A scorpion’s tale is no joke – Day 53 of 365

In my last blog, I gave you a glimpse into my day-to-day life while settling into this living off the land sustainable lifestyle. I’m not going to bore you with self-congratulatory messages for sticking to my to do list, nor will I regale you with corporate stories from last week, because these last 20 hours have been most instructive for a wannabe rural farmer.

There is “Dramatic”, which I can do at the drop of a hat, for entertainment’s sake, and then there is “Traumatic”. Now, while my crises response mode is not “cool as a cucumber”, it is in fact, “cucumber ice-cream”, not being able to solve the problem is what brought me here to your counselling couch.

By now you may have picked up from my social media pages, that guard dog has been cloned, and now I have two.

Curious
and curious-er

When you visit you will understand the extent of the cloning allegation.

The original guard dog, by name of Weetbix, started acting weirdly last night during the humans’ dinner. The canine dinner had been served already, and Weetbix and Oxo had been jolling in the veld outside.

She came in limping. I inspected her paw for the inevitable duwweltjie (loosely translated as little devil, and a particularly innocuous little %$^ thorn) but found none. She was not overly complaining, but it was clear something was bugging her, and she kept gnawing at her hind paw. A few minutes later, she started shaking her head vigorously, and a few minutes more, she started gagging, with no “output”.  Thank goodness no output, because we were in the guest cabin, and I would have had to clean it up. Gagging myself nearly.

I put her outside (you reckon I was put outside as a child “to get over it”? ) and when I went to check up on her, she ran away. Very odd behaviour indeed.

Eventually we had her under the bright kitchen light, inspecting as best we could: her foot, her mouth, her cheeks, her ears, her throat, her tummy; all of which she dutifully allowed.

She continued that behaviour for more than an hour, and it was time to revert to Dr Google. Yep, you guessed correctly, the most likely diagnose was scorpion sting. The rabbit hole that is Google just caused more concern and confusion with poisonous or not, and its not like I was going back into the veld in the dark of the night looking for “the One with the missing stinger”.

Here I test your mettle: Do you jump in the car and travel to the nearest vet? Yes, or no?

And if the nearest vet is 200km in the dark on gravel roads on which you will most likely come across massive kudus? Yes, or no?

Having made her as comfortable as I could and having made peace with the probable indoor toilet drama, we waited out the night. Not pleasant. Not when she loudly yelps every half hour or so. Which I think was caused by her brother bumping against her hind quarters during the night.

I was very relieved when the very friendly vet in the nearest town, Dr Gaugler, answered my midnight question at 7am. Given the symptoms described and displayed in one of the middle of the night scenes, he also guessed scorpion, but he did not comment on my question whether I could administer a quarter tablet of disprin. It’s just as well he didn’t, because she was not interested in drinking anything, and how was I going to administer it? (Suppository apparently…. Not sure about that one!)

By this time, she was weak in the legs, and could not stand when I took her outside to relieve herself. Decision made, I jumped in the car, and drove (as a sensible speed given the gravel road and my experience in rolling a car) the 1,5 hours to the nearest town.

By this time, she was exhibiting signs of her friendly self, and allowed me and the vet to poke and prod her. I knew she was going the be OK when she excitedly thought the injection the vet was unwrapping, was a doggie treat. And by the time we got home, she was her old self.

Conclusion:

  • Maybe she would have survived the incident without a 320km round trip visit to the vet.
  • I have used disprin for goat kid injuries before, and will do it with dogs in need, but you make your own choice there.
  • Dogs’ pain manifests in a myriad of ways.
  • Dr Gaugler understands pets under stress; and humans under stress.
  • Farming is not for the faint hearted.

Good night, everyone!

Failing to plan is planning to fail (day 36 of 365)

Pro-active planning for productive week on the farm. You see what I am doing here, don’t you…. It’s a very clever technique.

Capturing all those loose tasks to be done.

Then re-arranging them neatly (well, perhaps less neat) into what I must do, and what others must do, and slot into the week.

How to look busy while you are actually busy postponing getting down to business. And then writing about it.

So, the plan this week looks like this:

Monday:

Admin (Blog, Livestock records, tax status, minutes review and Maketaan preserve preparation (with assistance).

Betty and Charlotte – expert Maketaan peelers / prickers / choppers

Supervise cold room shelving installation.

Tuesday:

Preparation for annual audit of farm, pre-audit committee meeting, virtual conference and Maketaan preservation. Its local name is Piri-tsamab. (Punctuation not necessarily correct, but required to indicate pronunciation). You can expect a consignment of Maketaan (or Piri-tsamab) preserve at the LuvEarth kiosk at Finkenstein by next week Monday. I’ve written about my Maketaan preserve before. My Maketaan, your %$# Waatlemoen

Supervise kitchen under counter shelf installation.

Wednesday:

Agri consulting research and preparation, prepare groceries list and supervise solar panel cleaning.

(Hopefully) formalise produce (hot sauce, tomatao pasta sauce, biscuits, jams and preserves, and various gluten free and/or sugar free options thereof) fact sheets for marketing purposes.

Thursday:

Complete audit file, rearrange cold room and kitchen storage, and housecleaning.

