Protection from above

As you know, one of the reasons we went to the farm last week was to get the ceiling boards installed.


As always, when one orders materials from the local Co-Op, they don't deliver first thing in the morning - our order only arrived at about 11.00 a.m., equating to the loss of half a days work!  Given that rain was predicted, the ceiling board had to be stored indoors, creating chaos as expected...

Everything got moved to accommodate the ceiling boards

But I knew that was going to happen...


Our architect had asked for a ventilation unit to be installed - for the roof area.  

Ventilation unit

Unfortunately, we had not anticipated the cold air / dust / draft / noise (of the wind in the sisalation) that this unit would cause.  Which meant that we had to put up a ceiling of sorts, as soon as possible.  Even though we had covered the initial wooden unit with a piece of perspex (left over from a job we had done for a client at a job in Cape Town) and into which we had drilled holes, and which we had then subsequently taped up three quarters of those holes with duct tape, the draft was totally negating the insulation of the double glazed windows, and the warmth which was being produced by our wood burning Dover stove and internal chimney!  So a ceiling board was completely necessary.

First scaffolding tower

However, with the height of our ceiling, a simple thing like installing ceiling board entailed hiring scaffolding - and lots of it...


We love the height of our ceiling, as it helps with the heat in summer - and it creates an airiness and openness which you have to experience to believe!  However, given it's high arch, it is not easy to get to, nor work on.  And we wanted to retain as much of the exposed roof beams as possible.

The first board goes in...

The boards for the side beams were no problem - the guys installed extra mounting batterns, and measured and cut the board to size, prior to installing.

A combined effort

But when it came to the centre boards, it was a case of all hands on deck.  RMan had to help the guys hold the 3.6 mtr boards in place against the roof beams, whilst I clambered up the scaffolding to mark the cutouts which were required.  Squirming and ducking round the three of them wasn't easy, but it was exhilarating LOL


That took two days to complete - and entailed the four of us moving the erected scaffolding and scaffolding boards en masse around the room to save time, as opposed to pulling it down, re-placing and re-erecting it all in it's new position.  Whatever furniture we had, was moved in and out of the house each day, and there was plenty of dust, dust and more dust.  It doesn't seem as though we have too much scratch damage to the floor, and I'm sure that a coat of tile sealer will sort that out.  If only we'd thought of getting wheels for the scaffolding, our lives would've been a bucketload simpler LOL

Dinners - mainly barbecues - were eaten wherever we could make a spot in the chaos each evening.  And we experienced sleeping in each corner of the room - wherever there was space to plonk the bed each evening became the bedroom area :)

Sanding the joins in the ceiling boards

But I had no concept of dust until it came time to closing the joins between the ceiling boards with Cretestone, and the subsequent sanding / skimming of those joints!  Hectic!


As you can see in the above photo, we had newspaper draped over all the kitchen surfaces, to help control the dust.  And Muggins here helped to place them there.  However, Muggins ignored them when she switched on the (gas) stove to boil the kettle - and nog, Muggins had the cheek to wander off.  Yes, naturally, the wind blew the newspaper into the flame, and yes there was a fire, but thankfully, no lasting damage was done.  I can't believe that I was such an idiot!


Joining and skimming the boards took another day and a half - with the final half a day being devoted to the builders trying to make a trap door.  Within 20 minutes of RMan getting involved, the trap door was complete!


Were the four (not the budgeted two and a half) days all worth it?


Well, I believe this picture answers that question...

The ceiling completed - the trap door is
visible at the far end

I think it looks absolutely stunning!!


And the difference in temperature?  Well, prior to the ceiling boards, the unheated (i.e. no Dover stove nor Dover stove chimney) temperature inside the house when we woke in the morning was 11oC (51oF).  After the ceiling boards were installed, the temperature was 21oC (70oF)


I believe that says it all...!


Now, all we have to do is re-hire the scaffolding (with wheels this time) so that we can paint the ceiling boards, and varnish the frame of the trap door and the exposed roof beams :-)

Earth hour and energy efficient cooking

On Saturday evening we switched off our power. I had signed the petition at Earth Hour a couple of months ago, and once I give my word, I can't take it back.

We had participated in Earth Hour last year, so I knew that RMan would have no objection.

But - Earth Hour has taken it one step further - they have requested that we take the hour further by commiting to action which takes us beyond the hour.  Make long lasting changes, wherever you can, to reduce your electricity usage.  I like that :-)

This past week we had a few days with overcast skies - threatening rain, but nary a drop on the side of the mountain where we live.  T'is so very dry - the pavement grass is all crispy brown, and even the bushes are all drooping.  So sad.

