Usually “the potjie” is the job of “the husband”. So, I have taken the opportunity to surreptitiously modify the recipe. Frying onions (lots of onions), sneaked in some garlic, then added the meat, which was a mixture of Oliebol, and game. This being a Namibian meal, on a Namibian farm, one must expect meat, and lots of it. There was too much meat for browning (like one would normally do), so I just filled the potjie with water, to cover the meat, and stoked the fire really well.

Adding heat gets things done

We need to pause here for a minute and translate a few concepts to our international audience.

It is like a stew – only outside

What is a potjie? My English friend Allison described it best. It is like a stew, only its done outside.

What is Oliebol? Oliebol is was a Persian Sheep (fat-tailed breed of domestic sheep from Africa). Oliebol was a very friendly chap, but was never going to have any lambs of his own. Perhaps a touch macabre, but there you have it.

This blog very much follows the philosophy of heroes’ day. Rather than focussing on the loss and suffering which was designated as having started on this very day in 1966, which brought us independence, this day is used to focus on who is a hero in today’s environment.

  • Healthcare workers of course.

For me, it also includes:

  • Those who resist opportunities to bribe (even when caught speeding, or trying to get a permit through irregular channels),
  • Those who actively fight bribery, and
  • Johannes, for taking such care of my plants as my green thumbs fail me.

The rest of the Potjie recipe very much goes like my promise in my first blog, of recipes for an odd assortment of ingredients. Chop available vegetables into chunks. Or let your guests (who have all arrived an hour early because “the husband” conveyed the wrong starting time), chop the motley veggies into chunks. These consisted of carrots, green beans, cabbage, butternut, spinach, and they were added to the pot in that same order, simmering for an appropriate length of time given the vegetable just added. Spice with biltong spice and let simmer for a bit.

The tribe, and the menu

Perhaps some translation again? Biltong spice. Biltong is our way of preserving meat to enjoy later. It involves (and here I risk revealing secret family recipes), a process of pickling and spicing choice cuts of meat, hanging it to dry, and enjoying it as a snack in the winter months. In no way does it resemble the American “jerky”.

By now, the pot had been on the fire for 4,5 hours, cooking vigorously, and only simmering once veges were added. That is important (in a life lesson kind of way) : applying lot of heat to get the job started, and to get the job done, then just simmer down to finish it off. Once you think the veges are done, herd the guests to the table, and enjoy.

Happy heroes’ day all!

A pre-season swim

Sugar & Spice

Sugar and spice, all things nice, that’s what little girls are made of.

Yes. But, when it comes to experienced women, its more like a good curry: equal parts of cynicism, optimism, with a good dash of pragmatism.

You may find in the stories that follow, that I cannot utter the word that is means to denote the particular age I find myself at. Somehow the Gregorian calendar is confusing my intuitive and physical ages. I would much prefer the stardate system, which “is a fictional system of time measurement developed … for… Star Trek”, which makes it impossible to convert all dates into equivalent calendar dates.

But back to the curry analogy. It reminds me of where I learned to make a good curry. Despite spending years in the kitchens of large holiday resorts, where I trained under an Indian chef, it was when I “guest-sat” for the one guest in my mother’s guesthouse one cold Cape winter Saturday evening, where I learnt the subtlety from someone who knows.

I might write share that recipe one day, but for now, my mission is to establish the raison d’être of this blog.

The Great Reset (of 2020).

Its kind of obvious. COVID-19 is that “one in a hundred years” event. In terms of Enterprise Wide Risk Management standards, that really means a most unlikely event, and typically, even though it may have a catastrophic impact, given the low likelihood, most people would assign a low risk priority to it.

Well, surprise there.

A lot has been said, speculated and conspired. I have no intention of going into any tirade of what, where and how these unprecedented times came about. And as tempting as it is to draw parallels to previous world changing events, that still is not the purpose of this blog.

The purpose is simply this: It is here. It has changed things. It will still change more things. (I am starting to sound like “that” famous Stephen King novel).

So now what? No, I certainly do not have the answer. This blog is about my journey through the peripheral and inner uncertainty. At best it sparks your pursuit of your particular passage. At worst it is an entertaining interlude from the storms out there.

What will you find here?

  • Well, if you know about growing vegetables, you will find an opportunity to share counsel.
My “seed capital”
  • If you have an odd assortment of ingredients, you may find inspiration for your meal.
Olive tapenade, feta and farm fresh spinach Stuffed Chicken rolls
  • A whole lot of creativity, in many mediums.
Go on – use the slider!
  • A contrasted collection of observations about topics ranging from the holodeck on Enterprise, to the local Whitebrowed Sparrow-Weaver family.
  • Postulations, hypothesis & notions on what the future may hold for the average Jo, and how said average Jo could best prepare.
  • And, if we come to the stage where my remaining option is the full blown “Living off the land” solution, products and produce from “Stone Store by DBP”
Logo inspired by the look and feel of the farm

This, being my first post, has now come to an end. You will hear from me again soon.