Doornboom in Heidelberg |
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The progression of Doornboom in Heidelberg from what we saw on the site inspection to some repair to pics taken on Sunday with this beautiful rose garden. (I planted two of those roses last year on Heritage Day). Doornboom is the oldest house in the western Cape built in 1728. It predates all the Swellendam houses. It was built by Louis Fourie who later loaned money to the family who built the complex which is now the Drostdy Museum in Swellendam. |
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Dan's 99th Birthday
Dan with his two sons, Louis and Brian I recently attended the 99th birthday party of my uncle Dan Hogan. We were saying that anyone reaching 99 is memorable, so Dan Bless you and I salute you and your fine memory - He greeted me with "and you have come all the way from the Cape" Good on you Dan the example you set for all of us |
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Meanwhile, over in the USA
"Hello Jill: In September, 2005 I was visiting my family in Winterton, KwaZulu/Natal when I happened to read an article about you in the Country Living Magazine January, 2005 edition. The article was about you building a cob house in McGregor. I immediately knew that I had to build a natural house with my hands too. I was also about to turn 60 which seemed like a good age to build my first house. I returned to Cleveland, Ohio to tell my husband of my desire to build a house and he "about had a fit". Luckily we found Marcia Wolf another woman who had built a strawbale house. Gus was reassured, we found a team of strawbale builders, architects, designers etc. and now we are living in the most beautiful house, thanks to you. I actually did about $150,000 worth of work myself, and we had volunteers from all over the country helping with the walls. The most active and loyal volunteers were a number of women over 65. A TV crew were here today interviewing me and the architect. We have had a lot of publicity because this is the first strawbale house in this city. If you google "strawbale" and Kious you will see some of the articles about us and the house. For some reason I had not discovered your website until tonight and I love it. I would like to receive your information and will mail payment to you. We will definitely visit McGregor next time we are in South Africa. My family and I feel passionate about living with a low carbon footprint and trust that our house will offer an example to others to use more green features in homes. We never know what impact we have, so I want you to know that you directly influenced a South African, living in the US, to build a strawbale house. Thanks for your example. Warmly |
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September 2008 Workshop |
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The youngest plasterer ever.Young Daniel at our January workshop getting into becoming the champion plasterer with his handlanger Grandfather whom he calls Pops. Great stuff Daniel, you are certainly heading in the right direction. |
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The story of Hannah's House.McGregor has the highest percentage of heritage houses of any town in South Africa. However, many of them are in serious need of repair and so for our convergence last year, along with McGregor Heritage Society, we decided to put out a competition where people could enter their house to be have the outside walls repaired using cob and lime render.
This was to serve a number of purposes;-
Hannah Jansen won the draw and on the 12th of December we started the restoration with a very excited Hannah working with us. Unfortunately none of the participants arrived apart from one who could only make it on the Friday.
And this is where the magic began to happen. Christine Lawley kept a photographic Journal for us. I have a wonderful CD sitting on my desk. I could not financial support the project so I appealed over the internet for help.
Betty Mitchell-Innes came forward and offered to pay for the materials for the roofing on the back section of the house. Bruce Milne a local retired architect arrived with his plasterers and said we could do a three-way swop. Vos Cronje, a friend of mine from Kraaifontein, who has an irrigation company, contacted me and said it was about time they had another team building exercise and they would come and put the roof up. We are organising this for some time in February. My grateful and sincere thanks to these wonderful people for their inpu, and a thanks to my wonderful team who are always there and so great and supportive. Hannah is amazingly gracious and her words always are "That is just how it is". She has been an inspiration with her absolute joy in seeing her house become more and more beautiful and has carried us with singing and laughter. Bless you Hannah. But those who attended the convergence will know Hannah as she and her friend Katie came up the drive the first morning of the convergence and when I said "and what are you two doing here" the reply was "You are helping us so we have come to help you" and these two dear souls kept the urn going with hot water, the tea and coffee flowing, washed the cups and protected our biscuits. We have two more very dear Friends of MAT. We will keep you updated on the progress of Hannah's House. |
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We put out the notices of the competition and
a number of people entered. The draw took place on the 1st of December.
He wanted his men to learn how to do lime render, we needed plasterers, and Hannah would get the walls of her house finished. The walls are plastered.