But, here in cape Town we have a Mediterranean climate - which means we get rain in winter, and Cape Town celebrates that with what they call the "Green Season".  Hotels, bed 'n breakfasts and guest houses offer specials, so do restaurants - all trying to attract business.  It works too - for we get many tourists during that time - well, it doesn't rain every day!  And the Western Cape in winter is stunning!  If we do get snow, then it mainly falls onto the Mountain tops - and mad Capetonians all get in their 4 X 4's and rush off to try and reach the snow so that they can have a snowball fight LOL
I love the rain, and far prefer a wet climate to the winters' which they get upcountry - freezing nights, hot-ish days - but unfortunately all the shopping centres have their warm air conditioners blasting away - so hot, in fact, that when one walks into the centre, you have to strip off your layers of clothing, for fear of fainting in the heat.  Such a waste of energy, I feel.  And up country they get the winter crispy brown grass which we experience at the end of our summer.  Such a depressing sight - especially when your (sun)light is weaker.

Winter should be winter - be that rain or snow.  Sunlight, in my book, does not make winter.

But, with the decrease in sun available to me in our south facing garden, I have had to make a plan, cooking wise.  My solar cooker goes into hibernation in winter - although on the farm I wil be able to use it all year round.

So I tend to make lots of soups and stews.

Moroccan Beef

But I don't make winter food conventionally.

For instance, for Earth Hour, I made Moroccan Beef, with baby potatoes (RMan doesn't like couscous) prunes, butternut and chickpeas.  I left the meat part of the dish to RMan and RSon, and only ate the vegetables and gravy - absolutely delicious.

RSons old toybox, converted into a
hotbox / haybox, filled with shredded paper
from the office.

The meal was as tender as butter.  And I did that with a maximum of only half an hour of cooking (simmering) on my stove top, and 6 - 7 hours of cooking in my hot box.  The hot box really does produce the most tender, tasty food you will ever eat, with a gravy which contains all the goodness of the raw food that you placed in the pot. (In conventional cooking far too much of that goodness escapes in the steam.) And this type of food preparation uses a fraction of the energy that would normally be expended by a stove top meal.  In fact, it uses even less than a slow cooker :-)

And for the bread, which RMan loves to sop up the gravy with, I made a loaf of beer bread in the barbecue...

Bread baked in the barbecue

(I'm not normally so wasterful - usually I would simultaneously do a roast chicken, or something similar, whilst I have the barbecue lit.)  The addition of the unglazed clay floor tile (from the farm) works a treat, for that disperses the heat underneath the grill, and also warms up nicely to assist in baking the base of the bread :-)

We had asked friends to join us for dinner - to share Earth Hour with us.  We had finished eating 7.30pm, so we switched everything off, pulled out the candles, and an old box of Trivial Pursuit from the '80's LOL  What a trip down memory lane!

We didn't play it conventionally, with the board.  Instead we turned it into a type of "Who wants to be a Millionaire" game - the quizmaster (we all took turns) had to pick a question, any question, from the card, and devise four answers, using the correct one as one of the options.  (That's not easy, hey - it really challenges what you think you know!!  In reality we are all the Weakest Links LOL))  Then the players had to jointly decide which was the correct answer.

It was so much fun (well, to be fair I reckon the two bottles of wine helped also) that by the time we realised that Earth Hour was over, it was 12.45 a.m.  We hadn't used any electricity for over 5 hours!

A perfect evening - and enjoyed without any modern conveniences at all!  Why do we think we are so dependent on modern conveniences?  Why do we allow ourselves to be so dependent?  Have we forgotten that sitting round a candlelit table, playing a game with the family, can be fun.

Such a simple pleasure.  And one which we can all afford - for after all, all it is costing us is our time.

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?

My bread recipe

In line with my "don't wait until we're on the farm to try out new idea's" decision, I made up a batch of my bread recipe at the beginning of the week, and it occurred to me, and I was asked by African Bliss, who contacted me, to put the recipe on my blog.

Unfortunately, though, at the moment I am having to cook it in my electric oven in Cape Town - but I also cooked a couple of chickens at the same time - I hate to use an electric oven for only one item.  I can't wait to see how this recipe works in the Dover stove.

It is dead easy - no kneading required - which with my old "tennis elbow" (even though I don't play / have never played tennis) injury it suits me just fine.  The recipe comes from the following site: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx?page=2

What you need to do is the following:

Take a large container (with loose fitting lid) and add to it :-

3 cups / 750ml warm water (I find that using water at 107oF / 41oC works brilliantly for me)
3 level teaspoons / 15 gm (1 1/2 sachets) granulated yeast
3 teaspoons / 45gm brown sugar

Mix all the above together and allow to sit until frothy - about 20 - 30 minutes.

