Horses (2)

Out of all the horses we rode, Lucky who belonged to my middle sister was most probably the best horse of all.  He was reddish in colour and not that tall, which made him ideal for younger children to ride.  I often rode behind my middle sister, holding onto her around her waist.  We would walk around the farm for hours in this manner.  My middle sister loved him and would bend over and lie with her arms around his neck and her face alongside his mane, breathing in the wonderful horsey smell of sweat.  Apart from Cress, the Shepherd's horse who was blind in one eye and needed a stick of dynamite to get him going, Lucky was the most gentle horse we had.  Any visitors to the farm were always given the safest horses to ride, and he was there right at the top.

Life is full of twists and turns and most of the time these happen quite out of the blue.  One such event happened while we were away at boarding school and we only got to hear about it on our return home for the holidays. 

One of the farm workers was riding Lucky whilst herding cattle from one camp to another.  One of the oxen ran into a huge patch of aloes, which grew at the corner of the property, diagonally opposite the old broken down trading store.  He was quite unaware that by riding into the aloe patch after the ox, he was signing Lucky's death warrant.  Unbeknown to him there was a large bees nest nestled at the bottom of one of the dried out stumps of aloes, and poor old Lucky's hoof tramped right into the middle of this.  In two seconds flat, thousands of angry bees swarmed out of the nest and attacked him.  The farm worker jumped off and ran for his life, but Lucky on this occasion was not quite so lucky.  By the time my father reached him, he had been stung so many times all over his face and in his eyes, that the kindest thing to do, was to shoot him and put him out of his misery.

When we arrived home from school for the holidays, we were told the whole sad story.  My middle sister, who was devastated went to inspect the place where Lucky's body had been burnt.  She picked up a number of his charred bones and placing them in a small box between two pieces of cotton wool wrote a note which said " Here lies Lucky, gone but not forgotten"

Horses (1)

A farm wouldn't be a farm without horses, and we had plenty in all shapes and sizes.  The very first time I "rode" a horse was when my big sister who was ten years old, thought that it was high time that I at the age of four should learn to ride, so she pushed me onto the back of Lucky my middle sister's horse and gave him a resounding slap on the rump.  He went from half asleep to a full gallop in two seconds flat, with me bobbing around and screaming my lungs out.

Down the dusty, rutted road we flew, then as quickly as he had set off, so did he just as quickly come to an abrupt halt in order to make a sharp left hand turn into the narrow gate leading down to the side of the old house.  Horses are creatures of habit, and so having turned into this gate a million times before, saw no reason not to do so again.

Not only did I learn to ride that day, I also learnt to fly, for fly I did, straight off the back of Lucky and into the waiting arms of my big sister.  I hate to think what would have happened had she not been there to catch me.  I recon I might very well not have been around today to tell the tale.  Needless to say that incident coloured the whole way I viewed horses from that day onward.

The woman who lived in a shack

I once knew a woman who lived in a shack made up out of assorted poles, planks of wood and bits of tin, all held together with nails and plastic bags.  Large stones kept the rusted corrugated iron roof in place.

She was a woman who had waited all her life for something significantly good to happen to her, however, raw sewage ran down the narrow pathway in front of her shack, and rats as big as small cats roamed around.  Even the mangy dogs with their rib cages sticking out would slink away into the cluttered informal settlement when they saw them.

She was a woman who had experienced the hard side of life in all it's varied forms, even to the point of being raped by some of the young men who lived there.  She lived from hand to mouth, and had no idea what to do with more money or provisions than would take her just from one day into the next.  Her rantings and cries of despair only brought scorn and derision from her neighbours.  No one took her seriously or bothered too much with her.  They all had enough of their own issues to deal with.  Life was far too difficult in that seething mass of humanity.

She began to attend a church nearby in a more affluent suburb.  She always smelt a mixture of stale sweat and unwashed clothing.  Once she was given a sizable amount of money, which she received with a bemused look on her face.  After a lifetime of living with just enough and sometimes not quite enough for the day, she would most probably have recklessly given it away to everyone around her in an effort to gain some recognition and respect.

Each year the church went away for a weekend on what was known as the family camp.  Everyone who wanted to be there was included, regardless of lack of finances, and so with her few belongings placed carefully in a plastic bag, she arrived at the camp.  That night she seemed to wander around in a bit of a daze, but by the next day she had settled in.

Things that I had taken very much for granted all of my life, took on a whole new meaning through the eyes of this woman.  Taking a shower which I would never even think twice about was pure luxury for her.  The shower curtain was half open when I walked past the next morning.  There she stood soaping herself all over, allowing the water to stream over her old, tired body.  The customary bucket of water, heated over an open fire a distant memory as she revelled in the steamy warmth of the shower cubicle.  Making my way back after having showered and dressed, I discovered that she was having another go at soaping herself all over from head to toe.  Ten people could have showered in the length of time she took.  I could imagine that no matter how long she stood there under the water, it could never wash away the decades of abject poverty, or the the brutal abuse or the stench of raw sewage.  However, it did give her a measure of delight and satisfaction for having once in her life been let loose in the steamed up candy store. 

Christmas (2)

The same wealthy aunt and uncle of mine always produced the most amazing Christmas lunches, spread out on a long trestle table in the garden Summer house.  The table would groan with food of every sort, and the usual crackers and hats and punch made it into a very festive time for us children.

One such lunch seemed to take a very long time in reaching the table.  One o'clock came and went, then two o'clock came and went and still no lunch.  By this time we began to ask questions, but none of the adults seemed to be saying very much.  We also noticed that my uncle was absent.  It was all a very big mystery to us.  Eventually at about three thirty my uncle reappeared with a strange man in tow, and the long awaited lunch got under way.  The strange man didn't seem very hungry, because he ate nothing, however we noticed that he seemed to toss down an inordinate number of beers.  Only very much later did the entire story come out.  My aunt being very superstitious had done a quick head count and on arriving at the number thirteen, refused to allow us to sit down to lunch unless my uncle went and found a fourteenth person.  Being Christmas day, I can image that finding someone willing to sit down with a bunch of strangers in order to placate my aunt, must have been almost impossible.  I think he eventually found such a man in one of the Johannesburg parks, hence the liquid Christmas lunch!

After lunch as all the fathers lay snoozing on the grass under the palm tree, we children quite oblivious to the days goings on, blissfully ran around eating slices of watermelon and sucking iced lollies.  As to the strange man, I guess my uncle deposited him back on the same park bench where he had first encountered him.  Life was never dull!

Christmas (1)

Christmases were always a lot of fun, notwithstanding the fact that my father was very against spoiling children, so gifts were usually in pretty short supply.  My mother had to virtually squeeze every present out of him to be able to put something into our pillow cases, which were placed at the bottom of our beds on Christmas eve.

