Permaculture in New Zealand

These past 3 weeks have been more than I could’ve ever hoped for, full of learning and growing. I have had the chance to meet many new friends from all over the world, absorb the wisdom from 4 insanely knowledgable mentors, and to look deeper into how we interact with our earth and what we can do to make a positive impact. Taking this Permaculture Design Course with Earthcare Education Aotearoa was probably the single most empowering and life-changing experience I have ever had. I am now feeling incredibly motivated to get out there and make big changes. The permaculture movement is alive and thriving, and I can feel it in every breath I take, pulsing through my veins in a feverish, determined rush to help people and help the planet. Being fully immersed in permaculture studies has filled my mind and heart with hope for the future, and the understanding of how we can shape the way our society takes care of ourselves and our homes.

 

Some context for the course-

The place:

The Tui Treefield is a teaching space within the Tui Community, where PDCs, festivals, and other educational events are held.

 

The teachers:

Robina McCurdy: A very smart woman who did her permaculture training with Bill Mollison (often deemed the father of permaculture and author of staple texts on the matter) and was encouraged by him to become a teacher due to her extreme enthusiasm. Has since taught with David Holmgren in many countries and does large scale design projects, primarily building communities in third world countries. She founded Tui Community in the 1970s and lives here with other permaculturists. She’s always an inspiration, can motivate anyone at any time, and is more in touch with the ways of the world than anyone I’ve ever met.

 

Courtney Brooke: From the southeast of the United States, with a background of environmental education. She lives part time in North Carolina at a permaculture institute called Earth Haven, and is based here in Golden Bay where she works with Robina. Has also spent much time learning from David Holmgren and doing design work throughout the world. She is very generous and carefree, and always there for support!

 

Phoenix Husthouse: From Auckland, who started off his career by working with the government to establish a flourishing community garden to help provide organic food for free to those who couldn’t access it. Now, he is a professional designer of properties throughout the country and helps convert unsustainable agriculture enterprises into healthy ones! He always has innovative suggestions for improvement and fine-tuning work and is incredibly relaxed and fun to be around.

 

The layout:

Our typical day started at 7 am and consisted of five 1 1/2 hour sessions, though some days were even more packed than that! Sessions were balanced between powerpoints and discussions, hands-on activities, writing exercises, community involvement through site visits, and building practicals. I’ll be making some blog posts covering the main topics we dove into along with some skills and ideas I gained through the work.

 

This afternoon I’m taking off for the Tui Community, just outside of Takaka. I will be taking a 19-day intensive permaculture design course led by a nationally renowned permaculture figure, Robina McCurdy. It’s kind of a miracle how I found out about the course…. I was reading a book published in Britain at Lynda’s farm in Motueka, (called Permaculture Design by Arayana), and really enjoying the authors theories and outlooks, thinking to myself ‘wow, this person has a really in-depth understanding of garden systems’. Mid-way through the book, he mentions that he did some permaculture training in Golden Bay, New Zealand with Robina! I looked her up and lo and behold, she was teaching a course to begin in (at that time) just a few weeks. If that wasn’t life knocking at my door, I don’t know what is. I am just bursting with excitement for the class, and am sure I will learn lots!

My wifi allotment is just 30 minutes per week, so expect limited posts from me for awhile. In the meantime, I’ll be taking lots of photos and notes to share with you later. Wish me luck, and goodbye for now.

Communication is the essence of a community, and I was fortunate enough to land myself in the Takaka community at an amazing time. This weekend the Community Gardens hosted a Sustainable Golden Bay Event, and I had the privilege to participate with a wide variety of people from the region coming together to work on making their region a better place. Several workshops over two days have given me a strong insight of issues and solutions present in the area, and have inspired me to bring back the ideals of this event to the Olympia community.

The place:

The first workshop I attended was all about network mapping, in which locals listed all of the natural resources, businesses, organizations, cultures, and systems present in the immediate surrounding town. We then discussed which areas were draining un-renewable resources, and areas that could use some improvement in the field of environmental consciousness. Some key sectors identified were large dairy operations, logging in nearby hills, and the pollution of the Takaka river. One participant suggested that they could build a 3D model of this “map” in a public space and allow people to come in and write suggestions on how we could change our use of resources and the connections that link them together. I found this to be a powerful and important first step of the event, as everyone was able to come to a shared awareness of where they live and have it fresh in their minds.

