House of straw? and other stories

I decided to have bonding session with my oldest son, Kobus. We had breakfast at the Spekboom Cottages and afterwards watch rugby with all the real locals there. Breakfast was excellent and I am not going to say to much about the rugby. It really was made into a great thing by James, Marie and Jean at the Spekboom Cottage. Thanks James you are really a great friend.
During the bonding session with other people also attending including Alex, Allan, Fritz and Tony I realized that there is a bit of a blind spot for the movement of information within any community in Calitzdorp. The only one really communicating very well is Hennie Smit with the KBU. The need is more about info on what is happening. In a small community like our own we sometimes don't always get in the right circles to get the info on things happening. The only real way is by the word of mouth. That is how I heard about the potjiekos of the church a few months ago as well as the Koos Kombuis show at Dorpshuis - both were excellent. I think that a blog for us with a few people of the different communities within the greater Calitzdorp must be able to excess and / or give info to a person to put it on. In this way you can quickly advertize for a school, church, private, any real function/happening/course/etc.
The first one I am going sort of going to advertize here is the Straw house course which is going to be done by Sonja Armstrong and Deon Kriek. Both big time involved in the 'Green' approach to life. Both of them is coming to present this course in - the Port Capital, Calitzdorp. The local contact person is Zelma Kriek. She lives in Oubaas Calitz's old house on the Groenfontein road. If you still don't know contact Laurence at Lorenzo's / Pizza Place - he serve some excellent pizza and curry and has opened a very nice deli with fresh bread and interesting cheeses.
At Withoek itself we are preparing for the new irrigation main line. Unfortunately for us the storm water pipe underneath the roads is blocked with soil and roots. We did contact the Eden Districts Municipality (Ralph Dixon) to come and have a look. So any other such blocked pipes or road reparation can be reported to him in his Oudtshoorn office.
The pruning is also going smoothly and they are nearly finished with the red cultivars.
On the Shiraz which was bottled last week. After again tasting it Chrissie finally put 'black forest cake' as the determining flavour which she picked up on it. That is why wine making is such a pleasure. You don't buy naartjie, orange or apple flavour product but a product that first produces different flavours at different temperatures for different people and to make it more interesting it changes over time and from bottle to bottle AND WITH THE FOOD ASWELL AS THE COMPANY YOU HAVE! So have my wine only with your best friends especially those you don't see often. There is still 2500 such occasions coming up (that is how many bottles there is) for all in Calitzdorp.