We often spent Christmas with an uncle and aunt of mine who were by our standards very well off.  My cousin who was one of my best friends when we were children, had a playroom which rivalled some of the finest toy stores in  town.  This was a source of great wonder and enjoyment to me every time we visited them.  I would become quite frenetic as I spun from one toy to another.  Once in my great excitement while playing with a set of miniature lead pirate figures, I managed to break off Long John Silvers only leg!  I retreated under someones bed for a very long time, only emerging once I had been reassured over and over again by my middle sister that we would buy another one.

It was here that I received the worst Christmas present in my entire life.  The second worst Christmas present I ever received came a month late in the mail and was a squat, red coloured King James bible.  Not that I have anything against bibles, I just didn't want one at that particular point in time.  Reading it proved to be a mission, as it read like some strange medieval language.  I eventually took it to boarding school and used it to store all my birthday "holy cards" between the pages, but thats another story.

The excitement and thrill of waking up on Christmas morning, wondering what I had received turned into bitter disappointment, as out from the bottom of the pillow case came the swimming costume that I had been wearing for the past three weeks.  No matter how hard I felt around, nothing else emerged.  It felt as if someone had poured cold water all over my head.  To make matters worse, I had to put on a brave face and tell my cousin who had received more toys and books than you can imagine, that I had only got a sort of used, black, school regulation swimming costume and nothing more.

My father always used to say to me "I've got to toughen you up"  Somehow I instinctively knew that he was going about it the wrong way, but at the age of nine how can one say those things to ones father?

Birthday Parties

Birthday parties on the farm were occasions where our cousins from the farm next door would join us for an afternoon of fun and games and excitement.

On one such birthday, my father made us a lucky dip.  He cut a hole in the side of a large cardboard box and filled it with wood shavings.  My mother carefully wrapped up small gifts in the form of colouring-in books and wax crayons.  It didn't seem to matter that all the gifts were identical, it was still very exciting to put your hand through the hole and feel around for the moment when your fingers came across the anticipated gift. 

My very first birthday recollection was when I turned four.  My mother made a fruit cake, which was a great disappointment to me, as there was no icing on top.  I was obliged to share the cake with my father whose birthday fell in the same month as mine, and as he suffered from stomach ulcers, was unable to eat anything really sweet.  My cousin from next door who was fifteen months younger than me, came to my party.

The candles were duly lit and as I blew them out, a reedy happy birthday was sung to me.  Then it was my cousins turn to blow out the candles.  He took a big breath and promptly spat all over the cake!  My mother who could on occasion be fairly diplomatic said "Never mind, we'll just cut this bit off".  The cake, which I really didn't much like in the first place, suddenly became even less appealing.

My aunt from next door always gave me books for my birthday, which I treasured.  When I turned eight, she gave me a book all about the life of Davy Crockett, and nestled between the pages was a crisp one pound note.  At this point, I felt quite rich.  Another cousin of mine had previously given me a Davy Crockett hat, and so with hat on head and gun in hand, and singing the Davy Crockett song, I re-enacted all the Davy Crockett escapades around the farm, feeling for a period of time like I was "the king of the wild frontier".

From an Almond to an Apricot

My father would from time to time sell a few cattle or a horse or two at the local sale yard, usually to pay for our school fees.  My middle sister once went with him to a cattle sale and simply by removing her sunglasses, managed to buy a cow and a calf.  In all the seventeen years I lived on the farm, I can only remember having two good years where we had bumper crops, so to speak.  The rest of the time, it was a bit touch and go.  My parents were always looking for new ways of making extra money. 

My mother and my aunt next door use to raise turkeys in anticipation of the Christmas season.  One year a request for live turkeys appeared in the Farmers Weekly.  A railway truck was duly booked and the two groups of turkeys were chased from different directions to the nearest railway station.  It was pretty hard going for the turkeys, as there was a gale blowing and they were being driven straight into it.  By the time they reached their destination, they were extremely exhausted, however once they were herded into the railway truck a new surge of energy seemed to revitalilize them as the one group spied the other, and an almighty fight broke out.  Unfortunetely, by the time they reached the purchaser, half of them were dead.

On another occasion my father planted sugar beans.  These did exceptionally well and after being placed in bags and taken to the railway station to be sent away, we merrily jumped into our car and went on holiday, confidently feeling that the beans would take care of the finances.  Sadly though, the beans never made it off the station platform, and to add insult to injury my father was presented with a bill for demurrage.

The best story of all was when Thrupps put an advert in the paper looking for almonds.  This was like a gift from heaven, as there were loads of almond trees in the grove to the left of the old house.  They were of a slightly different variety from the usual ones, being more round in shape.  We could however attest to their excellent flavour, as we use to crack them open and eat them all the time.

Totting up the extra money that would be available for Christmas shopping, their hopes and dreams were dashed once more when they received a curt note from Thrupps saying that they weren't looking for apricot pips,  Farm life was never dull!

Going to boarding school

My mother was one of the forerunners of home schooling.  Reluctant to send us to boarding school at the age of six, she taught each one of us in turn the three R's until we were nine, and then bravely sent us out to face the wolves of life.

My big sister was obviously the first to depart, and I remember that fateful day as if it were last week.  She cried so much that I gave her one of the hankies my grandfather had given me for Christmas.  They had the days of the week printed across the front of them and I think it was Monday I felt compelled to push into her hand.  I remember her hanging onto the door handle of the car, as if by some feat of strength, she could keep it from driving away.  We sadly left the school and drove off into the night, until all the street lights slowly disappeared into the distance and we were surrounded by the inky blackness of a moonless night.  I cried on and off all the way home.  For me it was like the end of an age of innocence.

My big sister who had been in contact with about as many people as my middle sister and I, found it difficult to adjust to this strange place with its penguin-like teachers.  She told me later that she had no idea who or what they were, but thought they might be angels.  My mother in her lack of wisdom, had omitted to teach my big sister how to write in cursive, which caused her to be hit every day for three weeks until she managed to master this art.  Needless to say, this had a devastating effect on her.

My middle sister, after having also been taught by my mother, departed at the age of almost nine.  This too had a terrible effect on her, causing her to continuously count the buttons on her dress.  One, two, three, four, five.  One two, three, four, five.  One two, three, four, five.  Then it was my turn to be taught.

I found life on the farm incredibly lonely without my siblings.  I would sit myself down at the old oak roll-top desk in the corner of the sitting- room and do my best to concentrate on the work at hand.  Although I learnt to add and subtract, to multiply and divide, and to read and write, the loneliness of it all was just too much for me.  When I reached screaming point, I would corner the Fox terrier behind the desk, and cracking my miniature whip on the floor, would tearfully demand that he talk to me. 

My arrival at boarding school was tempered by the fact that both my sisters had already spent a number of years there, so I knew what it was all about.  That didn't mean to say that it was all plain sailing for me though.  I had many a lesson to learn, and many a hiding to endure.  In fact I was hit so much in the first few years, that I very quickly learnt how to catch the stick I was being hit with in mid air, and run away with it.  Such was life!  

