Tasting so many different Champagnes and sparkling wines in quick succession  made us realise just how many fabulous choices there are on our doorstep – and sadly, how awful some were!   What’s interesting is that the price has relatively little to do with it at times!

Some of our favourites:

Pierre Jordaan Brut, Boschendal Brut, Graham Beck Brut, Morena Brut, Allee Bleue sparkling Rose

In our opinion not worth 4 of our precious 10 tasting tickets was Piper Heidsig. Most wineries only asked for 1 ticket to taste their sparking wine or Champagne and were very generous with the amounts too.

We did not manage to taste as many as we wanted to – we will make up for this next year. This event is well worth attending and we are already planning our outfits for 2012!

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.

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.

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, 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.

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.