Rosehips and Hawthorne berries dry in the autumn sun. Pick before a frost and dry the rosehips berries, then use a food processor to break them up to make a tea very high in vitamin C. You have to watch out when picking rosehips as they have little stickers on them that can stick you! Use gloves and pick as many as you can. When making the tea, just steep and filter after grinding, then add a bit of honey.
#purenewzealand #newzealand #wanaka #lovewanak #mountainspirit
Drilling holes into a perfectly good micro-hydro intake box! Conner, our helper and wonderful person during lockdown helps me add anchor points which will help hold the micro hydro intake to the stream bed. It will take two pours of concrete to hold the intake in place, not to mention some bolts and chains anchored from big rocks in the stream bed, going under the cement. Only a 100 yr flood event will take this out.. if that we hope!
The Powerspout micro-hydro in action last spring during its initial trial run, when we had a running stream. During Lockdown, it was Conner’s and my job to build a more permanent footing and structure for this gizmo, and to secure the intake. More on that later…stay tuned. We’ll show you images and text of this hydro system, called the Powerspout, how we set it up, how the company configured the system to our water flow and drop, (called head) and how it works now that we’ve got water flowing in our stream. It’s the perfect dovetail to our solar. Tons of sun in the summer and tons of water in the stream in the winters.
A very long trench through glacial moraine deposits! Arggh. But for a good cause! Our Micro hydro electrical feed to the house.
One of our first projects during lockdown: We were able to pick up an excavator before the restrictions took place, Here is a very long electrical trench from the new micro-hydro unit to the house which now needed to be filled in. With the help of the excavator and our “Woofrs” (Willing Workers on Organic Farms), Jess and Conner, from the states. the backfill went well. Since this picture was taken, we’ve had the hydro system running for 4 weeks now, and it sure is rewarding! It’s the perfect dovetail to our solar panels which crank in the summer months. Since there’s a lack of sun during our winter months, the secure feeling that we’re generating electricity from the stream is a wonderful feeling. It cost a bit to get it running, but as they say, “It can be complicated living simply” Ah, not really, but there is some planning involved. It’s more than just flipping a switch and paying an electrical bill. I don’t miss the latter though! More on the hydro system in later posts.
Using a rope ladder as part of the daily obstacle course. We added a new element every day.
It was clear early on, that lockdown with a child at home from school, was going to require creativity. We were going to have to come up with some activities. We decided to create an obstacle course by adding a new element every day. We started by taking some old climbing rope and making a rope ladder with alternate foot loops. Make sure you make the loops big enough so they’re easy to slip into, and not too far apart. It was surprising how much rope we used! #purenewzealand #lakewanakanz #wanaka #mountainspirit #kidsactivities #obstaclecourse #challengecourse
This wonderful statement by Sony Renee Taylor has been circulating around lately, and it’s surely a wake up call –
“We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”
You can find out more at the Facebook page Over Grow the System
And from Brenna Quinlan on her Facebook page….
The first step towards creating something is imagining it. We imagine the smell of fresh bread as we tend our sourdough starter. We imagine the taste of ripe tomatoes as we plant out our seedlings. When we lay down the first stone, we imagine laughter and stories from future meals shared in our new home. The ability to create, in our minds, a possible future, is what gives that possibility a chance of being realised.
If all we imagine is business as usual, then that is the world we will create. But if we draw on our curiosity and creativity, we can hold in our minds something much greater than the world we are in. And once that happens, we can begin to act. Find out more about Brennan here.
Let me catch you up on Mountain Spirit New Zealand during these “interesting” times. The first post, was first published on our Instagram feed in March 29th 2020. I thought I’d include it below as a starting point.
May 25, 2020
As New Zealand comes out of lockdown from “Level 3” to “Level 2”, things are still pretty quiet in Wanaka. The kids are back in school which frees me up a bit to post what we couldn’t during lockdown. I thought we’d share what we did here at Mountain Spirit in the following posts. Maybe it will give you some ideas, good for thought, or just some entertainment. Let us know what you think as well.