Eggs, eggs and more eggs

The best kept secret in South Africa and indeed Africa, is found in a little room at the top of the Fort Durnford museum.  One of Africa's most complete bird egg collections.  Fort Durnford is situated at the top of a koppie a short distance from the Escort bacon factory.  Yes, that same factory my beloved Honk was sent to. 

During the First World war, a young man found himself travelling up through Africa, where he had the opportunity to collect innumerable eggs. These he sent back to his mother, wrapped in cotton wool and placed in tea caddies.  This little room at Fort Durnford, has drawer upon drawer of the finest egg collection I have yet to see.

As a child I was a very keen collector of eggs, which I stored in a large rectangular girdle box filled with mealie meal.  I was very proud of the seventy four eggs I had managed to steal from the poor unsuspecting birds over a period of time.  My first attempt at egg collecting had to be abandoned, after they all went rotten in the Queen Elizabeth commemorative, coronation mug my mother was given by one her sisters.  I learnt the hard way that every egg I found, had to be blown.

My middle sister and I loved the hen house.  It was warm and inviting and the gentle murmur of the chickens was almost like a lullaby.  We used to sample the fowl food, a combination of crushed mealies and laying mash, which I think contained bone meal.  It seemed to taste alright, and we would sit on the floor on piles of hay, contentedly licking this unusual meal from the palms of our hands.  I once held my hand underneath a hen who was about to lay an egg and was rewarded after a short while with her hot, wet, eggy treasure.

Collecting eggs is a very absorbing hobby and I spent many a holiday climbing up every tree imaginable to raid birds nests.  I was very lucky not to have encountered any snakes in my insatiable quest for eggs, as many a time I would slip my hand into an abandoned nest.  If I did find any eggs, I would place them in my mouth in order to leave my hands free to climb down the tree again.  My father taught me to scan the veld, and pinpoint where the birds had been sitting once they had flown out of the grass, and then to scout around for their nests. 

This collection was a real delight to me and, I would gaze at it again and again, lining up all the eggs in pairs from the biggest to the smallest.   One day though, and I couldn't tell you to this day why, I took each egg one by one, and crushed them in my hand, until nothing remained of my collection.  I threw all the bits of egg shell into the long grass, and with my heart breaking, turned and made my way back home. 

Towing the party line

Living on a farm can be quite an isolated life, and the telephone was an important link to the outside world.  If you wanted to get hold of the exchange at the post office, you had to turn the handle at the side of the phone about seven times in quick succession and then give the number to a disinterested lady on the other end.  Some things never change!  Once connected, she would interupt you at three minute intervals, this being the standard charge time.

Our large, wooden phone was mounted firstly on the wall in our sun porch and next to the bathroom door in our old house.  It got struck by lightning one year just as I was taking a bath, and a ball of fire the size of a soccer ball flew straight through the door and passed right in front of me.  Scary stuff!!  In our new house, it was situated on the wall near the left hand corner of the hallway.  A large highly lacquered rectangular box with a handset on the one side and a handle and earpiece on the other.  It also had two round bells at the top which rang when you received a call.  The earpiece was designed so that others could listen into the conversation taking place.  Unfortunately my sisters and I fought over it so much that my mother had a hard time hearing anything at all, so a lot of the time she banished us from the hallway.

We belonged to a party line, which interconnected the adjoining farms.  We each had a special "ring tone", ours being a short and three longs,  so it was tring, triiiinnnggg, triiinnnggg, triiinnnggg.  My uncle's next door was four shorts, so his was tring, tring, tring, tring, and so on.  All the farms on the party line could all call each other up at no cost.

One night my father and I had to take a small child and his mother to the nearest hospital.  He had accidentally poured a pot of boiling water over himself and required immediate treatment.  The hospital was just over and hour away, but by the time we had repaired the punctured tyre and replaced the snapped fan belt, it was well into the night before we arrived at the hospital.  My father gave my mother a call to tell her that the child had been admitted and we were now on our way back home.

Shortly after that, my mother received a call from our next door neighbour Mr. P, who asked with great concern how each of us was.  Hearing that everyone was fine, his curiosity got the better of him and throwing caution to the wind, he blurted out that he had just been listening in to their conversation, and couldn't understand what was going on, so he got his wife to listen in.  She too could make neither head nor tail of it, so he thought the only thing left then, was to call us directly and get the whole mystery cleared up.

I think there is a certain amount of caring in the farming community, coupled with a equal amount of inquisitiveness, or the feeling that perhaps others lives were a bit more colourful than their own.  Whatever the reason, my mother thought it was hugely funny and never failed to recount that conversation with great hilarity.   As for the little boy, he fortunetely recovered, and was well enough to come back home, after having spent a month in hospital.

The man with no name.

I loved playing in the family plot.  My middle sister and I had some great games sliding down the sloping moss-encrusted tombstone of my great-grandfather and fitting together the broken pieces of my great-grandmothers cross.  Sitting astride my grandfathers headstone, I remember gleefully saying to my sister   "I'm riding on his head".  We were quite an irreverent bunch of children.

There happened to be one grave where there was no inscription at all, just a small crumbling cement rectangle to demarcate the area. The story went that one day, a very sick wanderer landed up at the farm, and having succumbed to his illness, was buried there.  No one was any the wiser as to who he was, where he had come from or what his story had been.  It was a sad little grave and always caused me to feel a pang of regret on his behalf.

Both my great-grandparents John and Isabella, as well as my grandfather and great uncle and in time to come Mr. and Mrs. B from next door were buried there, and of course the man with no name.  Not a very big plot, but quite significant.  The farm derived it's name "Belladale" from my great-grandmother, who had come out from Scotland some years before.

My grandfather had beautiful little white stones all over his grave and my sister and I would collect them and take them home to use in whatever we happened to be constructing at the time.  Usually we used them to decorate our little mud and stick houses, and to make pretty flowerbeds and pathways around them.  In time, my grandfathers grave got to be rather bald and moth eaten.  He was such a lovely old man though, that had he been alive, he probably wouldn't have minded in the least.  In the same way that he used to take out his brown paper packet of sweets to give each of us one, so I could imagine him having a brown packet of little white stones and doling them out to us instead.

The sweet memories of those steamy hot Summer days spent messing around in the family cemetery with its Cyprus tree sentinels, remains with me still.

My mother's cats

My father was quite a strange man and very complex.  Kind, loving and playful one minute and stern, and seemingly lacking in compassion the next.  I never really knew where I stood with him a lot of the time.  One of my earliest memories set the tone of our relationship from that day onwards.

I remember it being one afternoon, when my father came to me and said  "Come, we're going to shoot cats".  These happened to be three of my mothers favourite cats, one being a huge, fluffy, Persian type cat with grey and white colouring and wearing voluminous plus fours.  The other two were more ordinary looking.

I can still hear the noise of the shotgun and see the bits of fur twirling through the air and the limp bodies of the cats, lying draped across the big stones underneath the gnarled apple trees near the pig sty.  Although it happened so many years ago, the memory of those trusting cats rubbing themselves against my fathers legs before being executed, still stands out in stark relief, deeply etched into my mind for all time.

