Moonlight...

... is associated with romance.

But, the other night - during the full moon - the farmers round us were all busy.

When RMan went to the bathroom, he rushed out again to call me to come and see...

...the farmers were harvesting by moonlight.  It was a tad surreal to see the moon, with two "mini" moons below it.

Quite, quite gorgeous.

Our temperature on our smallholding hit an uncomfortable and unseasonal high of 39oC last Wednesday.  It even made the news:  http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/south-africa-sets-earths-hottest-october-temperature-on-record-119

And, tomorrow they are predicting snow to fall on the higher mountain ranges, and our maximum temperature is dropping to 13oC.

http://snowreport.co.za/updated-snow-forecast-01-03-november-2015/

Whaaaaaaaaaaat???

That's ridiculous!

No, it won't be snowing where we are - unfortunately.

And - I am not complaining.

That means I can light the Rosie in order to cook the duck legs I purchased on my brief trip through to Cape Town a couple of weeks ago.

T'will be a fitting meal to celebrate 35 years.  It was raining that day 35 years ago, and t'will be raining where we are tomorrow.

But, we'll be cosy and gemütlich inside - watching the raindrops topping up our dam, and replacing the water we have already used from our rainwater tanks.

Can't wait :)

Stocked up for winter...

... I mean, next winter...

We have just had, what I think is the last of our l'ete indien, and the lovely crisp mornings we waken to each day hold promise of the much welcome change in temperatures ahead.

Our Nordica Rosa - a.k.a. Rosie :)

Apart from the double glazing assisting in retaining heat inside the house, our sole source of warmth is from the Rosie - we don't use electric bar heaters, elelctric air-conditioning set on high heat, nor LP gas heaters.  Only the Nordica Rosie stove. The fact that it provides cooking facilities as well, is the added bonus. Well, truthfully, it was pointless just buying a wood burning stove for heating alone - if both requirements can be provided by the same unit, then surely that is the most cost effective solution.

There are plenty of alien Black Wattles in our area, which are slowly being "removed" by the WFW gang.  Last September we purchased two loads of chopped alien Black Wattle wood which the locals provide to anyone who needs wood for the upcoming winter, or their summer braai's.  Everyone knows, because of the dangers of resin accumulatingin your chimney's, that you can't use newly harvested damp wood in your stoves / fireplaces.  So, we try and source our wood early enough that we are confident that it has had sufficient time to dry before we need it.

Black Wattle logs - stacked last year in
September for use this winter

The hefty piles sort of sink into the ground as they dry.  They are also ideal place for mice and snakes to take refuge, so we site ours well away from the house / vegetable patches.  And very carefully select our wood when it's needed each day.

This winter we will have a mixture of Black Wattle and Bluegum with which to fire up the Rosie.  Bluegum is one of the hardwoods recommended by Nordica and it will be interesting to see the difference between the wattle and the bluegum - will it burn hotter and for longer?  Being much harder than wattle, it should.

The pile is growing and growing - time to
start a row in front.

It's always a mission collecting the firewood - getting to the invariably inaccessible spot where the trees have been chopped down, loading the wood onto the trailer, driving slowly back to our smallholding, and then...

1000 pieces of wattle on the right this time,
and the last of the 1000 pieces of bluegum
being off-loaded on the left

... off-loading it once we get there.  It takes about an hour to load it, and 3/4 of an hour to offload.

The cost - that has gone up since we got here.  It was ZAR200.00 / 1000 pieces in 2012, and is now ZAR300.00 / 1000 pieces  ($30-ish / €20-ish).  

But - that is still MUCH cheaper than we would pay in town.  There they sell a small bag of wood (roughly 12 - 15 pieces) for ZAR50.00 +  So - it is definitely the cheapest form of heating available.  We use about 20 - 25 pieces if we're having the Rosie burning from morning till night - so that would mean we could burn the Rosie all day, every day for roughly 80 days.  But, it's never that cold here that consistently, and we have good warm jersey's and jackets that we can put on if the need should arise.  Daytime burning of the Rosie is left for those rain-drenched, snow-capped mountain winter days and nights when we feel a need for the gemütlichkeit of a visible log burning fire to warm and lighten the dreary outside view.  2000 pieces should be more than enough to see to our needs for this winter.

