Picked some pears today, and did some bottling. The pears on our homesteads are very old , kind of hard , and very small, but they are as sweet as honey.
I have applied for my electricity to be seperated from my son's, as the two places used to belong to one family, and they had electricity installed in my house from their box. As up to now the next door place belonged to first Irma, and then to Jan, we kind of shared the invoice.
But Jan was talking more and more about moving back to a city, as it was too difficult for him to cope with the children and his job that took him to Johannesburg such a lot. I like to be prepared, as I knew that Eskom, our electricity provider was very slow, maybe they had a lot of backlogs, but after applying, they told me it could take up to four or five months! So I waited.
I went to Capetown with Jan and the kids, and we had a lovely time, until Jan was contacted by the Uniondale police, telling him that our houses were burgled! I felt quite sick, as the crime in Haarlem was becoming just to much to feel safe. We immediately packed up, thanked Trienkie and Erna, Jan's friend that he was staying with, and set off back home.
Jan's house was ransacked, all his computers stolen, a lot of electrical stuff, and also Nina's expensive camera. They also took Andreas's toy gun brought from Denmark by Nina's sister, maybe thinking that it was real, as it did look like the real thing. My house was untouched, but they had broken my car's window, and the police thought that they wanted to steal it, but the wheels had locked, and they couldn't push it out onto the road.
They had at first tried to pry the rubber away from the glass to just open the window, but in the process the door was scratched and dented badly.
Poor Jan was devastated, as they had even took his sittingroom carpet, but he was in a state about the computers, as he does all his work on that.
The police from Uniondale was very good, while the Haarlem lot was not featuring at all. It is said that our police are in cahouts with the thieves, and when they found a gas spray used by the police under one bed, we were sure that it must be so. The gas spray cans used by the police have a number, and this one was indeed traced to one of our policemen in Haarlem. He swore that it was stolen from his house!
The people in Haarlem are really good. One of the thieves came to this woman's house, wanting to sell a play gun for a minimal amount. As the woman could see that it was an expensive toy, she alerted the Uniondale police. Within about three days four men were picked up, but what happened to the policeman whose gas spray was found in Jan's house was never revealed!

I now had more time on my hands, so I started operation killing the moles again. I was beginning to get seriously annoyed with this little pests, as I just could not find them, and sometimes I followed a tunnel for meter upon meter, without a sign of any creeping mole, and I must have appeared quite crazy, creeping on my knees across the homestead! I had no idea what kind of animal I was looking for, and expected to at least find something! But it was like I had to do with some or other bally ghost gogga, and when I saw how my lawn started to just get brown and die, I turned to Google for information.
I never knew anything about a cricket mole, as everybody told me that the tunnels just below the surface, with others running underneath at about the depth of eighteen inches, was made by the creeper moles. I have tried everything on the market for moles, but nothing stopped the devastation of my plants.
I lost a shrub of about five feet also during the last few weeks, and am still very upset about my beautiful vine that was killed.
According to information on Google, the pests in my garden are cricket moles, and according to the description, that was exactly what I had to try and fight. A Cricket Mole, or Mole Cricket, is something like a grasshopper, and this thing has the ability to tunnel away all the soil from underneath your plants, and as they can go as deep as eighteen inches, they are really a threat to every thing with roots. But they are not the biggest threat to your plants, as the larvae poses just as big a threat, as they chew away on your plant roots. That is then why my grass is dying, as they live just below the roots.
According to the information I got, it is of absolutely no use trying to get rid of the crickets, as they can not be found, and very few people have actually seen one tunneling.
Today I became quite murderous, and decided to burn the dry grass that had died as a result of this pests, so I got the irrigation pipe ready in case the fire ran away, then emptied a bottle of turps all over, that because the matches nowadays are rubbish and don't burn long enough to light the grass, and after finishing the whole box without success, set the lot alight with my cooker's lighter.
Then I ran like a scared rabbit to open the water, as I couldn't open it before, the stream being very, very strong! All was going so well, and I stood watching with glee as the flames consumed the grass, hoping that the bally larvae were burning to cinders! It was quite hard to hold the thick hose, as the pressure is amazingly strong, of course because it is a steep fall from the dam to our plots. And then, just as all was going so well, the few clouds that were hanging above Haarlem for three days in a row, decided that they would play a bitty, and started shedding their drops! It was quite a hard shower, and it killed my fire, and I had to run to close the irrigation connection, and was a bitty wet and cross!
 But the rain was very welcome, as we don't get a lot of that, so I wasn't cross for long, thinking about my veggies that needed a good wetting!

