Farm Skills - a post written last year and then never published

We never set out to live as we do. It just happened. Each day presents its own opportunities for discovery and experience, exploration and adventure. Some we grasp eagerly and others slip by unnoticed.

Today my family is immersed in the music and lyrics of Sweeney Todd, a musical we saw when on holiday in Cape Town. The songs are playing, full volume, while dinner preparation is underway.

Yesterday I hand spun dog hair on the spindle that Decadent Dad turned on the lathe a while back. I spun it on a whim, just to see if I could. The Siberian Husky hair makes a delightfully soft yarn.

Since living on this farm in the Free State I have learned to:

make yoghurt, butter, cheese, and to milk a cow

ride a horse

raise heirloom vegetables from seed

grow enough vegetables to feed my family for a year

crochet well enough to make blankets for my children

raise orphan lambs

spin my hand-raised sheep, Lucy's wool

spin alpaca fibre into luxurious yarn

quilt with the help of a delightful quilt group

raise chickens, calves, pigs and sheep

help a cow with a difficult calf delivery

administer injections to our animals

make apple cider and apple cider vinegar

render lard

make delicious guinea fowl pie

make do without clean water in our taps for extended periods

gather beeswax for soap making

preserve almost every kind of local fruit and vegetable

grow and grind our own maize for porridge, bread and tortillas

sing worship songs in seSotho


brew herbal teas

dry fruit from the summer harvest


Each new skill presented itself as a natural response to a need, opportunity or responsibility. My teachers have been books, wonderful people, my animals and the internet. Some lessons grew out of my dislike of waste and the satisfaction I feel from using my resources to their capacity. I am eager to learn so much more.

I would love to:

begin exploring the art of using natural dyes for fleece

 try a little more felting

learn to embroider beautifully

weave some of my handspan yarn

learn to weave the thatching grasses into broom, baskets and hats

learn to speak seSotho so that I can engage with the farm women and children

teach the little ones some arts and crafts

ride better than I do

grow disease-free tomatoes successfully

plant a prettier garden

write

paint

make fruit wine

and so much more....

Still Stretching

It's been six months since I last posted here. I miss this space.

Random songs are warming the mood as the fire crackles in the hearth and Decadent Dad is whistling, just like his Pops, and enthusiastically chopping and grilling our Friday Night Special Night dinner. This institution started in 2000. Tonight we are looking forward to hot baked rolls filled with our own Chinese spiced beef sausage and a cabbage pickle à la Jamie, followed by chocolate Tumble cake, as in chocolate coated raisin and shortcake balls baked into a cake. We will watch a movie and I will knit. Of course there will also be coffee.

I am making a tea cosy for my art deco Susie Cooper teapot that I inherited from my grandmother. I am using a squishy cream-coloured yarn with streaks of yellow, red, green and blue, a mohair/wool/acrylic blend: Toledo by Elle in the Smarties colourway. It will be topped with cream coloured roses and green leaves. I am making it on a whim after joining the Miss Marple Knit-along that A Knitter's Life is hosting. I am binge watching the Joan Hickson series of Miss Marple, Agatha Christie murders while I work on the tea cosy.

Since learning to spin, my taste in yarn has become a bit more discerning but, being Elastic Mom, I can't bear waste and will  try to make the most of my pretty acrylic yarns. Earlier in the month I went stash-diving and put together a Leftovers Diagonal Scarf using a collection of scraps of purple wool that my sister gave me a few years ago. It feels good to turn these bitty pretties into something that is fun to wear. I really like how it turned out. I am sure that some of the wool was hand dyed mohair blend from Nurturing Fibres, there was also eyelash yarn, some recycled sari silk yarn, and the leftovers from the Granny Stripe Blanket that I made for my daughter when we first moved up to the farm. Now she lives faraway and it is her-Hug-From Mum blanket. It is so bright that my son told me it hurt his eyes. My goal is too try to use up my yarn stash before I buy more yarn.

