I don’t know if it’s the time of year, or this particular stage of motherhood I find myself in, but August simply slipped past me, and so did this letter. So, I’m just going to tell you where we are now, which is September, and well worth the wait.
The Season Turning
It has been the most beautiful late winter into spring. The weather was so great that I let the Aga run out more than once, because there was simply no reason to keep it running. And then, just the last few days, real summer arrived — warm enough to be outside all day and get our feet wet in the river. Overnight, everything went green. The forest filled with nasturiums and wild garlic, the vines are suddenly heavy with leaves, and I honestly couldn’t tell you when it happened. It’s as if I only noticed it once it was already done.
I’ve been writing this with De Wet asleep in my arms. Just the other day he was a small, uncoordinated thing finding his feet, and now he’s building towers with his blocks and pushing flowers into stumps with such purpose. Basson, meanwhile, has developed the vocabulary of a natural history encyclopedia and is utterly confident with every animal on this farm naming each bird and sheep by their exact breed name. I don’t know where the time goes. I only know that it does, and that it goes faster than seems fair.
Time does something to a problem that effort alone can’t.
An update on Wisteria Cottage
We put the last coat of paint on the cottage the very week the wisterias came into flower, as though the plant had been waiting for us to finish before it did. It felt like a small blessing on the whole thing. The renovation is done now, besides one lonely toilet-roll holder still waiting to go up, and it's become my favourite cottage on the whole farm. There's a double butler sink in one of the bathrooms that does double duty as a bath for the kids or a basin for everyone else, and it's easily my favourite feature in the place. A spacious kitchen, a cosy lounge, a private garden at the back.
The strange thing is, it doesn't have the view, and it isn't near the pool, and yet it might be the most beautiful spot we have. We planted an indigenous garden behind it, and I'll admit I doubted it at the time. Now that it's flowering, I find I've changed my mind, and it's changed how I see the rest of our gardens too. Even our agapanthus, once I'd seen how they grow wild, started to look different to me. I think I love a wild garden more than a manicured one, and I didn't know that about myself until this one taught me.
On the Farm
Renier, as most of you reading this will know, has been wanting to make cheese for a long time, properly and not just as an idea mentioned over dinner (because he can talk alot of nonsens after a few brandys). We’ve had Millie, our one lone goat, giving us milk for ages, but he wanted more to work with, and I made the mistake of telling him it was probably time. Naturally he came home with three new goats and three kids, Toggenburgs and Alpines, and we are now, rather suddenly, a proper little goat dairy.
We’ve named most of them after friends — Matanna, Mariel, and Madeline, who isn’t named after anyone in particular, we simply thought it a beautiful name for a goat. They’re giving us an extraordinary amount of milk, and this week Renier made his first batch of cajeta with twelve litres of it, that rich, dark Mexican dulce de leche, made slow over the stove until it turns. We’ll see how it sets. At the end of the month he’s doing a proper cheese course, so watch this space, because I have a feeling something rather wonderful is about to come out of our little impromtu dairy.
Elsewhere, all our lambs have dropped and we have an abundance of chicks and goslings wandering around the farm to the absolute delight of our boys and every child visiting our farm. But Nonna, being as stubborn as a donkey can only be, is taking her time with her foal, and we have genuinely no idea when she’ll decide it’s time. We will let you know as soon as the new foal drops.
Spring Recess
We ran our first Spring Recess this month, and it was everything I’d hoped for. It wasn’t so different, really, from how we already play with our own boys in the forest most afternoons. The only thing we added was an art activity, and it turned out to be the part everyone loved most, our own children included. There’s something a forest does to both a child and an adult, something in the bare feet and the wet forest floor and the river, that no amount of screen time will ever come close to. Because of how well it went, we’re making it a regular Saturday fixture from now on, bookable alongside your stay if you let us know in advance. Mercy runs it, and by all accounts, has as much fun as the children do.
Wijnklas
Our first Wijnklas of the season was wonderful, a full table, with Katinka pairing the food and wine as beautifully as ever. October’s is unfortunately fully booked for a private event, but we will have a Wijnklas every second Saturday of the month bookable with your stay, but there will be a few seats available for day visitors so let us know via email if you would like to join one.
Catch up some more soon!
Lots and lots of love, Shanè and the boys.
