Jam in the Morning

The kids leave for school in a flurry of lunch bags and ten-ton rucksacks, piling into my sister-in-law’s little red car at seven in the morning. There’s a momentary lull. I finish my cup of tea, sometimes I haven’t had my own breakfast yet, but then there is another tug of demand. George is patiently waiting for his walk, lying out on the brick path. His eyes are focused on my movements through the doorway. If I don’t seem to be coming soon enough, he’ll be at my side with a plaintive whine, then bound to the door again if I move half an inch in that direction.

At this time of year I take my basket with me every day. Our walk around the circular dirt road takes us past the veggie garden and the orchard, and there is always something  in urgent need of picking.We had so many carrots last month that I picked 20 kilos and took them down to sell at Camphill market. We were giving them away to friends, juicing them like crazy and eating them at every meal. Now we're down to just a few baby carrots, but have gallons of green beans, sacks of spinach, loads of leeks, and the courgettes have just started producing, so I have to  pick them every morning otherwise they seem to turn into marrows overnight.

The veggie garden is currently full of spinach, leeks, carrots, green beans and a ton of onions - such a blessing!

We had tearing winds just when the plums came ripe, so I was picking up wind-falls every morning and evening.

George keeps busy while I pick, chasing off the guinea fowl and peacocks.

The plums ripen within a day to dark purple and dripping with juice

This last two weeks we’ve had an entire tree of plums all coming ripe in one week. At the same time as the apricots, which all had to be stripped from the tree and jammed with great urgency, as they’d been ‘stung’ by fruit flies. So every morning I’ve been making jam, great pots of it, sometimes two, and every evening I’ve been preparing the next lot of fruit for the next lot of jam.

Part of today's strawberry harvest

We’ve got enough plum and apricot jam now for the year, but our strawberry crop has been woefully late and sparse. Only three pots of strawberry jam sit on the shelf, swamped by an ocean of plum and apricot. But finally the berries are getting going and I picked four ice cream containers of berries first thing this morning. Enough for several pots of jam, for my sister-in-law to make strawberry ice-cream, and to have some left over to eat. Phew – our jam self-sufficiency is safe for another year!

Apricots on the way to jammy deliciousness

The jam isn’t the only reason I’ve been neglecting my blog. I had a long succession of writing deadlines through September and October. Great for my work, not so great for me wanting to sit at the computer and write some more in my free time. So there were a whole load of things I was going to write about here, now just a distant memory and a handful of photos on Facebook: our spring festival, a visit to the Oranjezicht City farm market, the Make It New exhibition of Western Cape design and craft, project managed by my sister-in-law that I helped behind the scenes with, and then there was the Camphill Music festival with Freshly Ground playing live just down the road from us. All these things deserved a post all to themselves.

Maybe they’ll get one, after I’ve finished making jam, baking Christmas cakes and have survived the end of term whirlwind of end of exam parties, prize-givings, concerts and all that malarkey. Real life is taking over here and not leaving me enough time for my virtual reality! Anyway,  Marcheline, I’m still alive and well, if slightly sticky and enveloped in a veil of jam fumes!

George's Big Adventure - River Holiday

All our other dogs have been farm dogs. We go places, they stay at home and look after the house. They were happier that way, we were happier that way; who wants to share a car with a whimpering, shivering wreck more often than they have to? Right from the start with George however, he was going to be the family dog, the one who comes with us to the beach and ultimately on holiday to the Breede River. The first trip to the beach was a resounding success and from then on we knew he’d love the river. We just weren’t quite sure how we were going to fit him, no longer a puppy but a large, lanky dog, and our luggage, including food for ten days, in the car for the four hour journey.

In the end it was fine. The food and bags went on the roof, George and his cushion squashed in the back and drooled over Middle Daughter, who drew the short straw and got the very back seat. As a variation he panted down the neck of our son and tried to see out of the window clearly enough to count cars, sheep and telegraph poles, in between whining “Are we nearly there yet?” He was duly hushed by the teenagers, who with the diversion of iPods and earpieces tune out for the duration of the journey and no longer ask that dreaded question.

Exploring the sand bar in the afternoon at low tide

The reward for such patience, a steep grass hill leading down to  a wide stretch of water, a shallow sandy beach and, joy of joy, a sand bar that had shifted into perfect place since we’d last visited, allowing us to walk out into the middle of the river at low tide and creating a huge, relatively safe water play zone for dogs and kids.

As soon as we’d done all the regrettably essential grown-up things, like getting all the cool boxes off the roof, checking that the cool blocks had successfully countered the bright sunshine and stowing food into freezer and fridge, it was time to cool off from the hot journey in the river. George plunged in with joyous abandon, swimming and swimming between each and every member of the family, trying to keep tabs on us all. To start with we worried about him getting over-tired and sinking, but he just kept going.