I gave away quite a bit of my stash yarn when I started the Hope Knitters group with the three ladies who live in the staff village up the road. I wanted to give them a way of earning some money to supplement their husbands' meagre incomes. The ladies live in rudimentary houses with outside pit toilets and no running water in their homes, just cold water taps outside. Their lives are hard. They collect wood to warm their homes. They do have electricity, but their diet mostly consists of mieliemeel (maize porridge). Even though we are a little group and the knitting project is a simple concept, I believe that it will bring them hope.

The idea is to start with an incentive pack of yarn, knit or crochet an item, sell it and use the proceeds to buy another skein of yarn. Once they have done all that then they receive another donated incentive pack from me. Then they are free to spend the profits or save them and use any leftovers for personal projects. We have received some generous yarn donations from kind people from Cape Town to America. We happily take leftover yarn and scraps and I put them into 100g packs. Blantina, who works for me has enthusiastically joined the group, and we have occasional visits from a middle aged Basotho man, Ntate Tshupa, who used to crochet using a match as his crochet hook.

Mentoring these beautiful ladies has been exciting and heartbreaking. It is wonderful to see their progress and their delight in selling the items they make. Choosing their well earned packs of donated yarn brings them such joy as they anticipate their new projects. They are quick and keen to learn new stitches and patterns. We try to meet weekly. One lady brings along her two little girls who play with educational toys while their mama knits. When I first started I didn't realise how much my life would change. These ladies have captured a piece of my heart. It has been heartbreaking to see the effects of poverty on their homes along with enduring the brunt of alcoholism and domestic abuse. One of the ladies has left the group because she can't see beyond her personal pain. Then came tragedy of a car accident that killed the young husband of one of our ladies. We have taken a knock. 

Yesterday three of us sat under some gum trees with a view towards the mountains of Lesotho. We stitched and chatted. It was one of those infinite moments where nothing else mattered except that moment.

Lucy's First Fleece - Part 3

A little of Lucy's first fleece was washed and waiting to be spun. I teased out some locks and brushed them into fluffy clouds, called rolags, using my hand carders. The carders are flat brushes covered in bent pins. They separate the fibres in the locks of wool to enable them to be smoothly drafted into wool yarn during spinning. Using the carders took a little practice before I could produce rolags without clashing the pins together in a tooth-jarring, spine-grating way.

The spinning wheel was set up, oiled and ready to run. I had watched countless YouTube videos on the art of spinning. I had practiced winding a ball of cerise pink acrylic yarn onto and off the bobbin successfully. So I sat down at my spinning wheel one evening, palms a little sweaty, ready to begin the real thing. It took a few false starts to get the wool fibres to twist successfully  around a starter piece of yarn wrapped around the bobbin, but then I was off and away, pumping my feet vigorously and watching the fibres twist and wind away from my fingers and onto the bobbin.

Just as I was getting the feel for the process, the wheel ground to a halt and I had to use my right hand  which was supposed to be controlling the twist in the fibre to get it turning in a clockwise direction while my feet pedalled as rhythmically as I could manage. My uncoordinated hands fumbled the fibres a bit until they started spinning again and then the wheel stopped. After trying repeatedly to keep the wheel turning and the yarn forming, my hands moving in rhythm with my feet, I crossly noticed Decadent Dad laughing at me as he watched from the corner of his eye. Red faced and muttering under my breath, I snapped at him while the yarn snapped in my fingers. If this was spinning I hated it and I couldn't do it. It was difficult and tedious and frustrating. What a wasted birthday present and now I was overcommitted with this enormous fleece and all this expectation to do something creative with it!

Decadent Dad, in a moment of pity, investigated the spinning wheel and declared that he could help me, which he did. The following day he ground down the too-tight axle so that it would turn smoothly in its hub, re-oiled the wheel and so I was willing to try again. This time the spinning wheel behaved as the fluff of fleece in my left hand twisted through the fingers of my right hand and wound their way onto the bobbin, forming my first real length of single ply woollen yarn.

