Water wise boundary decor

I started this blog posting back in July last year when we first started on this project...

RMan and a neighbour, E, used to do the installation and maintenance of the potable water system, and the reading of each individuals water meters in our smallholding communnity.  Even though there are 150-odd smallholdings in our area, we are not "formally" recognised by the local authorities as a "settlement" and are thus not entitled to "services".

Whilst travelling to do the water meter readings RMan spotted these plants growing at the entrance to once of the smallholdings.

I'm sorry I didn't get a pic of them in flower - they looked seriously impressive!

However, RMan did pick up some of the fallen flower buds / seed carriers.

No exactly sure how to propagate agaves,
 I just plonked the base of the "flower" into
 some potting soil and hoped for the best...

Not finding any info online on how to propagate agaves, I just plonked the bottoms into a pot of soil in effort to try and grow them, so that, if I am successful, we could then place them, together with some aloe plants, along the front (dirt road) fence of our property.  They may not look like much sans flowers, but they are certainly water-wise, and will help to distinguish our property from the others nearby.

Aloes with red flowers...

Isn't it funny how your tastes change.  Before we had our smallholding I used to think that these types of plants, and aloes, were damned ugly.  Now I understand why they are grown - for their hardiness, drought resistance, and striking feature qualities.

... and aloes with yellow flowers

Fast forward from July to March 2017 and this is actually what was planted along our boundary this week:

The successfully rooted Agave plants
http://www.southafrica.net/blog/en/posts/entry/a-spiky-kind-of-beautiful

Kei apple trees
https://www.plantzafrica.com/plantcd/dovycaf.htm

Spekboom - propagated from our existing plants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulacaria_afra
Also, I understand that spekboom is excellent at
 carbon fixing - so, to help reduce our carbon footprint,
  I need to grow as many as I can, I reckon.

Home propagated lavender

NumNum bushes
https://www.plantzafrica.com/plantcd/carisbispin.htm

Geraniums propagated from our existing plants

The boundary fence March 2017 - it looks like nothing at this
 point in time, but I have high hopes of a stunning boundary in
 years to come.
 We have planted groupings of 14 plants / section so it
 should make quite a feature - once they are all grown up... 

We have planted groupings of 14 identical plants per section, so in years to come it should, hopefully, look stunning! 😉

Three of the plants are edible (Kei apple, spekboom and numnum) and all are waterwise 😃  Which is just as well as our drought continues and we have had only 5.5mm ( .2 of an inch) of rain since the 12th February...😟

Although I have never served spekboom in a salad or soup for our personal consumption - yet - apparently, alpacas can also eat it.  Due to their carbon fixing properties I'd love to plant up a whole field of them...  (Don't tell RMan, but I think I'm going to surreptitiously get that going.)

You can read more about the history of South African agaves here.  It's a pity that neither RMan nor I drink tequila... ;)

Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee

I am so excited about this - I can't wait to share it...

One of our neighbours, Eddie, was kind enough to give us a hen and a rooster.  We seem to have an insect infestation in our shadecloth veggie hut, so I had asked his wife if we could possibly "rent" a couple of their chickens for a couple of weeks - to sort out the problem in as eco-friendly a way as possible.

New chickens exploring the shade covered
veggie patch

When she arrived with the chickens, she said that they have over 40 ("... which is more than enough...") and that we can have the two.  Yoohoo!!  RMan didn't want chickens - seems like he has no choice in the matter now ;)  (sly, aren't I?)

Please meet Tweedle Dum (the rooster) and Tweedle Dee (the hen) - Dum Dum and Dee Dee for short.

They were a tad nervous for the first couple of
 days - strange surroundings, and even stranger
 new "owner" ;)

We set up a temporary coop for them inside the shade cloth veggie hut - complete with roosting perch - but they weren't interested.  They settled themselves down on the ground every evening in the corner farthest away from the temporary coop.  Damn and blast it!

Once Dum Dum and Dee Dee were allowed outside
the shadecloth structure they rushed merrily around
- here, there and everywhere - at full speed.

