Wendy's Hill Top Farm, Growing Strong with Nature (and Fun) ~ Cooktown, QLD ~ April 2013

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Presently I’m back at one of my favourite places in Australia: Wendy Seabrook’s Hill Top Farm in Cooktown, far north Queensland. I felt drawn to come back here as my last AU wwoofing destination for this chapter, and I’m so glad I did. The farm is gorgeous and staying here is positive and happy for the soul, as always. I respect and enjoy Wendy’s work and her lifestyle enormously; she feels like a good friend and a big sister to me. Enjoying meals and watching the geese parade by on the airy veranda, we chatter constantly about growing, real ideas and life journeys. Humor, mutual respect, compassion, and intelligence are mulched into the fabric of life here.

Last time I was here, Wendy was the first to introduce me, in her understated way, to the theory and practice of “permaculture” design. Since then I’ve explored these concepts by reading as much as possible, staying on many well-known permie properties, observing and discussing everywhere I’ve been, and teaching at CERES. Returning to Hilltop Farm, the plants and designs that were in their infancy – really more concepts than tangible or visible systems – are now in full bloom. Here several large swaths of land are being cultivated as polyculture “food forests”, farm land that will mimic natural forest ecosystems with multiple layers or “stories” – from canopy trees to smaller trees to shrubs to groundcover to vines and roots – all of which will create a self-sustaining ecosystem, provide food for humans and animals, and produce fertilizer through biomass (“free mulch into the future”) and poo (best fertilizer & seedbed)! Eventually lots and lots of chickens and a few cattle will forage and graze in a managed pasturing system through segments of the property, contributing eggs and poo to the resource base.

Wendy is extreme humble and constantly reminding me that she’s still learning, experimenting, not figured everything out yet. This is a big part of why I admire her so much; this method seems aligned with the content of and philosophy behind the work. Wendy has been attending intensive courses on food forest polycultures (with Dave Jacke) and holistic grazing, is working on a handbook for a nearby Aboriginal community about creating backyard food forests, and is brainstorming about a post-doc to examine how food forest systems work in tropical regions by studying examples in Java developed over hundreds of years, and documenting her own work. I’m cheering!

The daily habit here is to do farm work in the morning (this is the most fun, sweaty, dirty, productive, and “real” work of any wwoofing place I’ve been), wash up and have a nice lunch, then do focused work of writing and research in the afternoon, and put it all away at dinner for a relaxed evening with good food and a glass of wine. In terms of a professional approach, I really like this recursive process: of doing A) tangible physically engaged work “on the ground”, B) intellectual analysis/reflection/research “at the desk”, A, B, A, B, etc. In terms of a human life, I really like the balance of the whole system including healthy intensive work for the body and mind, healthy fun food, social time and quiet time. Good human ecology.