Between the baboons who have now decided that there were interesting things up at the houses, and the fruit thieves, I was just about a nervous wreck. As Jan was away again, and his house being so quiet, the baboons started to take big chances, and made a bally mess by raiding the trash bins, and stripping the peach trees.
But as they were only wild animals looking for food, I never got cross at them, for stealing that is, but I got livid every time I had to pick up baby nappies that was ripped open, and all other kinds of garbage. The other thieves now, who raided their own peoples's orchards and sell the fruit on the black market I think, made me extremely cross.
A few nights ago I couldn't sleep as the dogs belonging to the few families living on the apple farm across the river were barking and barking, and at about two o'clock I got up to make a cuppa, when I noticed a few weak lights flickering amongst the apple trees. I put off the kitchen lights to have a better look, but couldn't really see anything but the lights darting in and out of the trees.
I went back to bed quite puzzled, as there is no spraying or pruning at the moment, the picking being in full swing. It troubled me so much that I slept fitfully, until at about five that morning I heard danny, my neighbour across the road, and the one I did not trust, start his truck. I almost fell out of bed, as during the night I had come to the conclusion that the thieves were busy again in the orchards, and I had remembered then that Danny had gone out and came back towing a trailer the previous afternoon.
And there was Danny pulling out of his yard with the trailer loaded to the top with a kind of black canvas covering the load. I was sure that it was a load of apples, but to talk to the local police was useless, and dangerous, as most of them were just as corrupt as Danny himself. After charmaine told me once that a family who had gone to the Uniondale police because they had seen some funny things going on next door to them, had burned to death in their house one night, I was not getting involved.
I went to see Ronalee the next day, and told her about this, and she adviced me to phone the police and ask them to keep a watch in the orchards, or to phone them when I saw something funny again, but as I am alone with the kids so much, I decided to let it go for the moment.
What really bogs me is the fact that this farm had been given to a group of original owners of the land, and as they had never farmed or grew anything in their lives, they had an upward struggle to keep things going straight for them. They had some experiencing in pruning and spraying, and at first employed the previous farmer to help them get going, but were now on their own, and struggling, but managing.
Instead of Danny going to work on this farm, and make some money, he is stealing from this, his own people, and that makes me see red, and I realize that I can't just let the stealing go on!

The peach tree standing so close to the fence was giving me grey hair, as every bit of cattle, horses and sheila's goats were having a go at it! I was shoo-shooing the whole day, as it was the only tree whose peaches ripened at this time, and it was also the most delicious of all the trees.
I had to go out to get my tablets from the clinic , but as there was a whole troupe of cattle busy eating away again on the peach tree, it was hard for me to get out, seeing that the moment I opened the gate, the whole lot would be inside in a second!
I decided to go out the small gate, and chase them away with the big hose, as no matter how loudly I bellowed, this lot was not going to move. What I failed to notice that the whole lot were young bulls, including the one that gave me quite a scare before. So I opened the irrigation intent on blowing this lot away like I did with the goats the other day, and as the water pressure was extremely strong, I was kind of shaken around like a leaf in the wind, (almost), but managed to get the scare the lot into ambling away.
They were not giving up though, as just when I had closed the water again, the whole lot came back, and I became a wee bit upset, as the pills could only be got between ten and twelve, and I had to get them.
Again I opened the water, and the whole lot left again, all except the young stroppy bull that wanted to attack me before. I stood my ground, but my heart was pumping wildly, as this thing just kind of stuck his nose in the air, and stormed!
The water did not scare him the second time round, and after a desperate attempt to give him a full shot in the face, I sprinted back to the safety of my yard, wondering how on earth I was going to get my car out. The young bull stood blowing bubbles of rage, pawing wildly at the soil, and his eyes scared the last bit of bravado out of me.
I decided to give him another water blast, as I was in quite a state, and after some heavy breathing and headshaking, the bull decided to call it a day. I think he realized that his buddies were already some way down the road, and maybe he did not have such a lot of guts without back-up!Mmmm! Don't think so!
I made sure that the cattle were out of sight before I opened the gate.
The roaming cattle of the villagers are a problem sometimes, as they just step into the roads in front of oncoming cars, and there had been already a lot of accidents, some serious.
I was coming from Uniondale one early evening not so long ago, and it was just getting dark. There was a bend in the otherwise straight road, and on coming into the bend, there were three horses standing sleeping right bang in the middle of the road. Gave me a huge scare, as I had to swerve wildly, and if I was driving faster I would have hit them!

