It's been ‘a lot’…

MANY things have happened. Some happened at once, others in brief intervals between one thing and another, and things keep happening still.

Things happening is good and bad. When the thing happens where I have had too much sugar to focus on working or blogging all in a vain and stupid attempt to stay awake in order that I may work or blog, that is a bad thing happening. When the thing happens when you get food poisoning so bad you are down for three days that too is a bad thing. Eating out when you know you should be cooking your own food, tends to be a bad thing.

When the thing happens where you wake up after three days of being down and in bed with cramps and sore muscles and you wake up and flow into yourself again, scrub off all the sleep and read then you have turned a bad thing into a good thing. When you eat raw food for a week because you feel toxic and lousy, this is also a good thing.

When you stay awake until 2am to finish a company website’s copy and update contents, knowing that you’ll be sleeping late tomorrow and enjoying the camaraderie of a team of people, all in exhausted good cheer and high energy working together like cogs then you have turned a bad thing into a good thing, minus the midnight snacking involving chocolate – but then the jury is out on whether this is good or bad.

When you spend a week or two, perhaps more, in turmoil about whether you should move an old gelding close to the city so you may do horse things in your four days of work things, only to have him stabled three minutes from work with your friend’s horse – this is a good thing. I now have a city horse, he is happy as anything. He thrives on the traffic, the people and the fuss. I think this is good for him too.

When you purchase 16 1.5-meters-high round bales of good grass, that can only be loaded four at a time as opposed to the usual eight – and have it delivered to the farm where a herd of previously neglected, abused, or thrown away animals stand waiting happy, content and fed then you have done a good thing.

When you forget about dessert and remember a few lonely tins of apples, some puff pastry, cinnamon and brown sugar in your pantry, you have the makings of a very good thing indeed.

When your dog looks at you anxiously, waiting for the moment when you cover her with a blanket so that she may sleep during the long winter night, then you have turned bad cold weather into a good warm thing.

Sometimes it helps to group things into two very simple categories. Sometimes it helps to be less cerebral and more impulsive and to try and see all the good you manage to achieve, despite the bad things happening.

This is my living in spite of very long hours of tedious work, food poisoning, tough decisions, bad planning, winter in a summer body and the ever-constant struggle for good grass.

Last-minute pie, anyone?

Love always wins...

LOVE always wins, because love is patience and patience always wins. Patience, incidentally, is the cornerstone of my oxtail stew…well patience, wine and Bisto ;)

I don’t know if one can buy Bisto in the US and Canada, but it is an ancient cheat to help thicken and brown stews.  I say ancient, but the all-knowing Wikipedia says it has been around since 1908 [citation needed].

My old cheat 'Ahhh!' indeed.

To cook my oxtail stew I stubbornly refuse to use a pressure cooker – not because of any logical reason though, it is just one of those things that I inherently mistrust, like alcohol-free beer. What you really need for the perfect stew is a lot of patience.

It also helps having:

Red Wine – Cabernet Sauvignon, if possible – avoid sweet wine.

Six good quality beers

3-4 lovely carrots

1kg of oxtail

1 and a half large brown onions

Herbs to taste – I like oregano, rosemary and thyme

Two tins of whole peeled tomatoes

A good stock – I use Bisto

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

*optional: a teaspoon of garlic, which you fry off with the onions at the very beginning.

Open a bottle of good chilled beer and start drinking it. We grow our own onions, which are so strong that they could potentially be weaponised. For 1kg of fresh oxtail I use one and a half of these diabolical brown onions. Big ones, if we have. I finely chop these and brown them in a large pot with about two healthy glugs of olive oil. I season the meat well with salt and black pepper before adding it to the onions. Brown the meat thoroughly. When the meat is properly browned I add two tins of whole peeled tomatoes and herbs. We also grow our own herbs and I like adding oregano, rosemary and thyme - I am quite liberal with my herbs.  I then stir the lot and let that simmer for about ten minutes before adding about one big glass of red wine, whereupon I close the lid of the pot and let it simmer. At this point I usually like opening a second good beer, and making a start of drinking that. In a lovely old beer mug I mix the stock (Bisto, if you can find it). Two to three heaped tablespoons of stock powder to about 500ml of boiling water. Mix that well and add it to the pot.  Let the whole lot simmer on a lower heat stirring occasionally, to decrease cooking time marginally and to tenderise the meat well, keep the lid closed as much as possible.

If you want veggies in the stew, lovely sweet carrots work well. Cut the carrots into discs, not too thin, and add them about two hours into the process. We also, occasionally, add button mushrooms whole. Open your third beer and start drinking that.

The entire process takes about four hours of cooking, or until the meat is well soft. Oxtail stew is well soft when you can nudge the meat of the bone with no effort.  One can supplement the liquid in the pot with more stock or simply water. Make sure that the rest of your beers remain chilled and, in the company of friends, take a swig occasionally while keeping an eye on your pot.

