SUBURBIA 2 SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Lots of wwoofer action

2011-08-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

Update from the forest

Greetings! The long silence does not mean that we have been abducted by aliens or fallen off the face of the planet. I have been suffering from "Blogger's Block"... but mostly, no news has been good news.

I'll begin my update with the goings-on in the pet enclosure (as there is always much happening here). You may remember Mr Sox, the boy guinea pig who considered himself to be a rabbit until sexy girl guinea pig, Paris showed up to remind him of his true nature. We swopped our 4 nasty roosters in exchange for her at an animal sanctuary, to which I have not dared return in case they want to give the roosters back! Anyway, Paris and Mr Sox are now proud parents!

We waited and waited, along with Casey and Sarah (WWOOFERS from California who are medical exchange students), while Paris grew fatter and fatter. When she looked like a football, our friendly neighbor S (who boasts many pet rat birth stories) Googled "guinea pig births" and we discovered that they have exceptionally long gestation periods. Long after the departure of our med students, we woke to find the triplets: covered in fur, eyes open and able to run around and eat solid foods from day 1! We named the girl baby Mimi (we knew she was female due to the fact that she had three colours, rather than the males' one or two). She has since unfortunately succumbed to a suspected quail attack, but brothers Felix and Chip are growing at a rapid rate and providing much delight and enjoyment.

Our finch family (white mommy and zebra daddy) managed to build themselves a nest in the enclosure and lined it with soft rabbit fur from where their tiny eggs brought forth two sweet little baby birds whose beaks are starting to turn the distinctive orange colour. Daddy and babies have since escaped, leaving a rather lonely mommy to wait for her new eggs to hatch and provide some company.

Meanwhile, our rabbit breeding programme came to a rather abrupt end after Big Daddy Fuzzy's "snip". I did recently spot our baby rabbit Flash Gordon humping Speckles, quickly picked him up and managed to lay eyes on his manhood, so I have no doubt we will soon be in business again. Our "Bunny Love" stall at the Friday market was a big hit a few weeks ago (R5 for 5 minutes of bunny cuddles), so this family business might have a future! I am also collecting rabbit fur which I hope to spin into wool and knit myself a beany - currently my most ambitious project.

On the chicken front, our sole hen Penguin stopped laying eggs a few weeks ago, much to our dismay of course. Whlie chatting to guru neighbour R about farm matters, he informed me that chickens don't lay eggs in winter (unless they are kept warm and given enough artificial light) - who knew? I was given another little hen as a birthday present from kind poultry producing neighbours, and since then Penguin has been laying again. Although we've had some lovely warm winter days, it seems that loneliness might also play a part in egg production. Now Penguin and Hoendertjie scratch around the yard, looking for worms, attempt to come into the house and regularly crap on the patio. Penguin recently discovered that Kevin's car is quite cosy and promptly laid an egg on his seat!

Justin and Gervais (a South African woofing couple) arrived shortly after the birth of our guinea pig triplets, sporting their own bakkie. This was the first time we had woofers with their own transport and within no time, the farm was a hub of activity. Loads of mulch, horse manure, sand and stone were carted around and the heavy (and welcome) rains meant that the bakkie got stuck in the mud on numerous occasions. They turned our growing tunnel into an oasis, with deep fertile raised beds. On most afternoons, the children and I can be found fighting over fresh baby carrots, munching greens and edible flowers - this gives me endless joy...My forage food project is slowly becoming a reality, although I do still prepare meals. I have sent the kids to the tunnel to forage when they presented with hunger from time to time (their friends think I a weirdo!).

Justin also brought a wealth of mushroom farming knowledge and inspired Kevin to use my bath (which has been sitting around waiting for a bathroom for 2 years) to house a multitude of plastic bags filled with sterilised straw and oyster mushroom spawn. I expect that we'll be having an oyster mushroom festival soon (unfortunately not in time for the Knysna Oyster Festival which ended last week). With my bath occupied and bathroom still in the ethereal reality, I managed to buy a plastic tub recently which is big enough for me to have a bucket bath. A tight squeeze and some imagination...Update on the mushrooms is that the straw is showing signs of gross green fungus which I suspect is bad news.

Karlo (from Cape Town) and Aysan (from Sweden) arrived shortly after the departure of Justin & Gervais and busied themselves with filling tyres to provide the flower garden with a barrier from the cows and grass. They also completed the foundation to the new shed, which went up last week.This is the first construction project which Kevin has taken complete ownership of and I (for one) am very proud of my handy husband! The shed came in panels and was acquired second-hand from mountain biking mate B, various woofers built and prepared the foundation, helpful handyman neighbour M brought his powerful drill and Kevin & I erected the last panels and attached the roof sheets. Now, we're eager to get going on the new spacious main bedroom with a spectacular view over the forest and mountains...

Rebecca is our latest woofer from Calgary, Canada where they have one month of summer each year. She's been enjoying our warm winter days while painting and preparing the shed for the Great Relocation of "Stuff" which took place last weekend. After unpacking and organising the last of our stuff, we were able to finally say good bye to the last remaining rented container. It's been almost 4 years. I now still have a stack of boxes on the patio to sort through (which I plan on covering with a table cloth and being in denial about for the near future)!

The last few months haven't been without sadness: we've said good bye to dear neighbour T (who returned to Germany), our friends (the A team) who returned to Canada after their sabbatical year in Plett, and the D'O family who left for Johannesburg. We've buried Mimi the guinea pig and Top Deck - the first of our baby bunnies to survive, who got trapped in a burrow. On the 13th of July I commemorated my mom's birthday - she would have turned 62. And although I miss her dearly every day, I am never far from her wisdom and love and blessed by the abundance of woofers she sends to help ease the load.

Mila has become quite the actress - she delivered all 60 of her lines in the recent school play impeccably even though she was coming down with the flu. She played Mohtep, the evil advisor to the pharaoh who planned to overthrow the throne. She has published her own blog: www.forestfairy.blogspot.com and has become a very keen mountain biker (finally, a biking buddy for Kevin)! She turns 8 on Saturday (6 August) and we're planning a mountain biking adventure and sleepover party...

Luke recently learnt about the dangers of fire when he landed with both his palms on the boiling hot Morso fireplace when he fell off the couch he was jumping on. He screamed for hours and nursed nasty blisters for more than a week, but has since recovered and is also learning to master his bicycle (in between building Lego and playing in the mud).

Kevin is constantly finding "amazing new apps" for his iPhone, developing his photographic talents and is soon off to Israel for his niece's wedding.

The end of the rooster era

2011-03-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

We're planting!

After more than 3 years of farm life, we've finally started planting food! This auspicious event occurred on 21 March: Human Rights Day - we have the right to grow our own food. It was also the autumn equinox, full moon and the 2 year anniversary of mother's passing, so hopefully this will bode well for our veggies and ensure a good crop. We've created one raised bed (with the help of wwoofer Freya) and went for the lazy man's answer for the rest: planting in potting soil bags and old tyres. Instant gardening...I'm all for working smarter not harder!

Who would have believed that it would take so long to get some vegetables going? Most of our previous experimental attempts have ended in disaster. Our wheat grass got attacked by baboons, birds and rats; strawberries were ravished by a variety of creatures; cows repeatedly chewed our lettuce and the most colourful insects known to man feasted on the rest. Now that we have a secure (?) growing tunnel, we're finally farmers.

We planted eggplant, tomato, cucumber, basil, leeks, spinach, wong bok, beetroot, onions, turnips, chamomile and lettuce as well as potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots - now we await the next level of self-suffiency with bated breath. We're pretty much self-sufficient in terms of eggs: Penguin lays one a day and since we're not particularly big on eggs, it serves our needs. Not that these are the cheapest eggs on the planet.

Due to the bad behaviour of Lovely (one of our roosters) we decided that he should be moved to the chicken penitentiary with the two naughty Golden Boys. A vicious cock fight ensued which sent feathers and blood flying. After an emergency family meeting, it was agreed to split the chicken pen into 2 smaller holding cells by splitting the cage with our old wrought-iron head board. Luke was in favour of eating Lovely, while Kevin and I wanted to take the chicken to the forest to live it's last day/s in freedom before entering the food chain. The voices of the animal activists: Mila and our new vegan, animal-loving WWOOF volunteer Amanda were most persuasive, however. We ended up keeping and feeding 4 roosters and one hen, the price to pay for an egg a day...

Amanda came to Africa from her native Sweden where she was involved with Green Peace and protecting the indigenous forests of Scandanavia. She prepares delicious vegan meals and entertains the children with endless jokes (which she is forced to repeat daily to their utter delight). She's been weeding, planting, mulching and mending the holes in the growing tunnel caused by the cows scratching their horned heads against it. Having experienced some farming concepts first-hand over the last few years, I am rather inclined to agree with her vegan outlook on things. Being a vegetarian is simply not enough to stop the suffering & killing of animals. By enjoying milk, cheese, yoghurt and ice-cream we are still feeding the cow industry whereby mommy cows get separated from their babies in order get them into the milk production line. What to do with the baby boy cows but eat them? Not to mention roosters which (in my experience) can be a rather nasty by-product of producing eggs. I tend to think that humans should never have domesticated animals.

On a lighter note - a cleaning angel named Fransiena has made repeated appearances, cleaning like a machine and restoring our home to neatness I have only previously imagined. My prayers have been answered! Suddenly I have spare time to spend with Kevin and the children (although yesterday, I spent this free time scrubbing dog wee off the car seat!).

We leave to Cape Town tomorrow for a fun-filled long weekend of circus and city lights. I'm rather apprehensive: the last time we went to Cape Town for a weekend I received the call that my mother passed away and we had to reroute to Pretoria. I trust this weekend will end more enjoyably...

****

Back from Cape Town, where we had a lovely long weekend. First stop, of course, was Toy Kingdom where Luke spent hours shopping for new Ninja Lego and Mila exhausted her hard earned stash of pocket money. The city was beautiful as always and the Cirque du Soleil was utterly enthralling, as was the Grand West Casino complex: a kind of Sun City/Montecasino experience, complete with fake trees and painted ceilings. After the show Mila headed straight for the ice skating rink and would not leave for 2 hours!

The first day of our arrival was rather emotional as I recalled the shock, turmoil and despair of our last visit. The holiday house we had stayed in when I learned that Trudy had died did not have a single blade of grass or any garden where I could find grounding. This time we stayed in a lovely guest house in Hout Bay with a wonderful garden which housed a flowering creeper that used to cover the walls of my childhood home. The velvety pink flowers of which look like fairies when turned upside down. I spent endless days as a little girl playing with these 'fairies" and if any plant could epitomize my childhood, this would be it. I could feel Trudy's loving energy embracing me in the Mother City.

The silence of the city was quite a revelation - to not be rudely awakened several times a night and ridiculously early in the morning by four lunatic roosters was a sheer delight! As I lay in my bed with the calming sounds of city traffic and far-off sirens, I begged the Universe to send a solution to our rooster problem...

Two days after our return, the lady at the Wolf Sanctuary agreed take the 4 unruly chickens in exchange for a baby guinea pig - she assured me that they would not become wolf food, but frankly, I don't care what becomes of them. At last we have our silence back!

We returned from Cape Town to discover 9 new baby rabbits in our cage - happiness is...

As I sat there cuddling the little angels, a feeling of dread and fear started rising in my being: what were we going to do with all these rabbits? And so, the idea for the Bunny Bonanza was born. I designed and printed about 80 invitations which were distributed at the children's school, inviting everyone to an open weekend of bunny love. Since I had always wanted to have a Mad Hatter's Tea Party, I decided to combine it with the bunnies and we ended up having a 2 day long, non-stop tea party. Kevin set up a temporary photographic studio in the rabbit cage where he took some incredible pictures and so managed to promote his photography as well. We managed to sell a few bunnies and the remainder were given to the pet shop...crisis averted.

Our mommy rabbit had another batch of babies in the meantime, but daddy Fuzzy went for the SNIP yesterday, so I trust that the rabbit population will now be curbed. I'm quite convinced that our new little guinea pig (Paris) will soon be impregnated by the resident Mr Sox, however.

We bid our Swedish wwoofer farewell last week and welcomed our latest arrival: a 19 year old Belgium chap, Amaury, who has started preparing our new fruit tree beds. In celebration of his arrival I prepared our most self-sufficient dinner yet - something called "Eggs in a Nest", basically a selection of stir fried vegetables and garden greens, in which indentations are made and farm fresh eggs poached in the hollows. We relished 7 of Penguins eggs and a batch of greens from our new veggie garden...well on our way to making John Seymour proud!

***

And on final sad note, another loved one has crossed the thin veil of this earthly reality to the realm of Spirit. Kevin's cousin Heather lost her dear husband Brian to a heart attack while he was on a business trip in China. I trust that Heather and her three lovely girls will sense his loving support and guidance from the Other Side, and that they will be blessed.

Farm life

2011-03-18T11:42:00.001-07:00

Farm life

We've had our first chicken egg! Our little hen, Penguin, neatly deposited her delivery on a shelf in the chicken coup cupboard where it was met with much excitement and then enjoyed by the family plus wwoofing volunteer. And what a delicious egg it was - fresh, dark yellow, nutricious yolk...