With the Apples now getting ripe, the baboons became active again, as they come down from the mountains to get at the fruit.I am too scared to walk down to the river, as the previous year I had a bad encounter.
 I usually went down with a flask of tea and something nice to eat, and this day I was sitting with my back against a huge poplar tree, reading, when there was a movement in the thick undergrowth, and I was squinting to see what it was, my heart pounding at a run away pace, when a big male baboon came into view!
I scattered book, mug and sarmie, and ran!
The males when standing up straight are about the same height as me, and although they are not vicious by nature, they are very dangerous when cornered, but luckily this one decided not to follow me up the slope, but I didn't know this until I was safely behind my safety door, and nearly expired after sprinting like a bally hare over brush and rocks!The ones living close to towns and houses had become very clever, and can even open screw tops to get at the food. In Rooi-els, a small seaside village near the Strand where I lived, the baboons were so clever, they knew that one of the houses's windows could be opened by rattling it, when the gadgets holding it close shifted, and  they could open it easily.
As Jan was away to Johannesburg so much, and the kids with me by night, the baboons were coming to the house late in the afternoon when Berty had left, and nobody was around, and they make such a mess as they just tipped the rubbish bins if they found something in there to eat, and scatter the refuse all over!
Our situation so far out of town was becoming quite hard, as I coul not just pack up and go visiting, or working when I liked, because of Jan having to go away so much for his work. Just before Nina died I had gone to the doctor with a bad cough that wouldn't go away, and he had sent me to a cardiologist after listening to my heart.
I was in Capetown still when Nina died, waiting to go into hospital for tests, but had to put that on hold until  a later date. The hospital however had now let me know that I was to be admitted on a certain date, and as Jan had to go to Johannesburg during that time, he had to find one of his friends to look after the kids when he was away.
He was talking more and more about going back to Denmark, where he could get a job immediately, and as their childcare institutions were excellent, it would not be so hard on him. I also think that the house was getting him down, as he was quite depressed again, and was getting thinner by the day.
In the meantime, one of the houses that was owned by Steve, a man working as a ship's captain in Scotland, was sold to Jacque and Mitzi, two lovely young people. They however still lived in germany where he was working, and would be in Sout Africa only for four months in the summer. I was very glad, as my house is so far from any neigbours, and now at least I could see them moving around!

With the weather patterns that are continuously changing my veggies were all very late in bearing fruit, and the tomatoes that were usually getting ready to eat at this time, was really not close to ripening, although some are now showing signs of colouring. But at least I had a lot of spinach and rocket, and with bought-in tomatoes and cucumbers, I could make a nice salad.
This morning I had the joyful task of opening the furrow in front of my house, as with the heavy rains of a while back, it had been blocked by sand and stones. I had to do it, as it could be quite a disaster if it rained heavily just then, as all the water coming down from the mountain would come into my house.
My serenity was shattered quite badly, when on hearing something outside the gate, I saw Sheila's goats having a go at the yellow cling peaches that were just starting to ripen. It is amazing how six or seven goats can ruin a tree in a few minutes, as they just get hold of the branches, and tear it of , or break it, and then they strip the branch of all that was edible! I gave one bloodcurdling bellow, grabbed the spade that was close to me, and stormed the tree with intent to harm, but this things were having a ball, and just rolled their cold eyes at me, before commencing with operation destroying the tree!
I then gathered stones, but nothing was going to interrupt their gorging, and I put my brain in first gear to think of some plan to get rid of the monsters! Brain not quite dotty yet, and it hit on the fabulous plan of opening the irrigation tap, and spray them with that! The water jets out of that thick pipe with tremendous force, and it shook me around a bit before I found my balance, and point it at the goats. They did not know what hit them, as I blew them clean out of the tree, and with great haste the lot of them scattered and milled around, before they got their bearings, and ran down the road to their own gate, where a worried worker let them in.
If one do not have the right environment for keeping goats they could be quite a menace to self and neigbours. I know that when Sheila just moved into her place, she always had bowls of the most delicious plums, and peaches from the trees in her yard, but that beautiful fruit orchard had been completely destroyed since she got the goats.
We had decided that it would be best if baby Emil now slept at his own house, as he might kind of grow up not feeling part of that family, but part of my household. He still slept with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays when Jan and Andreas had karate lessons, as he was asleep by the time they came back.
He was now beginning to stand up a lot against everything, and I had my hands full keeping the little fingers off the table where I kept the laptop!

