Oh, was ever a woman so disgusted! I took my little bowl to collect some strawberries, and instead of finding some red and succulent fruit, there were heaps of bird poo, and of my strawberries nothing were left. I was devastated, but then realised that it must have been the peacocks that were on my roof the previous night. I was beginning to feel a bit antagonistic towards Sheila, as her animals were very strange, and ate just anything that came their way. A horse is not like that, eating very fussilly, and mainly just grass. My trees that the cows have so nicely chopped off with their oversized teeth, had formed a few new leaves, but I have made peace with the fact that I will have Olive, Almond, Pomegranate, and naartjie bonzai trees, as the poor traumatized things are not growing any taller after being eaten up so many times, but the poor Macadamia gave up the struggle and dwindled away! Luckily I had picked all the ripe and still ripening tamatoes for jam and chutney, and the birds had left the green ones in peace!
I had a nice field of patatoes, whose flowers had just died off, and with murder towards the bally peacocks still burning strongly in my chest, I decided to have a look and see if I had a worthwhile crop, so I donned my water boots, not because it was very wet, but because there were some pretty mean snakes around! My potato crop put the smile back on my face, as there were plenty, and all of them just the right size, and I took out enough for a week, as I was told that it kept better underground! Oh, they were the sweetest and tastiest ever, and reminded me of the Ayrshire tatties in Scotland!
It was also apple picking season, and we could buy apples very cheaply, as of course the Langkloof (Long Valley) is known for its apples, some of which I now saw for the first time, as all the best and rarer ones were of course sent to foreign markets, with the result that we here get mostly second grade, while the third graders are made into juice.
Sometimes vendors came to my door with this quite unknown and wonderful species, and sell it cheaply, and it was quite some time before I realized that it was stolen from the farms where they worked. But anyhow, I had a taste of fresh from the trees, export apples before I had to say no thank you, I do not buy stolen apples, while my eyes almost popped from looking at the perfect fruit they insisted on showing me! But the fruit we bought from the farmers was also fresh, and as I was used to the apples in the shops that had been in cool rooms for ages, this was like heaven to me.
I boiled up most of the batches I bought, then bottled most, and kept a few holders full in the freezer, from which I made apple pies and strudels.
My butternuts were having a good summer, and as a result they brought forth so many fruit that I just couldn't eat them all, and as all my neigbours had veggie gardens themselves, I had to make a plan, as I did not want to waste them. So I bought a lot more glass jars, and after preparing it, I blanched the cut up butternuts, and bottled it. I thought it a great way to make sure that I had veggies for the months when one butternut would cost about as much a a whole bag full at the moment.
Hendrix and self were now living together quite comfortably, and I had decided that to try and keep him from his daily visits was a shame, so when he crawled on his tummy around the house and then through the hole he had made for himself in the fence, thinking that he was invisible, I turned a blind eye! He was just a little playful boy always on the look-out for a playmate or two, that thought because he loved the whole world, the whole world loved him too!