"Hurry up, there the whole river to swim in!"

George heading out for an early morning swim at high tide

"It's hard work herding kayaks."

George's first voyage in the canoe with Youngest and me.

It soon became clear that he wasn’t going to be left behind when we took the canoe out either, as he leapt in after us next morning and started followed us up river. In the end we paddled back to shore and let him climb in with us, but made a shorter trip than usual, as he kept dipping a paw over the side, trying to drink the river and seemed likely to dive back in any minute. Over the next few days he got more used to being a canoe passenger and it became a slightly less hazardous under-taking.

We had four days of perfect summer holiday: swimming before breakfast, canoeing and the kids making their first attempts at water-skiing behind our friends’ boat. George regarded this activity with deep suspicion and it took just a few splashy failed attempts by the girls getting up on the skis, for him to become convinced that they needed rescuing from the persecuting noisy monster circling around them. He kept jumping in to swim out to them and in the end he was becoming so distressed that my mum had to put him on the lead and take him off for a walk to distract him.

In between times there was much baking of bread and rock buns (essential fodder in the river family tradition), and generous meals conjured up by each of the two families in turn. And croquet, can you believe that with such limited space we still found space for the croquet set on the roof?! Middle Daughter devised a complex course worthy of golf that kept the game going for hours.

A rainy day was forecast and we looked forward to huddling in bed late with books and cups of tea,  long games of Catan or cards, perhaps just a bit more baking. That was Monday, duly wet with storms and rain showers. Tuesday dawned with rain reduced to drizzle and looked set to clear up, but at breakfast I noticed that the water level was just creeping over the high tide mark onto the grass. Ten minutes later we were sure of it. The river was rising.

Suddenly we were at action stations, dragging the canoes higher up the lawn and taking the motor boat out of the water, just in case. We swam in the rising water as we did so and within an hour were able to paddle the canoes over what had been the bottom lawn. A slight check came when my glasses, carefully removed to avoid losing them in the river, were no longer when I’d left them with shoes and hats on the kayak, well above  the waterline. Our son had taken the things off the kayak to paddle it into the flood waters and hadn’t noticed my glasses. After much crawling around the ex-lawn in the rising water, we gave them up as lost and retired up the hill to tea, rock buns and to watch the still rising waters creep alarmingly quickly up the hill.

That clump of green mid-stream is the willow tree from previous pictures.

Luckily the house we stay at is high up the hill, so unlike the family several plots down, we weren’t having to move furniture and pack our bags. There were several meters of hillside in reserve. My husband had planned to go into Swellendam, but got as far as the dip in the access road, where water was already lapping at the edges, and changed his mind. Lucky that he did as the water kept on coming and halfway through the afternoon the road was at least a meter under water.

Watching trees float by on the flood

George was used to high and low tide by now, recognising that sometimes he could walk out onto the sand bar and others it was swimming all the way. But he knew that here was something wrong about the water this time and wasn’t nearly as happy letting us swim in it. There were some rather painful rescue attempts, as his idea is simply to grab hold of an arm in his mouth and drag you to shore.
That night there was more thunder, more rain and next morning we watched as the river rose even further until we could paddle the canoes right around the milkwood tree halfway up the hill between the house and the river. The main flow of the river was fast and deep brown, all memories of tidal cycle forgotten, carrying branches, logs and whole trees rapidly past. Our lawn became our own private lagoon just enough removed from the strong current, where we could swim, hold canoe races and explore the jungle of trees on the adjoining plot by canoe, an adventure in itself.

P restraining George from leaping in to the rescue

Heading off to explore uncharted jungle waters

Middle Daughter practising fishing casts, and the water now round the milkwood tree

Kayak vs canoe, racing across the lawn. That wisp of green is the willow again!

We had four days of being officially marooned, luckily without any real hardship, as we’d all brought enough food with us for the whole holiday. At last on Friday the waters began to recede, leaving a stinking carpet of mud behind them. George needed a hose down after each river foray, as did our feet after we finally braved the main river in our canoe to explore the aftermath. Even then the current was strong and violent eddies every now and again would knock us off course, so it was a perilous adventure!

By our last day the river was almost back to normal levels, but the tide hadn’t quite resumed normal play, and the sand bank we’d so enjoyed at the beginning of the holiday seemed to have been shifted bodily into the reeds. The kids never did get to work any further on their water-skiing, which was disappointing, but we had had an adventure that we’ll not forget and plenty of relaxation and down time to set us up for the new school year. George enjoyed his holiday and was just as happy to get home again and back to chasing hares every morning.

A promise. The waters at their highest.

