Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation

Last month we opened our farm up to the public over three weeks. Along with raising $5,700 towards the education and wider work of Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation it was an opportunity for people to walk along the restoring wetland, see and harvest the many sunflowers that...

Words by Lucy Riddiford Nearly a year ago, I wrote a blog about ‘my why’, explaining my role with the Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation.  Whilst I enjoy being outside, I am not so strong on the hands on skills – but I have different skills I bring to the enterprise. I...

Words by Yvonne Riddiford On the last volunteer of the year we had a different activity than usual, it involved mixing seed which was then broadcast as an understory cover crop and then planting a number of trees into it. This time we had a very small group, only two...

I had gone to bed with the intention to write in the morning and managed to get up in time to see the dawn, with its rivers of pink and blue, streaming above the sharp outline of the hills in the distance. For me writing has been a way of slowing time down, dwelling...

“I’ve got something to show you” my brother-in-law Rod said to me one morning recently in a low-key sort of way. I wondered what. Turns out he’d shot a hare that morning - no mean feat. He was wondering… very politely like … if Yvonne and I might like to um, skin it...

We have recently had a flood, not a big one by our standards but enough to close the road and cover a large part of this farm for about 30 hours. It was not a real concern as we are used to having one or two floods per year. However this was the first significant...

Words by Jane Riddiford “What you are doing here might make a good story for my programme”, said our neighbour Sally, who had come along to one of our monthly volunteer mornings. In between pulling back the thick thatch and planting wetland trees and grasses, we...

Words by Yvonne and Jane Riddiford I never thought at this stage in my life I would be getting a crash course from my mother on the water cycle. When Yvonne heard we were hosting another field trip by the Ruamāhanga river for the year three class from Kahutara school,...

The light was just reaching into the edge of the bush. I was laying out small squares of planting mat on the humps in the ground and large pieces of cardboard over a huge fallen trunk. Rod was not far away in a circular opening in the trees, laying down a string...

Words by Yvonne Riddiford As you can appreciate, now in my hundredth year, I arrived well before the technology did … but I can see that there are advantages to it. One of these arrived the other day when Jane and I received an email from somebody quite unknown. She...

Over the last few months our Te Reo o te Wai project has taken us on a journey with a year 3 and 4 class from Kahutara School . We have travelled alongside the twists and turns of the Ruamāhanga river and all that live in and around her waters. We have observed and...

Words by Jane Riddiford As I walk through the Ruamāmahanga farm wetland on one of those wonderful misty mornings, that the Wairarapa specialises in, my niece Rosa, who is a primary school teacher, asks me. “What do you hope will happen over the next 20 years?” We have...

Written by Jane Riddiford As we picked our way through the cow pats, I heard beside me a small but confident voice, “those calves look in good condition, fat and very shiny”. This was Wilson, a year four pupil from Kahutara School , one of the local primary schools...

Words by Lucy Riddiford As I drive along the road from Martinborough to Ruamāhanga Farm, I look to the right at Jenkins Dip and see with pride the trees that we planted last winter, all carefully tucked up in their tree guards, cleared and encircled with sheep dags to...

Words by Jane Riddiford At first it’s depressing and disheartening; “It can’t be, something must have survived,” I think. My pace slows and now in detective mode I scan the long grasses with more intent. Barely distinguishable from the brown reeds and grasses, I see a...

by Jane Riddiford After days of struggling with the sweltering heat and worrying about how quickly the ground was drying out the rain gods finally came and it chucked down. I was looking out from our verandah and could feel the sunflowers in the paddock in front of...

Written by Jane Riddiford My visits to the river have changed of late. I look at the recently planted understory in the old tī kōuka grove and am reminded of the many young hands from Martinborough school that eagerly carried piles of sheep dags to mulch around the...

Written by Yvonne Riddiford Spring is moving into summer and there is a big push on to finish the last of the planting for the year. Thanks to Project Crimson’s Trees that Count scheme we have more plants at our disposal at any one time than I have ever experienced....

We have been seeing how the things we say and the stories we tell, when connected to the rhythms and patterns of nature can have unexpected ripples that travel far and wide. As described in the previous blog we worked with fourteen, year 6, 7 and 8 tamariki from Te...

by Jane Riddiford Several years ago when the vision for Ruamāhanga Mauri Oho was barely an idea, we took my mother Yvonne to Waihinga bush, now set aside as a QE11 covenant by Pete Smith, whose family have farmed there since the 1840’s. This is one of the most notable...

Written by Jane Riddiford Catching the train to Wellington, I remember to look up and catch a last glimpse of the Wairarapa Moana before we head into the tunnel that takes us through the heart of the Remutaka’s. I had just come from our weekly te reo class. We began...

Written by Yvonne Riddiford Celebrating my 98th birthday provided an opportunity to reflect on aspects of time and changing attitudes towards land. Without a doubt the involvement with my daughters over the years has given me a different perspective on our...

For the last few weeks I have been scrubbing mātai floorboards that will go into our new house. The boards are marked with paint splatters and black dots that I imagine come from the stiletto shoes of country women dressed up in swirling skirts alongside men with...

We had a heartening visit a few weeks ago from the trustees of the Ruamahanga Restoration Trust. As we walked down to the river and shared tea in the ti kouka grove It was encouraging to feel so much shared ground as we explored how we can support and compliment each...

It was late at night and my mind was racing. I could hear the sound of Rod on the piano at the other end of the house and heavy rain falling on our tin roof. Yet again the waters of our river would be rising and all became uncertain again. How do we prepare for...

It was back in 2021 that the shared vision that has become Mauri oho began to emerge between my sisters Liz and Lucy, my husband Rod, our mother Yvonne and myself. As I began to research how to begin a wetland restoration project all roads seemed to lead to Rawiri...