still here !

Quite a few adventures between my last posting and this one - which I'll get to as soon as I've caught my breath. Just wanted to say: Thanks Anne for your comments - am looking forward to getting acquainted, and will pass on Essie's details to you.

Next: my New Best Friend - my dehydrator... and how it helped this fruitarian to survive a kitchen which turned out to be little more than an abattoir...

Living off the land

There I was, doing my humble best at 4x4-ing, and managing rather nicely, thank you, when there's this voice from the back: "Whoa ! Stop ! Stop !!"

Turns out the man wanted to look at a bush. The berries on the bush, to be precise - tiny orange-red fruits which may hold the key to his survival. This sounded rather important. So we troop out - and the Kriedoring proceeds to repay our interest with the most vicious scratches & stabs I've ever experienced from any semi-desert shrub. The bright little fruits are exceedingly well protected among the thorns - but once we tasted that sweet & complex flavour, they became worth the bloody sacrifice.

Apparently highly nutritious, as are all karoo & desert fruits - and they may indeed be a life-saver for my new friend preparing for his solo canoe trip all along the mighty Orange, all the way to the ocean. He's going alone, unsupported, and unprovisioned. He will live off the land - he will literally survive on the fruits of the veld.

So the man says, Why don't you come along ? It's a big river and a big chunk of land - we can each still be solo-ing.

Oh how I wish I was bold enough, fit & strong enough & mad enough to say Yes. Imagine just being with that river, that landscape. Just being. No clutter. Letting the fruits of the veld sustain you.

Imagine being that strong. That free.

the land remembers

Just back from a trip into the hinterland - /Xam hinterland, actually.

For thousands upon thousands of years they shared this part of what we now call the Northern Cape with elephants, eland, ostriches, elephant shrews, rhino, vast numbers of springbok.

They're gone now, as are the animals.

But on a little outcrop - unnamed & unmarked on any map - small precision-chipped stone tools and bits of ostrich egg shell lie half-buried in a rain-&-wind piled drift, around a group of eland grazing on a black dolerite boulder.

The wind moves, as it has always done, through the bleached, blonde grass among the glinting black boulders; a solitary kokerboom against an impossibly blue sky; that wide, wide horizon.

The land remembers.

Somewhere between VanWyksVlei, Verneukpan & Kenhardt you'll find Springbokoog, Strandberg, Tafelkop. Good places in which to be reminded of the big issues: life, extinction, one's own miniscule place in the great scheme of things - and the land which experiences it all, endures it all, and remembers it all.

get to know your land

My friend is building her own house. That is not unusual - many people do so, with varying degrees of expert and not-so-expert help. Most of them, probably, go through the process while living in rented comfort. Not my friend. She's in it for the whole experience.

So she acquired a tepee, pitched it on the land & started living there - before any building had begun. My friend is a dear soul, and surrounded by well-wishers - not all of them understanding why she would willingly engage in such a level of discomfort. Busy with my own life, I assumed she had her reasons, and so was happy to admire from a distance.

Then I went to visit, and stood next to her, and saw the place through her eyes, and heard the deep contentment in her voice. I had admired her courage - now I saw the wisdom of her process.

She told me of the permaculturist who advised her: "Live on your land. Get to know your land."

My friend is doing just that. She is getting to know every inch of it, the way the breeze moves across every inch of it, the life in and of every inch of it. She is in touch with the life of her land, and immeasurably enriched by it. It has become her home long before she has built her home there.

Doesn't it seem sad that so few of us get to do this ? Estate agent, price, transfer duty, home loan - if we navigate these issues competently, we acquire a home. And we call it "home" without being particularly acquainted with the very life of the land where we find ourselves.

"Home" can mean so much more - and it's a pity that so many of us, so often, find that we have to settle for a lesser, duller, smaller experience.

Tierhoek Organics

Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, 1600 kms from land, there's an area known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's a dump of plastic debris - and it is twice the size of Texas.

I cannot even begin to picture this, and I don't want to. Texas covers 696 200 square kms, so we're already talking about close on 1.5 MILLION square kms of rubbish in the open ocean - expanding all the time. And that's not counting the loose bits floating around all over, and washing up on beaches everywhere - not to mention the unimaginable accumulation of garbage on land...

It's deeply worrying, and it should be. Now my conscience has taken me on a shocking tour of discovery through my household. I am shamed, I tell you. Guilty as charged. And I thought I was doing better than most... Well, sorry, No. Too much packaging, way too much plastic... Better start walking my talk.

So imagine my delight: Tierhoek Organics - Naartjie Bites. A Deliciousness for which I have no words. Weighs nothing (perfect for hiking, or any long-distance packing requiring padkos) and comes in fully bio-degradable, compostable packaging. Ditto their Dried Tomatoes. Don't know how they do it - NO plastic. I read the science somewhere & found it completely convincing & reassuring, and am now happy to indulge what has become a veritable addiction... those Naartjie Bites. The essence of more-ishness.

I like to think of those good people in their valley - hidden among the foothills of the Langeberg - bravely battling all the organic farmer's odds, and so gently and generously showing us the way.

Tierhoek Organics. Naartjie Bites. Go find some.

carbon conscience

Found myself in mixed company (omnivores, carnivores...) the other day, and stuck my neck out by quoting internet-sourced statistics - a meat-based diet requires 7 times more land than a plant-based diet, meat production uses 10 to 20 times more energy than grain production, red meat production uses 100 times more water than...and so on.

Since I was quoting "facts" I couldn't verify myself, I was quickly backed into a corner - but it made me think...

I wonder if anyone has made calculations comparing the carbon footprint of a fruitarian lifestyle with other options. My own experience tells me that the outcome would be very interesting indeed.

A fruitarian kitchen is a very uncomplicated, uncluttered place. No cooking means No need for most of what you'd find in a "normal" kitchen - which means that none of that stuff needs to be manufactured, marketed, transported, powered, discarded... and if your garden (or your neighbour's garden) feeds you - no packaging, no transport, no marketing machinery, none of that commercial madness & misery...

And that is but the beginning... now think of the environmental balance sheet, which begins with fruitarians planting trees, and trees, and more trees, and not needing to cut down trees to fuel cooking fires....

If I hadn't chosen this way for myself a long, long time ago, I suspect that I would have found the carbon footprint issue a convincing enough argument to say goodbye to the bloody fleshpots... if you know what I mean.

the secret of a happy garden...

We've always known that the secret of a happy garden is a generously sized compost-heap. And these days that is also the secret of a happy & well-supplied kitchen, and a happy & well-fed fruitarian. Cape gooseberries everywhere, and in the shade of every mulched tree, some sort of tomato - tiny little cherries, all the way up to heavy fleshy globes. Young papino and avo seedlings, pomegranate, guava & date - right through the household's menu - all kinds of seeds & pips now grown into generous new life.

What a lovely thing to suddenly find, in a most unexpected place, something delicious which required no attention, care or investment, but has been quietly growing towards that moment when the winter sun lights the shrubby corner next to the wide, deep stoep and reveals the little papery lanterns - this year's unplanned crop of Cape gooseberries.

