A DAY AT THE BARDENHORF’s VLEIS MARK.

A DAY AT THE BARDENHORF’s VLEIS MARK.
(A day at the meat market)

On Wednesday’s meat is on the move, the road to Belfast, though not actually congested with trucks and pick ups loaded with beasts, is none the less notable for how many of them there are, for this is the day that the beasts of this area dread, the day they go to market.
This last Wednesday I was again tempted from my world of bucolic peace by he of the open gates, as he was keen on acquiring a small herd of agile ruminant mammals that are related to sheep and have backward curving horns, straight hair, and a short tail. Genus: Capra in Latin, Umbutie in Zulu and to you and me …..Goat’s.
As the alternative was to do some real work at the easel, I dropped my brushes and arranged to meet him there, the truth be told I have always had a strange fascination for these clever irritating little ungulates, perhaps because I am a Capricorn? I being already responsible for the welfare of 25 cows the thought of a bunch of these chaps wandering around did not daunt.
Bardenhorf’s auctioneers draws the majority of our local lads, who have even the most passing interest in turning meat into cash, and as such by the time I arrived the parking lot was already heaving with a eclectic collection of farm vehicles from the most battered to the shinny new, the leveling effect of the auction house doing it’s magic, and when the auctioneer starts into his spiel, aaaah nnana dingle and 100 ….aaaaannanaa dingle 110…. etc we all go into a trance of fixed concentration and may the buyer beware.
This particular house of pain is a large warehouse, badly lit and lined wall to wall with pens for the victims, the human ones enter from the one side while a veritable conveyor belt of animals are fed with great efficiency in the other and the singing auctioneer and his crowd of supplicants move slowly up and down the lines disposing of a baffling array of beasties.
Well Tim and I wandered up and down the goat section, having ascertained that bokkies go for 3-6 hundred Runts per beast with certainly in my befuddled brain very little to distinguish the desirable goat from the not so sought-after.
The competition is fierce and the bidding brisk and intimidating and as I mentioned the whole thing is conducted in a dark warehouse resounding with the plaintive cries of the distressed and anxious animals that are herded into tight and brutal little squares for the buyers to peruse.
Added to this cacophony is the unintelligible patter of the Auction man broadcast over the dickey tanoy making it even more difficult to think over the piercing screams of the pigs and other beasties.
I still have no idea what the other buyers were looking for when bidding but I know that we were fresh meat in this pit of vipers and when eventually I realized that I had bought 6 of the buggers no one was more surprised than I, but there is no backing out of a raised finger and the umbuties were mine to dispose of as I saw fit, and shortly after an equally confused Tim stuck his oar in and was possessed of 9 of them which surprised him as he had thought that he had bought 8!
There is many a slip twixt cup and lip at Bardehorst’s Vleis Bazaar, and we were only in the paddling pool section of small creatures I hate to think what could have transpired in the cattle section where serious money was changing hands.
Well having made our purchase we could then indulge in a Vet Koek, and Coke, which has to be the nastiest concoction ever fried in oil, it is huge tasteless and made of some paste/flour that has been deep fried in 10 year old grease, it is truly addictive and has to finished no mater how the body and ones finer sensibilities revolt at this culinary assault to ones senses, not to mention the pallet. While forcing this down the throat we did the social rounds, and Tim introduced me to an endless array of calloused handed men and women who were extremely nice and welcomed me into their world of farm trading.
Well we wandered around for a bit, paid at the window and eventually loaded the beasts into the rear of the pick-up and delivered them to their new homes, old softy here had constructed a little housey from the canopy of my old bakkie and some sleepers with hot and cold running water and all the mod cons and soon realized that I had made a baaaaaaad decision on my choice of parcels of goats as I had acquired 5 males 3 without nuts and a female that looks dodgy in the extreme, my wekkers think I am a twat, again but hey ho it was a great day and a lot of fun, and they love me already for my ability to manifest corn from a bucket every night.

ALL’S WELL THAT END’S WELL

ALL’S WELL THAT END’S WELL

The arrival of my herd has prompted a great deal of interest in the district, and among the many that have come to see was my dear chum Fishy Tim, a man considered by all, in high regard for his skills as a fish farmer and country gentleman. I with all the due ceremony of a man who has acquired a considerable asset conducted him to my paddock where we sagely contemplated the munching bovines with the deep and mutual satisfaction of cowmen through the ages. I got this warm fuzzy feeling like I was selling my daughter, I felt like a hell of a man and saw myself as one with all the men who had gone before me who had experienced the particular joy of knowing that one has enough meat to last a long long time.
“Nice herd’” say sagacious Tim, with some snide remark about one of my perfect cows rear end, “Why are you keeping the Mumbies (cows) locked in the paddock?”
With such innocent words do the doors of hell open!
“Well” says I for this question, from this man of the soil, was pertinent and I had given it much thought and cognostication over the previous weeks when plotting this introduction of ungulate’s to the estate, “ I am going to keep them in there for a week or so, till they are used to place, while I finish the 15 hectare camp, then I will get them used to that, and coming back every night to the paddock, and then, I will start to release them into the estate with an electric fence.” And leaning back against my kraal fence I looked at him to get the full approbation that I fully expected for this cautious and sensible plan.
Instead I saw a look of scorn on his face, I was crushed.
“What what,” I squeal’ “Is wrong with that?”
“These mumbies need to roam,” say he with an air of infinite wisdom and sagacity.
“ But they will disappear into the bush and never be seen again” says I meekly for the truth be told I was rather in awe of this fellow with his deep connection to the earth and all things natural, he even speaks native for gods sake!
“ Nah, they will just hang around here and come back to the lick at night”
“ But but but” say’s I, not convinced at all.
“Ja man, they’ll be cool you see, they need to get out!!”
“ Are you sure?????”
“Yea let them out, don’t be such a sissy”
That stung, being called a sissy before 25 cows has a poignancy and force that is quite devastating.
So with deep misgiving and doubt in my heart I let him open the gate.

