Farming Down Under

In April we went on a three week trip to Australia to visit Quentin’s sister Deidre and her family. It was an epic trip, which started with a fair amount of drama when Quentin and Ashley didn’t receive their visas in time to travel on our planned date. After stressing for days about what to do, I set off to Sydney alone with Livvi and Myles, while Quent made a last ditch effort to get the visas. After begging and pleading in the pouring rain on the steps of the Australian consulate, they were cleared to fly the next day and thanks to some very helpful airline officials were squeezed onto the last flight before the Easter weekend. Disaster averted, we were all soon reunited at Dee’s house in Sydney and were treated like royalty for the next three weeks.

We didn’t want for anything, except sleep and some peace and quiet. Yes, you guessed it, the kids were a handful!! The combination of jet lag, unfamiliar beds, hectic molar teething and snotty noses did not go down well. They were out of their comfort zones and they made damn sure we knew it! Thankfully Dee is a GP so she made sure that they were appropriately medicated, but the whole thing was pretty intense. Still, it was a fantastic trip and we really got to see the best that New South Wales has to offer. We met many of Dee and Mike’s fabulous friends and we became part of their day to day routine in Bronte. We experienced incredible beaches, enjoyed delicious food and wines, got up close with a koala bear at Taronga zoo, and spotted kangaroos in the wild. We really could not have asked for anything more, but the friendly immigration official could see it in our tired eyes as we checked out of the country…. we would not be back for at least another 7 years before our kids are older and more manageable on the road!

Towards the end of the trip we decided to get out of the city for a few days and to take the kids to a more familiar environment, a farm in Cootamundra owned by Mike’s cousin. Needless to say, they were in their element, especially Myles whose eyes lit up when he saw the tractors heading to the fields to plant canola! Ashley zoomed around on a motorbike and was treated like royalty by our hosts, Charlie and Bec, who said she reminded them of their daughter who is at boarding school. We feasted on a lamb roast, ate steak rolls cooked on an open fire during a paddock picnic and spotted lots of kangaroo on our Sunday morning drive around the farm. Quent spent a morning farming with Charlie and learnt about canola planting and farming sheep on a very large-scale. It was really very interesting comparing their set-up to ours. There are so many differences (such as far less staff, no security issues, dealing with kangaroos, different price dynamic due to small local market and much higher exports), but at the heart of it their love of the land and passing on the baton from generation to generation is exactly the same as ours.

We came home happy and content with where we are, but very conscious of the big challenges that lie ahead for South Africa. For three weeks we lived in a bubble, out of the relentless bad news cycle. But news did get through that our house was ransacked in a robbery the night after we left. They didn’t take much, but they tipped over everything looking for money. Thank God we were not there. Others were not so lucky; there were three bad farm attacks in our area while we were away, two of them fatal. The stats are not comforting. Our families worry constantly about our safety. Nothing about the current situation in our country is comfortable or easy especially for a farmer (“boer”), but still, we remain committed. This is our home. This is where we need to be. We want to be part of the change that gets us to a better place. We just need to figure out how.

Where has the time gone?!

It’s been five months since I last posted anything on my blog. A whole summer has passed and within a blink of an eye winter has arrived on the farm. It’s been a wonderful few months for us, but our little toddlers suck up all the spare time I used to have for taking photos and writing. These days my lens is mostly focused on my little loves, Livia and Myles as they go about their daily activities on the farm. They are so different, but it warms my heart to see their little friendship grow. Livia is petite and small with a strong character and penetrating gaze, while Myles is big and tough with a gentle touch, loving heart and an absolute passion for anything mechanical, especially tractors and combines! I know this crazy busy phase will pass too quickly, replaced with a different routine involving more time in the car driving them to and from school and around the province for sport and other activities. Through all the busyness, I cherish this time with them and love nothing more than capturing their joy as they experience all the wonderful things around them on the farm.

This summer, it was such a blessing and relief to have relatively normal rainfall after the terrible drought of the past few years. There were still a couple of dry spells, but good rain in February made all the difference to our crops and livestock. Our cattle are strong and healthy and most of them have come out of the breeding season pregnant, which is all any farmer could wish for! The maize and sunflower crops will be reaped soon and then it will be time to plant winter wheat and to prepare for the Vastrap Boran auction in August. The cycle goes on, every year the same, but completely different.

