Harmony Forest > Volunteering
Volunteering at
Harmony		 Forest Gardens: January 2007
Working and Learning:
Conscious Communication with All Beings
Forest Gardening and Permaculture
Earth Building and Eco-Housing
Herbal Medicine
Solar Power
Sustainable Energy Systems
Trail Creation and Maintenance
with
Time off to explore the area
and
Free accommodation in a healthy environment
Harmony hosts volunteers willing to love and be loved by All Beings (All Souls). She offers basic shelter and volunteers provide most of their own food though she is growing as much as she can to feed them. This means that a vehicle is useful to get into town (13.5km) and back.

This is different from the traditional exchange. Harmony's exchange is much more. She is willing to teach like-hearted Souls love for All Beings. Mostly she calls her student guests interns and has them for 6 weeks or more, but volunteers may stay for as little as two weeks minimum. It takes at least that long to get to know her a little.

Harmony is conscious loving relationship with All Beings. 20 hectares of maturing broadleaf-podocarp forest, include mature Totaras, Rimu, Matai, Miro, and many Ground and Tree Ferns.

For two weeks or more you can get to know one special part of the country - southern native NZ forest, really well. Your stay at Harmony, Dunedin, New Zealand, can be a discovery of forest gardening and a time to contemplate in native forest, listening to three delightful creeks, walking 5km of contemplative trails, taking in panoramic views from clearings, and learning more about deep ecology, spiritual ecology, forest gardening, permaculture, sustainable energy systems, and earth building.

She is living green, sustainable, with a small footprint. Composting toilet, cob-fire bath, rain, and creek water, dining outdoors when the weather is fine, grinding flour on hand-powered stone mill, baking your own bread and cooking on a wood fire. Keeping healthy with and helping collect herbal medicines and home-grown veges. Helping build and maintain trails. Working consciously with devas, elementals, animals, birds, people, and All Beings. Sleeping in a cob-earth building, in your van, or on a tent-site.

Work in her forest gardens learning the principles and practice of permaculture, forest gardening, organic gardening, and medicinal herbs. Learn how to build eco-friendly buildings with cob earth building, bio-safe preserved timbers, poles, and rock foundations.

She has interns, volunteers, and students attending weekend courses. All are keen to learn and have a great deal of fun.

Teaching takes place on many levels. Rest is an important part of learning. Work is often for full days with full days off. You supply own food. Wood-fired cooking facilities provided. No fridge/freezer.

Volunteers need to be fluent speaking English and we especially value those with building, electrical, and trail maintenance skills. Organic gardening experience is especially needed for clearing and weeding trails and garden tidy-ups in September and April.

Your accommodation is Danaa an eco-friendly earth and timber building. We also have an outdoor cob fire-bath for your enjoyment and refreshment. You may also camp in your own spot within one of Harmony's many clearings.

If you like to live close to the land from September to May, would enjoy walking Harmony's 5km of contemplative trails and connecting public tracks, would like to help build with earth, stone, and wood, have an interest in tending organic fruits and veges; and foraging for wild-fruits (in season) you will enjoy staying with us.

We follow the principles of deep ecology, forest-gardening, harmonisation, organic, no-dig, permaculture, sustainability, and ask all the beings of the forest before we make changes to their home and ours.

We are currently developing gardens and maintaining cabins.

Work is for half the days of your stay. If you are keen to be a volunteer please email David, with details of your interests, background, which of the tasks below you can do well, and which you would most you like to do (see our list below). Please apply at least 10 days before you want to start. Check out the rest of our website, Stories of Living with Daily Miracles, Stories of Communication with All Beings, eBooksabout devas and living in unity consciousness as Soul, and Harmony Forest Stories for more details about us.

