Linda and Chris, the Mudhutters!

Tell us a little about yourselves!

For Chris and I this journey began in earnest with a giant step in December 2000 when we set off in our little red Vw Caddy, with our 3 dogs, some basic necessities, big dreams, much enthusiasm and the voice of Chris’s dad reminding us that we should just “ Do it “ and “ It’s perfectly normal to have butterflies in your stomach, the trick is to get them to fly in formation “ 

Chris and I both grew up in Cape Town, both studied to be teachers and met in 1989 where we ended up teaching in the same school together.

In the years that followed, our weekends and school holidays were spent traveling mostly up and down the coastline of South Africa to follow the surf and sunshine, depending on the seasons.

Later, we graduated to more beautiful, exotic locations to peruse our newfound passion for scuba diving.

Camping, being outdoors in remote nature areas and experiencing a completely different way of life with Chris,  (which was all totally new to me), soon made me realize that city living and the conventional life style was not for us. There had to be more to life than just running on the hamster wheel until retirement age when it is often too late to enjoy your golden years. 

After much soul searching, we decided to change our lives completely and do what our hearts were telling us which was : 

• Resign from our secure government school teaching jobs.

• Buy/ lease some land somewhere on the Wild Coast in the Transkei

• Build our own home using natural building methods wherever possible

• Grow food and live as self sustainably and simply as possible

• Teach English to children 

• Most of all, to have the freedom to live ‘out of the box’ - generating a small additional income which would enable us to pay the utilities and really LIVE in tune with the natural rhythms of life.

How did you start doing what you are doing now? 

These dreams became a reality. The right place, right friends and right timing led us to Morgan Bay. Well positioned, just 1,3 km from the beach, very affordable, with a river at the bottom of the property and situated right next to a beautiful riverine forest, the acre piece of land that we finally found was just perfect. 

Our first year was spent moving around a lot. We lived in caravans, did plenty of house sitting and camped in a tent on our plot. There were no facilities, just a cold water tap. We lived this Gypsy life for over a year while we waited on the municipality to do the land transfer.

Thus, we had plenty of time to plan and read up as much as we could about building with clay, and about alternative building in general. (We did not do the internet thing in those days).

We often fell into confusion as we regularly received completely contradictory building advice from various builders and handyman friends. Feeling completely overwhelmed at times when we realised what lay ahead, it took us 2 and a half years to construct our half cob/ half conventional home made mostly out of recycled building materials.

This we did without electricity.

In October 2003, a business proposition fell through and we decided to open our home and garden during the holidays and weekends to run a small tea garden and gift shop. The shop was stocked with locally made crafts, plus our own homemade chilli sauces, marmalades, spice blends, pestos, etc.

This was a lot of fun, and also very hard work. It was a lifesaver, as we had now created an additional income stream for ourselves. This also meant a chance to achieve another one of our goals: Training young women to help in the service industry and to improve their command of the English language. 

Connecting to Eskom became essential and the extra money from our tea garden meant that we were able to:

1. Continue setting ourselves up with rain tanks

2. Begin the building of a guest cottage

3. Pay the bills and

4. Save a little towards connecting to solar.

Fast forward a few years - Chris’ kidneys failed in 2013, which left him dependent on a dialysis machine for two years. Simultaneously, his father came to live with us, as he was suffering from dementia. This was an unbelievably difficult time for us all.

During this time, my very little spare time was spent focussing on growing the garden and being able to feed us nutritious, organic fresh produce daily. 

It was then, during my own ‘dark night of the soul’ that I began looking deeply into more efficient, less labour intensive approaches to growing. No dig/ no till plus delving into permaculture methods became my new passion and has been so ever since. 

Luckily Chris was able to find a live donor and had a kidney transplant in 2015. 

We don’t keep livestock but have 3 beehives which Chris tends to with more in the pipeline.

We also legally gather mussels, oysters and seaweeds, which supplement our diet, along with the (very occasional) fish that we manage to land. We run a small Air BnB, which has become very popular.

I still make all my bottled goodies and Chris does Foot Massage. Our home is now mostly solar powered, we have one monkey- proof caged food growing area with another in the process of being built.

The food forest continues to expand and we live debt free, other than the normal utilities that have to be paid. 

What are you most proud of in this process? 

When we look back at what we have achieved, in spite of many obstacles that we encountered, and the fact that we were real greenhorns in the alternative living game, we are actually living our dream.

• We are ‘doing it’ (as Chris’ dad encouraged us to).

• It’s present moment living.

• It’s a fantastic lifestyle.

• It’s an ever evolving process, and we continue to learn and grow every day.

What is the most helpful piece of advice you received when you were just starting out? 

We were very fortunate to find ourselves living amongst a  community of people who were like-minded and were so willing and ready to give us much advice and hands on help when we were overwhelmed.

Believe me, there were MANY such times. 

What advice would you like to give to others who are younger/earlier on their journey? 

1. Research as much as possible and learn some the basic building/ maintenance/ plumbing/ homesteading skills BEFORE you set off on your new life.

2. Choose your location carefully ….. a reliable source of water for growing food is essential

3. Don’t turn your backs on the system entirely before you have created a viable alternative as it takes a great deal of capital to set yourself up.

4. In our experience, there is no such thing as being entirely ’self-sufficient.’

Where do you see growing going in South Africa? 

In an economy which becomes more challenging on a daily basis, it is becoming increasingly important to encourage others to homestead, even in urban environments, in whatever small way one can. 

Networking, more community / school garden projects and seed-saving /swapping in one’s neighbourhood are all meaningful and viable practices.

Bill Mollison says: 

“There is one, and only one solution and we almost have no time to try it. We must turn all our resources to repairing the natural world and train all our young people to help.  They want to! We need to give them this last chance to create forest, soils, clean waters, clean energies, secure communities, stable regions, and to know how to do it from a hands on experience”