I shamelessly pilfered this off the internet, my stew is a lot darker and therefore less pretty :)

love+making peace

 THERE is an enemy in our midst. Its name is Kitchen and its soldiers are pots and pans and dough that won’t prove. I’ve made a flopped beer bread, a flopped batch of cookies, an okay plate of pasta and a cake – where the icing split irreparably and no amount of quick chill or re-mix could save it. On top of this mess I managed to decorate it like a five-year-old. I hang my head in shame. Or would-be shame if I didn’t have the pleasure of cool beers and company while cooking.

Two tins of soon-to-be-flopped cake mix... I left out the coffee, I think. After that nothing really happens, which is the problem - a bit 'Waiting for Godot' really...

The sauce, a rich cream infused with black pepper, garlic and mushrooms simply did not reduce properly. A missed opportunity really, because it still looks workable here.

In my paltry defence I did conjure an amazing oxtail stew, served with couscous. I did this by mustering the very last of my soul’s resources in one lacklustre effort… goodness knows what I put in there but it was great. Either that or poor starved Tristan and poor starved me were so hungry for home-cooked food that we thought it was delicious – our stomachs elaborately tricking our tongues into sustaining our bodies.

Of course, Tristan “loves” everything I make. Bless him, even if he is a terrible liar.

Cooking provides a certain sort of balm for the soul – even when it flops. The rituals and traditions, the whole process has the effect of drawing you closer to yourself. I recently read a line from a novel by an Afrikaans authoress that read “by looking down to the ground I know where my strength will come from”. How true, eating connects us to the earth and cooking is the way in which we achieve this connection.

I think I am waxing lyrical again, so I’ll get to the point:  I blame Fancy Apron for my cooking failures. All that lovely fabric and wonderfully bright turquoise and brown loops. It gives you a feeling of ‘all gear no skill’. Damn you Fancy Apron that brings to mind hundreds of proper Afrikaans ladies in the kitchen from 4pm each day, wearing fancy aprons and cooking meat and two veg with instant pudding every single day for their litters of kids, husband, relatives etc. You know the sort of women I mean! The sort who only bake on special occasions and when they do they use lard and a cookbook that the National Party commissioned in the 40s – thanksverymuch. The sort who only ever sip sherry at New Year’s and who are so resourceful, so avidly frugal that they never buy clothes… only ever patterns and reams of material that will never match, but convincingly mimic what they have seen in a magazine. In other words, the sort of women who raised me. 

I have an ancient copy of this treasure, first published in 1951 and penned by the Domestic Goddess and Duchess of Frugal SJA De Villiers. Warning: must enjoy cooking with lard.

 For the long weekend my friend is coming to visit us on the farm, and I’ll be cooking something fierce. In my way then, I have made peace with the kitchen and will spend my weekend trying to prove that good triumphs over evil cooking flops. I shall also be wearing Fancy Apron, even if it conspires against me.

On a side note, I am busy reading a lovely novel, cosy in bed – and the question arises ‘what shall we eat tonight?’…

 Aren’t we incredibly lucky people?

Love+bitter, bittersweet

I HAVE been quiet for a while as the hard work of many weeks culminated into a semi-final and final round of a musical battle that, surprisingly, ended up leaving a swell of pride in my chest. Yes the sound was dodgy and the engineers were shocking, yes there was limited seating, yes yes yes… But it is the process that counts, the adventure. Well done to everyone. It was a bittersweet ending to a long journey filled with excitement, listlessness, anger and growing pains.

Goodbye the bright lights and the late nights

Our pastures on the farm have officially turned and we are buying bales like mad. The end of summer is also bittersweet, no more grass and balmy nights, but no more AHS, West Nile or other bugs either.

A kiss to build a dream on

Ponies at the bale

Ponies stare me down

Soon to be bleached yellow

The 'forever pasture' turning, slowly

Finally, I have to make mention of the bittersweet passing of a beautiful and talented young ocean-goer. A national-team body-boarder; a Springbok. Sun-bleached hair and youth and talent snuffed out in Cape Town’s icy waters by a white shark. It means the end of filming permits and hopefully chumming, which is a contentious topic, hotly debated by pundits. I don’t like the practice and I celebrate its end in our waters, but mourn a life well-lived but cut short. RIP David Lilienfeld, you beauty.

Love+rambles

I’M staring at a pack of environmentally friendly pencils, gleaming bright green in the lamplight. I’m thinking of their practicality, their old-time value and how best they can be displayed in my new digs for my four-day weekly stints in Johannesburg. My mind is rambling, I have so much to say but I can’t seem to streamline my thoughts. My thoughts right now, read as follows: a huge important meeting tomorrow (urgh), organising my new digs in Big Smoke, painting that bathroom on the farm and getting the smaller camps set up (a few smaller camps, I have found, are always useful), autumn and winter to come, grass, cooking, minor success with our Friday night show despite the embarrassing photo shopped press pictures - it occurs to me, I have first-world problems today.

