Organic Farming at Overthere Farm

On Tuesday 7^th April we headed to the Byrne Valley near Richmond. We had arranged to stay for three weeks with the Graaf family who run a small organic farm on the hillside.

The family

The farm is home to Gerry, Marcella, and their two daughters Mirte and Femke. There are also two tenant families in houses in the lower property. It was always interesting to spend time with the family, the conversations we had were always fascinating and we learnt so much from all of them. The girls are homeschooled and it was wonderful to see how engaging learning was for them. This was really inspiring for me because I often found school to be somewhat of a chore, but the family reminded me how captivating learning new things can be.

Ruby, Mirte, Gerry, Femke, Marcella and me with three of the dogs – Brabazon, Gwynever and Raven.

The Farm

The farmhouse has been converted from four separate farm buildings and steadily built up into a lovely home over the last couple of decades. The goats have a little building just outside the dairy and the other animals roam around in the many different fields around the farm. Some of the fields have electric fences around them to stop certain animals from trying to escape from where they’re supposed to be. A path leads down from the dairy into a vegetable garden, full of fruit trees, vegetables and herbs. It was also where the volunteer accommodation was, a building that once housed chickens, but now housed us. There was a separate volunteer kitchen, shower and bathroom just down past the vegetable garden. Outside was a water tank called a donkey boiler which we would have to warm up with a fire for at least half an hour to have hot water for a shower.

Overthere Farm

Orange trees in the vegetable garden

our last morning

Heating water for a shower

Their volunteer map

Hay field

Playing games at the fair arranged by Femke and Zoya (neighbour)

The animals

There were over 50 animals on the farm, so there were lots of names to learn. There were also plenty of interesting characters among them! There were 4 Great Danes who were all really friendly and loved attention, which was a challenge to start with because of their size but we soon got used to them. 5 cats, one of whom was particularly happy to meet us and lived with us in the volunteer building. There were also 22 goats and over 20 cows, I didn’t manage to learn all of their names but as long as you know the names of the dominant females you can herd them and the rest will follow. There was also a bull called Humphrey who was usually well behaved and followed the other cows, but he would sometimes deliberately just stand in the way of what we were doing and show us his horns. Only Gerry was able to move him if he was being stubborn. There were lots of chickens who provided fresh eggs and de-ticked the cows when they came up for milking. There was a horse, a mule and a donkey. The donkey was particularly friendly and loved coming over to watch us work. Finally, the pigs. There was a boar called Crispy, two sows called Sproet and Rusty, and 18 piglets when we first arrived. Rusty took a particular shine to me and would not leave me alone for a few days when she came on heat. It was very flattering but she’s just not my type.

Me and Brabazon

Ruby and Brabz

Brabz and Ermentrude

Ruby, Gwyny and Raven

Our cat Smoglin

Me and Smoggy

Ruby and Smoggy

Under the covers

Smoglin’s mum, Shock

Dartanian

Crispy the boar

Dirty piglet

Rusty talking to me

piglets looking for food

Tapa the donkey by our kitchen

Cricket the mule, Red the Horse and Tapa the donkey

Humphrey the bull

Hera the misbehaving goat

Dogs and cows chillin’

Rusty had a phase of pestering Humphrey

Humphrey and Pearl

A newborn calf!

Calf

There was, of course, also a wide range of wildlife in the area. We saw lots of birds, including Crowned Cranes flying in to roost in the evenings, as well as cheeky Vervet Monkeys and lots of insects.

Vervet monkey

wasp

praying mantis

grasshopper creature

common fiscal with some food

Lanner Falcons

malachite kingfisher

The work

There was always a variety of work to be done and lots of new skills to learn. Every morning would start with collecting leftovers from the kitchen of the hotel next door for the pigs. After that we would be given our jobs for the day. Jobs included milking goats, shoveling up goat poo and using at as manure in the veg garden or dropping it into the methane digester (used to produce fuel from animal waste), herding cows or goats, burning things, chopping wood, pulling weeds, digging trenches, making a concrete manhole for pipes to the methane digester, building concrete slopes towards a drain near the dairy so that cow poo could be flushed into the methane digester, watching the goats and making sure they behave themselves, collecting wild pears for the pigs or helping collect ingredients for supper or bake bread for the following day. The variety in jobs kept things interesting and meant we never got bored of the work we were given.

Herding

Pig feeding time was always chaos

Collecting nuts

digging a trench

the methane digester

Laying concrete

tada!

We spent a whole day making hay

Chopping weeds with a bushknife

Burning stuff

The surroundings

On our days off we would often take a walk into the village of Byrne itself, where there was a small tea garden in one of the resident’s back garden. They served delicious fresh food and drinks and it was nice to have a change of scenery and relax there. There was also a forest uphill from the village which was great to walk in on hot days because it was so shaded. One day we also walked up to the peak just north of the forest where we got an amazing view of the valley and the Drakensberg Mountains in the distance.

The local shop

The tea garden!

The teagarden’s resident dogs, Nugget and Puff

yum

Walking up the hill

View from the top

Moving On

After our three weeks were up, the farm welcomed two new volunteers who are on an extended honeymoon and I’m sure they’ll have a great time there. We packed our bags and spent the morning saying goodbye to the animals and the family. We’re so grateful for their hospitality and company, we had a very special time and wish them all the best for the future. Thank you!

Now we are back in Howick where we will spend a few more weeks organising and volunteering before flying to Botswana.

A Spalding Surprise

On our way back to Howick we stopped off at a small charity shop and I got a surprising little reminder of home. In a large box full of old books was one which instantly stood out to me – “SPALDING”. Somehow, thousands of miles from Spalding in a tiny charity shop in KwaZulu-Natal I had stumbled across a book full of old black and white pictures of the town and some of its buildings. It seems that I just can’t escape that place!

Look what I found!

Old pics of the town centre

Calling Home

We were lucky enough last week to be able to get onto Skype and I got to see some of my family for the first time since we left over two months ago. It was great to see my mum, Craig and Natalie and have a little chat with them. There have been a couple of days in the last few weeks where I’ve really missed being at home and spending time with the people (and creatures) who are dear to me. And a couple of times where I have questioned why I’m on the other side of the world from them. But time is flying by really quickly out here, we’re keeping very busy, have met some wonderful people and had some fantastic experiences. We want to see as much of Africa as we can whilst we are here, it is a truly magical place. But rest assured I will be very excited to see familiar faces when we are flying back to England in a few months’ time 🙂

Take care everyone! x