For all the joy derived from our hen, we've been equally dismayed by the behaviour of our 4 roosters, however. Yes: Popcorn, Lovely and both Golden Girls do now appear to be roosters, and the bigger of Golden Girls has developed into the terrorist of the chicken coup. He pecks at people (ouch!) as well as quails and rabbits - presumably because he thinks that everything that moves is edible. I suspect chickens' lack of intelligence precludes them from being sinister or malicious, nevertheless, I awoke on Sunday morning with murder on my mind. Armed with John Seymour's Ultimate Guide to Self-Sufficient Living, I was fully prepared to wring that little chicken's neck, de-feather and gut it & have a lovely Sunday braai on the Weber with our friends. We could not get Mila to agree to the slaughter (it being her chicken) and so Golden Boy #1 can still be counted among the living.

After discussing the matter with one of my catering clients who has some experience in meat matters, I was advised to slice the chicken's neck and let it bleed out after which it should be kept in the fridge for 2 days before cooking it in order to avoid the meat becoming tough. Well, that was enough to put this vegetarian off that idea! And once again, Kevin's Jewish heritage came to the rescue in the form of our sukkah which has been converted into the chicken detention facility, with Mila's approval. Golden Boy #1's people pecking has ensured his incarceration, soon to be followed by Golden Boy #2's decapitation of a quail. These 2 have also now started cock-a-doodling in the mornings (and throughout the day) making sure no-one sleeps late on the farm - or at our neighbour's restful guest houses!

We have a new WWOOF volunteer: 20 year old Freya from

Canada

, who has been chasing summer for a year before starting college in cold Ontario in September. Her trip started in

Costa Rica

, moved to

Argentina

and after SA she's off to

France

and

Norway

(the land of her forefathers). While waging war against the ceaseless weeds last week, she made the gruesome discovery of 3 dead baby rabbits chewed on by our lovely dog, Mushroom. Much to our delight we discovered 2 live baby rabbits who had not yet dug their way out of the cage to follow their siblings' destiny. Top Deck and Chocolate are the sweetest little things - spreading loads of bunny love as they are cuddled often and spend lots of time in the bed with all of us. Coco (the mommy rabbit) has started digging another burrow, so I suspect we'll be having another litter soon. Initial enquiries have indicated that it would cost more than R400 per "snip" to curb the wave of procreation soon to follow. I love my rabbits way too much to start looking for a recipe for rabbit stew!

On the garden front: we've started experimenting with the quickest and easiest form of making vegetable beds: planting bags. I took a bag of Potting Soil (purchased from our local nursery) sliced a hole in the top and planted some tomatoes and cucumbers in the bag. According to the experts, it's quick and easy (I can vouch for that), the bag retains the moisture and the soil is weed-free (yeah!). Will report on the progress soon. Freya has also started preparing our first proper vegetable bed in the growing tunnel from which we will hopefully have some yield before the end of the growing season.

The Liquid Amber tree I planted on my mom's ashes is growing strong. The leaves are turning yellow for its third season and I always feel loved and cared for when I hold the still-slender trunk for some inspiration and strength. Yesterday, as I stood stroking the bark, Sade's lyrics "Is it a crime, that I still love you" drifted through Kevin's office window, carried by a breeze which softly rustled the leaves of Trudy's tree and I sensed her nearness.

I am progressing well on the ladder of technology: I am the owner of an iPad (on which I am composing this blog, while sitting in a coffee shop). Courtesy of a tax refund - we love SARS! The non-materialism which I have endeavoured to adopt over the past few years has become so ingrained, that I find it difficult to not experience some shame regarding the acquisition. But now I finally have the ultimate disciplinary tool - I have never seen the children clean their room quicker than when their iPad privileges are in question!

The children and happy and well: Luke is still a strong Lego-man and loves playing Plants vs Zombies on the iPad while Mila is discovering the joy of reading and has keenly taken up gymnastics (with no assistance from my genes!). We're planning a trip to Cape Town at the end of March to see Cirque du Soleil, which will no doubt inspire her to leap and somersault from high and dangerous places.

Our Bibby's Hoek Book Club remains a continual source of support, laughter, advice and good reading. After my introduction to Tom Robbins, I laboured through "The Road": the most depressing book I have ever read and something I cannot recommend with ease. It follows the journey of a man and his son as they wander around a dismal post-global warming landscape in search of the odd can of tinned fruit, while fending off other survivors-turned-cannibals. I believe that it's an important read and has made me seriously reconsider my survivalist ideas. I'm now enjoying Isabel Allendes memoirs to her dying daughter, Paula - much lighter reading!

Kevin returned from

Mozambique

where he did a photoshoot for a new lodge. He is finding a balance between the silence on the farm, his Apple computers and the occasional mid-life crisis, and has started distributing a lovely brochure for his family photography which should get him off the farm more regularly.

With the shock of the tsunami in

Japan

, the marriage separation of a dear neighbour/book club member and the sudden and tragic passing of our friends' 14 year old son, I find myself holding onto my family tighter, appreciating life more...with love and gratitude.

The latest photo’s can be viewed online @ www.digitalfactor.co.za/march2011

A new era

2011-02-23T04:43:00.000-08:00

2011 started off with a bang as we have finally been blessed by a visit from Sylvia, my delightful mother-in-law. This was her first visit to the farm since we left the hustle and bustle of Jozi more than 3 years ago. Daunted by our tales of dry toilets, baboons, solar power failures, bathing in buckets and Kevin’s exaggeration: “our entire house can fit into your kitchen” – she hardly slept a wink the night before her arrival, worrying about what she would encounter on Farm 119!

After much cajoling (and some Jewish guilt tripping), she finally acquiesced to a visit, so Kevin brought her back from Jo’burg where he had been visiting a mourning friend. Concerned about her comfort, I phoned home just after her arrival and learned that she already had a swim in the farm dam and was happily snoozing in a hammock! (I have yet to set foot in the murky waters of our dam; much preferring the heated indoor pool at the Pezula Spa.) Always ready for an adventure, with a fresh and inspiring approach to life, Syl explored the forest with the children, hiked with Kevin, attended Mila’s ballet class and discovered that the farm is actually quite luxurious and civilized - if you don’t mind peeing in a pot in lieu of an en suite bathroom!

What a delight to share our home with a mother again – not since my mom’s passing 2 years ago have we had the privilege. This visit will hopefully signal the first of many…

***

We’ve slipped comfortably into our new routine for the year, and I thought I’d share our daily comings and goings:

Monday mornings signal the start of the early rise routine for the week: my cell phone alarm rings at 6.15, after which we all snooze 3 times until 6.45. “We all” being myself, Kevin and the kids. Although the kids start off in Luke’s racing car bed in the evenings, they make their way to our bed during the night. We take turns snuggling each other with each snooze, then do the quick bathroom-dressing-toothbrush run and enjoy a healthy breakfast of oats and fruit smoothies prepared by our Minister of Nutrition (Kevin). Mila feeds the chickens, quails and rabbits (part of her chores-for-pocket money arrangement) and by 7.15 we’re off to town, picking our neighbour’s son up for a lift to school.

The 25 minute drive to school is a peaceful one (zero traffic, beautiful scenery, the occasional baboon/cow crossing the road) while we take turns deciding on the music: Luke’s favourites being Cat Stevens and Lenny Kravitz, Mila usually opts for Beyonce and has discovered Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall, while Buddhas (the neighbour’s son) prefers Red Hot Chilli Peppers or Bob Marley. Sting is an all-round favourite, and I try to work in the odd Les Miserables or Ella Fitzgerald for a bit of cultural indoctrination! This morning it was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody - full blast and on repeat. Musically inspired, the kids are delivered at the Knysna Montessori School and (if I’m lucky) I’ll be on time for work at 8.00.

First task at the office is the preparation of coffee: 2 strong cups in my mom’s old plunger: one cup for me and one on her behalf. Thereafter, it’s me behind my computer, preparing financial statements, completing tax returns and auditing the accounts of a variety of businesses (hotels, sawmills, property holding companies, body corporates, estate agents, restaurants, etc). By 2pm (after 6 hours of work), the caffeine has worn off and it’s time for the afternoon shift.

On Mondays I go to a private Pilates class which leaves me so stiff that I’m generally immobilized on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It’s been more than 2 years that I’ve done any formal exercise, so my muscles have gone South and need some serious resurrection. With wobbly legs and shaky abdominal muscles, I drive to school to collect the children, where I am almost always greeted by: “what did you buy us, Mommy?” If they’re lucky, I’ll stop at the farm stall on the way home and buy them each a piece of droë wors. (We’ve become occasionally meat-eating vegetarians.)

We arrive back at the farm around 4 pm, after which we disperse into various activities: visiting the chickens and rabbits, watering plants, training dogs, playing computer games, swimming in the dam, weeding, scraping cow poo off the patio (the cows can be so rude!), trampolining, picking food, playing Lego (mostly Luke), unpacking the car (mostly me) or cleaning the house. We had a newly appointed cleaning angel coming twice a week: she arrived for the first week and has absconded since…

I start preparing dinner around 6 (something simple, quick and vegetarian) and we eat together as a family with each one getting a chance to discuss their day. Bedtime for the children is at 7.30 (theoretically), so we end up getting to bed at 8. Since Kevin’s birthday is on the 12^th and mine on the 29^th, we’ve allocated even days to him, while I take the odd days to read to the kids and put them to bed. On the nights that I don’t fall asleep with them, Kevin & I might watch a movie on the cinema size Apple screen with surround sound: a marvelous home theatre system devised by my clever, computer whiz of a husband.

Tuesday afternoons mark the first visit of the week to Knysna’s legendary bakery/ restaurant, Ile de Pain. I simply refer to it as: Heaven. Here I procure a masterfully, wood-fired bread and sip on the best cappuccino in town (if not the world), while reading my book. I’m currently enjoying my first Tom Robbins book, courtesy of the Bibby’s Hoek Book Club: a group of formidable women who get together once a month to support and inspire one another (we also discuss/share books in between drinking wine and eating decadent treats!). After an hour of me time, I’m off to collect Mila from Sidwell Roman’s School of Ballet: yes, he is a charming, coloured ballet teacher! Then, the home run while trying to avoid the droë wors.

I’ve managed to slot in an hour’s worth of writing on Wednesday afternoons at a dubious coffee shop at the old-jail-turned-art-studio, where I wait for Mila while she attends art lessons. This should translate into more correspondence from me in 2011!

Thursday afternoons see another ballet lesson and some grocery shopping, and on Fridays I head straight for Ile de Pain again to collect my fresh kitke (traditional Jewish Sabbath bread). If we’re not doing a Friday night dinner with friends at home, we support the evening market at the school, which is a delightful get-together of locals, live music and food stalls. The kids run around with their friends, beg for candy floss and spend their pocket money on cheap and nasty glow-in-the-dark toys from

China

Weekends see us pottering around the farm (building chicken cages, erecting shelves, gardening, painting, various domestic chores) interspersed with family outings to the beach/forest/local tourist attractions. For the past few months we’ve been visiting our friends Danny & Stacy & kids in Plettenberg Bay regularly, where they have decided to take a year’s sabbatical from their lives in Vancouver. We wade in their heated swimming pool, visit the beach or laze around reading books while the kids have their faces firmly stuck behind Danny’s iPad or one of the many Apple computer screens while playing Club Penguin (an on-line virtual reality game). In true South African form, they were burgled last week and are now without said Apple laptop and iPad…hopefully this won’t send them packing back to the North!

Seems pretty suburban for an off-the-grid family on the farm!

***

In the meantime, Kevin is off to

Mozambique

thid week to work his photographic magic on a new hotel development – a welcome change from the quiet life on the farm with nothing but the chewing cows for company. He has redesigned his website with some help from his “man in

India

” (www.digitalfactor.co.za) and is reading “The 4 Hour Work Week” while spending most days glued to his computer screen.

On the animal front, our dogs are responding well to some training advice we received from a dog psychologist (!), the neighbour’s cows are grazing happily and our new guinea pig (Mr Sox) has sided himself with Fuzzy the rabbit. We had to rescue our weakest quail (named Fernando Torres because of his running speed) from his brethren who continually peck him in a cruel “survival of the fittest” scenario. He’ll be spending the rest of his days with a colleague’s rabbits (hopefully in peace). Our chickens are growing at a rate of knots, but still no eggs….

We are expecting a string of female woofers from all over the world, with the first arriving at the end of this week. Our growing a tunnel sports a new door - thanks to our previous woofer, Idez from

Belgium

(a 30 year old artist and meditation enthusiast). Now that it is finally secure from the cows and hounds, we are looking forward to starting some serious growing. Whether the tunnel will hold up to being ripped apart by the beastly baboons, remains to be seen…

Settled

2011-01-25T12:31:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I’ve sent out an update from the forest and the cliché “no news is good news” certainly applies. Besides being sucked into the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy of brick-sized novels, there are a variety of reasons for the long silence. Predominantly, spring (and by now, late summer) has arrived, delighting us with an abundance of flowers, insects and butterflies. This is the first season that we are truly settled on the farm and I find myself pottering about: planting, picking, smelling, weeding, feeding animals, watching freaky spiders spin their prey into web cocoons with the children… basically enjoying life.