A happy little moment, repeated all over the garden, throughout the year. Simple pleasures which somehow weave something rather special into the texture of an already rich life.

follow your nose

Pretty little pentzia incana - the quintessential smell of the Karoo. The honey fragrance of vygies on a sunny afternoon; delicate sweet-lime perfume of tiny ivory-coloured orchids; the intoxicating, invisible but almost tangible cloud around a flowering num-num; and now, that rich heady, robust note of a pure, aged balsamic vinegar that tells you that, somewhere very close by, under a euphorbia bush, there's a fruiting Hydnora africana. Pushing up through the karoo-soil, its chocolatey bulb opening to deep luminous orange, it glows against the dull dusty grey & green of its hide-away. My delight at finally spotting it, as nothing, I'm sure, compared to the pleasure of the small nocturnal harvester whose tracks I will find here tomorrow morning.

just don't talk about it

Here's something that never ceases to amaze me: You can discuss anything these days - even the traditionally taboo subjects like politics, religion & sex - and you will usually find it possible to have a rational & calm conversation. But mention dietary habits, and you'd better be prepared for some really touchy & defensive arguments. Even if you're not trying to convince someone to change his carnivorous diet, he will act as if you are. I've sometimes been amazed by the fact that a meat-eater can be so upset by the very fact that I am not also a meat-eater - as if that poses some kind of threat - and instantly has to defend & justify his own choice to eat meat.

I have realized the un-wisdom of trying to convert people a long, long time ago. But still, every so often, I will still find that people may act as if I'm trying to do just that, simply by virtue of the fact that I do what I do. As if being a fruitarian, and admitting to it, is equivalent to issuing a challenge to someone - daring him to pick up his club and go out and defend the patch in front of his cave.

Why is Food such a touchy & tricky issue ? It is easy to understand how food scarcity can ignite wars - hunger is a life & death issue. But in a society where there is no lack ? Why should a conversation about our relationship to food so often, and so easily, hit such a raw nerve ?

what will it take ?

It was one of those middle-of-the-night conversations deep in the African bushveld. So many stars that there seemed to be no dark left in the night sky; that deep, profoundly deep stillness, made all the more still & wide & poignant by the gentle punctuations from a little Scops owl somewhere close-by.

After days of walking the wilderness we were awake to the immense wonder of it - and deeply troubled by the deadly impact of the human footprint on the earth's natural systems. The game ranger - a wilderness-man through & through - cut right through our greenie concerns for the survival of the planet.

"Don't worry about the planet. The Earth will continue - we might, and probably will, screw up everything, but the planet will keep going. It'll be a changed planet, but it will survive. It's all this that won't."

And his all this took in the wide African night & all the life in it. And all the Life beyond it. All the unimaginably complex & wondrous beauty of the natural creation - that is what will not survive. That is what we're destroying - as if it didn't matter. The Life of which we are a part - the Life which keeps us alive - that is what we're killing. That is the big betrayal.

For a long time we sat around that bushveld camp fire. No one spoke any more. We could hear & smell & feel the Life in that night. And it was enough.

That was 16 years ago. And today it's as if we're still asleep at the wheel, hurtling to a certain crash. The human footprint is deadlier than ever.

Which leaves me with this question tonight:
What will it take for the human - this crown of creation - to come to its senses ? What disaster will be devastating enough, what threat will be terrifying enough, what danger frightening enough, what hope inspiring enough, for us to stop this blind, head-long rush to our own doom ?

What will it take to wake us up to the magnificence that slumbers in all of us ?

don't fear for your friendships

Are you concerned about the possibility that your fruitarian life may cost you your friendships ? Relax - you may be surprised.

My dear friend, M, who is completely accepting of my way of life, but certainly doesn’t have any desire to change his own very different relationship to food, came to stay with us for a few days. One afternoon I opened the fridge to find something I really didn’t expect and hadn’t had to deal with for many years: a sizable parcel of raw & bloody meat. M was going to have a barbecue.

It took me a few hours, but eventually I felt rational enough to tell him that this was just not something that was appropriate for me any longer. And then what could have remained an awkwardness between friends relaxed into farce. M was contrite, apologetic, shocked at his own insensitivity, and undertook to bury the meat immediately. We considered this for a bit, and then decided that – in a world with millions of starving people – maybe he shouldn’t do that. OK, then perhaps he should find a needy person to whom he could give the meat – he’ll think about it some more.

At that point I had to leave for a few hours. While I was away M found his solution. He cooked the whole lot & ate it all in one sitting. The sacrifices of friends ! It’s most endearing.

a life about something

Remember the Prof from Pretoria ? Prof B J Meyer who risked his reputation and his research grants by going against the establishment with his research into the health benefits of the fruitarian diet...

I remember a telephone conversation with him, many years ago - he'd been retired from some years, and was working on another book. He was passionately concerned about the state of food security in Africa, and felt that what was required was a radical re-think of the relationship between people & their food - otherwise we'd all be in great trouble.

And here we still are - shoring up the old systems, depleting an environment already so dangerously on the edge. Yes, Professor - we are indeed in great trouble.

A couple of days ago I got the news of Professor Meyer's passing. With our sadness, of course, there is enormous gratitude for his work & legacy. And strange as it may seem, envy. His life was about something. There was meaning & purpose & a point to it. How many of us can say that ?

I have always been struck by a story of the great Buckminster Fuller - of the moment when he had to decide whether he was going to live or die. It was night, on the edge of a lake - he had gone there to commit suicide. He found himself reviewing his life, and everything he knew or believed to be true. At the end of that night he had made the decision: if he had to live, his life had to be about something. Every word, every action had to be deliberate, meaningful & congruent. No matter what the cost. (For the rest of the story, I recommend you read his autobiography - or any of the many books written about him - it's inspiring stuff.)

A life about something. I've come to believe that we need to be grateful for the dark nights, the depressions & despair - they're our Damascus Road moments. They prevent us from drifting, only half-awake, through a life, only half-lived.

the Great Work

I am embarrassed to admit that there was a time when I considered any flower which didn't have a fragrance hardly worth the trouble. Those were the pre-Kyloe days. I know better now. Which is why I'm wondering if we could ever have too many Tecomaria's (Cape honeysuckle with none of the classic honeysuckle fragrance) around the place. They're at their best now, and the sunbirds love them.

In gardening - in life generally - it's not the best idea to put humans first... people as the centre & clincher of every argument. This anthropocentric obsession has got us into a lot of trouble, and the way to get out of it is through a recalibration of our place in the scheme of things. A re-reading of what the great, wise Thomas Berry calls, The Great Story - the wondrous narrative of the universal unfolding of which we are but a part. Call it by the smaller, more familiar terms - evolution, web-of-life - we are woven into an ancient, ongoing, exuberantly creative life story much, much, much greater than ourselves. I like that. Look up at the sky on a clear Karoo night, and you'll know the truth of it.

This remembering of our own Great Story, and the re-shaping of our life to be congruent with that, is what Berry calls The Great Work of our time. In a world which - unarguably I think - has lost its way so completely and so dangerously, I have no better suggestion than Berry's. I like the idea of a personal life which engages with The Great Work, which honours & benefits ALL of life.

Start planting, people

Two bits of news today: the first tells me that "the world" has finally woken up to the fact that there is a looming food crisis. People are going hungry, and it's going to get worse. A lot worse. I don't need to go into the evidence here. The statistics are frightening enough for the ever-vulturine disaster-hungry media to have noticed - the facts & the figures will get headlines & newspaper columns, and it'll all be in the public domain.

So now that we know this, what happens next ? Another couple of Task Groups, a Summit or two, a spike in vapour trails over Africa as Delegations flit to and fro - squandering their dollars & fossil fuels in the exciting divertissement of "Find the culprit"...

And then we'll have a Resolution, followed by an Amendment to the Resolution, and a Conclave to vote on the Amendment; and we'll establish a Council to design the Protocols with which to implement the Resolution; after which there will be a rift in the Council over the fact that the entire Strategic Plan for Global Food Security rests on a premise of ethnic/racist/non-PC bias which requires an Ethical Repositioning founded on a Broad-based Grassroots Consensus which can only begin after an Inclusive Consultative Process - and we have another spike in vapour trails over Africa...

