Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
Tingrith is at the edge of the State Forest, and has 50 acres of natural bush on the property. Currently Felicity is acting energetically with the Margaret River Regional Environmental Centre to try to protect Mowen Forest from logging the already degraded bush. She is discussing with Byron Joel at Oak Tree Designs ways of building fire retardant strips of oak trees (Apparently the invasive poplars serve also as fire retardants) , and windbreaks for maximum benefits, and has plans to establish a mediterranean heritage tree park in the future. Her interest in permaculture is still relatively new and she is learning from Facebook pages such as the Regrarians, which has a SouthWest group and pleased to discover a botanical research group at The University of Western Australia the Kwongan Foundation which regularly publishes newsletters on biodiversity in the South West of Western Australia. When in 2011, the coal mine was proposing to mine the property immediately west of TIngrith, Felicity wrote an article called Belonging to the land, a shorter version of which appeared in the local AMR Times.
On October 7th 2015 the Organic Garden in Margaret River launched its organic Garden trail, an idea which evolved from a Garden Tourism workshop featuring international speaker Richard Bennfield that took place in Nannup in early 2014. Locals, Sharyn Carroll and Shelley Cullen (both volunteers in the community’s organic garden) have been working on the concept since this time, believing that many visitors would be interested in sharing the Margaret River organic garden story. Tingrith is proud to be one of the first seven Organic Gardens currently featured in the Trail. Details from the Margaret River Region Tourist Bureau
On the property we currently have four people living temporarily in sustainable housing in exchange for at least seven hours a week work on the farm. They earn their money for food and living expenses from work outside the farm, but they are encouraged to grow their own fruit and vegetables. This is in the spirit of living without money, as an Irishman has already set out to do.But that is difficult, and in 2016 four workers Kyuss, Julia, Tom and Peter left to live at their place of work. We are pleased to welcome Liam and Zed to replace them, and two lovely shepherds from France Guillhem and Leo, who haave already chopped enough firewood for two years. WE now also have Dan (Blaine and Raine), Lasse, Simon and Sheleagh and Phoenix) living on the farm, and we are especiallypleased to welcome back Meg who lived here in a much more humble cottage about five years ago.
There is something sacred about the energy at Tingrith, especially around the meetinghouse and in the centre of the labyrinth, which each January gives a purple scent to the heavens as you walk the paths. The large labyrinth path is 1.5 kilometres in length, wonderful for sacred processions or a quiet walking meditation. Despite a weeding party from the backpackers last year, the weeds are flourishing, and Tom did organise another weeding party while the Quakers were here. There is always weeding to be done, but now in November the poppies are covering up the weeds. In February Tom organised a working party who finally cleared the labyrinth of all pathway weeds, and it is now ready for a layer of lime rock and the rain to concretise it. The small labyrinth has been concreted and the tiles are there for an ornate mosaic path featuring three different Zodiacs, and many totem animals..
There have been many changes at Tingrith over the past year. We now have two Dexter cows, Stumpy and Wombat who welcome their daily bread. We brought home four lovely Peking ducks from Southhampton Homestead in Balingup, who are providing wonderfully acidic water for the blueberries, but a fox got the lot, and they have been replaced with three Sebastopol geese who have now had five beautiful goslings. . The eleven unsexed chickens turned out to be five roosters and four hens and two eaten by a cheeky monitor lizard. Three roosters were transformed to a huge stew, and the hens are laying beautifully under the guardianship of Zarathrooster, while Mustafa the Magnificent is down looking after Frank’s two golden hens by the caravan. The dingoes seem to have successfully scared off foxes.
