The Boma Glows at Night. The Reservoir Flows, sometimes. Lucerne and the Money Wind. Artists Without Sleep.

Life around the farm Since Luke and I have been back from our trip, we've been hanging out on the farm. As I told you guys earlier, Harrison Farm grows a crop called lucerne. It’s like alfalfa and the locals buy bales of it for feed for their livestock. It’s been a busy place here lately with people constantly rolling up the driveway and wanting to buy bales. The first cutting of the lucerne yielded over 1,000 bales. These were all sold by yesterday. More lucerne is being cut and baled right now in order to feed the demand.

I'll give you guys an idea of what goes on here, almost everyday. Around 7 a.m., the first bakkie (baak-ee) or truck, rolls up the driveway and beeps their horn, wanting lucerne. Either Ronnie or Luke (usually Luke) gets up, follows the bakkie out to the lucerne shed, makes a sale, comes back to the house. This goes on all day long. Back and forth from the shed to the house selling bales of lucerne for R50 (about $7.15) all day long. While that's going on, Ronnie is out in the fields, on the tractor, either cutting lucerne, raking lucerne, baling lucerne or performing some other farm duty. In the meantime, Luke and the 3 other farm workers are either selling lucerne, collecting the bales of lucerne or stacking lucerne in the shed until about 5 p.m. Lucerne is the word, my friends. During the day while all this lucerne action is going on out on the farm, Janet and I are left up to our own devices at the house. I'm either taking pics, reading, typing, hiking or yogging, emailing, or researching on the internet.

Luke and I, left up to our own devices, have also found some ways to entertain ourselves. All water on the farm is obtained by pumping it either from a well underground for drinking water or from the river for irrigation. Around the farm there are old reservoirs, big cement cylinders about 7 feet deep and open at the top, that were/are used to hold extra water. Reverting back to our childhood thought processes, Luke and I have been planning how to turn one of the reservoirs on the farm into a swimming pool. We decided to drain one of them in order to clean it out and paint it. We rigged siphoning pipes up to drain part and opened up some drainage pipes to get out more water. Our entertainment for the day would be trucking up to the reservoir to check the water level. Sounds exciting, huh? Oh, it is. We've got it down to just a few inches of water. But I think it will be left up to Luke to clean and paint it, I just don't have enough time left here to help, oh damn.

So, in other words my friends, living on a farm without having much to do gives you plenty of time to do dumb shit, as stated above. We act like children on our summer vacation. It would be like my childhood summers if I could only get grounded for something...

When we decide to act like adults, we usually start our evenings off with sundowners; wine, its all about wine here. Sundowners leads into dinner, usually cooked at the boma (firepit) over a blazing braai. Right about the time we finish braai-ing, the money wind picks up outside. Money wind, in terms of a lucerne farmer, is wind that blows form the south, dry wind. Why would a lucerne farmer want dry wind, you ask? Because, the drier it is, the less water for plants, and the less water for plants means less food for livestock to eat, and less food for livestock means more people need the lucerne to feed their livestock. So, we are always happy to feel the "money wind" when it starts blowing, even if it’s chilly.

The current state of weather in this part of Africa is drought. There hasn't been rain for months and rarely is there a forecast for wet weather. Tuesday surprised all of us. The news had been calling for storms all week, but it hadn't rained. All of the sudden, black clouds rolled in overheard. Luke and I were down at the big house painting and I suggested we head up to the other house and take a break while we wait to see if it rains. As I walked outside, I heard this roaring noise off in the distance under the clouds. I thought I was hearing rain. About a minute later when the clouds were over us I realized it wasn't rain that was falling, it was hail! Hail the size of grapes were pelting the house and bouncing up from the lawn. It was crazy, the first storm of the season brings hail to Africa, never though I'd see it. The entire time it was hailing, all I could think about was the poor lucerne. Would the hail damage it, ruin the crop? Not to worry, the lucerne survived. And the little bit of water that did result from the storm wasn't enough to halt lucerne sales either. Artists in Africa, almost

Aside from all the farm talk, Luke and I have been working on something important. My time here in Africa wasn't all going to be spent tooling around on farm or having adventures on safaris, bungee jumps and wine tastings. Luke had a "project" lined up for us.

For those of you who don't know, Luke is an established artist and painting is one of his many talents. His little creative mind cooked up a project for the both of us to work on while I am here, a "collaboration of artists" as he calls it.