Who needs to go to gym - even on a lovely crisp morning loading and off-loading that wood is exercise enough to get the blood flowing, and a small trickle of sweat to slide down between the shoulder blades :)

Thank goodness we don't have to chop down the trees as well :)

Sunny times...

I have found the perfect summer and winter spot to set up my SunCook solar oven - on the wooden deck outside our bedroom Happy Doors.  The side wall protects it from being blown away by the wind, and it is not too far from the kitchen - certainly no steps to have to carry boiling hot pots up...

The perfect sheltered spot for my solar oven

It's become so normal to use my solar oven that it's been a while since I last posted what I have cooked in it.  So I thought I'd share a few - just a few - of the goodies that I have cooked in my solar oven this summer...

Solar baked Christmas cakes

Firstly, I made our Christmas cakes again - not only for the family, but for every neighbour in our area :)  I think I made 14 in total LOL

RMan seriously enjoys a solar roast chicken...

Solar cooked whole chicken

...which literally falls apart when it's cooked.  All the liquid you see in the pan is the goodness that has come out of the chicken - absolutely no water was added to the pot.

Solar cooked chickens are so tender that
they just fall apart.  All the liquid in the
pot has come from the chicken -
concentrated goodness that makes an
excellent instant gravy

I love that my oven is big enough to fit not just one dish in, but two or three, depending on what I am cooking.  Here I made a pot of ostrich mince sauce for spaghetti bolognaise, beetroot, and a pot of tomatoes, from the garden - I always keep a pot of cooked tomatoes in the fridge - to make a quick sauce, add to a soup, or to blitz up into a dipping sauce.

Here you can see the pots as they went into the oven... 

The oven is large enough to multi-task -
beetroot, tomatoes and a pot of
ostrich mince sauce for spaghetti
bolognaise

... and here are the finished products :)

Cooked by the sun with no hassle

Following my honesty policy on this blog, I have always maintained that it is not possible to burn anything in the solar oven.  And, as far as pots of food, that stands true.

But recently we experienced a heatwave.  At 5.22p.m. in the afternoon it was still 38oC outside...

The temperature outside at 5.22p.m. was
38oC ...

...(and thanks to our double glazing) it was a comfortable 27.5oC inside the house.

Thanks to our double glazing, the temperature
inside at the same time of day

I had placed some halved tomatoes into the oven earlier to make sun-dried tomatoes.  I was so comfortable inside that I clean forgot about the tomatoes, and they burnt!

Oh no!!  My sun-dried tomatoes are burnt to
 sinder...!

To a crisp!  As you can see on the thermometer, the temp inside, even with the lid propped open, was at almost 150oC - at 5.30p.m.!!!

A peek at the thermometer - and this is with
the lid propped slight ajar to allow the
tomatoes to dry...

Far too hot to sun dry anything...

So, lesson learnt.  If ever I sun dry anything again, I must keep my eye on the internal temperature.  Until RMan gets round to making me a solar dryer, that is...

That is very high on my wish list.  Very, very high LOL

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 :-)

Monitoring - for peace of mind

We took a short break and travelled up to the farm for a three day weekend.

When RMan and CGuy were there two weekends ago, they connected the batteries to the solar panel and installed the alarm.  However, they noticed that the battery, over a period of 8 hours, was "boiling".  Concerned, they disconnected the battery from the solar panels, just leaving the alarm connected to the battery - they figured that the power would last 3 - 4 days at least.

It was still working two weeks later.  And still indicated 12 volts of power!

The conclusion is that the three panels were producing far too much power, and the regulator wasn't functioning correctly.  The regulator should've controlled the amount of power sent to the battery - to prevent exactly this type of situation from happening.