After they had been locked in the veggie hut for a week (as per Eddie's instructions) the time came to let them explore their new surroundings.  They thoroughly enjoyed scratching below the lemon trees (eating the ants?)...

They fancy my strawberry / youngberry patch the
most - much to the inquisitiveness of the alpacas

...before investigating my strawberry / youngberry patch.  Much to the curiosity of Rupert and Minky.  They couldn't quite work out what these duck like looking creatures were - and they were the wrong colour.

But, the problem of their chicken coop / roosting perch remained.  I was very uncomfortable with them just sleeping on the ground - and was worried about karakul / otters gaining access to the veggie patch in order to snaffle the chickens.  All they had for protection was a single layer of shadecloth.

Not good enough.  I didn't sleep comfortably for that week.

1000 lt water tank

Wandering round the property trying to think of a solution, I spied the empty support cage from the one rainwater tanks which we had cut in half in order to store the alpaca's lucerne and oats away from the mice.

The one water tank was cut in half to be used
as a mouse free storage space for the alpacas
 lucerne / oats

My brain had a light bulb moment, and feverishly started conceptualizing what was happening inside it lol

Grabbing RMan, and dragging him to where the frame was located, I explained my idea.

We had some chicken wire which we were using to sort / clean the VM out of the alpaca fibre.

The arrows indicate where the doorway has been
 situated - bear in mind that the tank has been
 turned on it's side

If we took that chicken wire, turned the frame on it's site, used the two top cage structure supports as an entrance and covered the rest of it (top and sides - the bottom is a solid base) with chicken wire, we would have an instant secure chicken coop that no predator should be able to access.

So that's exactly what we did :)

The frame was completely covered with chicken
 wire.  The two top supports (shown with arrows
 in the above pic) are now a doorway, which I
 can easily access.

We placed a piece of galvanized roof sheet on the top to keep the rain out of the coop.  On top of that we fixed the chicken wire - thus the chicken wire is "holding" the roof sheet in place and preventing it from blowing away / rattling in the wind.

God bless the person who invented cable ties.  Cable ties (aplenty) secured the chicken wire to the frame perfectly.

Dum Dum and Dee Dee were easily coerced into
 their new home with some corn:)
(You can see the solid base now acting as a side
in the above pic.)

Having "taught" the chickens that the shade cloth veggie patch was their new home, I was concerned that I would battle to get them into their even newer home - which has been placed just next to the shade cloth veggie patch.

I needn't have worried.  Sprinkling a bit of food in the entrance and a larger pile further in, they couldn't resist.

Quick as a flash I closed the door that RMan had made out of a piece of plywood (hinged with - yeah, you guessed it - cable ties bwahahaha), and the chickens were safely ensconced inside for the night:)

Success!!!  Two roosting chickens :D

I went out ½ hour later and both of them had finished munching and were finally roosting :)

Hehe.  I do so love it when I'm on the same page as animals I am trying to assist.

This coop will also be easy to move whenever we need to - RMan and I will just pick it up and place it in it's new position.  Chicken poop will be easy to scoop up when the coop is moved.

And, with John's, (the casual labourer) assistance, RMan and he will be able to pick it up over the wooden fence and place it in the newer veggie area when we want / need the chickens assistance / nitrogen there.

Shadecloth draped over the top of the new
chicken coop will provide rain, shade and wind
 protection to the coop.
Note the nesting box just inside the door -
yup, I'm ready for when the hen is ready to
lay ;)
(in the pic you can clearly see the
 6 X cable ties which are the door hinges)

This morning we draped the top half of the coop with a double layer of 80% shade cloth and secured it with cable ties once again - to help keep the rain off them if it slants down sideways whilst they're roosting, and it will also give them some shelter from the wind, and help to keep the roof sheet cooler during the hot summer months.

Can you see the roosting perches?
I have found them on both the upper
and lower perches

I just l-o-v-e this little chicken coop.  Measuring 1.0 mtrs high X 1.2 mtrs wide and 1.0 mtrs deep it should suffice for at least 6 - 8 chickens.

