Adventure is out there.

She is here!!! She is here! My beautiful new filly arrived safely on Sunday. MC Sempiternal, aka Akira moved into Pondarosa Ranch, which is just down the road and is settling in very nicely. She is such an absolute sweetheart and is very quickly becoming a cookie monster loving attention from everyone at the stables. We are taking things very slow, letting her really settle in nicely and get to know her new herd before I start working on training with her. So for now, our time spent together is just getting to know each other by hanging out with her and grooming sessions. I cannot believe how absolutely gorgeous she is! I already love her to bits.

We also celebrated an early Christmas this week with the kids since they are with their mom this year for actual Christmas day. But the date does not really matter as everyone woke up super early and very excited to open presents. We started a tradition last year, taking the kids to the shops and sending them off to buy their own gifts for each other, and I must say it is absolutely heartwarming to see how excited they get to be able to give gifts to others. And they are really good at picking out the perfect gifts for each other. We followed our Christmas morning with special holiday pancakes for brekkie.

We also had a new addition born on the farm, one of the wild zebras gave birth to an absolutely beautiful foal! We were lucky to see them walking by the garden just hours after the baby was born. It is definitely baby season as we now have a baby wildebeest and some impala lambs as well.

With all of the recent rains, grazing has been great for all of the animals. Though we also had quite the heat wave this week ranging from 37-42^o C (98-107^oF)! We definitely need to build a pool sooner than later!

Ryno had a spa day, getting his nails painted by Schotia

On Saturday, we finally had a break from the heat with a nice cool overcast day and our lovely neighbours, Anthony and Shirely invited us over for a braai to meet the community. The kids instantly got along with the other kids on the road and had such a jol running around playing and discovering the seemingly endless supply of ice cream from auntie Shirley. All of our neighbours are wonderful and we are so happy to have such a wonderful community surrounding us.

7 December 2024 + Uncategorized

Week 1 – Home

by Jo Worth

I am pretty sure my feet are going to fall off! Who needs the gym when you can just move houses? We spent the weekend moving boxes and boxes and more boxes. The kids were a tremendous help with loading and unloading. And we are super grateful to Drew and Zoe for all of their help with the back and forth from La Roi to the storage unit and to the new house. But we are here!!!! We are home in our new place! And the kids absolutely love the new place!

We have a couch, tv, a bench and beds so we have been eating most of our meals on the couch or sitting on the floor and 40% of the house is still in boxes, but we have been slowly making our way through them unpacking throughout the week. Orion already went exploring and woke up super early on Tuesday morning to take his fishing rod down to the dam. Cole has found a good spot in the garden to do his rugby holiday workout routine. And Schotia has been having fun going through my old storage boxes from my life in Joburg claiming random things for herself.

We are also dog sitting Brutus and Wilson for the Pollards while they go to the Western Cape to celebrate the holidays with family.

We have had a few lovely storms blow through this week and we’re so excited to not have lost power – unlike La Roi which is still without power. The views over the valley are stunning, the bush and wildlife are amazing so in short, we are very much loving our new home!

The boys have started digging in the vegetable garden for a future compost worm farm and Zoe came by to donate some plants for our veggie garden. Schotia and I walked the entire 6 ha (15 acres) grazing paddock checking it out in preparation for the horses’ arrival.

We may have lots of stuff in boxes still, but we have our Christmas tree up! It is amazing to be able to spend Christmas in our new home.

There is a ton of work that needs to be done to the land, such as slowly tackling the invasive lantana plants that have taken over much of the property and little things around the house. Ellery is currently making use of an unfinished room for his office, so we will have to finish the walls, flooring and finished ceiling for him soon. My “office” right now is in the dining room since we do not yet have our dining room table, but I will have my own office on the main floor once we put in tiles and paint in there. We also would love to get a pool one day.

But little by little…

30 November 2024 + Uncategorized

Week 0 – New beginnings

by Jo Worth

Hello there!

It has been a long time, too long actually. Life has changed in so many ways that I do not even
know where to start. But without going into too many details, we have left Mozambique and are
starting the next chapter of our newest adventure… we are officially home/landowners!!!!!!
Somehow all of the stars have lined up and we have been able to purchase are forever dream
home on the outskirts of Nelspruit, South Africa. It is absolutely gorgeous, sitting on 35 ha (or 86
acres) overlooking mountains and the Barberton Nature Reserve. I think for a little while at least
I am going to aim to do short weekly updates about our new chapter! (I am going to try my
hardest to stick to it!) Cilla has been doing weekly updates since they moved to their new farm over two years ago, and I just absolutely love the idea of it and have been having so much fun following her adventures. So, I am stealing the idea! Here we go…

Week 0

Ellery has been busy being amazing and building a new bedframe for us from the ground up
working in the garage of the rental house we have been staying at in Nelspruit. I really think it is
going to turn out so beautiful!

All of our belongings in Mozambique have been packed up, but with current hectic unrest and
riots currently happening in Mozambique combined with the upcoming holidays, we are not
sure if our stuff will be able to be moved this side before the end of the year. Most likely it will
only in January next year. Which means, we are probably going to be living on camping chairs for
the next two months, which reminds me – I need to go and buy some camping chairs (all our
camping stuff is with the Moz things). We have been running around trying to find the best Black
Friday deals for household items – fridge, wall paint, bed linen, etc. It is actually a great time of
year to move in as there are so many specials going on right now.

The malinois, Kheta and Tivara, will only be joining us in January, and we cannot wait to have them here! We miss them so so much and are forever grateful to JJ and Berna for taking care of them in Moz. Ryno has been here with me in Nelspruit, so he will be moving in over the weekend with us to check out his new domain.

Speaking of the animals, that reminds me, I have a new child! Meet Mon Coeur Sempiternal, aka Akira! She is a gorgeous yearling buckskin tobiano warmblood filly and we are very excited for her to join the family!

She will be moving from the Eastern Cape also very soon! The plan is to keep her at a local stable yard, Pondarosa Ranch for a little while until we are all settled on the new property and can bring
both her and Koda to their new home.

Needless to say, we have had a very, very busy upcoming week packing up the rental house and
moving into our dream home. Holy cow, it still has not set in yet that I am actually a homeowner.
Our own home. Amazing! We are going to have to come up with the perfect name to call our new
farm. I have some ideas bouncing around in my head, but we will wait until we are officially
moved in to see what fits – I will keep you updated on that front.

And always a huge thank you to all of you loyal followers who have not forgotten about me in this latest couple year hiatus that I tend to do too regularly on here. But this blog has definitely been a fun, random, personal chronical of my life since back in 2012 just after graduating from undergrad
and some of you have been there since the beginning! So I thank you! ❤

Until next week…

Adventure is out there.

Week 02 – Sempiternal and Christmas

Week 1 – Home

Week 0 – New beginnings

Week 0

Follow along with my adventures!