While, in the mean time, people are hungry and getting hungrier.

My second bit of news today arrived just as I was reading about the global food crisis. The Man walked in and announced: The pecans are ripe. Well, I would challenge anyone to come and harvest pecan nuts with me, on a day when "the world" acknowledges its food crisis, and not connect the dots.

Plant your own to eat your own.

Living in the margins #2

Discomfort is not the enemy. Fear of discomfort is. Sweat is a small price to pay for the view of a more distant horizon.

Let the Safe & the Sensible have their predictability & comfort. Perhaps they're wise. But they will never know the smell of summer bleached savannah grass, or sun-baked Karoo rock with, overhead, a bluer blue than any they will ever see.

They will not know the exhilaration of wild winter weather on top of a snowy mountain, with the sleet flying horizontally, stinging your wet skin, and the air so clean & crisp it feels as if it had just been newly created.

So - allow yourself to fall in love with the extremes. Discover the winter moods of the beach when all the Gautengese have left. Walk in a high wind. Climb a mountain in the rain. Cross the river on foot. Allow yourself to get wet, sweaty, hungry & lost.

Hear the silence in places that are empty of people. Take your life off-route for a while.

Life is much richer in the margins.

learning the Laws - the hard way

There can be few pastimes more pleasant than a bicycle ride in the country – farm roads, autumn coloured vineyards, all that wonderful clean country air. At least, someone must have spread some kind of super-potent fertilizer around, or maybe there’s a dead rodent somewhere behind the bushes. Not to worry, it’s all nature’s aroma. The choking dust from speeding, disdainful 4x4s – they just don’t know what they’re missing. Just be grateful that they DID miss the humble country cyclist, puffing her way to fitness and all sorts of profound insights. Here’s one of those insights: This is a more effective & personal way to be introduced to Universal Laws than watching The Secret a dozen times.

#1 See that rock or pothole up ahead ? You will not be able to avoid it, swerve as you might – you will connect with it. It is The Law of Attraction.

#2 Halfway up any hill you will notice a merciless increase in both distance and gradient. It is the Law of Growth.

#3 After a certain amount of time on an inadequately padded saddle, an evil stretch of corrugated farm road will teach you that Everything in the Universe is Energy. Everything that exists, moves. It is The Law of Vibration.

#4 Approach a stretch of deep sand, especially on a slight downhill, and you initiate a sequence of doomed events, beginning with the first wild sideways maneuver & ending in utter humiliation. It is The Law of Cause and Effect.

#5 However clearly you envisage your afternoon’s ride along country roads, you will be blessed with a richer and more varied experience than you could have anticipated. The route will be longer, steeper and rougher than expected. Everything will hurt more than expected. No matter how twisty your route, somehow the wind will always manage to be a headwind. You will have a puncture. You won’t have a repair kit – and even if you had, it wouldn’t have helped because you won’t have a bicycle pump. You will realize that, although you do want to get fit, this is just Too Much - it's a h-ll of a lot more than you bargained for. It is the flippin’ Law of Abundance.

honey, sugar & beer

The little Tanquana's are flowering now. Sweetest of honey smells - best enjoyed on hands & knees with the tip of one's nose covered in pale golden pollen. An autumn ritual, in remembrance of the dear friend who created this part of Kyloe. His life was in crisis, his world crashing around his ears - and he did this unbelievable thing. In a blustery, unmerciful, sad wind he came and quietly made us this karoo garden - full of life & hidden treasures. Like the Tanquana's now reminding me of just how much people can bear, and the grace with which they can do it.

Some years ago we were filming in the Eastern Cape - a documentary about people living & coping with diabetes. One day we were working with medics & patients in an East London hospital, and arranged to film with one of the patients in her home in Duncan Village. She'll go with us and show us the way. All very sociable for the first few minutes in the combi - until it became clear that the lady was giving completely random directions. We were criss-crossing all over, in&out of the city - and let me add that the cameraman had turned up that morning with a hangover, and an attitude of thunder & vitriol. And he's driving.

It was complete farce, especially when the penny finally dropped. Our lady was an advanced diabetic, and years of neglect had brought the inevitable consequence. She was virtually blind. She was trying to direct us from memory.

When we eventually got to her home, I was staggered & humbled. The interior of the little house shone with jewel colours. Everywhere. The palette of an extraordinarily happy & cheerful artist. And in the corner, the most massive chest fridge I'd ever seen. Our lady, realizing that her "Sugar" was robbing her of her sight, her mobility & her ability to continue to work, had found a way: she would supply the local shebeen. Now she had an income, and even more importantly - secured by a giant padlock, and at the perfect temperature - a place to store the key to her survival. Among the hundreds of beer bottles, her precious supply of insulin.

Living in the margins #1

Full moon in the Karoo, and the night-jars calling.

There's a little karoo shrub that only begins to release its fragrance when the comforts of the day have gone. Pure, heady vanilla which richly repays my blundering into thorns, sniffing my way through the veld. Unspectacular little bush by day, although prettily covered in creamy-yellow flowers - it is a flamboyant performer, in secret, when people are sleeping.

Of course, its performance is not for my sake. Its perfume is not aimed at attracting my attention. I am irrelevant. A chance passer-by, surprised & delighted by this encounter with a life-system that doesn't require my attention, or my approval. Left alone, it is sufficient unto itself.

Like so much else in the natural world - Life busy living. While people are sleeping.

Life is richer in the margins.

meeting the Dragon

It wasn't the most promising setting. In fact, it's the sort of place I’ll only consider when I cannot find new-season citrus anywhere else, and am prepared to brave the hygiene challenges of this last-hope shop. And there they were - Pitahaya - Dragon fruit.

"Cactus Fruit" on the stick-on label. And of course they are - but how much more exotic than our familiar prickly pears. And my research tells me there are several different Dragons - even a golden one. Imagine that. Golden Dragon for Dinner.

Well tonight my outrageously Pink Dragon will join translucent amber stars of carambola, golden gooseberries, and deep purple figs on my dinner plate. A feast.

2 surprises

Parents in the UK are being warned against "feeding their toddlers too much fruit & veg" - it's DANGEROUS ! Scientific study nogal. Well, ever since I've discovered the truth about Santa & the Tooth Fairy, and the fact that science can prove that smoking is actually GOOD for you - as long as the scientific study is subsidized, if not commissioned by, Big Tobacco - I've learnt that media reports require a lot of salty seasoning. But toddler health being damaged by "too much fruit & veg" ? That is, shall we say, unexpected.

So that was the first surprise. Here's the second:

Remember my Quest for the Perfect Avo ? The big rugby ball avo's ? An email message tonight from London - avo trees in a PieterMaritzburg garden - size sounds right, as does the description of its taste. There's someone who's going to PMB shortly and can bring seedlings. So I ask him. OK, but he's got 3 of them growing in his garden already - they're small - be about 8 yrs before they'll bear. The surprise ? The man with the 3 possibly-giant avo trees: my brother. Yes. Lives 2 hours away...

8 years is a long time to wait though. So, the hunt is still on. Anyone out there who can put me in contact with the giant (rugby-ball size) avo's - I'm listening... (Although there are times when I feel like SETI - the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence people - always listening for a signal which never comes...)

Don't be a pain: Rule #5 of 5

KEEP A SENSE OF HUMOUR
You will be given a great deal of advice. Depending on your company this could be medical, psychological, culinary, or sexual. From “All you need is a big juicy steak”, to “You need to have your head read”, to the graphic outlining of the gratification of needs you never even knew you had.