Cold room – before
Temporary cold room (did I say just how cold it is today?)
Cold room – work in progress

Friday:

Prep for board meetings and collect farm workers’ children from school for the holidays. That is a 40k drive, so not bad, and an opportunity to go shopping at the local mall . (I’ll post a picture on Friday).

Saturday:

Work the cattle –> ear tags for the new calves, horn treatment, introducing the young lady cows to the gentlemen cattle and let nature take its course.

Compile the audit file, and prep for more board meetings.

Sunday:

Final chance to catch-up on-board meeting preparation.

And that is it. By the end of the week, I shall have an honest (and transparent) self-evaluation of my work performance this week.

May your coffee breaks be fueled by inspiration and remarkable coffee.

TBH

Confessions of a laissez fair goal orientated off-gridder (day 19-33 of 365)

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.

Young lady cattle
Feta
Developing the grocery list
HiHo, HiHo, its off to work I go
Maintenance crew
The 1st FROST
Our vicious guard dog weighing in….

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.

Avo Goats Cheese & Green Goddess dressing
BLT Panini
Beetroot salad
Curry and sourdough
Farm style Paella
Passion and fruit cheesecake dessert
Hungarian Goulash in Scottish Grandma’s pots
Inevnitable kitchen outcomes
Vanilla Bay Leaf Cake
New Orleans Beignet
Sourdough discard crumpets
Sourdough discard crumpets
Naked Chocolate Mousse
Sourdough pre Cold Retard
Sourdough success

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).

Convincing The Husband to do Pilates

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.

Pit and Pit Jnr

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.

Entertaining friends with a “Vlam Worsie”

 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?

Goats cheese Feta
Pickled PeppaDews

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.

Eating out

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.

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Day 12 to day 18 – Under promise and over deliver

Can it have been a week since I last published a post? Indeed. And here I was, thinking I will faithfully update you daily on how to adapt from a city dweller lifestyle to a sustainable living of the land lifestyle. But I trust a weekly update has more entertainment value.

But let me first wipe the crumbs of a block (or two) of good old-fashioned fudge off my lips. Thanks, Elodé.

(This is called a red herring – I will know later today if my husband read my post – and comes to realise there is a secret stash hidden in plain sight. 50% of the population know exactly how easy it is to hide something in plain sight of the menfolk.)

Where did I end off last time? Ah, I was on my way back to the farm after a corporate day and longed to feel the earth under my bare feet. I’ve quoted this before, but I’m permitted to repeat my mantra:

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair” ― Khalil Gibran

Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese American painter and sculptor from Boston, Massachusetts.

So indeed, the minute my bare feet hit our red sand, I was grounded, which means my trusted new guard dog is also grounded.

Yep, every farm needs a yard dog, and my requirements were simple – female (more obedient, or so I’m told), medium size (as she will be sleeping indoors at night), short hair (easier to maintain). But I simply do not have the heart to go to SPCA and choose who gets left behind. Fortunately the universe sent a particular angel (thanks Elsa) my way and got us connected to C.A.P.U. who had a rescue puppy that is a perfect fit for us. Very cute, and very sharp teeth ….

Training a fearsome Xenia – Warrior princess

Weetbix is the most people friendly, loyal puppy, and her nieces, nephews, cousins and so on are still up for adoption. If you want to know why she is called Weetbix, you can follow her and her mother’s story on Facebook at:

https://facebook.com/groups/1497730263834226/permalink/3434103023530264/

https://facebook.com/groups/1497730263834226/permalink/3432011407072759/

Anyhow, the weekend was grand – I made my first deal, selling 35 lambs to an ex-colleague, who made the farming lifestyle permanent a year or two before me. He is most helpful and honest in his advice. That is a must have for any new farmer.

The rest of the week went by in a blur, with the new puppy rearing responsibility (sorry, no magic advice for toilet training) but not without striking another winning gong – I sold 10 goats at auction and got a special mention (and a good price) for the quality of my livestock.

Out here in the bundus (yes its a word: “a largely uninhabited wild region far from towns”), internet is equally useful in conducting business and reading the paper. Alas, not as reliable. Here is a special plea for affordable data and hardware in all the remote corners of our sparsely populated country, to any new satellite communications service provider, who I understand may have been in the country recently. I have planned to explore the possibility of compiling livestock related live data, for national food security planning purposes. So, we have two potential streams of conducting business, just saying #ElonMusk Order Starlink. Liked your biography by Ashlee Vance….

Talking about national food security, I’m looking into consulting with a new venture in Agribusiness. Will know more next week (both you and me).

In the meantime, I try my hand at cheese making (with goats’ milk), and I’ve just had the seal of approval from The Father on the Haloumi.

If you have been complaining about the price of cheese, know this: 5 litres of milk will yield a mere 500g of cheese. There are some by products, like ricotta, and whey, but cheese will remain an expensive treat. You really must try some of the cheese I have left at the LuvEarth kiosk at Finkenstein.

But its not all creative games, there is some basic maintenance required, and this blog ends with a trip around our perimeter, looking for holes that predators dug to come in, or warthogs dug to get out.

May the rest of your week be a fulfilling balance of life and livelihood.

PS – I am trying out some sugar free and gluten free baking options. Can’t say the Sugar free Malva pudding gives the same degree of indulgence, but shout out if you would like to place any such order.

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 8th 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.

Pretty to look at, but future pain in the ….. bare foot 🙂