The Weather Prophets

You know it is winter when you find it harder to throw off the duvet; get out of bed make the coffee and eventually stumble past the sleeping dogs on the stoep. When your ears tinge from the cold and the workers stare accusingly at you. As if it is your fault that it is cold and still dark. The sun another hour away. It takes longer for your creaking limbs to loosen up, your brain cells to align and your tongue to get around some words.Gradually it becomes day. Another day on the farm. Willem must look at the fence at the varkhok; Develine’s team still pruning; the cattle must be moved today; we must get bokkos and some builder’s lime from the co-op. What does the diesel look like; how far are we with the chipping; who left the hosepipe running at the cheesery last night? Wimpie? Etcetera, etcetera...

Up until now we have had good winter rains. But it is changing. The old people say that if it is misty, it will not rain. And it has been very misty of late. Sometimes till midday. Beautiful. Fairyland stuff. With that farmer’s fear: Will the rain come? Will it be enough? Will it stay away?

In the meantime, life goes on. The first calves have arrived, and the first goats’ kids showed up. Two weeks early but in good shape Two boys. Sons of Tecoma; an Australian. The mother is goodlooking. We will be milking a few more goats the summer.

In the background things slowly change. Over the last two years we have grafted all the Sauvignon to Chenin and PiquePoul. This year the Pinot will become more Grenache. The advantage of grafting is that you get a more suitable grape, in full growth, two years from now.

We did it the first time ten years ago with a block of Viognier. It became Rousanne. An integral part of the DisDit story. The two Grenache clones will give us one earlier and one later than our existing clones.

Another little project which will probably raise a few brows is the conversion of a bush vine Shiraz block to vine on the wire. The poor block has been hammered by the wind over the past few years. And it is getting worse. Last year, we picked less than a ton of grapes off one hectare. For the purist, it may look a bit odd, but it will become very attractive if we get three or four tons.

Over time we have taken out some of the worst performing olives; replacing them with vineyards or using the land for fodder for the animals. To make up for this we hire olive orchards from a neighbouring farm. This year we harvested our biggest crop. Just under fifty thousand litres of oil.

Thank you, Anro and all involved.

Us two old toppies do not know as much the old weather prophets of Botrivier. But we know that it is time to go visit our favourite winter destination. We’ll be off to the Lowveld for a few weeks. See some friends and clients and family and even try our arthritic hands at a round of golf.

Liefde

Johan and Sue