breezin 3Speak Podcast: Recent Episodes
Claudette
Listen and watch the latest videos from breezin. Hosted by 3Speak.tv. The free speech video platform on the HIVE blockchain.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/fgsqshcg
Just when you think you have seen it all - a goat in Africa decides to climb a tree.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/ryyyzxmm
When working with goats, getting the more comfortable with human interaction helps a great deal when it comes to handeling the goats is neccesary.
I feel that I am making some progress with the mother and baby as they both seem to be more comfortable about getting close to me.
The baby is getting big so fast!
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/mnqvzrzw
Sometimes in life, we just get things completely wrong, I guess the same applies to baby goats?
This little goat is flexing his flehmen response really hard.
The flehmen response is very common when male goats are trying to detect whether a female is ready for mating. The ram would go about his day, and then bam - female goat piss... They would eagerly smell the urine to detect the secretion of hormones in the urine while lifting their upper lip in a comical display. This behavior helps the transfer of female hormones, such as pheromones to the Jacobson's organ situated above the top pallet of their mouth. The scents are transferred to the Jacobson's organ through a duct situated just behind the front teeth of the animal.
In this case, this little goat decided to try out his newfound superpower on his own pee - it was classic to watch him get it wrong :D
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/pekcbjto
Today we have a look at the propegation of Cassava, a sustainable foodsorce for the livestock on the farm. Casava crops can also be harvested for human consumption, medicine and other benificial byproducts.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/zxggdvra
Oh man, if I had the time available I would stand around watching this little guy play all the time.
This is just super adorable.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/bulhddwz
For the love of fornication, daddy goat has now been put in isolation, as they say, if the mind is weak the body must suffer!
With the mother dwarf nigerian goat recently giving birth, the male goat is under the opinion that his opportunity to mount awaits. This poses many dangers when breeding with these animals. Firstly the mere fact that he would antagonise the mother goat to get her in the mood to get his freak on is done by knocking her in the stomach with his head, this leads the mother to instinctively move away from the baby goat in order to keep him out of harms way, his persistance in the matter means that nursing time is almost certainly cut short every time.
Another threat is that the mature male goat may realize the baby goat as a threat and act accordingly. For that reason the male goat has now been placed in the chicken run untill such time that the baby goat no longer needs nursing and is able to fend for himself...
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/chaaqgwu
As they say, the first dwarf on the farm wins... wait thats not right.
After months of trying times on the farm, I finally had some good news. The first Nigerian Dwarf Goad was born. Such a little cutie!
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/rsqjejpi
One of the highlights this year has been getting new additions to the livestock family on the farm. You guessed it, Goats!
After selling our entire goat herd due to the drought and very trying times in 2019, I finally purchased a breeding pair of goats this year. But instead of Boer goats, the breed we used to have, I decided to downscale a bit on the size, and this time round, I went for Nigerian Dwarf goats instead.
Putting the infrastructure in place to house these fabulous creatures has been a task and a half and is still an ongoing project. With time being a strenuous factor in the development stages of their enclosure, we have been sporadically working on its improvement.
Step One: Keeping the dogs out and the goats in. Let's start with the fact that since we sold the previous herd of goats, many other changes happened on the farm. I lost two trusty dogs, which were accostomed to being around goats on the farm. My Weimerharner (Chester), who died of cancer after a long battle with the disease, and my Jack Russel (Seutjie), who died defending me from a Mozambiquan Spitting Cobra. But a farm without dogs is just not a farm. Over time our family was extended with a beautiful Africanus (Jackals), a pup that I rescued while working 1200 km from home on the coastline of Durban. Later on, a German Shorthair Pointer (Rex) was adopted. The problem was this; with them not being used to bleating animals sharing their space, they saw the goats as a threat or as food (not sure which one). Still, one thing was clear: If I did not separate the goats and dogs, there would be no hope for the goats.
So the first thing that needed to be done was to install a small electrical fence that would keep the dogs out of the goat enclosure while keeping the goats inside and safe from other predators. We rigged this to run from a solar panel to accommodate the constant power outages we have been experiencing lately.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/ubjbijho
On a farm, there is always something interesting happening, and this time of year, is the time for harvesting the mashonjas, more commonly known as the Mopani worm. These worms has been a sustainable source of protein over large parts of Africa throughout the years. And today I will show you how these worms are collected, and where to find them. This is one of those things that has not breached my cultural barriers, and I am not quite at a point of making this a part of my main diet, but, I do find the tradition interesting, and I thought that you might too. And just for the record, I have tried them before...
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/kzsihknl
In South Africa, we are currently in our rainy season which means that plants are growing at their best. This is also true for my edible and medicinal plants. In this video I take a look at some of my food and medicine plant's doing really well at the moment. For me, growing food and medicinal plants is an integral part to a sustainable life for me and my family on the farm.
But these plants to me, are more than that, any excess plants that I am able to propegate from the mother plants, as well as yields from the plants that I do have that does not get used, is good for trade or barter in the long run. Thus providing a source of income for the farm.
