While summer roses all their glory yield
To crown the votary of love and joy,
Misfortune’s victim hails, with many a sigh,
Thee, scarlet Poppy of the pathless field,
Gaudy, yet wild and lone; no leaf to shield
Thy flaccid vest that, as the gale blows high,
Flaps, and alternate folds around thy head.
So stands in the long grass a love-crazed maid,
Smiling aghast; while stream to every wind
Her garish ribbons, smeared with dust and rain;
But brain-sick visions cheat her tortured mind,
And bring false peace. Thus, lulling grief and pain,
Kind dreams oblivious from thy juice proceed,
Thou flimsy, showy, melancholy weed.
Anna Seward
When the Piet-My-Vrou calls,
spring has officially arrived on Kleinood Farm.
The beautifully barred Red-Chested Cuckoo is commonly known in South Africa by its Afrikaans name, Piet- My-Vrou. This rather nonsensical phrase approximates to the bird’s three-note call, which is repeated endlessly by territorial males day and night. Like other Cuckoos, it is larger than its common host species, like the smaller Cape Robin-Chats. These little birds have to work feverishly to feed the almost grotesquely larger and vocally demanding Cuckoo chicks that appear in their nests for them to hatch and raise in place of their own brood.
Most Cuckoos that visit our area are sub-Saharan intra-Africa migrants. Only two species remain resident all year round. Although they all prefer wooded areas and forest edges, we often spot them in the Kleinood gardens. They are generally solitary mostly keeping to the tree tops, where they are not easily seen, but proudly announce their presence with their incessant loud calls all spring and summer.
Maria Popova writes how (she), “watched a great blue heron rise slow and prehistoric through the morning mist, carrying the sky on her back. In the years since, the heron has become the closest thing I have to what native traditions call a spirit animal. I found in the long stillness of the hunting bird, waiting for the right moment to do the next right thing, a living divination — a great blue reminder that patience respects the possible.
It is naive, of course, to believe that this immense and impartial universe is sending us, transient specks of stardust, personalized signs about how to live the cosmic accident of our lives. Still, it is as foolish to ask the meaning of a bird as it is to see it as a random assemblage of feather and bone. Reality lives somewhere between matter and meaning.
A bird is never a sign, but it can become an omen if our attention and intention entwine about it in that golden thread of personal significance and purpose that gives life meaning.”
So too, on Kleinood Farm, we imagine the Piet-My-Vrou to magically be, as it were, the prophet of spring. Although, it doesn’t have the best reputation, its exuberant call is always the joyous announcement of beautiful, bountiful days of sun and growth and new life.
This particular spring is one we have all been looking forward to. The last two winters have not been very kind to us and then came the winds – many trees came crashing down, the river broke its banks and took everything in its way – tempestuous, dark, and bitterly cold.
But with less opportunity to actively do, we had time to think, to plan, to dream. Now, with the first magical call of the Piet-My-Vrou, the time has come to do. To get our hands dirty and help things stand up again and grow again and prosper.
From The Vineyard
The vines are slowly wakening with small leaves and shoots and buds showing the brightest fresh green here and there. The irrigation has been checked, the poles and trellising prepared. Now it is time to sucker – preparing the vines for the right amount of growth to happen in all the right places, enabling the trellising of the shoots later and preparing the ideal positioning for the young grapes and bunches to grow and ripen in the months to come.
From The Winery
Good things come to those who wait:
Beautiful new vintages from ‘Die Pierewaaiers’ (The Dandies) collection will be released by summer – the Grenache Blanc (inkommer) 2023, the Chenin Blanc (buurman) 2024 as well as the much loved Mourvèdre (meevaller) 2023.
You can also now purchase rare vintages, in even rarer magnums, made especially for special occasions, of which a few might be coming up, via the Kleinood online store.
Now, as the days, or some days, are slowly warming and the rain seems to hold back ever so slightly, we have a new seasonal, Rhône-style, platter to celebrate spring, the view, new wines, the green bright beaks of buds on oaks, flowers popping everywhere and for you to come home to.
But then, you may not be the outdoors type or you might just not want to be with people or be recognised – being famous and all – it might be a special day or date with very private people wanting special, or even a clandestine tasting at Kleinood. We have the spot for you at the Secret Syrah Society table. For these you will have to book and plan and come prepared to spend as long as you like in the company of only a very odd bird, the barrels and aging wine.
But Kleinood is not only about wine…
We want to share the farm – the hidden pathways, the pretty bits, the bits in progress, the donkeys, the river and the forest. We want you to forget about the world out there and wander, see the birds, the bees, the blooms and especially the trees. The magic that matters.
We think you would want to do it on your own, so when you book tell us that you would like to experience the whole of Kleinood so that we can make sure that the Kleinood you see is as good as it gets.
From de Boerin
Now for something completely different…
de Boerin has created a collection of four natural perfumes,
inspired by the terroir of Kleinood Farm.
You know Winter Water with its mysterious notes of a deep winter forest, fallen leaves and fresh minerality of fast flowing mountain water in winter. So too, the summery fynbos floral scent of Kleinood i is an old favourite. They are still there, but have been repackaged with a whole new luscious and classical look.
The two marvellous perfumes that now stand proudly alongside them, are Kleinood ii and Iris. Although Kleinood i and Kleinood ii have the summer gardens as common denominator, Kleinood ii is brighter with notes of pink pepper corn and freshly picked garden roses. Iris is what it promises – sophisticated, seductive and, simply, out of this world.
As always, this collection of carefully handcrafted bespoke perfumes are made from only pure and natural essential oils. There are no chemicals, no modifications – real perfumes created by the same nose from the same terroir.
In our little shop below the winery, you too will find boisterously frilly cotton and linen shirts, wide frisky summer skirts, bits and bobs to dress everything up and down, tea towels, pure olive oil soaps, beeswax candles and all the other de Boerin old faithfuls. Come have a cup a cup of coffee in our little yard, or wander through the glasshouse where the orchids are still quite pretty and chat to Hope who will tell you all the why’s and wherefore’s of de Boerin.
Popova goes on to say: “There are two paths to magic: imagination and paying attention. Imagination is the fiction we love, the truths built of falsehoods, glowing dust on the water’s surface. Paying attention is about intentional noticing, participating in making meaning to lend new weight to our world. An acorn. The geometry of a beehive. The complexity of whale song. The perfect slowness of a heron.
Real magic requires your intention, your choice to harmonize. Of course it does. The heron cannot cast starlight onto the dark shallows to entrance the bluegills. Not unless you do your part. You must choose to meet her halfway. And when you do, you may find that magic isn’t a dismissal of what is real. It’s a synthesis of it, the nectar of fact becoming the honey of meaning.”
Here in this valley one cannot but believe, that everything about nature is magical, but spring is more than magical – new life always is – there is nothing more sublime than the song of a cuckoo, a newly hatched chick, tadpoles in clear water, the petals of an iris slowly unfolding. We allow ourselves to grasp and embrace the fleetingness and fragility of it all. We understand that it will never be this good in exactly this way again, but, also, that summer is on its way. And that it too will be good.
Have A Good One.
