Get nostalgic on a farm like Rusoord.

By Carin Venter (Merino SA Focus 2023)

The farm name ‘Rusoord’ will ring a bell with some of the readers, and as a small gem in the heart, evokes deep memories for the men who camped out at Renosterfontein’s Karoo Mighty Men conferences until a few years ago. This piece of land and diversified sheep farm near Middelburg in the Eastern Cape served as a place of worship and praise for fathers, grandfathers and sons for seven years after Jannie took over the baton from Angus Buchan on his farm Shalom in KwaZulu-Natal in 2010.

A treasure of memories.

The story goes that Jannie’s grandfather, Jan-Hendrik Moolman, was born in 1902 on the farm Merino in the Cradock district. In 1944, he saw an opportunity to buy a farm in the Middelburg district, namely Bowden Hall, which he later renamed Rusoord and settled there with his family. He was a Merino farmer through and through, but also a strategist and dedicated politician who served as a member of parliament during Dr Hendrik Verwoerd’s tenure as the prime minister of South Africa. This means that he spent a large part of his time in East London.

“I remember that, although grandfather farmed with Merinos, he was very rarely on the farm,” says Jannie. The reason was that he had several irons in the fire. “He was chairman of the South African Wool Council, president of the International Wool Secretariat which is still based in the United Kingdom today, and also the chairman of the Wool Bureau in America. Grandfather was an extremely interesting and busy man.” As children, they hung on his lips, especially when he told stories about his travels and elephant hunts on his farm in Rhodesia with his cousins from Cradock. Jannie remembers how his grandfather also often flew from Johannesburg to the United Kingdom and then landed on various lakes in Africa, or in Egypt, until they would finally land on the River Thames in London with a plane.

One of the many stories that Jannie remembers is how his grandfather told them about the Second World War which caused that there were no more wool markets and led to a wool surplus around the world. He then established offices in 14 countries around the world to create markets, so that wool could be sold again.

“Grandpa Jan-Hendrik and his first wife, grandma Suzie, had four children, namely Estelle, Carol, Jan-Hendrik and Dirk,” says Jannie. “My father, Jan-Hendrik, and his younger brother, Dirk, went to school at Grey College. In those years it was actually something rare to send your

children so far away to school. In the end I also matriculated there.” In 1990, Jannie came to Rusoord to start farming.

City shoes exchanged for the Karoo

After Jannie and Marlize’s wedding in 1995, she came to the farm as a descendant of President MT Steyn and a city girl from Bloemfontein. The move to the Karoo was a big step in her life. “For me, it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, but at the same time also a great challenge. In my first year here on the farm, especially in the cold winter months, I didn’t think I would make it, but here I still am and what a privilege it is to live on a Karoo farm,” she says.

One of the nicest things for her and Jannie is when their daughters, Marizaan, Sabrina, Nicola and Janine are at home for the holidays. Sometimes they bring friends with them and then they just hang out. However, there is not much time for sitting around and yawning, because Marlize is one of the organizers of the Karoo Winter Wool Festival at Middelburg; a festival which, according to her, connects very nicely with what takes place daily in the area, life on the farm, and the animals and wool with which many of the area’s producers work on a daily basis. She puts it as follows, “With the festival, we would like to celebrate the wonder of natural fiber in the Karoo and make every South African more aware of wool and also educate about everything to do with wool. At the festival, visitors can see how wool is sheared and washed, and then processed so that one ends up with a product such as a sweater.”

Working together makes a team

Today’s farming on Rusoord consists of Merinos, Angoras, Sussex cattle and game. As a dual purpose breed, the Merino breed does well in their environment while the mohair is a good boost for good cash flow. The Sussex stud represents a medium-framed cattle which, according to Jannie, is very good in the Karoo. In the meantime, they diversified further and started a hunting business on the farm where local hunters as well as foreign trophy hunters come to hunt. Usually the people then stay in the Hunter’s Lodge at Renosterfontein.

In 2019, in the midst of a grueling drought, Marlize told Jannie that she would like to start farming with him on the farm. “After we weighed up the options, Jannie was in charge of the livestock component and I took over the management of our irrigation,” says Marlize. “At that time I didn’t know anything, but luckily the people here in the Karoo are very helpful and I quickly learned how things work. Now Jannie and I work and farm together happily.” She adds that they have strong underground water and half of the irrigation is used for lusern which they cut for their own use on the grazing lands for the sheep and goats that are lambing, and the other half of the lusern is sold.

To sum up, Marlize says that the Karoo has no equal. “The silence, space, fresh air, starry sky and the smell of rain on the dust cannot be described in words. That is precisely why it is the greatest privilege for us to farm here in the Middelburg district – anchored and grateful for every blessing in our life.”