25 March 2011 - The New Dam

The man has decided to start a fishing lodge here instead of building some cottages and dealing with crappy tenants, and so the building of the dam commences. With great enthusiasm and admittedly, a whole lot of vision his part.

After two giant TLB's have scraped away what I believe to be a giant crater, and some river water is filtering in, we stand and gaze at the dam. And gaze some more. And then the man realises that the original dam wall was WAY further down and at least 15m higher than he first thought. What we have done is built a POND that may very well be washed away with the first threat of rain.

Back to the drawing board.

My nerves.....LOL!

Farmer Brown and his new John Deere 23 March 2011 and the WATER SAGA

Well, it had to happen. We had to buy our first toy - a John Deere tractor with a slasher dragging behind. Had to bring it here from miles away on a flatbed truck, which got a puncture on the road in the middle of nowhere halfway home.

Battery, according to the owner, is flat. Ok, so we'll just buy a new one. But until we get said battery, we have to use the tractor. So.....picture the scene. We are going to "push start" this bladdy great heap by towing it down the hill, towards the river, with the MERC! What a sight, can't even tell you. I tried to get out the house to take a pic of all this madness, but the geese wouldn't let me through. You're just going to have to believe me! LOL. But ol' McGyver gets it right without barreling into the river.....engine turns and the big green and yellow machine is live!

Off goes Farmer Brown in his tractor.....way way down until he's a speck in the distance. Chug chug choef choef...and promptly runs out of diesel! And we all know, if you laugh, you're a bad person....

In the meantime we have discovered that the bore hole motor we bought is too small to pump water.
We buy a bigger one.
It still doesn't work.
We discover that the bore hole broke long ago.
We have to sink a new one.
So we do.
We discover that the bottom of the borehole has caved in with clay.
We fix it.
Still won't pump. Pulleys are not strong enough.
So we get new ones.
Still won't pump. Pulleys are not long enough.
So we get new ones.

MONDAY 18 APRIL - Running water - albeit through a hosepipe that is shoved through the bathroom window. HALLELUJAH! Nobody will taste it. I do. I'm not scared! It's filtered through a hectic layer of clay, not so? And so we fill the bath with cold water.....and we REJOICE!

Takes about a week for the man to hook up the water tank to the house taps. He's smart, this man of mine!

PS : A new battery didn't solve the mystery of the non-starting tractor. It needs a new starter motor!

Bean Queen! 11 March 2011

Whaaaaaa!!!! First "harvest" from the garden patch. Like a true farm-girl, I spend the evening by candle light washing and topping-and-tailing beans in the kitchen! Yay us.

However, there is a tiny bit of news to lay down before I go into the bean-queen story.....

Friday 11 March 2011 - the man has been in a terrible black mood. Nothing, but nothing can go right (even when it does). The puppy chews a cable to the generator so the makeshift power doesn't work. The man has to stumble around in the dark checking meters and meters of cable for a break. He braais. What else do you do when you have no working kitchen appliances? We have one piece of steak, and two pieces of gammon which we've been dying to turn into a meal. He cooks the gammons.....puts them in a braai pan on the table, pops on the steak and fixes the cable. Comes back to the braai, and Abigail has scoffed all the gammon. Generator promptly runs out of petrol. Joy.

Then he finally tells me that his right arm has been numb since Monday. Tit. Not something I should know?

I go to bed. He stays at the fire to sulk. Much later I hear a stupendous KA-THUMP. I listen.....nothing. Listen some more.....nothing. As I lie down again, I hear this voice calling out "I've fallen....but I'm ok". Lord have mercy. He has crashed down over the little make-shift "patio" outside the front door that I insisted we needed. But he says that his arm feels better. I think it's the beer.....

Sunday 13 March 2011 - yip, it was the beer. The arm is worse. So is the mood. He is going to play "boerevrou" with 2kg's of green beans and an ancient farm recipe from mom. I am going to visit my friend Sue.

