Every weekend brings new surprises with Keith chipping away at
long overdue maintenance issues. With the garden embracing winter, everything
has stopped growing but the oaks are hanging onto their brown leaves as usual. With
the leaves being brown some people tend to ask why the trees died. I always
find it strange that many people are not in tune with the seasons and the
changes it brings to a garden. The roses are preparing themselves for pruning
this week and in celebration of winter they donated a colourful and fragrant bouquet
of blooms to the house.
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| Before the pruning |
Keith finished grouting the stone stoep in front of the
kitchen door, a difficult task that takes planning and measuring because one is
working with uneven stones. The stone surface needs to slope away from the
house and that takes skill but then Keith has got the skill and determination
to make sure that it happens that way. I just love the completed stone stoep
and I catch the house proudly pushing out its chest. I feel like getting a
chair and a bottle of wine and sitting under the bare oak just watching the
stoep until I get used to how amazing it looks.
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| The completed stoep |
One gets used to incomplete projects on the property because
there is always something else that is more urgent. But when it gets completed
it is the most amazing feeling and one just wants to look at it until it just
becomes part of the familiar visual landscape.
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| Another view of the Stoep |
All the doors have got their weatherboards fitted and
painted with a pink wood primer. It looks like the green doors are standing
there with pink feet. It is perfect for winter as it will keep the rain away
from the thresholds.
Keith has replaced all the broken pickets and the vegetable
garden is guarded by rows and rows of pink pickets waiting for their green layer
of paint. The pickets were damaged by people unable to resist temptation and
reaching over the fence for the citrus fruit. We still have to find a solution
to protect the fence from such behaviour.
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| Pink Pickets |
The property is becoming more monochromatic as more and more
plants lose their leaves. The seasons in the valley contrast sharply in their
look and character so that one can never doubt which season the property is in
at any given time.
From oral history we know that this stoep area played a very important role in the social interaction of the working farm. It is above all a reference to that history.
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