My perception of my father at that tender age of four was changed forever.  I remember asking him "Why are we killing cats?"  The memory of his answer eludes me, perhaps there was none.  In retrospect, I think my father was very much a law unto himself and rather sadistic to boot.  I never heard what my mother thought of it all, but my witnessing the ghastly demise of our wonderful fluffy cats must have blocked out  a lot of what happened that day.  I can't even remember where my father buried them.  I do remember though, that after shouldering his gun, we solemnly made our way back past the pig sty, past the cattle kraals and the stables, down the rutted road and back to the old house.  Just one more puzzling riddle stored up at the back of my mind.

Because I love you so

Our local town was a tiny dorp with half a dozen gravel roads running through it.  At one end, as in almost all Free State towns, was a gigantic Dutch Reformed church, which made a huge statement as one approached the town.

The co-operative store or c0-0p as it was known, together with the hotel, were the main meeting places for the local farmers.  There were also one or two general dealers, a cafe and a small pharmacy, where the same Christmas cards were sold year after year.  Unfortunately, two cards out of each pack had to be discarded, as the verse inside ended with the words "because I love you so"  My mother accidentally sent one to our Doctor, much to her embarrassment.  I think she kind of fancied him, but not quite to that extent!

The Benders owned a haberdashery store, which sold materials, wools and other related items.  Mr. and Mrs. Bender were what is known as "Blourokkies"  All the women wore blue dresses and black stockings, and had their hair scraped back into tight buns.  The other thing which singled them out as being different, was the fact that they didn't believe in doctors.  Mr. Bender developed cancer of the lip, which quickly spread.  Eventually he began to wear a scarf around his mouth to cover up the disfigurement.  As a child, I would gaze intently at him in the hope that the scarf would fall down, so I could see what his face looked like underneath it.  I enjoyed the macabre.  Mrs. Bender seemed to do all the work, while Mr. Bender just sat there reading his bible.  I often wondered how he endured the pain and whether his belief system stayed in tact.

The Post Office was another place of great interest.  We rented post box number 6, which meant that we were one of the first farmers in the district to own a post box.  The Post Mistress, a Miss Wilde, was a rather masculine woman with a short back and sides hairstyle.  She was one of the few English speaking people in town, and so grabbed every opportunity to engage my mother in long conversations.  Apart from her work, her secondary occupation seemed to be collecting and pasting into a scrapbook, pictures of the Royal family, interspersed with pictures of all the local murders, of which there were quite a few I can tell you.  So poor old Queen Elizabeth had to share a page with Jack the Ripper, or the equivalent thereof.  Her favourite non-royal family story was the one where the new bank manager, after having been stabbed in the femoral artery, bled to death on the front steps of Standard Bank.  She proudly showed us pictures from every angle of the blood stained steps.

We all thought that Miss. Wilde was a bit suspect until one day she announced her impending marriage.  Apparently, she had been attending the funeral of one of the towns folk, when the grieving widower spied her through his tear-stained fingers.  He later told her that the reason he fell in love with her, was the fact that she had lovely clean white shoes.  The moral of the story being, never judge a book by it's hairstyle.

My aunt dies

Some very sad news came to my sisters and I while we were at boarding school.  My aunt, who lived on the farm next door to us, had died.  Life was never going to be the same again.  My mother had lost her friend and confidant and we had lost the free and easy way we had of popping into their house at a moments notice. 

The day she was buried was one of the saddest days I was yet to experience in my short eleven year life span.  It was cold and rainy, which seemed to echo the damp and depressed feelings we all had as a family. 

Her body had been placed in the rondavel next to their house, and it was from here that the procession to the grave site commenced.  None of my three cousins came to the funeral, and quite frankly, I didn't blame them.  I would have found it equally as difficult if the roles had been reversed.

We walked silently along the narrow footpath, the long wet grass brushing against our legs and clothing.  Gusts of wind blew the fine rain into our faces.  The ground was muddy and waterlogged.  After a short service of committal, the pall-bearers slipping and sliding on the mound of sodden black earth, lowered the coffin into the grave.  I had this hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, as I watched it disappear into the ground.  This was the very first close family funeral I had attended, and the realisation that my aunt would no longer be around in an earthly sense, had a very sobering effect on me.

Many people from the surrounding farms and the local dorp came to the funeral to pay their last respects, and as I observed all the faces later at tea, it occurred to me how few I was familiar with.  I knew old Mr. and Mrs. de Wet, but then everyone knew old Mr. and Mrs. de Wet.  I was particularly fasinated with the mouldy green fungi which grew all over the top of Mr. de Wet's head and down the sides of his temples, and I could only in retrospect imagine that Mrs. de Wet acquired her wardrobe by raiding the dress-up box at some nursery school.  I have seldom seen such an interesting combination of different period styles in a long time.  Other than that and one or two more people, I knew no one.

A lot of my inability to relate to people was aquired from my mother who was a bit of a recluse, and kept very much to herself.  Consequently we didn't get to visit too many of our neighbours in the farming community.  I think that having my aunt die, was very hard on my mother, as now there really was no one else for her to commuicate with, which caused to intensify her isolation.

Milk out of a stone

We once had a pet cow named Miranda.  She was the most docile of all cows and we could do almost anything to her and she would take it all in her stride.  We climbed up onto her broad back and attempted to ride her, and we even placed my fathers old raincoat over her and tried to climb up using the pockets as footholds.  She was the gentlest of creatures and would allow us to lie underneath her and squirt the milk from her teats straight into our mouths.  Deliciously warm and wonderfully frothy.

My father suffered greatly from ulcers, and spent a good deal of his life in bed.  It was during one of these periods of illness that early one morning my mother sent me down to the cowshed to bring back some milk for breakfast. 

It happened to be one of the coldest days of the year and the temperature was well below freezing point when I set off for the shed.  I'm not sure whether it was me an inexperienced milker, or whether it was the freezing temperature, but the cows just would not oblige.  Eventually I was crying with frustration.  The regular milkers were very sympathitic and offered to help me, but I declined their offer, feeling that my mother would be cross with me if I let someone else do the milking instead of myself.

After about an hour of squeezing this and pulling that and feeling throughly humiliated in front of all the milkers, I finally went home with a quarter of a bucket of dirty looking milk.  To add insult to injury, my mother was really angry that I had taken so long to get back and had so little to show for it.  Her insensitivity to what I had gone through to get the small amount I had, crushed me.  For heavens sake, I was only nine!

Wise old owl

Each year flocks of red beaked Finches would descend upon the sorghum and wheat fields, decimating them.  This was a great irritation to all the farmers.  In the evenings, the birds would fly in and settle down for the night in the grove of wattle trees in front of the vegetable garden.  On one particular evening, my father lay in wait for them with double-barrelled shotgun in hand. No sooner had they alighted onto the branches and stopped their twittering, then he blasted two shots right into the middle of them.  The air was thick with feathers.

