What's in a name?

We (well, mainly I) have been throwing around various names for our smallholding.  Something friendlier than 'Plot XYZ'.

Amongst them have been 'Fiddlewood Farm", in honour of the five magnificent (well they will be once they've grown a bit) Fiddlewood trees we have planted.

But, RMan obviously wasn't convinced.

The mosaic plot numbers I made earlier this year.
Unobtrusive, but serving their purpose :)

One perfect balmy evening at the end of March, he was sitting daydreaming on the verandah  - beer in hand - when, suddenly, he said, "I've got it".

"Got what"?, I asked in exasperation.  RMan often does that - thinks of something, and shares a bit of inconsequential info on his thought process.  Which causes me to question (and sometimes cross-question) him in order to extract the course of his mental wanderings, so that I can become part of the conversation.

"I've got the name for the farm", he replied, " Wind Hoek  " (Windy Corner)! (honestly, there was an exclamation at the end of his pronouncement.)

How did he come to that name?

Well, his favourite tipple is Windhoek Lager...

There is always a breeze of some sort on
our farm - thank goodness,
for I don't do ironing! LOL

...and our farm is situated in a place where there is always a breeze of some sort blowing.

Very apt, RMan.  I think it could be a keeper!  :)

Our smallholding is situated in the foothills
of the Langeberg Mountains

Or so I thought.  But every time I asked if I can go ahead with the name, I got a non-committal response.  There was no finalisation.

So, then, I suggested "Foothills Farm" - because of our location in the foothills of the Langeberg Mountains.

I got a "Hmmmm" as a response.

Ten days ago, RMan suddenly turned to me and said, "I've changed my mind.  Not Foothills Farm...

You remember the two gabions which RMan scored
at the auction ages ago, and which thought they
had been forgotten and have been gathering
dust...

... but, in keeping with our ethos here, I think we should call it 'Foothills Organic' - it's more appropriate".

I used old builders scaffolding planks as a
backing, and old broken old tiles for the
mosaics.  There was even some left over tile
grout from the tiling of our bathroom(s). The
gabions, which RMan scored at the auction,
have been put to use at last - filled with a
small portion of the stone which abounds
on this property, we now have an entrance
"pillar"  with the other one yet to be filled LOL

I can live with that :)

So - scratching through the box of old tiles I had schlepped from our town house (I honestly did try and declutter, I did, I did - but maybe now you understand why we moved with 105 boxes of various sizes,), I found the wherewithal to make a mosaic of our chosen farm name to add to the entrance gate which RMan and John installed a few months ago.

RMan installed the name on Wednesday, and we had a naming ceremony, complete with respective favourite tipples...

It is the first time that we have ever named the place
we are living.

Finally, for this post, we have been here exactly one year today - how the time has flown.  Just for info here is a peek at our electricity consumption for this entire period:

1290.3 KwH in exactly one year

We have produced / consumed 1290.3 KwH in a year - that would've cost us ZAR1845.00 in our town house.  If we had not moved to our smallholding and gone off grid, we would've probably continued "recklessly" using electricity in our town house at an average of 550 KwH / month, which would've given us a total consumption on 6600 KwH for the year at a cost of ZAR9438.00 at the current cost rate for the same period of time.

A saving of ZAR9438.00 against the outlay cost of going off grid is more than 15% of the cost of our total solar system.  At this rate our system will have paid for itself within 5 years :)

A sneak teaser for a post next week - I have some stupendously exciting news to share - but give me a little time... :)