Life on the Land in June

It's nearly the shortest day, and I know that the worst of winter comes in July, but still, days like today are miraculous. It's great to be reminded of how lucky I am to live in such a lovely place.

 When my friend Susan and her family moved back to the States way back at the beginning of the century, she dug up her wedding anniversary rose and brought it to live with us. It hasn't grown well in our winds, but determinedly keeps on growing - and today I found one bloom, near the base of the plant.

 These bulbs came from my friend Margaret,and what a sweet reminder that spring will come round in its time.

 

 I first got pineapple sage from my mother, and have had it every since. She died nearly 25 years ago, so I guess I've had this lovely winter flowering herb for about 35 years. Can you see the bee? They can't get down into the flowers, so they nip a hole in the base, and steal the nectar.

 Gorse. A weed. Yet it has a delicate and delicious fragrance - and it is buzzing with bees at this time of the year - a staple of their winter diet.

 The other winter staple is tagasaste.

 You can see some of the bees with the pollen they have gathered in pollen sacks on their legs.

 

And the bumblebees make sure they get more than their fair share.

The one last ancient chook left. She's blind in one eye, and the other eye isn't so great either, but she can still find her way to the water bowl and the Grandpa's Feeder, and although she quite often falls asleep standing up, she still enjoys a bit of sun and a dust bath. She's served her time as a great layer, so I don't begrudge the old lady her retirement.

 It's pretty hard to tell the difference between the new chooks (hatched at the end of January) and the older girls. Of the six who have almost made it to adulthood, I still don't know how many are roosters - I think half, but still can't be sure.

 These are two of the young ones.

 The nashi leaves are still lying on the grass, and there's even a few clinging to the tree.

 

 Will our sugar cane make it through the winter? I've been out covering it with frost cloth, and we have planted lots of tagasaste around (see the electric fence standards used as markers.)

 The little grapefruit tree is promising a good batch of marmalade, as long as the pesky possums don't get to them - hence the trap.

 The lemons have suddenly started ripening up - we have gone from almost enough to too many in just a week.

 And way, way too many limes.

 The garlic, three types, is planted.

 Can't wait for spring peas - I've never grown them at this time of the year before, but they are looking good.

Assorted greens, which may or may not come to anything.

The broad beans are growing well and some have started to flower already - that garden will be alive with bumblebees shortly.

 We have chard,

 and carrots,

 and leeks,

 and parsley,

 and excessive amounts of New Zealand spinach,

 and rhubarb

 and Cape Gooseberries

 and Chilean guava. ( As well as the harvested onions, pumpkins and potatoes.)

 

 I have relocated some of the strawberry plants (and re-homed about a hundred and fifty so far.)

 

 But it's a glorious day, perfect for sitting in the sun.

 Morning tea: lemon and honey drink, gatherings from the garden, and a handful of almonds (not home-grown, but home soaked and dried.)

Life is good.

Mushrooming Intentions

Last weekend I went on a Tree Crops association visit to a local property where Lennart Prinz is growing mushrooms. You can buy mushrooms from Lennart at the Hamilton Framers' Market on Sunday mornings. I discovered that many mushrooms take a lot more energy, equipment and knowledge to grow than I have or want.

 

 

However, I am going to have a go at growing shiitake mushrooms as they seem much less labour intensive, at least once you get started.

All I have to do is chop down a couple of spare chestnut trees, cut into logs,

 

 drill holes all over the place, stuff spawn in the holes, seal the holes with wax

  - and wait.

 Better go get the chainsaw out.

Dried Apples, Jelly and Vinegar

Last year was a nashi year, but this year I ate only two. Instead, this year has been an apple year. I dried four large Agee jars full of cooking apples, then quite a lot of eating apples: it's hard to say how many because we keep eating them! I am so glad to have invested in a bigger slicing blade for my Magimix food processor, and in my wonderful Excalibur dehydrator.

 As you can see, one bag is almost empty, even though we haven't finished eating the fresh apples yet.

