Making it on their own
Pieter and Sally Louwrens
live on Kleinplasie, a stone’s throw from Vanwyksdorp, the way our ancestors did: they cultivate 99,9% of their food, don’t bother with Eskom and the municipality, and only shop if they need candles, matches, sugar or coffee.
For a man who spends his days doing tough manual labour in the Karoo sun (wearing a hat, at least), Pieter Louwrens doesn’t look like someone who’ll be celebrating his 70th in 2017. His skin is almost wrinkle-free, his eyes shine like those of a young man, and he walks fast and purposefully as if he has a plan. Or rather, plans.
Until 1992, Pieter was a forester at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), but after the decision was made to close the Saasveld Forest Research Station near George he did not want move to the Eastern Transvaal.
He resigned and then spent a year unsuccessfully seeking work in forestry and agriculture. At that time, friends of his came to retire in Vanwyksdorp and, after a visit to the area, his mind started churning with the many possibilities for fruit and vegetable production.
Pieter bought Kleinplasie in 1993 – at the time it was affordable. He liked the peaceful, unpolluted, relatively crimefree environment; the climate and soil was suitable for growing a wide variety of food crops; irrigation water from The Eye was affordable; it wasn’t too far from major centres and essential services; plus he already had friends in town.
He had to start from scratch and learn to make his own way with very limited funds – live as simply and inexpensively as possible, and all that on a derelict farm where nobody had lived or farmed for a quarter of a century.
In July 2004, he met Sally, a widow from Milnerton in the Cape, through a correspondence club. They were married in February 2005 and she moved to the farm.
“I grew up on a farm in Jonkershoek,” says Sally, “and Pieter caught my eye because he was the only man who said he likes organic farming, construction, physical work and music.”
Everything you see around you is literally their handiwork: they expanded the original dilapidated cottage dramatically with their own hands and without any extra labour, and Sally, who is very artistic and offers art-therapy classes for the children in town, did all the beautiful stonework as well as the plastering.
The Louwrenses got along with candles and lamps, without a fridge, TV or washing machine for a long time, but now they have several solar panels, a wind generator, inverters, batteries and a generator (to recharge the batteries when necessary but also strong enough to power welding work) that meet all their energy needs.
Except for the organic meat (preferably venison) they buy, exchange or are given for Pieter (Sally is a vegetarian), and wheat they get from friends that they mill themselves, they cultivate every last thing they eat on Kleinplasie’s 0,6ha of arable land. Strawberries, potatoes, almonds, apricots, apples, avocados, beets, eucalyptus (food for
‘When there’s more than they can eat, the excess is dried or preserved, given away, or bartered.’