Lekkerwijn’s Ross and Simon attended the 2011 Cap Classique & Champagne Festival’s glamorous opening evening on Friday 2 December 2011. We were delighted to see that everyone had made a fantastic effort to dress up in the theme of ‘black … Continue reading
Lulu and Peanut became the proud parents to 8 miniature Transkei Piglets at Lekkerwijn this morning. Lulu and Peanut were very happy to show off their new family and even happier to receive any edible presents. The piglets are very cute and well worth a visit.
Chirpy, our pet gosling (or rather goose) has started trying his wings out! He flies out of his swish accommodation then very low to the ground when he hears his breakfast coming through the gate. He has to eat as much as he can of his boiled egg before the greedy ducks realise what is going on and gobble the lot – he also has to be quick before Lulu and Peanut get a look in. Peanut has even decided that duck food is OK as for as he is concerned!
Many of our guests have been enchanted by our baby owls who are now learning to fly and are appearing in lots of places around the farm. One sat outside the window of the Camelia room today much to the delight of the couple in the room.
Lulu has now made close friends with Pashmina and most of the other animals at Lekkerwijn. She was delighted though with the arrival of Peanut our new piglet in the last few days. Peanut is another miniature Transkei pig from the farm in Tamboerskloof Cape Town. He follows Lulu around every-where, and is settling into Lekkerwijn’s back yard well.
Chirpy had an upgrade over Christmas and moved into a large pen with pond near Lulu. Chirpy has also had some new friends, a pair of white ducks have moved into his pen with his.
Chirpy is now almost fully grown, but shows no interest in leaving his pen and daily breakfasts of a boiled egg and bowl of pronutro from Ross.
A mere two weeks after the picture in ther post below was taken, the three owl chicks have ballooned up from scrawny chicks to almost the size of their parents……..who continue to watch over them from the branches above.
Owl chick 28 Nov
Wendy Pickstone combined her retirement party from managing Lekkerwijn with a relaunch party of Lekkerwijn under Simon & Ross’s management.
On Wednesday the 24th November guests from the Franschhoek valley and further afield were welcomed to Lekkerwijn to come and see the recent changes to the house and meet it’s growing family of small animals. Guests were welcomed with a Buchu Brandy cocktail and the ‘Creative Dancers’ doing the Waka Waka. The ‘Creative Dancers’ are three school girls, sisters Jayclene and Lauren Combrink and their cousin Romentia Joseph, from nearby Laquedoc. They are entirely self taught dancers. They did various other dances through the evening, and were offered tips by Topsi of food fame, who was also a ballet dancer. Marga Smith’s trio on Flute, violin and cello played in the dining room. Guests were served fynbos canapes prepared by Erica Pitzer of Theme Cuisine Catering. Guests were given historical tours of the house. Lulu the pig was given a room upgrade for the evening and moved to the goats pen for a higher profile.
Creative Dancers
The Creative Dancers with Simon & Ross
Topsi gives some dancing instruction
Chirpy’s mother’s biological chicks are now getting easier to see….
Chirpy, our young gosling is doing very well. He is on his second light bulb and still liking his pro-nutro and grass. For his day care, we have upgraded him to a cage that lets him eat grass and seeds and he has all other ensuite facilities though he hasn’t used the tea and coffee making services just yet. He has lots of visitors, each one he follows very happily around the courtyard.
A Pair of Eagle Owls have been nesting in an Oak tree up Lekkerwijn’s avenue for a number of years. This spring the pressure to use this nesting space has been intense. A paid of Egyptian Geese were first to hatch out a brood of goslings earlier in spring. The goslings were all found enjoying an early morning dip in Lekkerwijn’s swimming pool before beign encouraged to go to the Dwars river with their parents. Straight after this another pair of Egyptian Geese moved into the nest, but they left rather abruptly for some unknown reason. Perhaps it was because the regular spring tennants had got fed up with waiting to move in. The next day the familiar Eagle Owl couple had taken up residence again, mother in the nest and father on a branch high up above.
While mowing grass around the tree, the mother flew off and Riaan looked in and noticed that there were three eggs with a fourth considerably larger egg. The next day Simon was showing the mother owl in her nest to a visitor, when suddenly an Egyptian gosling popped up from behind the mother owl and climbed on her back!
First sight of Egyptian gosling with surrogate mother owl
It was first thought that the gosling was perhaps dinner for the owl chicks, but when everyone at Lekkerwijn put their information together, we realised that the Egyptian gosling’s egg had been laid in the nest and the mother owl had hatched it out. The chick was living happily with its surrogate mother.
We couldn’t leave the gosling with her surrogate mother as goslings have rather a different diet, and it was unlikely to thrive on being brought mice to eat; so we removed it from the nest and are busy hand rearing it ourselves.
New arrival at Lekkerwijn Guest house
Chirpy takes a first dip
We have named him Chirpy, as he is highly spirited and never quiet. He thinks the light bulb we have put near his pen is his mum. He loves pro-nutro and soggy bread and baby milk! We have given him a room upgrade and built him a day pen so that he can eat grass and have a bit more fun. We are enjoying our latest visitor to Lekkerwijn.
