Memories of the Vastrap renovation

I can’t believe it’s a year since we finished the big transformation of our house at Vastrap. That means it’s only a month off the first anniversary of this blog! People with experience know what a nightmare it is to live and work on a building site 24/7, which we did for 8 months between October 2011 and May 2012. What started as a relatively minor alteration of the kitchen and TV room ended up being something much bigger encompassing most of the rooms in the house except our study and Ashley’s room. It was dusty and noisy and relentless and in retrospect took up a huge amount of time and head space. The beautiful silence (and free time) left behind by the departing builders allowed me to think again and ultimately led me to start this blog.

It might seem strange that I’m only documenting our building process now, but I think I needed some time to get perspective. At a distance I’m able to look back on it with nostalgia rather than dread! It has also taken a year for things to settle and find their place. We love the final product and have thoroughly enjoyed entertaining and hosting people in our ‘new’ home over the past year.

What made building a bit more difficult was the fact that we used 13 inch sandstone blocks in the alterations to match the existing house. Large sandstone blocks are typical of the old buildings in our area, but these days people tend to build with smaller blocks almost the size of bricks. We decided to stay true to the original since there were still 13 inch blocks strewn around the mountain behind our house left over from when my father-in-law employed a full-time stone mason in the 1960s. The blocks were carved out of big chunks of sandstone fallen from the cliffs above. He must have been a very productive guy because he carved all the blocks for the renovations that Bill and Karine did in the 1960s (including the building of a squash court) with more than enough left over for us!

Building with these heavy blocks is laborious work. The builders used a pulley system to stack the blocks on top of each other. Plastering the stone is another story entirely, because the blocks don’t fit perfectly on top of each other and the surface is very uneven. The thick plaster virtually guarantees a slightly wonky wall, which becomes very apparent when you start installing straight kitchen cupboards or try to get tiles to match up! Fortunately, we were happy to sacrifice perfection for authenticity so we’ve made peace with these little imperfections.

All that heavy lifting gave us a slightly larger kitchen and a new main bathroom added onto the side of the house. Many of the internal walls were broken down and changed, but the brick work seemed easy compared to the stone! We replaced all the steel windows with double glazed wooden windows to improve our insulation. Internally, we also had to source some old reclaimed wooden doors and frames to match the original doors in the old section of the house. Below is the final product as seen from the outside, including the changes to the garden (see Before and After: The courtyard transformation). Over time the stone will change colour and develop a patina to match the original stone so that one can’t see where we patched and matched. Now the house can be left in peace until the next generation decides to leave its mark on Vastrap!

Lighting the AGA

One of the very first things I blogged about almost a year ago was our beautiful AGA stove, which was lovingly restored as part of our renovations (see The magic of AGA). It is a very old anthracite stove so requires quite a bit of tinkering and attention to keep it running properly through the winter. I can get terribly distracted by it, lifting the chrome lids every time I walk past to check if the fire is still burning hot. When the kettle takes a bit longer to boil, I know it’s time to stoke it up!

With a cold front moving through our region this weekend I decided to light it yesterday. My neighbour Jenny is resisting lighting hers because she says that’s the surest sign that winter has arrived and the longer she can hold out the better. For me it’s all part of embracing winter and the slower pace of life it brings. I love the late afternoon ritual of closing all the curtains, getting a roaring fire going, stoking up the AGA and getting slow cooked supper in the oven. Of course our animals love it too, especially Poepsie cat!

I’ve had some questions about how I light my AGA. Newer AGA’s are generally oil or gas run, which must be a lot easier to maintain. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information about the anthracite versions on the Internet so I will share my experience in the hope that it will help someone.

First, make sure the stove is regularly serviced to keep it and the chimney clean. It will be much harder to keep the fire going if the stove does not draw properly. Our chimney is hidden behind pieces of old pressed ceiling which we can remove easily to sort out any problems. I only scraped out a handful of grime so it still looks okay.

Second, rinse the anthracite before using it as this will minimise the soot deposit on your kitchen cupboards. We had hardly any last year so I think it really does make a difference.

Third, anthracite is very hard to light so you either need to get some red hot coals going outside using a fire starter canister or you can start the anthracite in the stove using a gas flame. I prefer the latter method, because it’s so much easier especially when the weather is foul outside. Also, it’s much easier to restart the fire if it goes out. There is nothing worse than being in constant fear of the fire going out and having to scoop the cold anthracite out by hand! I have a gas bottle with a hose connector and metal rod attachment on the end. I simply stick it in the bottom of the stove and leave it until the anthracite is lit. It works like a dream and gives one so much more flexibility. It can take a good 30 minutes to get things going the first time so just be patient. It’s worth having a torch on hand to look into the drum if you aren’t sure if it’s lit. There must be a good red glow otherwise it won’t work!

