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... :)

Keeping busy

Hmmm - I mean keeping busy once we are on the farm :)

Until then I still have lots of packing to do LOL

But - once we are there, I need to have loads to fill my days - apart from building phase 2 of our home, unpacking the loads of boxes, and re-arranging the furniture and planting trees or tending to the veggie patch.

Obviously I am not going to be mixing lime and cement and laying bricks, nor will I be applying a high lime render.  And I will not be clambering up a half-finished building to assist with the installation of the roof beans or recycled resin roof tiles.  But, I will be helping RMan to paint the walls both inside and out with an eco-friendlier low VOC paint :)

So - I can foresee quite a bit of hurry up and wait time.  And I can't start planting seeds until August, with the majority going into the seed trays / ground in September.

Providing the sun shines, to fill my time I have my solar oven.  If it doesn't, I have my pewter work.  And, thanks to a lesson from DD, I now have a new hobby...

... mosaic-ing.  Perfect!

I came across some numbers which would be perfect for such a beginners project.  And they will provide easy future identification and location of our property.  To try out this new past time, I purchased the tile cutter, relevant numbers and some special mosaic tiles.

The parts required

After deciding on my pattern, I got to work.

Progress shot

A bit of grout, and - Voilà!  We have our property number all ready to be installed on the soon to be purchased farm gate.

Complete, and all ready to place on our
soon-to-be new farm gate

But - that gave me an idea.  We were given a trolley - many, many years ago - as a wedding present.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with the trolley, apart from a broken tray.

Surely this is salvageable

Why could I not join the broken pieces with some mosaics - as long as I don't load that tray too heavily, or remove it from the trolley, it should work perfectly...?

A bit of glue should do the trick...

So - that is what I am going to do.  Why discard a perfectly serviceable item when we can probably still get a good few years use out of it?  And it will function perfectly as a side table on our patio.

The broken tray can go on the lower section :)

Want not, waste not.  After 18-odd years of living in the same home, and completing loads of renovation projects, we have plenty of leftover "spare tiles".  They will be perfect as mosaic tiles.  I'm even considering how to use the glass from RMan's beer bottles...

I have plenty of ideas - and all of them are eco-friendly and involve recycling :)  Bloody marvellous mate :)

As I progress I'll share my finished items with you all - if you'd like to see?

Now - to convince RMan that left over tiles are valuable (to me) and should be schlepped along with us on the move.

"Clutter, clutter, clutter", I can hear him mutter...