Following this, Sean Weaver gave a talk on how society as a whole can ‘scale up’ our sustainability in the most efficient way possible. He explained that there is a sort of bell curve of lifestyles, those who hold an aversion to adapting eco-friendly practices at the bottom, those who use some sustainable ideals here and there but could use further education and implementation at the peak, and those who already have lots of environment-positive activities going on in their daily lives. Sean’s opinion is that to make a big step, we should focus our energies on the people at the top of the curve, providing them with suggestions for simple solutions they can introduce into their regular actions. The discussion that followed this was stimulating and inspiring, as we were invited to talk about how best to get our messages across to people who may not know as much about caring for the earth sustainably. We came to agree that we must first listen to the reasoning behind the other persons ideas about what they are currently doing, and then gently identify the problem but spend most of our time discussing strategies for fixing it. Sean brought to the table the fact that in activism attempts, if more than 20% of what you say is negative, the positive solution you are trying to get across won’t be received. Another criteria we came up with was the idea of trying to ‘take down the fence’ rather than try to pull one another to one side. Once common ground and shared values are established, change can occur because the idea of being adversaries falls away. After setting some guidelines for how these conversations can happen, we brainstormed what conversations should be happening. Particularly, I learned, people in Golden Bay are worried about soluble fertilizers in waterways, poor stock management, over-intensification on the land, monocultures, and corporate involvement. To further examine the root of the problem, we identified some causes of these issues to be economic drive, closed mindset, and the general difficulty to go against the grain of mainstream culture. The main solutions we could think of were to simply be a model, take a stand against something if you don’t think it’s the right thing for the earth. Pave the way for people to follow you by fighting for changes in policy and showing that it can be profitable and satisfying to create sustainable operations. What was really touching for me about this chat was the diversity of people at the table, we had farmers with lots of land or just small gardens, shop owners, students, teachers, café workers, artists, musicians, and so many more. All of them had two important interests that I observed; they want to preserve the land they live on, and they want the people who inhabit it to flourish.

The next workshop took a look at what is called “Life Cycle Assessment”, a practice where every item used in a household is examined for environmental impact. The journey is mapped out to discover things like the carbon footprint, transport and disposal methods, and energy usage. After quantative meausurements are taken into an inventory of inputs and outputs, alternatives are considered and weighed out in a balance. Sometimes even though, for example, energy usage is decreased, ecotoxicity might be increased. Social aspects can be considered as well, for example giving an afternoon off to workers who may be dealing with struggles in their life may increase their productivity as they feel more compassion for the company. Furthermore, increasing wages can also lead to increase in profit even though more money is being spent to pay workers, because they will be motivated to channel all of their effort into the time they are working. The Takaka community brought up the point that they lie in an isolated valley surrounded by really tall hills, and every item that has to come over these hills has a huge impact on the environment because it takes lots of gas to drive over them. Therefore, those who live here need to be incredibly aware of how they can try to source things locally whenever possible. It’s quite inspiring because I know that this effort isn’t just an idea- there’s plenty of little shops and markets 3 times a week offering hand-crafted, community-produced products. I feel refreshed seeing a localized society really pushing to make their economy central and break away from larger enterprises, opting to work together to create a chance for reducing the harmful tread civilization has on the world.