My sisters and I ran around in the dusk collecting all the little bodies and putting them into a large, white enamel basin.  We counted one hundred and eight in all.  At the age of five, this was so exciting!  Something close to a treasure hunt.  I loved it!

When I turned eight, I inherited an airgun from my father.  It was very old, very heavy and very inaccurate, nevertheless I loved it, and spent a lot of time proudly marching around the farm in gumboots, taking pot shots at this and that.  I took it to my fathers workshop and securing it in his giant vice grip, did my best to adjust the sight, but to no avail.  If I happened to hit anything, it was by pure accident, and nothing more.

We had a large resident Owl living in the bluegum trees in front of the family plot.  I spied him one day looking down at me quizzically from the high branch he was sitting on.  Sometimes you do something, even when deep down right inside of you, you know you shouldn't, and this was one of those times.  I am ashamed to say that I lifted my gun to my shoulder, took aim and squeezed the trigger.  Luckily for the Owl, and for me, the sight was so far out, that the pellet missed him by a mile, smacking into the branch next to him with a resounding twack.

He turned his head round a hundred and eighty degrees, as only Owls can do, and gave me such a scornful look, as if to say "What are you doing now?"  The enormity of what I had just done hit me, and that act became a defining moment in my hunting career.  I vowed and declared at that point that I would never again point my gun at any other Owl that I might come across.  Doves and Mossies....yes, but Owls.... a definite NO

My pet pig Honk

One cold, rainy day, my father surprised me with a tiny bundle of joy.  He was the runt of a litter of eleven, and had all but given up the fight to stay alive.  As his little body grew thinner and all his energy drained away with the struggle to find a teat, so he found himself systematically squeezed out of the running by his bigger, sturdier siblings.  This tiny, icy cold, pink, limp body was put into my hands, and I had to do the best I could to firstly keep him alive, and secondly to get him to thrive.

I found an old shoe box and wrapping him in a piece of cloth, laid him in it.  The warmest place I could find was behind the coal stove in the kitchen.  There happened to be a gap between the stove and the wall, and this is where I lay him down.

To all our surprise he survived, and so started my love affair with Honk, my gorgeous, pink pig.  I used to feed him on milk which he drank out of a lemonade bottle with a teat at the end of it.  For me, it was far better than any doll I had ever had.  This was a warm, living, interacting human pig!

We did everything together.  He followed me around like a faithful dog.  When I called his name he came running to get his bottle.  He was part of the family and would run in and out of the kitchen at will.  As he grew bigger and stronger, he quickly graduated to vegetable peelings and milk slurped out of a bucket.  I loved my pig and it was one of the happiest times in my life.  He was my friend and soul pig! 

Unfortunetely, life I have found, is very often not all that it's cracked up to be, and that fateful day arrived when my father broke the sad news to me that Honk had to join his brothers and sisters in the "long walk" to the Escort bacon factory.  I was heartbroken!

One of the things about living on a farm, is that one learns to become fairly resilient from an early age.  I suppose I was slowing learning too, that nothing is forever, and that goodbyes always tear one's heart apart more than just a little. 

Open-air meal

I sat on my haunches, a respectful distance from the men as they congregated in a circle to eat their lunch.  The dust from the threshing machine was still thick in the air, almost like a miniture snow storm.  Bits of white powdery flakes clung to there clothing and nestled in their hair.  All was quiet except for the clinking of the packed lunches slowly being taken from tightly knotted cloth bags.

I watched closely as each lunch was opened.  Two enamel basins, one on top of the other, resembling small flying sauces.  One to hold the lunch and the other inverted to keep everything from drying out and spilling over. 

As the second basin was removed from the top, I could see what each man has brought from home.  All had the staple diet of mealie meal porridge with something extra included.  Milk to pour over the porridge, a helping of beans, a portion of spinich or pumpkin.  Only one man had nothing extra in his lunch pack.  Just the cold stiff porridge.  I remember feeling a great sadness as I watched him slowly dig his spoon into his basin.  I knew from my father that he was mentally slow, and I wondered if this was the reason why he had nothing more than just the stiff pap.

With the meal over and the basins stored away in their bags again, the talk amongst them was in quiet, muted tones, almost reverend.  A couple of cigarettes were rolled in brown paper and passed around the circle from one to the other.

I had the feeling of being in a giant open-air church or sitting in the presence of God.  It was a very special moment for me being close to these very dignified men and to vacariously take part in their humble meal.

Unnecessary accident

Our tractor driver, who happened to be a very good driver when sober, was anything but when drunk.  One Sunday afternoon, he took the tractor out for a spin in one of his drunken states, much to his detriment.

All the farm workers brewed their own sorghum beer, which was pretty potent stuff.  Sometimes my father would pop over to one of the huts and exchange a few stories over a ball jar full of beer.  I tried it a couple of times, but never acquired a taste for it.  Anyway, the tractor driver apparently staggered onto the tractor, slightly worse for wear, and singing and shouting in this inebriated state, drove helter skelter down the hill and straight into a donga, where the tractor overturned, crushing him underneath it.

The news came to my father that fateful afternoon, and I know he spent a lot of time away from home organising for the overturned tractor to be pulled off the body of the driver.  Fortunately, he had died almost immediately, but it was a terrible shock for his wife and children, who now had to contemplate life in an uncertain world without husband and father.  As for my father and the other farm workers, it was a shocking experience they could have well done without.

Picnics glorious picnics

My mother disliked picnics of any sort, but the rest of us loved them.  One of our best picnic spots was situated about ten kilometers away, on the banks of the Wilge river, a tributary of the Vaal.

With excitement mounting we would turn off to the right, just before the bridge, which crossed over the river the led up to the Lloyds farm, and make our way to the lower banks of the river to park our car under the willow trees.

Once the ground sheet had been laid and the car unpacked, we would scramble down the embankment to inspect the state of the river.  This particular part was divided into two sections.  A narrow stretch of water, as well as a much wider stretch, separated by a sand bank island.  This sand bank, made a wonderful sun bathing beach.

The river was full of boulders and stones, which were treacherous to negotiate without wearing tackies.  Many of them had been rounded through constant tumbling over the years.  Sometimes when the river was low,we would discover barble or yellowtail sunning themselves in the water between the rocks.

There were many significant parts to this stretch of river, and each one had to be religiously visited in turn.  The huge, hot, black boulders with holes gouged out of them through erosion, and often filled with rain water.  Wonderful hot rocks to warm up on when the sun disappeared behind a cloud, or we had been in the river for far too long.  Further up was a sloping waterfall, which we always slid down using old hessian bags.  It wasn't the smoothest ride, but we felt compelled to crawl our way to the top and make our bone-jarring, bumpy way down again.  Old habits dye hard!

The best part of the whole day, was to find a broken off dead branch of one of the willow trees, drag it into the river and using the current, float all the way down to the bridge  and beyond.  The speed at which we were swept down the river, depended on the amount of rain we had had that season.  Good rains would produce a thrilling ride.