Mix together:

1 - 1 1/4 tbs / 20 gm salt (I use either Himalayan Rock salt or Maddon sea salt)
6 1/2 cups / 750gm 50/50 mix of white and brown bread flour (that way I get the men in my life to eat some brown bread without too much fuss - why are most men fixated on white bread??)

When the water/yeast/sugar is frothy slowly add the flour and salt to the mixture - approximately a level cup at a time, stirring to combine.  You can use an electric mixer or food processor with a dough attachment, but it not necessary - a wooden spoon / silicone spoon works great - so rather save the electricity.  All it takes is 5 minutes to mix the flour into the yeast water.  It results in a loose dough which will conform to the container.

Cover loosely (do not use a screw top jar - it could explode from the trapped gases) and set aside to rise for 2 hours at room temperature.  (Longer rising time will not hurt the dough - I have left it for 4 hours)  You can use any amount of the dough after this time, but if you refrigerate it, it is less stricky to work with than dough which is at room temperature.  Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François (the authors of this recipe) recommend that the dough be refrigerated for at least 3 hours before shaping a loaf.

I don't have a pizza wheel, so I use a pliable vegetable cutting board which I liberally dust with cornflour.  This is so that the dough can easily be transferred to the baking stone in your oven.

When you are ready to bake bread, remove the dough container from the fridge and sprinkle some extra flour on the top surface.  Then cut off a large grapefruit sized piece with a serrated knife. Rub a little flour on your hands and holding the dough, stretch and fold over two of the corners to the bottom on all four sides - rotating the ball as you go.  You should end up with dough which has a bunched base of the four corners - this will flatten out during the resting and baking.

Now place your dough on the pizza wheel / cutting board and let it rest uncovered for 40 minutes.

20 - 30 minutes before baking, place your baking stone inside and turn your oven on to 400oF / 200oC.  I don't have a genuine baking stone, so I use one of the extra floor tiles which were left over from our floor - I reckon that a good scrub and then baking at 200oC eliminates 99.9% of the germs.  Also, place an ovenproof container on a lower shelf in the oven - this is to hold the water which is added when you place your dough in the oven.

Dust the top of the bread liberally with flour and slash the top with a serrated knife - a couple of slashes, or a deep cross - whatever.  This helps the dough expand during cooking.

When the oven is at the correct temperature open the door, and with a forward jerking movement slide the dough off the pizza wheel / cutting board and onto the baking stone.  Then quickly pour a cup of hot water into the ovenproof container below and close the door to trap the resulting steam in the oven.

Bake for 30 minutes until it is nicely browned and firm to the touch.

Allow to cool on a wire rack.

It produces the crispiest crust and the most moist centre I have ever eaten.  And it is also good the next day - or even the day after - if the loaf lasts that long!

Return the remaining dough in the container to the fridge and use within 2 weeks. You can apparently even freeze portion sizes in an airtight container and defrost in the refrigerator overnight.

My first attempt at baking bread

On 31 May 2010 I received my precious solar oven.  It was the wrong model and it arrived damaged and I am (still) trying to get that sorted out - but that I'll leave for another post.

But I am too impatient to wait for summer to try baking bread in my solar oven.  And I don't have the Dover stove yet.  So, after much research on the Internet and reading a snippet on another blog I follow ( http://thefieldlab.blogspot.com/ )  I came across this site:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx?page=2

Brilliant - I had found a bread recipe which didn't entail the strength, energy and time required to knead bread dough.  Time - not a problem - neither is energy - but strength.  I had tennis elbow a few years ago, and, due to the dreaded cortisone injections which were required to assist the healing of that elbow, I have been left with a right arm which is a mere shadow of it's former self, strength-wise.

And I had a "baking stone" - I had brought a spare unglazed clay floor tile back from the farm which I scrubbed really clean.

So, on Wednesday I proceeded to whip up a batch of dough.  I added the yeast to the warm water (I measured the temperature of the water with a normal (sterilised) medical thermometer :-) which is all I had available, to ensure it was the required 40oC) and let that stand for approximately 30 minutes whilst it "frothed" up.  After mixing in the flour and salt I let the dough stand on my kitchen counter for the next 3 - 4 hours before putting it in my fridge overnight.  Then yesterday afternoon, as I planned a rare oven-roasted chicken for supper (the oven would be put to multi-use - our electricity cost has just been increased by 25.8% so I am very conscious of saving power whenever and wherever possible) I placed the baking stone inside and turned on my oven to the required 230oC, and, removing a portion of the dough from the refrigerated batch, let it rest on the counter until the oven was hot enough.