We continued our stream of ideas for change by talking through a panel-system, with the community gardens organizing five speakers to mediate conversation and answer questions. Five voices were present, including Richard Kempthorne (mayor of the Tasman District Council), Kate Fulton (green party member), Sue Brown (Fonterra shareholders councilor), Abbie Langford (from the Golden Bay Community Board), and Siti Jongkind (Golden bay high school student). I find it incredibly brave that these members were all so ready and willing to step up to the plate and participate in this discussion. Fonterra (which Kate Fulton supports) is the largest dairy operation in the country, and actually a huge international corporate company encompassing 13,000 dairy farms. It is because of Fonterra that many small, localized dairy farms have struggle selling their milk because they can’t compete with the supermarket prices that Fonterra offers, and many of the environmental concerns discussed earlier in the day (poor stock management, over-use of land, corporate involvement) were targeted directly towards Fonterra. However, the fact that Kate was here and now, sitting down to talk with those who disagree with the company, proves that positive change is definitely possible. A saying I’ve heard, ‘If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen’, came to mind as I witnessed her take a seat right in the spot. However, it wasn’t an intensive debate or battering, the community did a really good job of remaining positive and using positive tactics to create a warm approach. One person in the group had a really good idea of actually making a small Fonterra processing facility in Takaka that just collects milk from Fonterra farmers here. That way this collecting tank can service the supermarkets on this side of the hill, rather than using valuable petrol to transport it across the steep slope to be put into a tank, and then being sent right back over again. Another suggested that she work with Fonterra farmers to assess if the amount of dairy cows they have is the most economically efficient number. A woman named Nicky mentioned this, and explained that when she took cows out of production, she actually started making more milk, because more grass per cow meant more milk per cow. Thus, costs went down and profit rose. Kate seemed open to these ideas and I think that’s a huge step in a good direction. I truly applaud Kate for stepping into the mouth of the lion and hope that she realized that the community just wanted to gently recommend things rather than grill her. Though I’m sure she felt intimidated at first being in a room full of people that disagreed with what she stood for. Other topics were tossed around as well, another major one being that the community feels that climate change is encroaching more and more on their environment and the government isn’t acting fast enough to make a difference. The conversation was ignited by a woman asking “Is it possible for the systems we have to respond in time to community concerns about climate change, and if not, why should we continue to support these systems?” Richard and Abbie, both being government representatives of these people, responded by saying that in a democracy, things take a long time to process. It is the most effective form of government because it considers the voice of those who live with the policies, but this means debate is slow since there is lots of differences in terms of how to enact strategies of change. Both officials agreed that the councils and boards aren’t acting as fast as they’d like, and that in the mean time it would be beneficial for members of the community to take some actions (within the boundaries of current laws) without trying to pass complicated policies through the legal system. A specific issue in which this is applicable is that the council is currently trying to ban the use of soluble fertilizers, at least within a certain distance from freshwater, but it’s taking ages to get pushed through. Community members are now discussing working with the farmers that are causing this problem directly to convince them to just stop or slow their usage of chemicals without government enforcement. This dialogue was special to be apart of, even though I was mostly a listener as to not draw away from the local voice, because I could literally see people opening their minds to new ideas and innovative ways of managing the region.

Sunday morning began with a talk on agroforestry, primarily focusing on implementing edible crops in the understory of the gigantic pine logging areas. Pines aren’t native here, but there are pine plantations all over the area because pines grow much faster than the native trees and therefore have quicker economic turn around. Courtney Brookes and Phoenix Hursthouse led the talk, and showed many examples of successful food forests, both around the area and all over the world. While growing native edible shrubs underneath the alien pines would sound like the optimal option, there really aren’t any marketable food crops that come from native plants, so the logging companies wouldn’t be too keen on putting them in. The edible crops that could be planted don’t necessarily have to be native as long as nutrient cycling and sun/water requirements are considered to chose plants that could work well with the system. To further reduce erosion, another benefit would be convincing the logging companies to only cut selectively, chopping down trees from different areas of the plantation as the demand comes about. Many of the large pine operation owners are actually very willing to begin using these practices because of the education that people like Courtney and Phoenix have been sharing. When these companies plant forests, they know that they are long-term investments in which they don’t see a financial return for many years. The fact that they could be making money quicker by producing high dollar crops like ginseng and shitake mushrooms is very appealing. Additionally, when they later go on to market their wood, they have the added plus of getting to claim that they are preventing erosion and making better use of the land they own. Another way that food forests could become a larger part of Golden Bay agriculture is by alley cropping, in other words, planting rows of trees with either sectors of vegetable production or grazing pastures in between. Given the huge amount of sheep and cow farms in the area, there’s plenty of room for trees to really make a difference by being a part of these systems. The passion that the two speakers had in talking about creating these changes was huge, and they have a goal to spread their message across the country and hope to see food forests become the source of 50% of the south island’s food supply by the year 2100. With the momentum and dedication that they possess, and their tenderness in talking with farmers about how to get these systems established, I believe that goal is surely within reach.

