Shannon and Lara's Story (Wildwood homestead)

Tell us a little about yourself. Where did you grow up, where do you live now, and anything else you’d like to share.

We, Shannon and Lara, are the human “wildlings” here at Wildwood Homestead (1.5 acres), Stones Hill. We are located just outside Grahamstown/Makhanda, Eastern Cape.

I (Lara) grew up in the Kruger National Park, with my mom, a botanist, and dad, a wildlife vet. It was an idyllic childhood growing up in the African bush and I could probably write a book on how my physical and familial environments shaped me into the person I am today and influenced my journey towards growing. But I think it suffices to say that they cultivated in me a deep appreciation and love for the wild, for the natural order of things, and gave me a specific way of observing and understanding the world around me.

At University, I majored in Geography and Anthropology, but the real learning came through the wonderful individuals I met in Grahamstown during this time who were all in some way on their own paths towards sustainability – real life examples of the diverse ways in which this subject can be understood and put into practice.

Upon completing my BA, I embarked upon my WWOOFing years from 2009-2014 (WWOOF stands for willing workers on organic farms). These years were absolutely incredible, and included 14 months of work in a well-established German Eco-village where I was involved with horse-traction work in forest and field. Other experiences included work on Amish farms in Sweden and Norway; a permaculture centre and organic bakery near Barcelona; a market-garden in Mallorca; a Camp-Hill centre in Hermanus; doing a PDC at Berg-en-Dal in the Karoo and working on two Eastern Cape farms that were farming close to nature. I learnt so much during these years and was resolute to create a homestead of my own, as an amalgamation of all the many lessons and skills learnt on other people’s land.

My current “Wildwood portfolio” includes managing our poultry (chickens, turkeys, geese, and ducks), a small herd of Nigerian dwarf goats, the food-garden and our evolving guest accommodation.

Besides homesteading, I teach English, Afrikaans and History at a local High School and run their eco-club and President’s Award program (including leading hikes).

Shannon has lived in a great many places but started life barefoot and free-range on a farm in Rua, Zimbabwe. His mom was a maths and science teacher and his dad a CA and businessman. He learnt to love the land, and especially trees and wood, coming from a long line of wood-workers. He has run a variety of businesses and is passionate about education, creativity, music and most-especially wood-turning. He has taught and facilitated extensively using drumming as a team-building and therapeutic tool. Currently he teaches music (guitar, marimba, drums) at a local school and lectures on “music health and the brain” at Rhodes University. He also builds and repairs traditional musical instruments and turns various wooden items, including bowls, basins and candle sticks. He has spent the last few years collecting and restoring vintage tools for his Wildwood Turning Studio and wood-turning school.

When we acquired Wildwood in 2017, it was an empty, yet enchanting pasture with nine Macadamia nut trees and a small dilapidated cottage.

A couple of factors made this land attractive to us. One was the fact that it is located on a North-facing slope, with deep soil. We also loved that it is on a hill, as this moderates our temperatures. The property is a manageable size for a productive space (especially since we only work on it part-time) and grazing, wood-collecting and quarrying rights on neighbouring properties give us a larger resource base to work with. Good neigbours and proximity to town allow us to feel connected to others whilst having our own space and freedom. These are just some things that made us choose to settle where we are. Whist I think Shan occasionally wishes for a slightly wilder environment, I enjoy the sense of comfort and safety I feel here.

Our main environmental challenges up here are strong winds and fire – a threat which is exacerbated by the high load of alien invasive vegetation surrounding our property.

In our first year we fenced the land to keep the cattle out, used shade-net to slow the wind and catch mist and dew, built up a strip of rich and protected soil on the inner side of the fence using wood chips and horse manure, and started planting windbreaks. We also acquired an old Eskom park-home at an auction with visions of turning it into extra accommodation. At the end of 2017, we got married on the land and asked our guests, instead of “household” or “monetary” gifts, simply to bring us a fruit tree, indigenous tree or medicinal shrub if they wanted to gift us anything. Needless to say that 2018 was spent planting out our nursery of gifts! In 2019 we started working on a terraced veggie garden between the fruit trees and adopted various animals who are now part of “farm life” and our family.

During COVID, we renovated the cottage we now live in, cast a slab (extension) in front of the parkhome and built a stone bathroom. We had the good fortune of “locking down” with a Zimbabwean builder and his wife, without whom we would not have made the progress that we did. We are still busy improving our parkhome, our shipping-container-based workshop and stable with feed-room. We are using almost entirely recycled, repurposed and salvaged materials and also building with cash instead of loans, which makes this a very gradual process. A goal every year has been to put up more roofs and guttering and to invest in more Jo-Jo tanks as rain is the only source of water we have on the property. We currently have 55000L storage capacity. We constantly maintain a firebreak around the property by brush-cutting and help with alien plant removal on a regular basis.