Happy 2014 to you all! I hope your holidays were relaxing and free of floods and other natural disasters!

Youngberry Blondies Recipe - The Season of Berries and Jam-Making

Youngberry Blondies

For the last few days I’ve been leaping out of bed before 6 o’clock, even without the tyranny of the school run to blame. This time it’s the berries that are dragging me out, berries that urgently need picking while it is still cool. This recent blast of summer has 8am feeling like noon, and berry picking in the heat is no-one’s idea of fun.

So the dogs and I sneak out while the others are still dozing, sometimes while there is a veil of sea mist wafting over the hill behind us to take the edge off the warmth of the rising sun. It's delicious to feel a shiver of cool air and I don't bother taking a jacket. We walk around our ring road for dog walk exercise and then stop at the veggie garden to fill an ice-cream container of youngberries.

At least I do that, while George flattens the carrots by rolling on them or digging for moles, or tries to roust out a hare or two to play chase. The older dogs find a shady spot to loll in, occasionally give up on me, as I switch from youngberries to strawberries, and wander back home. Then I grab a bunny bouquet of rocket, nasturtiums, milk thistles, cabbage leaves and spinach, along with the George-flattened carrot tops and walk home laden with good things, to swirl through the kitchen door virtuously, as the sleepy family is dipping into breakfast.

Strawberries are made into jam and youngberries are frozen to make berry muffins and summer pudding for the rest of the year. In fact we’re only just reaching the end of last year’s berry supply, so I’ve been generously baking muffins on every social occasion.

And I’ve found an absolutely irresistible new baking way with youngberries. It started off as Nigella’s Blondie recipe. Hers had chocolate chips in, which I haven’t tried despite my chocoholic tendencies; but I can tell you, that with youngberries instead of chocolate these are truly sublime and horribly moreish. They would work with any berries, but the sharp/sweet jamminess of the cooked youngberries is hard to beat.

Youngberry Blondies Recipe
(adapted from Nigella's Blondies recipe)

Ingredients
200g / 7oz porridge oats
100g / 3.5 oz plain flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
150g / 5oz soft butter
100g / 3.5 oz muscovado sugar (I mix treacle sugar and brown sugar)
1 x 385g / 13oz tin condensed milk
1 egg
1 cup frozen youngberries

Baking tray or pyrex dish 30x20x5cm (12x8 inches)approx, lined and greased
Oven 180°C

Mix together the oats, flour and bicarb.
Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in condensed milk.
Add the oats mixture.
Beat in the egg.
Carefully mix in the frozen berries. If they are already de-frosting they will make gory splashes of red in the mixture, so it’s easier to do this straight from frozen. Or else you can use fresh berries.
Dollop the mixture into the tray and level it out roughly.
Bake for about 30 minutes until the top is a deep gold, but the middle is still slightly wobbly. It will firm up as it cools. You want it to be moist and almost gooey inside and deliciously crusty on the outside.
Once cool, cut into squares and devour without restraint.

These are perfect for the festive season, whether you are celebrating in winter or summer, the only trouble being that there are hardly ever any left for the next day!

Youngberries are like blackberries but with a livelier flavour

If you prefer chocolate chips to berries, here is Nigella's recipe on Gorgeous Gourmet's blog.

George - Puppy not Prince

George, just arrived at 8 weeks

After Badger died earlier this year we were a dog short in the household. All the car-greeting and barking duties fell on Indy’s shoulders while Amy took care of keeping the sofa warm and barking from the comfort of her personal chair. It was obviously time to bring in the next generation. My husband kept an eye on Gumtree, torn between wanting another border collie and a slightly bigger dog to be a fierce protector of the family. Every now and then he’d call my attention to an ad and I’d grunt non-commitally. I wasn’t really in a hurry to bring a demanding new creature into our lives and we’d just been through sleep deprived nights with Bracken as a new kitten.

Finally he showed me a picture that softened my reluctance. A fluffy pup, offspring of a chance encounter between a border collie father and the owner’s Dogue de Bordeaux (French mastiff). The owner was vetting all potential new owners and was obviously reluctant to part with the last two puppies of the litter, but her husband insisted. Living on a farm, with kids and other animals in the family, we passed her initial criteria and the whole family including my mother, who was visiting, piled into the car and set off to the other side of the world from us, Noordhoek ( for non-Cape Town readers, it’s a lovely little beachside village over a long pass from the main Cape Town sprawl).

He was a fluffy bundle, quite calm and gentle, but already quite big at 8 weeks and was immediately picked up and cuddled by all the kids. It seemed he was ours.