We have decided that we are going to purchase a new regulator, and a 1kW inverter.  This, together with a couple of deep cycle batteries, the three 75 watt solar panels, should be sufficient to provide power for a couple of CFL lights, the car radio and a chest freezer.  We aren't going to purchase a solar powered, gas nor a 12 volt freezer.

Gas - we'd consume roughly 800gm / day X 30 days ZAR325.00 (US$44.00) / month and we would need to knock through the wall to install a vent of some sort for the fumes.

A 12 volt freezer - they costa plenty.  We got a quote on a 225lt Sundanzer box freezer of ZAR8500.00 (roughly US$1133.00) excluding 14% V.A.T. and transport. 

Solar powered freezers - we would have enough power from the three solar panels, but the unit only costs ZAR11 500.00 (US$1530.00)

But, using a 1Kw inverter, a standard 230lt Defy box freezer running on 220volt AC requires 123 watts of power when the motor is running and will only cost us ZAR2200.00 (US$293.00) to purchase.  If we still stick with the original idea of freezing large bottles of water and using them to chill a stand alone cooler box - then our perishable food storage problems are sorted.  We would also leave the freezer on, even when we're not there - on it's lowest setting it should consume negliable power (which would constantly be generated by the 3 solar panels) as well as be "ready" from the moment we arrive.  That should enable RMan's beers to be chilled to perfection.

And talking about chilled drinks - we could've used some on Monday.  The temperature rose to 44oC (111.2oF) outside.  In the house it was an air-conned 30oC LOL

I felt so sorry for the poor driver of the digger / loader we hired for the day.  Working in those conditions must've ben unbearable - and he had to sit above the heat of the digger / loaders' engine too!  But to cap it all off, we had no water - we discovered just prior to our departure that a stone had jammed the ball valve which controlled the filling of the water tanks.

But the driver did a sterling job.  We used all our building rubble to fill the verandah base, as well as some clay from our dam - the dam needs to be deeper anyway, as whatever water is collecting there is being evapourated by the heat / wind.

A digger / loader certainly makes light work of the hardest ground, and with the holes that it is able to dig, it will certainly give whatever we plant a fighting chance.  No point at all in planting something whose roots will become "pot bound" because the ground is too hard.

He also dug 5 holes for trees, ran a shallow channel for irrigation pipe, and loosened the soil where we are planting lemon trees - so next time we can continue planting.  My lemon trees are coming long very nicely - reckon the Weedguard works a treat.  All water given to the trees is solely for the trees - the weeds and grass below the Weedguard is dead :-)

Isn't it funny how synchronicity enters one's life?  We were meant to be there this weekend.  I'm convinced of that.

Another neighbour of ours, Franz, popped passed.  He hasn't been at his place for about a year - apparently his father-in-law, who lived up-country, passed away last year and Franz had to stay up-country to sort out his affairs.  But, he told us, as he was going to be away a while, he sourced a firm that would monitor his alarm, via radio transmitter.  He's now back permanently, so that'll be an extra pair of eyes too :-)

Bingo - the light bulb went off!  Now that we have an alarm, we can also have a monitoring service!  That will ease a lot of mental pressure regarding the safety of our house and it's contents.  We were not even aware that we could get a security firm to monitor our area.  We had assumed that it was too remote.

As we were leaving (at 8.00pm on Monday evening) we were repaid for the discomfort of the day by these amazing sunset views - the lightning was flickering in the background - high in the mountains.  Do so hope that some of the rain made it's way to our area...

Solar oven questions and answers

I received the following mail from a reader, Vinitha, and with her permission, I would like to publish it here, together with my reply.

Before I do that though, I would like to state that I am not an expert - I am just someone who enjoys using her solar oven, whenever and however she can.  If recounting my trials, tribulations and successes mean that someone, somewhere else in the world decides to make or buy a solar oven in order to prepare their meals, then I have attained the goal of this blog - caring enough to share what I know to help make this a better planet and to try and reverse the damage that we are causing, through our waste / garbage and our extravagant squandering of its' precious resources.

