Love+New Beginnings

TWO things have happened that had me so troubled and bogged down that I bowed out a little from the blogosphere. But you might as well be told about them now. We lost Eva to hip dysplasia. I think when you rescue dogs you never know, and this was a painful reminder of our own not-knowing and the frailty of our best intentions. She had to be let go, or else her suffering would have only gotten worse. My pain was immeasurable, loads of heaving sobs in bed, in the shower when I could be bothered to have one. No sleep, no food, eventually…barbiturates. I am no good at these things.

I take brother dog with me everywhere. We have each other. We take drives and go to work. I tell him he is smart and handsome. He is. He tries to get along with the kittens. He tolerates their cuddles and eyes them suspiciously. He doesn’t trust their energy and cheerfulness. He sighs a lot. He is too big to play with them.

Also, the farm burnt down. To cinders. The house and buildings were saved. All the animals survived but there was not a speck of green to be seen. The fire started three farms down, and spread about 100kms from there. By the time it reached Natal it was considered ‘unstoppable by human intervention’.  The forever pasture smouldered, the field-shelter was laid to waste.

The forever pasture and favourite tree burnt

What's left of the field shelter

The horses were shocked and bewildered. For days after the fire tree stumps smouldered, smoke hung in the air. Soot blew into the house via the gaps between the floor and the door, open windows, clinging to shoes. The worst part was the smell, the smell of burning. The neighbour lost ten horses. We needed to phone the doctor to get a script for our brave groom with singed facial hair, puffy red eyes and chest pain. He recovered 100%. We were desperately afraid – we’d have to buy in loads of grass, and quick. It was incredibly hard to find decent grass at the end of winter. We managed, in the end. We paid through our teeth for lucerne.

Horses and Adolf immediately after the fire.

The grass is up again. New grass. Amazing. My little garden is thriving. The shoots are turning into onions again, weapons-grade a usual. No less. Corn is growing in the vegetable garden space, there is lettuce and rhubarb in the ground. There is tarragon, basil, rosemary and oregano.  The begonias and violets are out, the jasmine has grown, the day lilies have taken over. A beautiful lily has come up and so has one lonely bush of marigold with wonderful deep orange flowers. The place teems with new life. The poppies have not returned, they are stubbornly still in the ground somewhere. I think they are too fragile for fires and loss.

Carrots?

Horses graze on new grass

Remember Yatan?

 And then it got even more lush:

December, mid-day heat

Masu, theeerrreeeee!

Begonia, basil, onions some pink flower bushy thing

I adopted a gray kitten and named him Yoshimoto. His litter mates’ adoptions fell through and we rescued them. I have no idea what we’ll do with these two extra bundles of life. Feed them, love them…

I flew off to Cape Town on business, I ate more than I should have got very little sleep and I travelled on plane, train, catamaran and rental car. It was amazing. I lived in the fairest Cape for four years as a student and my heart still recognises it as home. So I went home for the first time in six long years. I love you Cape Town.

I saw Uriah Heep, live in concert. They played outdoors on a beautiful escarpment. It was amazing.  New grass was growing while old music hummed around the intermittently rocky and then grassy spaces.

What a night!

We said goodbye to our first groom, he headed back to Zimbabwe to live with his new wife and their brand new child. New life, everywhere. This is the fifth year our living harbour has been in operation. Since 2009. Amazing.

For the New Years Eve I cooked gammon in ginger ale, and lamb in wine. I was joined by my oldest friend in this world – from that soviet-looking era, he calls it a ‘poor white farm school’ – with his delightful girlfriend who put on a fire poi performance. Kyle and Tristan was there too. It was a good time.

On February the 13^th I get to see Rodriguez live in Gauteng. In case you don’t know: Rodriguez is a South American rocker who rose to considerable fame here in South Africa. Recently they made a documentary about him, where South Africans went to look for him in South America, they found him… shortly after a rash of concerts were sold in SA. Good for him, I hope it lines his pockets for a while. We love you Sugarman.

I am starting an art class this month. Weekly and for two hours at a time. I am as excited as a child. My application inquiry read: complete novice with no talent would like to join art classes.

My favourite thing to cook this year has been plain-old breakfast and a delightful peasant stew I made with lamb leftover from the New Year’s roast. If you don’t know how to make potato bake with some milk and a packet of brown onion soup ask me how, it is amazing. My favourite read has been Lisa Klaussmann’s Tigers in Red Weather. I have discovered turquoise and the joys of frivolously buying shoes. I have bought plum coloured eyeliner.

I am turning 30 this month and I have lived in spite of everything. Happy New Year bloggers, may this year gleam as brightly for you as it does for me.

PS: Live in spite of everything, it’s the only way. And also: I’m back J

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.

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'}

Love+horses

I have attempted to start a small, private horse sanctuary. I take care of 28 horses all in all (all shapes, sizes, backgrounds). To help me do this I employ three full-time grooms. I have worked out the costs to roughly under a ton of horse feed monthly (minus grass and supplements), plus three salaries and constant vet bills/ farrier bills/dentist bills.

 

We belong here...

I sound like a complete nutcase, but it is worth it, I promise.

I have spent about 15 years of my life in the company of horses, and without them, nothing in my life seems properly defined. It is a strange sense of need that is also organic: I need to eat, I need to pee, I need horses. Luckily, for my troop of happy equines who reached me in various states of starvation and despair, they seem to need me too.

Win/Win.

To do all of this however, I have been relegated to the small-town nether regions, which is mostly just fine thankyouverymuch, but it does threaten to get incredibly lonely sometimes.

Social networking doesn’t help…

I am sick of horse people preaching: horse people, on a soap box, dictating to horse people. How many of you who make your money off of horses have rescued, donated, shared a part of your life to help horses in trouble? Not very many at all. Charity is not for profit… simple as that. How many of you who make a living from horses have a responsibility to contribute to their welfare? Every+single+one.

How many have ‘helped’ horses, but then sold them for profit? This is not charity. How many have taken-in old horses and then made them work hard for every inch of grain in the trough and hay in the manger? This too, is not charity. How many can account for every life you have bred? Not many, if any at all.

I have never, and will never breed horses. Of all those I have taken in, I still have every single one, and I still take care of every single one – and tell you what, it’s been a few years. One day perhaps that will change, some of our horses are very old, some have a score of health troubles. When their time comes we hope to have the presence of mind to make the right decision.

More than this, while unsolicited breeding is to blame for so many animal welfare issues, let’s not hear horse breeders condemn a litter of puppies or kittens – not that I am condoning this either, don’t be silly! Horses are, and will always be, more expensive, more resource-intensive animals to take care of. They will always cost more time, energy and money. They need big spaces and specialised care. They will always be bigger than a dog or a cat; this means that they will always require more space, more food and very careful handling.

Meet my gelding, my knackered TB, my unbelievably complex soul, my thinking horse, my heart:

 I am sentient

Love horses, you won’t regret it. But more than this, help horses – they really need it.