Fourth, don’t expect it to be hot immediately. It takes quite a long time to heat up properly. I lit mine in the early afternoon and it was perfect by the next morning when Poepsie cat had taken up her position for the winter and I was able to boil the kettle for my morning cup of Rooibos tea. When the coals are glowing red hot top up the drum with anthracite. Be careful to use the right tools so that you don’t burn yourself! Also, keep a metal bucket on hand to scrape out the ash once or twice a day.

I would love to hear from anyone with more tips and tricks on how to use the AGA!

Hello Winter

We’re back! After an amazing holiday in Spain it feels like I’ve been “in transit” for the past few days. I spent a few days in Joburg after we got back, followed by a quick trip home before I leave again tomorrow for the opening of my grandmother’s exhibition at the SMAC Gallery in Stellenbosch (see Hannatjie van der Wat: In Retro – Seventy-Year Career Survey). I am so excited for her and feel extremely privileged to be able to share this proud moment honouring her career as an artist.

Winter has very definitely arrived in the Eastern Free State! Although the days are clear and bright, night time temperatures have dropped to zero bringing the frost with it. Our house is situated against a mountain, which protects the garden a bit. In fact, there is a stark difference between the leaves on the poplar trees next to the house and those in the valley. This afternoon I needed a bit of farm soul food so I went for a walk with Tumi and Coco. Paris and Patch were off somewhere with Quentin. I took the camera along and could not resist snapping away in the beautiful golden light. As I left our yard, the sheep were being brought back to the kraals. We did a big loop down to the valley and then returned to see that the sheep were all safely put to rest for the night. The light was fading quickly by the time I got home, but I couldn’t resist a photo of the garden, which still has a few roses, some beautiful purple irises and pink daisy bushes in fine form. As much as I love travelling and seeing new sights, I have to admit, home trumps all!

Stragglers.

Coco in her element.

Poplars in the valley.

Happy hounds.

Still a few golden leaves.

Safely kraaled for the night.

Garden in the fading light.

Time for a break

We are heading off on a family holiday to Spain so I will be taking a break from blogging over the next few weeks. We were supposed to fly out tonight but our flight has been delayed by a day due to a Lufthansa strike tomorrow. When we finally get there, I’m very much looking forward to exploring and enjoying a new country (never been to Spain before) and spending time with family. We are meeting up with the whole de Bruyn clan including Quentin’s sister Deidre who lives in Australia, her husband Mike and their two boys.

I will leave you with these photos I took of the farm last Sunday. We went for lunch at a place near Clocolan called The Cabin and drove home the scenic route over the mountains. This is not a route we travel very often because it’s quite a bad road and very deserted with many of the farm houses along the route unoccupied. The road also takes one through farm lands on the top of the mountain so there are lots of gates to open, which I hate! Quentin took me on this route the first winter that I visited Vastrap three years ago and I just remember everything being freezing! From the top of the mountain there is the perfect view of the Vastrap valley and its patchwork of autumn colours. I hope you enjoy!

Project Chicken!

I have complained about our free-ranging chickens before and how they cause havoc in my garden without giving us a reliable source of eggs and/or meat (see Home Sweet Home). When I first came to Vastrap the chicken coop was a simple wire structure situated right behind our guest rooms. The roosters would crow loudly at all times of the day and night (not only dawn) and our guests would appear for breakfast with dark blue circles under their eyes having not had a wink of sleep. Anticipating that visitors would be reluctant to return, among them my family, I moved quickly to rectify the situation by asking Quentin nicely to build a proper stone hen house further away from the house. This has helped immensely for the noise problem and our guests sleep more soundly now.

‘New’ chicken coup under the pepper tree.

But still, the chickens don’t do what I want them to, which is entirely my fault as I have not invested any time learning what makes them tick. Having recently dipped a baby toe into the topic, I realise there are a lot of very passionate people out there who spend a huge amount of time worrying about their chickens and making them happy. So, it’s high time that I learn something new. A few friends have already given me some great advice (thanks Ena and Caryn!), but I’m hoping to access the blogging brains trust to make absolutely sure that Tseliso and I are on the right track. At the moment we have two roosters, about 8 hens and 14 chicks running around the yard. After having had no chicks for two years we’ve recently had a population explosion! In tandem, there has been a complete dearth of eggs.