I am positively heartbroken! My grapevine that I tended with so much love and care after the mishap of the previous year, did exactly the same thing. I have been treating it with copper sulphate since the moment it started to get into leave, as the previous season it was beautiful, with the nicest bunches of grapes, when suddenly the leaves started getting brown, and within a week there was almost no leaves left. The grapes then started getting soft, and went all wrinkly, and I had to cut the vine down a lot.
that is why I was so careful this year, and read up a lot about pests that can attack a vine.
However, I decided to take the vine out altogether, as that is recommended for blight and rust, as it could be all kinds of stuff. As there is a cement path between the little furrow that runs in front of my house, and then the rest of my garden, I never gave a thought to the fact that it could not be rust. I really got the most frightful surprise, when on starting to take out the vine that is planted inside an opening left on the side of the path, next to the house, to find that the poor vine had no soil near its roots! Oh, I was ready for mole murder!
Now I have taken out all the soil to about eighteen inches deep, and laid a fine chicken mesh inside the hole before filling it up again. I stamped it down well, and hoped that the moles had departed for greener pastures, and couldn't believe it when now, two days later, I saw new cracks in the soil, indicating that the moles found their way back!
I so badly wanted the vine to grow over the small gazebo I have put up, and it was fast doing so, but now I am a bitty disheartened, knowing that the moles still found their way back underneath the cement path. I really do not know what to do.
In the meantime I am busy with canning and making jams, still, and as the tick fever will take about ten days to subside, I spent a lot of time lying down, making murderous plans of how to kill the bally moles.
I have a bit of a worry because of the baby, as Jan was in Johannesburg again, and because I felt ill, I left him the whole day with the nanny. However, when I went during the afternoon to see how he was doing, I found Emil in the cot, screaming his head off, and the nanny watching television.
I asked why he was in the cot anyway, and she said that she wanted him to sleep a while, and I became really cross, as it was an hour before he came to me, when I would feed him and put him to bed. I told her to get him out of the cot, and go for a walk, then give him his bath before she left.

Going to the clinic is actually a huge experience. I am always the only white person, and where at first people looked at me with a lot of distrust, by this time I am kind of excepted, and although some are a bit loathe to greet, I remain friendly, and calm, and some people even talk to me.
But although I had to sit for four hours to see the doctor, it was time spent very enjoyably, as the most bizarre characters appear at regular intervals. They are usually the men who do not work, but who of course lie drunk every day, while their wives do some hard work at the farms. The women usually work in the packing stores, but according to Berty, who had done it for some time, it is backbreaking work. Although they sit, the constant bending over the conveyer belts are really hard on the back and shoulder muscles.
So first this morning, and way too late too see the doctor, this old man came in. He was so thin that a child could easily snap his body in half, and the stench of him was terrible.
The women are not scared to have their say, and like one they all chimed in: Aggenee oom hans! Gaan uit, jy vrot! (oh no uncle Hans get the hell out of here! You are smelling like a bally garbage heap!) Oom Hans just gave them a vacant smile, then stumbled further into the room, trying to greet everybody with a handshake!
But this lot would have nothing of that, and the room emptied with lightning speed, angry voices calling for sister Heidenrich to come and remove the hapless oom Hans, who was oblivious to the fact that he was being shunned!
So sister Heidenrich came out of her office, gave one look and one sniff, and told oom Hans to go home and sleep it off! Oom Hans however was not to be sweeped aside so easily, and in great detail told the sister how sore his tummy and his liver is, and how he sat on the toilet the whole night!
Sister Heidenrich is one busy lady, and she shortly told the old man that if he wanted to suip ( overindulge) he had better suffer the consequences by himself, and not come to the clinic and upset sober and decent people with his shitty smell! 'Ja, you want to suip the whole week-end, and then expect me to help you recover, but those days are now over! Nobody that is half drunk will ever come here for help again! Sies man! {shame on you) The old man looked like a cookie that is busy crumbling, all his bravado had now left him, and he started crying, telling everybody how badly he was treated!
Nobody showed any sympathy.
Through the morning a few other drunkards arrived, all very apologetic, but sister Heidenrich just sent them all on their way.
She then said that she had a meeting in George, and was told that there wasn't a lot of money available for the clinic, and she was told to dispense less medicine. As the doctor only come twice a week, the rest of the time she had to see them and give medication like cough syrups, and stuff, but no anti biotics and so on!
It is so bad that our goverment have such a lot of money to waste, like on Zuma's house, but there is never money for the people.

