Meandering Through Secret Waters

Coming Alive - What Next?

2012-01-26T01:33:00.000-08:00

For the most part of my sixty years I have suffered from bouts of depression interspersed with generalised negative thinking. Fortunately, I've always also had brief encounters with happiness, and with joy, euphoria, or what Abraham Maslow called 'peak experiences'. (Time to re-read this man's work.)

When I first experienced these euphoric moments I tried to find ways to make them happen more often, but then, because my general outlook has been so negative, I quickly became fearful of the power of this joy, and learned to suppress it. I have always been an emotional person, and as a child my mother tried to teach me to suppress emotions: I remember being punished and sent to my room for getting angry, which I can understand because my anger was pretty loud and often violent. But I also remember being sad and being sent to my room until I cheered up. Worse still, I remember being sent to my room to calm down when I was skipping and singing happily. So I guess it's understandable that I learned how to be expertly unhappy when depression moved in at puberty!

Never mind - I'm almost grown up now, and I've not only decided to cheer up, I've learned how to do it. It's hard work, but I really am happier than I can ever remember, even though nothing much has changed in my physical, 'real' world. Furthermore I have rediscovered the magic of euphoria - and when I'm alone I can take myself there again. It could get addictive if I'm not careful!

With the increasing feeling of well-being I am learning all kinds of things that most people probably learn in childhood! I have learned to accept the the past instead of constantly brooding on everything I did wrong, didn't do that I wanted to, didn't do because although I didn't want to do something then, I now wish I had, just always thinking about the wrong moves. And then I'd think about all the people who did me wrong and all the people I did wrong to - and so it would go on.

There are things I'm a bit sad about still - I don't know if I'll ever not feel sad about not learning to dance, and about not having a partner who wants to learn now, when it's way too late to do that sort of dancing with anyone other than my partner. However, I am okay about it now because.......

I've realised that if I wrote down all the things that I wish I'd done and all the things I still would like to do, there are way more than I could have achieved in a long life if I'd started the minute I was born! Sure there are things I'm too old for, too unfit for, not talented enough for, not educated enough for, but there are more than enough to keep me busy, excited, stimulated for longer than I wish to be alive. I'm starting another list of things I want to do, in my Journey Book, (which started out as my depression book, but which has evolved.)

Make cheese.....make sourdough bread......dance in the rain again......travel to Golden Bay and to Stewart Island......get stoned like I 'should' have done in the hippy days of my youth.....write happy poetry.......visit our friend in Australia.......die, not in my bed, nor by my own hand, but blowing bubbles.

A Summer Morning at Secret Waters

2012-01-23T16:37:00.000-08:00

What a glorious day for a yeoman farmer! It was quite autumnal when I got up, not a cloud in the sky, but that crisp, cold freshness that usually comes later in late March and April. Great weather for scything though. Scything is best done in the morning before the dew has dried, and the grass toughened up. I am getting better at scything, and did around twelve trees before hunger drove me inside for breakfast. If I keep this up, then this year we should be able to find all the feijoas as they fall on the ground.

After a larger breakfast than usual - I don't usually do an hour's hard labour before eating - I went out harvesting. I have only ever had one good year of garlic before but this year I have more than enough to keep both the vampires and most of my friends at bay for the entire year.

In my eager anticipation of our trip to Alaska in June 2011, I forgot about buying garlic bulbs for planting until I was checking emails while in Fairbanks, and found one from Koanga reminding me. The wonders of the internet - I ordered some online and they arrived the day after we got home. I ordered lots, assuming I would, as usual, only get a few to grow. Wrong!

Koanga was also offering tree onions, which I had never heard of, let alone grown. They too have flourished, and if they taste good, I'll plant more this July. And this year I will have plenty of healthy specimens to use instead of ordering in.

A couple of years ago I bought a mini green house to start our seedlings in inside. It came from The Warehouse and only cost about $60, so we were surprised that it worked so well, and didn't fall to bits a month later. Now I have found a new use for it. Without it's plastic cover, it makes a great rack to finish drying off the garlic and tree onions.

It was hot out there in the sun, so I gathered my lunch.

And after a shower, I ate them with home-grown honey, and store bought yoghurt - must go and start some home made yoghurt now, using the raw organic milk I buy locally.

Then I'm going to settle down and do some work on my Apicultural Knowledge course.

Many people tell me "Oh! You don't work? I couldn't bear that, I need the mental stimulation of my job," just as they used to say the same thing when I was a stay-at-home homeschooling mother. Well, I find my life quite stimulating enough, thanks! Particularly in this wonderful era of the internet, which allows me to talk to distant friends and family in the evening, and of easy travel, which allows me to go to Auckland tomorrow night to spend an evening listening to really good jazz. The life of a modern yeoman farmer is a good one!

Weed or Wonder?

2012-01-11T16:21:00.000-08:00

A few years ago a visitor to Secret Waters told me I must immediately dig out the agapanthus growing on our bank. Well, there were/are too many other things needing doing so the agapanthus remained.

I don't know what I do when I'm asleep, but I almost always wake up the same way. I open my eyes and the first thing I see is my tattoo, which brings a smile to my face. Next I role over and look out through a small, long window.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

How could I dig them out? They are such inspiring flowers. They leap up, throw out their arms and yell to the world:

"Here I am! Look at me! I'm so fucking gorgeous! Let's dance!"

