We're finally moving on...

Just over a week-and-a-half ago, our home was finally sold.  Today, the deposit was been paid and transfer is in progress.

I love it!  Instead of giving us cut flowers
the estate agent gave us a bunch of helium
filled balloons :)  Not madly eco-friendly,
but I prefer flowers to remain in soil -
either in the garden, or in a pot :)

 Transfer, and occupation, will be effected at the end of July.

Party time :)  A bunch of colour to lift our spirits
at an emotional time

Which means we will be on the farm to plant the first seeds of this years spring / summer crop... :)


So much to do - a house and business to pack up and move to two different locations - one for living and one for the business.  20-odd years of family stuff since we last moved home to sort through, some to ditch and the rest to be packed.

Our 40-odd year old record collection - when music was music :)

Some of the items will be sorely missed - such as our turntable and our 100+ vinyl record collection - so many memories locked up in those vinyls, but, as RMan says, how often have we listened to them recently...?  All my Beatles, Bassey, Streisand, Diana Ross and Readers Digest 9 LP collection called Million Dollar Memories released in the late 60's.  It contains songs going back to the 40's - way before my time LOL, but I have listened to them so many times over the years, that they feel like old friends.


All RMan's Al Jarreau, Grover Washington Jnr, Louis Armstrong, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Vias con Dias, Sergio Mendes, Bill Withers, George Benson, Dionne Warwick, Dire Straits, Foreplay...  just too many to mention.


Some sacrifices will have to be made - not only are we going to be living in a much smaller house but our (solar) power generated energy storage has to be reserved for the necessities, at least until we find out what excess, if any, we have to play with. And we still have all our CD's and the 12volt car radio to play them on, so we won't be music-less.  But, oh, the memories that those long playing records hold.  I bought my first one when I was 16.

A few of the many boxes we are recycling with
the help of our local supermarket

We've talked the talk, now we're going to walk the walk LOL   Our 100% eco-friendly life starts now!  Completely off-grid, we're hoping to be as close as possible to 94% self-sustainable (and I want my food forest, Mr H J ), finally getting our fascias and gutters up in order to harvest and store all that precious rain-water, phase 2 (the bedrooms) of the farmhouse to build and so much more...  I've also sourced a recycling facility close enough by so that is our recycling sorted.  And, finally, the move affords RMan and I the opportunity to spend some quality time together.  We've raised our family to the very best of our ability, owned two businesses, and paid our dues and taxes.


Life begins again.


A major step in the preparation for our future has just been achieved.  We're both so excited, and, truthfully, a little daunted at the enormity of the task ahead.  But, we can't wait... J

I've got boxes everywhere....

So last week I toddled down to our local supermarket and relieved them of some loads of boxes which I am recycling as moving boxes together with a few rolls of buff tape.  I have to de-clutter, be tough on useless, but familiar items, and pack everything that is left?

De-cluttering is therapeutic, but I also wonder how on earth we are going to leave behind treasured memories of our existence to the members of our future generations.  Inheriting doesn't seem to be in fashion these days... unless it's a financial inheritance.  So my personal (physical) legacy will probably consist of things like my spice / coffee grinders, etc.  Priceless reminders of how things worked before we polluted the earth with our demand for grid power and the electrical appliances we had to use...


I'm aiming on sorting out one room a week - that way it will be manageable. That will hopefully give me the time to sever the ties to a few precious items which we won't have space for, and which we have to recycle / pass onto someone else.  And, Tami, I know you're always on the hunt for cardboard, come help me unpack and they're yours :)  Actually, hold that thought - I'm keeping them - they'll come in very handy for my new veggie patches... J


So, now for the emotional roller coaster as I start to sort out more than 34-odd years of memories in total.  But it's ultimately all for the good - nothing like making breathing space to properly clear the path ahead.

Our journey...

Following on my post Make a difference yesterday, and for those who haven't visited my web page, I thought I should share our side of the journey thus far...

Some time in 2007 RMan decided that he'd had enough of the retirement / insurance companies making their huge profits, at his expense, and then paying out peanuts when payment was due.  Their projected income when he took out his policies in the early 1980's, for his retirement in 2018, fell far short of the cost of living increases which we've experienced in the intervening years.  I reckon that is their trick - ensnare individuals to take out a policy which seems to offer incredible incomes on their retirement, with no mention of CoL increases - which reduce that retirement income to a barely liveable amount.  RMan decided that he would withdraw what he was allowed (which under South African law equates to 2/3's of the current value - the other 1/3 has to be re-invested) and with that 2/3's he would purchase a property - our plot :-) 

History has shown that property is the best long term investment - and is not dependent on the R/$ or R/£ or R/¥ exchange rate, like gold, stock market share, etc.

