Chapter 3. The Milagro Beanfield

Bulklip's answer to a tractor and plough

As the idea took hold in our minds, we were only vaguely supposing that any of this could have real meaning, but enquiries in the local town led us to a lawyer who knew all the ins and outs.

Yes, the farm was owned but not farmed. He doubted that the owner would sell, and if he did it would be for a high price, the property being a compact unit of only 300 hectares and therefore in demand by people such as us who wished to farm but did not want vast acreage.

Once again John and I travelled out to inspect our find and this time, there were signs of activity. A room had been cleared out near the sheds and a small dog was tethered by the door. The sheep manure had been scraped off the veranda and an effort made to prop open the front door. Mysterious but interesting! The lawyer was being evasive and it was time to take matters into our own hands and track down the owner. From a chance enquiry we found that in fact he lived on the neighbouring farm and had been watching our comings and goings with amusement. In that tight-knit farming community, I imagine that he had already been notified by the lawyer that our interests lay in the direction of possibly purchasing the farm, and a date for further discussions was made. I knew that not only would the nuts and bolts of the actual sale come under the spotlight, but also whether or not John and I were deemed to be suitable neighbours.

‘Whatever they offer you to drink, accept it with good grace’ I said, tweaking his collar straight and brushing some crumbs off his shirt front.
‘But what if it’s tea?’ he queried in worried tones. ‘I don’t think I could ever drink tea’
‘Look, this is no time to be French and difficult. If tea is what’s on offer, then that’s what you have to drink’.

And so it was that John sat poised on the edge of a large armchair coping with a cup of tea and a plate of home made sponge cake trying hard to hide the grimace on his face. At least I managed to get our hostess to pour it black, weak and without sugar, or I doubt that the deal would ever have gone through. We must have passed inspection however, and the farmer said he was prepared sell to us and to come within range of our price and on the understanding that he grazed his sheep on the property until we had paid in full, we could take possession as soon as the papers were signed.

So, here we were at a crossroads in our lives, deciding whether to cease our safe and gainful employment as an Accountant, and a Sales Rep, in order to become what we would laughingly call "Farmers". But the seed of the idea had been planted as surely as if we had thrust it deep into the moist soil of the lands, and we signed on the dotted line, formed ourselves into a Company and took possession of "Our Farm". Oh the joy, the elation, the fear of the unknown but the deep determination that the road on which we had set our feet was the way ahead. It would take much untangling to free ourselves of the lives that we had led. Decisions had to be made, resignations handed in from jobs that had provided the security of large and regular pay checks, and finally we each made the difficult but firm decision to turn our backs on what had constituted our lives previously.

Bit by bit, we carved out a corner where we could set up camp, and began to spend wonderful weekends sloshing around with paint, and scraping and digging out infrastructures that emerged from their coating of manure and dirt. Once the rooms had been cleared and the paintwork freshened in the cottage, it was possible to lay our heads down on camping mattresses and to start to spend the occasional night despite the chilly wind blown conditions. We even managed to gather sufficient damp wood to start a smoky fire over which we cooked a warming mutton poitjie stew, As we settled down to devour it by the light of one flickering hurricane lamp, we planned future meals to be eaten "al fresco" under the shade of the weeping willows whilst looking out over our immaculate gardens. A blanket hung over the empty window frame keeping out the worst of the wind and rain and we slept the sleep of the exhausted, filled with dreams of life on the farm.

Up until this time we had needed a four-wheel drive vehicle to enter and leave the farm which was based in a hollow of surrounding hills. Wonderful falls of rain soaked into the ground and filled the farm dam to overflowing, and we started to eye the section of arable land situated below the old orchard.

‘Beans’ was a suggestion; ‘sheep don’t eat beans’.

And so began the Milagro Beanfield War which was in time to give its name to that section of the farm. The thick wet earth of the land clung to our boots, to our spades, and to the feet of my Weimeraner dog called Mr. Dumpy who plodded about like a skittish cart horse with great clods of earth stuck to his paws. Differing views abounded on how to get the seed into the ground without the back breaking business of bending down to insert each one, and in no time, we had devised a method whereby a length of towel rail was held in one hand and a fistful of seeds in the other. Having enrolled the help of a couple of staunch friends, one walked ahead with a spiked stick creating a hole in the ground, while the next one followed, placing the open ended piping on top of the hole, and dropped the seed down the tube. The hole was then closed by the third member of the team doing a sort of inverted duck walk up and down the line, and bit by bit we managed to get ten rows of beans into the ground. Great was our joy when a week or so later, we were rewarded with signs of green shoots appearing. Still the rains blessed us and in no time we had a respectable stand of bean plants; but then the sheep struck and disproved the theory about not eating beans. They not only devoured the leaves, but dragged the roots out of the ground and gobbled them too. So much for bean farming while still acting as host to our neighbours' sheep. In a way it was good because it spurred us on to make the final payment to the previous owner, and true to his word he removed his bean filled sheep and we could settle down to planning our next crop.

