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HP Top > 日誌Top > ベン/ Ben Campbell > Trip to Switzerland

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2012/02/25
Trip to Switzerland
[ベン/ Ben CampbellComment(2)]


My turn to write about our trip to Switzerland.We started off by saying goodbye to the cows and our farm-sitter friend,Yukako-san.It was snowing a little bit on the way to the airport.Tatsuo Homna -san gave us a ride in our van and kept it for us until we returned. From Obihiro we flew to Tokyo airport and met with a new freind.She is a big supporter of our movement and gives us some good advice too. We talked for about a hour over tea about the future of Bio Dynamics in Japan and many other things.Very interesting lady.
Next we flew to Paris.11 hour flight and I didn't sleep well at all. Got to Paris and had some time to work on our speech. Sat down at a a bar stool type table and tried to translate Donnis and Yoshiko's message and Konomi's speech and Emika's message. When we got to Basel I was pretty tried and weak. We carried all our bags as far away from the airport as we could so we could hitchhike a ride to Dornach and the Goetheanum. We got a ride in short time and was taken right to the front door (almost). The young man who gave us a ride was a member of a CSA there and showed us the dropoff point but didn't have time to stop and it was on the way to Dornach. At the receptionist table we signed in for the conference and found out our reservations to stay at a local residence was misintrpreted. We had no room.



The receptionist name is Anna marie and she just had happen to have a guest room available so we went to her house. Nice house with our own kitchen and shared bathroom. We were only 20 minutes walking distance from the Goetheanum. It was absolutly the most impressive building I have ever seen. Although I had seen many pictures of it, It was still magnificent.
We got settled in at Anna marie's house and worked on the speech some more. We went to a meeting for the contributers and staff. We couldn't understand what they were saying until they talked to us directly. There were maybe 35 people in the room. We recognized only a few people from the pictures and we racognized Herald Hoven. We went home after the meeting and worked on the speech some more only to find out it was too long. We were allowed only 12 minutes. Our speech was 30 minutes with everybodys messages and our little bit of history of how we met and what we have been doing with Bio dynamics in Japan. So I find out we have another day before our speech. Now it is back to the speech again and it really gave me a lot of stress I didn't sleep well at all since I left home and had diahrea, but had to shorten the speech in one day. Between classes and workshops, when I should have been mingling with others at our display table. Which we had set out calendars from years past and Maria Thun's book in Japanese and some brochures of our farm and business cards. The classes were interesting because you had to think about certain questions they asked you and you had to discuss it with the other 3 people at your table. Then after 20 minutes it was another table of people and another question. One of the moderaters Steffan Snieder from Hawthorne Valley in New York. He helped me a lot to try and understand the questions and we became good friends since then. And then there was the Eurythymy sessions. I only got to attend one but I liked it and wish I could have been there for the second time but we were in a meeting with some scientist who were interested in showing us a new preparation they were working on for Chernobyl. They gave us their preparations and tried to explain how to use them and will get more infomation on that soon. I missed the meeting with the farmer we were suppose to give it too at Konomi's mom's house. And Konomi missed the meeting with the scientist later to hear how to use it so we will have to get in contact with them again. They were very interesting and they were glad to see someone from Japan and tell us they could help with the radioactivity in the Fukashima area. I wish we could afford to send them down there and let them do their stuff. We know the BC works, but how do we spread it around when we are busy here? Can anyone volunteer for this? It is a dangerous mission and must not talk too much about it, just spray and test. These scientist can probably help us by phone or SKYPE.
We did get to see a live Eurythymy concert one evening at the Goetheanum with lights and music and beautiful movements and artistry. I wish my mother could have seen this. I called her and told her to look it up on the internet but it is not like being there. If one comes to your town or you get near one please attend it.
The food at the conference was mostly vegetarian with cheese and bread. Good bread and cheese. Organic sparkling apple cider and water to drink. We ate breakfast in our room. Lunch and dinner with everyone else. I still hadn't finished my speech until it was that morning of the speech. There I was sick, tired and scared to death of all those people looking at us. My knees were shaking and my armpits were sweating and my throat was dry. Everyone had earphones the speakers different language to translate into their language. So everybody could hear us. We got though it and I was soo relieved. But that night I slept very well and my stomach started to feel a little better. After reading the speech again I was not happy with what I wrote. I even had bad dream's of the Japanese people wanting to hang me for talking bad about their farming style. I didn't mention much about the good things thats going on here. I wish I could write a better speech that would really move people to do something. Sorry I was not more prepared for this real important speech.
After the speech we still had a few more days at this conference to get to know who and what is going on in different places. We displayed our soveigners that were donated to us from our friends from Japan. We needed the money because we didn't have much money with us. Many people wanted to say thank you to us for our contribution to this conference and for the work we are doing in Japan. They gave us a lot of support and I don't know how much money. Konomi kept track of every penny and I didn't get to touch any money the whole time. No worries. I got everything I wanted anyway. We got to meet a lot of people there and we have friends and resources for the Bio Dynamic movement here. The door is wide open for us. All we have to do is just ask and we will get help with anything we want.(Almost). So the conference is just about finished and we had a meeting with the top dogs of the Agricultural section of the Goetheanum. It was an honor and a privilage to be in such great company. They told me to get in touch with other Asian nations and spread the BD movement to all of Asia and it will be noticed more here in Japan. I told them that we are just farmers who want to help. Denis and Takeshi and a few others are the backbone of the BAAJ and that they should contact them. While at this meeting we met with Nicholai Fuchs and he transfered our status to the new directors the 3 guys who are taking his place and he recommended a farmer we could stay with on his Demeter Certified dairy farm and a Bio Dynamic seed saving and farm community named Sativa. It was a community at the spiral curve on the Rhine river. We saved a few days after the conference to get some experience on a Demeter dairy farm and see a Bio Dynamic farm community and visit Konomi's mom.
The farmer who's name was Herman just happened to be there at that moment to pickup his wife who was at the conference too. They only live about 1 hour from the Goetheanum. The cheese we were eating at the conference was from Herman's farm. The farmers name is Herman and Regina lutke Schipholt. and they have a dairy on top of a hill near a small village named Siblingen. The farms named is Randonhof. He has 30 brown swiss cows. and a bull stay with the herd. One young bull seperated from the herd and the mature bull with the herd. He makes cheese, yogurt, quark, soft cheese, and raw milk for sale at the local shops in the area. He took us with him to these deliverys he makes twice a week. Some of these shops were very fancy and some were just convienent stores and mom and pop shops. He showed us some of the other Demeter and organic farms as we drove passed them. There is something like 270 Demeter certified farms in Switzerland but 7000 organic farms and Switzerland is only half the size of Hokkaido. Herman's wife's families farm was the first Bio Dynamic farm in Switzerland. And she knew a lot about the BD preparations. The last night we were with them we got to ask her a few questions and got more information from her in 3 hours that we got at the conference for 4 days. While at Herman's farm we learned to make cheese and we had plenty of time to relax. We got to see how a Demeter farm is suppose to look like and how it is managed. He lets his cows have open sky and free room to roam. He lets them sleep on deep litter type of manure collecting. He adds the preps to the pile until spring then scops it all up with the tractor and lets it decompose before it is spread on the fields. This is not the Swiss Alps but it is mountainous. Temperatures while we were there were - 5 to -15 and some light snow occationally. Milder than here in Hokkaido. Herman's oldest son Anno is farming Bio Dynamically on a new farm in the valley in the village. He is raising hogs and making sausges and sells his pork products to Demter slaughterhouses. He has a little shop at the farm and will make improvements on it like maybe a cafe' style. Herman's farm was a good break for us and we learned a lot from him and his wife when she was there. She was involved with the churh most of the time we were there but we really enjoyed our last night with them both.