Tuis in the Crimson

2012-01-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

Our pohutukawa tree respected my 'we-are'not-having-christmas-at-our-place' this season and did not start flowering until after the dreaded day. Now it is in full glorious bloom and there are at least five tuis hanging out in amongst the crimson wonder.They are in and out all day, and though they never put money in the parking meter, their singing is so wonderful I don't write them infringement notices.

Unreasonable Fear

2012-01-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

I've lived my life with a cloud of fear hovering over my head: fear of spiders and worms and rejection and people and being late and being early and slow death and pain and high places, both real and metaphorical, and being alone and not being alone and being laughed at and hurting others and hurting myself and of being happy.........

"Feel the fear and do it anyway" is the title of a book I have heard of but never read. It is also a phase that has often been thrown at me like a mantra by people who seem to live their lives by trite phrases of this kind. Those who read a self-help book, pick out little gems and wave them around in the air without actually making meaningful changes in their lives. Then they throw away that book away and find a new one. I'm not one of those people: I read a self-help book and mutter, 'well, that was a waste of time, that'll never work,' and go find another without making meaningful changes

But so many of my fears are not reasonable. Worms? Those amazing creatures who turn decomposing matter into the humus that in turn feeds my vegetable garden? I've worked on that one - I admire them greatly, but still don't like them. I can, however, pick one up off the cobblestones, where it is going to dry out and die, and place it in a cool shady garden where it can burrow down into the soil once more. I can even pick up a whole handful from the worm farm to show people.

Fear of hurting other people has made me do things that have harmed myself. It's reasonable - essential even - to make compromises in relationships, but not to the extent that I damage myself. A relationship that damages me is not worth having, and yet I always felt that everyone else in the world was more valuable and worthy than me, and even though I do not believe in any kind of god, I have a huge superstitious fear that whenever I put myself before others I am invoking some kind of cosmic retaliation. The remnants, no doubt, of a hell-fire and brimstone Presbyterian minister who terrorised me as a child. I've been working on that one but have a long way to go.

Recent discussions got me thinking about why I am afraid of doing some things other people enjoy. I realised that just not doing things when my first reaction is fear, is as stupid as the 'feel the fear and do it anyway' as a way of living. Much as some aspects of paintball appeal to me, I really don't deal with pain well. I rarely notice pain while I'm doing something, but the pain of physical bruising that continues afterwards drains me: I'm not going to go play with my son and his friends in the bush. And that's fair enough: feel the fear and do it anyway? Nah! Not paintball. But other fears are not so reasonable.

I have decided that this year my goal is to take real awareness into my fear of life and to challenge the reasonableness of those fears. I'm not even going to consider jumping out of an aeroplane with a scrap of fabric attached to, or possibly detached, from my back. That is a reasonable fear - it's why adrenalin junkies do it - it IS dangerous! But I am going to work on my fear of going past the third rung of a ladder.

I'm going to invite a woman I met recently over for coffee, because she's a really interesting person, and she lives nearby and I'd really like to make a new local friend. Just writing that down makes my stomach churn with terror. Stop. What's the worst that can happen? The worst she can do is say, 'well, fuck off, why would I want to know you?' And then I will be in exactly the same position as I am now, right? Hmmmm - I know it's not that easy for me - in fact I've never invited someone for coffee until I've known them for, literally, years. It's a huge fear for me. However, unlike the fear of jumping out of aeroplanes or getting bruises from paintballs, this is not a reasonable fear.

There's nothing wrong with fear - it's a lifesaver at times. But I have lived 60 years with a raft of fears that are unreasonable, or which were reasonable once, but are no longer so.

I will examine my fears, and I will judge them, and those found wanting in reasonableness will be driven into exile. And I AM going to totally destroy my fear of being happy.

Rediscovering Berries

2011-12-18T17:35:00.000-08:00

One of the problems associated with depression is lack of motivation, lack of energy, lack of interest. Over the last 18 months, as I have struggled with depression and spent a lot of time working to learn to deal with it, many things have been neglected. One is my berry garden.

This is my raspberry patch. Truly - there are raspberry plants in there somewhere! You can see how tall the grass is, by comparing it to the ordinary garden fork stuck in the ground.

This morning I started the renewal programme by uncovering the blueberry and currant bushes which were similarly hidden. They have been affected by the neglect: three were dead, and some of the remaining bushes don't look at all healthy - I will have to buy more this autumn - but we will get a few blueberries soon.

This is the result of my morning's labours! It will compost down and then I will spread the resulting humus around the bushes.

How could I have neglected them so? Especially when working my gardens and orchards leaves me feeling so good.

Dealing With Depression

2011-12-18T16:16:00.000-08:00

The past 18 months have been a long journey for me - and I'm not there yet. In fact I know I'll never be 'there', because this life of mine is a constant journey. However, following a massive attack of depression in June 2010 I have been working on learning to train this black dog of mine. I've been to a clinical psychologist, read many books, explored dozens of websites, but the two things that have helped me most have been John Kirwan's website, and keeping a journeyjournal. The latter helps me remember what it feels like to be at the bottom, but also reminds me of the things that help me - when I'm down, I find it hard to remember.