When we went under the bridge, we always shouted and sang in order to hear our echos coming back to us.  Just past the bridge was a set of rapids, and this is where we would abandon our "raft" and make our way to the side of the bank.

Our weary trudge back to the picnic spot was filled with the high pitched singing of the cicada beetles and the intense heat of the sun beating down on our shoulders.  We always came away from those heady days at the river, burnt and stiff and feeling like life couldn't get any better than this.  And so we would wend our weary way back home, a satisfied bunch of frazzled children.

Archibald

During the lambing season, it wasn't uncommon for some of the ewes to reject their lambs.  If we happened to be home for the holidays when this happened, we were called upon to step into the breach and become susitute mothers, by looking after them.

There was a stone walled enclosure or kraal as it was known, next to the stables, which housed these precious little ones.  A large heap of soft hay was placed in one corner for the babies to lie down on.  They would have to be bottle fed a number of times a day, until they grew big enough to start eating grass.  As we were only able to feed them two at a time, and there were sometime four or five to look after, we would lie down on the hay and allow them to nibble our ears and toes, just to keep them happy and occupied.

One often thinks of lambs as being all soft and cuddly, but in actual fact, their coats feel more like Brillo pads than cotton balls.  All crinkled and rough in texture.  Still, they are wonderfully cute in the way they wiggle their tails when they are drinking, as well as their high pitched bleats.

At one point we did have three lambs living with us at the old house.  Fiona, Ramona and Gavin, but once they grew into sheep, we reluctantly had to integrate them back into the flock.

Long before we were born, my mother had a very special lamb called Archibald.  My mother looked after him from birth and doted on him like a child.  He used to follow her around everywhere like a pet dog, and when she called his name, would come running at full speed.  My mother adored him, and he obviously adored her. 

He did however, become a little too familar with his surroundings, when one day my mother found him firmly ensconced on her bed, but not before first having deposited a large pile of black beans in the middle of her bedspread!  I think it was then that my father decided to put his foot down and banish him forever from the inside of the house.  Poor old Archie!

Innocent horse

I once watched a horse being broken in, or so I thought at the time, but the beating and cruelty went on for far too long for it to be mearly a breaking of the horses spirit, in order to have it obey ones commands.  I couldn't understand at the time what was going on and wanted to cry out to the farm workers to stop.

The farm workers lived in mud huts at the top of the hill overlooking the dam next to the cowshed.  This is where it all took place.  The horse was eventually wild-eyed and foaming at the mouth.  At the point where it's eyes rolled back and it lay motionless on the ground, I turned and ran home, very aware of my impotence.  I remember crying and shouting all the way down the hill!  It all seemed so senseless to me!  So unfathomable! 

I suppose what shocked me the most was the the apparent delight derived from this act of cruelty.  The men were laughing and encouraging one another to greater acts of sadism!  I have subsequently learnt that in certain cultures young men are encouraged to kill an animal with their bare hands, but am not sure as to what end!  Perhaps as a show of bravery or perhaps to gain some power!

What I do know is that the more one involves oneself in acts of violence and sadism, the more one blunts ones senses, the greater is the possibility of becoming a psychopath!  I still weep inside when I think of that innocent horse!

Long drops

Until I was about the age of four, we used a "long drop".  You had to go out of the front door and onto the verandah, which ran the length of the house, down the steps, up the pathway, past the rondavel, through the little gate at the side and up to the corrugated iron structure standing next to the garage.

We only installed a flushing toilet after my mother saw a snake slither out of the open door one day.  It was then that my father decided it was high time to do a few alterations and additions.  He renovated the old bathroom, putting in a new bath and basin and building on a flushing toilet at the end.

My middle sister who was also very good at inventing interesting things for us to do, thought that instead of washing our feet in the bath, it might be fun to wash them in the toilet.  It was a really good game and we spent a lot of time pushing the lever down and enjoying the water rushing all over our feet.  It must have been the constant flushing noise, which alerted my mother to our game.  This got us into more trouble than we bargained for and we both got a jolly good hiding once again.

I always had a bit of a fascination for long drops.  Our next door neighbours not only had an adult long drop, but also a special seat for children, made out of cutting a hole in the one side of a tomato box.  Whenever we visited our neighbours Mr. and Mrs. B who were an elderly couple, and their spinster daughter Violet, I always made a bee-line for the loo, just so I could sit on top of the tomato box.  Somehow, it made me feel very special, like I was sitting on a throne.  There was no toilet paper, instead there were torn up bits of newspaper and magazines stacked in a box at the side.  This served a dual purpose.  One could spend time reading snippits of news in the process!

To my knowledge our next door neighbours never installed a flushing toilet, although Violet did tell my mother once that she didn't want any la-de-dah pig stys, so my guess is, that that might have included la-de-dah toilets as well!

Chewing tobacco

My father ran a trading store on our farm.  A beautiful stone chipped building, which stood to the left of the cobhouse and diagonally across the road from the front gate leading into the garden of the old house.  The shelves were filled with all sorts of things from candles and dry goods, to bolts of different coloured materials and tinned items.  I remember him telling me much later, that he stocked tins of sardines at a tickey a tin! 

At the back of the shop in his office, stood a large roll of chewing tobacco.  It looked very much like a big, thick, black, ball of rope.  If anyone wanted to buy a short section of this sort after commodity, there would be a big fight between the three of us, as to who would do the honours of chopping it off, using the miniature guillotine standing on my fathers desk.

It always fascinated me to watch the farm workers chewing on this rolled up, wet, cigar looking stuff.  The part I liked best, was after it had been sufficiently chewed, a long stream of dark tobacco juice would be spat onto the ground, a good metre away, followed by more chewing.  This alternate chewing and spitting would go on for most of the day, interspersed with small breaks when the plug of tobacco would be pushed up into the back of the cheek.  I did my best to imitate them, but only managed to dribble all down the front of my dress!

Each year the suppliers would send my father small squares of material in the latest range of colours.  These, he always passed on to me to play with.  I loved these little squares.  I think all in all there were thirty six.  I would line them up in a whole array of combinations.  All the checks here, the spots there and the florals there.  When they got a bit grubby from too much handling, I would wash and iron them, using a heavy iron, which had been heated up on the cob stove in the kitchen.  They were then carefully stored away in a box I kept in my drawer, to be pulled out and examined from time to time.

The shop proved not to be too successful, and at some point when I was quite young, he sold everything and closed it down.  Still, it gave us a lot of pleasure at the time, and the rolled tobacco, the chopping block and the tobacco juice remain one of my earlier, pleasant memories.

Wicker baskets

Wicker baskets

Two large wicker baskets stood on either side of the homely fireplace in our old house.  One held the split logs used to keep the fire stoked, while the other was piled high with cobs.  To the uninitiated, this was the backbone of the mealie after the threshing process had removed all the mealie pips, and a source of fuel used widely by those unfortunate not to have electricity. All the time while I was growing up on the farm, we used candles and paraffin lamps.  I can remember one Christmas holiday reading 14 books, half of them at night, by the light of a candle placed on my pillow.  I hate to think what might have happened had I fallen asleep before blowing it out!