My next hour was spent listening to the Rhodes family talk about their dairy farm, and current issues in the industry. Their property is home to 135 cows who all have names and personalities that they’ve taken the time to get to know. It was enchanting to see their smiles as they talked about them, and how they scratch each one of their heads as they enter the barn for milking every day. They are enthusiastic about managing their land well, rotating cows to a different pasture every other day, and lining their paddocks with wide shelter-belts of shrubs and trees. Someone in the audience asked about the effect of compaction from their farm, which can cause run-off during heavy rains. They explained with a rather intriguing answer, that their soils were incredibly high in humus from all of the manure implements throughout the years, which grabs on to nutrients and holds them without allowing much to leech through. They actively test both their soils and the water in the stream that runs through the land (protected by a thick riparian buffer zone) to ensure that they aren’t causing trouble. They also supplement their soils with lime and magnesium to prevent soil plugging. I think the Rhodes family is a real role model for maintaining viable dairy systems, and I hope their knowledge can reach some of the farms in the area that could use improvement in terms of ecological awareness.

The first afternoon workshop consisted of three organic farm owners talking about their experience in the field of local agriculture. Kokalito Organics discussed their usage of food forest like practices by keeping sheep in an orchard area, and their desire to farm here because they wanted to provide jobs for locals that they could feel good about. Parapara farms, which just began 15 months ago, expressed their love of the birds that live amongst them. They have large patches of native forest surrounding them, and the bird population works wonders for keeping their pest problems down. They’ve even furthered the birds involvement on the farm by providing wekas (a native flightless bird that feeds on slugs, snails, and even mice too) with brush habitat and interesting sticks to play with. They are also huge on beneficial insects and have introduced parasitoid wasps and lady beetles to reduce pressure from aphid and whitefly. Bay Subtropical Farm started with parents who first wanted to grow good food to feed their young children but ended up loving it so much they turned it into a full time job. They now sell a lot of mandarins, because they are easy to peel and contain 3 times the Vitamin C of oranges, and they market them to other parents as the perfect snack to put into lunch boxes. They focus on selling nutrient dense food, and use things like liquid fish fertilizers to really boost the quality of what they provide.

Progress on solutions for the Takaka area extended as we gathered to learn about Sustainable Youth Initiatives (SYI). Siti Jongkind, the high school student from the panel, and Claire Webster (an EnviroSchool representative) presented their goals for the future of the younger population wishing to get more involved in conservation. EnviroSchools is a program in this country that allows schools to become certified as a body of students and teachers that take action to protect their local environment. At Golden Bay High School, the students are motivated to really take this idea to the next level. They established a ‘crew’ through an organization called Earth Guardians, consisting of those who want to be leaders in ecological preservation. One thing they like to do is get together to create music and art that channel their feelings about changes they want to see. They follow events and issues in the ‘adult’ community and back them up with the voice of youth, even having their own collective seat on the district council, giving them the ability to speak at committee meetings and allow their opinions to have a real voice. The current goal they are focusing on is making their school 100% zero waste. They work with the community gardens already a little bit, having their own plot where they grow snacks to offer students, and now they are looking at using the worm farm here to dispose of things like food scraps, paper and magazines, and even water that has paint dissolved in it (which apparently worms can digest just fine). Deliberation on how to enact this occurred as they discussed with the garden management here as to who would be responsible for sorting, if students needed to help take care of the worm farm because they’d be using it, and how to get funding for bins and make signs explaining what can and can’t go in. I witnessed the birth of a new idea, too, as a member of the water department in the Department of Conservation invited the student group to join him on his weekly water testing of Pupu springs. The project is on Maori land and his job is to monitor the quality of their drinking water and take action to protect it if pollution becomes a major threat. Siti expressed strong interest in gathering her colleagues to help. I am astonished at the determination and hope in the minds of the younger population here, and wish I could have had a group like this to join when I was in high school. Fortunately, at Evergreen we have many opportunities like this to be apart of! It stirs hope in me to see that it’s happening all over the world too, especially in the young generation. One cool difference that I see across the ages is that while the older people seem to feel obligated on focusing on the politics of things, the younger groups tend to be more interested in actually using their own minds to put their hands to good use. This is a very inspiring notion because it means we can get a lot done in terms of taking charge of our future.