Vinitha wrote:

"I live in Bangalore India and we have no dealers for solar ovens here. I am using a solar oven that I built out of wood, glass and a mirror as a reflector. The insides are lined with heavy duty aluminium foil. The temp inside the oven shows only about 80 degree C. Food gets cooked. I have baked cakes, roast beef, rice, veggies. Can you please advise how I can improve it? Is my temp meter recording the air temp inside the oven. When you say yours reaches 325 degrees do you mean the air temp inside the oven gets to that temp?"

She also included a photo of her solar oven:

My reply to her was as follows:

Thank you for your e-mail. It was a lovely surprise to hear from India.  Thanks for also sending a photo of your solar oven – it helps me understand your problem.  It looks a brilliant effort at a solar oven.  Well done.

When I first started solar cooking (a good couple of years ago) I initially used a “Coleman’s” cooler box, with a piece of 4mm glass as the lid. This worked – sort of – but it didn’t get terribly hot. It was not ideal!  (And I was worried about the fumes from the cooler box insulation - I had no idea what the insulation was made of.  I made sure that I cooked in vessels that were tightly sealed in that homemade solar oven.)

Then I bought a simple blow mold solar oven, which had no reflectors and the lid was a very flimsy plastic. The heat produced also wasn’t the greatest – the hottest I recorded was 105oC.  It did the job - even if that was only cooking rice and vegetables.  But it was limited in what it could cook.  Certainly not bread LOL

I finally purchased the model I have now, and it is with this model that I am getting the best results.  I think the reasons that I am successful are as follows:

My kitchen helper LOL

1 The box is solidly constructed, with well insulated sides.

2 The lid is a piece of double glazed glass, which seals against the bottom oven section with a strip of what looks like oven seal, (i.e. able to withstand high temperatures and similar to that which is used on an oven door). I think one of the surfaces within the double glazed glass also has a film, which helps to attract / retain the heat.

In this photo I propped open the glass lid to show
the oven door seal on the inner surface

3 The reflector is adjustable – so that I can aim the ever changing reflected light into the centre of the oven.

4 The base of the oven is black – to attract / absorb the UV rays / heat.

Please bear in mind also, that the strength of UV rays decide the temperature you will attain in your oven. Ideally, the UV rays should be higher than 6 – ideally 7. You can find your levels at this link: http://www.intellicast.com/local/weather.aspx?location=INXX0012 It would seem that your UV levels, even in your winter, are higher than ours at the moment .

If your thermometer is placed inside your oven, then, yes, that is your oven temperature. I place my thermometer on the floor of the oven, right where the cooking vessels go.

I have done a search for solar ovens in India, and have come up with the following links:

http://www.tradeindia.com/manufacturers/indianmanufacturers/solar-oven.html

http://www.tulsisolarcooker.com/Why%20Tulsi%20Solar%20Cooker.htm

I am thrilled to hear that you are able to cook cakes, roast beef, rice, veggies, etc – but please be careful with meat and poultry – in order to kill the bacteria which forms on all raw meat, the pre-heated (oven and cooking vessel)  temperature should not be lower than 120oC. Rice and veggies don’t have that limitation, but they should still be cooked at a minimum temperature of 80oC - 100oC is boiling point.

Then I have also had quite a few people asking me how hot should the weather be, in order to use a solar oven.  Cooking in a solar oven is not, as far as I am aware, dependent on the outside temperature, but more due to the UV levels - the higher the levels, the better your solar oven will work - with a UV of 7 being an ideal starting point.

Think of a solar oven as a small greenhouse.  A greenhouse will heat up in winter when the outside temperature is cold or freezing, similarly the interior of a solar oven will also be much warmer than the ambient temperature.  How hot will it be on a clear day, with snow on the ground - I'm afraid I can't answer that, as unfortunately I am not fortunate to have that amount of snow in winter.  However I have read somewhere that someone baked bread in their solar oven, in the northern hemisphere, under those conditions :-)

If you do a Google search on UV levels for your country / area you will find a link easily.  I did enter a couple of Google links in reply to a question from Mr H on my Ultimate Solar Bread Recipe posting.

