Monday 18th April
Didn’t feel much like work today after a late night… Got up early though to a light mist, which had almost vanished by the time I’d rushed to get dressed, since mist always excites me. I find it very evocative and relaxing, but it didn’t hang languidly as it does later in Winter, so I just sat in the diffuse sun for a few minutes, trying to enjoy the place for the first time since I got here. I took my stills camera out, and realised that it was for the first time since I arrived, three weeks ago.. I went for a short walk in the woods behind the cabin and encountered some not-quite wild-life.
A neighbour's cat prowls the woods for field-mice
The Smal family’s white and ginger cat was hunting for field mice in a ratherndesultory fashion.
Pretty soon I might as well have been in Johannesburg… I’d been up late, this time managing an upload from Cape Town for the same Director. While not as big as our own, for one reason or another too irritating to go into here, the material was a dog’s breakfast. Some auditions were missing, which Joe (the Cape Town Encoder) only discovered very late on Sunday night. Since some of the Execs were now in Cape Town and wanted to see the material after lunch, it was a bit of the scramble to get them up on our web site in time.
That done, I forced my way through the dense saplings between the large trees in the woods behind the cabin, trying to reach a part of the property I haven’t been able to before. Luckily the vegetation is so thick that the saplings don’t grow very well, but they still represent a lot of work – and a lot of wasted water – when we get rain! Predictions are for a wetter winter than last year, but still 40% down on average. While there have been several meetings about getting the traditional “Leiwater” system working again, I suspect that the wheels of bureaucracy will grind rather slowly. Although I have ideas of harvesting the winter mists, as they do in parts of Mpumalanga and South America, I wonder whether there will even be enough mist to harvest for water…
What is clear though, is that there is plenty of space for three houses on the property without crowding each other. What is not clear is how we’ll finance two guest-houses without the additional income from vegetable farming if we don’t have enough water…
Didn’t feel much like work today after a late night… Got up early though to a light mist, which had almost vanished by the time I’d rushed to get dressed, since mist always excites me. I find it very evocative and relaxing, but it didn’t hang languidly as it does later in Winter, so I just sat in the diffuse sun for a few minutes, trying to enjoy the place for the first time since I got here. I took my stills camera out, and realised that it was for the first time since I arrived, three weeks ago.. I went for a short walk in the woods behind the cabin and encountered some not-quite wild-life. The Smal family’s white and ginger cat was prowling around the bushes, hunting field mice in a rather desultory fashion.