If one purchases a property wisely, maintains it and improves on it, then your investment cannot help but grow.  And, in the case of a recession, such as we've just experienced / are still experiencing, yes, properties will drop slightly in value, but when that recession is done and dusted, property values will leap up again - without the risk involved in gold, shares, etc.

So purchasing a plot for investment purposes was our original intention.

But, then the bug hit - RMan wanted to go to the plot over the weekends in order to escape from city life.  That entailed having to have somewhere to stay - it was pointless increasing the bank balances of the local B+B's as that completely defeated the aim of withdrawing money from his policies!  So we decided to build a small house.  As we could afford it.

But - and that is a big "but" - I saw this as the perfect opportunity of doing it right - of treading more gently on this planet through leaving as small a footprint as possible.  Of making a fresh start in our lives...

And thus my hunt began ... and it started with the question which was the most practical and eco-friendly way to build?  We initially thought of building a sand bag house, but due to the bag on offer at that stage, and due to the wind, which constantly blows, and was blowing away more sand than we could get into our bags, we ditched that idea.

The shower room, constructed with sandbags,
which disintergrated with the wind

My second option was a cob house, as we had stayed in one in Barrydale, and it was amazing - cool in the heat of day, and warm when it was cold outside.  And the atmosphere that pervaded the interior - calm, peaceful and serene.  I loved it - in fact we both did!  However, a cob house takes manpower, and in that we were in short supply.  RMan doesn't like strawbale houses - he is concerned about vermin gaining access to the straw and having a party - for generations to come...

Unfortunately, it therefore had to be a brick build - my proviso was that if I couldn't have a sandbag / cob or strawbale house, then we had to build with local materials.  (And at the time I stamped my foot to emphasise my proviso :-) )

Serendipitously, in our closest town, Swellendam, there were locals who produced clay bricks.  So clay brick it was!  Our brick had a total transport footprint of 25kms.  Our labour we obtained even closer - using the locals from a small village 12 km away.

Thus we were providing employment and income to the locals.  Perfect.  We were giving back as we were taking.

Slowly, slowly choices were made.  We would be off grid in our new home.  I completely covet a wind turbine, and I'm sure that one day we will have one when we are able to afford it.  After all it is a perfect power generator for our windy plot :-)  I am so enamoured with wind turbines that my eyes glaze over every time I see one on the TV :-)

We have installed double glazing (not the norm in South Africa) windows and I found a company which recycles all the car bumpers / computer casings / plastic milk bottles etc. into resin roof tiles.  I also discovered Freecycle, and that membership has provided us with our kitchen counter and burglar bars for all our external doors.

Our cooking and warmth is provided by a wood harvested from alien trees, and cut by Working for Water, and which we burn in our Dover stove, which was also purchased within 45kms of our plot, and our clay floor tiles are again manufactured in Swellendam.  I have to tell you that the warmth (both visually and underfoot)and beauty of natural clay floor tiles is incomparable to what is on offer / what one can purchase at your local hardware store.  Mass production certainly short changes man.

Then I investigated eco-finishes.  I found a manufacturer of low VOC varnish, undercoats and paints in Cape Town, and we transport what we need, when we need it, with us when we go to the plot.  The render we applied to our walls contained a large amount of lime - lime cures by a slow process of carbonation, reacting with atmospheric carbon dioxide over a period of weeks ( www.buildingconservation.com/articles/cement/cement.htm )  Therefore some of the carbon dioxide we have produced whilst we have been building is now being absorbed by the lime render - again a case of taking and giving.  I love it :-)

I have discovered that 12 volts of power is plentiful for our needs and one can still have home comforts such as music (provided by the car radio I bought for RMan) and lighting (12 volt CFL's and LED lights).  There is even a 12 volt TV available which I have my eye on - I have to watch any episode of Grand Designs I can, and RMan needs to watch the Boks beat the Wallabies and the All Blacks. 

Our only problem area is a fridge - and I have sourced a solar powered 12 volt freezer.  I intend to use the freezer to freeze 5lt bottles of water which I will rotate and which will keep a cooler box at the right temperature so that it can be used as a fridge.  No doubt RMan's beers will have to have a stint in the freezer before they can be kept in the "fridge" - wouldn't do if he had to drink warm beers on a hot summers day - or anytime...

The last two items are like the wind turbine - all finances permitting...