Your best strategy will be your sense of humour. Don’t get defensive, don’t get angry, don’t argue. Silly, mocking, even aggressive or offensive comments might be aimed at you - but they will have absolutely nothing to do with you; they have everything to do with the author of such comments. This sort of thing comes from ignorance - even unkindness - and is nothing more than evidence of someone’s inability to encounter you, on this journey, with elegance.

Just laugh it off, and move on.

Foraging

Heard about this guy on the radio: Fergus is going to spend one year just foraging for his food. If he’d been in South Africa, we’d say he’ll be eating from the veld. As it is, in the UK, he’ll be eating from the forests & the heaths & road verges & hedgerows and so on.

I think that's a lovely idea – living off the land – eating what nature provides. Well, the idea is good. Not too crazy about Fergus’s execution of it though – he described a meal that included pheasant breast. What ? Pheasant breast for someone who forages ? Yep. Road-kill. Which is where I part ways with Fergus.

Just imagine if Fergus had been a fruitarian. Now, that would have been fascinating. I have to wonder if it’s possible. Fergus clearly is an omnivore and he cooks & bakes - he grinds flour from fallen acorns & bakes bread from that. Again – not part of the plan for my fruitarian forage. But still I wonder.

Go take a walk through your village, dorp, suburb, city neighborhood. WALK. Don’t drive. Take your time & look – really LOOK – at gardens. You’ll have to peek over walls, through hedges & security fences of course - taking care not to frizzle yourself on electrified barriers. But even so. I’ve done this and you know, it might not be completely impossible to do a Fergus in a dorp or city. Just check out the back gardens & courtyards – you might be amazed at the number & variety of fruit & nut trees you see. Summer fruiters as well as winter fruiters – so you might be OK throughout a whole year. Of course you’d need to make friends with everyone to get around the security issue, & explain your experiment to get around the fears we’ve all learnt to live with.

And then you look at the street planting – see the hundreds of carob trees ? Well, there’s a whole load of free calories right there. And the thousands of palm trees – Oops, No – this is where my fantasy collapses utterly. They’re just ornamental – feeds neither man nor beast. Doesn’t even provide decent shade – certainly not to compare with a good-sized pecan nut tree, for example. I think it’s safe to say that our city planners are probably not fruitarians.

So here’s my suggestion for those of us who live in any kind of urban or peri-urban environment. How about planting as many fruit & nut trees as you can cram into your space – some can even do perfectly well in a good-sized pot on a patio. And then plant some of your fruit trees closer to your boundary or fence. And don’t over-prune the poor thing into a manicured poodle. Let the tree be a tree. Let it grow & blossom & fruit. You’ll enjoy it. The birds will love you for it. As will any fruitarian Fergus who happens to be foraging by.

Which reminds me of a lovely summer afternoon in Greyton – well in Greyton all summer afternoons are lovely anyway. But this one had something extra. It was grape season, and every so often, on our walk through the dorp, there’d be a handwritten sign on a piece of cardboard behind a small bowl or basket of perfectly luscious grapes: Please help yourself – they’re very good !

Fergus would have loved it.

Don't be a pain in the whatsit: Rule #4 of 5

UNLESS YOU’RE A MEDICAL DOCTOR OR A QUALIFIED HEALTH EXPERT, DON’T GIVE MEDICAL ADVICE.
You will be asked to. You might be tempted to. Don’t do it - you can get into real trouble if you do. People come to fruitarianism for a variety of reasons – some of them very serious. For the medically desperate it could represent a last-straw hope, and you should never promise miracle cures. That would be arrogant, cruel and dangerous. Healing – deep body-and-soul healing – is holy ground. And fruitarianism, like all in-depth transformations of the self, is about healing and the evolution of our consciousness. These are deep waters, and if we're new to it, we're probably not ready to be the best guides & teachers for others.

So what can you do ? Make information available, share your experience, be supportive. And if you feel called upon to do so, report for soul duty. This however is work for the seasoned traveller. It requires what Caroline Myss calls, soul stamina.

Now, Caroline Myss. I cannot recommend her work too highly. Like many many thousands of people I have found her teachings about healing, consciousness & the journey of the soul to be a profound blessing on my path. She is eloquent, funny, wise & incisive. Many years ago a dear friend first introduced me to Caroline's Anatomy of the Spirit, and I honestly regard that as the beginning of the richest phase of my spiritual growth & my expansion as a human being. Caroline's latest book, Entering the Castle, is evidence of her own evolution over the years. If you're serious about your own soul work, about living a life of meaning & depth, this is the book you want to work with.

Are you wondering just what this might have to do with your fruitarianism ? Everything - as you will know if you're familiar with Caroline's work. And if you have yet to discover it: Well, you know the old saying: When the student is ready, the teacher appears ? Perhaps you're about to discover something which will challenge & enrich every part of your life - including your fruitarianism.

What am I eating ?????

Here's something which gave me a slight fright: a report about cleaning fruit & veg. Apparently it doesn't help to wash it - eColi & some other things you don't want to ingest get into the leaves (spinach for example) & fruit... So: big project to test efficacy of chemical baths & irradiation. Irradiation works best - provided it's strong enough to kill the stuff, and even then it's not 100%.

Now I wonder what the irradiation does to the life in the fruit I'm eating ? I don't care that my worry is not scientific - I'd much rather they try to figure out how to prevent the eColi's etc from getting into the food in the first place.

I'm sure we've all seen the fresh produce fields bordering some of our most congested highways. Which is why I like to see WHERE MY FOOD COMES FROM. When I make vegetable juice for The Man, I'd rather the ingredients didn't originate right next to the N1. When I eat grapes, I'd prefer it if they didn't come from the area where the irrigation water was so polluted that the EU cancelled import deals with those farmers.

Let me just make this clear: I absolutely do not blame those farmers - they're caught between a rock and a very hard place. They're partly dependent on water from a river - polluted before it gets to them. They do what they can with purification, but it brings me back to my first point - get rid of the problem at source. And I'm afraid this gets us into even more polluted waters: politics.

So I'll leave that there. Point is - I want to know Point of Origin. And that's not always easy. Especially when your punnet of fruit comes from that mysterious farm called Specially-grown/packed-for...

There's always been a particular pleasure in knowing, for example, that your avo's came from Louis Triegaardt (as it used to be called), especially if the box also told you the name of the farm. One gets to know & trust some of these points of origin. But nowadays it's not just out of interest - I wonder how often it is a health risk for us not to know where our fruit grew & how it got to us.

Bottom-line: we're going to have to get to a point where we can grow more of our own. If you eat off your own tree, you know what you're getting.

Don't be a pain in the whatsit: Rule #3 of 5

Southern Kalahari - early morning, as we were leaving to tackle the long trek to the softer south. Yes - it's the famous hoodia. The diet industry's holy grail - suppresses appetite - makes you lose weight. And you will never need it, because as a fruitarian you don't have weight issues anymore...

OK - Rule #3: DON'T JUDGE
The surest way to sabotage your own journey is to start judging someone else’s. None of us has even the remotest clue about the soul-stuff being worked out in another life. We barely glimpse the truth about our own.

So, when thinking about, shall we say, those people who pin all their hopes on the humble hoodia (the 60%+ obese Americans for example), let go of that superior smirk. Try for a bit of humility & compassion. This may be more difficult than you'd care to admit. So go practise on yourself. And you might just be surprised to find that this is hardest of all. Do it anyway.