Here goes the blog, pardon the mess…

My three days on the farm expire way too quickly – can’t wait for a repeat visit Saturday. I absolutely love cooking in winter and for two reasons: 1) I get to cook hearty home stews, pies and other lovely winter meals 2) standing close to the wood-burning stove is the warmest, most comforting place in the whole of our rickety old farmhouse. This Saturday, I’ll be cooking a stew of oxtail in red wine served with couscous. I still have that cake to bake! Farm time spells simplicity and love winning, even after a trying week. On the farm there are no colleagues nagging for a take-out, if you want to eat you’ll cook it, on a fire that you’ll have to build yourself. 

Ancient, useful.

 Autumn is in full swing, and we tend to have colder weather there than in the city. It was fantastic to snuggle up at night and feel the crisp bite of winter in the mornings and evenings. Winter on the farm can be a marvellous time – if you can get over the fact that we are chronically skint from having to buy bales of grass. We found a good source of teff – a preferred hay type here. It is fine grass, very nourishing and quite expensive. We’ll be trying to acquire as much as we can in the next week or two.

The logistics of getting anything onto the farm is a nightmare, never mind bulky bales of grass. The closest big town is 60kms away. Couple that with the fact that it is hard going over the farm road and looming winter becomes a nightmare. We’ll manage something, we always do.

On Sunday evening, the wind blew frigid and the temperature gauge in my car read 10.5 degrees Celsius. Of course, on a night like that our ponies will break out of their camp for a quick wander about the property (the huge 1200 hectare stretch of farm). We caught most of them, and seeing as they’ve no way off the property, we left the remaining four out wandering for the night.  We had to, the cosmos flowers are shoulder high and the night was pitch black. On Monday morning they were lined up at the gate waiting for breakfast. Love wins.

My accommodations over in Big Smoke are improving as I’ve mentioned: my own little flatlet with my own little patch of garden. Bliss. I go a bit soft in the head if I can’t feel grass under my feet and if I’ve no privacy. This is such good news.

We’ll be painting the bathroom on the farm – we are painting it ‘putting green’ simply because that is the paint we have lying around. The bathroom is creepy, so we don’t think the green will do much to make it much creepier. So we will paint. I should add that we’ve threatened to paint for the last two years… Let’s see how far we get.

Love the space you’re in, you’ll never regret it.

Love+horses...always horses

THREE years on a farm with horses and hounds definitely changed me. I bid adieu to my career and journalism and went to the farm under the guise of a sabbatical to work on my thesis. The thesis never got done – it progressed beautifully but it was never completed. Instead I basked in the guilty pleasure of silence and animals, novels and baking. Moving my single horse to the farm, knowing we’d be able to do rescue work – the excitement was intoxicating.  I was very happy.

I had to start work this year – four days per week up in Big Smoke (Johannesburg) and three on the farm. I started work to significantly alter our finances but also so that I could put something away, do something for myself – have something on my CV after three years. Every inch of cash I have had over the last three years went straight into horses, dogs, cats etc. It became ridiculous. Now armed with a salary, I can take care of myself a little AND take better care of the horses. Win/win. It did force me to take stock of what I need though, and upon careful inspection it became clear that Tristan and I were looking a little, well… Charles Dickens novel-esque. Last week I bought shoes for myself, not for a horse… I felt guilty. Yesterday I found a grey hair on my head and today I went to the hairdresser, I felt guilty about that too. I haven’t been to a hairdresser since 2009. For two reasons: 1) it costs far too much money 2) I actually started liking my wild, curly, mousy brown hair, a lot in fact. They must have taken 10cms off the ends! C’est la vie, goodbye curly rats tails.

The shoes need wearing in and the hair WILL look like Bruce Dickinson in the 80s after just one wash – but to me these expenses are so ridiculous and so obscure that it has been worth every cent.

I also took stock of the horses: the feed bills, the grooms, the five-weekly farrier, the dentist, the expensive rugs, the million and one grooming supplies, the supplements, the horse box… they are fairly set in spite of having an owner that resembled a hobo for three years.

I have them to thank, as an eternal student I would never have gotten my arse in gear to work a job like this - high responsibility, constant hard work even on weeknights. My horses motivate me and organise my life, even when I am too lazy to do it.

It has been a rough year so far, our dog ran off and never came back, our Blue pulled a ligament, our Rocky had a colic and I haven’t had time to cook – but in a few short weeks it has turned around beautifully.

