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).
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.
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.
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