When we first arrived in Knysna, there was talk of a magical three-year period in which to find one’s feet. October saw the dawn of this new era and I can definitely say that there is truth to the rumour. It does feel as if we are finally settled and looking back over the past 36 months, I hardly know how we made it some days! Coming here does seem like an idealistic dream (testimony to my permanently rose-tinted outlook). We had no idea of the hardships that farm life would involve – from the baboons, lice and flea plagues to the lack of water and adjusting to solar power. Then there was the unexpected passing of my mother/friend/soulmate as well as the general existential and financial crisis experienced by pretty much everyone on the planet! But the increased appreciation for life, love, water and resources, sharing these incredible natural surroundings with our beautiful neighbours and seeing our children run free, has made all the “suffering” worthwhile.

And after 3 years, we finally got ourselves some chickens! The children and I selected 5 little one day old chicks: I chose “Penguin” a little black and white number, while Luke went for “Popcorn” and “Lovely” and Mila has the two “Golden Girls”. Having had absolutely no experience with live chickens, I was quite shocked to learn that they should be kept under lights for the first few weeks. The words: “are you out of your mind” went through my head as I listened to the purveyor describing how to position a 100 watt globe over the chicks and keep this light on 24 hours a day for two weeks. She obviously had no experience of solar power! We resorted to good old fashioned water bottles - refreshed 3 times a day - and this managed to keep our chicks alive long enough until they could be placed outside with the rabbits and quails in what is becoming a very lively little enclosure. (Luckily, we had some good rain, so constantly filling the water bottles was not a problem.) The rabbit/quail/chicken cage is of course another reason for my long silence: the kids and I find ourselves chasing chicks and stroking our rabbits rather often. The there’s the constant task of filling in the tunnels that the rabbits keep digging in order to ensure that they don’t escape – something that my guru neighbour, Mr R had warned me about…

We watched our chickens grow bigger in anticipation, anxious to discover whether they would turn out to be egg-producing hens or noisy, troublesome roosters. At one point we suspected 4 of them of being roosters and were debating the option of eating these (a strange discussion to have in a vegetarian household!). But alas, it appears by the rather amusing cock-a-doodle-ling that Popcorn is our only rooster and pretty trouble-free (for now).

Our beloved rabbit Fuzzy turned out to be a boy after all, but our first set of 7 baby rabbits all died within 2 days of being born. The first 3 gruesome little bodies were strewn around the cage with injuries presumably inflicted by the chickens, and the remaining 4 babies were discovered in a half-dug burrow - one already cold. It appeared as if Coco had abandoned them. After hot-water bottles and various tactics to try to get her to bond and feed them, we eventually took the last two survivors into the house and proceeded to feed them baby formula with a syringe. Both managed to get through the night, but neither made it past the next day. We spent a few hours demarcating the cage in order to separate the rabbits from the birds, and will report on the next litter soon.

In the meantime we’ll continue rearing the pair of baby field mice we found amongst our extra dinner plates when we tackled some boxes on Boxing Day.

Of course, there’s been the dependable presence of wwoofers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms). We were blessed with a 3 week visit by Tasuku, a mathematician from the island of Okinawa in Japan. He built a very neat growing tunnel (mathematically quite accurate!) and having worked in a sushi restaurant in California, was able to show us some nifty new tricks and recipes – tuna mayo rice balls wrapped in nori have now become a regular meal in our household. He infused our farm with Japanese grace and cleaned the kitchen immaculately.

Tasuku (whom Luke called “Hey, let’s play Lego” for about a week before he could remember his name) was followed by our first South African wwoofer (a lady name Lucianne) who spent 2 weeks wrestling with the “Kak”-kuyu grass, which is constantly invading our flower beds. We then had our second local volunteer, Alexa from Cape Town, who jumped on the trampoline with Mila and painted the newly erected patio roof beams. Yes, we finally have a roof over our patio and celebrated with a fabulous roof wetting party attended by our kind, caring (and quite eccentric) community!

I had a break from the farm when I recently visited Pretoria for my 20-year high school reunion. I attended a rather well-respected, Afrikaans girls’ school. What a blast! Whereas the 10 year reunion still had a measure of posturing and showing off (who got married, gained/lost weight, etc.), by now we all seemed to have grown up, even sporting the odd wrinkle with pride. The “koeke” (i.e. the “good” girls) had figured out the carnal matters which led to them having children while the “terte” (the “naughty” girls) also bore children, causing them to settle down, and so we were pretty much all on the same page. (In case you were wondering, my allegiance was with the naughty ones!) After the official lunch with the girls on Friday, about 20 of us went to a “resort” in Warmbaths for the weekend, where things got loud and juvenile (especially since many of us left our husband and children at home for the weekend and had complete freedom to regress to our teenage silliness!). Plans are already underway for our 25^th – this time at a wine farm near Cape Town and the doctor among us is rumoured to have made promises of bringing the Botox along…

Kevin has been living the high life – travelling to Johannesburg to work his photographic magic on the 5 star Legacy hotel group (and being accommodated at one of their fine establishments, which of course made me green with envy!). He also had a stint in Cape Town and was awarded a Gold and Silver award in the Fuji Film photographic competition (no prize money, though). He also has a new lady in his life: a sleek 17” MacBook Pro (Apple laptop) – a truly sexy piece of equipment which has enabled us to watch movies at a much lower energy consumption and have internet access in the house…the first time in 3 years that we can surf from the comfort of our couch. Things are really looking up!

The kids are doing marvellously – Mila goes to grade 2 and is switching from recorder to guitar while continuing with her ballet lessons. Well on her way to becoming the next Hannah Montana (she even received a blonde wig from Santa)! Luke is ever the Lego builder and enjoys kicking the soccer ball, imitating pirates and Michael Jackson and catching frogs and fish in the dam with his new fishing rod.

A few months ago, our cleaning angel, Sophie, resigned from our domestic chores in favour of her Thesen Island employer. I have since spent many hours in cleaning meditation – getting closer to enlightenment with each wipe, scrub and sweep of the mud and dirt left behind by the actions of my beloved family. I have discovered that there is something rather fundamental and cathartic in cleaning up. It sets a certain pace to the daily activities and completes the cycles of creation - like teaching the children to pack one game away before starting another one. However, for fear of ultimate enlightenment and spontaneous combustion, I have relinquished my domestic stronghold and agreed to employ a new domestic helper (if only for one day per week)!

We have been immensely blessed with an abundance of rain over the past few months – our tanks (capacity: 26,000 litres) are full, our dams are swimmable and we have more water than we’ve had in three years. Flushing the toilet and filling the hot water bottles for the baby animals have not presented any problems. Now the new bath in storage is really starting to beckon for a bathroom!

We’ve had a fabulous festive season, hosting dear friends (Brett, Sue & co) in our refurbished container/wwoofing room: by now quite a civilised guestroom. The daily mud baths and dam swimming was quite a change for them from their London existence and Brett applied full-blown urban warfare techniques when a fly plague presented itself. With sticky fly catching strips dangling from every conceivable place and armed with fly swatters, we sipped our sundowners, discussed New Year’s resolutions while gazing out over the forest, listening to the call of the fish eagle.

Speaking of which, the large wooden eagle carving (which we moved with from Johannesburg) was positioned at the edge of the dam, but got knocked over continuously by the grazing cows as they try to scratch their ears against it. After three attempts at stabilising it, Kevin finally dug a huge whole and poured 4 bags of ready mix into it, adding some solid steel bars for good measure, and proclaimed: “the eagle has landed”.

Almost Spring

2010-08-21T05:50:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the forest where the sun is rising earlier to greet us in the mornings and the flowers are delighting us in their abundance.

I am happy to report that we are all in good health and spirits (not counting the occasional midlife crisis!). We are without a wwoofer for the first time since the start of the World Cup though, so we are once again making intimate acquaintance with the dirty dishes!

The reign of Rob (our American volunteer from Wyoming) ended with half a patio – which was completed by the next American (Eric from Illinois via Utah). Now we can have sundowners on the “stoep” like true South Africans! (Although my alcohol consumption is mostly reserved for book club.)

Both blokes were a real gift from the Universe (or as I like to believe: angels sent to us by my mother). They were a great hit with the kids: playing Monopoly, Clue & Lego like experts, while building/digging/planting/fixing during the day and tending to those all important dishes in the evening. Bless them both!

Our international experience did not end there: Kevin spent a week in London for his niece’s wedding (his sister Debbie’s daughter, Talya). It sounded like a fairy tale affair… he also managed to shoot some fantastic cityscapes.

He returned in time for Mila’s 7^th birthday party: a “High School Musical” disco/sleepover party, complete with mirror ball and flashing lights (the office was converted into a dance hall). We had pitched a tent for the sleepover but the girls were too scared to sleep there and so we ended up camping in the tent for a few days as a family! Since moving to the farm and living the camping dream on a full time basis, we haven’t done much tent dwelling, so it was a great mini-holiday long weekend.

The long-weekend culminated in the much anticipated Women’s Day spa day at Pezula! Three wonderful friends and I spent the entire day being pampered, dipping in the heated indoor pool, lazing in the sauna, perspiring in the steam room and imagining that we’re the idle rich while sipping cappuccino’s. The decision was taken to make this an annual event and saving has already commenced…

Kevin’s birthday on the 12^th was a quite sushi affair at home.

On a much sadder note, our dear friend and Kevin’s long-time biking partner, Louis Rothschild died in his home the following week – another crime statistic. He joins the growing list of loved ones who have passed on since we leftJohannesburg three short years ago: David Braun, Ananda, Melt vd Spuy & Trudy vd Spuy. We feel very blessed to have shared his birthday with him this year: he visited us on the farm with Aviva (the love of his life) and Levy (his son who turned 1 shortly before his passing). It was truly special to share in his happiness and new family and our thoughts and prayers are with them constantly.

Our 9 quails are surviving (although we’re still waiting for eggs) and they have been joined by our 2 baby rabbits (Coco and Fuzzy) who are just the most delightful little creatures. Although the quail/rabbit cage is now dog proof (thanks towwoofer Rob), they spend much of their time in Mila’s underwear drawer where they get fed carrots. No-one is more in love with them than me, though – having been a big rabbit lover since I first encountered them many moons ago!

Our neighbour discovered a dead puff adder outside our farm - road kill left behind by unknown speeding tourists in shining cars. With an audience of neighbourhood kids (and a few trepid adults, including myself) Kevin expertly dissected and skinned it, then proceeded to photograph it (what else!), with some interesting results. The skin has not yet found a final resting place, so I am regularly freaked out when I stumble upon it unexpectedly.

On the garden front I am excited to report that I no longer have to buy packaged lettuce at the Pick ‘n Pay! We’re able to eat garden greens and fresh sprouts every day! We also enjoyed our first cauliflower and multiple beetroots – I was amazed to discover how much stronger the taste of home grown veggies are. Mushroom (the dog) is doing a fine job of keeping the baboons at bay, although the cows have been eating my primulas….

We’re also enjoying the additional electricity from the extra solar panels. For the first time in three years, we can pretty much watch DVDs whenever we want and Mila can even play computer games (Super Mario brothers, Pacman and Asteroids), although getting her off is rather challenging! I do sometimes miss the “no sun, no TV” excuse, but thanks to the World Cup playing soccer with their dad is now also a favoured option.

Luke (4 ½) is unbelievable cute and at that age where we just want to freeze him before he turns into a fully fledged boy. Lego is his first love, although he also thinks that anything to do with the Army is super cool (much to our dismay, of course). He loves catching tadpoles and fish in the dam and can spend hours hitting a golf ball around the farm with his golf club (a present from his golf pro-oupa Sybie). He has quite a mean swing and I often find him aiming at the cars and the buildings!

Mila’s love for ballet is starting to wane as she is discovering the internet, but horse riding and shopping are still high on the agenda, together with a certain boy (who I have been sworn to secrecy about). She has hit that unavoidable age where homework finds a place in the daily routine and I have also had to come to terms with the fact that I have to be involved in it once again. She’s also quite an avid soccer player, playing in her first official soccer match against another school this week and she now sports her own email address: milafactor@gmail.com

Speaking of school, I am off to my 20 year matric reunion in Pretoria next month! How’s that for making one feel old….

Check out the latest pictures at www.digitalfactor.co.za/august2010

Cheers

Tanya

PS: This entry will soon be found on the blog site, together with all previous emails, photo’s, videos, etc:

www.tanyafactor.blogspot.com

Abundance!

2010-06-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

We celebrate our abundance: with over 100mm of rain in the past few weeks, our new dam is the fullest it’s ever been. At 16,000 litres, we have more fresh water than we’ve ever had since moving to Knysna (almost 3 years ago) and with 14 solar panels we also have more domestic electricity since leaving the buzzing city life behind. So we were able to watch all Bafana’s games (except the disgraceful one when our DSTV gratefully did not want to work) and we were able to shower afterwards!

This abundance did not come without the necessary animal sacrifice however: I found our hounds chewing on a headless animal which I at first thought was a lamb, but which we now believe to be a newborn/miscarried calf. The fact that it had no head has led us to assume that it had initially been caught by a leopard (or maybe used for muti?)…life in wildest Africa…

Father’s day saw Kevin taking the kids on canoe rides on the dam and we collected our latest farm volunteer, Rob (from the US) the following day. A belated and ongoing father’s day present: someone to wash dishes, deal with compost, dig trenches, cut trees, build Lego, etc. Every man needs a wife and a “wwoofer”!