Go stand in front of the mirror – look at yourself in the full awareness of the courage it’s taken to assume the grown-up charge of your own health. Claim that. Now look at yourself in the full awareness of your vulnerability & fragility, and (might as well admit it) stupidity. Claim that too. Now cultivate compassion for yourself. For the brave, flawed, fearful, precious, real person you know yourself to be. From now on you don’t do Blame anymore, or Pity, or Victim-consciousness. You don’t do Denial anymore, or Fantasy. You don’t Judge. You are deserving of your own compassion – so is everyone else.

As a footnote to yesterday: in the shop today - fresh organic dates. Refrigerated & overpackaged - but still, a muted little echo from my childhood.

Deserts & dates

Remember that panicked late-night drive down the Nossob ? (The Man) Here, in the shade of a shaggy old camelthorn tree: one of the things that made us late.

I know, it was going to be Rule #3 - but I'm just not in the mood. I've been re-reading Freya Stark's travel writings - you know 1920s-30s, traipsing all over the Middle-East & dining with the Bedouin. We'll pass over the sheep's bits & the camel's unmentionables - but she writes about desert dates, and the figs & pomegranates in the suqs. Just imagine.

So, what with the Kalahari springbok & Dame Freya's dates... well, my mind is full of sun & faraway places.

Kyloe's two young date palms are nowhere near ready to bear - but they're getting there. Such a business as it was to get them too, years ago. Ornamental palms, of course - no problem. But the real dactylifera - well, I hope that's what we've got...

Is there someone else who remembers those beautiful little wooden boxes that used to arrive, once a year, from somewhere in the northern Cape ? Fresh sticky syrupy dates. A treasure from a desert place. Like Dame Freya's desert fruits. A fond & rather melancholy memory.

Seems I have unfinished business with the deserts... Hence, I suppose, the Kalahari-Augrabies thing - no matter how tough the training. And that is how I discovered the cruelest words in the English language: "Repeat whole sequence 3 times."

Don't be a pain in the whatsit: Rule #2 of 5

How’s this for keeping things in perspective ? The Orange downstream from the famous Augrabies Falls. Makes one feel really small. Keeps you humble. Which brings me to this:

DON'T EVANGELIZE about your newfound fruitarian life.
The fact that you believe that you have seen the light does not confer the right (or the obligation) upon you to bore & bludgeon anyone else into abandoning their own convictions and instantly join your crusade. They don't owe you a buy-in; Your fruitarianism is not a franchise.

OK, of course, speak your truth – if and when appropriate, with kindness and discernment. But you'd better accept that everyone else is already doing his/her best. Whatever the evidence to the contrary, we are all just doing the best we can, when we can, according to the awareness we’re holding at the time. So, leave the persuading for now - you have quite enough work to do in overcoming your own inertia.

Oh, you don't have that kind of problem ? Well, lucky you. Even so, for the rest of us ordinary (and honest) mortals:

Better to keep your eyes on your own goals – they are glorious enough, and all too often, seemingly unattainable enough. Like the Augrabies Xtreme. Look at the picture - that's the kind of terrain waiting for me. And there's the heat: it couldn't have been very far off 50 deg C when we were there, and I loved it. But I wasn't running, I wasn't carrying provisions for a week, and I didn't have to keep doing it for days on end. And then there are still the dunes...

Sounds quite mad, but people have done it. WOMEN have done it. And the woman who won the women's section last time around is now running the Atacama desert. But I don't like to think about her. She's young, she's blonde, she's an experienced ultra-athlete, and she's not a fruitarian. See what I mean ? Just absolutely NO POINT in looking at someone else's journey - it'll result in one of two things: either despair, or pride. Either way, it's a killer.

Who's the woman ? Oh, Mimi Anderson - just Google her name - goes as marvellousmimi. But I'd really rather not think about her right now ...

Don’t be a pain in the whatsit: Rule #1 of 5

Kyloe: view from the front stoep. A good place to be reminded of the bigger picture, and to keep things in perspective. Which brings me to the following: Don't be a pain. For heaven's sake - and for your own, no less than for the sake of those around you - keep things in perspective. Approach your fruitarianism with as much elegance, and as light a touch as you can manage. Some wise person somewhere said: Get over heavy ground as lightly as possible. So, in that spirit, here is the first of my 5 little rules:

STOP EXPLAINING
Lose the compulsion to over-explain. Just lose it. You’ll find that some friends – or indeed family members – don’t agree with what you’re doing. So what ? Let it go. Once you’ve embarked on a well-informed, well-considered and well-motivated journey towards your own empowerment, you have earned the right to be free of the symbiotic need to be understood & validated.

And don’t apologize. If you’ve been ill-mannered, apologize for that, certainly – but not for having the guts to take responsibility for yourself. If your critics are not on a similar path, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll be familiar with the co-ordinates of your world. In-depth explanations may be meaningless to them. So, stand back, disengage from the emotional hooks of the situation, and share only as much information as may be necessary to facilitate a light atmosphere.

I know, I know - easier said than done, sometimes. When there's someone who just has to dig & pinch & snipe - just tell him (it's usually a him) you've decided to experiment with fruitarianism. He wants to know why ? Oh, you want to see what it can do for your sex-life. If that doesn't shut him up, it'll at least divert the conversation into a channel which will reveal more about him, than all his probing about your fruitarianism revealed about you...

of snakes & support

An autumn chill in the air, rain in the night, and - this morning - a shed snake skin among the vygies between the house and the stone cottage. One of the resident Cape cobras. A big one, obviously getting bigger. Which makes me wonder about the little striped mouse in the courtyard.

Talking of eating...

So here you are, a budding fruitarian in an omnivorous society. Which makes you brave, or desperate, or both. And more than likely without knowing many people who mirror your experience. So you discover a couple of bottom-lines: Firstly, Food is a tribal issue, and secondly, the way you commune with your food becomes an identity issue. Books have been written about this, and will continue to be written about this - and somewhere buried in a great deal of nonsense you'll find some useful insights & a few nuggets of wisdom. Here's one:

Don't confuse Support with Community. You could find support in someone who doesn't have a clue about your journey - and if you do you should thank your angels for it. But to find yourself among others who actually share your experience - that's Community, and you're going to need it. Which is why I'm telling you about "Hokaai" - a community of fruitarians. No matter if you've been at it for a while, or are just thinking about maybe possibly, one day, perhaps considering moving somewhat more or less in the direction of fruitarianism - speak to Herma. (051 4365668, or if you're outside of South Africa - that's the nervous country just south of Zimbabwe - add 27 in front). Or just post here & I'll do the rest.

Now here's something I'll bet you didn't know. If you were to take a 5kg dumb-bell and do biceps curls, here's what you'll find: first 2 - it is twice as heavy as last week's 2.5 kg dumb-bell; next 2 - it weighs 3 times as much; from that point on it doubles in weight with every move, until you find you've stopped breathing & more or less lost interest in the whole business.

The Man

No, sorry - he vetoed the sheepskin pictures. But here he is - just before the start of a hair-raising trek down the Nossob valley which brought us to the TweeRivieren camp gates loooong after the justifiably annoyed ranger had locked up for the night. A map-miscalculation which I do not recommend. Must admit though, it was exciting - after all, it was a Kalahari night.

The picture is in fact quite revealing - albeit rather less so than the sheepskin pics would have been. First of all, he likes rivers & forests & cool green shady jungly places. A 40+ deg C desert is not his preferred habitat. But it is mine - which makes this the picture of a generous man. It is also the picture of someone who's breaking the law - not allowed on foot in this part of wild predator country. But then the late afternoon light was making magic out of tsamma melons and red sand...

So there you have my one-man support team for the Augrabies Xtreme: a heat-intolerant, desert-hating free spirit who excels at navigating - in the dark - through dangerous, possibly hostile territory. I rather think I might be in good hands.