Firstly, it is definitely secure against karakul and otters, and it will keep the chickens protected from inclement weather.

But, mostly importantly to me, the old water storage tank frame is almost serendipitously perfect to (re)use as a chicken coop, especially given that it had just been lying around - unused and unwanted.  Recycling at it's best :)

As for RMan - the chickens have worked their magic - if  they spot either of us outside, they immediately run up, and start following us.

"They're very cute", says RMan, "not ducks, but cute nevertheless" - with a smile on his face, and a twinkle in his eyes, as the chickens chase after him.

"...here kip-kip, kiiiiiip-kip-kip, kip-kip-kip..."

It's a drag

So - RMan managed to remove most of the weeds by plowing - the plan regarding sheep eating the weeds (and their seeds) never materialized.  No, not through a change of plan.  After asking the shepherd for the sixth time we gave up...!

We didn't want to wait any longer - as the oat seed has to be scattered by latest March, field preparation time was a-wasting.

It turns out it didn't happen because the neighbours shepherd, who moves the sheep here and there to graze, felt it was too far to bring the sheep down to our plot!?!

The new fence behind the fruit trees

And RMan and John went to all the effort of fencing off the fodder fields.  It is a stunning fence in the same style as the paddocks we made for the alpacas.  Continuity is key :)

View of the new fence from the fields / driveway

So - the weeds have been given some attention and we've certainly fed the soil with the 2 tons of lime which has been generously sprinkled everywhere.

How else could we feed the soil?

The neighbour at the end of our road had straw bales delivered last year and they have just been sitting there rotting.  We asked him if he had a plan for those bales and his reply was in the negative.  When we asked if we could relieve him of them, he was more than happy to get rid of a very large rotting pile which had become an enormous mouse (and therefore snake) straw bale nest.

Straw bales being deposited onto the fields

In the past when we have purchased the round bales for fodder, and they have been loaded onto RMan's trailer by the seller.  We didn't have that luxury this time.

And the big round straw bales are heavy.

And falling apart after standing out in the open for so long.

It would have be impossible to get the complete ones onto our trailer, and the rotting ones were just falling apart when they were moved.

We had to make another plan.

After giving it some thought I came up with the suggestion of "sliding" them (with the aid of a rope and the tractor) onto an old piece of steel balustrade. Sometimes odd scraps of fencing / metal / wood come in handy and it is worth keeping them - even if you cannot imagine what use you can put them to at the time.  These scraps material of don't have to be an eyesore if they are kept in a neat pile.

The old piece of steel balustrade at work
moving part of a straw bale

RMan, his tractor, some steel chain, John and a piece of old balustrading got to work.

A strong chain is the key to a successful sled

Even the old broken bales were eased onto the makeshift sled with relative ease and schlepped up to road to our smallholding.

Where possible we unrolled the straw bale onto
the field prior to spreading the straw

The end result?

The top alpaca fodder field is now covered with a straw mulch  :)

That should help in preventing the surface residue lime from blowing away, the weeds from reappearing too quickly, and should help in retaining any much needed water which may fall from the heavens.

All we need now is some rain...

The scars recede

I have always felt guilty about the scars we have caused on our land.  Scars from earth moving, creating our dam, planting our trees and, most of all, the scars caused during our building process.

Google Earth has finally updated the images they capture in our part of this planet.  Being out in the sticks (and therefore unimportant) they only do so every three years, but - it was worth waiting for :)

This is what our piece of land looked like when we purchased it back in March 2008:

Our plot of land in March 2008 when
we purchased it.
The path that crosses it is the footpath
caused by our one neighbour - a shortcut
across the field to shorten the trip to the
main road 4.5 kms away.
Also interesting is the plough line
which transgresses both our plot
and the neighbouring one.  I can tell
you that the fence that divides the two
plots is old and rusty - so the
scars of that plough have lingered...

It was completely overgrazed by the locals cows and sheep.  And full of renosterbos - all those little individual dots are visible on the Google Earth screen print. Signs of ploughing from yonks ago - and who knows when that last happened. Certainly long before 1996 when the smallholdings first started being sold off and inhabited by "newcomers" because the oldest resident has no memory of that fence not being in place.