Winters in the Free State were always freezing!  Far colder than in many other parts of the country, so sitting in front of a blazing fire in the evening, was very cozy.  

My sisters and I discovered that we could break off bits of the wicker basket and by holding them against a glowing ember, get quite a reasonable subsititute cigarette.  This then became a nightly ritual, so after bathing and having supper, we would all settle down next to the crackling, sizzling fire, and smoke our little bits of wicker basket.

My parents didn't seem to mind at all, and so this tradition was kept up for a number of years, even after we had moved to our new house at the top of the ridge and overlooking the dam next to the cowshed.

It was a great comfort to me to have this routine and sameness in my life, and was definitely a place where my sisters and I really bonded in quite a profound way.

Sheep minus their jerseys

Whenever there was a big occasion, like shearing the sheep for example, there was always a great deal of excitment and the air was electric with anticipation!

All the sheep were herded into the bottom part of the cowshed, where they milled around bleating and snorting and stamping their feet, as only sheep can do.  The middle section of the cowshed was where the workers congregated and the shearing took place.  The top part of the shed was reserved for the large sorting table and the equally large hessian bales, attached to the inside of sturdy, wooden, rectangular boxes.  Each box stood at just over two metres in height.

As each sheep was sheared, so was the fleece brought to the sorting table by the shearer.  My father would gather it up, and magically throw it in such a way that it covered almost the entire table.  Each fleece had to be examined minutely, and the quality determined.  It all had to do with the crimp!  Was it a tight crimp, or was it a loose crimp?  Once this was determined, and all the dirty wool had been removed and placed into a separate bag, it would then be assigned to the correct bale, ready to be trampled down.

This was the real fun part for us.  Our job was to to be inside the bale box, ready to trample down all the bundled up fleeces being tossed over the top and onto us.  We took this job very seriously and spent hours diligently stuffing the wool into every nook and cranny.  If I close my eyes and transport myself in my minds eye back to that event, I can still smell the distinctive sheepy smell of the wool and feel the oiliness of the fleece on my fingers.

Ever so often, one of the men would cut a large hole in the stomach of one of the sheep, which would then sadly have to be slaughtered.  I suppose if there had been a vet around, this could have been avoided, but seeing as nothing like that existed where we lived, the only thing left, was to kill the sheep and have a braai!  I often wondered if this was done on purpose, as it happened with great regularity.

The only downside to this happening, was that my sisters and I would come home covered in tiny red ticks.  I marvel at the fact that not once did we get tick bite fever, or if we did, we probably shrugged it off as just a bad headache!  Shearing time was indeed one of the highlights of farming life, and the memory of this delight will remain in the recesses of my mind forever as a warm, fuzzy feeling.

My Grandfather

When I was four and a half or so, my grandfather broke his hip.  My grandmother for reasons best known to herself, packed up all her belongings and moved down to the coast to live with her twin sister.  As far as I know, she never came back to live on the farm again during my grandfathers lifetime. 

From that time on, my bedridden grandfather spent half his time living with us in our outside rondavel and the rest of the time in the outside rondavel on the farm next door belonging to my uncle.

My sisters and I adored my grandfather, who would dispense sweets to us at regular intervals.  Early each morning my middle sister and I would rush into his room, just in time to catch the early morning exercises broadcast on the radio.  We would jump up and down on the spare bed in his room in time to the music.  He never seemed to mind us doing this and would smile at all our antics.

He used to allow us to clean his pipe ever so often, and we would take forever to do this chore, cleaning out the bowl and poking the tar out of the stem with a stick. The best part of it all was at the end, when we would suck and puff and blow on this nicotine stained, tar ridden pipe stem.  When I think of it now I shudder!

It was a sad day for all of us when my Grandfather died in his sleep while staying with my uncle.  His coffin was placed overnight in our rondavel, to await the funeral procession the following day.  This would make its way to the family plot on the other side of the pig sty. My big sister had been instructed by my father to take all the grandchildren for a walk while the funeral was taking place.  I was six years old at the time.

We climbed to the top of the hill where the famous blue gum tree stood surrounded by prickly pears, and solemnly watched the cortege move silently to the Cyprus tree enclosed family cemetery.  I wasn't too sure I was allowed to watch the proceeding, because we had been forbidden to look through the window at the coffin in the rondavel.  Of course we had, and so there was a little twinge of guilt mixed in with the sadness that day, and it was this which coloured the entire experience for me.

Thunder and Lightning

My big sister who always had these brilliant ideas on what next to do in the holidays, suggested that we take a blanket and walk to the camp on the far side of the farm, and have a picnic there.  At the time, two of our cousins were staying with us.  A girl cousin and a boy cousin.

Off we set, omitting to tell anyone where we were heading.  After about an hour, we arrived at our destination, a large gully running into a dam.

Being the height of summer, we clean forgot that more often than not, summer thunder storms would make their appearance from mid to latish afternoon.  As luck would have it, up came the most violent, scary thunder storm to beat all thunder storms.  All we could do was huddle together under the blanket, which afforded no protection whatsoever!  All it did was block out the flashes of lightning which constantly ripped across the sky followed by massive claps of thunder.

We all crouched at the side of the gully, with water rushing beneath us and rain pouring down through the blanket on top of us.  We were terrified!  After what seemed like a very long time, the lightning and thunder subsided, the rain stopped and the sun, the glorious sun came out once more.

We crawled out from under the blanket and surveyed the scene.  Water was rushing everywhere.  Down the gully, and into the dam.  Rivulets were making there way through the grass and forming little puddles.  My middle sister slipped at the top of the gully and promptly found herself sliding all the way to the bottom on her rear end.  That was all the encouragement we needed.  Throwing caution to the wind, we stripped off our clothes down to our nickers and shrieking with laughter proceeded to have a whale of a time sliding down the embankment again and again.  We were covered in mud, but couldn't care less.

Our hilarity however, came to an abrupt end when over the rise we spied my aunt.  By the look on her face, she could have given the storm a good go!  She seemed more angry that we had gone off without having told anyone where we were going to, than glad that we had not been struck by lightning!  I wasn't sure which was more scary, my aunt or the storm, but by the time we arrived home, I knew without a shadow of a doubt, that it definitely had to be my aunt.

We all got a good telling off that night but my big sister being the eldest, bore the brunt of it.  To make matters worse, we had left the soggy blanket behind.  Was it all worth it?  You can bet your bottom dollar it was!  We would have done it again at the drop of a hat.

cranky cow

As children we had a myriad of pets.  You name it, we had it.  Cats by the score, dogs, lambs, pigs, meercats, sonkykers and even a porcupine for a short time.  We also adopted horses and cows which roamed around the farm. 

