April 2020

April is usually a very busy month as the weather is stable and warm, and we are trying to stock up and wrap up before the winter chills start. This year has been very different. No wedding season guests meant all of our focus was on the farm. With the very real possibility of no travel allowed for the foreseeable future, instead of slowing down for winter, we have to find ways to continue. While many overseas pasture raised producers stop all production due to snow and freezing temperatures, we are lucky in South Africa that, with some adaptations, we can continue through most of winter. Normally we don’t, we take a month off for rest as Nature goes into a state of rest too. This year we will have to think very carefully about keeping animals warm, managing animal rotations, grass management, and impact management if we want to stretch our season.

Pasture Raised Chickens

Broilers don’t usually do well in the cold so they are our main concern. For now, they are happy and growing beautifully on sunny, green pastures. When small, yellow and downy, they start out in the brooder for constant warmth and we slowly reduce the heat before moving them outside once they have their feathers. They always grow so rapidly once they are outside.

Forest Raised Pork

The pigs are very resilient and can keep themselves warm very well. We provide them with shelters that they occasionally use but they do prefer building their own nests under trees and shrubs. The thick dense grass provides decent insulation for them. Our piglets are growing quickly and getting cheekier by the day! We try to ensure we do not have small piglets going into winter, they need to be a certain size to withstand the cooler temperatures, which is why we normally have a delay in pork products in Spring and early Summer.

Bacon is back in town!

We finally have delicious bacon and other pork products back in stock!

Goats

Our free ranging goats have been getting up to all kinds of mischief! They are a laugh a minute! While seemingly hardy, they can be very fragile. They love to eat, and will eat themselves sick sometimes by eating the wrong things, or over eating! But so far, when not climbing on the tractor and trying to get into the feed storage, they have been doing a good job of browsing away on long grass and shrubs. Goats are browsers and will preferably eat only as low as shoulder height so they are great at taking overgrown shrubs and grasses down to size, as well as trampling and mulching the rest.

April has largely been dominated by figuring out animal rotations, planning for winter, and deliveries. We have been so abundantly blessed with an increase in orders for our products. During this time we have to pack and label each order, and send an invoice. It is hugely time consuming but thanks to the support of our customers, we are managing to survive lock down and keep our staff fully paid! We are so grateful!

We began lock down by falling back on our old mailing list. Fortunately we have kept this up to date over the years as it was an easy way for us to get in touch with our customers quickly and arrange direct deliveries. Some help from dedicated and loyal customers has helped us expand our deliveries too. We have been delivering weekly to Notties, Michaelhouse/Balgowan, Hilton, and Howick, as well as supplying some of the new box delivery systems that have started up. We are very grateful for our patient and loyal customers who have put up with the difficulties we have had such as stock shortages due to lock down restrictions, being short staffed, or just plain us messing up and getting orders wrong!

With some careful planning, we have managed to get Hilton REKO functioning again during lock down. Following Joel Salatin’s example, Hilton REKO has become a Drive Thru collection point. This means everyone adheres to social distancing protocols, minimising contact. While we lose the leisure time with customers, it has been efficient and effective way of getting local food to customers. All of the producers have done their bit to keep it flowing smoothly and effectively.

The result of this on the back end is that each order has to be packed and weighed and labelled before we can load it for delivery. When Andre takes all the items to deliver, I sit at home and send out the many invoices, checking the weight and quantities for each order. It is very time consuming but we are finding a rhythm to speed up a bit.

We have had a lot more time to explore and appreciate our environment during this time. A tradition for us to hike up the mountain early on Easter morning and watch the sunrise over the valley. This year, we had the most amazing sunrise but also such a humbling feeling as we looked over multiple of our own animals in the valley too! What a season it has been and what an adventure we have to look forward to in the coming months as the world shifts in so many ways…