While on our trip, we obviously collected hundreds of photos. From those pics, we chose one animal, one flower, one landscape, one still life and a self-portrait of each of us. We will use these six photographs as the inspiration for our paintings. Now, some of you may be thinking, "Lindsey paints?" No, I don't paint. I may exhibit some artistic talents, but painting with oil paints on a canvas is a first for me. So, needless to say, I was a little intimidated by any mention of my picking up a brush in order to create something. But Luke ensured me that I would do just fine.

The whole point of this "project" is for both of us to contribute to the same painting. We each start on a painting, then after we work for a few hours, we swap canvases and add to the other painting. In a few hours, we switch again, and so on and so forth. Each of us is adding their own style of painting to each canvas. And, to my complete surprise, I'm actually doing well, I think... I'm definitely enjoying mixing slabs of paint together and making it look like stuff. I feel like I'm back in elementary school art class. Actually, I feel like all those days of watching Bob Ross when I was a kid have paid off, "happy trees" and "happy clouds." Remember that guy? The old guy with the fro that came on PBS in the morning when I was a kid? You know, he always talked like he was high from his "happy trees." That guy.

Although we don't have any "happy trees," we do make some Bob Ross Magic of our own happen in one of the rooms in the Big House (the old farmhouse.) We turned it into a makeshift art studio. All that really means is that there are some easels set up, a table with paints lined up on it, our work stations with our palettes and brushes, stereo with iPods set up for our listening pleasure, a few (now empty) bottles of wine and us. We usually paint in the morning and afternoon, the light at night is pretty poor. Not to mention, we are sitting in a very old, very uninhabited, sparsely furnished, creepy house. And even though I'm 25 years old, I'm still afraid of the dark and the ghosts that may be floating around in it. So, because of me, we don't spend much time down there at night!

Our first two paintings turned out better than I expected. The first is of the elephant we saw at Lalibela. This is the photograph it came from.
Next up is our J-Bay painting. I love this one. I think it’s because of the color and the place. I really loved Jeffery's Bay and all the color that was in the scene. This is our painting. This is the photograph.

Believe it or not, I actually helped paint these! Now do you see why I am so impressed?! Now remember, Luke and I equally contributed to both paintings, we both deserve the credit, if you think there is any to be deserved.

We are currently working on two more paintings and hope to finish them soon. I only have 6 days left in South Africa so the days for this project are numbered.

So, what are we actually going to do with the paintings? Well, Luke hopes to exhibit them in a friend's gallery in Queenstown and who knows, someone might actually buy one. Any takers before they go up for sale? You could own one of only a few rare Linduke (Lin-dook-ay) originals! Linduke is our "African" artist team name, get it... Linds + Luke = Linduke. (Like I said, too much time on our hands here!)

A long slow goodbye...

Today officially marks one month since I've been gone from Charleston, the longest I've ever been away from home. Four weeks of living in a completely different place and now it’s down to the last six days of my African experience. I've seen many incredible places I never knew existed in a country I never knew was so beautiful. I've spent time on a farm where all I hear are the words "lucerne" and "money wind." I've been a guest to a family that has treated me as one of their own. I've had a great time.

With only a short time left, I hope to make the most of it, getting those last few shots, making sure I make that mountain really look like a mountain in that next painting, enjoying my final authentic South African sundowners in front of those beautiful sunsets, basking in the heat of my last few braais and spending some time with my friends, family, here on the farm.

Although I accomplished a lot while I was here, there is still much more to do here in South Africa. I know that I will be back to this wonderful place one day, soon. I hope it to be in the company of another first-timer, a friend that wants to see this place for what it really is. And I, yet again, will be writing stores and taking pictures of all these amazing places.

Many thanks to the Vehorn family for letting me into their home and taking care of me while I was their guest. I've enjoyed spending time with them and hope to repay them the favor one day.

My next stop is down under, I'm headed to Australia on the 10th. I graduate and now its time to fly solo. I will have 22 days of solo adventure. Just me, my camera, my journal, a bus ticket or two, a few hostels and everything the east coast of Australia has to offer me.

I'll write a proper blog on my projected path through Oz and post it soon. Till then, wish us luck on the painting! As always, thank you for reading what some call words. Look forward to hearing from everyone.

Linds