Excerpts from the Diary of de Boerin

This is our life and our work and we are ever mindful of how much it has to offer and just how fragile it all is and that whatever we do, we have a responsibility to the land – that it will have to be loved, nurtured and sustained for as long as we are fortunate enough to be the curators of this place where we make our terroir driven wines, our olive oil, where our bees forage and make honey and we call home.

…Here is a little forest,

Whose leaf is ever green;

Here is a brighter garden,

Where not a frost has been;

In its unfading flowers

I hear the bright bee hum:

Prithee, my brother,

Into my garden come! 

Emily Dickinson

For twenty five years this small and precious enclave has been our home. Surrounded by fynbos covered mountains, vineyards and olive groves we are fortunate to share our world with many wild animals and hundreds of birds.

In summer, our days are long and sun drenched. We swim in the river that runs though the pristine indigenous forest where autumn turns the leaves first to gold, then brown and everybody works hard to bring in the fruits of our labour.

During the cold wet restful winters we huddle around fireplaces and listen to the rushing water in the river, the wild winds and go for long walks. We forage for mushrooms, drink our own wine, and dream of spring. Then it is back to work – pruning vines and olive trees, cutting back last summer’s growth in the gardens and preparing for the abundance of spring.

At first there were only two of us, in the little cottage, which was originally the honey room and has since become the shop. We are now seven women of different ages and with different skill sets each doing what she does best, but always together.

Since the arrival of the first grandchild in the family, his needs have become part of how we structure our days at de Boerin, so that there is always a pair of arms to hold him or feed him or play with him or put him to sleep.

It has all been so simple – the happiness, the fulfilment and satisfaction of being productive, having goals and reaching them and, ultimately, having peace of mind.

We have now moved our workspace to two stone cottages in the komposjaart, lower down on the farm, and away from the hustle and bustle. Studios for us, mothers, daughters, sisters, friends and colleagues, to be what we want to be, in a place where work and life co-exist in harmony.

When we first began working in the gardens, bottling the honey from our hives, making candles from the beeswax, and soap with oil from our olives, we were happy enough.

But, soon we needed aprons and we thought of things to do with all the plants… So the aprons led to a collection of garments and the plants led to a collection of perfumes and other botanical products and a glasshouse and so it goes…

We couldn’t sustain all these things simply by making them for ourselves. And besides people were asking to buy them from us. So we decided to change the original honey room into a little shop where we could sell our goodly wares and earn our keep.

But we didn’t change – not our philosophy, not our dreams and not our way of doing things.

We have deadlines and orders. We have to procure bottles and fabrics and so on. Our printer mostly doesn’t work and we often have power cuts and wi-fi troubles, but we have hands and we have time and we laugh often.

We garden, sew, knit, embroider, print and plan. We pick the flowers to dry for packaging and potpourri. We make patterns, take pictures, build ceramic pots and jars and carve wood. We make a huge mess and clean up. We wash all our garments before they go to the shop, but very seldom iron anything. We harvest and bottle honey. We make candles, soap and mist. We blend olive oil and make verjus and balsamic vinegar. We feed our baby boy and read stories to him. We sleep well.

We are proud to be able to say that we design everything we do ourselves. Even though we never make more than a handful of garments from one design, we sometimes just do not have enough hands. We then work with an independent seamstress in the village whom we provide with patterns, materials and samples.

We only work in natural fabrics, use natural yarns and threads and make sure that these are grown and harvested in a responsible and humane way. Our hand printed fabrics are done one by one as mono-or lino prints. We do the handwork on each item ourselves and make sure no two pieces ever look the same. Any offcuts become hand-embroidered patches, or bags for packaging.

Our candles are made from beeswax. These are all hand dipped or carved by hand or poured into a handmade ceramic vessel. Our soap is made with our own extra virgin olive oil, beeswax and sheep’s milk. Drawing on the scents that surround us, we sometimes add natural oils, carefully blended by ourselves, to these goodly things.

Our perfumes are from the farm – this does not mean to say that we grow all the plants for all the oils that go into the perfumes ourselves. However, we wish to construct the smell and aura of different biospheres on the farm to so recreate our sensorial experience of Kleinood in specific places at special times of day or different seasons – a collection of terroir driven perfumes.

Thus, we are able to say that with kleinood i and kleinood ii we recreated the smell of two areas on the farm from unmodified and purely natural oils found in indigenous fynbos herbs and shrubs that all grow on the farm. With winter water we recreated the smell of the forest in winter, when the river comes rushing down, and the trees and forest floor an alluring scent of smokey wood and wet leaves. Although thousands of irises of all shapes and sizes grow on the farm, we had to procure the oils from outside the farm to create the sophisticated and enchanting iris.

They speak to each person in a different way. They either get under your skin or not. You need time to know if you will really like the way it speaks to you on your skin and if you will like what it says, forever. It is for this reason that we made a teeny parfum gift set – to afford you the time to really get to know and understand each of them in your own good time.

When you visit us, we wish it to be a home coming. Take your time. Smell, touch, and try. Stop to smell the roses. Allow your eyes to hold the mountain, hear the fish eagle cry and feel the rain or the sunshine on your skin. Don’t leave before you’ve made a friend.