Schuster Farm… Working Up a Healthy Appetite!

6fartsinacart
Jul 12, 2017
5 min read

4 July 2017, Tuesday: Activities start early at Schuster Farm. At 5am it starts off with the cows being milked (and again at 5pm). Fortunately we don’t have to get up that early. Our day starts at 8am around the breakfast table… lovely homemade produce. As it is a small organic farm, diversity is where their success lies in, as well as the blessing of the Lord upon every project. There are cows, chickens, pigs and horses. They also have a multitude of small pastures or plots of land on which they cultivate various different products. The land around the house is mainly used for vegetables and herbs, then another has a rose orchard (from which they make rose jam), another has corn, and others have grazing grass (hay) and fodder (lucerne) for their animals. The Schusters are expecting a pre-booked group of cyclists for lunch, consisting of all homemade organic food. We help Lavinia in the kitchen with some of the preparations… a whole range of delicious food! Dad’s outside doing what men do best, fixing things. He spends the morning fixing oom Willy’s grass-cutter. During our lunch we have the delight in having some of the tasty food prepared for the tourists. In the afternoon we help out in the garden, doing some weeding. Genève, Emile and Dad go with oom Willy and the boys to turn the hay in the field, as the rain which fell wetted the hay, and this needs to dry. Mum and I manage to put on one blog. After supper and dishes us kids play a game of hide-and-seek before bedtime. We bond and are soon friends. Emile shares Joel’s room (also 13) and we girls delight in the opportunity that we don’t need to make Genève’s bed during our stay. 5 July 2017, Wednesday: This morning we start with weeding again. Dad is in the other garden tying up tomatoes and removing the dead branches. I am asked to help Tete clean the cow and horse stable, which I quite enjoy (a welcome change). I return to weeding when I’m done and after a while Nikita and I are sent to pick berries from 3 different berry bushes of which Lavinia makes a variety of delicious jams. After a hearty lunch (starting with tasty zucchini soup and finishing off with a creamy beef-mince/marrow dish, potatoes and salad) Dad, Genève, Emile, Willy, Rahel, Joel, Tete and I go out to one of the fields to bring in the hay which we turned the previous day. The tractor is driven slowly along the rows of hay while it is being loaded on. Tete is on top of the wagon to distribute the hay and I trample it to compress the hay, making space for more. We make 2 journeys. At the barn it gets fed into a huge sucking chute which distributes it into the barn. We are all exhausted, but grateful that this job is complete. After supper us kids settle down in the living room to watch a movie. 6 July 2017, Thursday: Today Nikita and I go to another garden to weed around the carrots. Here we can distinguish between a carrot and a weed. In the herb/flower garden we are not sure that we're weeding the right (or wrong?) stuff, therefor we are happy to leave this task with Mum and Genève. We return just before 1pm and wait for the boys’ return. Tete, the boys and Dad went to offload the manure and muck from the animals in a neighbouring town on another one of Schuster’s fields. At the same time after off-loading, they cut fresh lucerne with a sickle and return once the horse-drawn cart is filled to the top. At 2pm we have lunch… a creamy potato/marrow/mushroom dish with fresh salad, again made from organic farm-grown produce, yum! The lovely sunny morning quickly turns dark and before you can wipe your eyes, it starts raining. It is too wet to go outside, so us kids play around inside the house and watch another movie. Tonight Nikita abandons the camper for Rahel’s cosy room.

7 July 2017, Friday: We are considering leaving this afternoon, but our stay here has been made so special that the vote around the breakfast table is to stay for another day. Back to the carrot garden we go, this time with Mum and Genève’s help. Dad helps Willy to build a chicken run. Lavinia prepares a special farewell lunch of beef schnitzel and creamy vegetables. The rest of the afternoon is spent weeding and building the chicken run. I make use of the internet to put on another blog. At 4.30pm we are called to come watch the cows being milked and have a go at it ourselves. It looks easy, but when trying, it is a bit tricky to get the milk flowing. It takes a bit of practice, but after a while we manage. After the milking is finished, we play another game of hide-and-seek. Not long after it starts raining again, but some of us enjoy getting wet. Tonight Mum and Dad are offered a room in the guest house which Lavinia runs, which they gladly accept. Tonight it’s only Genève and I in the camper. We’ve had a lovely week and learned many things… how to make cream, different types of cheese, butter, mayonnaise, and salad dressing from scratch. We’ve learned that you can make rose jam (although we still need to get the recipe) and mint-lemonade. Us kids learnt how to milk a cow. We still need lots of practice though, so I guess we better get a cow on the farm. Dad is excited to start farming again back in South Africa. Oom Willy also gives Dad organic corn seeds to take back for our farm.