I put the dough on the baking stone, and placed the cup of water underneath and closed the door - and waited with baited breath (and a torch so that I could monitor the progress through the glass as my oven light doesn't work).

Seriously, it turned out perfectly.  And was so easy!!!!

The verdict of my family - brilliant!  The entire loaf got wiped by my husband, son and a couple of slices for me, naturally.

Now I want to try it in our gas grill - and details on that can be found at:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/

There is absolutely no reason why anyone has to buy bread - it couldn't be easier to make your own loaf.   

Clay floor tiles, kitchen counter and lime render

During the time that we were unable to get to the farm we kept ourselves busy with preparation at our house in Cape Town. I purchase two bedside tables from a roadside vendor - these tables are made with off-cuts of wood and woven grass basket drawers. I also ordered 6 slightly bigger extra drawers, to use in my kitchen island for storing foodstuffs etc. These I sanded and varnished (with Swartland Maxicare) at our home in Cape Town - a very good idea as on the farm there is always a breeze of some sort blowing building sand about - not ideal for wet varnish!



Due too business commitments RMan went to the farm on his own for 11 days in early October. We needed to get the flooring in and sealed, to give it time to dry before the family visit in December.


On the internet I found Overberg Tile and Clay - a company in Swellendam who made clay floor tiles and who were able to install them as well.

 

Given that the actual factory is based in Swellendam, and we didn't have to add to their eco footprint by schlepping heavy clay tiles 256 kms all the way from Cape Town, I bowed to RMan's preference for clay floor tiles in place of the oxide screed on the floor.

The installed and sealed 'seconds' tiles on this page look more amazing than the pictures show! The only difference between the normal and 'seconds' tiles are that the 'seconds' can be a little uneven, and / or have a small crack - we love them - we feel it adds real farmhouse character to the room.

RMan used the opportunity to get the plasterer's back to compelte the plastering of the external walls and do the finishing round the windows and doorways. True to form it rained! That caused the plaster to fall off the walls during the night, which meant they had to be re-done the following day. It's amazing, though, what plastering the building has done - it is starting to look more and more like a house and less like a building site.

RMan got a reality check - when he lifted a piece of the gunplas (black plastic) which was covering the plaster sand he met his first Cape Cobra face to face. He said that he's never leap so far so quickly - clearing what he explained as 3 mtrs in one leap! Unfortunately the plasterers decided to throw sand at it which caused it to rise up and show it's hood. They were not happy about it, and RMan, being in a state of shock, didn't realise until too late that a couple of the plasterers had picked up planks which were lying around and with which they proceeded to kill the cobra. Sad and totally unnecessary - there is place for everything on this planet and a bit of patience would've allowed the cobra to go on it's way. Nevermind interrupting the food chain - cobra's eat mice and rats - and personally I'd rather have cobra's on the plot than rats and mice, of which there must be plenty in the area, as many of the surrounding fields are sown with grain.

He also got the digger/loader back - we know have 180 holes ready for the pomegranate trees which we will be purchasing in January 2010. The trenches we dug for the mains water, grey water and septic tank pipes have now been closed and the reed bed has had a berm placed on the uphill side to prevent rain water from flooding and overflowing the reed bed before it's had time to filter the grey water.

Unfortunately, there was not enough time to seal the floor tiles on RMan's previous visit, so we both went up to the farm at the end of November to get that finished and to ensure that the house is as complete as posssible before we go up with our kids / grandchild later in December. I never realised how much stuff we had accumulated in the caravan - no wonder it felt cramped and claustrophobic. Transferring it all and sorting it out in the house took me all of three hours and at least a dozen trips from the caravan to the house.

We fitted castors to the kitchen counter / island and I proceeded to fill every inch of it. When I consider the cost (the unit cost R1200.00 at Builders Warehouse, the six baskets R600.00 and the castors R240.00) a total of R2040.00 - a company which specialises in kitchen cuboards would charge a heck of lot more than that for a 1.5mtr long kitchen island. It is also 1.05mtrs high - 15cms more than the normal kitchen counter - it feels so much more comfortable to prepare food on.

Ronnie was an absolute star and moved the caravan stove to the house too - easy-peasy thing for a man to do!!

He also knocked me up some temporary kitchen counters / draining board round the butlers sink / stove - the butlers sink is absolutely brilliant! In order not to waste water when doing the daily washing up I use a bucket which fits into the sink - naturally, when the demand arises I will utilize the entire sink.