March 29th 2020
As New Zealand went into lock-down (Stage 4) a few days ago, we had a beautiful sunset to signal our weeks of isolation here in the Wanaka. Although we are home bound, there’s lots of activities and jobs to do. We’ll fill you in as we tick along during this pandemic. We send you well wishes during this time.
Dexter and Genelle Richards at Dexter’s Inn circa 1940 ©randallrichards
I grew up in tourism. My parents started a ski lodge, Dexter’s Inn, in the 1940’s in Sunapee, New Hampshire. I’ve been in and out of tourism over the years, and in different shades of it, from ski instruction, to experiential education, high-altitude mountain guiding, a guide on the Inka Trail to Machu Pichu, back in the days when you didn’t see a lot of people, and no permits required (referring to the Inka Trail only).
We now own Lake Wanaka Yacht Charters and Mountain Spirit NZ in the Southern Lakes District of New Zealand. So we’re officially back in the industry. However the industry seems uber-industrial.
Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So when is enough, enough? And what do we do now?
Here are some rumblings about our, small, but very fast-growing communities, Wanaka and Queenstown, New Zealand.
First an article from CNN: in which Queenstown is listed, among other areas in the world, as a trouble spot, with over 3 million visitors per year…
Destination trouble: Can overtourism be stopped in its tracks?
(CNN) — We first hear about these places when we’re kids. Famous destinations full of wondrous architecture, spectacular scenery or ancient mysteries that fire our imaginations and fill us with yearning.
We dream, we grow, we save up all our money and one day we finally get to visit — only to discover, read more…
![20190705_115036[1]](https://blog.mtnspirit.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/20190705_1150361.jpg?w=298&h=168)
Queenstown, New Zealand , image©Randall Richards
Next, our local Wanaka Stakeholder Group’s Protect Wanaka Facebook page, a firebrand in its own right (and I mean that as a compliment), weighs in: “Queenstown has been named in CNN Travel’s global list of locations that are currently plagued by ‘Overtourism’, read more…
The Wanaka Sun
The Disadvantages of Tourism
By Allison McLean (journalist@thewanakasun.co.nz)
“Tourism is noted as New Zealand’s top export earner and the cornerstone of its economy. It sustains and grows local communities and reportedly employs one in seven New Zealanders, according to Tourism New Zealand. Many locals consider this sword to be double edged, noting the accumulated waste, erosion of land and consumption of fossil fuels from tourism that put the country’s land and greatest asset at risk. read more…
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Just as shifting our paradigm on how our family uses plastics during Plastic Free July, we’re in the process of shifting how we think of tourism, and how we contribute to the problem or clean up the mess. Whether as suppliers or tourists, we all need a re-think. A saying I heard the other day made me chuckle, and again was a paradigm shifter:
“I’m not stuck in traffic, I am traffic”
Responsible tourism is the future, not simply the bottom line. Here’s New Zealand’s webpage on the subject, as well as another great page on NZ Sustainable Tourism Tourism Industry Aotearoa, TIA’s page. And acompany, Responsible Travel has had some new global initiatives. Lake Wanaka Tourism has published a sustainable tourism page.
Unfortunately I see Wanaka and Queenstown going the way of Park City, Vail, or other towns in the Alps, that just got too big, and now deal with smog, traffic and overgrowth, but that’s another subject, I suppose. Although we, too, are new here, one redeeming attribute is we’ve always tried to live a small footprint, including buying existing houses rather than building anew, living off the grid when possible etc. .
Tell me what you think. Respectful comments welcome.
Check out our new video which gives you an overview of what we’re up to, our goals and dreams to make Mountain Spirit a place where people can connect to nature, themselves and each other. The video was done by “The Master” *Ashley Leung. Ash did the ground work, all editing and production. Keep the good work Ash! Randall did the aerial footage, and Ash made magic with it.
*We feel very fortunate to have Ashley, his wife Autumn and their new daughter as family friends. We miss them them and look forward to their return to New Zealand.
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