I am feeling very light, and very fine indeed.

PS...

Yatan came home two weeks ago - and with work etc I've been too busy to post about it.

My good friend bought Yatan last year, and she stabled him with me in the interim. I was tasked with figuring out his niggles - hind leg drag, wants to take off as soon as you hop on. Yatan is an Arab and did quite well in the Endurance circuit in South Africa until they retired him from the sport at around 11 years old. The lady who sold him did so as he was becoming a pasture ornament too small for her to ride. My friend took him over in an effort to get a calm, bombproof riding pony for herself and her little girl to enjoy. Pretty soon we figured out he wasn't too bombproof and he seemed to have niggling discomfort due to old injuries. He was happy with us - he gained weight quickly and kept easily, he was friendly and well behaved. We never had any trouble with him. We trailered him to my friend when she was ready. It didn't work. She has had surgery to her back, and needs a bombproof pony. This guy wasn't as advertised.

A lady then offered a home for Yatan - pretty soon he was losing weight and she had all sorts of medical complaints. During his brief stay with us he had seen the farrier twice, the vet had been by and he was seen by the dentist - no one registered any serious problems. In short, he lost a mess of weight and trust in people while he was in his 'new home' and his heart was broken - my friend, shocked as all hell, then went to collect him again. He wouldn't load, in fact he wouldn't lead and he dragged her along as he took off when she put the halter on. Eventually this little, injured lady, loaded him up alone and took him back home. She then had to find another home for him, having had her fingers badly burnt. It did seem as if PTS was a good way to ensure he never got passed from pillar to post or mistreated.

This is where we stepped in. Tristan went to load him alone, as we have come to expect from him he was a perfect gentleman. We he got to the farm the groom was already waiting with a big smile and a 'welcome home Yatan!'. Everyone was happy.

He has settled in like a champ and is feeling fresh and full of himself. The minute he got to his old pasture with his old pals they all dropped down for an epic rolling session and a 'hey, how are you'. He'll not be ridden, I think he struggles with that old injury and it leads to stress and sore muscles. He'll wander around in-hand now and again. Welcome home Yatan.

Back at home - see how I run!

Love+horses and hounds (for Wolfie)

The new water hole, everyone had a taste.

Featured here from left to right: Bishop TB gelding, Zita Shar Pei, Nova rescue pony. Front: Adolf Rotti x and Seamus (who we think is a wolfhound x) rescued from SPCA.

Bishop dug that hole - it took him a while but he did it. When he was done Nova and the dogs came to sample the fresh water, the fruit of his labour. We let him go at it - he was having an absolute blast though working eerily meticulously for a horse. Also he was covered in mud head to toe afterwards and our brave photographer, Tristan, had his fair share of the muddy fallout flecked all over him too.

I'll get it done.

A note about Nova: she has grown out now, and isn't as tiny as in the photo. She was standing with her mom, and her asking price was about US$80 - well below meat value. She is as cheeky as she is smart, and possibly the most curios filly we ever had on the farm - she would come say 'hello' at night when we went out with the flash-light to check-in on everyone one last time before we go to bed. We'll have to move her on - as no one is small enough to bring her on for riding safely, but we'll do in-hand work with her first when she has grown some more. Hopefully she'll make one lucky child a happy person.

Do something for your friends - like Bishop. You won't regret it.

Revenge+... love?

WHAT can you really read on someone's dating profile (where I am sure people tend to wax just a little lyrical about themselves) that will put you off meeting strangers alone at night and inviting them home? For some, I found out to my surprise, it would have to be something very obvious like:  

• Age: Sexy Age (check) 
• Gender: Sexy Gender (check)
• Occupation: Rapist Man of your dreams (mmmmm - revert to facebook for clarification. Ahhh good it says he is a plumber, check)

If you are the sort of person who likes reading juicy bits of trivia about other people’s personal lives, you’re in for a treat. Bring out the popcorn ladies, Landers has a bit of soap-opera for you on this fine Friday afternoon.

This tale starts with my best friend looking for love. Being a classic nerd (I say this with love in my heart) he immediately filled in a profile on an online dating site (and that was the extent of his search). When he gets a response, the young lady has similar interests and it all seems pretty good. He went out with her a total of three times and then he let her know that he doesn’t see it going anywhere or feel it working out. He had his reasons, which I will discuss (while praying furiously to all the gods that he doesn’t read this blog).

She took it well at first, saying she completely understands where he is coming from and that she will walk away and leave it at that. Then the text messages started. She wasn’t happy, she felt this thing could work… (all of this directed at a boy from the internet that she has met three times in total). As bad as he felt about it, he proceeded to delete her as a contact off all social media and also delete his dating profile from the site.

