Adventure is out there.

Week 05 – Helloooooooo 2025

The lantana killing spree continues… it might be border lining obsession at this point for Ellery. But I have been enjoying our daily walks with Ryno. We got our new sign up this week, and it looks really good! I used my Cricut to cut the stickers out for it – we are officially Induli Khaya!

The end of 2024 went off with an awesome time fishing, shooting and snacking down at the dam with the Pollards, Craig, Jacuqi, Limari and some of their friends and our neighbours Anthony and Shirely.

With ominous clouds lurking, we moved the party up to the house where we braai’d and the kids discovered how to set party-coloured lights throughout the house using Alexa. Donnacha played his favourite Metallica tunes, and everyone had a great time. We even got to play a round of six person Tac! At midnight stroke, we woke the kids up who had long since passed out on the couch and everyone enjoyed some champagne while watching the fireworks from the balcony. It was an amazing view too, you could see firework displays in all directions throughout Nelspruit and even as far away as White River!

New Year’s Day, was definitely a much needed recovery day as my normal bedtime is around 21:30 and somehow we stayed awake until nearly 03:00. The kids arrived back on the 2^nd and Schotia and I went to the stables to work on de-ticking Akira. The mares were recently moved to a new paddock, and apparently baby girl decided to roll or sleep or something in a nest of pepper ticks.

Facebook Market Place delivered once again and we scored an awesome deal on a little second hand boat for the dam. Which of course meant we had to have another braai to test it out! Luckily it floats, the kids (and Drew) had such a blast boating around and fishing in the dam. Limari stayed over for a sleepover encouraging all the kids for two days of exploring around the farm.

Sjoe, I cannot believe it is another new year. Time feels like it has absolutely flying lately. 2025. Crazy. We had so much change throughout 2023 and 2024, so I am really looking forward to hopefully a year of settling into our new beginnings and next chapter.

Sjoe, farm life is a busy life and loving every minute of it! Pretty much every day since our solar has gone online has been grey, cloudy and misty. But despite that, our system has been producing amazingly!

Ananda and I had a blast taking Akira and her horse, Troy, for a walk getting caught in an absolute downpour. Akria was such a champ though and only once batted an eye at an ominous looking puddle.

We started a new daily routine – Ryno and I go for a lovely stroll through the farm while Ellery goes on a murderous rampage with a panga cursing and killing all the lantana in his path. Lantana is a huge HUGE problem in the lowveld. It is an ornamental bush that produces pretty flower clusters, so people originally started planting it in their gardens. However, it is EXTREMELY invasive and has taken over the Nelspruit area, monopolising on the perfect growing conditions and outcompeting our native plant species. Not to mention, it is also a toxic plant to many animals. And our farm is chockablock full of it. Ellery has made it his personal mission to destroy all of it and is starting with our daily evening walks. We also discovered the most perfect sundowner spot on a huge rock overlooking the valley. Absolutely breathtaking!

We had an absolutely lovely quite Christmas starting the morning eating chocolate chip cookies and opening some very sweet gifts from Aunt Sandy that she collected while judging at the Olympics this year in France! I also had a couple very nice surprises in my email with gifts from my favourite fruitcake, Alice and my dad – thank you both so much! ❤ ❤

 I went to the stables to give Akira lots of Christmas treats and cuddles and had fun little mini Christmas photoshoots with Ananda, Stephanie and their horses.

We capped off the evening with a delicious beef roast and watched the Holiday. Really a perfect day ❤

On Saturday, we got to work after a trip to Builders to buy paint, Ellery and I proceeded to paint feature walls in the master bedroom, lounge and the whole kitchen and I love the results! We did the kitchen and the lounge feature wall in a beautiful sage green and then the master wall in a deep forest green. It is amazing how a fresh coat of paint in your colour selection really helps make a house feel more like home….. soon onto the rest of the house!

On Sunday the Pollards, back from the Cape, came by for a lunchtime braai. The boys quickly discovered the giant muddy mounds of dirt from the pool excavation and had a jol being boys getting all good and dirty in the mud.

We then made the final collection trip from the rental house and brought the last of our fish tanks back – I finally have my puffer fish army here!! I adore them, they are the absolute cutest little freshwater murder balls.

It has been a really nice week! Bring on the final week of 2024!

Orion caught the first fish in the dam, a tilapia! Apparently, there are some big bass in there too, so we definitely need to put some effort into find them. We took the kids out to dinner for their first ever Chinese food. Saucy noodles, crispy chicken, wontons – they are all completely obsessed! Sadly, the kids went back on Wednesday. They are with their mom for Christmas this year, but we will have them again just after New Years and are looking forward to one more week of adventure and dancing around the house.

Tuesday was the start of our latest project – installing solar panels! We scored awesome details for Black Friday from AC Direct for a solar setup. The team was great and the entire setup – solar panels, invertor, batteries and all the wiring were finished and up and running by Friday… just in time for a week of overcast and clouds. We are not completely “off grid” just yet, but most of the way there. Living lives in conservation, putting in solar was a key thing on our bucket list for the new place.

We also started digging out the spot for a swimming pool – the first two weeks of 37-42^o C (98-107 ^o F) made us quickly realise the long-term goal of putting in a pool needed to be a much more immediate plan, and with the kids a pool is very necessary! We are hoping to have it finished sometime around mid-late January.

Akira is doing great and has settled in well at Pondarosa. She has made friends with another mare named Hay Sister and is doing good with the routines. I started sketching out ideas for possible stables here on our farm and getting quotes for the costs for building one. I am really looking forward to having Koda and Akira here!

Over the weekend, we had so much fun hosting a mini Goodman Family reunion. Pete came by to stay with us along with three of his daughters and their husbands. It was really nice to have them all here. We had a lovely braai with far too much food and wine – just as it should be.

Oh and I have the very exciting news to share that we officially have decided on a farm name…… drum roll please……….

Induli Khaya

which means home on the ridge or hilltop home.

We are still sitting on camping chairs and using boxes as tables, but this place is very quickly becoming home.