Here's to growing our own health and generally a better lifestyle this festive season.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/ftsegoac
For some or other reason I happen to stumble across a chameleon every year round about Christmas, and the strange thing is, I was reading a post by @derangedvisions just yesterday featuring his new chameleon pet. Maybe it's a sighn for me to start taking things a little slower this time of year and be more adaptable to my surroundings... maybe it's completely coincidental. However it may be, I found this little man wondering across the road and stopped to pick him up, they get hit by cars so easily, so when I do find them I try and take them to safety, in this case, a big guava tree behind my house on the farm.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/evndimto
Recently at a local market, I came across some gorgeous succulents and decided to get some that I didn't already have for my collection. ( Any succulents lover will tell you it's an addiction that's hard to break, and you always end up wanting more) The problem was that a lot of the plants there were not tagged with names and figuring out what they were was left in my hands. To the untrained eye haworthias and some aloes could very easily get confused, so I decided to do a quick video, having a look at how to distinguish between haworthia and aloe plants. this is just a quick reference though and there might be some exceptions to the rule, but these little tricks help me differentiate.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/fumlhrue
It is the stranger things in life that you find if you just take the time to look... today I discovered a bunch of water scorpions that found their way into the old duck pond after the rain filled it up a bit. And I decided to take a short video to share with you guys, in the process I ended up capturing a pair that seemed to be fighting, or courting... not really sure. But the intense battle was entertaining, and served as yet another reminder why we don't easily venture into wild waters in Limpopo South Africa... these waterscorpins give a painful bite, but unlike there land driven counterparts, they are not poisonous. None the less they are pretty creepy, and I don't feel comfortable sharing any part of my flesh with their space ...
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/prsmkpkd
I decided to do a short video today focusing on some issues such as pests and fungus that affects Swiss chard and how to identify them. Also I will be looking at the way forward, and what I have done to deal with these issues the natural way. For most large scale farmers, sadly, chemical pesticides and fungicides are the faster and easier solution, and often they do more damage than good. As far as I possibly can, I always try to make use of natural products, in this case I am going to use some bio-neem oil, a cold pressed oil extracted from the seed of the neem plant, I have used this many times before on my seedlings on the nursery, but today I will be trying its usefulness on a small scale commercial crop, and I am looking forward to sharing the results with you guys...
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/ruemeymq
Having a look at the process of green mango harvesting on our farm in South Africa, as well as some of the risk factors, such as latex burns from the sap. Not to mention other hazards like encountering venomous snakes and spiders along the way, but that's a story for another day. I feel that I managed to get a full body workout over the past few days, and we still have quite a bit of picking to do. And yes 'technology' was said with my tongue in cheek...
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/kgbokmhd
After quite a bit of struggling with some extremely hard, over-rated Virginia soil, we decided to call in some help from heavy machinery. we got in the bulldozer to rip up a section of land that we intend to plant once the rains start. and with only two months left, and quite a bit more work needed. .. I must say that this was definitely a step in the right direction, and that I am super exited to see the progress made.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/iztvjngl
Recovering from the draught has been a slow process, and the setbacks have been plenty, but I guess if farming in Sub-Saharan Africa was easy, everyone would be doing it. This is definitely a job of passion... Right now we are prepping a section of the farm which has hardened and compacted over 25 years of grazing animals and stagnant status, returning it close to virgin soil. so far the majority has been cut down and cleared but ripping the soil seems to be posing a problem, we will need some help from some bigger machinery for this job, and hopefully we will manage to get a bulldozer in for the job soon.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/twnqmqme
I simply love finding, planting, propagating and harvesting some beneficial plants. So when I got my hands on some lufa seeds, I made quick work of getting them into some soil. The lufa plant is great to have around because of its potential as a food source. young lufa gourds can be harvested and prepared in a similar way to baby marrow, while the gourds left on the plant to mature can be harvested for the lufa scrubs...
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/jzxowfzf
In this short video, we have a look at the beautifully diverse indigenous fruit of South Afrika. The matutsi. Due to overharvesting of naturally occurring fruits and medicines in the country as well as commercial farming that occupy a great deal of space that used to belong to beneficial indigenous plants, conservation of plant treasures like these are becoming more and more important.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/sohedkrx
We are currently working towards better water preservation by working with natures natural flow. we are filling up erosion lines formed by rain water following the course of least resistance, which in this case is the farm roads. what we are doing is filling up those erosion scars, and making chaneels for the water to resort back to its natural path which leads towars the water pan.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/rjmhfqiw
While we are still flushing the newly built well, and still needed to do yield tests, we decided that we would extend a pipe from the well to the dam which is losing water quite fast now. this way whatever water comes out will run into the dam, giving whatever fish have survived this far a small chance at survival. The yield test we are doing is simple, we need to calculate the amount of water pumped as well as the average duration of pump untill the well is dry. this will give us an indication of how long we will be able to pump the well for each day, how long the recovery time is, and how much water we will be getting more or less every time we pump...
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/taekscbv
after encountering some issues with the new bore hole and pump, we havr finally managed to get some water to ground surface which is a huge relief.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=breezin/ilvseemy
After strenous draughts and water issues on a farm, we are finally at a point where we can try to source more underground water on the land, and we started by dismanteling an old pump on a well that had been atanding stagnant for over 20 years. the well was fitted with an old lister motor and a metal worm, all still in tackt in the hole, but long since past the point of functionality. firstly that pump needed to be removed and tge 60m of rusty pipe needed to be carefully pulled out of the well. this in itself took some doing.Then the well needed to be drilled another 20m down, and blasted clean for any debris. In this video we were finally getting ready to put the new pump down the wel, sadly in the process of getting stuff done, i couldnt make a more encompassing video, once the layout abouve was done, we still attached safety roaps to the setup before dropping the pump down. unfortunately we hut mud about 1.5m from the bottom and almost as soon as the pump was down, it had to be pulled back up... you live you learn right...l