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.