Our plot of land with phase 1
of our build - one large room
(consisting of the lounge / dining /
kitchen) and the white shiny IBR roofed
bathroom to the right side - Aug 2010

Then, we got involved and scarred the land with our personal requirements. The driveway round the (dryer side of the) perimeter,  The dam.  The grape vine area.  The vegetable patch and the underground cellar which we never completed / built.  And the house build.

Ugly, nasty scars.

Our plot - October 2013

But, this is what our smallholding looks like from "space" in October 2013.

Our plot with markers.
You can even see the solar
panels n the garage roof :)
(Still enough space to
triple up on that if we had to
/ wanted to)

To give you some idea of what lies where, I have labelled the various area's I mention in this blog.

Our home November 2014 :)

I am strangely comforted by the latest Google Earth images (even if they are over a year old), because I finally realise that no matter how we bend our smallholding to our requirements, if we were to leave it, permanently, and no one was to occupy it ever again, all the buildings would collapse, the rubble would become overgrown, and it would revert back to what it was originally.  It would no longer be scarred by the mark of man.

In the meantime though, we are trying to treat it gently.  We are trying to be good custodians.  And we are aware of our impact - even if it is only on 2.2hA of land.

Feed storing

Firstly, I'd just like to give a quick welcome and thank you for hitting the followers button to my latest readers :

Helen Blom - I can't see a blog for you Helen
Wendy of http://whishinrecipes.blogspot.com/; http://whishin.blogspot.com/;
http://whishincolony.blogspot.com/
Murphy's Law of: http://lagniappeslair.blogspot.com/
Jean of http://shrimptonandperfect.blogspot.com/
Ken Alviti of http://www.englishhomestead.com/; http://www.sawdustinmysocks.com/
The_Shroom of http://rsandss.blogspot.com/

Thanks guys and girls - appreciate it :)

.......................................

Then - onto today's topic...

November 2012 - the garage in all it's glory :)

When we built the garage section it was so that we would have somewhere to stay whilst the house build was completed.  Well, that - and somewhere to give one of the cars some shade during those blisteringly hot summers days.(Where we are two cars is, to us, vital and ensures that we will never be marooned - if one doesn't start for any reason, the other one should be able to get us to emergency medical attention if, and when, required.)

We had a garage added to the plans so that if at any stage we wanted / could afford the garage it would just be a case of getting it built - no resubmission to the municipal housing plans department would be required.  Bear in mind that initially we started building here so that we could escape to the country for a weekend / week now and then.  Little did we know that it would be required to store boxes, and us, when we moved here permanently.

November 2013 - the carport is added - for the
tractor and for a feed storage area

Then RMan got an old tractor.  So we needed somewhere to protect the tractors exposed electrical parts / gearbox from the rain.  So we added on a "carport" to the entire side of the garage.  The garage is long enough that the carport can protect both the tractor and a car from the weather - sun or rain. RMan left it open at both ends so that the tractor could enter from one end, and a car from the other.

But, we also store the back-up generator there - noise and pollution dictated that positioning LOL

And then we decided to get our alpacas.

As you can see, the lucerne bales are right next to the
back-up generator - not good!  Especially given the
exhaust is pointed right at the bales.  RMan
tried to create a "barrier" between the genny and
the bales

And we needed somewhere to store their feed.  So, the car got ejected from the carport, and the tractor, genny and the feed took precedence.  But the genny was right next to the lucerne bales - with the exhaust unfortunately pointed right at them.

So, we needed to make another plan.

Back to the sawmill in town to purchase more of their (cheap) offcuts.  well, we don't need the feed storage to be in an airtight space - just protected from the rain.

The carport now has a enclosed end...

RMan has "enclosed" the one end of the carport for the feed and for the genny - and we have moved the genny.

...and the genny is situated so that the exhaust
points outside of the feed storage area

It is now situated with it's exhaust extending out of the feed storage area.