On Tuesday night Jeff told us he and Konny had found a house in town and would be moving in this weekend. I slept badly that night, feeling sad. It's not like we have 'had' much of him the last six months, as he has been too busy with Konny and university and all the other stuff that goes with being a young adult, but I felt the loss of him strongly that night and next morning. I got up on Wednesday still feeling very sad, and while eating breakfast, chipped a tooth. My old style was to assume the worst, that the tooth was cracked right through, was going to cause untold pain, and cost baskets full of money to repair. Instead I told myself, 'maybe it is just a chip,' and put it aside to deal with another day. But still felt sad.

I mucked about dismally all morning and part of the afternoon until I finally got myself into gear and headed into town to pick Steven up. As I drove into Hamilton I realised that I had started to withdraw into my grey bubble. I made myself look out at the world and see the same things I had seen a couple of days earlier when they had made my heart sing - the wild flowers, the stripes of young green maize in the fields, the harriers gliding over the trees, the gorgeous, wild clouds - and I saw that they were no different. It was me that was different. I made a real effort to observe and appreciate the beauty and slowly my mood lifted a little.

I got to The Base at Te Rapa (huge shopping complex) and decided to go buy myself some earphones for my mp3 player so I can have music in my car, instead of feeling miserable because my car cd player has broken. Yay! Music! I felt my mood rise a little more.

I collected Steve and headed for Auckland. Very slow traffic. Bad. Lots of time to talk with Steve. Good. I put missing Jeff out of my mind and concentrated on enjoying being with the son that was present.We got to Ceracell just 10 minutes before closing, to collect pre-ordered bee gear for me, and for Jacqueline. Good. Oh, they had forgotten to make up Jacqueline's order. Bad. Instead of getting annoyed, and worrying about how much time it was taking, I reminded myself, 'relax, there's no hurry.'

Three-quarters of an hour later......we were on the road again. The traffic was even worse. When we got to the Greenlane off ramp after half an hour driving in first gear, we decided to leave the motorway and go get takeaways for dinner and take them to eat at my sister's place hoping for a cup of tea. Not only were she and Graham there, but also her daughters, son-in-law and grandson. Claire was heading off on a holiday in Asia so they were having a Christmas dinner and presents opening for her. So glad we called in - that bad traffic turned into something good.

Then off to CJC (Creative Jazz Club) in central Auckland. During a break between sets I turned around to ask the woman on the desk behind a question - my glasses flew off and I knelt on them resulting in a very twisted arm which meant I could only wear them if I had major cosmetic surgery on my head! I went to text Mac to tell him I would have to stay the night at Steve's place - and my phone died! It just kept turning off, even though the battery wasn't flat.

But the music was totally awesome! So I just focused on that. In the past I would have been berating myself for days. Instead I focused on the good.

Steve drove us back home to his place, and I stayed the night. The bed's not as comfortable as mine, and there's no curtain and they live next to a very busy road that trucks use as a bypass, so having gone to bed at 1.30am, I woke up at 10 to 7! Hanging on to the joy by the skin of my teeth....

I checked my phone again - planning to pull it to bits and put it back together again - no need! It had revived!

At 9am I woke Steve because I had to be in Raglan at 1pm. He got up and made me scrambled eggs for breakfast - what a treat! Then off to the opticians. Having gotten a reminder two days earlier that I was due for my 2 yearly check up, I made an appointment, then produced my glasses. She was sorry but they wouldn't be able to fix them - well, she'd give it a go, but were sure the arm would break when she tried to bend it back into shape. A couple of minutes later she came out beaming and said, "I WON!"

Home. Oh, I haven't mentioned the rain. It had been raining for abut a week. But that day it poured. I got soaked and covered in mud as I filled the van's radiator with water, and attached the trailer. Changed clothes. Into Raglan to the garage for Warrant of Fitness checks for both. Rain. Down to Black Sands for tea and bagel for lunch. Feeling damp and a bit sad again. Just as I was nearly finished, half a dozen Maori came in, all ages, sat down with milk shakes from somewhere else, didn't buy anything. After about 5 minutes one of the waitresses asked, "would you like me to take your order?" "Oh, no thanks, we're just waiting for someone else," said the oldest woman. The waitress didn't know what to do, but as the place was almost empty, she said no more. A few more minutes and I was about to leave, when another half dozen joined them, complete with several guitars and a 6 string ukulele - and Dave Maybee, a local musician. They started singing carols and it was very cool. (And they ordered food and drinks once they were all there.) The cafe filled up with people drawn by the music. I stayed and listened and had another drink.

The van and trailer both got warrants, and home I went. Got soaked and muddy again as I did country chores.

Today I went back into town for my eye exam and yay! my eyes haven't changed, there's no sign of glaucoma, and she said my eyes look very healthy, and have great muscle tone - I didn't even realise eyes could have muscle tone!

Whilst in town I witness two very near accidents, 3 cars pulled out in front of me, and one guy stopped his car in the middle of the road to answer his phone - while I, and the driver of another car stopped in the middle of the road behind him and practised out road rage!

