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.

Day 4 & 5 of 365 – Now we are talking the business of farming.

Yes, I did skip my daily blog yesterday, on this public holiday that remembers the victims of the Cassinga Massacre. Approximately six hundred people were killed in 1978 when the South African Defence Force attacked South West Africa’s People Organization (SWAPO) camp that was located at Cassinga in Angola.

That is not to say we do not work, but the work was more like visiting old friends. We have a new bull, who has already made lady acquaintances, and there does not seem to be any animosity between Borris and Ganamede, our existing bull.

Mable of course, in all her maternity glory, was seemingly shy to nibble on the Salt Bush treat I brought her, opting to approach the nibble from behind. I’ve extolled the virtues of Salt Bush before (Kapps Farm Spring Plant Sale 2-3 October ), and happy to share that if you are in the area, you can pick up a few plants at the Luv Earth kiosk at Finkenstein, as well as some of my farm fresh health conscious produce.

After bragging about a lively Sourdough starter on day 3, it has gone a bit flat, so I have juiced up today’s feeding with half cake flour and half brown bread flour. Let us see if that does the trick.

Today was a full-on farm production day, working the sheep. I am going to cut the verbiage short and leave it to the video clips to explain. Let us just say, the day ended with animal medicine having to be applied to my heel – Subpoena is merciless on ticks!

Hope your weekend ahead is tick-less. Ciao for now.

Day 3 of 365 is again such a satisfying day. After 2 welcome days of cloudy cool respite, it is nice to see the sun again. But more importantly, considering we are truly off grid, rather an anxious time to recharge the solar power batteries.

Thanks Clinton from https://ellies.co.za/, your technical advice perfectly balanced the need for power, with the cost of additional batteries.

Gratitude number 3: (1 being the beautiful morning; and 2 being we still have power): My sourdough is catching fire!

I may not even need to wait 2 weeks to start using “it”. And there we arrive at the first point where I ask for your friendly suggestions. I recently joined a sourdough social media group, and I hear you are meant to give your starter a name… any ideas?

So far, all fun and games, but lest we forget that the farm must pay for itself, I spent some time in the office, creating our very own QR code business cards. Going paperless for the networking required.

Gratitude number 4 – QR codes left, right and centre. Although irrelevant seeing as you are already on my blog, but here is one you can forward to your friends and contacts to direct them here too.

And that, as they say in the movies, is a wrap. Till tomorrow.