Which brings us to the matter of support and community - and that serious challenge which awaits all fruitarians (see 4 problems - 1 solution). As soon as I've taken care of some heavy breathing involving a couple of dumb-bells and a pezzi ball...

Who/what is a fruitarian ?

Well the easy, quick answer is "someone who eats fruit, nuts & seeds". What ? No eggs, cheese ? No - only fruit, nuts & seeds. Biltong ? No. Really ? Wine ? No, only- Bread ? No, only fruit, nuts- Are you sure ? Just fruit, nuts & seeds ? Yes.

OK, finally got that straight.

And then the next batch of FAQ's: You mean you eat like this EVERY day ? Isn't that boring ? Don't you get hungry ? Are you crazy ? (Yes, No, No, and No Comment.)

So what kind of person decides to become a fruitarian ? What does it take for someone to make such a commitment ?

Before I give you my take on that, just imagine this (if you're already a seasoned fruitarian you won't need to imagine it, you'll know): the best health & vitality you have ever known; abundant energy; a body which is supple, flexible, robust & years younger than your chronological age would indicate; sharpened senses; a clear, agile & peaceful mind...

Now who wouldn't want that ? You mean - all of this comes just from eating a fruit diet ? No. What do you mean, "No"? Well, it's true that the fruitarian diet brings enormous benefits, but it can do way, way more. It is but the beginning, the key to the real treasures. So here is my honest answer to that first question: A fruitarian is someone who – through making a conscious commitment to live on a fruitarian diet – opens the door to his/her own healing and conscious evolution, and contributes to the restoration of the integrity of the natural world.

Oh. OK. So what about the second question: Who in his/her right mind would sign on for this?

I can be flippant here & relate a couple of anecdotes. But you know, in touching on these matters, we're looking into the most personal & painful corners of people's lives. That deserves - at the very least - that one should tread delicately & with respect. So, wearing my grown-up hat...

The truth is that in the greatest number of instances (by far) we don’t have an elegant progression towards fruitarianism. Many of us arrive there through a brutal confrontation with the reality of our lives – and the witnesses to that moment are not gentle & pretty. Desperation, disease, pain, debility – a body & spirit exhausted beyond bearing. In that moment, we are ready to sign on for whatever change we need to make.

Of course we can choose the fruitarian way without having to go through such depths – and some people do. It is not necessarily a better or a worse way to arrive at fruitarianism – in each individual case the metamorphosis required will bring with it a treasure trove of teachings. Omnivores who take the scenic route – via vegetarianism, and veganism, to fruitarianism – will learn a great deal about themselves and the world they live in; so will the impatient traveller who takes the courageous shortcut and relishes the adventure of leaping into the unknown; and so too will the fragile & bruised ones who no longer see any other hope than to surrender to this journey of last-resort. All of them will meet with challenges to their progress, as well as the most tender guidance – and all of them will gain immeasurably.

You might ask: Why are there so few fruitarians ? The short answer to this - alas, as I know from personal experience - is the following: The human being is essentially & fundamentally lazy. We can dress this up in all kinds of psychologeze, but the fact remains that it takes something of a psychic earthquake to get most of moving. Oh we can be very busy & active & achieve wonderful things. Especially when we’re busy with distractions & indulgences, or can be paid (bribed) to Achieve. But watch the inertia when the task at hand involves personal change. We can become astonishingly inventive at finding reasons (excuses) for not budging. “My family/spouse/religion won’t let me”; “I first need to do this, finish that, begin something else”; “I won’t have any friends left”; “I am not ready”; “I could never do that – I do not have the willpower”.

Classic ruses, especially the lack-of-willpower excuse. That is a particularly useful scapegoat – never mind the fact that the willpower-issue is something of a myth; it will serve to sabotage any self-improvement intention whenever we feel It’s just too much trouble, too much hassle – we’re just too (sorry !) Lazy.

Oh and the suffocating comfort of Habit ! The way we’ve always done things – the way we are used to living & thinking - the familiar social rituals of our culture. Somewhere along the line we somehow got the idea that Habits are sacrosanct, and to change them would be to violate a taboo. Habits, customs and taboos are tribal issues, and they will have a paralyzing magnetic hold on us until we are awake enough (or desperate enough) to embark on the journey to our own empowerment. The way we commune with our food is an Identity issue, and until we are ready to examine it as such, it is far easier & safer to remain (unhealthily and unhappily if need be) within tribal confines.

So we suffer a little longer, we complain a little more; we look for more sympathy and find it; we ask for more advice, receive it, and follow it – or we don’t. Our precious days slip away as we bury our discomforts and our unease under loads of unfinished, unexamined baggage; we silence the small insistent inner voice which urges us to action through mindless & mind-numbing indulgence in our drugs-of-choice; we blame, we rationalize, we play the victim, and we adjust stoically to the steadily increasing suffering of our body, mind & spirit.

Until one day, we wake up, and realize that there has to be another way. We are drawn to the vision of a life which is more than just the unremarked diminishing of who we are, and even more tragically, who we might have been. We wake up to the fact that we have the capacity for something much greater.

So we take the leap. And then we discover the most marvellous thing - we find a freedom we've not known before, a gift for unbounded joy we never thought we'd rediscover; we realize that we're courageous & strong & fascinating in a way we've simply just not seen before.

Here's the bottom line: There are certain choices one can make only when one is ready to wake up, and grow up. For some of us, Fruitarianism is such a choice.

Next time: how about something testosteronic ? The Man with - if I can persuade him - the sheepskin boots...

4 problems - 1 solution

5 problems actually – and you’re guaranteed to encounter them when you’re new to the fruitarian lifestyle, and everything, quite frankly, just seems like more of a hassle… For example:

THE FRUIT GLUT
In-season fruit at a bargain price – but you have to buy a crate of the stuff. Apart from the fact that your ridiculously low purchase price means that the poor struggling farmer (without whom you & I would not survive) must have been paid next to nothing for his crop, you are now stuck with more of one kind of fruit than you can possibly consume before the fruit-flies move in.

THE TIRED BANANA
Astonishing, isn’t it, just how quickly they can go from green to spotty-black ? You can only eat so many bananas a day, and you’ll be d—d if you let them go to waste – especially if they’re organic (which I HIGHLY recommend) and came with an obscene mark-up.

THE VICIOUS PINEAPPLE
Picked too green, burning a hole in your tongue – now what do you do with the rest of the pineapple ?

THE SWEET TOOTH
Whether in the form of a whiny child, depressed adult, or well-fed guest still looking around expectantly for dessert… There will be times when you’d really like to have an alternative to the guilt-ridden ice-cream tub cave-in - especially if said child, adult or guest is diabetic, hypoglycemic, arthritic, overweight, or otherwise sugar-intolerant.

THE "I NEED SOMETHING" MOMENT
Make no mistake, you’re going to deserve a culinary reward from time to time. The usual socially entrenched artery-clogging riches won’t do it for you anymore. But you might still find yourself – from time to time – standing in the kitchen and pondering that most existential of dilemmas: Now what can I eat now ?

5 nuisances, with a single, utterly delicious solution – Eskom permitting.

Here’s how: Freeze your excess in-season fruit; ditto with ripe bananas (chunky slices). Make up your own combinations of (frozen & fresh) fruit including when necessary that bitey pineapple, always using bananas as your base (frozen bananas somehow give a better ice-creamy texture than unfrozen bananas – and here “organic” really makes a difference); whip up the whole lot with good (no preservatives / additives) coconut cream in a food processor. Heaven. All fruit, no sugar, always available, and excess again freezable.

