<![CDATA[WAAIPOORT FARM - Blog]]>Sat, 03 Feb 2024 04:25:02 +0200Weebly<![CDATA[Earth Charter Education at Waaipoort FARM]]>Wed, 10 Feb 2021 18:23:28 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/earth-charter-education-at-waaipoort-climate-park<![CDATA[Waaipoort Farm Regenerative agriculture !]]>Wed, 10 Feb 2021 18:21:12 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/waaipoort-climate-park-regenerative-agriculture<![CDATA[Join the Vegelution!]]>Wed, 10 Feb 2021 18:19:03 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/join-the-vegelution
]]><![CDATA[Spring Message]]>Tue, 01 Oct 2019 11:36:13 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/spring-messageMichaelmas / Rosh Hashana 2019

Early this morning I had a surprise visit from my friend Moeketsi Mohlakoana and his young friend Majaka. Moeketsi was explaining the role of a compass to his friend, the directions of the sun, the globe over tea and coffee… and then suddenly he launched into a philosophical discourse of how people have lost their inner, true compass and therefore their direction; he said, that unless we have this inner tool that keeps us in the direction of our purpose in life, we wander around aimlessly, stumbling through life!
This fitted right into my pre-dawn contemplation as:
Today marks a day for new beginnings.
Beginnings, where we take action and call for action more seriously than ever before: to look out for solutions that we have the power to implement. Everybody in their lives can consciously take small steps and those ripples will over time swell into a tsunami of change.
We at Waaipoort Farm believe we have a workable solution, we dropped the pebble in the pond and the ripples have started. The only way onwards is doing it!
Talking about it and waving placards and signing petitions have a certain impact of bringing awareness, but it is like election promises… they are soon forgotten and often because we do mostly lead very hypocritical lives!
An example to illustrate: over the last weeks there were outcries from many corners of society about a large live animal transport from South Africa to Kuwait with a known huge fatality at the end of the three week journey. And although I have compassion for these animals, I found it hypocritical, inconsistent how this incident upset people and was shared within social media. There are thousands of animals treated this way every day in South Africa in its CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Farming Operations -i.e. animal factories) - very little is thought, talked, done about that.
Where is the outcry of concerned citizens, of animal activists, the animal welfare organisations?
How many of the people crying out loud and signing petitions turn around and go past MacDonalds, Nando’s or KFC or most any other food outlet and super market to still their craving for cheap meat?
How many preachers and lay people of all faiths will refer today to holy Scripture and turn around and deny parts from those same scriptures because of convenience, ignorance and weakness?!
This is especially true when it comes to our treatment of animals, plants and soil.
Please remember: THE BIGGEST POLLUTER, CHRONIC DISEASE INDUCER, DESTROYER OF LANDSCAPES on this planet is CHEMICAL AGRICULTURE!
Let that sink in.
So unless we as consumers take action towards a REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE, we willingly contribute to our and our fellow creatures demise. The earth will survive. We humans will go extinct together with a multitude of other life forms.
The power is in the consumers' hand to change the trajectory of our humanity.
Today, four years ago we started to excavate and build this beautiful dam here on the farm. For me it is the Eye of Waaipoort. It perceives and reflects our efforts and striving to develop a centre of regenerative agriculture. It perceived what is happening in the macrocosmos and reflects what occurs in the microcosmos.
This body of water helps me to reflect on why we set out on this journey.
The visit of Moeketsi strengthened this conviction.
Waaipoort Farm's seed has germinated and now needs to be nurtured actively by all who believe it has a role to play in the future of humanity and in the establishment of a strong regenerative agriculture in the Free State and in South Africa.
We do have all the necessary institutional permits and documentations in place and will be going out with great effort in the next few weeks on our capital fundraising drive to raise the money we will require to buy this farm, continue to develop the regenerative agriculture model and build the college to teach and train whoever wants to be part of this necessary revolution!
Watch this space for more information and stories. However if you are excited and you have ideas to share, energy to give in this campaign: if you know of capital impact investors, of philanthropic individuals or companies that would support our initiatives, contact us privately!
