I had now tried all the tried and trusted methods of making snails go off to better pastures, but without any success, and the clan just seemed to grow and grow, sailing rings around the beer that I specially bought and put at convenient spots for them to have a tipple, get heartily drunk, and hopefully drown, Ronalee having again given me a lecture about using chemical stuff to get rid of the pests in my garden. I am already using a mixture of garlic, rosemary and a small flower that we call an 'Afrikaner', but I forgot the botanical name used in the rest of the world, but that is so vile that I did not want to spray my strawberries and other fruit with it.
Although it was now autumn, my strawberries were still sporting some beauties, but the snail problem became so bad that I had almost none for my own tummy, and many a day my voice could be heard ecchoing over the quiet valley, as frustration at the demolishing of my breakfast earmarked for the next day! Must say, was a bitty shocked at my use of both the Afrikaans and English languages, and if someone would have told me that it was just the beginning of my swearing vocabulary, I would of course just have laughed!
I have by now harvested the last of my butternuts, which I blanched and bottled, ready for use when I came back from Scotland, as it would be Spring then, time for planting my new crops, but veggies would be scarce, and very expensive.One of the village women had told me that I can actually dry a lot of veggies, like pumpkin, butternuts, and even beans, which would apparently go all brown, but when boiling up again, a pinch of baking soda would revive and bring back the colour!, Between the snails, and Skramunkel who ate up all my roses, and Sheila's bally Peacocks who wrecks everything in their way, and scared me to death night after night sitting screaming on my roof, I had quite a stressful time, as I was looking to maybe start growing strawberries commercially, seeing that they grow so well in Haarlem, but I had to first get a way to get rid of the snails and the Peacocks without poisening my prospective buyers! At this stage I had no idea about what to do about the Peacocks, as, when I complained to Sheila, she told me to just shoot them! So I got myself a catapult, and spend many hours trying to get the stones I meant to use go further than two yards, if I was lucky!
I was also toying with the idea of growing roses, as the climate in the Langkloof valley is much the same as that in Brittain, the only real difference being that our summer is from December to February, and of course, our sun is a killer! But roses of course also thrived on my plot, and when one night I saw that one ounce of rose oil costs about £200, I was all fired up to start planting then and there, but decided to do some research before rushing into spending a lot of money and my hard to build up energy, and I promptly went onto the internet, but that thing had the ability to crush anybody's bright ideas! I was all fired up reading about the families in Bulgaria and Turkey, who grows this acres of roses, was crushed a bit when the site mentioned that those two countries were just about the only places with the right climate, and was still okay when I saw that the picking could only be done at dawn, as of course I would get a helper, and he could do the picking, as I would do the rest. But when it came to how many roses are needed to make that ounce of oil, my enthusiasm plunged to the soles of my feet! I had to read that piece again, then went to another sight, believing that there was a wee little mistake on the previous one, but when that one also told me in nice fat letters that about 2000 roses are needed for an ounce of rose oil, I felt defeated, and made a strong cuppa to get over the shock!That was a sad end to a big dream!
But I had to put all my plans on ice for a while, as the time for me going back to work was fast approaching, and I had a lot to do around making my house safe. I was sorry to go away just then with all this plans milling my head to a pulp, but as I needed the money, there was no getting out of it. On the other hand, I loved Scotland, where I had so much freedom, and so many good friends, and the safety factor was so important, as I could of course camp out for the night anywhere without being accosted in any way, where here at home I don't even walk down to my own river after dusk.
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