There is simply no end to the combinations you could try. One memorable short-notice dinner party success: frozen bananas (lots), nastily sharp pineapple, lime, coconut cream and fresh organic vanilla.

Yes, yes I know – ideally the fruitarian should only eat fresh, unfrozen fruit. Directly off the perfectly healthy tree, perfectly ripened ON the tree. Like Kyloe’s persimmons, and wild mulberries, and grapes, and nectar-sweet purple plums, and golden greengages, and juicy round-flavoured satsumas, oranges & grapefruits… Well, we’re trying, but Eden is still a long way off, and in the meantime the freezer is my ally.

But there is one, much bigger difficulty every new fruitarian will face. And this one can derail you completely. That’s for next time.

Use your head

Time for a sober moment: There are plenty of people around the world who'll tell you that fruitarianism saved their lives, or at the very least significantly enhanced their health and sense of wellbeing. You might find such stories very inspiring. In fact you might be battling a health crisis yourself and be searching for some last-ditch hope; or perhaps you're just tired of being tired - just fed-up enough with dragging on from day to day, and ready now to give fruitarianism a try.

No problem - just don't be silly about it. And don't expect the fruitarian diet to fix a health-crisis which took years to develop, in a couple of days or even weeks. Chances are you'll experience benefits almost from the very beginning - but, as the saying goes, miracles may take a little longer.

So let's say you're curious about what fruitarianism can do for you - shed stubborn weight, enhance your vitality, erase some niggling aches & pains, perhaps fight a rather more serious health challenge - how do you go about it ? Well, here's the Beginner's starter-pack of 5 Reminders:

FRUIT VARIETY
Make sure that you eat as wide as possible a variety of in-season fruit every day. Even during the trickiest seasons you should be able to manage 5-7 different kinds. Prof Meyer recommends (as did the fruitarian pioneer C. De Villers-Dreyer) that one should eat avocado pear every day – 150-250gm.

NUT VARIETY
It’s the amino-acid thing. A variety of nuts – eaten together – will provide an amino-acid profile which satisfies all protein requirements. Obviously, we’re here talking about raw, unprocessed nuts – organic wherever possible. You’re aiming at around 100 gm daily.

SEED VARIETY
Patrick Holford (Optimum Nutrition Bible) makes a very eloquent case for this way of obtaining your Omegas – 3, 6 and 9. Mix your sunflower seeds, linseeds, sesame seeds & pumpkin seeds together. Include them in your blender-concoctions, or eat them by the spoonful with fresh dates or raisins. Especially handy in a ziploc bag in your hiker’s backpack, or as a travel snack in the car.

COUNT
For the beginning I strongly recommend using a nutritional calculator - an interactive one if you’re wired in a way that makes it possible. Otherwise just use the tables in the Dr Meyer’s book Fruit for Thought. Most of the information you’ll need will be there, and for the gaps try to get hold of a really handy little book by Joseph M.Kadans PhD, Encyclopedia of Fruits, Vegetables, Nuts & Seeds. Please don’t be daunted by this – it is nowhere near as big a hassle as you might think. Eventually your body – through your appetite & taste - will regulate your menu, but initially you should not expect to be able to rely on that. Your appetite will not yet be a reliable guide of your nutritional requirements. Don’t be silly about this – use your head, not your taste buds.

MEDICAL CHECK-UPS
For the peace of mind of your nearest & dearest – if not your own – have regular blood-profile checks. Quite apart from being a sensible thing to do, it’s also a quick & convincing way to handle the skeptics in your life.

To quote Asterix: Hereendeththelesson. Now try this: bananas, brazil nuts, coconut flakes, carob powder (all organic) half glass water. Blender. Bliss.

Next time: 4 problems - one solution.

the Prof & the Pezzi ball

Right - The SSI hath spoken: "Thy basic starting level assessed as elite". So now the fresh young blonde has taken the !@%*&!! machines at their word and presented me with a training schedule which shows NO respect for her elders. Yes, I understand that this is good news. Yes. Absolutely. Right. OK. So today I begin my intimate acquaintance with my new best friend, the Pezzi Ball. After lunch. Not right now. Got some other things to take care of first. Like lunch.

Of course I shouldn't really be surprised at the SSI assessment results. After all, that's sort of the whole point about the fruit thing. And it's exactly what Prof BJ Meyer proved (please note: PROVED - although being a scientist he indicated & suggested & strongly pointed to the possibility) that fruitarianism is a significant health investment - for us ordinary mortals as well as for athletes. And here's the really convincing part about Prof Meyer's tests - he was Professor at PRETORIA University. There's something terribly establishment about that. No - I'm not from Pretoria and quite frankly I don't like the place much. But somehow the Pretoria prof's scientific pronouncement carries more weight (for me at least) than a revelation from the Supreme Wisdom-Vessel of the Academy of Pleiadian Light. Let's just say: Pretoria University is not flaky fringe, The Professor is a scientist, and by investigating the impact of the fruitarian diet on health and athletic performance he's done us all a tremendous favour.

A note of caution, though, from the Prof. He says: Don't guess - make sure.

How ? We'll have to get to that later. Right now I must go rest up for my exercise session. After lunch.

Quest for the perfect avo

More than 500 kinds of avocado in the world, and what do our South African shops offer us? 4, 5 different kinds ? Fuerte, Hass, Pinkerton, couple of others ? Easiest to find – though not necessarily the cheapest – is the one that only reveals its inedible black threads & black bruises once you cut it. Show me a fruitarian who hasn’t bought a box of those…

Many, many years ago I found what I still think is the perfect avo. The size of a rugby ball – yes, literally, no exaggeration. Found them in the Lowveld – now Mpumalanga. Deep yellow buttery, nutty flesh. I have a vivid memory of an evening in the bushveld, sitting on the rocks high above the Olifants River, and eating a slice of one of these. It was my whole supper and I had trouble finishing it. Although that might have had something to do with a small drama involving red-checked underwear & a couple of bats – but that’s another story.

Anyhow – ever since that time I’ve been on the track of those avos. Needless to say: not commercially available. Then I met someone who remembered seeing the rugby-ball avos at a Lowveld wedding reception. She knew a Greek guy who used to be married to someone who had a friend who owned the farm which produced the avos. But then the Greek guy wasn’t talking to his ex anymore, so that trail went cold.

And then an internet-trawl produced this:
"Giant avocados, large enough to make three gallons of avocado soup or two pounds of guacamole, are about to go on sale in Britain. Fourteen inches in circumference and as large as a water melon, the naturally grown pears are eight times the size of a normal avocado and will feed a family of six. The monster fruit are all descended from a single, ancient tree at Devil's Cliff, a town in South Africa's Northern Province. At the time of the Dutch Settlers, the tree was discovered to produce bumper-sized avocados, probably the result of a genetic mutation."
An item in a 5-year old British newspaper. Not too useful. But still - a clue in Duiwelskloof.

Then, couple of weeks ago, I spoke to Essie Honiball – and she also remembers those exact same avos. Many years ago she had in fact propagated one of these wonder fruits, but just as her little tree was bearing its first massive fruit – not ready to pick – she had to move. They heard later that the tree had had to make way for some development.

So here is a Cry from the Heart: Is there anyone out there who can put me on the track of these gigantic avos? And to all fruitarians: please do yourself a favour & start searching. If you have in fact personally encountered these avos before, you won’t need me to tell you why; if you haven't – well, you’re just going to have to take my word for it. I'm not even going to TRY to describe the flavour.