My big sister was wonderful at inventing things to do, and my middle sister and I were always happy to try out her suggestions.  On one occasion she thought that we should all go to the cowshed and each select a cow to milk.  We thought this was an excellent idea, and set off immediately running past the stables, the reservoir and the windmill and bursting into the warm cowshed with its special cow pat sort of smell.

We each grabbed a bucket and a milking stool, which my father had made by sawing up sturdy logs and attaching heavy wire handles to the tops.  We walked up and down the two rows of cows who were contentedly chewing the cud, and made our selection.  I was the last to find a cow which took my fancy and in doing so, proceeded to place my stool round the side, next to her back legs.  Confidently sitting down, I clenched the bucket between my knees and  reached forward for one of the four teats.  It was then that I saw stars!  I had chosen the most bad tempered and wildest of all the cows we had, and she didn't take kindly to having a mere novice mess around with her undercarriage!  She lifted her leg and swiftly gave me a hoof right in the middle of my chest.  I went flying across the cement floor!

That night at bath time, the hoof mark could be clearly seen and for many days thereafter.  As for the old cow....I gave her a wide berth after that electrifying experience!

sausages and biltong

"Wake up!  It's time to make the sausages!"  This was one of the most exciting times of the year for us as children.  The time to make sausages and biltong once more. The slaughtered pig had to be lifted up on hooks attached to a cross bar at the end of a long pole, and dunked into a forty four gallon drum of boiling water.  This enabled the hair on the pig's body, which was hard and bristly, to be softened and thus more easily scraped off using a knife or a piece of tin.

There was always an air of great excitement, as together with the farm labourers we crowded round to get a piece of the action.  Once the hair had been scraped off, it was then time to remove the toenails, using a large pair of pliers.  As a child I was always intrigued by the pink toes which emerged.  To my young mind, it looked as if the pig had had her toes painted with nail polish.

The smooth pink body of the pig was hung overnight in our garage, together with the ox, ready to be cut up in the morning.  Somehow, the skinning of the ox wasn't quite as exciting as the scraping of the pig, and so the words, "wake up, it's time to make the sausages", was a stimulant like no other.  In a flash we were up and dressed and with the morning just beginning to show signs of breaking, we burst into the garage, ready to do battle.

We all had a chance at turning the handle of the mincing machine.  Once all the meat had been minced and seasoned, a funnel had to be placed on the end of the machine and the sausage skins pulled onto it.  The skins we used came from the pigs small intestine, which had to be turned inside out and thoroughly washed to rid them of all impurities.  The minced meat was then pushed once more through the machine to come out the other end as one long sausage, ready to be twisted in to a bunch of smaller sausages.

Then came the biltong.  What wasn't cut into joints for roasting, or minced up to be made in to boerewors, was then sliced into large strips for biltong.  This was threaded on to long pieces of thick string and hung from the rafters in one of the out buildings.  After a few days, the temptation to cut small pieces of meat off the ends of the strips was always there, and we found ourselves going again and again to sample the product and determine how much more drying was required.

The highlight of the sausage making was that at breakfast that morning we always had wonderful, fresh, juicy sausages and succulent pork ribs.  A sort of piggy heaven had descended upon us once more for a short time.

From a cow to a bicycle

My grandparents lived on the farm next to ours, together with my uncle, aunt and cousins.  It was exactly three miles from our house to theirs, and in modern day terms, that would be approximately four and a half kilometers.  My grandfather gave both of my sisters and my one cousin a cow.  My other cousin and I were not yet on the scene, so we lost out on that one.  My big sister named her cow Buttercup, while my middle sister named hers Eggcup.  It was all very well owning a cow, but my middle sister really wanted a bicycle, so my father sold her cow and when she turned six she was given a fairy-cycle.  In hindsight, I can now see that she actually paid for her own present that year.

My middle sister who was a very determined character, spent two days riding around the tennis court until she mastered the art of riding a bicycle, then she promptly proceeded to ride to the next farm, to proudly show my grandparents what she had achieved.  I'm not sure whether she rode back or not, but suspect that my father drove up to fetch her.

The bicycle proved to be a great success with all of us, and even when I grew out of it, I still scrunched up and rode for hours on my own in great looping figures of eight, daydreaming all the while, as my sisters endured the rigors of boarding school.

I always wanted my own bicycle, but never owned one until an uncle of mine died when I was in my thirties and living in a big city, and left me a small inheritance.  The first thing I did, was buy that bicycle.  Unfortunately the satisfaction of eventually owning a bicycle, was not forthcoming.  My needs had changed.  What I wanted then was quite different from what I wanted now.  I had forgotten to do a reality check.  In any event, someone jumped over our wall and stole my bike a few years later, so that was the end of that.  Very much later I bought an exercise bike, which turned out to be about useful as a leg of lamb at a vegetarian dinner party!

Sheep to the slaughter

Sheep to the slaughter.

Farm life is very different from town life.  Some of the things which farm children take in their stride, could be seen as rather offensive to city dwellers.  For instance, ever so often we slaughtered a sheep.  This was always done by our shepherd, an elderly man by the name of Pompi.  He would cut the jugular vein and allow the sheep to bleed to death.  Without knowing it, we were a sort of Kosher and Halaal combination all rolled in to one!

After skinning the animal, which I loved helping him do, by pushing my small fist into the space between the skin and the flesh, he would slit open the gut and remove the entrails.  Attached to the wonderfully smooth textured, reddish-brown liver, was the gall bladder.  This had to be carefully removed so as not to spill any of the vile contents on to the edible offel.  He would take the gall bladder between his broken and crushed thumb and his first finger and throw it as far as he could into the veld.  My middle sister and I, who didn't have too many toys, would watch where it landed, pick it up, wash it off and proceed to have a marvelous game tossing it backwards and forwards to one another like a small ball.  What fun! 

As the days grew colder, so did our bare feet begin to feel the chill of the ground.  Because of this change in the seasons, it was perfectly logical for us to look forward to tramping in the contents of the stomach which he emptied out onto the grass.  We relished the thought of warming our feet in this hot, steamy, although extremely smelly mush.  We would squeal with delight as the yellowish-green liquid squelched through our toes.  Later that night, we would squeal to a different tune, as our mother did her best to rid us of the sour smell lingering on our feet and following us around for many days to come.  And so it goes!

In the middle of nowhere!

Living in the middle of nowhere has advantages and disadvantages.  Peace and quiet, the ability to commune with nature, getting to know oneself, being able to observe people and events in a way that those who have been brought up in busier communities are probably unable to do.  The downside of growing up on a farm is that it can be difficult to relate to people, if they haven't been the focus of your attention from an early age.  I had no idea what to do with all these children when I found myself thrust into boarding school at the age of nine and a half.  I had grown up a bit on the wild side.  Perhaps I had a problem with discipline.  Who knows?  All I know is that when I was literally caught running across the quad after supper that first evening, I proceeded to sink my teeth into the prefects arm!  After that indiscretion, I discovered later, that I was dubbed the "problem child".  Thus, my first taste of civilization, such as it was.