I’ve been collecting refuse bags of shredded paper from the office which we plan to use for isolation in the walls of our (still to be constructed) “wwoofing” bedroom. One of my colleagues assumed that it was for a dog house - not knowing that WWOOF is: Willing Workers on Organic Farms!

On the garden front – we have had some devastation caused by the cows (aptly named Koeitjie no 1 and Koetjie no 2) who managed to break in through the collapsing fence. Not much remains of our vegetables (no tomatoes, no peppers, no spinach, etc.) and many of our flowering plants have also been chowed….luckily Rob jumped in and secured the area.

***
I also celebrate the completion of a new slip cover for our much-loved couch. This may not sound like much, but the cover was constructed from the office curtains which at first became dribbled in varnish by an incompetent painter – at which time I had a complete nervous breakdown and wept like a baby (it was shortly after my mother died). Then, the day after moving into our new house, a baboon got into the office and defecated all over the curtains (floors, walls, desks, etc.). We had no water (due to the drought), no bath (we only have a shower) and the laundromat wanted to charge us R600 to wash them – so they were shoved into the container for 6 months, until they were finally transformed.

Weekend on the Farm

2010-05-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

The weekend started on a particularly exciting note: a “Knit-a-Thon” at the kids’ school! What a delight to knit with a crowd of about 50 moms (and one dad) while the school kids entertained us with music and dancing – all in aid of a Rotary project to make blankets for the needy. A signal that the hand crafts of the past are making a comeback? I hope so…

We also welcomed the arrival of our first American “WWOOFER” on Friday: Erin is a 32 year old writer from San Francisco who has spent the last 14 months travelling through Africa while writing a selection of short stories – we eagerly await reading about ourselves in the Farm 119 chapter! So far she has been painting window frames, washing dishes (yeah!) and playing Snakes & Ladders with the kids. It promises to be another wonderful encounter with one of our world wide community of like-minded souls.

The weekend weather was wonderful (albeit rain-less) and felt more like early summer than early winter. We attended back-to-back children’s parties on Saturday and the kids found vuvuzela’s as part of their treasure hunt at the second party – needless to say the neighbour has become a pretty noisy place (but at least we now have something yellow for the soccer world cup!)

Saturday afternoon saw Kevin riding his bicycle around the neighbourhood in an effort to find a rugby-watching-party: apparently there were 2 exciting games taking place…but to no avail. (Quite a sad sight!) I believe we won the first game as there was the distant sound of jubilation from the nearby coloured township, but of the second game we have yet to learn the score. (I have since heard that we won both…) Not that Kevin’s that much of a rugby fan – maybe he was just trying to run away from the vuvuzela’s!

On Sunday we had a delightful tea party with family and discovered guavas on our trees! The kids even went out in the dark with torches to go and pick guavas for their dinner (and of course Mila had to be rescued from the tree when she got stuck). We can be sure that the luscious fruit will attract our friends the baboons…

Sunset

2010-05-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

Sunset at Farm 119...

Back Home

2010-05-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

It’s been more than three weeks since our return from Jo’burg and only now do I find the time to report back

amidst the hurly burly pace of life on the farm! The big city experience was wonderfully exciting, filled with friends & family reunions, shopping,

3D movies, Playstation, electricity and hot baths – everything we had hoped for and more (and we didn’t have to wash dishes for 10 full days).

I was rather impressed by the pace of development and multitude of new shopping centres mushrooming all over Gauteng, although the hours spent in traffic reminded me of the reasons for seeking greener pastures… the billboards & media screaming for attention, making it difficult to complete a thought!

Urban discussions revolved around politics, traffic, municipal inefficiencies and - of course - the soccer world cup. An interesting change from the crime stories of the past and very different from our usual neighbourly discussions about baboons, vegetables and rain (or lack thereof).

In the rush before leaving for Jo’burg, I gave Kevin one of our usual #3 haircuts, but forgot to replace the comb on the shaver before tackling my own head…with disastrous results! I ended up with a shaven avenue along my head which needed 2 more #1 cuts over a period of a week in order to return to a homogenous state. Needless to say, I was having the aforementioned urban discussions wearing a variety of hats. The children initially had a lot of sympathy for my plight, but later found it amusing to pull my hat off in mid-sentence, point and laugh…oh, what joy to be the source of a child’s laughter!

***

Coming back to the forest feels more like returning home every time.

This time we returned to (a) winter, (b) a new maid and (c) a strapping young German “wwoofer”, Finn.

(a) My most beloved Morso fireplace is coming into its own – we’re even using it to boil water and cook food! It truly has been one of the best investments we’ve made and promises to keep us cosy over the next few months.

(

(b) It’s been quite a sigh of relief to welcome our new angel of cleaning (Sophie) once a week. Although Kevin & the wwoofers have been a great help with the housework, it’s amazing to have the whole house clean at once! We have experienced fortunes of personal growth in the areas of co-operation, bribery, meditative dishwashing, acceptance and surrender during this period of domestic independence, and I now have the most sincere appreciation for Sophie’s skills!

(c) Finn spent his 2 weeks digging, installing water tanks, landscaping, washing dishes, building Lego with Luke and playing Monopoly with Mila. He celebrated his 21^st birthday with us but not before we “corrupted” him with the Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Knysna Gay Parade (where his blonde hair & blue eyes managed to get quite a few “looks”…). Lucky for him, we didn’t all go in drag again this year! Our local community of fringe dwellers all pulled together to throw him a 21^st birthday bash – I hadn’t been to one of those in years, and felt positively middle aged! I really appreciate the incredible sense of community out here in our epicentre of the new world.

On the home front I am still happily fixed in a D-I-Y dream (painting, mosaicing, decorating, gardening, planning never-ending projects). Kevin is finding the balance between solitude on the farm and frequent trips to the big cities and Mila and Luke are happily settled at school. They have recently discovered the internet and are currently in the throws of a Michael Jackson craze (much to their mother’s delight!). I am ashamed to admit that none of us own Bafana Bafana shirts and I can’t be sure whether Luke even knows the difference between soccer and rugby!

And on the garden front, we have a few peppers which are doing wonderfully and we’ve had our first crop of about 6 cherry tomatoes (after 2 years of trying). The butternut didn’t really go anywhere (the babies having been ravaged by all sorts of unseen beasts and insects) but the kids are getting much delight from the sweet Cape Honeysuckle. I’m also very excited about a new little landscaped garden outside the office – a welcome alternative to the sheets of cardboard which were spread all over the grass in a lazy eco-effort to kill off the grass and prepare the area for planting. The wildness of the farm is slowly making way for some semblance of civilised cultivation (whatever that might mean!).

I remember having a picnic on the farm last year for Mother’s Day and having to wash the dishes in a plastic tub with no hot water and no sanitation nearby. This year we have a cosy little home with hot running water and flushing toilet – a definite step in the right direction!

We have the French and Danish teams making their way to our little town in the next few weeks where they will be staying (and hopefully spending their Euros), so World Cup fever is certainly in the air….better get that DSTV hooked up and install a few more solar panels…

More images @

www.digitalfactor.co.za/farm119ma y

flowers, mothers and friends

2010-03-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

I spent the long weekend in bed with the flu which afforded me time to reflect on this past year: Sunday was one year ago that my beloved mother passed on. Needless to say, it has been a year of longing and adjustment as our relationship shifted from the earthly realm to a more ethereal one.

I picked her a bunch of flowers from the garden and placed it under her tree: velvety wild sage blooms, wispy gaura and cat’s tail which she loved so much; a burgundy rose which reminded me of how she spoilt me before my wedding by surrounding my bath with multiple tubs of flowers. I felt deeply privileged by the fact that she was able to preside over our wedding as she was a marriage officer (an interesting legal possibility due to her ordination into the priesthood of an esoteric church in the States). I also picked her some heaven scented rose geranium, and remembered how we indulged in deluxe pedicures at the Pezula Spa when she came to Knysna 2 years ago.

Plumbago, Bougainvillea and Bulbinella blooms reminded me of the joyful years we spent living together in Pretoria (oscillating between family home, single parenthood, later as neighbours and house-mates). Thyme for the endless meals she prepared for me. I wept with joy at the sight of Luke’s little blue Felicia flowers as I recounted the blessing of having her present for the magnificent births of my 2 children.

And finally a Moonflower for her exquisiteness and the fact that she was “met die maan gepla” (bothered by the moon). A fellow Cancerian, deeply sensitive with an endless supply of love and compassion – a most marvellous mother (and grandmother), fellow traveller, teacher, companion and friend.

I emerge from this year of mourning with a renewed appreciation for life. Our spiritual connection has left me with a deep sense of knowing that there is no death, and having her on the “other side” means I am able to live with much less fear. It was a joy and privilege to share 35 years with Trudy in the physical and great to still be one with her!

Other news, is that we had 2 more interesting Woofers who came and went:
Wanda – a 27 year old Polish wanderer who speaks Polish, English, French, German, Japanese and Russian: quite a wonder! She was also the first person I met who was able to decipher my Japanese tattoos (and thankfully confirmed that they do indeed mean “love” and “gratitude”).
And there was Camilla – a 20 year old fine art student from Cambridge.
The jolly girls spent their time painting, gardening, cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, playing Monopoly with Mila & generally adding their lovely energy to Farm 119!

We miss our sweet rabbits and have taken up playing cricket in the deserted rabbit cage (at least that way the dogs can’t steal the balls). The children received their rapports at school and both are doing wonderfully. The Montessori way seems to really be working for them. Yet another blessing to be grateful for!

Rain is still a scarce occurrence. Lightening to the soul, however, is a field of wild flowers along the road which have sprung up from the ashes of the recently devastating forest fires. Here are some pictures of our completed bathroom mosaic (a joint family effort) and our very small butternuts; the baboons got to the previous lot…

We will be preparing for our trip to Johannesburg soon – I feel a bit daunted by the prospect, yet excited at the thought of seeing loved ones and the possibility of watching the new Alice in Wonderland movie in 3D…

Balance and dead rabbits

2010-03-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

I’ve really been enjoying some of John DeMartini’s concepts recently, especially the premise that this Divine dance of duality means that there are always equal amounts of darkness & light in any given moment of our lives (if we look hard enough). And that the way to transcend the duality is through gratitude into the infinite field of Love that surrounds as all at all times…

So the elements of darkness in my life - mad baboons hanging around daily, seeming to be more desperate and lethal in their destruction since the fires burned their habitat, are balanced by the ultimate blessing of 2 wonderful, beautiful, healthy children (who also have their dark moments).
The intense natural beauty – juxtaposed by the drought, eerily burnt landscape, low water tanks.
Wonderfully loving, dishwashing, considerate, supportive husband – vs being far away from many of our loved ones.
The childrens’ magnificent school and the safe, quaint town of Knysna where everybody knows your name – vs the lack of shopping choices and the fact that everybody knows your name!
Having no dealings with Eskom but matching our available solar power to our ubiquitous need for electricity.
Etc.

Choosing this rural, off-the-grid life has had many positives but also has the same number of negatives – pretty much as it would be given any life we choose….
I find myself focusing on the negative, then find an equal positive and then redirect my thought to find the gratitude in the situation and feel the Love…it’s working for me.

The fact that I could walk home down a dirt road last night by the light of the moon beneath a star studded sky with my friends after our book club meeting is contrasted by the sad and tragic tale of our sweet little rabbits: Coco & Sarah, who we had for half a day. Our previous woofer Tommy, builder Chunky, myself and Kevin spent days building a fully enclosed rabbit cage (even hammering away in the rain). We finally fetched our bunnies from the Pezula Barnyard (posh rabbits, nogal!) and immersed ourselves in their utter sweetness for the afternoon only to find the chicken wire broken open by the dogs the next morning and the rabbits gone! We believed that the rabbits had gotten away and were living a short but joyful life in the forest, but made the grim discovery of a half-eaten bundle of black & white fur later in the afternoon.

The circle of life goes round and round.

***

“Van die os op die jas” as we say in Afrikaans (literally translated as “From the ox on the jacket”) meaning: and now for something completely different. Kevin has taken up Suduko to avert the loneliness and exercise his brain and we’re planning a family trip to Gauteng in April. The kids and I are very excited about the retail opportunities and the prospect of spending precious time with our loved ones of course.

Our friendly neighbour and fellow book club member recently reminded me of a phrase she found in “Eat, Pray, Love” which is very much applicable to us:

ANTEVASIN: A Sanskrit word meaning “one who lives at the border”. In ancient times this was a literal description. It indicated a person who had left the bustling centre of worldly life to go live at the edge of the forest where the spiritual masters dwelled. The antevasin was not one of the villagers anymore – not a householder with a conventional life. But neither was he a transcendent – not one of those sages who live deep in the unexplored woods, fully realised. The antevasin was an in-betweener. He was a border-dweller. He lived in sight of both worlds, but he looked toward the unknown. And he was a scholar.