 I was ecstatic. The more I tried, the easier it became. I had managed to make the beginning of something looking like wool. It was thick in places and thin in other places, sometime overtwisted, but it was a beautiful continuous strand. This was starting to get exciting. My fickle feelings forgot the previous night's despondency.

I can spin.

Spinning is fun.

I have a whole fleece to spin.

Will I have enough wool to make something lovely?

Lucy is the best sheep in the world.

.... to be continued

Apple Bounty

Six months ago...

End of last summer,  a crate or two of apples picked from the old orchard.

Organic by default from years of neglect.

Wash them, chop them and juice them.

Sneak some sweet golden juice from the bucket.

Cover the bucket with a cloth and leave in the sink overnight so the natural yeasts can start fermenting. 

After a few days, strain the liquid into a clean bucket, add 2t brewing yeast and around half a kilo of sugar.

Top the bucket with a lid, place in a warm spot and release the air build up every few days.

Once fermentation has subsided (after a month or so) bottle the liquid, adding a little sugar to each bottle.

Leave the bottles in a cool place for as long as you can stand. 

The longer you leave it, the better it gets. Initial tastings may be a bit rough around the edges.

While you are waiting, sneak some into your cooking when the recipe calls for apple cider vinegar.

Now...

End of winter, a pleasing clear  fizzy apple cider, rather lip-numbingly strong, but flavourful.

In the UK they call it scrumpy.

Chilly Friday night: simmer two bottles of apple cider with 2 cloves, some broken cinnamon sticks, a pinch of fennel seeds, some slices of orange, 2 T sugar, some pomegranate seeds and a piece of vanilla pod. 

Strain the spices and served your mulled apple cider with a dash of grenadine and an orange slice in each glass. A delicious, warming fireside drink to accompany one of Decadent Dad's awesome meals.

Last year we dried apple rings. This year we also bottled and froze some apples. They made lovely apple and rhubarb crumbles. I think I may try apple cider vinegar next year.

This truly is an example of the abundance we live in, fruit free for the picking that will fall off the trees and rot unless we make the most of it. What's an Elastic Mom to do?

USE IT- DON'T LOSE IT

Slow Living in August

Come and meander though the highlights of the past month with me, guided by Slow Living Essentials

August started off as the month of fire and ice. Snow fell on the farm twice, but to my children's disappointment, it was not heavy enough to last long. August is also the windy month. Veld fires have raged through some  of the surrounding farms, keeping my son and husband fighting flames late into many a night. Until the Summer rains come and the dry gales subside, we are all on high fire alert.

Fires of a more comforting, crackling, contained kind continue to warm our home at night. 

Towards the end of the month as the temperatures soared into hints of the coming summer, new fires were made for al fresco meals and a little cheese smoking. There was ice then too, but the glass-tinkling cocktail-cooling type.

NOURISH
I have been making cheese incessantly as Rosie's milk flow relentlessly gushes into the buckets twice a day and more townsfolk discover the delights of jersey milk cheese. The constant stirring of pots of warm milk and monitoring temperatures has left me rather uninspired in the kitchen, that and the meager pickings from the garden and farm. Not much is left in my stores from last summer, some frozen tomatoes, plenty of apricot jam, bags of frozen apricots, a few jars of chutney, walnuts and some sun dried tomatoes. Cooking from scratch under these circumstances is depressing. Even so, the garden is beginning to show signs of spring but, as Barbara Kingsolver says, " this is the hungry season". Thankfully we have an overabundant supply of dairy products to keep us going. Even my chickens have not yet discovered the coming joys of spring.

This meal was made from the collection of beans that I dried at the end of summer, baked with our frozen tomatoes. The salad consisted of leftover brussels sprouts tossed with walnuts, sun dried tomatoes and some of my chabrie cheese in a yoghurt dressing. I make a pleasant mock mayonnaise by whisking oil, lemon juice or vinegar, mustard powder, sugar and salt into my natural yoghurt.

