Life in the Overberg

One does not expect much diversity in a small village like Stanford but even after over one-and-a-half year we are surprised with a new discovery every now and than. Just outside the village is The Blue Moon; a small community of people who think and do things different. One of these is Anton Boshoff and except for the ‘green’ dressing he is GREEN! In the past years Anton has been experimenting with all things ‘GREEN’; from food, cob building (and other eco-building methods), solar heating, etc. etc. Saving energy is high on his priority list nowadays and many of his innovations are already, on s small scale, applied in local communities (so called ‘townships’) in South Africa. His latest innovation is that of a warm water heater that only needs 3 kilogram of eucalyptus wood to heat 150 liter (boiler size) water. The heater is simply to make for a skilled metal worker and it will save the user a lot of expensive electricity. Anton will test the first prototype in his own house which is already ‘stuffed’ with other innovations (all made of recycled material) such as a bread steamer, pizza oven, hot air heater and so on.

Scattered around on his premises are hundreds of discarded items waiting to be re-used in another object. Nothing is wasted; sooner or later it will all have a new function. Anton shows us ceramic pots that are used for fermenting cabbage (‘sauerkraut’). Not every ceramic is suitable for this procedure he discovered with trial and error but the posts he has (see picture somewhere below) are but he is looking for more suitable ceramic for their seems to be a growing market for his ‘Sauerkraut’. Anyone from Germany who knows a manufactory of original “Kölner Pots”???