Cats

Last June, while Jeff was visiting friends in Melbourne, his beautiful black cat disappeared following the worst stormy night of winter. He often went awol for a few days, so we didn't really worry for the first week, but as the weeks went by, we gradually came to the realisation that he wasn't coming back. I stopped going down into our bush for fear of finding his bones. When I woke in the middle of the night I would lie awake pondering his fate. The not-knowing was so hard, and eventually, when I had finally accepted that he was dead, I came to wanting to find his remains, just so that I knew.


Eventually, seeing that not only did I miss Shadow, but so did his sister Ng Tong,


I started thinking about a new kitten. I procrastinated for a few months, but then a friend said they had kittens needing homes: her daughter works at the local vet clinic, and she had adopted a pregnant, unwanted (but very beautiful and sweet-nature d) pregnant cat that had been brought into the clinic.

After much umming and ahhing, I eventually decided to adopt a sweet little boy who we named Spike. He is bold and brave and beautiful. He is fearless and has the poor dog in a state of confusion as he marches up and chews poor Bob's tail!








Ng Tong is gradually getting used to him, though she spends most of her days outside or in the garage - so much for Spike being a solace for her loneliness!

Spike has a mate however. It seems the bush telegraph is real and working well, in our bush anyway:


Yes, we got Spike on Friday 15 January, and on the morning of Monday 17th January, as Mac was sitting eating his breakfast, in walked Shadow - seven months after his disappearance!




P.S. A day later and I feel like there's hope that the cats will eventually all get along okay together:

The Learning Curve

This learning about bees is a real adventure: every book and every person seems to tell you a different story, so it seems to be a matter of listening and making random guesses as to what to do! I guess as time goes by and I learn more about bees and beekeeping in general, but more importantly, about my own particular situation, I will make better choices.

My bees have verroa mites. Bummer. When I got my bees, a swarm in Hamilton city, some people said 'treat them for verroa now', others said 'leave it til autumn.' I took the latter advice - greedily hoping for some honey. Now I won't have any, because the honey becomes contaminated for human use when the control strip are placed in the hive for 6 - 8 weeks. (There's another quandry: some say they must ony be put in for 6 weeks, one professional beekeeper told me to leave them in until spring, another said 8 weeks - what to do?)

Because I was starting with a brand new hive and frames, it took more than six weeks for my bees to get established before I even put on the honey box, so the verroa treatment could have been done and removed, and I could have had a whole box of honey in my first year. Still, I'm learning - and hopefully my beautiful bees will survive the infestation, survive winter and go on to provide me with lots of yummy honey next year.

Despite the verroa, my hive seems pretty strong and there is heaps of food available for them - since Mac got rid of the cow, there are heaps of meadow flowers for them.

This bee keeping is so much fun though. Heidi (my daughter-in-law) and I helped my bee-buddy, B, extract some of her honey, and that was very rewarding. The most yummy learning experience I've ever had!

J, another helper, Heidi, and B.

B uncapping the comb with a heated 'capping knife.

The extractor - a manual one, which takes some energetic arm work, but also blows a fanning of the sweetest air in your face as you do it.

Bee and Heidi draining some of the honey from the extractor.

Strained and bottled :)

Variation in colour, depending on what was flowering at the time.

Afterward we had lunch looking out over the bush at our beautiful west coast. It was hard to get up and go home.

Backwards and Forwards

It's been a very strange year: another of those transition times for me.

Jeff started at Waikato University exactly 40 years after me. I missed him during all those hours that he was at university, but I enjoyed the conversations that arose from his work. I rapidly ran out of understanding of his computing work, other than in a very vague sense, but was better able to enjoy discussions about his philosophy and English papers.

But then half way through the second semester, Jeff went flatting with his brother, Simon, Simon's partner, Rebecca, and Megan, a friend of Rebecca's. Then I found out what missing my sons really meant! Given that Jeff's departure coincided with Mac getting even busier at work, having evening meetings, sometimes twice a week, and in the month leading up to Christmas, numerous 'dos' associated with work, I found myself alone way too much for comfort. I've never found time with me to be stimulating, interesting, or pleasant!

I looked forward to Wednesday nights, when we met at a friend's house to play marimba - Jeff leads the group, and Simon plays with us too. It's a lot of fun and we had our first playout in November. Best of all was spending time with Jeff and Simon, doing something fun.

Friends, acquaintances and complete strangers, on hearing that my home educating days were done and dusted, have been full of suggestions on how to fill my days: how I can turn my hobbies into businesses; suggestions for new hobbies; suggestions that I get a job (like anyone is going to employ a 58 year old woman who hasn't been in paid employment for thirty years, especially in a period of economic downturn); how I need to get out and make new friends - or simply that I need to 'get a grip', pull myself together, blah blah blah.