The future is in our hands!
]]><![CDATA[Plentiful Harvest]]>Fri, 19 Apr 2019 09:36:58 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/plentiful-harvestMoeketsi Mohlakoana is a graduate of our Permaculture Grassroots introductory course. When he failed to mobilise other graduates from his course to practice what they learned on a larger scale, he decided to go full out and do it by himself. He approached us at Waaipoort Farm and we dedicated a 2 HA area of land to grow a crop. 
He organised a friendly neighbour to disk the land in early October and then proceeded to plant hundreds of pumpkin and butternut seeds.
We helped to intercrop with cow peas, velvet beans, lentils, chickpeas and heritage corn.
This was a very difficult growing season as we had very little rain over the main summer months. Moeketsi persevered with the help of his family and composted each plant (with our kraal compost), collected water from our dam and watered by hand the whole field. 
This dedication paid dividends as he has already harvested a few bakkie loads of produce, sold some to green grocers in Bethlehem and locally.
His generosity of spirit and action showed when last week he shared out a whole bakkie load full of odd-sized fruit to the local Mautse community.
Now we are planning for a winter crop and how we will expand in the coming summer season! 
]]><![CDATA[The start of our volunteer accommodation hub]]>Sun, 30 Dec 2018 16:13:23 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/the-start-of-our-volunteer-accommodation-hubWe've been experimenting with a few earth bag buildings in the past - the compost toilet shelter, the shower spiral, our future fire pit... So this time we built an actual earth bag dome as per Nader Khalili (www.calearth.org ). We employed three youths from the surrounding farm with the view of training them as part of the team to build many more of those structures for our volunteers and hopefully also to inspire a more appropriate, thermally efficient low cost house instead of tin shacks!
This 4-meter diameter dome also has a sleeping pod attached to the east.
It took us 24 days to complete the rough bag work - just before Christmas - with some scratch plaster in the bottom sections.
​We'll complete the exterior plaster in the next few days.
]]><![CDATA[SUmmer... and still no good rainfalls!]]>Wed, 15 Nov 2017 09:37:05 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/summer-and-still-no-good-rainfallsThe continued hot and dry weather in our part of the country is driving us all a little to distraction... and the cows are are very tired of eating old dry grass (with a few green tips thrown in). So I have been feeding them dried Jerusalem artichokes from our plentiful harvest last year and they have been chewing on those sweets with delight - look at this content face of Beauty! 
And one of our chickens has hatched a new clutch of beautiful little fluff-balls
]]><![CDATA[Building developments on the farm]]>Sun, 05 Nov 2017 15:27:24 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/building-developments-on-the-farmOver the last few weeks, Saturdays have become the 'building' days. Some strong young neighbors come and help to drive the construction development further at Waaipoort. We have been erecting a 7m - diameter geodesic dome (with a nice retaining wall from earth bags behind) and also continued the excavation of the Walipini and yesterday we have started with the earth bag retaining walls there as well.
]]><![CDATA[Early spring planting]]>Sun, 01 Oct 2017 07:39:50 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/early-spring-plantingThe planting of asparagus continues (with Michele Schiess and Honest Moyo - Pic 1) and the good work of the cows in the veld as well. They are on very poor grazing at the moment (pic 2) with capped soils (pic 3), which their hooves break up beautifully (pic 4). Late morning with full stomach they ruminate in the warm spring sun (pic 5)
]]><![CDATA[Volunteers help us make this farm a success!]]>Sun, 01 Oct 2017 07:21:07 GMThttp://waaipoort.co.za/blog/volunteers-help-us-make-this-farm-a-successThe time with engaged volunteer Koos is coming to an end. He was a wonderful support in the garden and got us up to speed with springtime sowing and planting and no less than six new compost heaps! And on top of it all he frequently spoilt us with extraordinary culinary delights.
​We welcome volunteers and work with together with global volunteering organizations such as WWOOF and HelpX 
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