PREPARE
The only stockpiling happening here is in the form of golden cylinders of cheese. This month I tried making pecorino and parmesan. Waxing the cheeses once they are dry will hopefully let them mature without a thick, hard rind. Oh yes, all the butter making left us with buttermilk which we baked into bread and there are a few loaves of bread in the freezer now too. I did also store up a few tubs of gourmet ice-cream for our family who are visiting soon.

REDUCE / RE-USE / RECYCLE
When I was a little girl, my doctor-daddy would bring us used glass injection vials which we filled with tiny shells or beads for ornaments. Well, a few months ago I quiveringly mastered giving injections to our animals. When Rosie was ill then I managed to save a cow-sized vial.

and this month, when I got around to cleaning it up, it made a pretty little vase for some dried tansy flowers.

Why toss a favourite pinkT-shirt just because it's stained. Buy some inexpensive black dye and have some tie-dying fun. 

Throw in a white pair of jeans that fit but aren't practical for the farm, botch up their dying to create a mottled grey pair of jeans and then you can buy more dye and have more fun next month too. 

GREEN
I am pleased to say that the soap nuts my friend gave me are wonderful in the dishwasher. Our citrus cleaner also does a great job shining up the sink. I have run out of moisturizer and eye make-up remover. Natural plant oils work wonders for both.

GROW
Snowdrops, daffodils and rocket have been popping up in our garden, much to our delight. The flowers are almost too pretty to pick.

The rocket, on the other hand, once packaged, was gratefully received by a nearby restaurant, and put a few coins in my pocket in the process.

Other welcome spring plants that have made an appearance in the last few weeks are coriander, bok choi, asparagus and mustard lettuce. I have planted loads of seeds in trays. Here's hoping they will germinate. If I could only remember to water them. 

CREATE
Another kitchen helper created by my husband - a recipe book stand that is off the work surface and swivels out of the way.

My clever husband also designed and built this impressive castle-bed, even hand stitching the pennants.

Two years of dedicated crocheting whenever I had a chance finally produced my daughter's granny stripe blanket.

What a wonderful relief to get back to a bit of sewing now. This apron was a delight to make.

DISCOVER
Oooh, I have discovered a deliciously addictive, wonderfully educational website, called Craftsy. It is full of online craft courses, and some of them are free. I signed up for their free quilting Block of the Month course. I have never quilted before, but have wanted to learn ever since my talented aunt gave us a beautiful quilt as a wedding present twenty years ago. As you can see, my first two blocks are made. Not too shabby either, and I am using a South African traditional fabric, shwe-shwe. I am so excited about this project, jumping up and down inside, and there are so many more exciting courses. I just wish I had more time for quilting in my days.

I have also treated myself to a mail-order quilting course, thanks to my cheese income. Great big happy smiles.

ENHANCE
I have started teaching some of the farm teen girls some knitting techniques, like cabling, and making those cute booties, and even a bit of what I am learning from the quilting course. Sitting chatting, listening to "Call me Maybe", cups of tea, young ladies each working on their own project, random displays of exuberance from my daughter... smile.

ENJOY
My talented daughter, in exploring her photographic creativity, and being relatively isolated here and having limited access to models for her photography, has decided to commit herself to 365 self portraits. I am so enjoying her passion for creative expression.

As the tempestuous days of fire and ice give way to balmy spring weather, pink peach blossoms line the road to our farm house, and white orchards adorn the hill, promising luscious summer fruit. I take a deep breath of joy as I surface for air after the breath-holding submergence under winter's frozen grip.

Happy Flowers

 Daffodils popping up in the garden joyfully herald the first days of Spring. Their bright yellow faces call me outside, invite me to bend down to delight in their sunny promise.

But, wait. There are a few more flowers in the garden today.

