Freedom & Farming at Pebblespring – Page 6

Sundays are for quiet reflection

Sundays, for me, are for sitting silently. For reflecting. For taking it all in. And today was a lovely Sunday. The sun was out . It was windless. But in that quiet time today it seemed, for the first time, as if everything was beginning to add up. Beginning to make sense and that all the bits were beginning to talk to each other.

I have told you before that I have not really full understood what has driven me to buy Pebblespring farm.
It has been a compulsion that would not let me go. It is something that I have had to do because I know that the regret of having not bought it would be far greater that the sorrow of having tried and failed. But having bought the place, I have been left wondering. What now? Where will I find the money? Where will I find the time? By doing this, am I really doing the best that I can do for my family? and what of my career? Is it not just too weird that this architect would rather spend time with his cattle, his gumboots and his chainsaw than “networking” on the golf course or the banks of the Krom River? If I seem certain to those around me, it is an illusion, because I am constantly in doubt. I am constantly questioning the wisdom of what I am doing.

But today was different. Today I felt certain. Today I knew that for me it has always been about one thing.Today I could see clearly that in fact I have been dabbling over the years in aspects of the same idea. Today, I see that, more than anything else, I demand for myself…. FREEDOM.

Perhaps this burning for freedom came from the time when my freedom was taken from me. When I was locked behind those high fences in training camps and on parade grounds. For two years in the eighties, everyday when I woke up I would think of the time when I would be free. I did not even really know that I was free before that freedom was taken from me. They took my clothes, they took my hair, they told me where and when I would sleep, what I would eat, when I would eat. When I could sit, when I could stand. They told me how I should walk and what clothes I must wear. I had no freedom to choose anything. In the Angolan Border war, in the Townships under siege, I was not free. I was a pawn in their game. But then out of the army, to University in the late eighties, I immediately disregarded thoughts of my on freedom, and what felt like to have lost it. I got caught up in the sense of doing “the right thing” about the ending Apartheid. I took it very seriously, even though the little protests and campaigns we ran were of such a little impact so as to be meaningless in any lasting way.

As I came to the professional world and my first job, I did not last long working for a boss. After two short years I could see that this was not for me and I opted for the relative freedom of going into practice for my own account. Yes, I was free, but I was now married and compelled to earn the money required of a marriage. As the practice grew, I came into partnership with others who would help me to work on ever larger and larger jobs. Things were busy, there was no time to think about freedom. Bigger offices, bigger projects and bigger payrol.

And this is where I am now. I have built a business for myself. It gives me a lot of things, but I am coming to see that it does not give me freedom. Its is my own fault of course. I have built up around me a family who has become addicted to the money that is brought in from our business. We have become addicted to the same things that everyone around us is addicted to. I love my family and I would not have it any other way. But that does not make me free.

But when I am on the farm on a beautiful morning like today, I see a hint. A faint glimmer. A possibility of freedom. A life not without work. A life not outside of society. But a life that does not require me to “keep afloat” a company that pays the salaries of so many people. A life that does not require my to do business with mindless state and corporate machines. Machines that are necessary, if our world chooses to continue as it does, but that are mindless, and need to be mindless in order to function at the scale that they do.

This faint glimmer tells me that I do not have to forget about freedom after all. That it can be achieved and that it can be real and it can be in my lifetime.

Design and the limitation of language.

For me, it has always been about design. Well I suppose not always, but for a long while. Even today as I cut away the brambles, trudged through the marsh and dragged dead branches away from the driveway, it is about design.

My career has been about design.

Pebblespring is about design.

I have learned from clever people that words point to a truth, but they are in themselves not the truth, so when I say I believe in “design” I may mean something different to a fashion designer friend or a structural engineer friend saying these words. Because, in truth, I have come to see that there is some magic dimension to design. (and I suppose by “magic” I really mean something that is very difficult to put into words) I will talk a little more about “magic” later, but let me explain what I call “design”:

To me, Design is more than problem solving
To me, Design takes stock of what we have and reconfigures it into something much more
To me, Design finds beauty in the re-configuration.
To me, Design finds its order and its harmony in the relationship between the parts that make up the whole.(the parts “speak” to each other and inform their nature, their form and their position.)
To me, Design is always about the configuring of the whole, it can never just be the part.

