Flying high

Bringing it on home: Part three. The final delivery of the house. After the perilous long and winding road and the steep climb up the driveway there was the just little matter of lifting the house off the trucks and up onto its foundations! Digger driver and wild goat hunter extraordinaire Richard watches the final… Continue reading Flying high

Empowered!

The Vagra is a powerful symbol in the Buddhist world as the diamond thunderbolt of wisdom that cuts through ignorance in a flash of light – The Vagra handles of the newly installed power station at Ngahere Hou represent a great way to open the doors to our new solar power I think! Our place… Continue reading Empowered!

Let there be Light!

Given up trying to figure the weather! But doesn’t it lift the spirits to feel the sun come shining through? succumbing to the beauty, Loving light and curiosity leads me on into the vastness….

We’ve got plans!

Our house plans have gone to Council and now we wait to get started on the build! Hugh Tennent is our architect and he’s done a brilliant job in bringing our dream to realisation. Our vision to live lightly on our beautiful land, in a small but spacious and sustainably off the grid home looks… Continue reading We’ve got plans!

Get in the Sun

    Living off the grid you learn to adjust your behaviour to minimise your power usage. So during a week of blazing sunshine it was something of a surprise to run out of power! At Hou Ngahere we have a basic but very effective solar system. Starting with just the two panels (on the… Continue reading Get in the Sun

Unintended consequences

Places that changed my life: A few years ago, with a group of neighbours, I spent 8 days on the yacht called the ‘Breaksea Girl’ travelling through the Fiordland National Park in the World Heritage Area. We went from Doubtful to Dusky Sound. Sailing through these majestic waterways which included a stint on the Southern Ocean. Sailing with a… Continue reading Unintended consequences

Give me spots

    “Hey farmer, farmer Put away that DDT now Give me spots on my apples But LEAVE me the birds and the bees Please! Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘Til its gone They paved paradise And put up a parking lot”  ~ Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi.… Continue reading Give me spots

Summer’s promise

I love the delicacy of the Rata flowers. They speak to me of the promise of Summer and of hope, which is kind of what we need right now with the climate talks going on in Paris. The belief that we can live ‘with’ the earth, and make the necessary changes to the way we… Continue reading Summer’s promise

Planting the seed

The last of the spring planting is done at ‘Hou Ngahere’! We got the final 30 Kowhai trees in the ground (part of the 270 from the Easter planting) before it dries out for the summer.   Now we’re watching the Kereru (Wood Pigeon) shred the older Kowhai trees. Its not all bad though, having them visit… Continue reading Planting the seed