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The Day-to-Day Reality of Clear-Fell Pine Logging

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The end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 saw us here at Caretaker Farm in Ashton Road, Whangateau, New Zealand sitting on the frontline of the neighboring pine logging. We have had the amazing, almost unique experience of watching first hand virtually at the front door of our property the clear felling of the pine trees that for the past 30 years plus graced the hill opposite to our front gate. Everyday, for over three months except for 10 days over Christmas,  we heard the high screaming sound of the chain saw and then the death crash of the 30-40 year pine trees as they fall onto the ground. The trees had to be felled as they were starting to fall on their own blocking the river that flows along the base of the steep hill slope. The felling exercise in such large numbers on my doorstep however, for me was something that I have never experienced before. We have seen the worker on the digger machine walk it up the steep bank on the other side of the river and use the digger arm
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A chapter from the book "Full Circle-a journey of toilets I have known" by Audrey Sharp the Host at Caretaker Farm in NZ

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Building a vegetable garden from waste 2018 The WWOOFing/HelpX Host/Helper Experience at Caretaker Farm. Dinner time in summer  Since August 1990 me and my family (my mother Dorothy and children Tamarah and Thomas while living with me), have hosted well over 1,000 people (aged between 14 years to 82 years) from all over the world, including  a few New Zealanders, as workers and helpers in exchange for accommodation and food at Caretaker Farm in Whangateau, New Zealand. It has not always been easy for us or for them. For 16 years of this time I was also teaching Taxation Law at the University of Auckland, part-time studying for a Master of Legal Studies, working as a tax consultant for 7 of those years at Inland Revenue, running a small shop in Warkworth for 11 of those same years and being a mother and a daughter on the farm. I also, as a by choice single parent, had the responsibility of paying all the bills including food for the volunteers as well as cooking countless
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Who Fights For Plants

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We live in a world where there are people who fight for animal rights or citizen rights but who fights for the rights of plants to grow where they will, to not be cut or harvested before they go through their own natural cycle-i.e to make flowers, then seed, to die and come again if they are in the right spot. Humans take plants for granted. We do not notice them particularly, pull ones out of the ground which we call weeds, control them through cutting their limbs as in the case of fruit trees so they can make us more fruit or so that the shape and size fits our specifications. However without plants our species would die along with many other organisms because w e eat either  plants  or other organisms that eat  plants . Plants provide  us with food, fiber, shelter, medicine, and fuel. The basic food for all organisms is produced by green  plants . In the process of food production, oxygen is released. This oxygen, which we obtain from the air we breathe, is essential to
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June at Caretaker Farm

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In June 2017 work on the farm involving our wwoofers was all about gardening-planting food, taking out and planting flower cuttings, pruning trees, mulching and tidying up around trees and garden areas now winter is upon us. At the last new moon we created seed raising boxes from old bookshelves recuperated from the Old Bakehouse Market shop. As you can see below we covered the seed with straw and within 2 weeks the seeds were sprouting up. The work on the new raised winter garden on the top ridge continues as we plant and plant-unfortunately in 2017 the turkeys, possums and various insect predators were making this hard-a few herbs-borage, calendula, rosemary-were hanging in there despite nibbling and a pumpkin decided to grow despite the winter cool.  Then there is the wood gathering and chopping-lots of branches, cut logs still laying on the ground where they were cut by Adrian in 2916 to be collected, split and stacked-gum, pine and kanuka.  The raised-bed extension gard
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Creating a garden anywhere using "Natural Agriculture"as shown by Masanobu Fukuoka

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Many people think it is too hard to create a garden or worry that they havent got room but I have found that it is much easier than you think if you do a raised bed effort using cardboard, woodchips or leaves, coffee, clay soil and compost. I am too old to dig and frankly having heavy clay soils makes digging almost impossible so this is the alternative which is still effective. This is a garden created on Caretaker Farm in early summer 2015.  plants regrowing in 2016 a raised bed garden created in 2015 The same garden reproducing itself in May 2017 This garden was the first using some of the principles of Masanobu Fukuoka-seeds planted in clay bullets and then some plants allowed to reproduce....Coriander, Parsley, Kale even strawberries sending out runners so 20 original plants become 80. Self-seeded Corinader Self-seeded Parsley The following garden named "Pen Duick" was created in October/November 2016 with the help of wwoofers
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