We have cleared out the termites in the container and rescued the lovely tipis. Dave thought he would repair two, and get poles to erect these good ones in summer. The renovations to the Shed/studio are now complete, even to the splashback in the new commercial kitchen and there have been several people hiring it for accommodation over the Christmas break.The hot showers are fantastic. We had a visit from Margaret River’s Water Wally who gave us advice on our four compost toilets. The sweat lodge and tipi have been popular but Pete Godden will be removing the sweat lodge in 2017. Liam has renovated Kyuss’s old bus, and Kyuss is now living in the Nissan Van somewhere in the Eastern States. We have installed a new solar pump and the reticulation has been made more functional, so that we are using the expanded groundwater soak to full efficiency. One Flowform hive has arrived and been set up with bees and I will transfer one of Bruce’s hives into a new FlowForm as soon as I have got around to painting it. A lot of fuss in the media about manuka honey and whether WA Leptospermum has the same medicinal qualities,, and nothing in public about the healing and antiseptic qualities of jarrah honey!
The farmhouse and office are offgrid solar powered and water either comes from a groundwater soak running from the neighbouring State Forest, an underground aquifer, or rainwater tanks. Ra has erected the Flowforms refreshing the water that flows into ponds. There is a large netted orchard, a new Food Forest and poultry to provide us with all the food we need. In this way we care for, respect and celebrate the land we live on.
The meeting house was the regular meeting place for Transition Margaret River in 2012 and 2013 and that group still meets regularly. It is still the meeting place for Greens SW, and the maze has been weeded diligently by the wonderful Giz Watson on her visits. Tingrith is committed to protecting the environment having been the site for a Sound Healing to protect the land against the coal mine proposed for the neighbouring site. It is currently supporting the greens campaign to stop logging in the State’s South West . Itis also one of seven locations in Margaret River that form part of the organic Garden Trail making itself open to visitors Wednesdays to Thursdays by appointment, WE will serve lunches and teas on booking, and there will be the possibility of a Tourist bus covering the five-hour trail. And Sunday Feb 8th 2016 Tom organised a town woofers weeding party, and oh joy they weeded the whole maze celebrating with pizzas and an allnight party, but getting up before the heat next day to finish the weeding. Not to put a limestone layer on top and hope that the rain turns it into weedproof concrete. We may never have to weed the maze again.
The herb garden near the farmhouse is flourishing, and we have erected the old castiron fence from Nedlands. Note hos luxuriant the loquat tree is. Julia has weeded the netted vegie garden behind this garden, and her corn is looking magnificent. She has left intact a very large horseradish plant and is waiting for someone strong enough to uproot it entirely..
In the 2015 spring the orchard is blooming.The peaches last year were wonderful, and I have made peach chutney. Plums and apricots kept my juicer running and the orchard green figs flourished for the first time. This years there is much more cherry blossom, the first figs are forming and the loquat tree is covered with fruit,The driveway figs are plentiful but still green, and the vegie garden is still covered with both kikuyu and black plastic. Cem and Tom are staying in the caravan to which an annexe has been added, setting up the slow combustion stove and their own water supply and a wonderful garden which should provide them with fresh food. Frank Raphael is in Austria at the moment, coming back in December having done fabulous work with maintenance, especially clearing the poplar forest at the farm entrance . Emily has gone back to Canada to enjoy the snow, and Franka spent some months here taking over the organising and keeping-things-tidy-role magnificently before returning for a holiday in Lisbon.
The poplars down by the entrance are thriving on the water from the spring and dam, so We have put in a new fence,and plan to instll a couple of pigs in there to eat down the saplings. Matt was agaisting about 40 sheep in the bottom paddocks through mostof 2016, byut could not afford to buy hay forthem, so they have been removed. There are two virile Merino rams now in with the alpaca.
In January 2015 I visited an industrial hemp farm in Nannup with a view to growing it myself in about five years time. This is Colin Steddy and his daughter Cassidy in amongst the hemp at Glenn’s Barrabup Sanctuary. The legislation allowing the legal use of industrial hemp was due in February 2016, and a SouthWest industrial hemp company was formed in October 2015 to lobby for the opening up of industrial hemp. A local builder has already built two hempcrete houses, though he has to import his hemp from France!