WWOOF #6: Consumption and waste

It wasn't easy leaving the Hawke's Bay region.  We had been there for almost six weeks, which allowed us to explore much of the region and make a few friends along the way.  Carly and I both feel that we made the best of the area and saw heaps!  But on November 19th, after meeting Couchsurfing-friends Paul and Joseph for lunch in Napier, we headed southwest to the Kapiti Coast where our next hosts Ron and Leanne awaited in the town of Otaki.

We arrived at Harmony Farm in the evening where Ron was waiting for us near the wwoofers' quarters.  The area was made up of a small "cottage" with a kitchen, dining/living space, bedroom with a double and single bed as well as some dresser drawers, and a basic bathroom.  Attached to the cottage was an area to process the organic feijoas at the end of each summer.  Outside of the cottage sat two caravans and a brand-new sleepout which fellow WWOOfers helped to plaster and paint.

Laura & Christine

Ron and his wife Leanne have been together for five years after a series of fateful meetings and random run-ins.  Ron has two children from his first wife: a son (26) who works as a diplomat in Australia and lives with his partner.  His daughter, Laura (18), lives in Wellington with her mom and is super cool.  She and her friend Christine spent a few days at the farm studying for their final exams.  We really enjoyed talking about music with her and hearing about all of the cool spots to check out in Wellington.  They even drew us a map featuring all the hotspots!

Ron does management training part-time in Wellington as does Leanne.  Ron said he enjoys the "human scale" of New Zealand's businesses and corporations as opposed to those in the U.S. where he started working (he is American, born in California, and Leanne is Canadian).  Leanne has been very spiritual since the age of 13 when she used to see the white light (or aura) of her teacher follow her though the classroom as she taught.  It was seeing An Inconvenient Truth on a plane ride that got them thinking about their environmental impact, but it was the film What A Way To Go that really laid it all out and changed their lives.  Almost like a propoganda film, What A Way To Go was filled with doom and gloom, interviews from scientists and artists, and a random assortment of classic film clips as he focused on numerous aspects from consumption to overpopulation and more.  It was very bleak and hardly made you feel empowered to change the state of our dying planet, but it apparently had quite an effect on them.

Huge veggie gardens!

Before their lifestyle change, Ron owned four cars (two of them being sportscars) and many other luxury items. But after the film, they downgraded their lives - Ron donated his sports cars and they bought the organic property they own now just five months ago.  Mainly a feijoa and olive farm, it also had a home orchard and large veggie gardens.  Ron wwoofed on the property for the previous owners to learn about the land from the ones who planted everything, but it wasn't his first farm experience.  After majoring in agriculture, he worked on a kibbutz for a total of 18 months over two separate trips and did a number of tough and dirty jobs.  He also joined a local group a few years ago that helps to plant thousands of native trees in their region of NZ.

Ron and Leanne think very seriously about every piece of waste and how they can avoid it.  They look at everything with the 3 R's in mind and if that's not possible, try to come up with a solution to not create that waste the next time.  What they don't consume off of their own land they purchase in bulk from an organic shop in Hawke's Bay (a 3-4 hour drive) to cut down on packaging.  They carefully consider  how to use the ingredients they have available (especially in their garden).  Their home uses solar-powered heat for their water and they have a pee bucket in their bathroom to collect all that nitrogen-rich urine for veggies and trees.  They have a compost toilet outside made from recycled parts and Ron has plans for an outdoor shower in the wwoofer area as well as a solar oven.  Everything on their property is organic and we learned that you can use plants such as comfrey and nettle to make a tea that acts as a great fertilizer, something we also came across at Beehive Gardens.

Kiva and Carly with their shell designs.

We wwoofed with two American girls: Sarah, who arrived a few hours after us, and her friend Kiva, who came a few days later.  Sarah was originally from Connecticut, and Kiva from Portland, OR.  Kiva was a swimmer in college and recently completed a bike trip across a large chunk of the northern U.S.  She came from a family of intellectuals that had extremely high standards for she and her brothers.  Kiva and Sarah had a lot to catch up on, and that was apparent the moment Kiva's bus arrived in Otaki.  They both just recently graduated college at a small liberal arts school in Minnesota and are very interested in environmental issues.

