LouisFontein Stud
SA STAMBOEK NO/ STDBOOK NR
PGR: 0647723
LOUISFONTEIN
LJK
L06
HEKPOORT
LouisFontein Stud
Mnr LJ Kleynhans
57 Chroom street
Roodekrans
Roodepoort
1724
082 894 5139
lkpinzgauerstud@gmail.com
I have a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Magalies Mountains. The Skeerpoort river starts running across these highlands, kilometres to the North, and the farm lays at an altitude of over a thousand meters.
“In the day-time you felt that you had gotten high up, near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold. The geographical position, and the height of the land combined to create a landscape that had not it’s like in all the world.
There was no fat on it and no luxuriance anywhere; it was Africa distilled up through a thousand meters, like the strong and refined essence of a continent. The colours were dry and burnt, like the colours in pottery. The trees had a light delicate foliage, the structure of which was different from that of the trees in Europe; it did not grow in bows or cupolas, but in horizontal layers, and the formation gave to the tall solitary trees a likeness to the palms, or a heroic and romantic air like full rigged ships with their sails furled, and to the edge of a wood a strange appearance, as if the whole wood were faintly vibrating.
Upon the grass of the great plains, the crooked bare old sugarbush-trees were scattered, and the grass was spiced like thyme and bog-myrtle; in some places the scent was so strong, that it smarted in the nostrils.
In 2007 a boy was born in Africa; it was a compulsion to mix the smell of the soil into his blood, the African blood in his veins, to farm this land with views so immensely wide: ‘’Everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequalled nobility.’’
We settled 10 Pinzgauer cows on the grasslands, but without a bull. At first, we artificially inseminated the herd and now our numbers have grown to 120 head of cattle in 2020.
(With recognition to Isak Dineson)