Everything was much easier now, and Little Emil was quite happy with his nanny, and they went for long walks every morning before his nap. He loved to hold stones and sticks, and I loved that in him, as I love stones, and my husband used to call me Christina klip (stone}, as the car was always weighed down with stones whenever we went for a picnic, or a walk in the mountains.
I have decided to lay out my garden with all kind of interesting things, but first I had to get the groundwork done, and the most harassing part of that was to get rid of the invader kikuju grass! Not easy, as it makes long and very strong arms that just strangles everything in their way!
But then I got ill. Something on my side was itching like mad, and on looking after hours after it first started, I found one of the small, dangerous little tics nicely embedded in my skin. I pulled it off, hoping that the head came out also, but as I was busy watering my veggie beds, I didn't look too well!
After a few days this spot started itching something terrible, and no matter what ointment I put on, it would not go away. Then I started feeling like I had a bad flue, but my head was so sore I could hardly lift it from the pillow.
I still thought that I had flue, but when my glands started swelling and my legs went all warm and stiff, I decided to go and see the doctor. As I have to go to the clinic to see the doctor, I knew it was going to be torture, as one had to be there at seven, as the doctor only saw the first fifteen on a day, and sometimes when I got there, about twenty people would be queuing already. So this morning I left at half past six, to find about eight people already waiting.
The problem of course is that you can't make an appointment, and I felt very sorry for old people and young mothers with babies that have to walk long distances, just to find that they can't see the doctor.
I was glad I came so early, but of course the doctor only came at eleven, as she had to do all the clinics in the aria. So by the time the doctor arrived, and I got to see her after the eight people before me, it was lunchtime, and I felt like just lying down on the ground and go to sleep to escape from my aches and pains.
Jan had to go to Johannesburg again in two days, and I was hoping that I would feel better, as the kids would be sleeping with me, and I had to help Andreas with his school work.

Working in the garden gave me great pleasure, but oh, boy, I some days used some pretty wonderful language when my crops were destroyed by the many pests around. I had a new phantam destroyer in my garden, as this thing came out only when my wee squashes, butternuts and other pumpkin family members start forming behind the flower, and poof, they all disappear! Eaten up by this thing that I just can not find. I knew that it wasn't snails, as I had put some snail bait in the boxes, and they expired at the rate of about twenty a night, and no peacock can eat away the small veggies so neatly!
Then one very know-all gardener told me to look underneath the soil, as there is one humongously big catterpillar family on the loose, and they hide just beneath the surface of the soil. I spend ages delving around the boxes, and unearthed all my plants, but could find no monster worm.
So most of my days are spent thinking up plots to keep my fruit and veggies safe from all the pests that were trying their bests to ruin all my hard work, and I could see that at the rate this was going on, I would have nothing to can or freeze for the winter. Every new plan seemed waterproof to me, but it usually took about three days for the little horrors to get behind this, but at least during the time they were trying to figure out how to get passed my newest obstacles, I could harvest some strawberries and my squashes and stuff got a chance to get beyond the phoetal stage, and this phantam thing did not like toddlers!
I am heart broken, as when my previous computer crashed, I lost all my photos. That of course means all the photos I took of the baby Emil since the day his mum died and he came to me, at the age of five weeks! But my son took the laptop away, and will try and get the photos back.Jan has lots of photos of him, but none like the ones I took of him doing all his developing into a human being! I hope it can be saved, as it would be a great loss to me.
He is developing into the most gorgeous little brat, always on the look-out for mischief, and the poor Berty, his nanny had her hands full to keep him safe. Jan was a bit upset with her, as she was told that Emil only got three bottles of milk now, and at eleven when he went to sleep, she had to make rooibos tea for him, but he caught her putting the child to bed with a full bottle of milk. She tried to hide it when he came into the room, and now we were worried that she might not be as trustworthy as she should be. I told him that I would give her a talking to, which I did, and we hoped that the fact that she disobeyed and got caught would keep her on the right track.