That's a long and boring tale, I know, but it is also a wondrous tale. Two years ago I would have been driven into the ground by the sadness, the annoying things, the horrid things. Driven so far down that I would not, no, could not, see the good stuff that happened. I would have been catastrophizing (is there such a word? my spell checker thinks not!) from the very start of the day. By the time I left that club in Auckland I would have been spiralling down into a bout of depression - over what are really very trivial things. And I could feel the pressure, I could feel the perverse desire to wallow in misery, tempting me to take the familiar 'easy' route. But I didn't. I kept focusing on the moment, focusing on the beauty, no matter how small, that I see around me every day.

I don't think I'm good enough at this happiness thing yet to cope with the sort of stuff that hit me in June last year, but I am getting so much better. I used to hate people who said, 'count your blessings,' as it seemed to me that thinking about the little joys somehow trivialised the big things. Now I realise that those little things form the anchor that keeps me from the rocks. And I have also come to recognise that this kind of conscious effort to control over how I feel about things is going to be my life's work - I cannot let up for a minute, or I start to fall. Is it my innate disposition? Or is it a very bad habit? I don't know, but I'm trying my best to overcome it, and life is definitely much much better - I can honestly say that I have been happy since June this year.

Spring Growth and Scything

2011-11-20T14:19:00.001-08:00

Spring has arrived and with it the grass has grown swiftly and strongly, the fruit trees are blossoming and being pollinated by my bees and consequently setting fruit.

A pear tree, with my hives in the background....

and set fruit.

Looks like we are in for another bumper nashi crop.

The chooks are enjoying the growth in their run.

The chooks enjoying food scraps and sprouted wheat, next to the korokia which has delicious (to chooks) red berries later in the season; and the fig from which we ate our first fruit last year.

An apple tree and, behind on the fence, a boysenberry vine given by a friend - a huge mistake, as it is rampant but the chooks enjoy them.

I've never eaten vine leaves, but judging from the way the chooks keep the vine trimmed, they must be yummy! It's hilarious watching them jump straight up in the air to pluck a leaf.

We planted the pear tree, but both the avocado and the peach (just over the fence) have grown from seed thrown out with scraps, and are thriving in the rich compost made by the chooks. The avocado had flowers this year, so maybe next year we will get fruit, though I'm told it takes up to 15 years for a seedling to produce, and this is only about 6 years old.

The flax was brought with us when we moved here, and just dumped into the ground with no thought of where and why. Later we built the chook run around it. The chooks love the dry, shady spot that also provides snails and insect snack delights.

Mac mows with the tractor, and I used to clear around the trees using a line trimmer or bush bar. Neither the process nor the results were satisfactory. The process was loud and smelly, and often I gave up because the damn thing would stop and refuse to start again - I'm not really in tune with motors. The result was often a ring barked or damaged tree.

I now use a scythe, thanks to a workshop with The Jolly Scythers, and find it so much more satisfactory. The process is both good exercise, and a meditation practice. The results are better: I have not damaged a single tree.

Kiwiberries (tiny kiwifruit) and grapes - the scythe is so very much easier for freeing these from the grass.

The Luisa plums were 'grassed out'...

and looked better for the grass being cleared.

My scythe.

And though the ordinary plums don't have much fruit this year, the Luisa is looking good.

The grapevine on the chook run is looking good.

The ugli fruit wasn't looking at all - it couldn't see out!

It's actually quite big! It had a few not-very-nice small fruit this year, but is covered with flowers at the moment, so I have high hopes for the next harvest.

Scything is hard, hot sweaty work, but I love the meditative quality of the time spent doing it, and the sense of satisfaction when I'm done. Over the last ten days I have done about half the trees, and by the time I'm finished it will be time to start again - but it's the sort of work I love, and it makes me feel like a real yeoman farmer.

Bee Happy

2011-11-13T16:26:00.001-08:00

So first I moved my hive, with some loss of bees, but successfully overall. Then I made a nucleus hive using a frame of brood with a queen cell. Would it work?

I was determined to wait at least two weeks before looking inside the nuc, but ten days later I had another look in my main hive and there was considerably less brood that before. I was worried. At the weekend I looked into the hive again, and although I thought I saw a few eggs, there were no larvae, and not a lot of brood. Panic call to Barbara my Bee Buddy. She came over last Tuesday and we looked again. We could see no queen, little brood, and, because it was a grey day, no eggs but there were a few larvae. We thought it might be a worker bees laying drones. But the thing I have learnt is, don't panic, wait a little longer. We looked into the nuc hive for the first time, and straight away Barbara spotted a large fat healthy looking queen! Yay!

Today I procrastinated all morning, then took a deep breath and went over to the hives. First, I looked into the bottom box of my main hive. The outside frame had honey and pollen in it and I removed that before looking further. I inspected the next three frames and -oh joy - found them full of eggs and larvae! There must be a queen in there! It appears my old queen absconded with a small swarm, and a new queen has taken over.

The next job was to check the nuc. I found that too was full of eggs, larvae and capped brood and full of bees, so I moved them into a full sized box. I now have two hives!

Now I'm just waiting for a phone call, this week or next, to say a nuc is ready for me to collect in Albany and then I will be a three hive beekeeper, which has been my aim since I started. Next year I'm thinking I might get myself a top bar hive.

I can spend hours watching these magical creatures.