In the mean time: some extra motivation for growing our own avos:
* In one year a single California avocado tree can absorb as much carbon as is produced by a car driven 26,000 miles.
* Two mature avocado trees can provide enough oxygen for a family of four.
* One avocado tree produces nearly 260 pounds of oxygen each year.
* A one acre avocado orchard removes up to 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

And to Karin: Of course! Wouldn't that be something: both of us on the Augrabies Xtreme. Bearing in mind that you're about half my age, I would have absolutely no hesitation in using the fact that I helped to nurse you through the measles when you were 4, to blackmail you into carrying my pack over the highest dunes !

Thorns & satsumas

Here's one of life's little lessons: Never prune fever trees in the wind. Here's another: Never use a pair of loppers to cut a slightly too thick fever tree branch above your head, without noticing that said head is positioned right in between the two lopper-handles you're trying to force together.

Fever trees ? One of our most beautiful acacias - or it was until the Australians decided that "acacia" better fitted their thornless mimosas & we should call our thorned acacias "senegalensis". Yes, I know there's more to it than that, but with a lopper-whacked skull & thorn-stabbed arms I don't really care that much right now.

Point is, it's while I was entangled in the fever trees that I noticed the satsumas. They'd quietly been ripening in the little citrus grove between the fever trees & the pomegranate hedge. Now, isn't that something. Just as the persimmons finish, the satsumas begin.

How ?

Same way you'd eat an elephant (You, not me - I'm fruitarian) - one bite at a time. I'm giving myself 4 years to turn into that Muscled Marvel crossing the finish line in the Kalahari, to thunderous applause, witnessed by hordes of skeptics busy eating their hats. So: 4 years of little goals, with a built-in reward-system. Of course. We'll get to that sometime.

Right now, it's carbo-loading time. Organic bananas & brazil nuts in the blender - half glass of water - with a generous shake of ground cinnamon (5 shakes this morning - on the principle of "If a Little is Nice, a Lot might be Even Nicer").

So, my carbo's are feeling loaded. A short rest is indicated.

Why ?

Because someone has to. Besides I want to.

A multi-day run through the desert, and you have to carry all your supplies. Iditarod, but without the snow, and without the dogs. Hyenas maybe, and lion, leopard if you're lucky. Or unlucky.

Perhaps you're thinking that it's not such a big deal ? Let me enlighten you: In 2007 the race started in temperatures well over 40 deg C. One of the runners wrote: "In the gorge my thermometer rose to 55 degrees". Yes, there are gorges, and mountains & dunes, and the sort of climate where it becomes important to carry a thermometer.

Still thinking that I'm making far too much of what would after all be a doddle through the desert ? Well, maybe - if you're young enough, lean & mean enough, and your nutrition comes from a scientific laboratory, full of ingredients known only by their Latin names & long numerical codes.

So, let me tell you: it's a !*&@%*! Big Deal. You try carry your apple-a-day, enough water for desert conditions, safety equipment, plus far more years on the shady side of none-of-your-business than you'd care to admit to - and you try to do that on a fruitarian diet...

Think I'd better go lie down again.

Kyloe

Kyloe ? A kind of cow (bulls too I suppose) you'll find in the Scottish highlands (and lowlands, I suppose, if they have lowlands there, but I haven't bothered to find out). In some previous century the house began as a Scots Reverend's cow-shed (this is the short version of the story); the main front room still features the ancient feeding-trough - worn-down sections in the massive yellow-wood beam showing where the cows rubbed their heads & necks as they fed. Well, it seemed right to keep the name.

And the "Experiment" ? Well, there are a few parts to it. One of them began a few days ago, in the Sports Science Institute in Cape Town - the temple where the Fit & the Firm go to worship, and elite athletes go to be honed into something even more elite. You know about the two guys who ran the ENTIRE Great Wall of China - all 4,000+ kms of it - in one go ? Well the SSI was where they went to fine-tune their training. That should give you some idea.

And then I turn up. Dear heaven. In my please-hide-as-much-as-possible T-shirt.

A fresh young blonde takes me in hand, and - to her eternal credit - doesn't collapse in uncontrollable mirth when she discovers Why I am there. Of course I wasn't going to tell her anything. But then when I don't detect any obvious sneering & sarcasm, I lose my head, and start confessing. Suddenly she's my Friend who is going to help me to get to my goal. So she measures & prods & fills out questionnaires, & next week I'm going back to get the training schedule she's working out for me. (I'm choosing to believe that she needs a whole week to devise this schedule - NOT because of the outrageousness of the challenge, but because she is a good kid who is sincerely trying to do a thorough job.)

The challenge ? Ever heard of the Augrabies Xtreme ? Well, the fresh young blonde also hadn't heard about it before - perhaps that's why she didn't flinch at the thought of getting me ready to do the thing. But then, I didn't actually tell her the whole truth. I didn't tell her I want to do the thing on fruit. THAT is where the Challenge becomes the Experiment.

I think I'll go lie down now - suddenly feeling a bit faint.

the beginning (continued)

By the time we found it, it was late autumn. Now you know what autumn does to grapevines - and there was this stone courtyard, vine-covered. Catabwa-grapes - but we didn't know that at the time. In fact you won't believe how little we knew about what we were blundering into. But we did know one thing. We'd found it. Kyloe.

We didn't ask about the climate, the water, the soil. Nothing. It was enough that it had drystone walls - and that, on the other side of those walls, it was just veld. Real dusty, scratchy, rocky Karoo veld. Which means of course that we should have asked those questions about the climate (vicious), the water (not enough - not nearly enough), the soil (requiring earth-moving equipment for doing anything at all.)

Blind ignorance is a wonderful thing - it brings it own rewards. We would not otherwise have been stupid enough to plant a persimmon tree. And yet here we are now, rewarded with yet another ridiculously generous crop on this little tree. I share with the mouse-birds, & remember the grandmother who gave me my name & my love for the Karoo. And for persimmons.

the beginning

To begin at the beginning...

Yes of course Dylan Thomas said it first; he had to - he was born 38 years before me, so he had plenty of time & got first innings. But the phrase served him well and is none the worse for having been used before, so To begin at the beginning -

Oh, and the reference to my age is in fact relevant, as will become clear later - the relevance, that is, not my age. So. To begin ...

Sorry - one more thing. The reference to Dylan Thomas is in fact also relevant. A sublime poetic voice, silenced before he was 40. Why ? Usual suspects: lifestyle choices, and we'll get back to that - in fact it's sort of the point of all of this. But first,

To begin at the beginning - it was My Fair Lady on the opera house stage. No, I wasn't the fair lady, and I wasn't on stage. I was in the outside broadcast truck - the only female among the rather rough diamonds in the television crew (the senior engineer carried a gun, and probably needed to). I was also the only one who wasn't on the meat-tobacco-alcohol nutritional plan. I was in fact a fruitarian a.k.a. fruitflake & nutcase.

But of course that wasn't really the beginning. It began well before that, and in an even more unkind & uncaring environment - a hospital bed. Fast forward to 2 weeks later to find me climbing a big mountain. Two short weeks from medical crisis to active & healthy. What happened ? Fruitarianism happened, and that brings me to the Real Beginning of my story.

Back to the Welshman. Remember that grand, now immortal, poem he wrote for his dying father: "Do not go gently into that good night - Rage, rage against the dying of the light" ? Well 50 years ago there was a young South African woman who felt her life ebbing away - her body was in fact moving towards death. But then the fates offered her one last chance. What followed became an amazing account of survival, of her own "fight against the dying of the light" - but that story is hers to tell. Her name is Essie Honiball, and because of her story, I chose the fruitarian lifestyle.

So it really all began with Essie Honiball - although she will tell you it all began long before her. And she'll be right. But more about that later.

Oh, The Kyloe Experiment ? Well, more about that too, later...