Now, my mate isn’t much of a talker so I had to literally remove these small benign growths of information surgically over several daunting procedures. It started with, ‘well you saw her three times, surely you were a little into the whole thing’. ‘No, actually it just felt weird.’

Here is some background: my mate has zero social skills due to the aforementioned nerdsmanship. To him bridging this topic with her civilly has two possible outcomes. 1) escalates into raised voices or other forms of confrontation. 2) tears and remorse followed by him feeling wretched. For these reasons, every time he saw her he felt too bad or was slightly too inebriated to say ‘no’ to meeting her again. This lead to the three-date scenario. Also he was creeped out by the fact that she had confessed to meeting other men off the web numerous times, and yet she was happy to escalate the relationship into something more intimate on the third date. She has probably had a string of romantic encounters from the internet and that isn’t the sort of lady he wants to be with. In short, he is a prude – though a perfect gentleman. And I assure you that if she had postponed her advances by a month or two while dating him she would have had better luck.

 All of this aside, this young girl spends her time meeting men off the internet in a third world country in a city that is infamous for its staggering crime rates and boasts a rape every seven minutes. She meets these men and almost immediately invites them to her home. This is so dangerous and illogical that it has sat with me all week. I properly worry about girls such as this one, who act so outrageously irresponsibly with their lives, their reputations and their sexual health. The only thing higher than our crime rate is probably our HIV/Aids infection rate – which has escalated to epidemic proportions. We are encouraged by government through the vehicle of the media and through other health-conscious publications to have ourselves tested for HIV/Aids regularly and especially before becoming sexually active in a new relationship. What is even worse is the attitude that a middle-class white girl who meets men of the same background is somehow impervious to the ravages of sexually-transmitted diseases or will never be assaulted or endangered. It is a short-sighted, racist malaise that will only shatter once the unspeakable happens. For her, meeting men online probably has two possible outcomes. 1) Meet the man of my dreams 2) Meet the man of my dreams.

As for me, I’m proud of my friend – a young man with beer in his veins who said ‘no, thanks’. I am more proud of the fact that he used his reasoning and thought it through before leaping headlong into a relationship with someone who he doesn’t want to be with, only to break her heart at a later stage. I am proud that he felt upset over it, and guilty about possibly having hurt her feelings. 

Take care of your daughters, teach them about health and self-respect because beauty and happiness follow naturally from here. You will not regret it.

Oh dear!

I haven’t been posting. I’ve been busy working actually, which is never an impressive boast – loads of people work. Last Friday was terrible, I had a scratchy voice from a bug I caught off a friend who’d been in the Middle East recently – yes, some part of my work involves needing a clear voice on a Friday night (no, I'm not a singer). The idea of having a bug that has travelled around the world irked me more than interested me.

I don’t generally delve into the boring domestic affairs – work, etc. But I thought it would be worth a mention – bad Friday, long days and an international cold.

Our Blue is looking aces again, and we’ve had ample rain so here is for hoping the grazing will improve. I have noticed an early change of season in they air, almost like autumn slowly sneaking in.

 I also haven’t been cooking – which is devastating but I have managed to get my mitts on MasterChef US so we’ve been watching a lot of cooking. It isn’t the same.

It is knuckle-down season for me, over the next two months I'll be busy every Tuesday night and every Friday night. That's on top of working during the week. Oef!

I've a cake a to bake, just for fun and I think I'll tackle it next weekend. Chocolate, of course. If I get it done, dear intertrons, you'll be the very first to know. And also, we've postponed picking up Yatan - my mate and myself have had some things to work out. I was busy with work and she has been busy sorting our everything else. We are hoping to load the man soon though.

Love+Liebster

I got an award! I got it from Wolfie over at What was I thinking.....? Thank you so much Wolfie. I am trying to do this right so be patient folks, I'm new to this!

Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve. Here are the rules:

1. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who gave you the award.
3. Pick your five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.

And my nominations are:

BK Publishing - keeping up with everything that's happening on Supernova, a lovely local mag for curious kids.

Creating Utopia in WV, One Project at a Time - this blog appeals to my love of horses, and rescuing horses. Always lovely to see passionate people doing good work.

Another Brisket Creation - loving the yummy pics and recipes on this blog.

Horse Centric - only found this today, and resolved to keep up with Breathe and her wonderfully entertaining tales of Smokey.

Martin's Illustration - I cannot help regularly trolling this blog to gawk at the beautiful illustrations. Love+art.

Keep reading, you won't regret it.

Creeping doubt...

Every now and again I am seized by suffocating, overwhelming terror. I’d be absolutely fine all day and then just have moments of panic. It isn’t because I need medication, it’s because I take care of 28 horses.