Betsy McCall

2011-11-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

I've been following a wonderful new blog, Pass It On. Johanna Knox and her friend Emma Levy say, "We realised we were all bursting to talk about the culinary legacies left by loved ones - and it suddenly seemed like an exciting idea to make a blog where inherited recipes could be passed on and special people remembered through those recipes. It's a tribute page with a difference."
Today's recipe was from Johanna's grandmother, a Canadian, and mention was made of paper dolls - which sent me off on a Google journey into my own childhood.

My maternal grandfather's people came to New Zealand in a somewhat convoluted way: Scotland to Canada, where some stayed and some went back to Scotland, where again some stayed and some came to New Zealand. When I was little my mother corresponded with a Canadian cousin, who periodically sent Mum a pile of McCall's magazines. The big excitement for my sister and me was the paper dolls and clothes that came with each one. And look what I found! Isn't the internet wonderful?

If you go to the site you can even download high quality versions so you can use them - and the great thing about that is you can also download TWO copies so you don't have to fight with your sister ever again!

Managing (aka annoying) bees

2011-10-24T02:20:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday 5 October, Barbara came and checked my hive for AFB and the hive was so healthy, I thought that starting another hive from mine would be a possibility. It was coming up to the weekend when I could by a quality virgin queen from the Lorimers. However, I decided against that as I knew that most of all I needed to move my hive. When I first got them I was concerned to give them as much protection from our cold winds as possible. However the spot I chose, right on the edge of the bush, didn't receive enough sun. It was also awkward to work. So as soon as there was a warmish evening, Mac and I, with great difficulty, moved the hive into the orchard, where they get much more sun.

What I did was totally against the 'rules' but I had been told of a couple of people who had moved hives a short distance by piling a heap of twigs, brush etc. in front of the hive so the bees were made to re-orientate. I don't think I put enough on the pile, and what seemed to be an awful lot of bees flew back to the old site over the next couple of days. I feared I had ruined the colony, and left them alone until yesterday, when Mac and I had a look through the hive. It was full to overflowing! There were swarm queen cells on the bottoms of many of the frames, plus 3 succession cells on the faces of frames. I removed a lot of cells before I realised that I could still make a new hive from a nuc of this lovely strong hive. I went and rang Barbara.

Today Barbara came over and we removed almost all of the remaining queen cells. We put one frame of brood with a good queen cell on it, two more of brood and pollen and two of honey into a box (the grey box above), having shaken all the bees into the original box to ensure we hadn't accidentally taken the queen, and put it on top of the queen excluder on the hive. We put another queen excluder on top, and then replaced the honey super.

The bees weren't all that chuffed about the whole business.

In the late afternoon Barbara returned and we moved the 5 frames plus, the nurse bees that had moved up to look after the brood, into the small nucleus hive.

Again, the bees weren't totally happy at the disruption, but they settled down quickly. Now to wait and see if the whole thing worked.

Jumping to Conclusions

2011-10-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

There are many ways of looking at things, but it does pay to have as many facts as possible before coming to a conclusion.

Last night I went to Auckland with my 28 year old son to listen to jazz. We were on our way home to his place in Hamilton when I received a text from my husband telling me it had been raining hard and water was pouring over our driveway (only the second time in the nearly 12 years we have lived here.) So I decided that rather than arriving home at 1in the morning in a flood, I would stay at Steve's place and return in daylight when the water level should have dropped.

Version one:

It was getting on for midnight when I asked Steve to stop at a garage and while he waited in the car, I went to the night pay window and asked for a toothbrush. The attendant got a toothbrush from the shelf and served me. I was glad there was a security window between us as he seemed very peculiar, smirking and sniggering as he commented that "this is the last toothbrush we have - this really is your lucky night!" I smiled nervously and responded, "yes, I guess it is," though I couldn't really see that a toothbrush mattered that much.

As we drove on, I thought about the the rather odd young man, thought about the expression on his face, and thought about the snigger - and suddenly I recognised the expression and the snigger....

Version two:

A young man is working the late shift in a garage. It's getting on for midnight. A car pulls in and parks in the dark to the side of the shop. The driver's silhouette is that of a man with a beard. A woman in her sixties gets out and approaches the night pay window and asks for a toothbrush! The young man serves her, telling her, "this is the last toothbrush we have - this really is your lucky night!" The old woman doesn't show the slightest sign of embarrassment as she replies, "yes, I guess it is." The young man laughs at the ridiculous concept of a woman that age going home with a man she'd picked up unexpectedly and thus having to buy a toothbrush on the way.

First Swarm Catch

2011-10-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

This morning I was settling down to work on my Apicultural Knowledge course when I got a phone call from the Raglan office of the Waikato District Council, asking me to come and collect a swarm of bees which was causing some concern. Oh my gosh! I have never done this before! I rang a bee friend, Jacqueline, and met her in Raglan.

Yep, those be bees!

Right next to the footpath.

And pretty close to the centre of Raglan.

Neither of us had ever collected a swarm, but at least this one was easily accessible.

Jacqueline held the box up while I snipped the two twigs the swarm was settled on.

Note to self: check that the pair of gloves you take actually is a pair, rather than two left gloves! Didn't get stung though.

