My sister is engaged!

Welcome to the family, Craig!!

Loads of fruit and veg!

One of our friends from church has begun to buy fruits and vegetables from a wholesale market here in Cape Town (the same place where many grocery stores get theirs, too). Because she has to buy in large quantities, she pulled together four friends to make it work, including us. Our most recent box of fruit and veg (South Africans commonly shorten ‘vegetable’ to ‘veg’… Americans say 'veggies' - why?) consisted of the following:

19 onions
5 avo-s
14 peaches
28 bananas
14 pears
3 ½ pounds of carrots
3 ¼ pounds of grapes

Any tips on how to use it all up?!

(The cost was 70 Rand, or about $9. That's a very good deal, even by South African standards!)

Visit to Knysna and "The Heads"

Knysna is a neat village a few hours east of Cape Town, known mainly for its beautiful forests and oysters. Although we didn’t partake of the seafood, we did enjoy a few hikes in the area as well as the local beaches. (Some of the hikes have been posted below.)

The town of Knysna is situated on a lagoon which is connected to the Indian Ocean by a narrow water passage between two hulking cliffs, known as The Heads. Some years ago the British Navy considered this the most dangerous port in the world…but once safely past these rocky sentinels, the lagoon certainly offered ships a safe and secure harbour.

This boat is sailing between The Heads into the Knysna lagoon

The Heads viewed from across the Knysna lagoon; through the gap you see the Indian Ocean

Hike along Jubilee Creek (in search of gold)

This hike, near to Knysna (see previous post), followed Jubilee Creek to several gold mines that were excavated during a brief gold rush in the 1880’s. Although the gold lasted for less than a decade, we hoped that we’d find the world’s largest nugget in the creek somewhere along our walk. That didn’t happen. But the walk was nice!

Jim is standing in front of a tree fern. And oh wait, what's that gold nugget next to your foot?!

Good times with Randy and Heather

Recently Randy and Heather moved from their apartment on the horse farm in Noordhoek to a new place in the winelands. Noordhoek is located on the Atlantic side of the cape and a solid 45 minutes drive from the University of Stellenbosch (where Randy is pursuing a D.Litt). They now live in an equally beautiful location that is only 10 minutes from campus. We enjoy chilling with Randy and Heather – and their awesome, quirky dogs – regularly.

Heather is artistic and super good at decorating. She reupholstered their second-hand furniture herself, and designed and painted all the wall ornamentation.


Randy is holding droerwors, the South African version of American slim jim’s, invented in the 19^th century for long-distance travel in the warm South African climate. Yummy. Also very popular is Biltong, the South African version of beef jerky.