Creeping doubts accumulate and seep through my mind unabated. Things I stubbornly refuse to let myself dwell on suddenly leap up to haunt me. Fears about the failing economy, African Horse Sickness, the cost of keeping old TBs. But then, as always the balm of thought: These aren’t riding horses, they are pasture ornaments here to have a happy retirement. I am organised and most of all I have been doing this since three years ago. The thing is, there are too many homeless horses in the world. I cannot afford to keep more. It is hard work taking care of us. I sincerely don’t hoard horses, I try to take care of no-hopers until they need to be PTS due to failing health.

Of course, these things are sparked by new developments. An old boarding client of mine has come up homeless. It is literally a question of take him on or he gets PTS. I love him, I’m terrified of him dying before his time without a gentle and relaxed retirement. His owner has tried for months to rehome him, no one wants him – even for free. He is a sensitive soul, his heart is easily broken. He likes treats and a wander about on lead. He should not be ridden. He is quiet and gentle. Yes, I am a bleeding heart. I know that arguments about whether or not we should just let these horses die in peace (PTS) or rescue them are heated and numerous.

It’s hard in Africa, I have heard stories of owners and breeders losing up to 20+ horses to horse sickness in a single season. We have tick-borne diseases, horse sickness, West Nile virus – you name it. Making the decision whether or not to pour resources into poor communities and help them properly tack, dip, care for their working animals or rescuing like I do is a very hard ask. It would be cheaper and easier to pour money into cart horses and help there. But I don’t think that form of help is sustainable, as opposed to literally and meaningfully reaching in a changing the lives of animals who’d otherwise be PTS or live neglected. Maybe I am misguided?

There is an upside to Africa too, our weather is rarely severe (apart from the heat) and as long as you have shade and shelter horses can live out all year long. That cuts costs tremendously. We still rug in winter – even though some local horse owners think we are mad. We also stable some horses who are older, who are more delicate. Loads of the ponies who have come to us are hardy, they stay fat on grass and need little extra feeding. Our vet is kind and lets us pay her off, our farrier helps us at a massively discounted rate. Our grooms take good, loving care of the animals in their charge. These are the people we all owe so much to. These are the people who make it all happen. Go team, all the way!

Our glow-ponies at green grass

 I think sometimes I just want to know I am doing the right thing.

What, dear intertrons, am I going to do about our homeless bloke? 

Here he is, sorry for the rotten cellphone picture:

Having a visit on the lead, I'm watching from the porch

Love+horse stories

As a child my dad bought me the most beautiful illustrated Black Beauty from a tiny, but magical, German children’s book store. It is the didactic tale of a horse’s journey through life. He bought the book on one condition; he gets to read it as soon as I am finished. My dad had read the book before and loved it. I loved it too, I laughed and cried and traced my hand over all the beautiful illustrations over and over again.

Anna Sewell taught me a very important lesson: circumstances change. When you breed a horse you need to be very careful about where it goes. Ideally we should be responsible for our animals forever and we should take good care of them while we are at it.

The film, though a little Disney, was certainly also good. I cried watching the film years and years later. Admittedly though, my favourite horse film of all time has to be Phar Lap, the inspirational tale of an Australian race horse. Second to this is the Black Stallion franchise and National Velvet. As a 14-year-old I saw The Horse Whisperer and enjoyed it too – though when I watched the film again later as an adult I had mixed feelings about it. The book, which I also read as a youngster, was far more serious and far better than the film.

A lovely film (however loosely-based on reality) is Hidalgo, which I consider a must-see for all horse lovers.

Recently I saw two films that let me down. I had high hopes for the film-adaption of the story of the great American racehorse, and unlikely winner, Secretariat. I own horses with Secretariat in their lines as early as four generations back, and while this is not a singularly impressive boast seeing as many horses have famous achievers in their lines – it does make this horse’s story one that is a little closer to my heart. Simply because I can relate to this horse. I own some of his great great progeny. What disappointed me about this film was that it was very Disney and not at all horsey. I wish they’d recruit only horse-lovers and owners to make films about horses. You didn’t get the shavings-and-muck feel about the film that you got from Black Beauty, for example. The central drama of the film was really not about the horse at all, and more about the people. Unlike Phar Lap, where you really had a feel of the horse and the animal was the central character of the film.

Another, slightly less disappointing film I saw lately was War Horse where Spielberg really tried to create a story about a horse and his people without anthropomorphising too much. What let me down about this film was that whoever put the preview together should win an Oscar. The preview was magnificent, the film however was decidedly less so.

I like the didactic school of horse films, I like the lesson ‘take very good care of him’ above the boast ‘he is amazing’.