Pretty pink flowers with daffodil-yellow buttons and happy yellow ric-rac stitched for a little girl who will soon be three.

This little girl who loves having a "pea tarty" certainly needs a pretty apron while she helps her big sister  bake something delicious for tea.

It's reversible too, with more cookie cutter flower pockets on the other side.  

I had such fun using my fabric scraps to make this sweet little birthday gift for a sweet little girl. 

I found the pattern here.

A little USE the fabric scraps, DON'T LOSE THEM, and MAKE IT - DON'T BUY IT happening.

Slow Living in March

Two special ladies, Wendy and Wendy, have written beautiful posts motivated by Slow Living Essentials and have inspired me to record my March month. As the days slip through my scrabbling fingers, a pause to look back on tasks accomplished will hopefully reassure me of time well used.

Nourish
Muffins, pancakes, porridges and baked goods are standard breakfast items here. Soups and stews are slowly replacing salads. Brinjal moussaka, venison stew, homemade pizza and pasta bring comfort as our evenings turn cooler. Bean and lentil dishes have made their appearance too as I have been working my way through the pantry. Here is a delicious salad I made - potato, bean, walnut, rocket, sun dried tomato and chunks of my first gouda in a sun dried tomato vinaigrette.

Prepare
We have bottled apples and pears, dried cherry tomatoes and filled the freezer with many bags of cherry tomatoes just waiting so be popped into winter stews.

Reduce and Reuse
I have reduced my food budget considerably and am attempting to eat from what we have as much as possible. I converted a pretty pink T-shirt that had stretched out of proportion into a shopping bag and baby's bib. My daughter and I are reusing second hand books to create surprise gifts.

Green
All our lights were out for green hour because I was already sleeping soundly on my pillow, falling into bed just after sunset. Early nights under a warm duvet do a lot to save in terms of light and heating.

We have started a new compost heap with another one ready for digging into the garden and another maturing. Horse, chicken and cow manure all do their bit to nourish my garden. Our little worm farm produces buckets of 'worm tea' for the garden and our smelly comfrey tea also helps to nourish our vegetables.

Grow
We are coming to the end of our enormous marrow and tomato harvests. We still have lazy housewife beans, green peppers, brinjals and broad beans coming in. We have planted bok choi, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, carrots, beetroot, red carrots, parsnips, garlic, onions, radishes and turnips for autumn and winter. There are plenty of bright orange pumpkins lying around in the garden waiting for the first hard frosts to mature them before I pick them. Our vine on the verandah has produced copious amounts of grapes, lovely for snacking on. I was delighted with many small watermelons springing up in the garden, but I have a sinking feeling that they are actually tsamma melons - for fodder... and my cows don't like them.
The unborn calf, long awaited continues to grow in Rosie's belly.

Create
I am creating order in my study, sorting fabrics that have been boxed for many years. Seeing their inviting colors has stimulated my creative juices. I made a pair of urgently needed pot holders and I have many more ideas for all that lovely material. My challenge to myself is to create as many items as possible using what I have without shopping. I am still working on my daughter's stripy crocheted blanket. I am 75% of the way there. I hope to complete it before winter. I have also started knitting a cosy gift for my smallest nephew.

Enhance
I was given the privilege of sprinkling pretty pearly sparkling powder over the exquisite wedding cakes that my sister-in-law made.

The sunflowers that enhanced our entrance and back garden were splendid in their full blown glory. They fed the wild birds a bit, and we have collected the heavy heads for our chickens too.

Discover
My husband's family history has been researched and very carefully presented to us in charts and on disc by his generous aunt in New Zealand. It has been fascinating to discover his roots stretching way back to the 1600's.

Enjoy
We spent ten days of this month in Cape Town enjoying time with our extended family. It was my brother-in-law's wedding. Family time is always precious, and treasured even more now that we live so far apart.

The autumn cosmos lining the farm roads is breathtakingly pretty.