And our hot water is provided by the sun in summer, and a gas instant hot geyser in winter.  Plus the grey water from our kitchen and bathroom is being directed to a simple reed bed.

Raised veggie bed in the making...

But the periods between being here in Cape Town and being on the farm are great and I was getting frustrated that my eagerness and new found ingenuity was getting stifled.  There was so much I wanted to do - for instance I was aching to plant vegetables on the farm, so that I wouldn't have to schlep them up with us each time.  But the raised veggie bed needs completing, irrigation taken to it and a shadecloth cover installed over it to keep out the local hares and fallow deer.  So that has to wait.

But, one night, as I was falling asleep, I suddenly had a light bulb moment - a lateral thought.  What was to stop me from doing what I want to do in our "fresh start", right here in Cape Town.  After all, I didn't have to wait for the right moment - the right moment was right now!

Hand knitted dishcloth


So, once again, my investigative powers took over.  There are some seriously wonderful blogs out there, such as  Gillie, Mr H, Mia, milkwoodkirsten, onestraw, Rhonda,and sprig's blogs to mention but a few.  With their assistance I have learnt how to make no knead artisan bread(perfect for my arm), soap, eco-friendly insecticides and household cleaners, essential oils, lip balm, a food dryer, a chicken house, a hot box, a wicking bed, an eco-friendly food dehydrator and knit my own dishcloths out of 100% pure, unwaxed, unbleached cotton, a simple shade cloth tunnel for my vegetable patch, and preserve all sorts of foods, amongst many other things.

And I have started a vegetable patch, or should that be patches, which have all the appearances of providing us with our needs in a couple of months, and which, because I now have the confidence and from which I have already had some reward, I will continue to sow in and reap from.


Shade cloth veggie tunnel




But, the most surprising discovery I have made is that I have enjoyed re-educating myself.  It is the most brilliant on-going journey I have ever embarked upon and one that I highly recommend!

It really is true - one is never too old to learn - all you need, and have to be, is willing.

What we need is to make a concerted effort to inspire and motivate the menfolk in our lives, so that they are willing and eager to join us on our journey ...  trust me though, the eco-friendly journey is a lifelong one - and one whose boundaries are constantly moving as you and I jointly discover, and share, ways to simplify our lives, and the way we live them, and lighten the load we are placing on our planet, without turning back the clock 100 years.

How are you fairing with the man / men / children in your life?  What has been the easiest eco-change to make - and which ones are they resisting most?

Recycling, solar oven, wind turbines and hotboxes

A new year...

We all went to the farm for 3 days in mid-December. Our kids couldn't believe what we have done on the plot - they say the pictures don't do it justice. Our grandson was absolutely thrilled - clutching one of the walkie talkies and following his granddad "Danda" everywhere - checking in every now and then with his Nana (who had the other walkie talkie.) He was torn between the adventure of sleeping in the caravan with his mum and staying in the 'new' house - so he did a bit of both. The comment was passed that the atmosphere in the house is completely different to other houses - very calm, peaceful and "gemutlich"(comfortable, snug cosy). Don't know how much of that is due to the high celing / double glazed windows or clay floor tiles - perhaps a bit of all.

We ate each evening in the dining area, lit by candle light / paraffin lamps whilst we listened to our CD's playing softly in the backgound, on the 12volt LG car radio that I had purchased for RMan on his birthday last year. Very, very nice. For our grandson's sake I left a paraffin lamp burning low in the bathroom - whenever he needed the toilet we didn't have to accompany him to the bathroom to give him some light - the lamp cast a beautiful glow in the bathroom which was visible from the (camping) dining table. All in all a very relaxing few days - thoroughly enjoyed by all.

So, what does 2010 hold.... collecting and planting our pomegranates, purchasing and installing the 1kW wind turbine, building a secure outside storeroom (for all those tools one accumulates during the building process) and getting my veggie garden started to mention just a few things which immediately spring to mind. Never mind purchasing, installing and experiencing the dover stove next winter. Will it be as useful as I hope? A source of internal heat in winter whilst simultaneously cooking all those things I want to try, like baking my own bread, preserving tomatoes (from my future veggie patch) and roast chickens with a difference?

By the way, I have ordered a solar oven, which is manufactured in Portugal - it is more versatile that the solar cooker I purchased from the Sunstove Organisation - their one works more as a slow cooker than an oven - although it produces delicious food which is melt-in-the-mouth tender, it does not get hot enough to bake bread.

