pretty pictures and lovely walk
So we have a day off today, or at least I do, Kevin went off to finish plastering the septic tank wall, I planted my first garden, made it into a coriander and onion patch next to my room, the area should be a herb garden one day but needs a lot of added soil and building up, impossible to dig in this karroo soil unless you want to break your back, so I built it up with a layer of mostly clay to hold the water and then progressively more porous layers until I laid the seeds, laid a layer of sand, mulch and manure and then mulched thickly with hay.
our humble abode
my garden after mulching
A nice lazy day has given me time to reflect on life a bit, we did the first 14 weeks in what felt like an overnight trip, it gave me no time to stop and assess our progress. Can I first say that I started this blog as a diary of sorts so the girls and I could keep up with each other on our travels and know where we were in the world at any given time, not that it means much as they are none the wiser when I talk about a place they can't picture on the map and I have no idea where they are pretty much all of the time so the object of the excercise has been rendered pretty moot.
Needless to say, over the months we have found ourselves with some loyal readers of the blog, the girls cannot get their act together for long enough to add their 5 cents worth, so it has evolved into a story of our travels, (me and the dogs) and some of our regular follows have shared the site with others and at times 20 odd people have read certain sections, I'm not sure who they are but I would like to thank the odd occasional reader and more importantly, my regular blog followers, all the comments have been supportive and positive, it has left me a bit scared because I feel I must live up to their expectations and be up for the challenge to provide an interesting monologue on travel, people and happenings around the country, I hope I am succeeding.
I would like to answer some of your queries relating back to when we first set off with a plan in mind, the idea of living on the West Coast came about as I initially wanted to be far away from the madding crowd and felt the West Coast would do it, plus I wanted to spread the permaculture word in a world where it is an unknown quantity. The latter reason is why my focus has shifted, the fact that I would be the only permaculturist for many square miles led me to believe the west Coast would be counter productive, a successfull permaculture farm requires input from like minded people, it also needs the help and support of others to build and develop using the same shared tools and philosophy, hard to do when you are 300km from the nearest understanding soulmate.
the new campsite spot
the spot that I'm clearing - behind the three trees, looking pretty
My time here with Lizelle and Kevin can best demonstrate that farming in itself is hard work, doing it along permacultural lines is even harder, anything that follows the road less travelled will have different hardships to deal with, and then adding to that by trying to do it alone would be mind blowingly impossible, assuming I also wanted a life to go with it.
Take the campsite for example, 10 people would still take an age to clear it, build the ablutions and turn it into an attractive site that would attract clients, imagine how long one person would take to do it along with all the other myriad duties required to be dealt with on a daily basis.
still a lot of work on my campsite spot
I also never came across a piece of land I felt was suitable or felt up to persuading a farmer to give me, so we got as far as Vredendal, travelled down to Doringsbaai and when that did not suit it was no hardship to start to retrace our steps. I did however find myself at a loss, I had never put a plan B in place assuming, incorrectly, that plan A would work without a hitch, clearly the universe has other plans for me, starting with plan B.
Lorraine and I discussed a lot of options and for many days I changed my mind daily until finally settling on Wwoofing as an option that would work in the short term.
my very short haircut, shorter than I could have done it.
Blackie making herself at home on the bed, my two let her be.
I am now settled on a farm I am comfortable with, it has taken three tries at wwoofing to get here, but I miss nothing, feel comfortable, have everything I need and don't want to be anywhere else. I have the option to stay here for an indefinite period and the best part of it is that I feel this is exactly what I will have once I find my own place, a roof over my head, healthy diet, hot shower every day, dogs comfortable and something to do every day that keeps me interested, occupied and happy. My own place will have the added benefit of being my own place and with my books and DSTV so no more missed cricket matches, I can't think of anything else I will ever need, a few trips when I get cabin fever in the camper or a week or two on the ships with the girls when they go to an interesting place I want to visit, like Alaska and the Antarctic.
So with 15 weeks now gone life is peachy, I have time to put feelers out and find other options, explore possibilities, I do need to be settled somewhere in November for Cami-Leigh but I think a Wwoofing option for both of us is a possibility as well, so I am stress free, not needing to spend much money and life is looking rosy, I'm also learning lot.
Lizelle took the shaver and took pretty much all my hair off, very efficient haircut looks great, feels great.
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