Friday, 29 May 2015

Frankie's Friday Farm Facts #5

Frankie is enjoying all the new faces around the Kildare building site - she has so many people to say good morning to every day! Sometimes I wonder about her efficacy as a guard dog, but she is a good companion, so I think I'll overlook the lack of ferocity for now...



Speaking of which, things are happening at the new dairy site! This week the contractors completed digging all of the foundations and started concreting the new pit and commencing with the brick work. It may not look like much to you, but this is where the magic happens in the dairy, so it's a big milestone for us!

Despite the serious lack of any form of precipitation whatsoever, the grass is growing. The new pivots are running day and night, and Frankie is loving the lushness! Now our job is to try to keep it looking like this!


Karkloof Farm house has had a fresh coat of paint and is looking quite resplendant in green! The stables are also getting a new roof, just in time for Winter! There are lots of friends visiting us in June, so everything will look so preeeeety when they get here! *Happy heart*


On their travels to Afrika Burn this year, the ballies and their mates found this gem somewhere along the East coast close to Knysna! Of course, being slightly unhinged, the mates just had to end up buying it, and now it is the local mascot for the village Fuel&Gas shop!

HOW AWESOME!

This gorgeous piece of equipment visited yesterday, and rumbled back up the drive in all its V8 glory....*sigh*, I want one!


 Finally, I got this shot on Wednesday evening after locking up the farm gates for the night.

Autumn is my favourite season for this particular reason - gorgeous, warm days with the hint of distant fires on the breeze and a promise of a stunning sunset in the evening.

Too much of beautifulness...

Have a great weekend peeps xxxx




Thursday, 28 May 2015

Gumboots and garden ghosts

Of course, Murphey stuck his ugly head around the corner last week and ensured that my marvellous comeback was cut short, with Eishkom frying our computer on Thursday. Needless to say, Frankie's fun Friday fact had to be postponed. She apologises. But we're back up and running again, and hopefully no more electrical problems will hold us back...

So, last week I promised to introduce you all to our latest addition on Karkloof Farm. The fact that we're having a baby in less than 4 months time wasn't enough to put us off acquiring a new addition to the ever-growing animal menagerie that we love having around us. Would you have been able to resist this cute little face...?


Hence, this little black LabXRetriever has joined the gang. Dale and I have never encountered such a relaxed pooch! She is super chilled and has the most lovable character (ideal for babysitting we think). The day we brought her home, the first thing she did was crawl into a gumboot, and that was all we needed to christen her "Gumboots", or "Boots" for short. We are currently attending puppy training, and all she wants to do is play with the other dogs...and sit. She could sit for hours. You may think this is fabulous, but I think she might be a little bit doff. Oh well, at least she can get along with Guinness while Frankie and I are out farming!

Speaking of doff-ness, a rather amusing event occurred during loadshedding last night.

First of all, for those of you who are unaware of what loadshedding is - in South Africa they are currently cutting our electricity for 2 to 3 hours at a time, often more than twice a day, to ease the demand on the country's power stations. This is due to the fact that the nimrods who have been in charge for the last 10 years failed to see the maintenance of power stations as a priority. In short, our government is a bunch of right twats.

Anyway, I digress...
Back to the amusing event.

After work yesterday afternoon, I covered one of our saplings in the garden with the mandatory Winter frost blanket. (This prevents the plant from getting frosted and dying, a necessity in Winter here as temperatures can often drop below zero). Guinness, of course, had to stand and bark at it for a few hours to make sure that I was aware of the intruder in the garden, but after that I forgot about it.


As he usually does, Dale got home after dark, and we went about our evening business as usual. Loadshedding kicked in a 8:30pm, so we planned for an early night and headed for bed. Whilst I climbed into bed, Dale went through the house (in the dark) switching off all of the lights so that when the electricity came back on at 10, everything would be off. When he got to the kitchen, he heard Guinness barking in the front garden and grabbed  a torch to check outside. 

Of course, his light illuminated my recently covered sapling.

You can imagine the fright he got, standing alone in dark, old farmhouse, with this thing in his garden... Needless to say, after a short stare off with the "intruder", he realised that it was the tree, and headed back to the bedroom to relay the amusing little tale - although he didn't find it nearly as amusing as I did! I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, even the pip jiggled with glee!

So we now have a resident ghost and a dog that sleeps inside gumboots....whatever next?!





Monday, 18 May 2015

Back from sabbatical!

I cannot believe that it has been 5 months since my last post!!!!! No excuses people...life is just crazy like that! Phew! But I finally have a chance to sit down and catch up on some overdue blog posts! Goodness but we've had a marvellously busy festive season and new year...new pivots, new dairies, new holiday destinations and new friends! So many new things! It's all very exhausting, I can assure you...

I must apologise for my serious lack of blog posts lately, but the honest truth is - there has been no time! We have been so busy with all the new developments on the farm (and a few of our own...) that we are literally passed out by 8pm every evening, with no spare time in between for hobbies or frivolities! But I promise to get back on the wagon and give more regular updates on the goings-on around here...as well as revive Frankie's fun Friday Farm Facts :)

So, lets catch up shall we?


We had a scorching hot December/January with very little rain. Here's a pic of the heifers cooling off in their drinking trough! Silly buggers...

 Dale and I had an AMAZING New Year's holiday in Semongkong Lodge in Lesotho (AMAZING, you must go there), where we somehow, betwixt all of the festivities, managed to create a little human being - Yay us! Said human will be arriving in September 2015, and already promises to be a giant, showing long legs and steady weight gain in the latest scans...eish! We are thrilled, and cannot wait to fill our big house with lots of kids and their junk.

We also met a bunch of really cool people, who joined us in abseiling 207m down a shear cliff and recklessly galloping across the Lesotho highlands on crazy basotho racing steeds - needless to say, they are as crazy as we are! Hopefully we'll do it all again next year.

Farm-wise, since we last chatted, there have been many more Pivot developments: new fences going in, hedges coming out, dams being pumped full, new roads being planned, lands being prepped, and practically the entire farm has been de-stumped and revamped in preparation for the new infrastructural developments! Very exciting stuff... We have also had the go ahead from the bank to build a new dairy, so we are smashing up the old one and building a state of the art, brand spanking new dairy on top of it, which should be ready come August this year. 

WAAAAAYY too much of excitement! 

This also means that we have migrated both herds into one dairy until then (which made for stressful times in the beginning) and are working day and night to keep those bovines at peak performance! The new pivots are up and running, and the grass is growing like a house on fire, so hopefully by the time the new dairy is in place we'll be well on our way to reaching peak efficiency! The builders are currently digging the foundations, and should start the concrete work tomorrow already!

 More pics to follow!

The beginnings of the new shed.
Before the great chop...
Check out that tummy...
So, what with all this running about and constant dusty/dirty work conditions, I got over my long hair and chopped it all off! I will say that I have no idea why I didn't do it sooner - short hair is marvellously easy to manage, and far less prone to accumulating black jacks and cow poo...and my husband likes it too which is an added bonus!

Well, let me love and leave you all for now - sorry again for the terribly long hiatus! This lady is back up to speed and looking forward to some frantic blogging over the next few weeks! Hopefully I'll hear some feedback from you guys too - let me know what you want to read about, and I'll do my best to satisfy your blog needs! I'll also introduce you to our newest addition, a little black Retriever cross Labrador who is currently stealing everyone's hearts(and food!).

Ciao for now! xx