February 2023

Thankfully February was rather low key, giving us a chance to ‘gather’ ourselves and to start focusing on the imminent move to Wakkerstroom.

There is a lot of planning to be done. Roger gave notice at the hangar for moving out at the end of March. That means that we need to find alternative hangarage closer to home as a first step towards Buzz being, hopefully, in Volksrust. He managed to find a temporary home at Tedderfield.

The Wakkerstroom cottage plans were finalised, and the light steel structure was ordered. The windows, doors, and underfloor heating (Wakkerstroom is a very cold place!) specifications are being finalised. It is not a conventional build and Roger plans to do as much as possible himself. If the manufacturer installs it would take about two weeks. There is no way of knowing how long it will take for a DIY effort. I will be posting regular progress reports…

We intend going to the Wakkerstroom Music Festival which is held annually over the weekend around the 21^st of March. We will stay on afterwards and start digging foundation holes.

On Saturday the 4^th we drove out to the Living Seeds Heirloom Seeds farm in Walkerville to attend their open day. They specialise in organic cultivation of produce, both plants and livestock, and they sell only heirloom seeds. They are also South Africa’s first online heirloom vegetable seed store. We’ve had mail order goodies from them before but that was during the pandemic. This time we could attend, and we chose the talks on growing garlic and also on raising poultry. All of this with Wakkerstroom in mind where we intend to grow a lot of our own food. It was most interesting, and we certainly learned a lot.

Some pics from our mid-February visit to Silver Creek. All the dams were overflowing after the recent good rains. Sadly, the hyacinth is getting worse, if that is even possible…

Eugene is well and going about his normal business again, so no further worries there. We are very thankful indeed!

There is a potential buyer for their plot which came as a bit of a shock to them all. Like with our move, it is one thing thinking and dreaming about it and quite another when it suddenly becomes a reality. This has forced André and Alesia to go out and find a home of their own; until now they had been living in the second house on the plot. Personally, I think it is a very good thing.

André and Alesia moved to their new rental home on the 28^th. I bet they will miss the convenience of having Granny and Granddad so close, especially Louis who had free movement between the two houses. There is a lot of truth to the saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child‘.