Category: Articles

MARCH 8, 2009 Written by Mary McCann for MastersConnection, LLC, ©All Rights Reserved.
Can you name a teacher that learned the highest lessons of life by observing nature?
One who observes and ponders and allows the answers to come back in dreams? A teacher wise enough to interpret the dreams to make known new solutions? This teacher will observe nature until she speaks to him.

This teacher can see the joy of the plants and the animals and know that joy will transfer to the humans around them along with any agony they suffer. This teacher will do everything he can to light the fire in his students to stand up for their rights and property. This teacher will tell his students how to leave fear behind and how to draw strength from nature. He tells them to communicate and talk with nature and the animals. This teacher has a long legacy of success against all odds and a mission to share the knowledge he’s gained.

A couple teachers come to mind but the teacher I speak of here is Sepp Holzer, the Rebel Farmer. Sepp Holzer is a true rebel in the most inspirational definition of the word.

When Holzer leads a Holzer Permaculture workshop the time will be divided between practical permaculture knowledge and encouragement to be fearless in the face of poorly constructed laws or practices that inhibit the natural energy of the earth or its inhabitants.

His autobiography Sepp Holzer Rebel Farmer is filled with countless examples of this determined man, taking on the local and national ordinances when they don’t make sense to him or sense for the best use of the land.
If he lived here in Yelm, he would probably take on the Army Corps of Engineers over the proper care of wetlands, but being a visitor from Austria he simply offers his advice on how to take on the fight. “Don’t give up. You just have to do it.” he says.
His track record indicates a willingness to practice the old adage, “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.” He teaches real environmental protection believing the demonstration of a different treatment for an area will persuade more quickly than a million words.

When teaching about his Earth Berm Animal Shelters, he began with an observation of the local horses standing outside with coats on.
...This is the worst thing for an animal in Helzer’s world. The standard once was round pens where the animals could run around. When you wanted to saddle, milk or shear it you would tie it up and take care of business and then let them go. He sees modernization as ease for humans and with each step of cutting tails, notching ears, containerizing their living conditions and giving them chemical feed, DIS-ease for animals. The animals become merchandise and abused and the farmers become animal torturers.

He came up with his earth berm shelter by putting himself in his animal’s position. (This is Sapp’s fall back strategy for every problem- be they ants or Scotch Broom.) If he was this animal what would be the ideal way to live?
He dreamt of a cave. Cool and dry, warm in winter and cool in summer.
So he dug into a hill and constructed one of logs thrusting 10 meters into the hill for his cold climate, 5-6m for Washington climate.(They are building one of stone for the workshops.)
He covered the structure with a meter of dirt and planted with veggies and lets the animals self regulate their temperature and surroundings.

The pigs, he calls them his staff, keep it very clean and they are also great companions for chickens. They protect the chickens from predators and the chicks are happy in a berth above the swine with their own little access ramp.
You have to educate the critters to live with each other. That is your task, and he recommends using a stick to prevent the pigs from ever eating an egg.
Holzer recommends the old and robust breeds of pigs and chickens saying, “The hybrid breeds are stupid and not good for the natural way.”

You can also construct the structure with rocks, as we saw demonstrated, and make a keen root cellar with the addition of a door and ventilation. Both structures can be used for animals (without the door) and at the end of the season when you sell off the livestock, the shelter can become storage for your tractor or for your harvest.
If you use it for food you seal it up with hay bales stacked like bricks.
Then you put another row in front of that and chum the bales with jam and bacon and brains-all the mouse and vole delicacies. Put a board over the holes and spread pieces of bark between the baited bales and the doorway for the critters to hide in.
The critters are so taken by the delicacies in the bales, they do not burrow into the shelter! Plus it’s a great floor show to watch the predator birds and weasels hunt the mice. Holzer says “There is movement, there is life there.”

Another similarity between Holzer and a more famous teacher in the Yelm area is his oft repeated phrase, “Water is life.” We’ll have more on water next week....!