Happy days :)

It's amazing how your outbuildings, which you try and plan so carefully, can adapt to new requirements.

But, I have a feeling that once we harvest the oats, we will require more feed space and the tractor may have to move to the 2nd shadecloth veggie hut which is still incomplete.  It will mean reforcing the roof structure and putting IBR sheet (corrugated iron) roofing on it, but that shouldn't prove too problematic...

And, it will move the field mice, which are sheltering inside the bodywork and under the tractor's slasher, just that little bit further away from the house. Win-win :)

Sowing his oats

RMan has been a busy bee over the past weeks.  As we certainly have the space (roughly 1 - 1.5 hA of unused area) we have decided to use the winter rain which we experience here to grow some oats for the alpacas.

But, our land was heavily overgrazed when we bought it in 2008, and, in order for it to recover, we have let it lie since then.  So, that meant a lot of work had to be done on the land in order to prepare it for the oat crop.

RMan has gone all eco on me - he didn't even consider using any chemicals to assist him with the momentous task...

The start of the prep work - slashing the thick
renosterbos bush

RMan had the tractor, and a slasher.  So a-slashing he went.

You can get some idea of the state of the land -
and this is after the renosterbos has been removed.

Then, he bought a 2 blade plough, and a-ploughing he went (the tractor isn't strong enough to handle more than a 2 - 3 blade plough).

Finally, he borrowed a five tooth ripper and a-ripping he went.

I don't know what this grass is called.  In
Spring it puts on an amazing show - long
whispy fronds, caught in the early morning
sunshine, wave in the gentlest of breezes.  But
they have a hidden agenda - their incredible
root systems

But, we have a clump of grass which grows here, and it has a wicked root system.  It almost resisted all his attempts to remove it - especially with the ground being pretty dry and hard.

Those grass clumps still remain, and would take
years to break down.  So, hand removal is the
only option

So he concocted a contraption whereby he fixed a wooden "plank" to the 5 tooth ripper, drilled and added threadbar "teeth" (which were set much closer together than the ripper's teeth) to the plank and took that for a spin around the field - a.k.a. a Boer maak a plan (trans. a farmer makes a plan).

RMan added his homemade threadbar
attachment, and that finally sorted out
the last of those pesky grass clumps

It was, finally, only with some help from a couple of local labourers, who, heroically together with RMan, forged ahead with the hand removal of the now totally exposed grass clumps (with exposed) root systems, that we ended up with some clean land on which to sow the oats.

When RMan was happy, he then pulled in the assistance of my quad bike. Fixing an old very heavy steel fence section to the back of the quaddie, he drove up and down the field gathering any large remaining clumps of bush or large rocks within the fence structure.

RMan on my quaddie - dragging a heavy piece of
unused steel fence behind the tractor over the newly
sown seed to try and cover the seed slightly with
sand in order to hide it from the birds flying overhead.

Then, purchasing 150kgs of oat seed from the silo's in town, as well as bags and bags of lime, planting proceeded.  Labouriously walking up and down, up and down, up and down first the lime was added and then the seed was "drizzled" from old ice cream tubs.

RMan repeated the quaddie / heavy steel fence exercise after the seed was sown - to try and cover the seed with a bit of soil.  Lucky he did - the birds flying overhead are zooming in and making merry with the balance of the exposed seed.  "Hey, guys, 10 per cent is all we can spare - the rest s for the alpacas!"

We finished literally two days before we had 14mm of rain.

The wonder of rain - visible signs of oats
growing literally 2 -3 days after the rain

RMan's reward - visible signs of oats growing in the prepared field.

He's tickled pink, and suddenly, personally, understands my joy at harvesting home grown vegetables.  The visible reward is addictive :)

A job very well done - by a complete novice!  I'm proud of you RMan :)

Now, all we have to do is find some way of harvesting the oats when they are ready.  Big expensive machinery we don't have, no do we have access to any, so I reckon a couple of pairs of feet, and pairs of hands and an old fashioned sickle or two will have to suffice.

In the meantime, I am also trying to provide some sustenance for the alpacas - but more on that in another posting...