Over the next few weeks, Tseliso has been tasked with remodelling the coup to include better roosting perches, more comfortable nesting bins and an enclosed chicken run so that we don’t have to let them out every day. At the moment they free range 5 days a week and generally only stay in the coop over weekends. From the advice I’ve had so far it seems the ratio should be the opposite. I’ve printed lots of good ideas from the Internet on how we can recycle things lying around in the yard to make the hens more comfortable.

Through this project I would also like Tseliso to learn how to manage his own chickens more effectively. My goal is to get a more reliable supply of eggs, but his requirement is to have more chickens for his family to eat. This is even more important since he recently became a father to a beautiful baby girl named MaTseliso. I presume that the two goals require slightly different management techniques, but I’m not entirely sure. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I will report back on our progress in a few months, hopefully with positive results for both of us.

Tseliso, Elizabeth and MaTseliso (3 months old).

Purple Feast

I wish I was a better photographer to be able to capture the incredible insect life in our garden. For the past few months my salvia bushes have been alive with a flapping frenzy of bumble bees, honey bees and insects with very long proboscises which I think are bee flies. Walking in the garden there is a constant humming symphony and I find it mesmerising, even therapeutic, to watch them flitting from flower to flower, never sitting still for longer than an instant. It can only be a good thing to have such life in the garden, but can there be too much of a good thing? The other day I was stung on the forehead picking flowers in the late afternoon and more and more I’m finding bees stuck in the house. This probably has to do with the fact that we have a huge bee hive in the roof above our office. It has apparently been there for many years, but it really seems to be thriving. At this rate there’ll be honey dripping down onto my head one day while I’m busy blogging! For the safety of our guests and children visiting it is probably best if I find a bee keeper who can remove the colony to a safer place and harvest some delicious honey for us. Hopefully there is enough good stuff in the garden to keep the other bees and insects here without too much disruption.

Tseliso’s compost

Our garden requires a LOT of compost to enrich the heavy clay soil in our area. Before I came to the farm, the system of making compost was fairly random with all the kitchen and garden scraps and grass cuttings simply thrown onto a large pile and left to decompose. There probably was some good stuff right at the bottom, but it was impossible to get to and there wasn’t enough of it. More problematic, was the fact that anything green, including weeds was thrown into the mix, which naturally was a disaster as there wasn’t enough heat to destroy the seeds. As a result, the garden still has a big weed problem.

Last summer I put a system in place to ensure that we recycle our garden, kitchen and office waste more efficiently. We built four stone enclosures and with the help of lots of information on the internet, I showed my gardener, Tseliso how to create a well-balanced compost pile without weeds. The piles get watered and turned weekly and the ready compost is sifted and stored in bags. Making our own compost saves a lot of money and it helps us with waste management. This summer Tseliso made almost a tonne of compost! That sounds like a lot, but we could use double that with all the new beds in the vegetable garden and elsewhere. The sand stone enclosures have worked really well, but if we had to build them again we would make the passage between them narrower (one meter instead of two) to make it easier to turn the piles and move the waste around. We would also have six bins instead of four!

Compost bins.

The pace of compost-making slows down dramatically in winter, not only because there’s less garden waste, but also because it’s so cold! With this in mind we’ve started a little experiment to see if making the compost in an old chest freezer helps to insulate it. A friend of mine suggested this to me a while ago when I was complaining about all the old chest freezers standing around in our store rooms. He sent me this link showing how it’s done. I had a particularly bad moment one day when three of them packed up at the same time filled with meat and various things that had been put there years ago by other people and forgotten. It was really gross cleaning everything out and I’m determined not to get into that situation again! I now only use two of the freezers and label everything clearly in fabric shopping bags that are easy to pull out when needed. Quentin was reluctant to give me one of the freezers to use for compost, but the other day another one packed up for good and I grabbed the opportunity!

Reclaimed chest freezer!

Seen better days.

After finding a good place for it we drilled holes in the bottom for drainage. Yes, I was drilling too, but I also had to take the photos! We removed the freezer element and then started layering – sticks at the bottom, followed by garden waste, paper, and horse manure freshly supplied by Sonny and Beauty. There was plenty of fresh garden waste from the recently mowed lawn and all the summer vegetables that have been cleared away. Tseliso finished it all off with a sprinkling of water.

The final product.

And voilà, the final product! We placed a stone on the lid to keep it tightly closed and will check up on progress in a week. Hopefully it will cook nicely through winter and along with the piles that are already in progress we’ll have enough compost by the end of winter for our expanded spring veggie garden.