The “magic” though is that in any loose arrangement of parts there already exists a higher harmony and a higher order. There exists beauty!

Beauty is beyond science. There is no mechanism to quantify the amount of beauty that exists in a rose or a sunset. Beuaty is qualitative not quantitative. But, beauty exits. When you sit by yourself overwhelmed by the beauty of a sunset, you are not bullshitting yourself, you really are experiencing the beauty of the sunset. It exists. It is true. It just cant be measured.

So, it seems to me as if though the design,…. the beauty, exists before I sit down with the fragmented parts. It requires a still and receptive mind on my part to spend time with these parts to give each of them the “voice” they need to find their role in the new whole. As the designer, I am facilitating the parts toward their higher self in the new whole.

I know its sounds a little spacey, but its difficult to put into words a process that goes on in my head when the design process is going as I like it to go. And by the way it very seldom goes the way I would like it to go. In the work I do in the office as an Architect everyday, there are so many perfectly normal businesses reasons that make it impossible for the design process to go as I would like it to. But still, from time to time we are able to step beyond even these limitations and get some good work done.

At Pebblespring right now I am getting to know and understand the parts that make up the whole. I am getting to understand what their existing relationships are and what they could be. I am in a stage of observation, yes I have done some work, sometimes subtracting parts, like the poison Inkberry trees that kill the cattle, and sometimes adding parts, like a roof over the old cottage to stop the rain from melting away the sun dried bricks.

Every system is a living system. Pebblespring Farm is a living system. So if I change something, by addition or subtraction, it reacts, it adapts. I, as the designer, must be there to observe the reaction learn from it and correct my design and approach if necessary. I must remain concious and aware.

I cannot see that it is useful in this project, or in any project, to arrive with a pre-conceived notion plucked from Top Billing or Cosmo or the latest trip to the Seychelles. That, to me, is a different process and needs a different word to describe it. Not “design”. But I suppose this is the limitation of language!

The New Beehive

Its been really cold this week. Winter has come in a big way. While there is lots of rain, I can see that the grass is not growing without the heat an the light it needs.

But the big news is that, we now have bees. Yip. The swarm was moved out there on Tuesday night after work. It was a swarm that we had caught in a “catcher box” at our home in Walmer. The bees tried to make a nest in an air vent in my workshop toward the end of last year. We called the bee keeper and they came and set up a box which the swarm promptly moved into. We have a swarm almost every year in Walmer and every year we call the beekeeper to catch it. So for years he has been taking it away somewhere else. This year we took it to Pebblespring Farm. My sister says its an omen of sorts. “The Bees will seek out their beekeeper” she says.

Well, if I am the beekeeper that this swarm has been seeking, I am afraid that they have found a beekeeper that is not very ready for them at all. I don’t feel ready to take on bees, it was not at the top of the list of things I wanted to get done.

To be honest it all feels like a bit too much. I am not getting nearly enough progress on the cottage, let alone the construction of the new house. Its a complicated dance. I have to keep my professional life going so I can bring the cash in for the project. The more time I spend in the office the more I am too exhausted to think of the farm. The more time I spend on the farm the more I begin to worry that I wont be able to bring the money I need to do what needs doing on the farm.

But for better or for worse we have now employed Mandoza full time on the farm. Monday to Friday, earning weekly wages. Mandoza is able to make his way to and from the farm and does not rely on me for transport this is a big advantage.

He has spent the week clearing up mostly trees and branches that have been cut making the driveway and other paths. It will take a long time. the site is big and out resources are limited.

But perhaps this farm has been to me like a swarm of bees finding its beekeeper. It has come to me “ready or not” in fact quite a bit more not than ready. Perhaps, as an experiment I should just trust that idea and go with it for a while. What’s the worst that could happen?

"Fullness of Health", for me, my family and for the Land.

I am quite sure I have more people popping in to the farm over the weekend “just driving past” that I have at my house in Walmer. I think its fantastic. I think its curious. Its definitely something about the rural setting that reminds us about being civilised, about being friendly, about being helpful, about being neighbourly. This interests me.