Another Wwoofer arrives

2010-01-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

Our next WWOOFer has arrived – Tommy, a horticulturalist from Brighton, England. A very agreeable chap who is occupying himself with weeding, building compost heaps and making more baboon-proof wormeries. (WWOOF actually stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms – a way for young people to travel and work in exchange for food and accommodation). For us it’s a form of “free” labour, a way to meet interesting people, learn from others’ experience, have a sense of community and a means to get stuff done on the farm without the “slave/master”-energy connection…

Mila is happily settled in grade 1 and we are aiming to get her and Luke to sleep in their own beds this year. We have been following the “attachment parenting” route since birth (which has also involved them sleeping in our bed) but they are getting so big now, that we’re going to be focussing on a bit of “detachment” in 2010!

The baboons came back after their mass destruction and managed to get the remainder of the edible plants: peas, beans & squash, leaving only the herbs….The children’s joy and delight in eating peas and beans from the garden has given me such encouragement though, that we won’t be deterred by a few primates – Tommy will be planting lots more seeds next week…

Living the dream

2010-01-04T12:45:00.001-08:00

News from the forest is that things are quietening down after quite a social festive season. One of the benefits of living where we do is that we get to see many of our loved ones when they come down for holidays – we catch them when they’re relaxed and get to spend quality time together. We end up squeezing a lot of social gatherings into a short holiday season, so December was not really a time of rest for us. It was utterly wonderful to share our new space with our dear friends and family.

It was also great to be officially on leave (a perk you miss when you’re self-employed). It was initially challenging without the busy-ness of the daily routine, but I did manage to do some painting, planting and domestic DIY, imagining myself as the subject of one of those reality shows on the Home Channel!

Christmas day was a strange one – the first Christmas without my mom’s physical presence (she was spiritually also rather busy with seasonal stuff). Being married to a Jew and having no family around on the day, I thought I would let it pass me by. Mila (now 6) had also figured out the Santa Claus scam a few weeks before and so the usual Christmas traditions had started to disintegrate.

We were having a pajama day, carting trash around the farm with the trailer until Mila called us inside at around 3 pm. She had decided that we should also have a Christmas lunch like all our neighbours and had set the table with fancy serviettes etc. She made a throne for herself at the head of the table, was dressed as the queen and so we ended up having Panatone cake for Christmas lunch, served by her highness….unusual but strangely good.

On the morning of the 31st, Kevin and Mila were (rather ungracefully) attempting to cut down 2 smallish wattle trees using a combination of blunt hand saws and axes, when our woodcutter neighbour heroically appeared wielding his chainsaw. He zapped the little trees in a flash in an act of good neighbourliness. We had intended on reciprocating with a bottle of wine and R50, but he asked whether I have a hair cutter. His brother (who used to cut his hair) died 2 years ago and he had no means of having a hair/beard trim and so I ended up giving him a hair cut and sending him proudly into 2010. A bizarre end to a rather challenging year!

The baboons have been circling the house on a daily basis over the past month. Mushroom and Fettucini (the dogs) have been doing a good job at keeping them at bay, assisted by us banging pots, shouting and shooting at them with Luke’s “kettie” (which recently broke). We’re contemplating a paint ball gun, but these tactics only help when we’re at home. A few days ago, the dogs were outwitted by an intrusion on a morning when there was no-one on the farm. The trespassing primate/s broke the kitchen window, ripped down the gutter and attempted to get into the kitchen (also breaking the liquidiser and a sprouting bottle) and ended up destroying the wormeries and numerous plants including ALL the lettuce, spinach and tomatoes. They also ran off with an ice cream container filled with a nasty concoction of whiskey, HOT chilli sauce and fruit/vegetable cuttings we left for them…take that! Another plan in process is the hanging of lion poo in onion bags all along the fence. “Where does one get lion poo from?” you might be asking yourself. Well, the Cango Zoo in Oudtshoorn sells them in jam jars at R20 a pop! And if that fails, we’ll have to figure out how and where to electrify.

Another fun (albeit less dramatic) project we’re undertaking this year is the establishment of chicken and rabbit accommodation…

Mila is off to Grade 1 next week (still at the marvellous Montesorri school with Luke) and we trust that 2010 will be a good one, filled with rainwater showers heated by the power of the sun! Living the dream…

Settling in

2009-11-18T12:29:00.000-08:00

This past weekend marked our official homecoming as we celebrated with a house warming festival – a marathon weekend party with some guests staying over in tents and others crashing on couches and the even the office floor! It was a sheer delight to welcome all our new friends and neighbours to our Space of Love.

Although we missed the presence of now distant loved ones, it was amazing to have a congregation of our new community – we are truly blessed to have accumulated such beautiful relationships in 2 short years. And our fellow tree-hugging bohemian neighbours make us feel right at home!

The party ranged from dancing to the tunes of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, to monochord and singing bowl sound journeys, constant camp fires and golf on the lawn (where we actually aim at hitting the ball into the dam – things are all a bit different on Farm 119!). We even had sweet saxophone sounds drifting over the forest late Saturday night…

At times I just revelled in sitting back and watching our new life unfold with this party (hopefully the first of many), signalling the kick-off.

Next will be Luke’s birthday at the beginning of December, followed by the holiday rush and some potential woofers who want to stay for 2 months. We’ll grab Chunkie (our revered builder) before he runs off for the holiday to install some shower doors and the Morso fireplace (which has started to rust in the container where it’s been waiting for a house for past 18 months!). Then we’ll be ready for Season…

You’re welcome to visit!

What I did not mention in this portion is the additional of puppy no 2: a 5 month old Jack Russell/Daschund combo named Fettucini, adopted from the Animal Welfare. Mushroom & Fettucini are a very vibrant pair and delivered a half decomposed monkey/baboon to our front door a few days ago! We had originally thought the dogs (and children) smelled foul due to kakiebos (a bad smelling weed), only to discover a few hours later that they were covered in dead monkey! Needless to say, much washing ensued…

Our next wildlife adventure came in the form of a baby puffadder which was found in Kevin’s make-shift generator room. It lived in a bottle on the kitchen counter for a day and was released only once Kevin had had his way with it (photographically speaking). This is snake season….

Then yesterday we found a scorpion while gardening….I am slowly becoming more accustomed to the great outdoors and all God’s creatures!

On the gardening side, we have some peas which will be ready for harvest soon (planted by our woofers), as well as beans, lettuce, spinach and herbs. What percentage will constitute the baboons’ share is still to be discovered, but the dogs are helping to deter them somewhat (sometimes assisted by Luke bagging a pot with his toy hammer!).

Mila is performing in her ballet concert this weekend (so there has been much excitement, rehearsals etc.) and she insists on wearing her new school uniform to school (although she is only required to wear it next year when she moves up to Grade 1). Luke is having his 4th birthday party next week…they are both well and happy.

We’ve decided have piercing/tattoo Christmas presents this year: Mila is having her ears pierced & Kevin & I will get some tattoos - Luke will be the witness.

Season is almost upon us – lots of friends and loved ones will be sharing our beautiful space, star gazing on our container roof deck and helping chase baboons away.

Happy holidays!

Home!

2009-10-25T11:52:00.002-07:00

It is with much joy and gratitude that I report our final homecoming to Farm 119!

After 2 years of planning, hoping, praying and doubting, having our bond cancelled, experiencing the economic turmoil of the world (being off the beaten track did not shield us from that one) and my mom’s sudden passing…..we are now home. I am overcome with a deep sense of peace and well-being. We moved in last Wednesday after which we were welcomed by a resident baboon who found his way into Kevin’s office on Thursday morning, swung on the roof beams and crapped all over the curtains!

Nevertheless, it has been pure bliss waking up on our own land every morning. I’ve forgotten how great it is to have you own home – to wake up on a Sunday morning with an unlimited list of DIY possibilities to fill the day! Having built a new house using recycled windows & doors also means that we have the best of both worlds: plumbing that works but beautiful old items in need of loving restoration. It seems our belief in reincarnation stretches to buildings as well!

The floor (recycled wooden parquet) is absolutely gorgeous, the 3 basin kitchen sink with fancy taps is an utter delight and staring at the various views through the windows and doorways keep us entertained for hours. We are also making acquaintance with the intricacies of a solar geysers (we previously used gas) and realised after the first cloudy day that we definitely need the gas back-up!

We also collected our new family member on Saturday: Mushroom is an 18 month old cross between a Labrador and an Alsatian and was so named by the old lady who found her as a puppy in the forest when she went to look for mushrooms. She keeps the kids busy while we get on with our DIY endeavours. She is slowly getting used to the cows – the neighbours weren’t too impressed with her incessant barking in the early dawn hours of Sunday morning!

I had some damage to my plants – I wasn’t quite quick enough to secure them from the cows and lost half a fuchsia and some of my azalea plant to the curious bovines! But they are now safely stored in the new greenhouse which turned out to be a converted sukkah (a temporary structure which we erect to celebrate the Jewish festival of Sukkot).

There is still much to be done on Farm 119 – we’re expecting some more woofers and our revered builder will hopefully return soon from a well-deserved holiday. But the journey has finally begun….

We are truly blessed.... (and love our flushing toilet!)

Completing the house

2009-10-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

And so after almost 2 weeks, we bid a sad farewell to our wonderful woofers. They leave behind well dug and composted beds planted with previously pot-bound plants and a variety of vegetable seeds; piles of collected cow dung and compost heaps, painted and varnished decks and a rhino-boarded children’s room. It is actually quite unbelievable that these tasks (which loomed and weighed on my consciousness) could be swiftly completed by such fantastic new friends in exchange for tented accommodation and some food… if this is the alternative to capitalism, I’m all for it!
We shared a potjie around the fire on their final evening, accompanied by our builders and lovely neighbours. I listened to Thomas (our landlord/neighbour) and Goldie (the woofer) playing guitar under the stars and felt humbled and grateful for the Universal order of things. How things always seem to turn out perfectly in spite of our plans.
The house is nearing completion and is coming together quickly now with finishing, plumbing and electrics. I still can’t quite believe that after 2 years of planning/hoping/praying/obsessing we will finally be living on the land and a new chapter of our rural integration will begin.
I have rearranged my working hours so that I work 6 hours instead of 7.5 at 80% of my pay. With eliminating a lunch break, I now finish at 2 pm and gain 2.5 hours of daylight. This has opened up an entire chunk of the day to spend playing cars with Luke, sewing Barbie dresses with Mila and communing with my plants. Mila had her 6th birthday party recently – also a “goodbye” party for the house we’ve called home for the past 2 years. Organising a birthday party without the help of my mother was very daunting but ultimately empowering. Following in Papa Tony’s footsteps, Mila has become quite the equestrian, while Luke (in keeping more with my ancestral line) is rather obsessed with cars and swear words (which he calls “square” words!).
Kevin is gallivanting again – he did the Whale Trail hike, followed by Cape Town where he opened another exhibition at Exposure Gallery (at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock). Without him working and printing at the office we’ve had lots of power for watching DVDs and surfing You Tube – when the cat’s away…
As soon as he returns the packing will start in all earnest as we prepare for our homecoming.
More images: www.digitalfactor.co.za/farm119oct

2009-10-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

Much has been happening on the farm. I arrived yesterday to find a digger loader preparing a large hole for our septic tank, the final walls on the house raised and our new WOOFERS painting and preparing vegetable beds. I had never seen so much action on the farm at once – it was rather overwhelming but thoroughly exciting!
Our wonderful WOOFERS (Neta and Goldie) arrived a few days ago after spending some time at the Kula Dharma eco-community in the Eastern Cape. With all the woofing requests over the past months, I lost track of who’s who and so I was expecting some tough German girls, but they turned out to be a delightful Israeli couple from a Kibbutz near Haifa who can teach me a thing or two about farming! We provide them with food and “luxury” tent accommodation (and dry toilet) and in return they get onto all those jobs that I haven’t been able to. Kevin also has someone to share humus and Hebrew jokes with.
Kevin had a very successful exhibition in Johannesburg and is off to do the Whale Trail tomorrow after which it’s Cape Town and another exhibition, so he’ll be missing out on some of the action on the farm.
We’ve been spending a lot more time on the farm and it’s really starting to feel like home – the kids have also started painting their room and constantly want to know when we’re moving in. Our rent runs out at the end of October so we’ll be in our new little house before then! After 2 years of uncertainty, it’s quite unbelievable that things are finally coming together.
Kevin and I and the kids, Chunkie (the builder), his assistant Garth (and his dog) and our two woofers all sat around on the office floor last night feasting on some soup that Neta had made – there was a real sense of community. No doubt my mother had a hand in this most marvellous blessing…

Going home

2009-08-25T05:09:00.000-07:00

This new moon sees many changes afoot in the life of the forest dwellers…we finally gave notice to our landlord and we will be making our homeward journey before 31 October. Our carport-2-house conversion is going very well – it’s is extremely exciting to stand on the new floor and see the walls go up. Our clever builder, Chunky, managed to figure out a way to fit a kids’ room into the design, so we won’t all have to squeeze into one little bedroom after all! It will be a tight fit, but there’ll be less floor area to sweep and there’ll only be enough space for things to be in their place, so no space for mess (or so I hope!).