After I mentioned on Facebook that I was dehydrating apples, one of my FB friends, Mac's cousin Emma, suggested that I turn the peelings and cores into vinegar.

 Why not? Here's the last lot soaking in a bucket with water and a splash of cider vinegar.

 Something's definitely happening - whether it ends up edible, we will discover in time.

Meanwhile, the feijoas started to fall at the rate of a bucketful a day. After getting a new stockpot at Farmers with a 60% discount, I started out with the promise of not having to spend hours afterwards scrubbing chacoal off the bottom as I had to do every time when using my late mother-in-law's preserving pan. I boiled up the feijoas,

then put them to strain through cloth bags, into the very useful buckets I got from a fellow beekeeper. They originally held the rather disgusting filling that you get in slices from bakeries.

 They come with lids, which keep the wretched plague of small flies that have invaded us, out of the jelly bags.

 After boiling up the liquid with fair trade sugar from Trade Aid, I end up with beautiful jelly, which will be distributed to family. Thanks to the Edmonds Cookery Book.

Meanwhile, outside the rain was falling and the garden was gasping with relief and enthusiasm after the weeks of dry weather.

The leeks have grown a few inches.

The pumpkin vines, which had started to die off, have sprouted new shoots and flowers, in a burst of unwarranted optimism.

The broad beans and peas have sprouted, and the brassica seedlings are standing up again, instead of lying limply on the dry ground.

The rhubarb is looking healthy again, not only from the rain, but also from being released from underneath an over-excited pumpkin vine, and fed a couple of buckets full of worm wee.

And the Meyer lemon tree - there's really nothing more joyful than the globes of sunshine adorning a lemon tree - hmmm - there might just be enough eggs to make a couple more jars of lemon honey tomorrow.

April in the Garden

For a long time I have loved the idea of growing as much of our food as possible. And I have loved picking it, and eating it and preserving it.

 Red onions - the seedlings were from someone Mac works with - there's a group of them who share surplus seedlings and produce.

 

 I uncovered the rhubarb from its covering of pumpkin leaves but.....

 

...... under the rhubarb leaves were two large pumpkins!

 I cut the mint and lemon balm back because they had gotten rust, and trimmed the thyme - what a sweet job - the scent was divine!

 Best capsicum season I've ever had.

 The pumpkins are everywhere this year; some I planted, some just appeared from the compost.

 A little silverbeet, leeks, and NZ spinach

 A few beetroot, carrots, capsicum, parsley.

 The cucumbers are still producing, and there's a whole bunch more pumpkins in there too. The bare patches have all been sown with a cover crop, and are just waiting for the rain due this week.

The next set of beds: closest - broad beans; next - celery, brassica, a couple of lettuce, peas; and furtherest - a few last tomatoes, capsicum and courgettes; and dried up sweetcorn plants awaiting removal.

However, the sad truth was, I didn't really like the actual gardening part of the process!

Today I spent all day in the garden, sometimes listening to Chris Laidlaw on National Radio (great item on bees), sometimes just working in the quiet. Usually I get bored and fed up after an hour or two, but today, for the first time, I just enjoyed gardening, kneeling on the grass, hands in the soil, clearing weeds, uncovering plants and produce, watching the insects and bird, chatting to the dog, enjoying the sun on my back, and the wonderful feeling of working hard and successfully.

My elbows, wrists, neck and shoulders are aching, despite a soak in the bath and rubbing in pain relieving cream. But I feel great. I think this will be my first winter garden that makes it through the dark days, because I can't bear the thought of not gardening for months. I'm so lucky to live somewhere that I can garden all year round!

The Perfect Weekend

So often we seem to be looking forward to the perfect man / holiday / job / dress / life / whatever, but are, of course, doomed to failure in our search. Or are we? I think what's needed is recognition that 'perfection' comes in many forms.

Recently I have had a perfect weekend. Twice.