I also got to drink an organic swiss beer.YEAH! But only one beer the whole time I was in Switzerland but drank one beer with Konomi's mom when we got there at her house. We said goodbye to Herman and his family. And I'm sure I could talk more about our stay with them and we will try to keep them in our memory. They helped us out with many things.



He bought me a pair of boots and gave us a cheese making basket and some culture and cheese and while we were with him he took us to Sativa. A Demeter certified seed company and farm community. We ordered our seeds from them and now have a good connection with a good seed saving source. After our tour of the farm we were in the hands of one of the scientist to take us to a research center and his farm where he was staying. The research center was an agriculutureal research center working on the differences' in methods of agriculture, conventional, organic, and Bio Dynamics, among other things. It's name is FiBL Research Institute of Orgaic Agriculture, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.They are a good source of information on anything about pests and diseases of plants and animals. A great place doing so great work. Nice people too.



After the tour of the research center went to the scientist farm. His name is Rainer Sax. He is staying on a CSA farm on a hill looking over a small village. Very nice little farm with cows and chickens. I could find myself very comfortable on this farm. It was very cold that day we were there but it was very nice to see a small farm that is just barely sustainable but you could tell that this lady there loved her farm and her farmwork. Very nice lifestyle if you ask me. After that we were back in Dornach at another of his collegues house Fransizka whose mother is a daughter of one of the scientist working with Dr Steiner. Fransika was the one who got the recipe for this new prep to cure the radioactvity. She was not there because she was in the hospital having surgery. So we missed hearing from her directly but got some information over the phone.
Then it was time to go to Konomi's mom's house to meet with some organic farmers who could use the preps but me and the preps were left behind because I was too tired to go shopping with them. I didn't know they were going to meet him then. Anyway we will have to connect with him later. At mom's house we had a good meal with her brother and his son and her sister and her 2 daughters. We SKYPed my Mom so we could all see each other. A good visit but I was by then very anxious to get back to our cows and farm.
We got a lot of support and met a lot of good people on this trip and I guess it was worth it, but it will be a long time before I fly again. Unless we get that dream life of taking the winter months off to go to some place WARM!
Today is Feb 25 and it is -16 C. I'm getting the greenhouse ready for seedstarting and working partime still at the recycle center. It may be along time before I can write again. I'm sure I left out some more important things about our trip now but if you see me or write to me I can tell you more. It was mostly a business trip for me trying to help Konomi as much as I could, but I learned many valueable things that will help us along our mission of healing the earth. Lets do it together. All we need is Love. And People. Join us. Ben.



[ベン/ Ben CampbellComment(2)]

Edited by ベン/ Ben Campbell 2012/02/29 22:02:33
Last Modified 2012/02/29 22:26:52

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コメント(Comment)


Hi Ben and Konomi, I hope you are both well. I enjoyed reading your blog and just felt i needed to make it clear to those reading it and yourselves that your speech was the most moving and heart felt i had he pleasure of listening to throughout the conference in which your genuine nature and intentions shone through. I still hope to visit you at your farm in the future and help in any way i can. Good luck! I hope things are good in japan, its turning spring here in the UK and sighs are showing everywhere!

投稿者(Contributor):Matt Briggs|2012/03/02 06:40:35


Thanks Mat for your comment.I do hope you can come to Japan and see us.We just today put the plastic on the greenhouse.There is still Plenty of snow on the ground now but it is slowly melting.Spring is not here yet but it is real close.When the cuckoo bird starts singing here we can plant anything without fear of frost.It may be a cuckoo bird from near your house.Come anytime you can and stay as long as you want.

投稿者(Contributor):Ben|2012/03/02 19:49:20

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