30/01/2026

Vinagra Village's Encounter with Depression Kirstin

The roar began in the early hours of January 28th. What meteorologists had forecast as a severe storm with winds reaching 140 km/h arrived with uncompromising force. Depression Kirstin transformed that Tuesday into a day Vinagra Village will not soon forget. Through the night, we faced the full fury of nature—not as a distant news report flickering on a screen, but as an elemental force that tested our resilience.

When Dawn Revealed the Damage

When daylight finally broke, the reality set in with sobering clarity. Vinagra Village bore visible scars. Roof tiles had been torn away. Our prized solar panels, symbols of our commitment to a sustainable future, were twisted and damaged. Most heartbreaking of all, the greenhouse, the beating heart of our farming project, stood with its protective shell ripped, exposing the young plants we had so carefully nurtured.

Nature itself had been violently rearranged. Trees that had taken years to grow strong were felled in minutes. In a particularly cruel twist of fate, one of these trees came to rest squarely on top of our old tractor.

The Work Begins

The purposeful work of clearing fallen branches, sweeping debris, and surveying the material losses, is the work that begins now. The damage is significant and it’s not just material loss but a setback to the project.

Lessons Written in Wind

Depression Kirstin reminded us that despite our best planning and sustainable practices, we remain subject to nature's raw power. We cannot control the wind, but we can adapt to its lessons.

Our strength lies not in unbroken infrastructure, but in our determination to continue the work, that we would like to remind, is the desire to disconnect, reconnect with nature, build real-world community and embrace a more human-centric way of living.

The Road Ahead

The journey to repair and rebuild will demand time, effort, and resources we hadn't budgeted for.

But this is part of the authentic permaculture story. The storms are as much a part of the landscape as the sunshine.

We are bruised, certainly. The evidence is all around us in twisted metal and fallen wood. But we are not broken.

The work of restoration has already begun, and with it comes renewed purpose.