In my case the penny was really slow to drop. It was all a rush to get packing, and to get moving, and get to the farm so we could get started to fix everything. And so it was, on arrival we started to clean and fix everything.
A couple of months in an my sister who lived in Pretoria then, came to visit. She fell head over heals in love with the farm! The majestic mountains, the clean air, the fresh water, the tranquility of nature sounds, sitting by the fire under the starry skies, the birds, the veld, the bush, the promise of peace. It all worked its charm on her as it did with us when we visited the farm those very first 4 days and promptly made an offer to buy it. We were smitten as she was for the very same reasons. And those are the same gifts we share with guests, gifts no human hand can fabricate. There are even more birds calls this morning, because there are more trees, more plants, more grass and more life giving water than before.
Insert the fix everything part. Then a couple of years later that my sister sent her first pictures to us that she took on that visit, that the double blink happened for me. Oi wey. What the hell did we think? When I look at those images I can't believe that we fell for that level of ugly, dirty, and paid for that plain backwards. And I also can't remember looking at it then and thinking yuk, hou verby!
Many times i said, better we didn't know then what we know now otherwise we would never have come here. However, then June 2023 came...
The kingdom of heaven is like something precious buried in a field, which a man found and hid again; then in his joy he goes and sells all he has and buys that field.
Again the kingdom of heaven is like a man who is a dealer in search of fine and precious pearls, who, on finding a single pearl of great price, went and sold all he had and bought it.
Without this word I would still be holding true to better we didn't know. But after June 2023 I slowly started to understand that we risked everything and nearly lost everything, but then found something far more valuable than the farm itself. I found the single greatest pearl in the dust of the dry veld on my knees. We became a man who sold and bought all he had, to gain the most precious pearl of the greatest price...