The final meeting was a gathering of many people to share new ideas that have sprung from this event about strategies for getting some solutions in place. Five people pitched their ideas, and then we split off into small groups to brainstorm further on them.

Pitches:

Problem- lack of awareness in collective agriculture community

Solution- sustainable agriculture hui (a hui is a Maori protocol, where a group of people gather at a local marae and follows a set of steps to come to a goal of shared understanding)

Problem- government not acting fast enough

Solution- forming a committee separate from the government to act on issues they can do something about

Problem- plastic bag usage

Solution- introduce tax or ban for stores that use them, or find funding for biodegradable bags

Problem- proposed widening of the highway to accommodate traffic

Solution- create an online carpool service

Problem- voices without a place to speak

Solution- organize a festival with music and art for people to express activism ideas and spread knowledge

All of these ideas are amazing game-changers that I hope get more development than what we accomplished this weekend. We split off into small groups to brainstorm further on each concept, beginning with listing our visions for what the end goal might look like. Then we wrote down what steps would have to be taken to get there. I was part of the group looking into a non-legal committee of people taking action. We discussed having rotational leadership, allowing anyone to join and participate, focusing on one issue at a time to channel maximum energy into it, and the need to set achievable goals.

Overall, even though everyone that participated this weekend only put in 12 hours of time, we got so much done and everyone learned a lot. The community gardens are already planning to get people together for one more full day in a few weeks to continue developing new projects. After attending and learning some practical techniques for enacting sustainable strategies, I am really hoping to instigate some sort of event (maybe on a slightly smaller scale) in Olympia. I have the contact information of the coordinators and speakers that planned this weekend, and they are happy to help in whatever ways as I figure out how best to go about it. I’m hoping to get many Evergreen students and faculty together with interests in conservation or ideas about the future to try to contact and bring together people in the legislature, USDA officials, farmers on both large and small scales, business and home owners, high school teachers and students, people in the Nisqually tribe, and anyone else who might have something to say. Perhaps we could all gather in the Longhouse or the library, if we can get the school on board. This event could be a really powerful time where we can identify different ways in which our resources could be better managed and work together to come up with effective solutions. I am feeling empowered and driven to enact these kinds of changes in America, where we need them desperately. The “big guys” (i.e. federal government, huge corporations, commodity markets) will only change when they see many “little guys” (grocery stores, local government, small businesses) making a difference with the support of the people. I think Olympia has the capability to be a model, we have a strong liberal community who are very aware of environmental issues and passionate about changing them. The more sustainable we can become, the better example we can set for the rest of our country.

 

Kevin was once visiting a friend with a farm by the sea and was invited to come gather sea grass for mulching. Apparentley, several coastal gardeners around the country do this. Being an ex-chemistry teacher, Kevin wanted to know more about if, and why, this method had widespread praise. Going deeper than he originally planned, he ended up starting and heading an actual funded research project in collaboration with Lincoln University, the Department of Conservation, and the Royal Society of New Zealand. He didn’t go through all the trouble of producing a peer-reviewed, academic article full of stats, but did produce an informational leaflet which was distributed to gardeners via host shops, and had it printed in an issue of Organic NZ magazine in 2013.

What he, and participating colleagues found, was quite astonishing. The most shocking thing they discovered was that the native sea grass here contains higher concentrations of Boron than any other plant they know of that grows here. It also contains unusually large amounts of magnesium, and has significant levels of calcium, manganese, and zinc, and sulfur. Additionally, it possesses valuable amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous, in concentrations similar to general-purpose mulches like woodchips and straw. Kevin’s article proves that the use of sea grass for mulching is a really good idea for many people in Golden Bay, because after doing extensive soil testing in the area has concluded that most farms are lacking in copper, sulfur, and selenium, and that there are plenty still which suffer from boron depletions, including his own garden. While there isn’t high enough concentrations of copper or selenium to really address any lacking, sea grass still contains small traces amongst the other benefits. He also concludes that sea grass is especially useful in growing boron and magnesium-loving crops such as brassicas, asparagus, garlic, beets, peas, beans, fruit an nut trees, sweet corn, and celery. I found it really inspiring that he went through all of this research, not because he was looking for money or academic recognition, but just because he wanted to assess the purpose of a previously majorly un-studied method of gardening and share his knowledge in a publicly accessible manner.

Anyways, Kevin’s garden was running low on the sea grass supply, and since he collects it from a beach he thought I’d enjoy visiting we decided to go and get some more to last him through the summer. When harvesting, we were sure not to take too much from any one spot, and instead walked around only grabbing a handful or two from many sites. We got 13 big bags full in the end, plenty for him and some to share with the neighbors too! It smelled pretty funky and had various shells and crawling, jumping insects so we shook it all out and tried to get the beach remnants off before hauling it into the car.

It’s best used dried, so we piled it up and covered it with a tarp to slowly become dense and lose some seawater. In a couple weeks it will be lumped underneath the apple, pear, plum, and peach trees, as well as some developing cabbage heads and sweet corn.

Since meat is expensive and Kevin doesn’t produce his own source of meat, one of his favorite things to do is forage for mussels. Of course, I was extremely excited about the idea of going to the beach to find dinner! The native mussel here is called the green-lipped mussel, and it’s flavor is much more powerful than your typical black or blue mussel. Lined with a thin strip of an alluring, lush green color, these shells house a mushroom-like, rich pouch of briny meat. At certain places, like Tata beach where we went, each person is allowed to collect 25 mussels per day. Of course, the mussels can only be reached on certain days when the tides are right.

The place of harvest had a strong flavor of its own, walls of curving sandstone smothered in a tropical-esque forest housed little inlets of golden sand and rocks bearing mussel treasure. We strolled up and down the long beach, in search of the fattest shells.Once we were satisfied with our lot, we drove away under the setting sun. Once home, the shells needed a good scrubbing before we steamed them. They had all sorts of kelp, mud clumps, barnacles, sea slugs, and things sticking out all over. Then they were placed in boiling water with garlic, olive oil, and herbs.

Moving slightly west from the Nelson/Motueka area, I travelled to the Golden Bay region to spend a week with a man named Kevin Durkan in Takaka. A lovely Austrian woman that I met at Lynda’s farm gave me his name and told me she thought I could learn a lot from working with him. She was right! Kevin and I got along splendidly and I appreciated the very different, yet effective way he runs his garden.

The coolest aspect of his unique place was the self-seeding system. He had many plants that were intentionally left to develop seed. However, instead of going through and collecting, properly drying, winnowing, and selecting for effective seed before planting, he would just give the plants a little shake when the seeds were mature and let them drop. He’d also cut a few of the seed heads off and just deposit them in another bed to keep the rotation going. His philosophy was “I have thousands of seeds, if I drop them all I need less than 1% germination.” Relaxed and care-free, this system seemed to actually be working really well. He’s been going on like this for 11 years, only buying in seed when he wants to introduce another variety. The other interesting part is that he has multiple varieties of everything, and the open-pollinated ones are allowed to cross freely with one another, developing new flavors and patterns every year. His eyes lit up as he described how exciting it is every new season, seeing what pops up where and how it’s changed from last years crop. His garden is his chocolate box, he never knows what he’ll get. Of course, on a large commercial scale this system just wouldn’t work out. When making sales, customers expect a certain quantity and quality of a product, and when harvesting, you’d have to search up and down for ages to find different patches of the crop. However, on a small scale garden primarily for self-consumption, it doesn’t matter if everything is in nice neat rows with planned harvest dates and if equal care is given to each plant. He never eats all of the food that comes up, either. If it’s something like a lettuce plant, he only takes off a few leaves when needed and lets them all go to seed. In the case of carrots, say, he just pulls a couple up when he wants to and leaves the rest to create the next generation of carrots.

One more special feature about his garden is that it’s surrounded by limestone. He doesn’t see this as an obstacle, he just makes the best use out of it. He filled pockets in the stone with soil and now they’re mini garden beds! He uses pipes stuck in the soil near the roots of plants to channel the water deep into the bottom of the bed rather than just running off the sides.

The most valuable thing I learned from working with Kevin is that growing food doesn’t have to be a precise practice on small scales. It’s actually incredibly productive and sustainable to allow natural patterns of seed cycling to do the work for you!

On February 11th I had one of my best days in my travels so far! I attended the festival celebrating the flavors of the Malborough region. Hundreds of people, tourists and locals alike, came together to eat good food and share with each other about where and how food and wine comes from in the area.

Now- a little about the region. The area is especially known for it’s astounding Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, though many other varieties are grown and sold here with great success. Riesling and Chardonnay are next in line in terms of most produced. The region is particularly a great place to grow wine because it has long, sunny days and cool nights, plus large flushes of rain in the autumn, according to Naomi from Two Rivers Vineyard, who I spent some time talking with. Rolling hills that fill the landscape create fertile valleys with soils rich in alluvial deposits, that are well-draining and nutrient rich.

 

I sampled a wide variety of wines from different locations across the region, and recorded some short tasting notes for each one.

• Brancott Estate Pinot Gris 2015 – peachy and warm with a long linger that was a little bit acidic

• Mount Riley Chardonnay 2015 – strong tones of apple and pear, full on fruit flavor with a hint of cinnamon like spice

• Two Rivers Riesling 2016 – light and slightly citric with earthy notes

• Babich Rosé 2016 – incredibly dry and not very sweet at all, burst of floral flavor

• Kings Series Savignon Blanc 2015 – astringent with a sweet finish, accompanied by a buttery texture

• Mud House 2014 Pinot Noir – complex, layered mineral rhythms that played on my tongue in patterns, very thick and full with musty and vine-like undertones

Every one of these was unique and special to taste because I knew it came from this place with these people, and the all-encompassing experience is what made it so fun. Most of what I chose to try a glass of was based on reccomendations from the winery owners/workers, and from my curiosity to try different varieties. Overall, my favorite that I tried was the Pinot Noir from Mud House. Bottles of their Pinot Noir can go for $200 so I guess you could say I have expensive tastes! I only paid $6 for a glass at the festival, though, don’t worry.

I paired my glass of Mud House Pinot Noir with my lunch, which was a cheese platter from Kaikoura cheese. Halfway through the platter, though, I had finished my glass so the cheeses on the right hand side of the platter were paired with the Mount Riley Chardonnay.

This was easily the absolute best lunch I have ever had. I spent a good 5 minutes just admiring it’s beauty before I even started, and then took at least a half an hour start to finish to savor it. I wrote down some tasting notes to share with you too!

• Farthest left- Tenara goat cheese – erotically buttery, oozing with a briny, playful flavor that reminded me of an ocean wave swelling in my mouth

• Middle right- Harnett cow cheese – unbelievably pungent and musty, like a punch to the face full of mud-like milky goodness

• Middle left – Gouda – light, nutty and mild, smooth velvety texture that was softer than most gouda

• Farthest right – Windsor Blue – brisk and salty, crumbled and tingled on my palette with a robust, heavy flavor that lasted for several minutes after a bite

After this immensely pleasurable experience, I laid down for a few minutes just to absorb the feeling of the connections in the air. Growers, chefs, and consumers, together in the heart of a place renowned for it’s food and wine, the atmosphere was full to the brim of community development as people all along the food chain, who are often invisible to each other, celebrating one of the most sensational parts of being alive (eating and drinking) in shared harmony.

 

Ready for more experiences like the last one, I set out to find dessert. What I discovered was a delicious masterpiece, more delectable than anything I ever could have dreamed of tasting.

This fluffy cloud of caramel and cream smeared across my tongue like satin and melted gradually, making my heart pound. I took another half an hour to eat this, and by this point my brain was swimming in absolute bliss from the delightful tastings and feelings of the day (which I’m sure was intensified even further from having several glasses of wine).

 

I was pretty full after this so I took some time to hangout near the stage where live music was being played by a snazzy jazz band, and got to know some of the other attendees. The group of people I met were also raving about the Mud House wines, and I encouraged them to go and get a cheese platter since that was the highlight of my day.