Finally, I will, within the next few days, be posting a link to a .pdf file which will give an introduction to cooking in a solar oven. Hopefully, you’ll find that helpful.

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?

Kitchen progress

It is amazing how basic a kitchen one can actually work in.
 This last weekend we managed to get up to the farm for 4 days.  We schlepped along the security gates and kitchen counters that I got through Freecycle in Cape Town.  Naturally, being female I wanted the kitchen counters in before my other half got to grips with installing the security gates, so with a bit of reasoning and a fresh cup of coffee (for himself) we got down to it on Saturday afternoon after we had unpacked the car - actually my other half got down to it although he did taken some female assistance from me - and design advice.  I reckon that my kitchen area is now 90% finished. All that is left to furnish it with is a 12volt solar freezer and a Dover stove.  And paint the walls....

To walk you round the photo's below - firstly there is a photo of the one kitchen counter prior to being installed. 

The 2nd and 3rd photo's show the view of the kitchen and dining area - and lo, and behold! my old solar cooker fits perfectly where the Dover stove has to go.  Thank goodness I talked RMan out of the underfloor heating he wanted to install prior to the floor tiles being laid - they would be totally unnecessary!  The house is so warm and toasty inside - is it beause of the double glazed windows or because of the lime plaster making the walls more damp proof...?  We haven't got a clue.  And don't care.  Just love it!  In fact it is so warm inside (22oC - even when outside is 6oC) that we are in no rush to buy the Dover stove for the warmth it will provide.

My groceries are stored in basket drawers below the central builders workbench (on wheels), and my plates under the counter on the right hand side of the old caravan gas cooker – we still need to put in another shelf below the one holding the plates for casserole dishes and suchlike, and two shelves on the nook on the left hand side of the gas cooker, to house my pots and baking trays.

But apart from that there is nothing left to do in the kitchen.

The beauty of this kitchen is that it has cost all of ZAR5500.00 – the main expense being the kitchen sink (R2000.00 and the central island on wheels (R1200.00, wheels +/- R400.00 and baskets R1080.00). As I mentioned in a previous post the kitchen counters I got from Freecycle in Cape Town – my husband amazed me with his previously unknown woodworking skills. He dismantled the lot and then mixed and matched the straight and curved bits until he got them to fit perfectly!  The basic solar oven is sitting on the shelf which is reserved for my future Dover (wood burning) stove. Even the two shelves above the oven / basin area were made by RMan from left over laminated wood which we’re using for our upstairs landing - the chain supports were my idea and they work well!

As a newlywed I believed that I had to have the latest gadgets in order to produce the meals and baking that was required of me. Now I know that the simlper one keeps one’s life, the easier it all is. Admittedly I won’t be baking many cakes, so I don’t need my Kenwood Chef anymore, and my slow cooker has been replaced with my Hot Box and Solar Oven. And filter coffee machines – I don’t drink coffee anymore (don’t need, nor want the caffeine - prefer my rooibos or honeybush tea) and, thankfully, my husband prefers instant coffee on a day-to-day basis, retaining the filter coffee consumption for those special outings - be they a weekend lunch sitting in a restaurants' garden in the sunshine or a candlelit dinner with yours truly :-)

Then, first thing Sunday morning it was the time to install the security gates - they were almost made to fit, and with just a small amount of shimming on either side they work perfectly.  Not easy to hang doors / gates - one definitely needs two pairs of hands - one to do the work and the other to act as supports - guess where I came in :-)  And we were very grateful for the generator and power tools.

Finally, on Monday, with the grateful arrival, and assistance, of a young male relative of our neighbour's we were able to install the support posts for our grape vines and we made a start on the raised veggie patch construction.  The first veggie patch will be 4 mtrs long X 1 mtr wide - just perfect for our initial needs - and with plenty of space to expand when necessary.

 

All in all, a very constructive weekend and one in which we managed to complete enough tasks to make us very chuffed with ourselves - there's nothing nicer than that feeling of accomplishment - it lifts one's spirits and gives one added impetus to complete  the remaining ones. 

Each task completed is one less on the list...

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!