December Reaping

This is what we are up to at Vastrap in December while everyone else is at the beach on holiday…. hard at work harvesting wheat and praying that it’ll rain soon so we can plant our sunflower crop. Ashley and my niece Sophia visited us for a few days last week, but they are now also at the beach! It’s just us and dogs left here for a very quiet Christmas. It’s Livia’s third birthday on 29 December so we still have a lot to look forward to before the new year.

Wishing everyone a very blessed and happy festive season! 🎄☀️🌻🌽🌾💦☔️⛈

It’s been too long!

I’ve neglected my blog so badly over the past few months. I don’t know where the time goes, but there doesn’t seem to be time for any fun projects in the few moments I do manage to steal at my desk. Life seems to be a constant juggling act with an almost 3 year old and 15 month old in the house! I’ve become very adept at doing most things with one hand and child on hip, but photography and blogging aren’t amongst them! Instagram is a much easier option for quick updates and a rolling commentary on the kids who are a constant source of delight. Myles is a real farm boy – his eyes light up at the sight or sound of anything to do with wheels, water or balls. His favourite word at the moment is “tractor”, and he is always in the driving seat of the bakkie when Quentin takes him farming. Livvi is more passionate about people and animals and also loves farming with her daddy, but insists on sitting on the back of the bakkie like a real farm girl!

Sometimes Instagram just can’t give the whole picture, so I really wanted to share these photos taken by our friends Ryan and Caro who visited us with their son, Oscar this past weekend. Ryan was a friend of mine in high school, but he has been living overseas for the past 25 years. His wife, Caroline is French. They have been very active followers of the Vastrap Farm blog since it started five years ago. It was a huge pleasure to host them, especially since they are in the process of relocating to South Africa and we will hopefully see them more often in future. On their last evening we piled them in the back of the bakkie with the dogs (our boerboel, Duma now weighs almost 70kg so he is a real beast!) and took them up the mountain for sundowners. It was a beautifully still and clear evening with a gorgeous Free State sunset. I always love seeing the farm from above with all the contrasting colours of the contoured lands – dry wheat, newly planted maize and lands prepped for sunflower planting. We had really good early summer rain so the farm is looking green and beautiful, but it’s been very hot and dry in December so far. Full credits for the photos must go to Ryan and Caro – thank you for capturing our sundowner fun so perfectly and good luck for your new South African adventure. We are very glad to have you back!!

 

Sunday morning rounds

We’ve been flat out hectic here at Vastrap for the past month. In the two weeks leading up to our auction last Friday, we all got very bad flu so it was really just a case of digging deep and pushing through assisted by lots of medication! Fortunately the kids are all better now, but Quentin and I still have lingering coughs and stuffy noses, which was probably not helped by the cold wet weather on auction day! We literally collapsed on the couch this weekend after our last visitors left with every ounce of physical and emotional energy drained from us. We felt a little bit better by Sunday so all of us went with Quentin to check whether any new calves had been born overnight. One of the little ones also needed to be treated for a bad eye so we watched while Quentin patiently coaxed the mother into letting him get near the calf so that it could be injected. She was not very happy, but he eventually got it done. On the way home we noticed that all the willow trees have turned green, a sure sign that spring is near! The forecast is for a big cold snap this week, but after that it should start to warm up nicely. With all the lovely rain we’ve had this month the grass will hopefully start to grow as soon, which we really need for grazing. Next week we are off on holiday so by the time we get home it will be well into spring and only a few weeks until Myles’s first birthday. What a lovely prospect!

Anyone interested in reading more about the Vastrap Auction and seeing all the photos can click HERE for the post on our website.