I spent this morning with the chainsaw again. This time working along the stream, from the dam wall toward the Oak tree. Most of what I was cutting though was Ink Berry. I cuts very easily. The Idea is to cut a path so that I can run the temporary electric fence through as I have done elsewhere. Slowly, slowly, I am beginning to make the land accessible. Beginning to make it manageable, beginning to put myself into a position where I am able to help the land achieve the “fullness of it health”.

I have set myself the objective of achieving the “fullest possible health” for this land. What does that even mean? Perhaps my objective for the land is the same as my objective for me and for my family. The fullest possible personal health. The fullest possible family health. “Health” is the correct term to use when setting an “Holistic Goal” for the land (as Alan Savory would suggest we do). “Health” instead of efficiency, or productivity, instead of profitability. “Health” because the land is a living system. It’s an organism, really, and if it healthy it is much more likely to be to us, efficient, profitable and productive.

I did some work on the dam yesterday. Introducing a “collar”
I have posted a video here:

The basic idea is to draw the water into the overflow from a little bit below the surface so as not to drain the dam of its most oxegenated, warmed water. (or its duckweed) This simple device will make the dam healthier!

The Margins

The Dam is settling down nicely after removing silt a few weeks ago.

I spent a great day out at Pebblespring. The morning was really beautiful after the rain yesterday. The skies were clear and there was a kind of silence that sounds different to there just being no noise. I did some work preparing pasture on the road side of the stream. The grazing is good there, but in order to run the temporary electric fence there, some work needed doing in clearing a new path through the forest. I am careful when cutting a new path to only cut alien invasive trees. In fact most of the bush in that area is Port Jackson, with a bit of Poplar thrown in, but there is a surprising amount of indigenous stuff fighting its way through. My objective is to help get this indigenous bush back on its feet.

In the afternoon the whole family came out. We made a braai. It was great. But now I am back home. Had my shower, now drinking my coffee, also great.

I was reading Wendell Berry’s “Unsettling of America” this morning. The chapter spoke of marginal land and how much marginal land is abandoned in the US because it is just not profitable for big “Agribusiness” to work it property.

Pebblespring is like that. Abandoned, when we found it, not farmed for so many years because, its marginal. The slopes are too steep and the marsh to wet for big equipment. And its too small to make sense as a significant ” Agri Investment’, But perhaps, if I am running an experiment here, one of the things I am looking for an answer to is:

Is there something useful, beneficial and sustainable that can be done with Marginal land like this?

But there are other questions:

Can I support my family on a piece of land like Pebblespring?
Can I carry on my career as an architect and make a success of Pebblespring?
Is there enough time for both?
Can I really make my family comfortable off the grid?
Can I support and enhance bi-diversity while still making the landscape productive?

These questions float through my mind as I wield the chainsaw in the forest or drag branches to the heap. I think about many things. I think about what the land must have looked like long ago. Before the Dutch came. Was it all forest or what there some grassland? My neighbours speak about elephant bones they have dug up on their land. It must have been vibrant and diverse. What did the Dutch farmers (and the Irish after them) do? Did they cut the forest for timber, did they just burn it for pasture? How did the Khoi Khoi pastoralists use the land? How did they interact with the forest? Did they burn for pasture? I am interested in all of this, because I am still trying to formulate the picture in my mind of what I am trying to direct, to steward Pebblespring to become. Like the artist of a giant landscape painting or a landscape sculpture, except this is a living sculpture, an edible landscape, a practical beneficial landscape, but a landscape which holds and captures the mystery of beauty.

The real pleasure of physical work

It was my first day back at work today after a four day long weekend which started with “Workers day on Thursday 1 May. I spent much of my worker’s day weekend working. Physical work, cutting trees, hauling branches, digging, holes, building fences and fixing quad bikes. Physical work is for me a kind of meditation. I am sure that’s not the right term, but its something that is good for me. It makes me feel alive and somehow “in touch”. Working outside, with the land and the forest has a very different feeling to “working” at my desk in the office, where I am invariably, writing or designing, or delegating or managing or strategising or cajoling or apologising or berating. In fact I am no longer sure that “working” is the correct term for what I do in the office, or for what millions of white collar workers do around the world in offices just like mine every day. There is such a disconnectedness between my actions in my office and anything actually getting done physically in the real world. So much of the office energy goes toward complying with government and bureaucracy. So much energy goes into delegating what I have been tasked with to someone who will delegate to still someone else who will delegate to someone else. So much energy we put in to avoid doing any real work. Years and years of study and building our careers to be sure that we are as far as possible away from being called upon to do any physical work, and for what? Because when I am there, on the ground, wrestling the chainsaw or hammering the nail or straining the wire, it is glorious, it is satisfying
and I am in a place that I want to be.

