Smart Stone Age Artifact at The Museum de Caab
Visitors to the Museum de Caab at Solms-Delta usually start their exploration of the exhibits at the Stone Age implements display. These stone implements might seem a long way away from the slave history or the history of the Huguenots, but behind the seemingly crude lumps of stone lies an important lesson. Between 195 000 and 123 000 years ago Homo sapiens seemed doomed to extinction. Extreme cold and dry conditions prevailed across the globe, and only a handful of survivors managed to eke out an existence along the Cape coast southwards from the present Mossel Bay. As weather conditions over the millennia improved they moved inland again and dispersed over Southern Africa. But this original band of survivors was so small that everyone alive today is descended from them. 
Ostriches added to Solms-Delta Ark
First there was old Noah in his Ark, preserving all the living creatures, great and small, against extinction through the Great Flood. Then there was Mark (Solms), with his Dik Delta heritage space, preserving all the ancestral creatures and traditional herbs of the Khoe and San cultures. This time against the great flood of Forgetting associated with the ‘arrogance of the present’ in the the Now Age of the Blackberry, the e-Book and the I-pod.
First to arrive in this modern version of the Ark was the herd of fat-tailed sheep, more goat than sheep and impossible to catch, that provided meat and wool and skins to the Khoe. Then came the herd of Sanga cattle, beloved by the Khoe nomadic herders, with their distinctive hide patterns and sweeping horns, not only as providers of nourishment but also as symbols of wealth. Now, with the arrival of two young ostriches, it is the turn of the heritage of the San to be honoured. In one of the San languages the male ostrich is called !amib and the female is called !amis. (“The symbol in front of the word sounds like tasting something with your tongue against your palate. The rest of the word is sounded as in Afrikaans,” says guardian of Khoe customs, Jenny Arrison.) The ostrich played an important role in the lives of the hunter-gatherers. The eggs were used as water containers and the broken shells were shaped into beads and ornaments. The meat was cured and dried and it sustained families for many weeks.
Franschhoek Uncorked pops out at Solms-Delta
Spring has been a little late coming to the Boland this year. The weather on the weekend of 4 September, date of the Franschhoek Uncorked Festival, started off looking threatening enough to pop the corks right back in the thousands of bottles of wine that awaited the festival-goers. So the staff at the Fyndraai restaurant stood about a bit nervously as the first musical act, the Klein Handjies mini-choir from the crèche, assembled on stage. By the time the ultra-cute choristers, all decked out in the blue and white klopse costumes, started to sing at 12.:30 a trickle of guests had started to come in. By 13:00 it was a stream, and at 13:30 Annelize, the manager of Fyndraai rallied her troops, “Get your takkies on, we’ve got a flood here!” Extra tables were set up on the lawn and a steady flow of Kaapse kos was soon issuing from chef Shaun Schoeman’s kitchen.
Hiervandaan CD launch a special affair
The setting for the launch of the new Les Javan CD could have been right out of a song itself. The Dorpstraat Teater is out of town, on the Stellenbosch- Klapmuts Road, and reminds me “Hernando’s Hideaway.” Remember the lines? “I know a dark secluded place….where no-one knows your face…it’s called Hernando’s Hideaway! Ole!”
In spite of appearing to be in the middle of nowhere, it’s a great music venue. The auditorium has a wide stage, excellent acoustics and a lot of space for candle-lit tables of food and wine. A good place to enjoy music. The warm-up acts reminded us all of the richness of rural music talent in the Franschhoek Valley. However a lot of this talent will never be heard if these musicians are not supported and given exposure by projects like the Solms-Delta music training programme and events like the Oesfees. Even the creation of the “Hiervandaan” CD has given much deserved publicity to local musicians.
Community music development project launch in Kylemore
“The Hills are Alive to the Sound of Music” memorably sang Julie Andrews to the Hills of the Tyrol as she attempted to instill the love of music into the von Trapp family kids. Well, much the same thing is happening on Solms-Delta “The Mountains are Alive to the Sound of Jazz” sings Adriaan Brand. Not quite as sweetly as Julie Andrews, but every bit as persuasive and he blows a mean trumpet too! And his music family is growing by the day.
The Drakenstein Mountains and the impressive Devil’s Face to the west have been ringing to the sounds of the various groups in the Solms-Delta Music Education programme for some time. Now, thanks to a generous grant from the Department of Arts and Culture, the programme has expanded to include Pniel and the adjacent village of Kylemore.
Fynbos and fynkos at the veld food garden and heritage menu launch
Thursday’s launch of the Dik Delta veld food garden and the Fyndraai Heritage Menu was a sequence of delightful events, starting with amusing stories about the early days of the project and ending with the fruits of the garden paired with some of Solms-Delta’s best wines.
Did You Know we have a Champion Tree?
Did you know that there are champion trees? I don’t mean one tree species being prized above another; like I love giant bluegum trees more than I love oak trees. (But that is because I was born in the Free State, not the Western Cape. Sorry!) No, champion trees fall into categories like the tallest (Saligna Gum 81.5m, Haenertsburg) biggest (Baobab, 34m high, 21m tall, 34m crown) tallest indigenous (Monkey Thorn, 39m, Groot Marico.)
And Solms-Delta has its own champion tree. The oldest Oak tree in South Africa.
Thanks and Totsiens Fran
In the days when Fran was still Frances, way back in 2006, she first arrived on Solms-Delta farm. She was studying social work at Stellenbosch, and like all students, needed pocket money. So she became an au pair to Mark and Karen Solms once a week and every weekend. At the end of 2006 when she graduated she told Mark and Karen that she would have to go and find herself a real job.
Two lambs on show
In the middle of the recent cold snap, when the mountains of Franschhoek were covered with snow, twin lambs were born at Solms-Delta farm.
The Real Bastille Day
There are several reasons why Bastille Day in Franschhoek is better than Bastille Day in Paris. There are no squadrons of men with silly tin helmets on horses. Our mountains are higher than Montmartre. Our Huguenot Monument has more arches than the Arc de Triomphe. And no Sarkozy! The best reason is, of course, that this year the Bastille Day parade was led by Solms-Delta’s very own newest biggest marching band, the Delta Valley Entertainers, accompanied by many of the staff and management and most of the workers. In fact, the Solms-Delta delegation WAS the parade.
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