But enough of fiction, here is a slice of reality. This is my Sweet Woman (or Special, as we call her). Her five-across pedigree (which shows her pedigree five generations back on her dam and sire’s side) shows that Secretariat is fourth on her sire’s side. I didn’t buy her because I was desperate for another horse. I bought her because she was damaged goods who wouldn’t race well and was selling for a song (indeed for as little as just under $600). For this price I was unsure about the quality of home that she would get and worried about the fact that she lingered in the market for months. I bought her to give her a lovely quiet country life, with little riding and plenty of love and care. She has capped hocks – cosmetically awful, practically only synovial fluid built up around the hocks caused by injury to the area that wasn’t treated properly (in my opinion).  Though nothing serious no proper competitor or avid rider would have bought her. This added to my concerns about the quality home she would get. 

Now: Special with her groom, John, and her best mate Captain Crunchy on the farm

Then: Being loaded for her long journey home (before the farm) - capped hocks obvious

Love+punctuation

Love love love

I can’t abide arm-chair parenting. I really dislike this culture of television and gadgets designed to numb the minds of kids. When my nephew first met a horse he was terrified – all city living, all class but no (agri)culture. I grew up in the company of horses, I walked barefoot and stepped in glass, thorns, bees. It taught me how to look where I was going. There wasn’t such a ‘television culture’ back when I was a kid, so I read books and played outside. It taught me how to spell. When my cousin visits over the holidays with her kids, we’ve two channels showing cartoons all day and you’re knee-deep in kids in any room in the house. When I was a girl, we’d be admonished for lounging about, with a short, stern ‘go play outside’. Our skins were sun-hardened and our soles were battle-ready. We grew like poppies to love the sun.

I've two beautiful nephews who work hard to keep me in touch with all the kid-ness I can take. No small helpings, you understand. To them, my name is ‘when are we going to go swim?’ and they call me by that name whenever they see me. They’ve called me by that name even when I am in an evening gown, power suit or pyjamas. They are all energy and raw nerves.

As cliché as it sounds, so much of the future depends on the way we raise these kids. Be aware, cook your own food. Eat well, love animals.

These are the impressions I try to make on them. At six and four they aren’t impressed by the fact that I know that those pale daisies are in fact osteopermum, and they haven’t taken heed of my lectures on a horse’s digestive system (though they will suffer for it later on, when they receive the same lessons, revised with extra chapters on nutrition). What does impress them, however, is the rapport I have with domestic animals, the fact that I can walk on my hands in the swimming pool and my mad skills at baking delicious cakes. Actually my second name is ‘is it ready yet?’. If this is all I ever teach them (eat well, play outside, love animals) I’d consider it a great success.

Must love dogs

Love+appreciation

Years ago when I was a nipper in primary school (back when we walked three miles to school barefoot, lived in a box in a dam, etc) our school was based on a farm. Well, I say farm, but it was next to the farm – overlooking a national road to the front, and a chemical plant to the side. Anyway, so I have these vivid recollections of our lovely music teacher musically cooing the words: ‘be glad you’re not going to school in the city, it’s a concrete jungle’. At the time I thought, ‘ah okay but you see between the chemical plant and the national road, we’ve our fill of city sights’.

Well, we passed the old schoolhouse on Sunday on our way to lunch and I saw businesses all the way around it. You can’t even see the entrance from the national road any more. Much of what was the old playground is now parking for office drones. I bet if you drive up to the chemical plant and look down, you’ll not see a single child running around and feel that pang of sweet irony in your soul: beautiful, happy kids, while to the side of them hazardous pollutants are being savagely pumped into the atmosphere. Ah, the good old days! They just don’t make things quite that soviet anymore do they?

The moral of the story is that we should appreciate what we have when we have it. Because it doesn’t matter how much our reality is obscured by a chemical plant at the time – it really can get worse.

Love+trunk blog

Trunk blog: noun. A previously published article that I feel I have to share. I keep a few of these tucked away (trunked) and rip them out whenever the mood strikes.

Feeling literary?

I have often considered writing a novel, something that will at least get some attention from some people – a rather ambitious idea, and if you are anything like me, also a rather rubbish idea. Why?

Well frankly, it is possibly one of the most difficult things to do. In fact, a novel is a difficult beast to tame without getting famous for your efforts. And besides that obvious set-back, I have a sneaking suspicion that most people at some stage consider trying their hand at writing. Everyone has a story to tell and, it would seem, a desire to tell it.

What that means is that anyone considering the task of writing a novel is in the difficult position of competing with every novel that has been written, is being written and is likely to be written in the future. And it is pretty hard to be significant in literature, when it has already been claimed by the greatest minds on earth.

That is the playing field, now for the game. A novel is an extended, generally fictional, prose narrative. This implies that a novel is the creation of an organism in itself. It is a world, with geographical specifications, in which characters (people, animals, aliens, deities, robots, spirits, various forms of machinery and sometimes talking household goods) exist (unless it is post modern, in which case it could comprise a series of articles from Homeless Talk and still win a Booker award). These characters should be in some manner unique, to enable the reader to tell them apart. The novel should have a sequence of events, or plot conveyed coherently through the vehicle of narrative, thereby creating the story (once again, barring post modernism).