September to April

Starting with what we most often need the most! Gardeners who already know how to recognise vegetable and herb seedlings are keenly sought to help with weeding, garden bed preparatio, and planting from September to April. Those who can clear, rake and weed forest trails, weed empty gardens, clean rooves and water tanks, uproot invasive blackberry (gloves provided), and chop and stack firewood are also especially needed all "year" September to April.
    If you have any of the following skills we need you too!
  1. animal communicators
  2. bicycle mechanics to maintain bicycles and install pedal powered systems
  3. builders and carpenters to build cabins and sheds
  4. concreters able to lay foundations for buildings and pave large areas
  5. drainlayers, driveway, trail, and building drainage, sumps, and waste water
  6. electricians able to work with 12V and 240V wiring, and solar systems design and management
  7. fencers to build enclosures to protect trees
  8. foresters to monitor forest, chart and mark locations of significant trees, clearings and views
  9. glaziers to replace broken glass in windows
  10. handy persons experienced in odd jobs, maintenance and repair work
  11. herbalists, drying and storing native and western medicinal
  12. manual labourers able to barrow and carry gravel, and fencing materials to protect trees up trails
  13. orchard experience, fruit and nut tree planting, protection, mulching and pruning
  14. organic gardeners, experienced in recognising weeds and herbs or simply keen to take everything out of paths and trails
  15. painters, ceilings, furniture walls and roofs (September to April)
  16. plasterers interested in earth plasters over earth walls, and earth floors
  17. plumbers
  18. roofers
  19. signwriters: trail signs and cabin names
  20. stone masons, rock steps and garden edges
  21. track builders and maintainers
  22. web designers
  23. woodsman with chainsaw experience to gather, saw, and stack firewood

Calendar

Ask to come in any of the periods labelled with the number of spaces we have for both interns and volunteers and we'll confirm availability. We can usually accomodate 2 - 4 more people than the numbers given on the calendar if you have a tent you can sleep in on-site or sleep in Dunedin. Locals are always welcome!!
On all unmarked dates we have no spaces available

Internships

Volunteers might also like to consider internships with us if they have at least 8 weeks and want to focus on in-depth research and study in a wide range of subjects listed here.

Bookings

We take volunteers for a minimum of 14 days and you need to book a week or more in advance. We have indoor accommodation for one person (or a couple), tent sites in the main clearing, and others within the forest, and places to park vehicles, vans, and campervans.

Please let us know your full name, passport number (if you are not a NZ citizen), country of origin, email address, mobile phone number, experience, what you are able to help with, date you wish to arrive, and the date (how long) you plan to stay to. Pleae email if you can - it is the most efficient way of booking with us. It can be up to 4 days before we can read and reply to your messages. You can also text David at: 021-22-0910.

Getting to Harmony

If you are travelling by bus from Christchurch south to Dunedin, ask the driver to let you off at Leith Saddle, on State Highway One at the intersection of Waitati Valley Road, Pigeon Flat Road, and Leith Valley Roads (see below for maps) This is 13.5km north of Dunedin, and it means you don't go into Dunedin if you are coming from the north. It is a 2.5km walk downhill to Harmony from the dropoff point.

Passenger Transport operate a bus three times a day between Palmerston and Dunedin and will also stop at Leith Saddle on its way to/from Dunedin. Their timetable is Mon - Fri (not public holidays) as follows:
From Waitati to Dunedin (via Leith Saddle) 8am, 12 noon, 5pm. From Dunedin to Leith Saddle. 8:45am, 3:30pm, 5:20pm. The bus accepts the Go-Card that all the inner city buses accept. Go-Cards give a 10% discount, and may be purchased for a minimum of $20 of travel from any city bus.

Maps

Wises Map or Google Harmony 239 Waitati Valley Rd at Google Maps NZ. Our GPS co-ordinates are: Lattitude: 45deg 47' 13.7" or 45.78273 Longitude: 170deg 30' 22.5" or 170.52107.

Further research into us and our ideas:

All Souls Communication
Harmony Stories
Miracles Alive 365

Contact us

Your hosts are David and Lorraine.
David Baillie & Lorraine Burlingham

Don't include spaces in email address.
Mobile: 0211-22-0910
Harmony Farm
239 Waitati Valley Rd
RD2 Waitati 9085
New Zealand
www.gemstonetherapy.info

Volunteer Appraisals:
Vew of solar panels on Danaa's roof as seen from in front Vew of gratitude bridge built between two Tree Fuchsias over forest gully floor Jake Chevrier, Julien Mace, Capucine Falourd March 8 - 25, 2010
Built this cob oven and its chimney, then plastered it in March 2010. Julien made the paddle he's holding to slide out the oven trays out and we all baked bread and potatoes. If the oven is built to certain proportions the fire burns inside the oven, as shown, and the smoke goes up the chimney. The fire is taken out when the oven is warm, the food goes in, a door goes on, and the stored heat (thermal mass) bakes the food. Other people pictured are David on left, Jake left of Julien, and Capucine lower right.