Is it just me?

160 cc Susuki Quadrunner helping out with some fence poles.

The right tools obviously make things a little easier.

Dam and Damn Aliens.

I am still a bit upset about the three cattle we lost. I know I could have avoided it. The spray I got from the vet, really cleared up this ticks on the remaining three and they are looking much better.

We had the TLB (tractor, loader backhoe) out again yesterday. Doing some more work on clearing alien vegetation on and around the dam wall, which now doubles as the access route. Basically what we are doing is removing poplars and inkberry that are growing into the dam. Problem is, we made more progress than we thought we would yesterday and about a metre of wet material was added to the dam wall over about a 15 m length. That depth of material will take a while to dry out, so we cant drive on it yet. No big deal, except, I had parked my car at the cottage and now cant get it out. I had to phone Hlubi to come and pick us up and take us home.

Perhaps the route will be dry enough by Tuesday. When I checked it today, it was sill so muddy, that I couldn’t walk over it. Its like sinking sand in places. I am sure though it will be OK once it dries. We excavated the same soil last time and it dried out OK for us to drive on.

I have been spending my mornings for the last few days reading Wendell Berry’s “Unsettling of America”. What he says really resonated with me and plays over in my mind. Even when I was working with the dam wall yesterday I was reflecting on what Berry speaks of as a “nurturing” spirit as opposed to the spirit of conquest. I can see what we are doing at Pebblespring seeks to nurture, but when we bring heavy machinery on site, it is nerve racking. Perhaps it feels to close to “Conquest”. This property has been so badly neglected. It has gone to ruin. If the idea is that we nurture it in order that is can, in return, provide for us, then we will have to begin with some drastic “surgery” But what I call drastic is nowhere near what my neighbours are advising “bulldoze the whole thing flat”, “burn it all down”.

There is a gentle, more nurturing way. I will find it.

Death and Destruction

I have delayed writing this post. Its been too painful.

Three cattle are dead. Tick born disease perhaps. Inkberry poisoning, also a possibility. I had to go out of town last weekend. I left on Friday. When I came back on Tuesday, they were dead.

I am devastated by this failure. I know all the rhymes about how we learn from failing, Its just that it feels so bad. It feels so discouraging .It brings everything into question. It brings my dream of this farm into question. I know it shouldn’t. I know I should just shrug it off, but I am just telling you how I feel. I know that I am not ready to bring animals onto the farm, I know I am not ready to but the farm I know things are too hectic with work and with family. I know all of this, but I also know that the only way to make this happen is to make it happen.

But maybe this is what this blog is about: Communicating the real struggle that it is to transition to some kind of agrarian reality. Showing that its not all about strolling in the forest and singing songs by the camp fire at night.

Its real and it gets nasty!

The Old Oak Tree

There is an old Oak Tree toward the east of the dam. It is in thick bush. I cut my way through to it yesterday. I had found it before, some months ago, when walking a different route. My neighbour, Gavin Flanagan told me some months ago that there was an old Oak Tree, he told me there were springs and a “well” I set out to find all of those and I did. But having a closer look at the tree I see that it is not very healthy.Some of the big branches seem dead. Others have broken off. There are leaves growing off one of the big branches, but not vigorously. I see some places where there is rot in the trunk and in other places I notice the tell tales marks of wood boring insects.

So I am trying to find out what can be done to help this tree. Any clever people reading this know what to do? What kind of insect is likely to be boring into the trunk? Is there a safe method to get rid of them? Are there environmental changes I can make? (getting more light on the trunk, getting more cross wind?)

I measured the circumference at 2.3 metres. I have read somewhere that a very rough estimate of an English Oak’s age would be one year for every 25 mm of trunk circumference. Our estimate therefore is that the tree is 92 years old, having started growing in 1922.

I am interested because I really like trees and because I am am interested in anything that tells the story of the farm, the various chapters of its history. This is part of the appeal of the site. Its like a journey of discovery, unravelling a mystery.