Oh Lordy Lord they sprung through the gap like cows possessed, and disappeared, as predicted by me, like smoke in a high wind, gorn, buggered off, no longer visible to the naked eye or any other eye clothed or otherwise. My newly acquired symbol of great African wealth was gone, lost among the rocks and canyons of my 1000-hectare wilderness estate.

“ I TOLD YOU, YOU IDJIT” squeal I in great distress.
“Yea I didn’t expect that, “ admitted this man of the soil with a vaguely surprised look.
I was left gob smacked and enraged gawping at him in consternation, my mouth hanging on a hinge as I pointed uselessly with a trembling digit in the direction of my ex cows.
“WHAT the F%$£@@@@KKKKK” I gasp, “ HOW THE Bloody hell in a basket are we going to find them for crying in a bucket???????” I wail, “they are gorn.” I scream in some distress. “This isn’t a nice fenced farm like yours….. This is an endless, unfenced, untamed wilderness with only a fence around the border”
“Argh well that’s alright then, they can’t get out” he replies with nary a twitch as he gazed at me in mild surprise as I gnaw at my fingers and wail at the sky in fear, anger, frustration etc.
“They’ll be back” he smiled with the confidence of a man who knows, exactly, where his own animals are.
I was not amused, I was enraged.
“ Look you web toed excuse for a human being” say I as I grab him by the collar, my scrambler is knackered, my staff are all AWOL and YOU are going to help me get them back in your big 4x4 Right PHUcking NOW!!!!!.... OK?”
Realizing that I was not to be consoled and also I could see feeling a bit guilty as he had not really expected them to fade away with such determination, we charged of into the wild and it is true, soon found them in a pleasant spot munching as mumbies do, “there you are” he says with mild scorn, “I told you they were fine” and I had to agree they looked fine there among the rocks in the sun and I wished I had my camera to record this scene of bucolic bliss.
I was crushed, and as we gently herded them back to the homestead I was in a state of shame at my sissy behavior, and had a great time with my dog as they gently and with great ease wandered before me, as I conducted them to a particularly juicy section of kikuyu grass and watched over them as I awaited my chap to finish his lunch so that he could watch over them, for I was still not convinced that they would just hang about with no control, but I foolishly though still that Tim knew what he was talking about and had come to a compromise solution. I had decided that I would allow them to roam but that they must be under the eyes of my man who would ensure that they stayed close to their anxious father, Me.
With this plot instituted I returned to my studio, where sure enough I was soon disturbed by a very disturbed wekker panting with exhaustion from chasing a pair of the mumbies which had taken on themselves to make a bolt for it and had some how with the cunning of the bovine mind found the only gap in a 15 kilometer fence and gone through it with, I was told, some speed and determination to see the world!
We were not amused, the word you idiot, stupid and bastard, etc, flowed through my mind.
So here I was, a cow virgin with 10k in missing mumbies in da undergrowth and only a deeply distressed Mandla to deal with this horror. I have lost a lot in my life, being of a careless disposition at the best of times, but never have I been as upset as this, I was bereft.
We climbed into the van and charged around in ever increasing circles to try and track the babies down. It is at moments like this that one realizes just how big the world is, how steep and rocky and difficult the terrain can be. And the thing is that although the 2 cows concerned are white with brown and black markings respectively, they are none the less damn hard to see, well camouflaged in fact, as per zebra, and it seemed that they had no idea that they were missing, had no inclination to react, let alone come to our heart felt cries and in fact when they were eventually found looked upon us with deep suspicion.
Who are these strange fellows in smelly machines and what do they want from us were the thought’s that flowed through their bovine minds and the conclusion they came to was that we were up to no good and that they should get as far away from us as possible, easy to do in an endless plain. I was in tears by this time and thinking bitter thoughts about my ‘chum’ who had started this whole adventure.
Well we charged around after them over the veldt, trying to keep my cool and not also destroy my new pick up by crashing into hidden rocks and holes, bursting my poop string running like an idiot after animals that looked upon these antics with the contempt that all quadrupeds have for bi-peds that are chasing them and thinking dark dark thoughts about he who had mentioned opening gates in the first place, and now naturally it was getting dark too.
I was really in tears now, we got the rest of them locked up and having at least managed to get the 2 back onto my property retired to call Tim and heap abuse on his head, and to mail and skype conference around the planet to trash him before the world of public opinion, I was pissed off.
However when discussing this situation with chaps around the world instead of getting the sympathy I so badly craved those with even the smallest experience of cows assured me that this sort of thing was par for the course and I better get used to it cause as I now had the beasts I was stuck with them and they would be spending their waking hours plotting how to get away from my tender care. It would seem that the cow mans lot is to spend a great deal of time worrying and chasing after errant cows.
However this did not prevent me from trashing poor Timothy and guilting him into leaving a scrambler here for us to find the cows with, which we did the next day, not after the entire team had spent a pleasant if fruitless day walking the estate with long and sage discussions as to the direction that these beasts might wander. At the end of the day they were discovered at the far far corner of the estate from where they had last been seen. Just goes to show how these chaps can shift around.
So we left them there and the following morning took the entire herd to gather them into the fold, and the happy reunion was a joy to behold and peace was restored to the estate, my mind and although Tim has been reduced to a third rate power in the country lore stakes he has been forgive if not forgotten.
I have now invested in an electric solar fence, which means that never again will I be bereft of my mumbies, a happy ending indeed.