I shook the bees off the twigs and into the box.

We left the bees on site to settle down,

and Jacqueline will return and collect the box tonight.

Life is exciting - so great that there are new challenges and adventures even after turning 60 three and a half weeks ago.

Before I'm 61

2011-09-15T02:39:00.000-07:00

What do I want to do in this year between 60 and 61?

I really don't know. And I wonder whether one should one have goals or is that just setting oneself up for failure.

I do want to finish my Apiculture course.But other than that, I don't know.

I do know that I want to continue getting mentally and emotionally stronger. Over the past fifteen months I have come to realise that I have set myself up for so much pain in my life up to now. I didn't believe that I deserved anything, and put others first - until the repressed feelings welled up beyond my ability to push them under. Sometimes they exploded into anger (often at the wrong person, such as my beautiful children or my wonderful husband.) Sometimes they overwhelmed me and pushed me down into the depths of depression; a dozen or so times, to the very edge of suicide. The only thing that stopped me was the awareness of how my deliberate death would affect these beloved people.

With professional help, I've learned to manage myself to a far greater degree than ever before. I've reached the point now that I realise the next step has to be excluding toxic situations and people from my life in a way that does not leave me feeling angry or worthless.

A while back I resigned from a committee as a consequence of realising I was not the sort of person the committee needed. I explained my reasons clearly, however the assumption was made that I had really resigned because one committee member had been incredibly rude to me. That person apologised abjectly, and suggested that I could rejoin the committee. I responded in a way I had never been able to before. I accepted his apology and went on to reiterate the real reason for my resignation. I felt so good! I didn't abuse him, nor did I belittle myself by down-playing the rudeness - I focused on the issue. I want to live that way more.

In the past year, also, I find I have reached the point where friends have started dying of age related diseases. I have lost a friend who misinterpreted something I said, and who chose not to accept my explanation.

I need to reassess my attitude to friendship. To accept that people move on with their lives, and no one has to keep pretending a friendship they no longer value. I don't have to do it, and nor do they. They can walk away from me and I can walk away from them. They may die before me, or I may die before me.

In the end, the only person who can always be there for me, is me. I need to spend this next year learning to treat myself kindly and generously.

Ageing

2011-09-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

It's a cold September wind.
The old tree creaks.
Hips creak in sympathy,
aching, stabbing.

I creak and am both
glad and sad
that I will not live
as long as the rimu.

Spring

2011-09-04T17:46:00.000-07:00

Spring is definitely here in Kauroa.

Time for motorbikes and grandchildren.

The bees are busy.

They've survived the winter well - there has always been food available from tagasaste (tree lucerne), gorse and buttercups, but pollen varies in nutritive content from plant to plant, so they are glad to see new sources.

I love scything. It is useful: the entrance to the beehive needs to be clear for the bees to easily fly back in; and the trees grow better if they don't have long grass growing underneath competing with the tree roots.

But scything is so much more than that. To do it successfully you have to move correctly and when you finally get it, it is like dancing and meditating all in one, but with a satisfyingly productive end point.

It's clean - no petrol fumes - and peaceful - just a gentle swishing, over which the bees and birds are easily heard.It works muscles and stretches my body in ways that otherwise only happens when I occasionally do some yoga. I have never found a way of 'exercising' that I enjoy but I love this work.

It's spring!

Keeping Healthy Bees Workshop

2011-08-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to a workshop entitled "Keeping Healthy Bees" in Raglan. Thirty people attended and we were treated to a day packed with knowledge and ideas. It cost each attendee $10.

From Wellington we had Rex Baynes talk about the National Pest Management Strategy for an awful bee pest, American Foul Brood.

Jane Lorimer showing us the parts of a hive.

Jane Lorimer, a professional Waikato beekeeper (of Lorimers Honey) and Past President of the National Beekeepers' Association, talked about the queen's role in keeping the hive healthy, and also gave us a hands on demonstration of how to inspect a hive.

Jane talking about the importance of cleaning you hive tool when inspecting a different hive.

Her husband, Tony, came and contributed in an informal way, and also collected and returned Rex to the airport.

Tony showing how there's no need to panic when a bee or two lands on you.

Warren Yorston, of Plant and Food Research, Ruakura, talked to us about managing varroa. Warren lives locally and keeps bees himself.

Jane demonstrating hive inspection techniques.

There's a queen there somewhere - I saw her before and after I took the photo.

These were a couple of Warren's hives, vigorous and healthy.

The people who attended were all very impressed with the day, and there was a constant stream of people asking about the Waingaroa Bee Club: who is the secretary / treasurer; how could they join; how much is it to join; where do we meet.

So here are the two things that made my heart sing, and which stunned the questioners:

The speakers all came and spoke for free. We did present each with a gift, but they asked for nothing. These are busy professional people who so love bees and beekeeping that they gave freely of their time, petrol, knowledge and expertise, with no expectation of recompense.

And the bee club which organised it? We have a core group of about ten. We have no committee, no subs, no bank account. We used to charge 50c per meeting to pay the rent of the local town hall supper room for our monthly meetings, but now we meet for free at Vinnie's, a local restaurant which offered for us to meet there, no obligation to buy anything. Joining is as simple as turning up on the night, and giving me an email address so I can send out emails reminding of meetings, and notes of what happened at the meetings.