For more pictures: www.digitalfactor.co.za/farm119aug

And so we’ll leave behind the old farmhouse that has been our off-the-grid training ground. Over the past 2 years, this house has been witness to our many moments of joy and bliss as well as our deepest despair, loss and sadness. It certainly feels as if we have worked through a lot of karma in this place. As they say in my mother tongue: ”dit was lekker, maar nou’s dit klaar!” It is with much gratitude and great excitement that we move forward on the journey…We say goodbye to the old gas geyser, wall cracks and temperamental septic tank. I’m sure we’ll miss our spacious bedroom and daily interaction with horses (the cow on our farm is pregnant, by the way).
On the vegetable front: Luke and I had a wonderful Sunday lunch in the garden last week when Kevin & Mila were on a Jo’burg jol. We feasted on our garden produce of 3 types of lettuce, some rosemary and fennel. Then, a few days ago, we had visitors…the baboons (who supposedly don’t eat lettuce) ripped out and demolished every last one of our 6 beautiful plants! So we’ll have to start again…I’ll try spinach this time…I’ve heard they don’t like it…

2009-08-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

It’s been almost 2 years since we moved off the grid and by now the initial shock to our way of life has normalised. City luxuries like dishwashers, hairdryers and tumble dryers are items long forgotten and hardly missed. Creature comforts have been replaced by silence and wide open space.

As I reflect on the changes we have grown through, there are many valuable lessons which this rural life-style has afforded us. FLEXIBILITY immediately springs to mind.We tread the fine balance between sunshine (giving us electricity) and rain (providing our water), and so the weather plays an integral part in our rural reality. Hot baths are no longer planned or anticipated but greatly appreciated when the opportunity presents itself. And notions of “movie night” might be dashed by constant cloud cover. I’ve found that my perfectionism has been softened as we learn to digest situations with a healthy dose of humour and go with the flow of nature. While outdoor activities are always affected by the changeable weather, our building process has also taught us to be flexible. What was to be a house made from hemp, turned to a rammed earth and timber structure until the economic meltdown came along. Now it’s out with new and in with old shipping containers and recycled materials.

In my training as a management consultant I was taught to “release my agenda” when involved in high level business meetings, and this experience has been invaluable in swinging with the punches of nature.Learning to RE-USE precious resources has led to creative opportunities around all corners. Our used yoghurt containers become planters for seedlings and polystyrene packaging is reincarnated into Barbie furniture. Used water is never discarded before considering the thirsty plants or muddy boots that need cleaning.

Our daily lives are still as full and busy as when we were city dwellers – in fact, activities have only been added to our agenda. Like tapping the water tanks upon returning home from work to check the water levels, then pumping water to the header tank to ensure that our vintage geyser delivers hot water for a bath. Or checking the charge in the solar batteries with a hydrometer before watching DVDs on rainy days and mixing bio-enzymes and pouring it down the toilet once a month to ensure healthy bacterial life in the septic tank (very important!). And then there’s using the bath water to irrigate the garden - manually with a watering can. Not to mention regularly cleaning the gutters to ensure we catch the rainwater. So much for a “simpler way of life”!

With a full-time job in town, 2 small children, no domestic help (except for a well trained husband) and all the added tasks of living off the grid, learning to MANAGE MY TIME is a constant challenge. The best solution I have so far come up with is the “family forage plan”, whereby the family forages for their food in the garden instead of eating meals. This can eliminate or greatly reduce the time spent on shopping for food, cooking, eating and dealing with dirty dishes, while increasing the time we spend in the garden. Not to mention the cost savings and improvement to our health. This plan is underway (although we’re still completely dependent on the Pick ‘n Pay) and progress will be reported on…

Being so conscious of precious resources has of course taught us to have an incredible APPRECIATION for the simple things in life: sun rays, rain drops, a beautiful sunset and a well functioning septic tank. I often pause in deep gratitude to watch the children playing in the mud, ride their bikes down the dirt road or build intricate insect homes from discarded building materials. The old cliché of “the simple things in life” has never been more apt. Time spent with now distant loved ones also takes on great significance.

BALANCING our modern lives with a more natural one is a constant dance (which goes out of step from time to time). Taking our cues from Mother Nature always helps us reclaim our natural rhythms while our dependence on Her abundance continuously highlights the fine balance of nature and the fragility of the systems that sustain life on our planet. And if this awareness can rub off on the next generation, it was worth leaving the dishwasher behind!

Progress

2009-07-22T04:40:00.000-07:00

We have just re-emerged from a family flu hibernation period and I am happy to report that our friendly and trusty builder Chunky has returned to wave his magic hammer. We now have almost half a bathroom and a flushing indoor toilet is within sight!

Our renowned solar energy expert and self-sufficiency guru, Mr R has also installed an impressive looking machine which should enable us to charge the batteries with the generator and this will hopefully enable us to live and work on the farm – quite bizarre that our future home can hinge on this piece of engineering.

The plan is (currently) to finish the little bathroom and continue to enclose the double carport into our new living quarters. I’m still trying to get my head around 4 people in 50 square metres in what promises to be the ultimate exercise in contraction. Luckily we have 1.7 hectares of “outside” and summer’s on its way….

My mom’s ashes were buried in a lovely ceremony around the roots of our family tree (a “Liquid Amber” which is apparently from the US). Rather fitting as the US is where she did her hypnotherapy and Reiki training (this is also where she was ordained as a priest into the Order of Melchizedek, enabling her to register as a marriage officer and officiate at our wedding). Mila tried balloons to the branches which are covered with little buds which we eagerly await.

The day after the burial would have been her 60th birthday and our beloved Earth Mother blessed us with rain as soft, consistent and penetrating as a mother’s hug. So I was able to have a luxurious and relaxing hot bath as a birthday present on her behalf which we both enjoyed thoroughly.

All is fine at work, the kids are happy at school – Mila loves her horse riding and Luke recently discovered boxing (which he practices on all of us). We are looking into getting a dog/s and/or horse/s once we are on the farm, but in the meantime our hamster is happy being the sole family pet. Kevin’s work is also going well – he got a bit of city buzz on a recent trip to Johannesburg and might soon be off to the Seychelles for a week to photograph a fancy hotel…I am green with envy! But then I am a "greeny"...

Update after the silence...

2009-06-29T04:20:00.000-07:00

I turned 36 today. After the shock of my mother’s death in March and the demise of my childhood idol Michael Jackson this past week, it feels as if I’m turning 106! My birthday surprise this morning was running out of solar power (luckily the lights were on long enough for me to find my clothes in the dark), so we’ll be having some romantic candlelit evenings for the next few days while the sun charges the batteries.

We have been blessed with some decent rain in the last week (which somehow only managed to fill our rain tanks to ¼ full), and too many DVDs on cloudy days have drained the batteries…

Kevin has also been dealing with some electricity woes on the farm. Our solar installation was designed for domestic use (since we had originally planned to build a house) but then ended up moving the office to the farm. He’s been quite busy printing orders and preparing for an exhibition and so he’s had to run the generator almost every day. We’ve been considering moving to town – back to the comforts of “civilization” like Eskom and municipal water…but then he found a possible solution to the energy crisis: a gadget that enables the batteries to be charged by the generator in a short time.

In the meantime construction on a little bathroom starts today. This will herald in a new era of modern sanitation and Tom Pott’s dry toilet will become a mere tourist attraction. Now that’s a decent birthday present!

With a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of electricity and sanitation, we’ve been toying with the idea of converting the double car port into a living area and squeezing ourselves (and the 2 kids) into a cosy 40 sq.m. This means we’ll finally be living on the farm where we can have dogs and horses and the kids can run amok on 1.7 hectares of pristine beauty…farm vs. "civilization"...decisions, decisions.

It is a true exercise in trusting in the Universal flow and surrendering to the bigger Perfect Plan.

***

An interesting phenomenal has been the constant emails we receive from “woofers” wanting to come and volunteer their services on the farm. (“woofers” are “workers on organic farms” who work in exchange for accommodation and meals.) I listed our farm on the website months ago and there has been a constant stream of idealistic, energetic young people who believe in building a different future and are fascinated /inspired by the off-the-grid, self-sustaining lifestyle. Although no woofers have actually reported for duty (possibly put off by the lack of sanitation) it has been very encouraging.

***

There are a few reasons for the lack of email communication over the past few weeks:

(a) the daily routine of work, kids, meals, cleaning, laundry, washing mud off boots, caring for plants, chopping wood, carrying water (remember, we have no more domestic help)

(b) regularly shaving my hair - thankfully I’ve eliminated “washing hair” from the list with my lovely new #3 hairstyle

(c) having a series of emotional “wobbles” and breakdowns in the process of mourning my mother (I’ve finally succumbed to getting “happy pills” from the doctor – but now that Michael Jackson wiped himself out with all the medication, I’m very cautious)

(d) focusing my communications on learning to listen and connect to the other side. I’ve really felt my mom with me very strongly and am in almost constant communication with her. Although it is sometimes hard to know where my own projections end and true communications begin. Maybe someone has some experience to share?

(e) spending some wonderful quality time with our delightful neighbours and new friends

(f) having a fantastic weekend break with my beloved soul mate Kevin at a romantic spot in Nature’s Valley. (The kids spent the night with Luke’s loving teacher). I eventually gave in to Kevin’s suggestions of paddling down the river in a canoe and thoroughly enjoyed it (much to my surprise!)

(g) enjoying my kids and Kevin and being conscious of the immense gift of life we all share.

I’ve often tried to remember what we’re doing here (on the planet as well as on the farm!), but then I hear the call of the fish eagle or see the sun setting over the snow capped mountains in a pastel coloured sky and my soul rejoices. Nature constantly finds ways to sooth my soul and put things in perspective and for that I am very grateful.

2009-05-29T01:04:00.000-07:00

Here's an article for the upcoming edition of Share Earth magazine:

Follow Tanya Factor and her family’s off-the-grid journey as they learn about food security in baboon territory…

After a year and half of county living we have eventually settled onto our land – in the form of a solar-powered photographic and printing studio. Construction ended up being a timber and corrugated iron structure built around 2 converted shipping containers. A rather interesting looking building with a host of insulation, ventilation and water-proofing challenges which we are discovering as the seasons change.

The next phase will involve the construction of a bath house and somewhere warm and dry to sleep and then we’ll make the big move to actually living on the land.

Being avid gardeners and keen to grow our own food, we were not going to have our green fingers inhibited by the fact that we were not yet living on our farm. We initially set up a temporary greenhouse in an old shed, in which we lovingly planted trays of wheatgrass. We soon experienced the brute force and general rudeness of the resident baboons when they ripped the roof off the shed, destroyed the wheatgrass crop and defalcated in our newly erected water tank! Then they did it again. They meant serious business.

So we decided to bring the crop closer to home, but with no greenhouse our wheatgrass was quickly tackled by birds. I covered the trays with clear plastic which encouraged the healthy growth of fungus. Piercing holes big enough for sufficient airflow meant that the birds were back in the game. After much deliberation I spent an entire afternoon concocting a temporary greenhouse from recycled water bottles, flowerpots and polycarbonate sheeting only to have the trays attacked by rats! We have since decided to abandon the wheatgrass project temporarily and focus our attention elsewhere. Like the 100 tomato seedlings we ended up with just before winter after I sowed a packet of seeds at the wrong time of the year…

I managed to nurture 4 tomato plants through the frosty period in the indoor nursery/plant hospital I set up in my bedroom. I was utterly delighted when I spotted the first firm little green fruits of my care. The largest and healthiest tomato plant found a lovely sunny little spot in the garden of our rented farmhouse and on a warm day in early October we had some visitors…contrary to their previous brutish behaviour, the baboons gently plucked each small tomato off without any damage to the plant. Needless to say, I’m still buying all my tomatoes from the Pick and Pay.

We have learned that cows and horses can also not be trusted in the quest for food security. My initial herb and succulent garden was completely demolished by cows and the horses got most of my broccoli and cauliflower seedlings. Ironically, we ate more fresh produce from our garden in Sandton than we do from our farm yard!

In the spring we excavated a small swimming dam and fenced the area from the grazing cows. Finally, I could start planting on the farm. For a passionate gardener who had only ever read about “well-rotted cow manure” in gardening books, having a hectare of land littered with cow dung was liking striking gold. In my enthusiasm I completely overfed my poor young plants, burning their roots and sending them into a state of shock. The extreme drought we’ve experienced throughout the summer season also didn’t help.

But our food production soap opera is not all tragic. I am deeply heartened by the recovery of my Moringa trees. I ordered 5 small trees from a nearby town after reading about their nutritive properties. They arrived yellowing in a box after being neglected by the couriers, and then lost most of their leaves after which they were hit by frost. Despite looking completely dead, I nurtured them in my bedroom for a few months. My 5 year old daughter sang to them and my mom placed crystals and Reiki symbols around them…and with the advent of spring, they miraculously all returned to life. One of them was subsequently eaten by a horse, but the others are starting to supply us with their wonderfully delicious leaves.

However, sprouts have so far been the greatest success story on our path to food security and self-sufficiency. Ironically, we grow them all on the window sill in the kitchen! We have large helpings of alfalfa, broccoli, onion, radish and bean sprouts while we contemplate whether or not to erect an electric fence and dream of our geodesic growing dome…

***

One of the great discoveries of my life has been the Anastasia books, which I have been reading avidly for the last year. One of her many wonderful suggestions is the planting of a family tree.