 

Dinner was a Paua patty, made of minced meat from the glistening paua shell which is native to the shores here.

Being apart of this day was a fun experience in which I got a better look into the community, the land, and the flavors of Malborough! Wishing I could come back every year.

I had the chance to visit the Nelson Provincial Museum, which offers an extensive exhibit on Maori culture throughout time in the region. I found it insightful and thought provoking to read the stories and bits of history, and was fascinated by the artifacts presented.

 

One of the first topics presented was about the Treaty of Waitangi. The treaty was drawn up by William Hobson who was appointed by the British government to take control of the government in Aotearoa/NZ. The first signing was at Waitangi (hence the name of the treaty), and was first signed by 40 rangatira (chiefs) on the 4th of February, 1840. The treaty was then carried around to be signed by as many rangatira as possible.

In this region, the treaty was signed at Queen Charlotte Sound by 27 chiefs in May 4th 1840, Rangitoto by 13 chiefs on May 11th, and Cloudy Bay by 9 chiefs on June 17th. The rangatira at Cloudy Bay debated the treaty for a long time before signing as they were scared of losing land (rightly so).

 

A lot of the modern debate over the treaty comes from the fact that while about 500 Maori did sign the treaty, 39 rangatira chose not to sign. However, even though they refused the document they are still forced to oblige with the treaty’s regulations. Reading greater in depth about how the British government manipulated the Maori made my care for their community grow even larger as I was able to get a more in-depth understanding of their struggles.

 

One story told at the Museum was about the Maori’s loss of lands in Motueka, the location of the marae that I visited on Waitangi day. These lands are called the Te Maatu lands (meaning ‘Big Wood’ due to their dense forests), and they were under protection of the treaty by the name of Whakarewa native reserve. Approximately 375 acres were unlawfully seized by the British without the consent of the Maori population. This was done by a sneaky bypass of the treaty, as Governor Grey was appointed by the crown to take the land under their control in order to establish schools. The seizing document reads that the land can be removed from the iwi’s ownership “so long as religious education, industrial training and instruction in English language shall be given.” It claimed that the transfer of power over the land would benefit the Maori people by acclimating them into colonial culture. Here I see an example similar to the 19th century racist ideals present in Racial Indigestion, as the British government actively strived to consume the lifestyle and traditions of the Maori by white-washing. This event is also quite comparable to the conversion of culture present as America was taken over by colonization, without acknowledgement of the wisdom and meaningful practices important to the lives of those who had already occupied the land. The British felt as though they were doing the Maori a favor by furthering the ‘progress’ of their society with technical know-how and ‘proper’ religion, while the Maori were devastated by the attempted decimation of their way of living. After familiarizing myself with the methods used by colonial government to try to devour the Maori civilization, I have so much appreciation for the Maori ancestors, who decided that they would always try to teach the settlers how to care for the land in the ways they had practiced for years before their arrival. It is because of this commitment to kindness and education that the Maori population today is still thriving and striving to work together with the modern public and develop cultural understanding.

 

Before settlement, the Maori were true artists in everything they created, crafting beautiful artifacts for simple everyday clothing and tools. They were keen on patterns that represented the way the earth flows, and their interactions with the world. While today they still do produce beautiful things like they used to to keep traditions alive, they now wear the clothes and use the tools that modern technology has made. Below are photos of some of my favorite things I saw.

My favorite new activity is carding wool, which is the process of turning raw wool into nicely combed bundles that are ready to be spun.

After the animals (in this case alpacas) are sheared, their wool is full of sticks, seeds, dirt, and other miscellaneous bits from the farm so the first step is picking all of that stuff out and then combing it with a brush to get out any stickiness/curls and allow all the pieces to face the same direction.

Then the machine works it’s magic, the wool is fed in very slowly in small amounts. I love the ticking, spinning sound it makes, I enjoy the rhythmic hand movements, and all in all I find it very therapeutic! When the machine becomes full of the soft white mats, then I remove it by slicing through with a metal stick and then wrapping it into a smoothly groomed cylinder with a wooden roller.