Oh my beautiful captor...

BEFORE anyone recommends a therapist, let it be known that I am talking about my dog. Ahh, now that I typed that I see that a therapist might still be required.

I got a puppy in 2007 – out of a cardboard box. An error of backyard breeding that no one wanted.  He was sickly and stayed that way for the first two years of his life. I cooked him chicken and rice, and sometimes I had to feed him with a spoon.

Eventually through good feeding and lots of love he thrived. And he got big...and bigger...and really rather huge now by normal standards. The thing is, he doesn't like to be away from me. Ever. He also doesn't like dog sitters, at all.

A little friend

Grows steadily bigger...

This behavior hasn't stopped, just ask what's left of my shoes...

Becomes a monster

Last year he was being babysat while I scooted off to watch Uriah Heep. He barricaded the door. That's right – he stayed in my room and moved furniture so that the door cannot be easily opened. He has now learnt to open doors and windows.

Of course when the door won't open he will do battle with it...he is usually victorious

He doesn't like to be out when we are away, and he likes-ish to be in with the option of going out should he feel the need to make absolutely sure we have in fact left. He howls like a wookie.

He can also be credited for putting me off The  Brandenburg Concertos permanently. After going into the vet to have a benign tumour removed he decided I am a shit dog owner and howled and felt incredibly sorry for himself. I tried to play him Bach to calm him down (hey, at 3am you'll try everything). It did not work, despite Bach's best efforts and mine too.

The next day the whole ordeal was almost totally forgotten.

He now comes to work with me.

Don't let his size, his hatred for doors, love for chewing shoes or criminal cleverness fool you. He is a big old cuddle-bottoms and he has been busted snuggling cats.

Tomorrow night we are having a blow-out with a few close mates for my 30^th. You guessed it – he'll be there too. It this Stockholm Syndrome?

He came to lunch today...

Of course if you are going to be held ransom by a dog, who wouldn't choose such a clever, quirky, handsome fellow?

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+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.

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.

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 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+books

I have a mean list of books on order, it will be like Christmas in October (or November if we leave time for shipping).

And our list includes: American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis), World War Z (Max Brooks), Rosemary’s Baby (Ira Levin), With My Body (Nikki Gemmell) and two books on horse riding.

If you are wondering what the occasion is, it has to do with revenge+my dogs. Instead of sulking, I bought books.

Also, because I need to get stuck into thesis work, I am reading fiction. Such a vice!

Ahhh fiction, it leaves a guilty twang reverberating through my head. Quite unlike the academic material for my thesis, I could read several years' worth of fiction even if the books are terrible.

Love books, you won’t regret it.

Pie in the sky

I have baked savoury pies (using Jamie Oliver’s Steak and Guinness recipe), but never sweet?

 Glossy beer and beef pie

It is time… I have spent around two days dreaming up pie combinations.

Caramel and cherry? This is The Idea I have been toying with. And because of the immense sweetness, it would have to be a small tart, and not so much a pie.

Dark chocolate, hazelnut and orange: this idea grabs me. Basically blanched and roasted hazelnuts, dark chocolate ganache and orange rind, almost layering the filling  into a thin pie base.

Short crust though, will be the end of me, this is where I get unstuck. When I consider short crust pastry, I feel as if I should stick to a tarte tatin.  And here is the recipe I plan on using: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pastry-cake/the-world-famous-tarte-tatin

Bless you Mr Oliver, you have taught me all I need to know about pies!

Worth a try I’d think. 

Updates to follow soon :-)

More than meets the eye

I see you

Two of my dogs came to me as unwanted pups. They were ill, and they are unfortunately power breed dogs. Smart, big, strong, agile.

This is not their fault.

What also is not their fault is how people perceive them: fierce, vicious. They are not these things. I have seen my dogs melt into happiness at the prospect of going for a drive, cower at the tumbling waves of the ocean that I thought wise to show them, lick the hands and faces of children.

I am fiercely protective if my dogs. When I visit my parents (which is far too often lately) my dogs get relegated to back area, people over-react to their size, they become frustrated. They are judged.

I hate narrow-minded people. I hate how incredibly daft it is to take all your own lack of confidence and transmit it into the shape of a big black dog, or a big frightened horse.

These animals are loved, invested in, they are an extension of somebody’s person. They are not yard hounds relegated to outside and fed the cheapest way possible. They are not simply dogs, they are sentient beings. They think, they feel.

Moreover, they are my responsibility, and I do not take that as lightly as a lot of people do. My boyfriend recently said: ‘he is just a dog.’ But the simple truth is, there is no such thing as just a dog.

Love dogs, you won’t regret it.

Live, Love, Cook

The key ingredients to happiness varies. It depends really, on who you are. I live knee-deep in horses and hounds, I cook (most recently chocolate cake) and I try to get on with the business of living in spite of everything.

This blog is a journal, a record of everyday. I hope you enjoy it :)


Baking this makes me happy!

 Cake: dark chocolate ganache