The core group organised the venue and speakers, did baking, bought gifts, made home made ginger beer, and all the other jobs that go with such an even.

Maybe it's the example set by the bees: like a hive, our club is without the structure of a formal organisation, but is thriving through a sense of community instead.

Wild Carrot: Inside Out, Downside Up

2011-08-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

Like my grandparents and great-grandparents, the wild carrot emigrated from Britain and Europe to New Zealand and found a place to grow and flourish.

Many people call the wild carrot - and other immigrants, of both plant and human kinds - weeds. Some people pull them out, some spray them with pesticide, some just curse them. When I came to our land, it had no garden; it was just a bare paddock. I discovered the beauty of weeds, and picked them to put in vases. I came to love the wild carrot in particular.

It is a beautiful flower, and even when it is picked, pressed flat,

and turned upside down it remains beautiful. In fact, I think its wild underside is even more beautiful than the side it shows the world.

I've reached a point in my life when I think it's time to start accepting my underside, to stop worrying about what other people think and say, to live life more from the inside than the outside. And because it's so easy to slip back into the habits of six decades I decided I need something to remind myself that instead of trying to live from the outside in, from now I want to live from the inside out. I'm turning the downside up. And this is my reminder:

From Snow to Summer

2011-08-18T20:51:00.000-07:00

On Monday it snowed. How absurd.

Today I had an appointment in Raglan.

Afterwards I couldn't resist the call of the sun. I walked through the Wainui Reserve Bush Park.......

..............to the top of the hill, looking out to sea.......

..................and then down to the beach.

Once again I am reminded of why I live here, why I never want to leave.

2011-08-06T18:22:00.000-07:00

On the cold, windy, wet days of winter, it's a good feeling to still be able to make and grow food. I have Kings stir fry mix soaking, and alfalfa sprouts half way to eating. Scrambled eggs for lunch made with homegrown eggs, spring onions and parsley, and local raw organic milk.

I have both milk and water kefir on the go (kefir grains courtesy of friends Sarah and Alice), and my first batch of marmalade made to my mother's recipe - the first year I've had enough home grown grapefruit and lemons for marmalade.

Today as the wind started working itself up into a frenzy, I decided to got pick the first few daffodils before they got battered to death - a happy reminder that spring is coming, that the sun is returning.

But best of all on this gloomy day is this bud. My dear friend Margaret gave us a garden centre voucher as a land warming present (at that stage we had no house, just a garage) and we bought a large, unlabelled tree for half price as although they thought it was a magnolia, they couldn't be sure. It's been a bit of a disappointment but finally, ten years later, first bud. Good things take time sometimes.

Inappropriate Expectations of Children

2011-08-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had lunch with Steven at a pleasant café in Frankton: the staff were friendly, the food was great, and I was enjoying relaxing and chatting with Steven.

And then......

.......the sound of a toddler crying out for “Mummy”. A small boy aged about two was pulling at the gate of the children’s play room. A little girl around four and a half tried to distract him to no avail, and then she too started calling for her mother. They got louder and louder, until the mother, turned around and said, very coldly, “I can hear you. Be quiet.”

She was there with two other young mothers out for lunch and a latté. A moment later, a little boy, maybe 10 months or a year, started to try and climb out of his high chair, and his mother snarled at him, “Sit down, you have to sit down.” The little boy kept trying to climb out and eventually the woman wrenched him from the high chair, gripping his arms unnecessarily tightly, and then held the child very firmly on her lap, continuing to tell him he must sit still and be quiet.

These three young women were sitting when we arrived. As we went to our table after ordering, they had finished lunch and were drinking coffee. By the time the little boy started crying for his mother, we had been there about 20 minutes, which means they had been there considerably longer.

Early this year I had lunch with a friend at the Hamilton Gardens café, where a similar scene was played out, this time with slightly older children. One mother was trying to get her child to eat her lunch. The child was crying, saying she didn’t like it. The mother was insisting that the child the child eat it, and as justification said she had chosen it especially for the girl because she was sure she would like it. The child said, “But I don’t like it,” and the mother said, “Well you have to eat it because I paid for it.” This little kid stuck to her guns, insisting she wouldn’t eat it because she didn’t like it, until the mother said, “Well, there’ll probably be a policeman coming by soon, and when I tell him you won’t eat your lunch, he’ll arrest you.” Or words to that effect. This was too much for Marcia and me, but just as we were about to get up and say something, the mother said, “Oh, all right, go and play then.” I think she may have caught a glimpse of our horrified faces.

I’ve had four kids. I know it’s hard. I know that sometimes you just so need to spend time relaxing and talking with adult friends who understand what it’s like, but get real ladies! These are children. A café is not an interesting place for children. A playroom is only fun for a little while, when it doubles as a prison cell. A highchair is pretty damn boring once you’ve eaten lunch. And policemen are not people to threaten your child with unless you are 100% sure she will never need to turn to one for help.

Personally, I don’t mind kids in cafés making a bit of noise, running around, playing – as long as they don’t steal my food or wipe their food-embellished faces on me. However I do hate seeing and hearing unhappy kids being lied to, being expected to behave like adults, and not receiving any smiles or love or cuddles from the most important person in their world.

