Sitio – living on a Farm in South America

Living of the land and transforming an old family farm in rural Brazil into a Permaculture landscape.

THE LAND

BRAZIL

Permaculture in South America, sustainability in Brazil, exploring wild nature, experiencing rural life, trying to understand the contrast between the rich and the poor, working to revive an old family farm, working as Permaculture Designer in Brazil, getting to know Megacity Sao Paulo, finding out if Brazil could be a permanent home for me and so much more are some of the topics that interest me while living in Brazil …

Of course, after the first almost two month here, there are a lot of new stories to tell, to many to squeeze into one blog post so I will post a couple and split them up into chapters …

SAO PAULO

Sao Paulo is one of the largest Megacities in the world. The metropolis area has an estimated population of 35 million people.

Minhocão

A city highway build without much thought, creating a city canyon that funnels the noise of the traffic that turns the road into a noise monster, that forced the authorities to close the road at night and weekends. The public fought for the right to open the road during those times for pedestrians. People use the empty 3.5km long highway to bike, walk their dogs, play soccer and even for barbecues and some people even set up swimming pools and take a bath!

International Permaculture Convergence IPC UK 2015

Permaculture, the cutting edge of the global sustainability movement? I think so!
However, the world doesn’t know that yet. I believe the whole world must know that we can design our way out of the diverse crisis we are facing today into a sustainable future.

Naturally, how to grow public awareness of the existence and potential of Permaculture was one of the main topics of the 2015 gathering of the international permaculture community and is what most permaculture practitioners, in various ways and forms, are working on worldwide.

From London’s Natural History Museum

The International Permaculture Convergence is a gathering of practitioners of permaculture from around the world. The 2015 convergence was held in London at the London Quakers Friends House. It brought together leading experts and practitioners from around the world.

The motto: We have everything we need to create a sustainable world and future! Together we will create a vision of a near future society that is caring, sustainable and fair, and explore how we can collectively design strategies and pathways to make it happen.

Some of the keynote speakers were GEOFF LAWTON from www.GEOFFLAWTON.com, famous for his video productions and design works worldwide e.a Greening the Desert; the founder of the Transition Town Initiative ROB HOPKINS and one of the permaculture pioneers ROSEMARY MORROW, author of the book Earth Users Guide to Permaculture, watch her Interview.

ROLES OF PERMACULTURE

THE LIGHT – WELCOME

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

ROB HOPKINS, GEOFF LAWTON, ANDY GOLDRING, …C. DEBENHAM

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

DAVID HOLMGREN

Most presentations of the convergence are freely available on YouTube and as PDF’s

CLICK FOR YOUTUBE PAGE

My year 2015

The year 2015 has gone to fast like every year. It was a fruitful year with rich harvests I am deeply grateful for all the gifts of life!

In New Zealand and Australia I was able to experience its magical natural treasures, visit and live in amazing communities and learn more about permaculture.

At the Riverside Community I could design and implement a Permaculture demonstration Site which was a big step for me, not only to live but also to work with Permaculture. (I will soon post more about this project!)
While at Riverside I met Ligia from Brazil. We are traveling, living and working together since we met in March!

Of course then there was the meeting with David Holmgren in Australia the co-founder of the Permaculture concept.

In July this year I returned home to Berlin to see friends and family it surpassed all my hopes, I had the best return I could have wished for. My Brothers family owning a house and garden at the outskirts of Berlin. They have grown interest in living more ecological so I have started working at their home helping to make some changes. The idea quickly formed to do a proper Permaculture design for the entire home for witch I will spend much of the winter planing and designing. For some of this periode Ligia and I found an old farm house in France near La Rochelle for house-sitting for two month.

Outdoor camping at Danau Toba Sumatra Indonesia

 Outdoor camping – bushcraft – survival trip at lake Toba in Sumatra Indonesia making road-kill into bush-food

We had much more footage of the trip but unfortunately got our second camera stolen by some Indonesian Kids,
so this is just an just excerpt of our trip and our outdoor activities.

