The NZ Green Warrior

More and more New Zealand children with the support of their unfortunately ignorant parents and those commercial  businesses wanting to make a dollar are celebrating the Wiccan festival of Halloween or Samhain or All Hallows' Eve as it is properly called on October 31. As a Wiccan myself for over 25 years and therefore someone who considers this day as one of my 8 sabbats (special celebratory days), I am getting more and more irritated at the misuse of this festival and particularly as it is being celebrated in this country of NZ at the wrong time of the year. All Hallows' Eve or Samhain the Witches New Year, is the night when the veil between the world of spirit and daily life is thin and able to be transcended, is in fact an Autumn festival which is why you can traditionally see pumpkins hollowed out with candles sitting inside shining their light in the windows of houses. It amazes me that "kiwi" parents think that it is appropriate to celebrate this autumn festi

The past three-four months have seen us experiencing a very wet winter-On Caretaker Farm over a metre of rain was collected in the rain gage in three months and the past month of September saw us receive another 200mls on top of what had already fallen from June until the end of August. I personally am not complaining about the amount of rain as the past two winters have been dry and with dry summers also I was getting worried that our river would stop flowing and the spings that feed it would all dry up. I needn't have worried as finally this year everything feels back in balance and we are heading into summer with full aquaducts and a river at a reasonable level. We luckily had a few long-term wwoofers over the winter staying and I am grateful for the stability and constancy that their presence gave to our continuing projects. Unfortunately the builder was less constant and didnt come at all for over 4 months so the bakery building stalled and the wet weather has meant very

After 11 years of running a second hand and new market style shop it is time to close and move onto other things. The shop began its life 37 years ago as The Old Bakehouse Market and then became Queen Street Curio-we sold items on behalf of other people and sold everything from books, clothes, CDs, jewellery, bric n brac, pictures, furniture, farm produce and so on. Caretaker farm sold all it's organic garlic, figs and chokos through the shop and even Rawleighs products have been available to buy on a regular basis. Tucked away down a lane in between 2 cafés in Warkworth the shop has been a  hidden treasure trove for visitors and locals looking for a bargain. At one stage the shop hosted night lectures on a fortnightly basis on a Friday-the lecture topics included subjects such as earth building, astrology, te tiriti o waitangi, Bach flower remedies, NZ geological history, permaculture, women's spirituality, Iridology, Anzac stories, and so on. The attendance varied accor

Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008) was a Japanese philosopher and farmer from the Island of Shikoku. He used what can be called natural farming techniques which went against the usual ploughing, tillage and scientific agricultural methods used so much today Natural farming requires no machinery or fossil fuels, no chemicals, no prepared compost and very little weeding. Even though his methods were controversial-i.e he did not plough the soil or hold water in his fields of rice as other farmers-he managed on his farm to achieve yields either comparable to or higher than the most productive Japanese farms at the time. Natural farming creates no pollution and actually improves the fertility of the soil every season which of course poses a threat to scientific and business in agriculture where they push fertilisers and pesticides and of course machinery to till the land or irrigate. On Caretaker farm I have tried to follow some of the principles expressed by Fukuoka in his book "The O

At Caretaker Farm since the beginning of my time there in 1989 I have tried to follow the natural farming recommended and practiced by Masanobu Fukuoka-his book the One Straw Revolution which I read in the early 1980s  had a huge impact on the way I thought about and interacted with nature.  Later I discovered Permaculture with its design planning system using zones and organic methods. As a result I  use a combination of both methods in what I am trying to create on Caretaker Farm in NZ. In this essay I will describe and explain permaculture as I understand it after having attended a two week Permaculture Design course in the north of New Zealand back in 2005 and have implemented on Caretaker Farm, Whangateau, Aotearoa(NZ).  Permaculture was developed by two Australians, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, as a response to pollution of the soil, water and air; the increasing reduction of non-renewable resources; the continued loss of animal and plant species and; exploitive and destruct

Gossip must be one of the most dangerous activities that a human can engage in. Not only is it destructive but often it is inaccurate and can cause lots of trouble for the person spreading the tale as well as the person who is being gossiped about. Recently I had occasion to see the impact of gossip on a friends relationship when she shared things with a wwoofer who she was working with in her garden. This young wwoofer then related what she had been told to a third party only to have the tale relayed to my friend’s partner who then used it as ammunition to confront his partner during one of their relationship counselling sessions. Naturally my friend freaked out and rang me as I was the one who had sent her the wwoofer and she was feeling completely betrayed by her private discussion having come back on her. So what’s the lesson? For my friend be cautious about what she shares in future when she is working alongside a wwoofer. For the wwoofer caution also in future dealings and par

Monday March 17 -St Patricks Day We passed through Cyclone Lusi with little physical damage around the farm despite wind gusts of around 130km-the tent over the community earth oven flew at times and flapped loudly to those gusts as they blew through from the north east. We didn’t receive much rain, only 30 ml, but enough to give the hungry plants a small dram to refresh them after two months of only 120ml of rain. With the changing climate the extremes are intense at times between the wet and dry periods but overall it is discernibly drier each year. The cyclone seemed to have an unsettling effect on the wwoofing fraternity that were here as two British guys who arrived on the Friday ended up leaving on the Saturday and taking with them a Japanese girl who had arrived only a couple of days earlier. Then another girl, this time from the Netherlands, after only a week of being here when she was going to stay for a month, said that she also would leave, as she was “sensitive

March 5, 2014 and the start of a new chapter. Fives have always been special in my life due to me having been born on the 5 June 1956-I like what a 5 means in numerology-change-and that in my opinion is one of life's certainties along with death and some kind of taxes. Anyway I'm starting this blog because I think it's time I publicly said what I think and in the hope that I can enter into an online teaching exchange with a wider audience than those I have taught in the past 25 years.  I live in New Zealand on a farm in the North Island one hour from Auckland on the coast in the small settlement area of Whangateau. As a practising wiccan  and environmentalist I am passionate about trees and use both Permaculture design and organic methods on my farm which is called Caretaker Farm in my desire to create a sustainable forest and garden and a practical outdoor school teaching environmental studies to children from the city and English language to foreign students. I have b