Sarah was an extremely positive person, often giggling endlessly.  After graduating, she did a short stint with Americorps in Southwest Utah maintaining a community garden and learned about growing food.  After that, she spent the better part of a year as an apprentice on an organic farm in Maine.  In college, she lived in a special self-sufficient house where all of the residents agreed on a certain way of eating, growing most of the food and purchasing the rest from co-op (mainly vegetarian/vegan meals - only meat if found (aka roadkill)).  Between all of her experiences, there was a lot to talk about and she had a great deal of experience with all kinds of different plants, what they're called, their nutritional value, any medicinal remedies they provided, how to plant them, what kind of plant category they belonged to and more.  She knew how to butcher most animals and could live with very little luxuries - hardly using the bathroom and doing most work barefoot.  

Ron taught us how to make toothpaste out of baking soda, a little salt, and peppermint extract.  He also showed us how to make bread (in the breadmaker) and yogurt (with milk powder).  When we initially arrived, Ron attempted to put us in charge of figuring out what needed done, but after seeing our frustration with the fact that what we may see fit to do may not match the priorities of the property, he began making a list which was very helpful.  They have only had the property for five months and are still slowly adjusting to having wwoofers, constantly asking for input.

WWOOF #6 family photo

On our last night with them we cooked a meal for Thanksgiving.  We had chicken and roasties with pumpkin pie and apple pie.  Their friends, Jeff and Elva, joined us and made paua fritters as a starter.  Paua is a sea creature that lives in a beautiful blue/green shell and clings to rocks in shallow waters.  If it feels you nearby, it clings to the rock so tightly that you can't remove it without a special tool and some serious strength.  For eating, you must slice it incredibly thin or mince it since its a tough food to chew otherwise.  They are only allowed to be fished by individuals and each person can only catch ten a day.  Restaurants sell them for big money, Maori's use them as eyes in their carvings, and every souvenir shop in NZ has endless polished paua shell jewlery, keychains and more.  They were very good fritter-style, almost like a crabcake!

Paua fritter

We decided to cut our Harmony Farm stay a few days short in exchange for our first Kiwi camping trip.  We headed a few towns south to Paekakariki after a recommendation from Gina, Ron and Leanne's farm assistant.  There we stayed at a really nice holiday park that was very family friendly.  It had big kitchens with stoves and refrigerators and sinks, clean bathrooms and showers, and a playground with two huge trampolines.  The holiday park was located at the southern end of Queen Elizabeth Park, which lies in between the mountains to the east, and the Tasman Sea to the west (with a gorgeous view of Kapiti Island).  We did a bit of hiking throughout the park and spent lots of time at the beach swimming.  It was a much needed time to ourselves just relaxing, reading and playing cards.  One day while lying in the shade of the tent and reading, Carly felt the ground shake.  Unsure of what she had just experienced, she looked outside to see if I was shaking the tent to scare her.  I told her that she was crazy and that I didn't feel a thing, but she was convinced it was an earthquake.  A few days later, when we arrived at our next host, they confirmed that there had been a slight earthquake, which happens a few times a week.  Carly was stoked that she had noticed her first mini-earthquake!

Kapiti Island from Queen Elizabeth Park.

I'm going to stray from Carly's "top 5 things I learned" list and focus on two things: consumption and waste.  If you're concerned about the environment and want to reduce your individual impact, these are the two things I feel you should always have in mind.  They seem very vague, but if you apply them to your day to day choices, you may find yourself making changes that can lessen your impact on the planet.

Ron and Leanne looked at what they consume, how much they consume, and ways in which they can reduce their consumption.  They then looked at how they can limit the amount of waste that is a result of their consumption (i.e., buying items in bulk to reduce packaging).  Think about the foods you eat.  What does it take for the box of brand-name cereal bars that you eat every morning to get into your pantry?  What does it take for those companies that produce, market, deliver and distribute those cereal bars to your grocery store?  Could you avoid all of that by purchasing ingredients to make your own granola (which is probably healthier since you know every ingredient)?  Being mindful of how you can either reduce or alter your consumption of food, gas, electronics, paper, etc. to have a better effect on the environment will go a long way.  In no way am I perfect, but I feel that making small changes in my lifestyle by really considering what and how I consume things will cast my vote for a cleaner environment.  (Now I just have to get over my love of Nature Valley granola bars!)