Bracken and Amy check out the new arrival

On the way home in the car as he wriggled over laps, a long discussion about names ensued. None of the ideas quite fit. My husband suggested George and I poo-pooed it, thinking he was joking, as the latest member of the royal family had just been named George. It turned out he was serious and really liked the name, and it seems the puppy liked it too, now it doesn’t seem like he could be called anything else! And apologies to young Prince George, but our George is slightly older than him, so must take precedence!

George was like a little bear cub when we got him all fluff and roundness, but he soon started growing longer legs, even though he still thought he was a cute lap dog.

Max, my sister-in-law’s dog started off  playing wildly with him and to start off with was top dog, but he lost some of his ebullience when George quickly grew bigger than him and started rolling him over instead. They’ve worked out an equilibrium now.

Max and George at play

The best thing for me was that having George gave me an inescapable motivation to walk round the farm twice a day, rain or shine,work or none. His house-training period... let's just say it took a while, and making sure that he came for a long walk, besides giving him exercise, made that much less to clear up in the house!

George at 13 weeks

"So much interesting stuff," as he wipes out the pretty dew spangled cobweb I was photographing!

A sandy nose from snuffling in mole heaps

The evening dog walk

Bracken, our kitten has an amazingly tolerant relationship with George. The puppy play continues and I think George looks on Bracken as his personal squeaky toy, putting a casual paw over him and chewing him, with hardly a protest or a scratch from Bracken.

My squeaky toy!

At five months George is now a big lolloping youngster, bounding around full of energy then crashing out in between times. He’s very sweet-natured and has a resoundingly gruff bark, which is most often directed at the perplexing mysteries of life such as tortoises and dead mice. He takes a keen interest in Bracken’s duties and my husband was woken several times in the last week by galumphing noises and crashes of chairs falling over in the kitchen. Turns out Bracken was sharing his mouse with George and they were playing with it together... at 3 in the morning!

Almost a model dog on the lead.

 Our first two border collies always hated going in the car, so we determined to get George used to it early on. He started taking the girls to school a couple of times a week, whining all the way. Eventually it got better, but he still wasn’t enthusiastic.

The breakthrough came when we took him to the beach a couple of weeks ago. He loved it: the sand, the sea, people, bounding and chasing waves and running. Now we can’t keep him out of the car. He leaps in any time we’re going anywhere, on the off-chance it might be going to the beach again!

This Atlantic ocean is jolly chilly on the paws

Got to have Table Mountain in the background as George lollops.

At five months George is well established as a travelling member of the family

Potato salad with creamy avo-nnaise dressing

It’s only in the last few years that I’ve really started liking potato salad. Up till then I was always put off by the vats of bought mayonnaise too often slicked over it. When I eventually started making my own, I would make the dressing with half and half mayonnaise with yoghurt, and add a good dollop of wholegrain mustard, which to me gave the perfect balance of tanginess.

For ZZ2’s Afrikado "More than just guacamole!" Blogger Challenge, I thought I’d try making a dressing for potato salad that didn’t have any mayonnaise at all. I had a feeling that the avo would provide all the creamy texture needed and the mustard would supply the tang.

I finally tried it today and it worked perfectly. My only worry had been whether the green of the avo would make the salad a bit too, well green. But actually it looked great and tasted even better. My family tell me I can do this one again any time I like!

And the best thing that this is an incredibly healthy dressing for potato salad – no oil, no mayo and, if you want, you can make it dairy-free by leaving out the yoghurt – it still tastes fantastic.

There’s no problem either with the dressing turning colour before you serve it. The lemon juice keeps it fresh for a good few hours, and in fact the small bowl of leftovers is still looking fine this evening!.

Recipe for potato salad with avo-nnaise

For the avo-nnaise
1 ripe avocado
2 teaspoons wholegrain mustard
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons plain yoghurt
2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs – mint , parsley and either fennel or dill
Salt and pepper

Blend together the avo, mustard and lemon juice. Stir in the yoghurt and the fresh herbs. Season with salt and pepper. If you prefer to make this dairy free you can leave out the yoghurt and just use 2 tablespoons of water to let down the dressing to the right consistency.

For the potato salad
1 kg potatoes, boiled in their skins then peeled
4-6 small gherkins chopped
4-6 tablespoons finely chopped fresh herbs as above
Salt and pepper
Serves 6

This is my second entry for the challenge, my first being a delicious chocolate avo parfait, which we finished off today after our braai, alongside some wonderful guava parfait. All in all a wonderful Sunday lunch on a beautiful winter’s day, sitting around the braai while the old man snoozed in the sun and the youngster played in the grasses.

Disclosure: I developed this recipe to enter into the Afrikado challenge. There is a prize for the winning recipe which will be decided by a panel of judges. I received no remuneration for writing this post and bought all the ingredients myself.