As a sustainable energy systems intern Jake visited a Roxburgh Hydro and Windturbine installation with the Waitati Energy Project and a off-grid City Home running on solar power. He built the re-cycled timber framwork which holds our solar panels on Danaa's roof at all the right angles to catch the sun. He also built this 6m bridge, over a gully on Gratitude Trail in March 2010, with recycled decking timber nailed to a central macrocarpa beam. All timbers were oiled with Harmony's favourite: biosafe natural preservative CD50 with copper-quinolinolate from churton.com.


Laura May 15, 2009
"Thankyou for letting me share this lovely space you have here - the forest is beautiful and the gardens and cabins, great, very inspiring! I'm very glad I have stayed here". It turned out the Laura (pictured) and Beth (not liking her picture taken) had not met but shared the same home town in England.

Beth May 15 2009
"All the above (Laura's comments)! This was very much the place I needed to come to ... I look forward to following you progress with building etc on-line, Thankyou, Love and Peace"

Laura McPhun May 31, 2004
"Thankyou so much for allowing Michael and I to come to your farm. it was a great experience ... Anyways thanks again for the wonderful food, company, and experience. It was great"

Caroline Lowry, May 5th, 2003
A wonderful place to lose (and find) yourself. Very healing. Great to meet you David you're inspiring and have given me food for thought."

Lauren Saurer and Brian Hursh, April 30th, 2003
"Thanks for a wonderful week at Harmony Farm. We loved walking the trails, having a bush bath and pulling out the last fences. Can't wait to come back some day and see the evolution of this great place. Shundahai (Peace and Harmony with all Creation)."

Elad Rosen, 25 March 2003 (on right)
"Record Breaker!! Thankyou, David and Lorraine for this place. A true "Home away from Home" I had a great time here getting my hands and feet dirty and my mind clear! Good luck with everything and take care! Much love"
Verona Bass, March 22, 2003 (on left)
"My mark will be upon this space in New Zealand, which has been special to me. If the signs last, I shall be grateful to have contributed something useful. Contemplation, Compassion, Gratitude etc. Indeed!" Verona was our much appreciated first trail sign writer.

Mayu Sader, Dec 10, 2002
Mayu was our very first WWOOF Volunteer. She says:

"I had a very good time here ... lots of fun. I enjoyed outdoor life. Thankyou! I'd like to come back and to see the garden some day." Our first accomodation was the blue tarpaulin covered bender (rear right) that we called the Temple. In it Mayu met many possums running up the poles at night.

The clearing is "Connection". When we arrived it was all grass. So here we are in the much thinking and contemplation phase of permaculture - the beginning. Where will the paths and drives go, how will buildings define where they need to be, where will the central buildings be about which the gardens will flow, will they collect water to feed the gardens and people. Where is the sun and warmth, and how will veges, herbs, fruits, bushes, and trees be affected by wind. How will we bring all together. Mayu has much to contemplate upon as gardens take the lead and begin to manifest form.

Mayu brought green soy and other seeds, beautifully cared for in packets carried all the way from Japan. Unfortunately none grew in those early days of bringing first energies to the gardens. Slowly different flowers and vegetables established. Usually in the first year one or two would survive with the first few herb elementals in attendance, the following year they would spread their seed, and that seed was naturalised, much of it would germinate.

The plants, animals, and those that look after them were now ready to arrive in greater numbers and the first were not so lonely. Devas arrived to co-ordinate the songs and play of the elementals and the entity Harmony began to form as a place for All Beings. We observed and discovered which plants thrived in the conditions, kale and calendula were among the first to self-seed everywhere. Self-heal flourished without the grass around it, and as paths formed landcress decided that every bit of gravel path was its domain. Now we are in the company of many and love it.

© 2010 Harmony Farm.