Once all of this is achieved, the novel should be in some way appealing to some people. Close friends and family members are usually willing to buy the work of fiction, and speak highly of it. Literary critics will also invest in a copy and will speak of it, but with varying degrees of benefit to the author.

With all of the above in mind, I have in the past (several times) set myself to the task of writing a novel. Several fundamental problems always crop up, much like a recurring nightmare: my inner narrator (in a hazardously annoying voice) would use words such as teetering, precipice, moribund, wanderlust and other examples of deeply contrived expressions that we expect in magazine short stories.

At some point during this saga, it will occur to me that I am trying to do what everyone tries to do at some point…and what has been done remarkably by other, mostly smarter, people.

This being said, it is not an impossible task, but it remains one that demands a lot of time and dedication. I have resigned myself to the fact that I may never be a novelist; I simply do not have the patience. I do, however, encourage anyone with a desire to write to do so. Whether it works out or not, there is nothing quite like taking some time out to feel literary.

Love+observations

1) There is a facebook group called 'Writer's Guild South Africa'. I wonder, who is this other-worldly writer that comprises a whole guild? Does he/she have a hunting knife strapped to his/her shin? A single writer doth not a whole guild make.

2) Blooka Palooka's leg is better, much better. The recovery was so quick and miraculous I have decided to give her a guild unto herself. Well done tough lass.

3) Last night I watched a b-rate horror movie whilst eating chocolate ice-cream out of a mug with a long spoon.

4) I'm too afraid of short-crust pastry to even try and mix a batch.

5) All my friends are insane.

Observe, you won't regret it.

When it rains...

Ah okay, so now Blue has pulled a ligament. She went lame yesterday – we rested the leg, hosed her down and applied herbal cooling gel in addition to a NSAID and when she didn’t look better by the morning we had our vet out.

A pulled ligament is a worse diagnosis than I expected, but it is also not nearly as bad as it could be. I had some riding lined up for her, but hey, I am blessed with enough horses to ride. Her recovery will be my biggest concern and I like to give horses with this sort of injury a long time off. Tampering with an injured ligament seems like a rotten idea to me. She’ll just have an extended vacation.

Here is a photo reel of Blue Blood (Blue or Blooka Palooka), also a TB. She is turning seven this year, and she has never been raced. She has been with me for about a year and a half.

Isn't she gorgeous?

Love+festive foodie favourites in pictures

Home-baked beer loaf

Festive home-baked Peanut Butter Cookies

Poppies are coming up

Incredibly good champagne

Lovely roasted lamb and potatoes

This is a short highlights reel. Tip for the cookies: if you are using salted peanut butter do not add any additional salt, alternatively use unsalted peanut butter.

Do try the bread if you've half an hour, a beer and some self-raising flour spare. The recipe is simple as anything and it takes only about 30 minutes to cook. Here is a basic recipe:


- 500g of self-raising flour
- a pinch of salt
- 340ml of any good beer (light beers like Peroni or Amstel will do well)
- some chopped or crushed garlic (about a teaspoonful)
- an onion, chopped and fried in a pan
- your choice of herbs

Pre-heat the oven to 180. Mix all the ingredients together into a dough. Stick it in a bread tin and bake for 20-30 minutes. Voila.

Cook food, you won't regret it.

Festive horrors

Our dog (not one previously mentioned on this blog) ran off. We opened up for them to do their ablutions and he disappeared somewhere into the night, on the 1000+ hectares of farm. We searched everywhere, shouted his name, drove around until the sun set. I even contacted a psychic. Emails went flying, telephone calls were made.

He hasn’t come back and it’s been days now. We are in pieces.

The solar energy that we use to power the farm (my foot print is plenty green enough thanksverymuch!) went and gave up the ghost.

Monday morning my gelding went down with a colic. Luckily Kyle was around to help and we were out walking him with the groom, hosing him down because of the heat and motivating him vocally to keep walking on and not to stop. Our groom who worked on the day was a superstar. By the time the vet made it out over the rough, water-logged road an hour and a half had passed and he was bright, perky, grazing and walking of his own volition. The vet thought I was mad, but witnesses (Kyle and the groom) couldn’t believe it.

We burnt to a crisp out in the sun with the man.

I accompanied Kyle back to Johannesburg to complete what I had started in terms of job hunting. In the post-chaos malaise today it took me some time to realise I need to take it a little easier. Have some vitamin C, and a beer.

Gladly I don’t celebrate Christmas, but sadly New Years’ Festivities have always been big ones for me. This year started off bleak, let’s see how we can improve it.

Be careful out there.

{I'll update festive cooking things later, right now I need to 'take it a little easier'}