The solar oven can bake biscuits, bread - whatever a normal oven cooks! In order to retain heat when the sun dips too low I will be using that solar cooker in conjunction with a 'hotbox' (or haybox as it is also known. In place of hay I am using all the shredded paper from my office, but one could also use blankets/duvets/shredded newspaper.) I have been using it for cooking for both my family and the homeless once a week and the 'hotbox' really works!!!! All I did was take my son's old wooden toy box - sanded it and covered it with a non-poisonous wood sealer - stuffed it full of shredded paper - enough to surround whatever size pot I'm using - and an old pillowcase which is used to cover the pot and which is also stuffed full of shredded paper.


Chicken casserole has never tasted as good - all I did was add (defrosted) chicken pieces, a chicken stock cube, herbs and spices and a tin of whole tomatoes in tomato sauce to a pot - bring it to the boil on the stove, and boil hard for 10 - 15 minutes, give a stir, cover and then immediately pop it in the 'hotbox', ensuring that it is covered all round with shredded paper. 8-odd hours later, remove from the hotbox (be careful, the pot is still very hot underneath), re-heat (bring to the boil) on the stove for 10 minutes and enjoy! (I did not add any extra liquid apart from the tomato sauce - it is not necessary for the chicken creates it's own - there really is more than enough sauce when it has finished cooking.) Rice turns out beautifully - not glutenous and stuck together, lentils - perfect, even a spaghetti bolognaise meat sauce mixture is brilliant! And what a saving on electricity! Not to mention time spent hovering over the stove.

We have decided to tile the wall behind the shower after all - we have chosen to use a thinner clay floor tile leaving the grout a cement colour - that will echo the effect on the floor, and, hopefully, not have the mouldy grout problem that normal bathroom tiling seems to encourage. But before we can do any of that we need to give the walls their first undercoat layer of paint. Walls which have lime render benefit from long drying periods - absorbing all that carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they do so. Also, the undecoat, which we are going to apply (manufactured by Harlequin Paints in Cape Town), requires a moisture level of no more than 5%.


We managed to slip away from Cape Town for 2 days at the end of January. I really can't explain the sense of calm that comes over one as you enter the Rietkuil area. Restorative, renewing and invigorating. We immediately got to work applying the undercoat to the bathroom - between the two of us it took 5 hours - the time consuming bit is always the edges - where the wall meets the floor, roof / ceiling and windows. But at least that is done. We also gave all the woodwork (doors and window frames) another coat of wood preservative.


And RMan has another woman in his life. She's called Baabara. On Saturday, in the late afternoon, when the heat of the day was waning, he was outside giving the weaker looking plants some extra water when he heard a stamping noise behind him. He turned round and found our neighbours ewe and her lamb at the fence. He walked over and aimed the water at the ground by the ewe's feet. She sucked up the water as quickly as it came out of the pipe - until she'd had enough. Then she turned tail and trotted off. But she came back the next day - just standing at the fence until one of us noticed her - for another top-up. Amazing - I didn't think that sheep were that bright. The lamb wasn't interested in water - not yet. It is a new born, with it's tail still undocked.


I was very chuffed - we had a ceramic side light from the 80's which I hated - and I decided to try and make it more appropriate for use on the farm (part of the re-cycling I'm implementing in all aspects of our life).

The first photo is of how it used to look and the second is of how it looks now. We connected it to the deep cycle battery together with the car radio, and after inserting the 12volt energy saver globe which I purchased from my local light shop, we ate by normal light that night, whilst Luther Van Dross played softly in the background.


I have been putting used tea bags into my compost pot for months and I decided to dry some of them - keeping the bag and the tea leaves. I glued (with podge) the clean dry bags onto the corners of the lamp and scattered the tea leaves over the rest of the base - applying a layer of podge to the entire surface once it was dry to seal it. The light shade was damaged (and which I subsequently fixed) so the shop owner allowed me to take it in exchange for a R25.00 donation to one of the charity boxes next to his till. What a bargain! It looks stunning - and very appropriate for the setting. I do love it when a plan comes together! Oh, and I purchased a solar light (Multi Purpose Solar Flood Light ref. SKU SEFL) from The Green Shop in Cape Town as a Christmas gift for Ronnie. It is brilliant! The light is more than bright enough to light up the entire room (we gave it a test run inside on the first night - putting the solar panel outside the window during the day to charge the deepcycle battery, and then, hey, presto! it switched itself on in the evening when the light faded) and outside it works perfectly too, lighting up the area so that one doesn't stumble over anything. Slowly, slowly we are getting more civilized and the farmhouse is beginning to feel more homely...