This has now become a matter of priority as my mother passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago. Her ashes will be planted under the family tree on our new homestead where I trust our young family will find its roots.

Pesach pests

2009-04-20T04:49:00.000-07:00

In keeping with our Jewish roots, we had our own pests to deal with this Pesach: head lice (apparently quite a plague in town at the moment). This recurring infestation which has caused a great deal of anguish to the children (especially Mila with her mass of thick, curly hair). So when they phoned me again on Friday to tell me that the children are infected, I decided to take some drastic action…we all shaved our heads!

I look quite funky, Luke looks naughtier than he is & Mila is sporting a new boyish charm. I’m sure we’ll be able to make a statement at the upcoming Gay Pride Pink Loerie parade if we all go in drag!

And we’ve had 30 mm of rain in the 2 days since we became a family of skin heads…interesting things happen when you shave your head.

Kevin is in Jo'burg on business for a few days, but will certainly take a picture of us when he returns.

Trudy passes

2009-04-20T04:32:00.000-07:00

Our recent weekend trip to Cape Town was interrupted by the devastating news that my mother (Trudy) passed away peacefully in her sleep at the age of 59. Needless to say, this has been a shock of such gigantic proportions that I am still experiencing waves of disbelief two weeks later. It feels as though my previously volatile life has become completely unhinged.

We had to make a quick departure from Cape Town to Pretoria in order to settle her affairs, pack up and vacate the little cottage she was renting and organise a memorial service (all done in less than a week and wearing only the clothes we packed for the Cape Town weekend). Thankfully our friends and family rallied around and provided immeasurable amounts of love and support for which I am eternally grateful. We then flew back to Cape Town (to fetch our car) and then drove back home to Knysna after spending a few days in the mother city. Having visited 3 cities (Johannesburg, Cape Town & Pretoria) and returning home to Knysna and the farm, I can honestly say that no place feels like home anymore. This is quite an alarming realisation for a Cancerian – but I find that watering my plants keeps me sane and grounded.

I have had the occasional “inter-dimensional” communication with my mom, interspersed by times of extreme loneliness, turmoil and chaos – I suppose all normal parts of the grieving process. Kevin has been an absolute rock and my kids have given me a reason to get out of bed. I even had what I thought was either a nervous breakdown or a stroke: a 24 hour period during which I could not open my eyes or communicate except for nodding my head. I could hear everyone around me but was completely incapacitated – apparently an attempt of my soul to find equilibrium. I did feel rather rested after that.

After a week of adjusting on the farm, I am back at work. Taking it one step at a time. We are planning to build a basic structure on the farm so that we can get onto the land – we are aiming for end of June. Even if we decide to return to the city after that, we would have at least lived on our own land for a while. Our budget is down to the bone (at around R150,000) and we have finally decided on the dry toilet (using the basic but effective bucket system!). This means bucket changing duty for Kevin once a week or so…if anything will drive him back to the city, this may do the trick!

We await Trudy’s ashes which will be buried on the farm & a family tree planted in her honour. She will finally find a resting place with us and her grandchildren whom she adored so much. Her wisdom will hopefully be transferred to the tree in years to come and will provide something to hug once again.

Here's a picture of her with the kids on her last visit in December, followed by some recent ones us and the office complex on the farm.

Bright city lights...

2009-03-19T04:41:00.000-07:00

We are off to Cape Town for the weekend where we'll be visiting friends in Camp's Bay - the prospect of having unlimited electricity and hot water has me more excited than I'd like to admit! Living off the grid has really made me appreciate the simple things in life. Viva Eskom!

Camping forever?

2009-03-19T04:35:00.000-07:00

Breaking news is that our full-time maid-nanny-painter-cook-laundry-cleaning-angel, Bongani, has decided that it’s time for her to return to the bright lights of big city Jozi. This will provide me with ample opportunity to practice the art of patience, cleanliness, etc. as we take over all the domestic duties with 2 little people in the household. We are open to all good advice on how to get them involved without conflict/bribery/corruption…Maybe I can also make a more focused practice of my telepathic capabilities while I wash the dishes every day – I sadly admit that my new year’s resolution of intuitive communication has been severely neglected. And if you live in Johannesburg & need a fantastic live-in housekeeper/nanny, please let me know.

Having the office on the farm is becoming more bearable everyday. Or so I hear from Kevin, who has been enduring baking hot days in the steel container complex, ravished by flies amongst the incessant mooing of cows. He has been rather lonely since I’ve started working in town (in a comfortable air-conditioned accounting office). Luckily, he has upcoming trips planned to Cape Town & Jo’burg, so some city buzz will do him good. The office now has a north-facing covered porch and the temperature control has been improved substantially…the construction is still very much a work-in-progress.

We are still trying to figure out the easiest and cheapest way of getting ourselves onto the farm (as we are still living the rented farmhouse down the road). The current plan involves turning the maid’s room into a sleeping room for the entire family (we mostly sleep in the same bed anyway) & creating a shade-netted environment in the adjacent double carport which would serve as a living/dining area. The kitchen will fit very neatly into the original container (which is somewhat of a chameleon space – changing constantly in function and purpose).

Sanitation will be taken care of in a timber “bathhouse” containing – bath, basin, outside shower, & separate toilet (flush or dry is still an area of great discussion and difficult decision-making). I’m a bit overwhelmed by the plumbing & septic tank undertakings as we experienced the results of malfunctioning septic tanks too often in the recent past.

The kitchen, bathhouse and living quarters will be loose-standing structures, maybe connected via shade-netted greenhouse walkways…

Before we can get to that however, we have the rather fearsome task of sorting out the entrance gate and driveway. The digger loader dug a 1 m deep trench all along the fence in an effort to capture the run-off from the road to fill our new dam. But the ditch had to cut through the entrance and now runs much too close to the driveway…This caused the moving truck to drive into the gate which turned a previously badly hung gate into something pretty defunct. The driveway requires some form of gravel or covering to prevent getting stuck in the mud (which happened the last time we had little more than a light drizzle). Such an uninviting entrance must surely be bad Feng Sui.

We definitely had no idea whatsoever of what we were getting ourselves into when we bought the farm in such an “open canvas” state! So much of our budget has been spent on infrastructure which we never considered, that we will probably end up living in a camping-style reality for the foreseeable future. But with a functional kitchen, a luxurious bathhouse, a dry cosy place to sleep and a star-gazing deck, what more does one really need? Oh yes, the electric fence…

The act of contemplating our living arrangements from the ground up, has brought up many mirrors and realisations about how we construct our reality (especially when it comes to ablutions!). I aim to be constantly vigilant about my assumptions and keep an open mind…

Adjusting to the working world has been a lot more enjoyable than I anticipated with many unforeseen positives. The job has become somewhat of a stable element in this current free-fall we find our lives in. And I am guessing that we are not the only ones feeling as if someone forgot us in the washing machine on the “spin” cycle.

Solar power - the rude awakening...

2009-03-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a week or so since we've moved into our new office on the farm & already we've run out of electricity (and all the days have been sunny!). Kevin has quickly realised that his machines use quite a bit more electricity than anticipated & so he's been running the generator to download his emails.... until he ran out of petrol!

Otherwise all is well - we are contemplating how we will be able to move onto the farm without a house. It seems that wendy houses and shade netting structures may be the order of the day - a permanent camping-type of situation. We've even thought of buying the neighbour's caravan which is on offer for R500!

More news soon...

Boxes & karma...

2009-02-24T09:19:00.000-08:00

Just a quick "hello" from amongst the boxes. We are packing to vacate the old barn which has served as our office/home-away-from-home/source-of-Eskom/DSTV zone for the past 18 months. We'll be moving into our new container complex on our farm tomorrow, which means that we will finally land on "the property". (Maybe we'll stop referring to it as "the property" soon.)

The new building looks amazing! I've had some serious doubts about the containers & recycled materials, but it's come together in a very weird, but utterly enjoyable way! Chunky has really delivered and the building process has been beautiful & utterly enjoyable. Looking forward to a little roof wetting as soon as the deck has a roof - pictures to follow soon.

Kevin has been dealing with the entire move by himself, as I have been busy with my new job. He's having to repay some karma, since he packed very little on our exodus our of Johannesburg. In the meanwhile, I've been working on my employment karma. It's been quite an experience to get back into the working reality, but I'm starting to get into the vibe.

My next report will be from Farm 119!

(My cousin who visited recently referred to it as: "The opposite of 9-11!")

“Off-the-gridder” finds a job

2009-02-05T07:07:00.001-08:00

I’d like to clarify the concept of “off-the-grid” in order to give a clearer picture of our experience. There’s the off-the-grid reality of our esteemed neighbour Mr R (who is fast becoming our guru of self-sufficiency). His setup includes 40 water tanks with a storage capacity of 230,000 litres, 62 solar panels capable of operating a small factory, 4 wind turbines, large dams containing thousands of tilapia fish, fruit and nut orchards, worm farms producing litres of liquid fertilizer per day and more vegetables than his household (of 2) can consume. Not to mention the hundreds of quails, ducks and fowl which produce protein rich eggs and “waste” which in turn feed the fish. (Needless to say, his property is surrounded by a serious electric fence).

Our current living situation on the other hand:

12,500 litres of water storage for a household of 5 (the current level which is about 2%, equating to enough water for 3 days), 5 solar panels, one tomato plant (which got raided by baboons last week), 3 very small moringa trees and 2 avocado tree shoots (grown from pips). Although our sprout yield is almost enough to survive on and I harvested a handful of green beans yesterday, we clearly have a long way to go!

And don’t think we are immune from any of the economic fall out affecting the rest of the world’s population. The fine art photography market (which constituted at least half of our income) has taking a knock and our commercial clients are applying the expenditure brakes. In an effort to get onto the land, we are building (tiny and modest) and excavating a dam which in turn leads to an ever-increasing bond. But there is light at the end of the tunnel: I’ve finally found a full-time accounting job in town!

The thought of having a boss after 8 years of being self-employed is quite bizarre, but strangely comforting. I’ll have to ditch the hippie wardrobe, get up early and adopt the lifestyle of “fine upstanding citizen” (whatever that means!). My intention is to bend like a willow tree and embrace the change with gratitude and joy.

Are we survivalists?

2009-02-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

I’ve been coming across the term “survivalist” recently in my (limited) exposure to the media. The concept has intrigued me enough to investigate its meaning. According to Wikipedia, it is a term used for “the preparedness strategy and subculture of individuals or groups anticipating and making preparations for future possible disruptions in local, regional or worldwide social or political order”. Some of the most common scenarios being natural disasters, weather changes, economic collapse and/or worldwide depression and a general collapse of society, resulting from the unavailability of electricity, fuel, food, and water. Survivalists often prepare for this anticipated disruption by stockpiling food and water, preparing for self-defense and self-sufficiency, and/or building structures that will help them to survive.

We are in the midst of a severe drought with the world’s economy dangling by a thread and food security on everyone’s mind. We’ve moved to a small farm with the view to becoming self-sufficient and are already off-the-grid (in terms of water, electricity, sewage and services). I think we may well fit the description….

I feel reassured by this quote I read today:

“A great deal of what makes us unique is rooted in the variety of ways we choose to deviate from social and cultural norms.”

Wall raising

2009-01-29T01:11:00.000-08:00

Our office walls went up with much excitement on Sunday. Or so I am told, as I spent the day with the toilet, getting acquainted with the stomach bug that had invaded my intestines. I was extremely grateful for the fact that our toilet is currently in working order & that we have just about enough water in the tanks to flush with (though not quite enough to have a decent bath with). Luckily, Kevin was there in full swing, video camera in hand. Check it out:

The fact that so many of our friends and neighbours took up the invitation to “raise our walls” is a shining example of neighbourly love in such a mad world!
To all who came:
THANK YOU! I feel privileged and honoured to have our walls imbued with your loving energy & good intentions!

2009-01-21T06:50:00.000-08:00

I begin by reporting that we are being eaten alive.... by sand fleas! Poor Luke has been bitten worse of all. We almost cancelled his birthday party as we initially thought he had chickenpox (and in the time it took me to write this paragraph I’ve had to stop and catch 3 fleas in my bed!) We did the eco-aware citronella-spray thing for about 3 weeks (while more and more of our beloved friends and family also got munched) and finally succumbed to calling in the fumigators (horror upon horror!). Excuse me while I catch another one…

Anyway, the evening after the pest control guys were here, we managed to catch about 20 live ones. Now the owner of the company is coming to check it out…in the meantime I’m have a bottle of DYFLEA next to my bed! Oh my, how easily this “greeny” has succumbed…

Luckily all of this infestation only happened after the episode with the septic tank which left us without a flushing toilet from Christmas till new year! And of course we are still praying for rain.

Of course, our “season” was not all drought, insects and sanitation woes. We spent some beautiful quality time with a magnitude of wonderful friends and family. One of the greatest benefits of living in the Garden Route is that we get to see our loved ones while on holiday from their lives, which affords us the chance to relax as well.

