April 2000
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A visit to the midwife Please double click on images to enlarge We met with the nursery man who is bringing our 12,000 babies into the world. A more charming philosophical and amusing guy you couldn't meet. We had a few glasses with him on his beautiful farm where, from the vine blocks, there are impressive views of Table Mountain. As I say, vines love a good view. Redvers was beginning to persuade us that "organic doesn't work" and it was a waste of our time (he the sceptic). We were losing our faith. As it was we had been tearing our hair out trying to find a source of organic product (fertilizer etc) in SA. We were beginning to resign ourselves to the full chemical treatment. As we were leaving in a couple of days we decided to sample the Tulbagh nightlife and headed for one of the few bars in town. We got talking to some of the young people at the bar. One of them happened to run Cape Organics and had popped over to Tulbagh for a beer (50km each way!). We got talking and he invited us over to see his farm the next day. We called it fate...we must be destined to prove that "organic does work". We visited his table grape farm which is now almost exclusively organic. This is a superb and obviously highly successful commercial venture. They also produce and market organic composts and additives that will bring the life back into the soil. Modern chemical techniques have over only the last 40 years or so reduced the role of the soil to simply a medium for supporting the plant. The farmer then adds the water and chemicals to make the plant grow. He is then entirely reliant on the additives that are sold to him by the chemical companies. On the other hand, a few years of nurturing the soil properly and the correct microorganisms, earthworms and other organisms will return. Then additives (even organic ones) will be needed less and less. Few people realize that earthworms are non-existent in the sterile soils of most modern farms. All sceptics of organic farming should visit Cape Organic's immaculate 2000 hectare farm. The dam work continues. As our major civil engineering project has used up all the scrapers and dozers in a 100 km radius and is still ongoing we decide to postpone the second dam improvement until next summer. The winter rains are due any day and we don't want all this heavy plant getting bogged down on our farm and not being able to move until next summer, especially on their hourly rates! One evening on our last visit we were taking a stroll up to the dam and were amazed to see the whole dam wall moving in the twilight. It seems this is the evening sun-bathing spot for a troop of 30 or so pretty nonchalant baboons. One of the old males had been thrown out of the troop and, standing over 1 metre at the shoulder, was a pretty awesome sight as he meanderd slowly just outside the garden fence. He has decided that he really is a bit too senior and crusty to be scared by a bunch of humans having a braai. Snakes are common too. One morning, when taking some feed to the horse in the paddock at the back of the garden, Manie noticed something in the long grass and stopped dead. Jane his wife, following his gaze, saw a large black snake and screamed. The snake was frightened by Jane and decided to disgorge it's breakfast - a large rat - which it expelled in a perfect arc through the air, landing 20 feet away. Thus proving that one scream from Jane is enough to put anyone off their breakfast!
How dangerous are these snakes? Well it depends what sort of state you are in when you meet them. According to Redvers one of his staff was ambling home after a Friday night drinking session when he fell into a large drainage ditch. He had the misfortune to land directly onto a cobra which was mighty upset and bit him 24 times. The guy was found by his mates as they wandered along the same route home and Redvers was roused from his bed to drive him to the local first aid station from where he was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital 30km away. Even though it was well over an hour before he had any anti-serum he was back working on the farm as good as new a week later. A final note on the nature of man and beast. We inherited an old cow with the farm. The only thing we weren't actually billed for! Maybe because we had assigned no monetary value to it, it promptly died. Granted it was old and had lived a lovely life in the paddocks of this mountain idyll, but it was sad to see it die. This was not the first thought that crossed the minds of the farm staff who seemed to ascribe no sentimental value to it at all. Far from it - they were happy to butcher it on the spot and after an hour or so of grizzly chopping with saws and axes and big knives it was as if the beast had never existed. The staff were happy though, which I was always taught was essential in a thriving business. No wonder the horse sleeps standing up. If you lie down on this farm you're sausages! Copyright © 2000 Tulbagh Solutions. All rights reserved.
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