For ever in search of ways to finance our venture, we decided that potatoes were always in great demand and reckoned that if we could just drag open a furrow, we could drop the seed potatoes in and have a wonderful crop both in time for Christmas, and for delivery to the local supermarket. In our minds eye, we sat down to steaming bowls of new baby potatoes, glistening with butter and sprinkled with the fresh parsley that would be growing in our vegetable garden (as yet unplanned and unplanted). We had no plough, we had no tractor, but we had determination, and after a visit to our local friendly wholesaler who provided us with a single blade plough which we hitched behind the four-wheel drive vehicle, we were ready for action. Slowly the truck moved off, towing the plough behind it, but we soon discovered that care had to be taken not to drive too fast or the operator guiding the implement would be hurled around corners with the plough share clear of the earth which in turn would result in a spate of colourful language of a non-agricultural type. The team was then formed up and, line abreast like some biblical scene of old, “we ploughed the fields and scattered" dropping our seed potatoes into the furrows. Once our crop was safely in, we called on the assistance of my son who by this time was fast becoming a water-skier of note. Manfully balancing his weight across the top of the three cornered rake on which we had mounted a concrete lintel, and hanging onto a ski rope attached to the back of the truck, we dragged both him and his implement up and down the field closing the furrows over, leaving the potatoes to settle in to the warm moist earth.

The first official harvest from Bulklip was honey. We had tried all sorts of methods to cope with the bee infestation under the boards in the back bedroom but in the absence of a skilled apiarist, we finally gave up the unequal struggle and blasted them out with spray. Once the mounds of carcasses had been shovelled out, we lifted the boards and found rack after rack of dripping combs which we enjoyed enormously with our breakfast toast.

At about this time, the old orchard decided to show us what it was capable of. Having spent the past ten years without the benefit of either pruning or spraying, a vast harvest of peaches, pears, plums, nectarines, apricots, quinces and apples was forthcoming. We invested in a ladder and engaged a couple of young lads from the neighbouring farm to give us a hand, and I imagine that they ate their own weight in fruit, but it was better than seeing it go to waste. The harvest was gathered and having been carefully graded, the fruit was laid out in empty beer boxes begged from the “bottle store” as the off-licence was called, and from there, it was transported to town to be sold in return for funds that would help with the purchasing of such necessities as petrol to keep the trucks going and wine to keep us going.

Each trip to civilisation became something of an exploration. Having lived relatively close to the little border town of Zastron for many years, but only ever having used it for trips to the doctor and dentist, and to produce my two children in the little cottage hospital, John and I began to discover hitherto untapped delights such as the farmers Co-operative, the Silos and Grain Store, and the Country Shop which rendered up all sorts of goodies. Once we learned where to look, we could purchase seeds, tools, fresh cream, eggs, gallons of milk and pots of jam. There were remedies for everyone and everything from sore feet to sore udders, and most of the time, service was given along with a cup of tea and a dissertation on how and when to plant, reap, shear and calve. I soon learned to drink the tea and hold my peace, whilst absorbing as much of the information as possible.

On passing by our neighbouring farm, we were more often than not hailed in to drink yet more tea and to be laden down with boxes of fresh vegetables and fruit. By now they had grasped the idea that the French only drank coffee and a special brew was always prepared for John, and the teenage children would sit spellbound while they listened to his accent. I was already something of a rarity coming from England, but to have someone as exotic as a Frenchman sitting in their home must have been like having a Dalek dropping in. The hospitality and kindness of the Afrikaner which up until then had been a totally unknown quality, was making itself evident and we were blessed with neighbours with open hearts and minds.

It quickly became apparent that one of my first priorities should be to embark on a swift course of basic Afrikaans, and casting aside my French language books which were making very little impact on my broken school girl efforts, I changed my "Oui's and Non's" for "Ja's and Nee's". I limped along doing irrevocable damage to the language, and on one occasion while watching the neighbour’s children fill a large basket with fresh green beans for me, realised that instead of getting them to stop, I was urging them on to greater efforts. It was like the sorcerers apprentice who wouldn't stop filling the buckets! I was forever offering to buy things instead of sell them, and to spend money instead of save it, but the patience of my neighbours and the townsfolk, and the ability of my staff to converse using very short simple words gave me a certain shaky confidence.