The weekend before last I went to WOMAD, in New Plymouth. I went with Mac. We camped with one of our sons, Simon, and his partner Rebecca, and a whole bunch of their friends, and their friends' friends. We laughed and danced and drank and listened to good music and danced some more and got wet when the rain came to break the drought and it was a perfect weekend. I would have loved it if my other sons and their partners and some of my other friends had been there,but it was what it was and it was perfect.

Last weekend, I went to the second NZ Natural Beekeeping Conference. I learned heaps, had a vegetarian lunch provided, met some interesting and pleasant people and got stung on the head when a woman tried to beat a bee out of my hair instead of just picking it out gently. I got to know some fellow Whaingaroa Bee Club members better, and confirmed that I like them a lot. When I got home, somewhat sore of head and tired, another of our sons, Steven, and his wife, Heidi, came out to stay the night, and Steve cooked us all a very yummy dinner.

On Sunday I did lots of food preservation: I froze Roma tomatoes; I peeled, sliced and dried apples; I collected and froze chestnuts; and I collected Cape Gooseberries added them to some I had in the freezer and made my favourite jam. Mac had cooked homegrown eggs and tomatoes for lunch, so for dinner we just had dessert! Heidi cooked buckwheat pancakes, which we ate with apple I stewed a couple of days earlier, apple butter I made a couple of weeks ago, and icecream.

Another perfect weekend.

This weekend is Easter and I'm looking forward to Mac being home for four days instead of the usual two. There's heaps of work needing doing, A friend is planning to come out for a night or two, maybe there'll be other visitors, maybe not. It may be sunny, though I'm hoping for one rainy day. If we work really hard, a trip for a soak in the Waingaro hot pools may be in order.

With the nights getting cooler, and the days shorter, something inside me is starting to feel sad and black, and I am acutely aware that winter is on its way. I've found my 'happy light in the cupboard, and will start to use it for half an hour morning and night. But most of all, I will try and focus on all the good stuff in my life rather than the bad stuff, which isn't really so bad, and to not think about the disappointments and the what-if's that lurk endlessly in the back of my silly mind waiting to take me unawares. If I am mindful and aware then the monsters won't be able to get me, will they?

I'm planning on Easter being another perfect weekend.

February Reading

My intention was to keep track of most of the books I read - or at least those that aren't 'junk food' but the death of my friend Marcia at the end of November sent me into a reflective state such that I had to put all my energy into not falling into depression. I managed that, but many things suffered, including both my reading and writing. However, three books really caught my attention. Both authors are just a few years younger than me (and Marcia), so fitted well with my time of reflection - my gosh, I had it easy! I have never liked reading biographies or autobiographies, but I think I've been converted after reading these, and previously, Roger McGough's Said and Done.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit 1985
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? 2011
by Jeanette Winterson

I read 'Oranges' first simply because it was written first, and think that was the best way to do it, even though, as it is written in the form of a novel, I found my constant wondering about which parts were 'true' and which parts were fiction somewhat distracting. Horrifyingly, it seems that not only was most of it true, it was also very understated. Winterson has said,

 "I suppose the saddest thing for me, thinking about the cover version that is Oranges, is that I wrote a story I could live with. The other one was too painful. I could not survive it."

Jeanette was born in 1959 in Manchester and was adopted out six months later. Mrs Winterson, as she calls her mother throughout, wanted a baby to raise in her Elim Pentecostal Church to become a missionary. She was beaten, she was often hungry, she was often left all night outside on the doorstep. Her mother was both excessively religious and very depressed. She was not loved for herself, but only for her fate - to become a missionary.

Jeanette started her writing career at the age of six - writing sermons! She was involved all the time in the church activities and evangelising, including the Gospel Tent - a once a year mission to other towns, preaching in the church's Gospel Tent.

Books were not allowed in the house except for the Bible and a couple of others.

In an interview from the Guardian, Jeanette says of Mrs Winterson:

"It was never going to work between us. I don't know what fate put me with her, or her with me, but at least I was able to use all that and make something of it. Whereas for her it was just purgatory. She was a very unhappy woman. And I was a happy child. In a way, the battle between us was the battle between happiness and unhappiness."

