Wine of Origin

The vineyard started to look like something. Especially when we stood at the end of each row and looked down it, the vines seemed to be doing well.

Because we had started so late in the winter, the vines were already in bud-break when they went into the ground and it was thrilling to see the fresh light-green, almost yellow leaves bursting out.

We identified a part of the farm which we thought would be best-suited for the vines and contacted Hennie Terblanche to do the clearing and to prepare the soil. He had done similar work for another grower in the area and we plunged into the process

For the last twenty years I’ve been teaching at Bay College (now Greenwood Bay College). The story of the start and growth of this school is a long one and it is still ongoing but it has no place in this account beyond the fact that my work there helped sustain our life on the farm.

Over the years I made various assaults on the wattles with my chainsaw but my impact was minimal. The smaller gum trees were useful for building the kitchen and sheds but many of the trees were too big for our purposes.

Back in the day the farm was a bit of a dump – in the literal sense of the word . In fact, the whole farm resembled the garden at Anderson street in Makhanda when I first bought it – just on a bigger scale.

The “lounge” was pretty well-made and lined with tongue and groove but the windows were very small, making the room dark.

The “bedroom” was tiny with an even lower ceiling than the bathroom and we were delighted when Frank, Jo’s father, got his right-hand man Bernard, to put a cement floor into the tractor shed that was attached to the house.

As far as the kitchen was concerned, there wasn’t one. For the first few years I cooked (Jo does not cook except under extreme duress) on a gas ring on a counter under one of the windows or braaied outside.

I’m tall but not unusually so. Our shack however, was designed for unusually small people.