I get back later in the day and our kitchen is filled to the brim with bottles and bottles of pickled green beans and onions. WTF? He smiles, looks at the floor and says "I swept". I look under the doggy food bowls on the floor, hehehehe, all the onions and beans are there.....like a kid who says they cleaned their room and they stuff everything under the bed. My turn to smile, and just get the broom.

Friends are good, beans are everywhere....he would be a good wife if he cleaned up!

PS : The arm? It was a spider bite......

Slip sliding away.....

Ah the joys of rain, and mud, and 4x4's. On this particular morning we went for an early drive to see the new dam and ooh and ahh and the wonder of it all. It had been raining for a few days. Mud everywhere. We sat close to the side if the dam, looking at the new bird life we had attracted when suddenly the man says....."sh*t".

Now "sh*t" is not something you want to hear first thing in the morning when you're sitting over 1km away from any other person who knows you're alive in a 4x4 next to a newly developed dam.

And then I felt it. I felt the truck schloop every so slightly down towards the dam. Yip, we were sliding. Sliding down towards the water. First thing I think is "hell, I just drove my car into a ditch because of mud, if I fall into this dam with my cell phone, nobody will insure me ever again". Okay okay, not the smartest thing to think of at the time. I reckon I'm getting out. The man says "don't even breathe".

So I don't.

There are some real benefits living with a modern-day McGyver, and it's not the hair style. He called the two Malawian men from the farm, told them to bring pick handles and a big pole....and make it snappy. They don't know I saw them snicker behind their hands. They're lucky the man never saw them chuckle. And still I am not breathing, not talking, not moving, and at this point, not worrying about my stupid cell phone, because if we land up in the water, someone will have to drag me out in my old slippers, pj's and my expensive leg will probably rust!

They bang the pick handles into the ground against the two tyres to stop any more sliding, lay down the pole (a stick actually) so it's a (pathetically puny) barrier between us and the water, and hey presto.....the man manages to very gently move FORWARD and away from the bank.

Enough excitement for one day, I think. And back in time for breakfast.

I'd like to know, though, what kind of 4x4 gathers enough mud on all the tyres to stop the traction and create a tyre surface much the same as using ice-skates on ice?

Treatment of Mange - poor old Monster Munch - aka Bartholomew

GOOSE? WHAT GOOSE?.....

Whew, time flies, truely it does. I think it's important that I mark this one down for the record because it really was an eye opener for me.

Took Bart off to the vet on Sunday 16 January hoping that he didn't have Bilary, rather that I had inadvertantly poisoned him with an over-enthusiastic dose of Frontline.

Poor old Bartholomew developed had Mange. Terrible. Our town vet shook his head in dismay, showed me the nasty bacteria through a microscope (effectively giving me the heebie-jeebies for life) and said that at least it was treatable. Armed with 6 weeks worth of weekly injections (which I say I am sure I can administer - pfffft) and a R1000.00 bill, I leave.

A week later, my dear friend Bren comes around, holds my beloved and supervises my first ever doggy injection. Easy peasy.

Following week, I simply cannot do it. Just can't. Bless Bren, she comes all the way to Magalies (we have now been here 3 days) and does it for me.

Yet another week later, I ask the man to hold Bart. Lord help us, he cannot hold this pup for love or money. And I hurt him. I feel like a devil.

Sigh. And this Mange is just not clearing up.

So, off to our little Magaliesburg chemist, who doubles as a vet dispenser (gotta love small towns) and ask his advice after admitting my careless behaviour as a pet owner. He just smiles. Those injections aren't a "course" that you have to finish like antibiotics. And if they haven't worked by now, then they never will.

So hear this....he sells me SULPHUR OF FLOWERS (R7.00) and a 100ml tub of Vaseline - tells me to mix 2 heaped teaspoons of the yellow powder into the vaseline and rub it into Bart's skin every day or so. Total cost.....less than R20.00. (Mix this in a slightly bigger tub, so you can get right in there and mix it properly with a spoon).

AND IT WORKS!!!! No irritation, no painful injections, no waste of money - I should go rub this into the town vet's face. Literally!

PS : We're just kidding about the goose......bye bye down pillow :)