There is little overt bitterness, though my imagination filled that in. The books are not relentless misery; there are amusing anecdotes in both books.For example, Mrs Winterson says the lesbian sweet-shop owners deal in "unnatural passions", and the young Jeanette thinks it means they put chemicals in their sweets .  She tells of how Mrs Winterson "was one of the first women to have a heated corset. Unfortunately, when it overheated it beeped to warn the user. As the corset was by definition underneath her petticoat dress, apron and coat, there was little she could do to cool down except take off her coat and stand in the yard."

She left home at 16 after becoming openly lesbian, and went on to work her way through a degree in English, and become a novelist. Later in life, after discovering that her birth mother had not died, as she had been told, she searched for, and found, her birth mother, and found she got on well with her, and keeps in touch.

"Mrs Winterson had always insisted that my biological mother was dead. She also told me that my mother had been a drunk, a drug addict, a mental patient, and a woman who had exploded. I didn’t necessarily believe any of this, but it didn’t make me eager to start looking for her either.

"Then, in 2007, I found some yellowing paperwork hidden in an old chest of Mrs W’s. The papers revealed another name for me – but one violently scribbled out. I was troubled enough and curious enough to risk going further."

 This woman has lived a highly controversial life, has suffered misery, abuse and depression, yet writes of a life filled with, well, LIFE! I found her inspiring, not because I want her life, or to do the things she has done, but simply inspiring in this wonderful determination to live and be exactly who she is.


The Glass Castle 2005
by Jeannette Walls

Born in 1960 in Phoenix, Arizona, this Jeannette lived a very different life from Jeanette Winterspoon. Her parents lived a nomadic, sometimes homeless, life. The book opens with the appalling story of her being burned as a three year old, while cooking hot dog. The book tells of a life of poverty, as her father was sacked from one job after another. Sometimes they slept in their car; other 'homes' were broken down shacks, an abandoned railway building - but always there were the plans for the Glass Castle that her father was designing and going to build one day. On a couple of occasions out of utter desperation, the mother worked as a teacher, but not for long: she was an artist, she claimed, and it was an offence to her Art to work as the teacher her mother had insisted she trained as. They had little food, and were expected, in the main, to feed them selves - hence the hot dog incident. In one home, the father found some timber and made bunk frames, hung ropes across, and then put cardboard over the ropes, making 'real' beds - they usually just slept in the cardboard boxes.

The neglect unfolds gently, however, which makes it even more horrific, because Walls writes from the perspective of the child at what ever age she is writing about. Hence the hot dog incident is less about the horrific burns she endured, and more about the indignation she felt at the hospital staff's criticism of her having been cooking her own food.

She writes about the joys of the life they led. One Christmas, with no money for presents, her father took the children outside and told them they could each chose a star to be their very own for always. Walls chose one but was told it wasn't a star, but a planet. Then her father said, 'but it's Christmas, if you want a planet, you can have a planet.'

As she gets older, she starts to recognise the inadequacy of her parents and their way of living. Eventually her older sister leaves for New York, to find a job and live a better life - and she makes it. Then Jeanette follows at 17, found a job to support herself through her final year of school. Next, they fetch their brother, 13, and take him to New York, and support him through the rest of his schooling. The youngest sister ran off to California and they don't have contact with her. The parents eventually moved to New York too, and lived as homeless street people. Her mother is still alive.

Jeannette graduated from Barnard College with honours, and became a journalist, gossip columnist and writer. She moves in the rich and famous circles, and constantly feared that people would find out about her homeless, dumpster-diving parents, who refused to be helped into a 'better' life by their children. But eventually she decided to come out about her life, wrote The Glass Castle, and appeared on Oprah just before the book came out.

I found both books fascinating, moving, tear-inducing, and inspiring. I was amazed at how different their childhood days were from those of mine, lived on New Zealand farms and small towns, without the neglect and abuse, and yet how easily I could relate to these women. That in itself is a sign of the quality of their writing.