Our long-term goal is to become as self-sufficient and climate-resilient as possible with diverse streams of income that will hopefully allow us to operate from our premises permanently. We have started hosting educational experiences in which various age groups can get out of town and into nature to experience food production, animal husbandry, wood turning, craft and instrument making, bonfires, musical jam-sessions, and macadamia nut-picking and we hope to extend this over time.

As you may have picked up in our bios, we are both currently full-time school-teachers, building our dream before and after work, on our weekends and in our school holidays.

What are you most proud of in your growing?

We are both quite proud of how our landscape and structures have developed in the years we have lived here. It feels like the landscape has many more layers and edges, complexity, diversity and resilience than it had before. I do a happy dance every time another “loop is closed” in the food-production-fertility system.

What I am also quite proud of is the way that our space has evolved through observation, interaction and responding to feedback rather than planning on a piece of paper in the beginning. Starting out, I could never have dreamed that this was how it was going to look or function a couple of years down the line. This is one of the real blessings of living in South Africa – that we are given that space and time to experiment and adapt rather than having to impose pre-conceived plans on a landscape.

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

I can’t really think of any specific advice that was given to us starting out. We worked slowly and ideas evolved naturally, born mostly from observation. Life advice from my parents that has been very valuable on this journey has been always to live within my means (not to go into debt) and not to be impulsive in my decisions but to be patient.

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

I can think of a couple of things…

Specifically with reference to animals…don’t get let their numbers exceed your set-up’s carrying capacity, as it gets stressful for them and for you. Remember that living beings multiply. Think ahead of what your plan is in terms of dealing with excess – are you willing to slaughter, to sell, to gift, to trade? Also ensure that they are kept “in the eyes” daily. Knowing your animals and picking up on uncharacteristic behaviour immediately can help you identify injury or illness before it is too late.

With reference to seeds, don’t hoard. Keep as much as you can plant the next season and a few extra and pass on the rest. If they lose viability sitting in jars on your shelves, they are wasted potential.

Some broader advice (I think I may be repeating some advice already given in previous stories)…

Do what you can with what you have. Be flexible and adaptable rather than sticking rigidly to a plan or set of parameters that may limit your progress.

Don’t strive for perfection. Projects do not need to be picture perfect to be functional. Nor do they have to have to develop in linear fashion according to a set time-line. They can be messy and evolve as you go.

Do things yourself as far as you can but ask professionals for mentorship. If you have made something yourself, you will be more likely to be able to service and fix it over time.

Don’t try do everything at once. This is a life-long project.

Don’t compare your homestead to someone else’s. You have a different set of circumstances, different skillsets and personalities than they do. Everyone has their own unique story and that is what makes every story interesting and valuable.

Surround yourself with people who are authentic, interesting and interested; people who want to engage in your journey rather than judge your achievements.

Accept the fact that your project will never be “finished.”

Is there anything else you’d like to share? Where do you see growing going in South Africa?

I am hopeful about South Africa’s growing future. More and more people seem to be getting into it and sharing their stories, successes and challenges. As South Africans we are resilient, adaptable, creative, non-conforming and diverse and I firmly believe that this is our strength in our rather unpredictable climate. I am super grateful to Jo for connecting some of us via her networking newsletter – as reading other people’s stories makes me feel like I am part of a hopeful community of pioneers.

If you have favourite quotes that help you, give you wisdom etc., could you please share them?

From Dad: “You must be observant. For every mistake you make for not knowing, you will make 100 for not looking”

This was not technically his quote, but he likes to tell the story of where he heard it at Vet School. A lecturer told the students that when an animal had diabetes, you can taste the sugar in the urine. He proceeded to dip his finger in some urine and, lick the other finger. He then invited them to do the same! No-one had picked up on the finger-change, so they all payed the price for not paying close attention.

I feel like in home-steading we are often tempted to look for answers or “templates” externally too quickly, because we are in a hurry to solve the problem. It sometimes helps to sit with a challenge and observe it for a bit longer. Obviously it is sometimes very important to solve a problem quickly too!

The gist of this is not to set overwhelming daily goals but just to keep moving forward steadily through small achievable daily acts. I really needed to hear that quote at the time she shared it.

If people would like to connect with you or follow your journey, what is the best way for them to do that?

For our “farm-diary”, check out:
IG: @wildwood.homestead.sa
FB: Wildwood Homestead (Lara Bengis-Wright)

For Shan’s woodwork, please visit:
IG: @wildwood_turning_studio
FB: Wildwood Turning Studio