Wild edibles – Bush tucker

I am very much into survival and bushcraft trips as opposed to going on a camping trip overly well equipped with all the expensive gear that outdoor stores have to offer. I also try to reduce weight in provisions so every time I do go for a trip, I am looking out for wild edible foods. Survivalists are opportunists and so have been our ancestors.
Being an opportunist is and always has been a smart effective and sustainable way of life.This time we found and collected Lucina leaves, Lemon grass, harvested a banana tree of which we not only eat the bananas cooked in hot ashes but also the centre of the trunk and made use of the leaves for cooking.
We also found and collected  bush nuts and bush passion fruits.
This time and my first time too, we found a road kill. A snake that got rolled over by a car. It must have happened just shortly before we found it. Well, it took the three of us, some minutes to consider but I decided to take it after all.
I chopped of the head, wrapped up in a banana leaf package and off we went… To cook it later that day.

WORK AND TRAVEL AUSTRALIA COUNTRYSIDE FARM LIFE

This story is about contemporary working and living realities on Australian farms. About working and travelling in Australia, farm work, fair wages, working conditions and conventional farming vs. sustainable farming methods…
A story and photo collage about farm work on a farm in Donnybrook in Western Australia with insides on working conditions and foreign workers exploitation not on a permaculture or organic farm but on a conventional farm.
Farming methods with sprays and disregard for people and nature that causes land erosion, pollution, destruction and workers exploitation and discrimination. All that is part of the reality of how food comes to our tables from ploughing to sowing over weeding, picking, washing and selling. All done without honourable ethics like the ones of permaculture but with nothing but greed for money. Our farm does not represent the all agriculture but after having talked to many workers in this sectors, stories like ours and much worse seem to be very common…

Kathie and I have compromised with many perhaps to many things while working for this farmer family. Our goals and our own virtues in mind we just kept going no matter what as long as we could. We came to Australia with the idea
already set in out mind to, as quickly as possible find and buy a car – leave the city –
get a job that would provide us with enough work for full-time employment for 3 to 4 month to save up heaps.
This plan worked out but not as smoothly as we had hoped …

Right from the start we learned that conditions on the farm will be tough. No one really minded to work hard but the way workers were treated by this family were absolutely subhuman.

AUSTRALIA WORK AND TRAVEL SIMPLE LIFE ADVENTURES – PERTH URBAN PERMACULTURE

About aspects of sustainable living in Perth – about permaculture projects, urbane permaculture, dumpster diving, community projects, low impact life, organic gardening, urbane culture and how we have explored it all as travellers…

I am writing this now that I have time. A lot of time. I am in kind of political social economic – you name it – refugee kind of state. I had to rush to leave Australia because my permission to be a legal alien within the boundaries of the continent had expired. I have overstayed my visa illegally – of course – and now I am at the mercy of the civil servants of the department of immigration to grand me re-entry. My refuge island is Bali in Indonesia – I know it could be much worse.
Our car is parked at Darwin airport since November 10th and the parking meter is ticking at a rate of 12$ a day!
It has been 16 days now since I have left the Commonwealth and still no visa. I wait and with the gift of time I can now after one year without writing a single word try the retrospective and tell our story of one year in Australia…

After nearly one year in South East Asia that led us deeper into the world of sustainability, spirituality, health, ecology,
community living, permaculture and so many interesting ideas more, that only enriched our awareness and meaning in
life, we only had a deepened urge for a simple life with as little impact as possible on the biosphere as we live and travel in Australia.

LIFE BREATH WORK TRAVEL AMAZING AUSTRALIA

HI EVERBODY

It has been a while… Since the 1st of November 2012 we are in Australia and we love it!

I have a lot to tell and share but sadly there isn’t enough time and space
in the moment…
We are in a place called Donnybrook a small farming town south of Perth.
Here we are working on a farm that grows fruits and veggies.
There is only expensive internet access in town, so I won’t be very active
on the blog for a while. I hope you still find interesting stuff on the site
like many of the documentaries that I have started listing!

I will write a lot more as soon as I get the chance to!!!
Live is exciting over here!
A lot of things have happened! Some that have change our lives again!

I feel very good to be back in Australia and Kathie likes it too!

We haven’t seen much of the country yet but we will soon after having worked
hard long hours to fill up our bank accounts with money.

We will than hit the road to explore the vast wild stunning country of Australia

Alright… More stories of our nomadic life and sustainable living experiences soon!

Our new small house and car – a Subaru Forester a small 4WD!

Packing our Suabru Foresgter ready to leave Perth city to go to the country.

Feeding a parrot that has fallen out of its nest.

SEE YA!!!