Winter Blessing

Last week we had a huge blessing of over 100mm of rain in 24 hours. After the massive drought we had in summer, it was simply incredible to see and hear so much water flowing!! Quentin can’t ever remember us getting this much rain in winter. It’s such a relief to see our dams full and to know that the ground water has been replenished. We’ll be able to graze cattle on areas of the farm that haven’t had a source of water for more than a year and we won’t have to worry about carting water to thirsty animals in the usually dry spring. In a month’s time when things start to warm up, the veld will erupt in a riot of colour and gratitude. Not to mention our wheat crop, which will hopefully do well after the rain! We are one of the very few farms in the area that still bother to plant wheat and our persistence will hopefully pay off this year. It has been freezing cold with lots of snow on the Maluti mountains, but we are definitely not complaining – only 17 days to go until the Vastrap Boran Auction and we are rearing to go!

Winter Walk

We had a very chilled Father’s Day celebrated with a delicious breakfast at Living Life with Quentin’s parents and a lovely afternoon walk on the farm. It’s been a very mild winter so far aside from one really cold snap last week that even brought some welcome rain. The night time temperatures have been particularly warm compared to previous years. It’s still drops below zero degrees, but that’s mild for us. I remember the first week I ever spent on the farm in June 2010 when Quentin and I were still dating, the minimum temperature dropped to -17 C one night – and that still didn’t put me off marrying him and moving here!!

We are getting very busy organising our annual Vastrap Boran Auction, which will be held on 19 August. It takes a lot of work to select all the animals and to make sure they are tested and ready for sale. Then there is all the marketing material that has be designed and circulated, which I mainly take care of. A lot of people also visit us before the auction to view the animals so that takes up a lot of time and obviously closer to the auction there are other logistics to manage. It’s an exciting, albeit nerve-wracking time of year for us. You never know how things are going to turn out, but we can only try our best and hope for a good turnout on the day. It seems like the cattle take up all of Quentin’s time at the moment, but on the farm they are also busy reaping the sunflowers and getting ready to plant wheat. The recent rain will help a lot to get the wheat crop off to a good start, but we can only hope that there will be some early spring rain too. You can see from the photos below that grass and water are very scarce so there is still a long and gruelling winter ahead for the animals.

Anyone interested in seeing what we get up to with the cattle can visit our website www.vastrapboran.com. I have been focusing a lot more of my attention on our website blog to keep the information flow fresh and relevant. Sadly, with two small kids vying for my attention in the house this blog has become neglected. One day I will get back to cooking and gardening and taking photos of things other than children and cattle!

The generations: Quentin, Myles & Bill de Bruyn

Last days of Autumn

We marked the end of Autumn with a breakfast picnic on top of the mountain this morning. I can’t believe we haven’t done this before! It was such a lovely way to spend our last morning with our friends from Cape Town, Saul and San-Marie, who visited for the weekend. They haven’t been to Vastrap for over a decade and things have changed quite a bit in that time, including the building of the road up the mountain. It was a beautiful  blue-sky day, but sadly too hazy to see the view of the Maluti mountains that we love so much. A lot of fires must be burning in Maseru and surrounds because there’s a big cloud of smog hanging over the mountains. I lit the Aga last week before our visitors arrived, but it was more to create atmosphere than a dire need for warmth. The days have actually been beautifully still and mild, but that will change soon when winter descends.

Precious moments

After the incredibly hot and harsh summer, the mellow autumn days are a real treat. We had a very cold snap a few weeks ago, but the days have been beautifully warm and golden of late. Last week I spent some time with the kids in the garden taking photos. Myles will be seven months next week and he is just too delicious for words! An early crawler with two little teeth already, it just seems like time is flying by too quickly. Sometimes I have to force myself to just stop all the busy-ness and savour the moment. Livia’s little friend Matseliso was also here for the day. She is 11 months older than Livia, but they are playing so nicely together and Livia gets so excited when she comes to visit. It’s lovely to see their little friendship develop. Such precious moments!

Daddy’s farm girl!

Livia absolutely loves going farming with her daddy. She might feel differently when she’s older, but for now it’s their thing. Their special bonding time. There’s going to be a big fight ahead when Myles decides he wants to go too! Last Sunday we all went as a family to check up on some cows that were close to calving and to kraal the sheep for the night. Livvi helped to chase the sheep into their enclosure and then spent some time watching cattle with Quent. They could do this for hours together! It’s like a meditation, especially on a mild and golden autumn afternoon. Myles and I hung back and tried to capture the moment. Too sweet how our babies are growing up!