The thing is, I have plenty to do. More than enough. It's not the doing that's the problem. I have spent 30 years fitting things in around my children. Even now I still do that: when they are available to spend time with me, I try to drop as many things as possible so as to maximize time with them. If they come to visit, even if they are hanging out with a brother, I will do inside chores, rather than go out to work on my bookmaking or garden, because I just like to be around them.

So now, most of the time, I don't have to fit things around them: logically I should be able to get so much done. But I don't. All those decades my sons were my focus and everything else was peripheral. I find it really difficult to pull, from the periphery, my bookmaking, my craft work, my gardening, my writing into the central focus of my life.

My feeling has been that 2009 has been a real struggle, yet now, looking back on the year through looking at my diary and at my photos, I realize that there has been so much that has been good and fun. There have been parties and weddings and 21sts. Mac and I have been on not just one, but two, holidays without any of our sons for the first time in 29 years. There have been fun times in the company of my sons, womad, parties, playing games, visiting the Sculpture Park, going out to lunch with them in Raglan and Hamilton.

I have also spent more time in the company of women friends: a Mama Mia party, evenings out at Jazz Society, lunches, coffee, just visiting their homes. In the last half of the year I met up with a woman I worked with in 1972, and have spent time with her, and look forward to seeing a lot more of her this year. And I have met more women through new activities.

Perhaps the most exciting thing I did last year was a night class in beekeeping and the subsequent acquisition of a swarm of bees to put in my new bee hive. It was a real challenge to get myself to the point of believing I could do it, but that was achieved largely by seeing three women who are around my age or older confident and enjoying beekeeping.

In December I attended a two day course on 'making art your business', and although I certainly don't want to make my book making a full time business, I would like to get to the point of making a bit of money for it.

Finally, on Boxing Day, Mac and I went out and bought a treadmill - I am so tired of being tired. And unfit. And being overweight almost to the point of clinical obesity. (No matter how hard I search the net, I can't find anywhere that doesn't have my just one kg short of the obesity range. I chose to ignore the ones that place me in it.) The first day I did just 10 minutes on it: twelve days later I managed forty minutes.

So now it's 2010. Time is running out - in just a year and a half I'll be 60. My mother was 77 when she died. 19 years doesn't seem that long. But as someone said recently: time is all you have. I have to stop wasting it, and pack as much as possible into what time I have left. And if I am to do that I need to get fitter, and actually get off my butt and do things, rather than just sit around feeling sad about things past, people gone, opportunities missed. I have to appreciate the things I have. Not easy tasks to set a person who has been depressive and negative thinking and just plain lazy all her life! But in 2009 I have worked on myself and have managed to be less depressed and less negative - I need to work a lot harder and more consistently. The natural laziness is going to be hard though!

So - goals for 2010 (famous last words):

• Get fitter and lose weight - I have never tried to lose weight before, so that's going to be interesting! My aim is to work on fitness first, using the treadmill. Given my life-long aversion to exercise, that will be enough of a challenge to start with: I'll leave the dieting until I've managed to use the treadmill consistently for a couple of months!
• I'm challenging my brain by doing a Permaculture Design Certificate course in a modular format which will mean one or two days a month in various locations around the Hamilton / Raglan areas.
• Seriously attempting to sell them through a thought out plan.

There are a number of other things I want to do but they are more of the same old things (more craft work, more writing, more gardening), or are just too vague to express as goals (become less negative / more positive / less sad / happier / less discontented / more contented.)

So that's another thing I have never done in my life before: I've made New Year resolutions! I'll try not to break all of them.

Bee Update

I have looked in my hive twice since Barbara came and helped me the first time. I sent off for another bee hat and another pair of gloves, and bought a second pair of overalls, thus making it possible for Mac to help me. He was very reluctant , but I wanted to put a second box onto the hive, as Barbara had suggested.


Mac's help with technology was very valuable, however, when it came to working out the coordinates of where exactly my hive is situated, and so now I am an official beekeeper, with my own nuber and all - C2019 - which is painted on all my boxes.


The bees have been very busy since then, drawing out lots of comb and filling it as they are meant to. Mac was most relieved when Steven and Heidi returned to live with us just before Christmas - although Steven wants nothing to do with the bees, Heidi is keen to help, and to learn more about these amazing creatures. Thank goodness for daughters-in-law!

GPS

One of the things about becoming a beekeeper is that you have to register, and included in that process is describing where the hive is: you are required to give a verbal description AND give map coordinates. The form referred me to a website but that didn't work (no such page, it said), or failing that it suggested using a GPS device. We don't have one of those, so borrowed noe from Mac's sister. In the event, we discovered hers wasn't sufficiently sophisticated to give coordinates, but it did help me navigate my way to a friend's place in Auckland.