So, finally on the 1 December 2009, a year and a half after purchasing our plot, we "moved in" - yes, we still have to paint the walls, put the vermiculite ceiling boards in and sort out more kitchen shelving, but the basics are there. And we had our first home cooked meal even if it was only spaghetti bolognaise - we didn't cook in the caravan because of food smells, grease, etc. And what a pleasure to be able to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without having to peer all round for night adders as one walks to the "bathroom"!! Those simple luxuries that one takes for granted assume on a whole new meaning. I can tell you all that the resin roof tiles in the double volume room together with the double glazed windows work brilliantly! Hot as hell outside and very comfortable inside. The addition of lime to the render (8 parts sand, 1 bags cement and 2 bag lime) has created walls which could withstand a hurricane easily - it took RMan three hours to knock a 20cm hole through the west facing wall for the dover stove chimney - he couldn't believe the strength of the walls. Even the howling sou'easter is bearable when one is within a sheltered structure - especially one that doesn't sway in the wind as the caravan did! Admittedly the sisalation which was fitted (again in a howling sou'eater) is not as secure as it should be in a couple of places, but when we fit the vermiculite ceiling boards, we will be able to do any minor adjustments that are necessary.

Perhaps next year we will be equipped enough to spend Christmas on the farm with the whole family. I can't wait to see their reaction - so much for "elderly" parents - I reckon we've done a sterling job thus far. And we're not that old any way :-) In fact - our lives have just begun, but don't tell our kids that.

Lime render, 220 / 12volts and Double glazing

At the beginning of October 2009 RMan and I decided to try and get the plastering started, as we want to take our kids there for a few days before Christmas, and need the inside of the house to be available as living space. Having been given the name of a "reputable" plasterer, whom we had spoken to over the phone, we left Cape Town on Sunday 4th October. We organised to meet him at the local Coastal Equipment Hire branch in Swellendam at 8.45 Monday 5th October. Naturally the plasterer was late. But, as it turns out, that was a blessing in disguise. His tardiness gave us the time to chat to the owner of Coastal Hire, Jannie, who knows all the local builders very well. When he found out who we were waiting for, he warned us: "if it is the chap I think it is, don't use him. He's untrustworthy and he owes me money!" It was "that" person. It turns out he had also been in prision! Not quite the kind of person we wanted to work on our house, even if he had done his time and paid his bill to society, after all our little house is vulnerable when we're not there. So much for that "recommendation

We then asked Jannie if he knew of anyone who could plaster for us during the 4 days we planned on being there. After a couple of phone calls he gave us the name of a guy who could start straight away, so off we went to meet with him. His quote was acceptable and the plastering began.  Mother Nature tried to intervene by dropping 100mm of rain within 36 hours, but thankfully we had decided to begin by plastering the internal walls, so that was able to proceed. But, in place of the 4 days quoted for plastering, it took 6 - apparently the walls weren't straight, and thus, in some cases, needed three coats of plaster. And, in addition, the rain poured in through the brickwork on the one wall and flooded one end of the floor. Our brilliant builder again!

Our makeshift shower (including the sheep trough which we used as a shower pan) beats showering in the cold early morning

On the positive side, RMan completed the conduits which will run the 5mm heavy core cable for our 220 / 12 volt electrical requirements. And, as all the internal plastering is now complete, and as soon as we get our floor in, we can basically move out of the caravan into some "lebensraum" (living space). Ronnie is fighting me - he wants to lay clay terracotta tiles as opposed to the lime / oxide tinted screed that I am keen on. One of the positives for the clay tiles is that they are produced in Swellendam, so the transport footprint is dramatically reduced. The costs are exhorbitant, so we are going to check out their "seconds" next time we go up. We have also discovered that the double glazing is absolutely amazing and worth every cent - even with the damp plaster on the walls it was noticably warmer inside the house at night and very much cooler during the heat of the day. Wish it was possible to replace all the windows of our house in Cape Town! At night it is so warm in the house that Ronnie has scrapped his idea of using the Dover Stove to heat the water for underfloor heating - it just won't be necessary.

Also, we have now found a brilliant builder / plasterer and, all things being equal, it should be plain sailing from here on, not only for completion of phase 1, but for phase 2 hopefully sometime next year!

The 100mm of rain managed to fill half our dam - hopefully it doesn't seep away again - we have been told that it takes approximately 2 years for a dam to hold water - and we're heading for our 2nd year!

The rain, inconvenient as it was, was worth it, for we had the most incredible sunrise the morning after the rain - it was absolutely stunning!