Our March Toru Trail took place at Matt and Carys Brenins place, a permaculture property in Ōtaki.
Taking a slow, balanced approach to building a sustainable lifestyle was the theme of the day. One of the main take-aways was how much abundance can be created by living in this way.
The land we visited was a bare paddock just 13 years ago. Inspirationally it is now home to Matt and Carys Brenin, their two children, Awen (6) and Morgan (4), as well as a 2500m² food forest, a vegetable garden overflowing with black tomatoes and purple beans, and a beautiful wooden, sustainable family dwelling, completely off the grid, with own water supply, solar panels and consented compost toilet.
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As we explored the land with Matt, some highlights were:
- Mexican sunflowers as a fast growing solution for windbreaks and mulch material - with the bonus of bright yellow flowers.
- Learning how he chooses what to plant, based on observation. Seeing what thrives on the land and planting more - in this case apricots and avocados!
- His impressive indoor composting toilet system. Which maintenance wise only requires swapping out a wheely bin 3 times a year and leaving it to compost down before returning this rich resource to the land.
- And of course the wood-fired bush bath! Allegedly a fantastic spot to enjoy an evening whiskey.
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After this amazing tour of house and garden, we reflected on permaculture principles over home-grown kai. ‘Observing’ and ‘being present’ stood out. Matt said in order to live on this land forever (his goal) he needs to be personally sustainable and to not burn out.
For him that sometimes means deliberately slowing things down. He described how he would prefer to physically move his hose around the forest, rather than install a more automated irrigation system. This is because this gives him a reason to ponder and observe this land. He gave the example of noticing small changes like blackberry popping up that he can remove before it is a problem.
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Sometimes however it simply means ‘not doing the things that don’t need to be done’. For example choosing to play with his kids and leaving the mulching for another day.
And this balanced approach seems to be working for him! His face lit up describing how his kids love to race around the food forest like a maze, and graze on fresh kai from the trees. A beautiful image of life's different important aspects thriving co-currently.
Finally reflecting on the themes of taking things slowly and being present, attendees said that one of the things they loved most was the learnings that happened as they walked ‘between’ places on the tour learning from and connecting with each other.
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Overall the day was filled with practical tips and generous/ honest sharing and reflection. We left a little more aware of the abundance we can find (learning, connections and kai) when we take things a little slower. When we focus on being present in the moment, rather than finishing the job!
Holly Norton
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