Reflections on Simplicity and Consumerism

2011-07-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

Two of my grandchildren came to stay for a couple of nights. They are such cool kids and it's so nice to have a little boy sit on my knee and give me a cuddle again - my own boys are too grown up for that now. A walk on the beach with two kids and a dog is a simple pleasure but one of the best.

But is it a simple pleasure really? The 15 minute drive to the beach involved my van, petrol, money. For how much longer will we be able to do that?

I've been reading - sometimes I think that's a big mistake! A bit of transition town / lifeboat politics on the Transition Towns pages and several off shoots from there, then one of my favourite bloggers (she's a book artist too and also "a permaculture-inclined, organically arty, gardenista creek-mumma....") wrote about simple living sending me off to Amazon to buy another Kindle book. Then there's the news and weather filled with uncertainty about the world's climatic / financial / social / psychological / (fill in the blank) future. So everyone waits for someone else to fix things. There are people out there trying to make their / our world a little better, but most just go on mindlessly consuming, avoiding thinking about the future.

Is it a problem? I remember back in the early 1960s, lying awake at night waiting for the Cold War to end and for the bombs to start falling - but it didn't happen. Are these current problems going to fade away too? Can we take a chance on that?

Out at The Base I looked around and was struck by the vastness of the place. The car park was almost full - and their web site informs me they have 2,600 parking spaces. Many, I'm sure, were awaiting the return of more than one person. So many people shopping for what? Necessities? Or cheap junk made in third world countries by underpaid and badly treated almost-slaves?

But such a bargain!

And if you think I'm getting at you, well, maybe I'd like you to think about these things too, but really this writing is a form of self-flagellation because LOOK at the bargain I got: a really pretty scarf made in India from 100% viscose and reduced to $10.

I should be ashamed of myself. I am.

I fear the time will come, sooner rather than later, when most of us will be scavenging amongst the rubbish for something useful, but will mostly find trash as useful as a cigarette butt to a sparrow.

What Makes Home Home?

2011-07-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

We've been home for eleven days now and I'm finally feeling like I'm back to normal - whatever 'normal' is. I know that when Mac and I did our OE back in the 70s, I got homesick for New Zealand. Although we were away only three weeks this time, and so I didn't really get homesick, I did experience a huge sense of relief when we got home - and that wasn't just because the 26 hour journey was finally at an end.

We walked out into a frosty cold dark morning. Yes, it was dark. That's something I've taken for granted all my life, but after two weeks in Fairbanks, Alaska, where there was no dark, I welcomed it. I suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and was very grateful to catch all that sunlight this June, and definitely feel better for it but.....

The sky that morning was black, with a few familiar stars, and a beautiful sliver of moon. I don't like the short, dark, rainy days of winter, but when the clouds clear and we have a night like that - that's home.

As we headed home, light gradually edged up the horizon, lighting up a clear, frosty day, so clear and sharp - that's home.

The green of New Zealand is different from that of England or Germany or Washington or Alaska, and it's not that New Zealand's green is better than those other greens, it's just that - it's home.There are many stunningly beautiful places in the world, and certainly we saw much beauty in Alaska.

Although I am sure that if I was to visit another planet, upon return I would have a sense of 'home' regardless of where I arrived, I am confined to this planet, and within those confines, New Zealand is 'home', and in particular the Waikato, and in particular, the Raglan area, and most particularly of all, this small acreage we call Secret Waters is Home.

And I am very glad to be back here.

Goodbye and Hello

2011-07-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

It was up early on our last morning, and pretty hard to find smiles:

Heather, Steve, Susan

Mac, Cally, Susan, Steve

Mac, Cally and Heather

28 hours after leaving Susan, Steve and Heather's home, we finally reached our place. After a fair bit of dozing in the sunshine we headed out for a walk to make sure no one had stolen Raglan beach while we were gone.

Last Afternoon

2011-07-07T22:10:00.000-07:00

So what do you do on your last afternoon with your friends who you haven't seen for over 10 years, and won't see again until no one knows when? Well, when your friend is a children's librarian you play with the left-overs from a children's summer programme activity, of course:

Thanks to Mac for these gorgeous photos.

Talkeetna

2011-07-07T21:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Susan, despite having accidentally deleted a bunch of photos, I have a picture of Talkeetna where we spent our first night in Alaska. Thanks, Susan.

The Lady and the Tramps - and a Raven

2011-07-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

So Heather insisted that we do this crazy tourist thing that she supposedly had wanted to do for a while. Susan agreed, so I felt I had no choice, but said Heather had to decided what I should wear - that was a bit of an error of judgement! Still it was kinda fun, despite a feeling of desperate insecurity over whether I would fall off the very unstable box on which we were sitting, and / or whether my tits would fall out!

Afterwards I finally managed to get a photo of a raven - we had seen them lots, and we had taken some lovely photos of some in Juneau, but those were among the photos I accidentally deleted. The are rough and ready, very assertive, but gorgeous creatures.

Hummers in Fairbanks

2011-07-07T21:19:00.000-07:00

Greg told me to watch out for Hummers, so this is especially for him:

Baby Hummer (note the number plate!):

Hummer:

Stretch Hummer - available for hire: