A Week in the Trenches

Sunday 12^th September 2010

No water conservation and biogas course next week-end, sadly – cancelled due to lack of interest.

Jeffrey continued his Herculean efforts on Monday – after a little warm-up exercise to dig four shallow holes for the poles for the solar water heater tower. I was inside, assembling a grown-up’s Meccano set of couplings and short pieces of copper pipe into a shower mixer. Suddenly, I heard “Meneer!!!” in an emphatic tone which had me leaping outside in a flash. I found a wide-eyed Jeffrey on hands and knees over the last hole, near the start of the sewage trench. Boggle-eyed, with a look of doom on his face, he held up a bone, with what looked like flesh and skin still stuck to it.

“Where is that graveyard on your plot that people talk about?” he asked as he stood up slowly and walked warily away from the hole into the clearing, holding the bone out like either a weapon or a talisman. He was clearly still unsettled, even after hearing that the old family graveyard was right at the bottom of Boggy Farm, near the gate. I must admit I was a little shaken for a moment too, because the bone looked like a shoulder blade…. Upon closer inspection I saw that the skin was in fact cowhide and hair. We concluded that it was the shoulder-blade of a young cow, and Jeffrey tossed the bone down, clearly relieved. I offered him my gloves, but he burrowed away bare-handed and brought up several kilos of bone, reminiscing all the while. Apparently the “Klong” (Young Man) that used to look after the cattle for the previous owner was rumoured to have slaughtered a beast without his employer’s sanction. Jeffrey concluded that we had found the evidence.

I returned to my Meccano set, finally assembling the hot and cold taps in what I call “The Brigitte Bardot arrangement” in homage to that starlet of yesteryear’s generous East-West cleavage. It gives a few more centimetres of space in the shower and will allow a soap-tidy to hang out of the way between the taps.

I gave Jeffrey the day off on Tuesday, partly to let the old man rest and partly because I was worried about finances. I could almost buy a bakkie with what I’m owed, but “A Certain Local Film” still hasn’t paid – in spite of claims to the contrary – and the Soapie has been slow to supply the necessary Invoicing details. Grrrrr!!!

On Tuesday Jeffrey also had to take another step in his long and very stupid bureaucratic saga with Home Affairs on to have his ID Book replaced so that he can claim his pension – five years late!. The present Public Service strike has had largely no effect in smaller towns, as Stephen discovered. He says that supervisors have emerged from their offices to provide fast, efficient service, processing his passport renewal application in seven minutes! How long it will take to get the passport is another matter.

I was quite “down” on Tuesday and got a latish start after feeding the dog, since Steve and Sandy were both away for the week. I’d also had a late night, trying to forget my worries by finally watching a complimentary DVD of “Casino Royale” on my laptop. Fed up with grovelling around the floor and balancing our lunch on pool-chemical and dog-food containers, I erected a desk and a kitchen shelf from Chris’ cast-off shop-fittings. Also managed to make a bracket to carry the shower-head as high as possible against the low roof..

On Wednesday Jeffrey greeted “his” hole as usual: “More Gat! Vandag wen ek jou weer!” He climbed in and first gently evicted the family of small frogs that persist in either living in the hole or getting trapped in it, before digging out more of the stubborn yellow clay which we discovered lay beneath the “Koffieklip” conglomerate.

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I have great respect for this old soak. While apparently not a regular passenger on the water-wagon, according to Steve he’s steadily drinking less and less, which he achieves by taking only a part of his daily wage, the rest being saved for Friday evening, so that he has money for the Saturday trip to town. I make a point of breaking for lunch with him though, because judging by his voracious appetite, Haute Cuisine is not high on his agenda. Lunch time is also an opportunity to listen to Jeffrey’s stories about people in the area or his own rather colourful earlier life.

I had prepared myself mentally to re-design the digester, because ideally I need a deep trench downhill to the collection tank. If the ground was as difficult as that in which he was now digging, a long deep trench would be impractical. By this time the hole was so deep that I could not see the old man when he was digging. Getting in and out of the hole was difficult, and he asked if he could dig a step in one side, which I had recommended on day one, anyway. I suggested that he dig the step where I would want the drainage trench, which would also give us an idea of how deep the trench could reasonably be in this ground.

I mulled over the technicalities of cramming everything into this hole and adding an effluent pump while I mixed a large batch of pollyfilla with which to fill the joints in the shower floor, the bed area panelling and the “kitchen” area. When the jobs were done I realised that for the first time ever the amount of pollyfilla mixed apparently exactly matched the size of the job! Usually one gets on a merry-go-round of “just not enough – mix some more – too much – find another pollyfilla job – too little – mix some more – too much…. etc.”

Waiting for pollyfilla to dry is only slightly less tedious than watching paint dry – the blotchy patterns are more interesting – so I tackled the solar tower, propping the heavy poles up with cross-braces of raw timber. Manhandling a heavy pole while juggling a long whippy pole, a bag of nails, a spirit level and a hammer takes some doing, especially as the wind started gusting unpredictably. Managed it with remarkably few Jacques Tati moments and only one house of cards moment though.

At knock-off time, Jeffrey insisted on hiding his implements of excavation about the site so that he could start early on Thursday. He resents losing the time taken to meet me at Steve’s – eight o’ clock is “afternoon” to him.

By the time I arrived on Thursday Jeffrey had already dug most of the piddly little greywater trench. Stage one of this project will rely on one or two thirty-litre plastic dog-food containers as settling tanks. Stage two will be a series of ponds in which I’ll grow suitable indigenous reed-grasses. I may be able to put our recently-mined clay to good use by lining the ponds with that rather than plastic or cement.

Jeffrey also made an encouraging discovery on the Suez Canal project. The “Koffieklip” appeared to shelve off quite steeply very close to the hole, so he used his initiative and continued his step as the trench I’d originally planned, finding an increasing depth of soft sand!

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Jeffrey was ever so impressed with my “slim manier” of bracing the poles, but suggested we get them cemented in before the wind came up. Steve has a torn bag of cement which has to be used, so that saved me the trip to Town – and slightly delays the need to pay for it. Since Jeffrey has worked for years as a plasterer’s and brickie’s navvy, I decided to adopt Errol Flynn’s “Carry On, Bossboy” approach and leave him to it after we had fetched the cement and stone from Steve’s.

I didn’t fancy breaking Caster Semenya’s record in the event of any more inverted Vicroria Falls incidents when I tackle the hot water plumbing, so I wrestled a stop-cock into the water main on the opposite side of the cabin and made a hidden sump for it.

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After lunch – and more stories from Jeffrey’s varied and often hair-raising past – I set about asphyxiating myself in a cloud of pollyfilla dust from sanding the shower floor, bed and kitchen areas – then sweeping out the dust and the mud from the morning’s cementing operation. (At the moment I don’t intend funding some passer-by’s Friday night jollity by displaying an expensive brass tap outside.). I also managed to install more bracing and a support for the plastic-bowl sink.

I didn’t want to entrust the support of the rather expensive solar unit to the brittle old poles I’d got from Chris, so I spent some time working out the various lengths of new timber I would need. The plan was to fetch them in the car, but I risked attracting the attention of every Traffic Cop in town by smacking one of them in the chops with a six-metre length of rafter plank, so I was hoping that Wimpie’s would cut them to length for me.

Sandy had returned late on Thursday, so on Friday I borrowed her vacuum-cleaner to clean the shower floor properly for the layer of waterproofing paint and membrane. Jeffrey dug the grey water pit, then insisted on trimming The Big Hole to size. He quite rightly pointed out that the difficulty of digging it had resulted in slightly sloping sides. If I had marked out a hole of a certain size on the ground, I obviously required a hole of the same size under the ground, especially if I was going to have to squeeze in an extra drum. The man thinks!

I left him to it while I dashed into Caledon to do shopping for Sandy before buying and loading the wood. Of course, Wimpie’s doesn’t have facilities to cut timber, but Wimpie himself overheard me talking to his NAAFI young man at the till. He had a delivery in Tesselaarsdal on Monday anyway, so he could just add my order to the load! He quickly converted my list into the required running lengths of timbers, then helped me find the correct bolts, washers and nuts to tie it all together. During this he learned what I was attempting to do – including possibly needing to make a pump. He was fascinated by the range of “stuff” I knew and seemed to be pleased to find a kindred spirit with whom he could swap ideas. Apparently a section of tennis ball makes an excellent pump piston!

Not much of Friday left by the time I had drawn nearly the last of my money and driven back to pay Jeffrey, so I called an early “wrap” and headed “home” in time to see Steve arrive with a trailer-load of drums, amongst which were the extra ones I need.

Sandy and I had planned to go to the Caledon Flower Show on Saturday, but Steve warned that the place would be crammed with Mountain bikers and that our road to Town was on the route of the mountain bikers “flat-race”, so I popped across to the cabin late on Saturday morning instead. I discovered that Wimpie’s had already delivered the timber, and had hidden it in the trench! I think Wimpie himself was just curious about my digester and came to have a look.

After laying the waterproof membrane on the shower floor, I left it to dry and went off to survey “The Hole”.

I decided that the hole was still a tight fit, and set about digging bulges in it to accommodate the round drums more efficiently. Swinging a pick in that confined space is a knuckle and elbow bruising undertaking if you’re not careful! I also chopped away at the lip of the new drainage trench – and discovered that it was feasible to lower it sufficiently to go back to Plan A! This was a great encouragement, so I hacked away until I was raining perspiration and my tee-shirt was sodden. I really enjoyed the hard physical labour after the plumbing and carpentry pansy-stuff!

This is the start of the ditch for the drainage pipes, which leads to another pit – not as deep, thankfully – where the liquid fertilizer is recovered.

It was a little frustrating to realise that we had dug this hole on the very edge of the difficult ground! Steve told me that evening that the usual approach around here is to dig a trench across the area first… Hey, thanks Steve! Good Timing!

The Caledon Flower Show

Sandy and Steve had a lunch date on Sunday, so I took it easy and headed for Town alone at around ten to visit The Caledon Flower Show.

Chelsea Flower Show, this isn’t! Mostly displays of flower arrangements and flower drawings by school children from the area, and a few from the various Old-Age homes and Churches. The main display was entirely of indigenous fynbos, with a small section in it devoted to the alien plants threatening to overwhelm the fynbos

There was also an extensive display of individual indigenous plants, labelled for recognition purposes, and a very small section devoted to the biological control of aliens.

I found the display of snakes found in the Overberg interesting and useful, if a little disquieting. The harmless Mole Snake and the venomous Cape Cobra are disconcertingly similar in appearance!

The display by the Volle Evangelie Kerk of Proteas in a rubbish bin makes a strong point about our treatment of the environment. The back wall of the hall was devoted to the story of how Erica Jasminiflora (Wild Jasmine?) was saved from extinction – only just! In 2007 there were only five known plants left in a lay-by on Shaw’s pass when an emergency artificial pollination experiment was carried out. The five remaining plants died soon afterwards… then the cultivated specimens died in 2008! A local farmer was so upset by this example of aliens choking out indigenous fynbos that he cleared every single invader from his farm nearby….over 1,2 million alien plants. In 2009, wild Jasmine suddenly grew spontaneously in the cleared areas!

Of course, there was also a tent for wine-tasting and tuisgebak, where I bought some marmalade and jam from a lady who was such a stereotypical Tuisgebak type that I couldn’t resist asking permission to take her picture. Photoshop out the distracting background and you have a bottle label for Ouma Se Eie… something or other!

For some reason she told me that she was not from Caledon but lived in Wellington, so by way of polite conversation I remarked that I have a brother who lives in Wellington… Ok, you’ve got it…. when she asked his name I just said “Chris”. She beamed and said “O my maggies! Chris en Marleen Young!” Apparently she worked with Chris at SA Dried Fruit Corporation for years… Nou toe nou, daar’s nou `n ding vir jou! Mevrou Ritter stuur groete aan julle!

I am not the chatty gregarious type with strangers, but today I discovered how easy it is to have friendly chats with complete strangers in this part of the country. I chatted happily to the snake man, to the alternative energy man, this old tannie, and the Oom from I bought three delicious boerewors rolls. I even had an extensive chat a comparatively young man, simply because he was sitting outside the tent smoking a pipe! (He works for a winemaker, operating brand new computer controlled machinery which removes the sulphites from wines so that they meet EU specs.)

“Perhaps, dear Brutus….” Perhaps I’ve discarded my Gauteng armour during the past few months… Perhaps I’ve been able to… our environment makes us, and I don’t like what forty years in Gauteng has made me…

Hmmm….