I can proudly report that we now have solar power on Farm 119, thanks to our trusty neighbour and alternative energy specialist, Mr R (not his real name). He’s been developing his own fairly self-sufficient off-the-grid farm for the past 2 decades & has lots of interesting ideas on how to survive the “end of days”. He was amused by the fact that we buy bananas since one of the trees in his orchard (growing in a specially dug trench fed by his septic effluent) produced 700 bananas in one season.

Our container-office-complex is coming along nicely (on schedule for a Friday 13 Feb completion). I’ve spent days restoring the reclaimed Oregon front door of the office. The floors are in and the timber frame panels of the outer walls have been built and clad - I look forward to experiencing the space once the walls are up. We’ve invited some of our strong friends to a “wall-raising” party on Sunday at which time the walls will be raised and attached to one another. (A kind of Amish alternative to cheap labour!)

I don’t really go for new year’s resolutions, but this year I thought it would be great to start mastering the fine are of telepathy. I remember hearing years ago that this is the next evolutionary step for human kind and it’s a lot more convenient than email. With no knowledge of the subject, I’m hoping to find the ability stored somewhere in a dormant DNA strand. If you have any advice or experience to share, please send it along (in whichever way you wish).

This aerial view of our farm was taken by Kevin while dangling from a microlight....his guardian angels were active in full force as the engine seized while in midair. Luckily they were close to the landing site & were able to glide down to a smooth landing.

I’ll sign off with this quote from the DailyOM which resonated with me today:

“Personal growth always results when you let yourself expand beyond the farthest borders of what your life has been so far.”

Refrigeration

2008-12-21T08:01:00.000-08:00

After a chickenpox false alarm, Luke's birthday ended up being a very enjoyable day. Rain finally came last night (almost 20mm), so we can happily flush the toilet and wash the beach sand out of our hair.

The gas fridge stopped working a few days ago, so we hooked it up to the solar electricity, which worked for a few hours before wiping out the electricity in our batteries. This means that we are now praying for sunlight to charge our batteries - we need 3 full days before we can use lights again...

Catering for all our Christmas visitor without refrigeration promises to be an interesting adventure. We are eating mostly sprouts from the window sill & storing our cheese at the office. I attempted to feed myself lunch from the garden but could only produce a few sprigs of celery, some basil leaves and a couple of nasturtium flowers!

I am happy to report that my worms are doing very well however, and Mila's horseriding teacher is teaching us all we need to know about keeping chickens...

Water worries

2008-12-13T01:02:00.000-08:00

3 years ago we were waiting for Luke to be born (he was expected on the 10^th & arrived joyously on the 15th). This time around we are waiting for rain.

While filling the sink to wash the dishes late Friday afternoon, the tap sputtered and let out some rather bottom-of-the-barrel looking water… and a few disappointing taps on the tanks later confirmed the bad news…no water…no toilet…Luke’s birthday party 2 days away…& no rain sight…

Well what to do but pray? And call in your friends to help pray for rain.

Early this morning (Saturday) I woke to the sounds of a diesel engine rumbling on the driveway. My dapper knight in shining armour/husband managed to source a forestry local who was filling our tanks at a very gratifying rate. I am delighted at the prospect of being able to have a nice warm bath before Luke’s birthday, give him a wash and cook the pots of macaroni I had planned!

And our secret-agent water purveyor informed me that a cold front is on its way on Monday, so Luke’s birthday might bring a big present for all of us.

Please keep praying, it seems to be working…

Evicted!

2008-12-04T03:01:00.000-08:00

Latest news from the bush is that the landlords we rent our office from will not be renewing our lease agreement at the end of February - quite a spanner in the works.
We had planned on building a house first & keeping the office where it is: in a converted barn down the road which has electricity (useful for operating our 4 computers, large format printer and DSTV where Bongani (the nanny) watches 4 hours of soapies a day!).
The builders go on holiday soon & will only return mid-January which means that we will probably be converting a few more containers - instant office in a box!

I'm learning to enjoy life's unexpected twists & turns...

Religious zeal...

2008-12-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

I usually steer clear of religious fanatics - I’ve always been deeply suspicious (and secretly envious) of their optimism and bright sparkly eyes. And now I am publicly admitting that I am one!

I have found Anastasia.

Here is a quick summary (from the www.ringingcedars.co.za website):

The Ringing Cedars Series contains some of the most important revelations to appear in thousands of years of human history - so significant, they are changing the course of our destiny and rocking scientific and religious circles to the core.

Anastasia is a beautiful young woman, who was discovered by the author in 1995, living alone, deep in the wild forests of Siberia.

She is considered to be a surviving remnant of an ancient Vedic civilisation whose extraordinary powers and knowledge far exceed anything known today.

Anastasia will lift you up and hurl you into a future that is… well… everything you imagined life could and should be!

Anastasia will have you dancing with delight and squealing with excitement as you re-discover you - in all your glory!

Anastasia's messages will simply blow your mind! Her soft-spoken words go straight to your heart - like nothing you have ever read!

And the more you read them - the better you'll feel!

Anastasia will restore your hope for this planet and re-ignite your passion for life. After reading this book - nothing will be quite the same.

Container conversion PART 1 & toilet face lift

2008-11-29T09:11:00.000-08:00

Today saw much excitement on the farm, with multiple teams of builders, a noisy generator and gardeners getting ready for the arrival of our first December guests. I spent the day painting & renovating the out-house (“kakhuis” in my native tongue). This is a small structure erected by the previous owner housing a bucket and a plank with a hole in it, collectively comprising the toilet facilities. We lovingly refer to it as: Tom Pott’s Composting Spot.

It has taken me many years and much internal growth to accept the current state of ablutions (although I must admit that I have not yet taken a dump in the bucket!). Our system does seem a lot more palatable than the chemical toilets at Oppikoppi - by adding some saw dust and ash to the deposits, there is no smell (almost!).

Our container arrived yesterday and the internal cladding started today. The work is being done by our very own Mike Holmes look-alike: a delightful chap named Chunky who leads a nomadic sort of existence, sleeping in his van as he goes from job to job…

The concept of actually living in a container is also requiring me to break down quite a few social conditionings and constructs of the mind….I already feel a greater sense of freedom as the weight of these is lifted!

Watch our latest video:

Building begins!

2008-11-27T15:30:00.000-08:00

I’m happy to report that we finally have a structure that is being erected on our little piece of paradise….a carport/shed/maid’s room combo which will house our solar panels & batteries (and Kevin’s brother and 2 friends who are arriving on Sunday). We do not yet have any plumbing, so they will be discovering the merits of the “sh*t-in–a-bucket” system…

We discovered a few days before the construction started that we would have to transgress the 30 m building line rule in which case we urgently needed to seek approval from the neighbours. There had been some building approval horror stories circulating the neighbourhood which caused me to have a few sleepless nights, but thankfully no-one had any objection and we met some fine fellows, like Wessie Westraadt: our friendly neighbour who is pursuing a career in the correctional services.

After much deliberation and a steep learning curve, we have decided to go for 8 x 80w solar panels, 12 x 2V deep cycle 730W batteries, a 3kva inverter & regulator…thankfully we made friends with a neighbour who has vast experience with alternative energy (he has 58 solar panels, 3 wind turbines and an impressive array of batteries). My brain feels a bit cooked, trying to grasp the difference between volts, amps, standby wattage and such things, which he has tried patiently to explain.

Here are some images taken when we were marking out the house with the architect:

Our container should be arriving tomorrow…

The Sign Lady

2008-11-20T11:38:00.000-08:00

With the slow progress of the building process over the past few months, my creative juices have started boiling over with rather odd results. With an abundance of old, rusted corrugated iron sheeting to dispose of and a constant stream of inspiring thoughts and awakenings, I started painting signs & putting them up all around the property.

Now, I've become the strange "sign lady" of Bibby's Hoek...

"Place of Joy"

"There is nothing to fix, but much to love"

"Let nature run the show"

"Love"

A "recycled" eco-house?

2008-11-19T06:17:00.000-08:00

Since playing with Lego at the aged of 4, all I ever wanted to do was build my own house. (This even led to me endeavouring to become an architect before my career took a mysterious turn towards accounting.) Having sold our family home & moving to a slice of paradise with a derelict old house, I have the exhilarating (and sometimes scary) opportunity of living my dream.
Severe budget constraints & an ever-increasing eco-awareness are resulting in quite an interesting architectural experience.
The first unusual development occurred when we were notified of the cancellation of our finance (FNB & ABSA both revoked all unused flexi-bonds when the global financial crisis hit.) Where we had previously planned on using elegant eco-architecture & alternative technologies, our options radically shifted to tyres, containers & recycled goods!
Hence, my latest project: converting an old shipping container into a playroom/guestroom. Insulation promises to be quite a challenge, since metal boxes are not designed for comfortable habitation! We'll be installing a set of recycled French doors & windows for ventilation & are planning 3 layers of insulation between the metal and the internal cladding as well as a living roof (i.e. a lawn on the top). Which of course brings us to challenge no. 2: waterproofing.
We plan to solve this one by rubberizing the top of the container, using plastic sheeting & creating drainage.
I found an old public swimming pool ladder for getting to the top & I can't wait to appreciate the stars in their full glory from the top of the container...
***
After 2 months of re-application procedures, we've regained our finance and our eco-house is back on track. Schedule has been abandoned, I have a renewed passion for reclaiming recycled materials & a very interesting guest wing in the making!
(photo's to follow soon)

Ode to a tumble drier

2008-11-19T05:59:00.000-08:00

Today I have really missed my tumble drier! We've had rainy weather for 4 days, during which our solar panels didn't charge; basically we only have whatever electricity is stored in the batteries. It becomes a "who-wins-out" game between the weather & the power...
So, of course, there's no TV for the kids, no sewing for me & the stuff you would normally amuse yourself with in rainy weather become limited. The sweet irony of solar power: it's there when you don't need it & when you need it, it's not there! Hence my deep admiration and appreciation for the humble battery.
On the up-side we have water & gas to heat it up with. The baths can be long and deep...if only we had the tumble drier to dry & heat up the towels! (The watt usage of a tumble drier is so high that we will never have one running off solar power.)
Fortunately we are not dependent on solar water heating, yet!
But the kids are ecstatic at the prospect of pancakes...

First year in a nutshell

2008-11-12T05:52:00.000-08:00

It’s been a year since we traded our suburban Sandton life to a more rural off-the-grid one on the edge of the Knysna forest – and what a journey it has been!

We had been contemplating leaving the hectic city rush for a more rural type of existence for years (as I’m sure many other suburbanites do). After 4 years of browsing the countryside, we found a small piece of paradise: 1.7 hectares bordering an indigenous forest in the Western Cape (South Africa), situated at the end of a dirt road where a spectacular hike into a gorge begins.

With nothing but a very dilapidated old structure, no electricity or municipal services, this promised to be the perfect canvas to create an off-the-grid eco-house and live a more sustainable life…

We managed to rent a small, solar-powered, old farmhouse down the road, which meant that we had to bid a sad farewell to many of life’s “necessities”: toaster, heater, hairdryer, iron, microwave, satellite TV. Being dependent on rainwater tanks also meant that the dishwasher & washing machine had to stay behind. By learning and exploring a new way of life, we’ve learnt that there is immense expansion in contraction and that we don’t need nearly as much as we think we do.

Country living has been quite an adjustment and we got so much more than what we bargained for! John Seymour’s Ultimate Guide to Self-Sufficiency (which has been adopted as our new bible) did not prepare us for the baboons, for example. Getting to know them has been truly insightful. They have ripped the roof of our tool shed and destroyed our wheatgrass crop twice, which has led us to investigate all sort of options of protecting our vegetable garden. We’re currently planning to build a geodesic growing dome (and we’ll probably have to erect an electric fence as well).

The floods came and changed our septic tank into a septic terror…even our house guests had to get involved in the digging! I have made close contact with dry and composting toilets and an area of interest has opened up where I previously didn’t give the flushing the toilet much thought. We intend using a biogas digester in our new home which will take care of the “waste” as well as providing us with gas for cooking & refrigeration (the downside being that the methane gas produced apparently smells like a fart!). A matter which warrants further exploration…

We’ve almost run out of water & been without electricity a few times (but not nearly as much as we would have been if we stayed in Sandton!). The awareness of conserving water has probably been our biggest eye-opener. Water truly is the source of life and something that should be regarded with reverence and gratitude. Having such a close connection between rain & bathwater; sunlight and using the power drill, has definitely increased our awareness of the interconnectedness of all things.

Rubbish management has also taken on higher importance. We have bins for horses, compost, worms, recycling, re-using and removal. The science of worms has truly taken my fancy & we currently have 2 wormeries under experimentation. I have even managed to convince my father to keep worms!

It has taken me about 6 months to recover from what some call “urban shock syndrome”. The silence out here in the country is overwhelming – you can hear yourself think! There is no electricity or traffic to cause a constant hum and no media polluting our minds by trying to tell us what to think/be/buy. Without the distractions of city life one’s inner landscape takes on a life all of its own.
Living this close to nature has brought a profound sense of peace, joy and freedom (and feeling completely insignificant – which keeps us in our place!)

We begin construction on our little “eco”-house soon & the blessed journey continues…

2008-11-12T04:57:00.000-08:00

"Contraction is expansion"