On the way home from Pat's place after collecting the device, we took the short cut, and discovered that the GPS device did not really approve of short cuts that take you over gravel roads!

GPS

Leaving the bush line of Mt Pirongia
Bouncing down the country driveway

*Find the nearest road*

Coming home the short way

*Perform a u-turn when possible*

Heading west down Whittaker Road

*Turn right into Limeworks Loop Road*

Turning left into Filliary Road

*Perform a u-turn when possible
Turn left into Limeworks Loop Road*

Biting into a crisp out-of-season apple,
spitting out the sticky label

*Perform a u-turn when possible*

Milky Way in the black sky
like a jarful of glitter sprinkled
across black sugar paper
by a joyous two year old

*Perform a u-turn when possible*

Over the black hills
and past the quarry
Past the point of no return
(though really I could if I so chose)

*Perform a u-turn wh.........
Continue straight ahead for 7.8 kilometres*

I’ll not perform a u-turn for u.
I’ll not go straight ahead
for a defined distance.

I’ll take the short-cut
or the long cut
the twisty gravel road
or the straight state highway

I’ll take the walkway
or cut my own path
through the tangled bush

Bees!

My enthusiasm for bees and beekeeping didn't wane, despite the thought that I might not get any of my own until next year. There was an introductory talk at Whale Bay, Raglan, and Mac and I went along. Barbara then showed us her hive.


I joined the Waikato Domestic Beekeepers Association, and when I heard Barbara say that she was planning on putting a new queen cell (from Lorimers) into her hive, I asked if I could go over and watch, and help if there was anything I was able to do. That was the start of us becoming 'bee buddies'.

So, I thought I may not get bees until next year, but on 11 November, on my way back from Auckland I got a text asking me to be in Dinsdale at 7.30pm to collect a swarm Peter (from the Beekeepers Association) had caught for me. Driving as fast as I could without being (too) illegal, I made it there only ten minutes late. We put the hive, the entrance blocked up with a piece of wood, in the boot and home I went. Mac helped me lift the hive over the fence then stood well back and took photos, while I removed the piece of wood, so that the bees could get out.

Then I waited......

......................................and waited

...........................................................for three and a half weeks which was torturous.


I could see bees going in and out, some carrying pollen, but had no idea what was happening inside the hive.


Then last Sunday, after I went to Barbara's and helped her check her hive, she came over and we took a first look inside my hive. The bees had been very busy.


Peter had told me to put just 9 frames in the hive when I took it to him, and he also told me to leave the hive to settle down for four weeks: I did exactly that, but I should have put another frame in, or at least opened it when I got home and spaced the frames evenly, I think, because.......


when we finally looked, there were big lumps of comb where there shouldn't have been.


But there was also lots of brood, honey and pollen where it should be! Yay!


We removed the worst bits of inappropriately placed comb and discarded it.


Then it was time to put the lid back on and leave them in peace. They had been really calm, in spite of me not managing to keep the smoker going, but we didn't want to risk disturbing them any more.


Oh! I had better than Mac for the photography - and the neighbour's yearlings for keeping an eye on the proceedings:

Spending Time with Bees and Women

Well, it looks as though I may not be able to acquire any honey bees for my hive until next year, so we will have to make do with native bees and bumble bees. We do have a huge number of bumbles, and at the moment they are enjoying the flowering multiplying onions:


However, today I enjoyed a wonderful couple of hours helping and learning from a Raglan beekeeper, who was splitting her hive, using a purchased queen cell. While at the Hamilton bee club meeting on Thursday night, I heard her say that she planned to do this today, and so I plucked up courage and asked if I could help / observe. Amazing though it may seem to those who know me as a loud, in your face sort of person, I do in fact find it incredibly difficult to talk to people in situations where I know few others. For the past 28 years I have made myself talk to strangers (and do all kinds of things I would not have otherwise done) for the sake of my children. Now my 'baby' has gone (he went flatting in Hamilton two weeks ago) and I realise that if I do not wish to spend my days doing mundane chores in boring silence, I have to learn to talk to strangers for my own benefit.

So, I asked B if I could help her, and she agreed. I had a wonderful morning. I used the smoker to calm the bees. I helped lift boxes off and on to the hive. She showed me where the brood was, the honey, the pollen, and pointed out the different types of bees. And I wasn't scared for a moment - I didn't even think of being scared until afterwards when B commented on how calm I'd been! We agreed that I will go back and help when she is doing her bees, which will be a great way to learn, and whenever I do get my own bees, I will feel way more comfortable.

Afterwards we went into her house for a cup of tea, and the first thing I saw was a book of poetry - my favourite book of my favourite kiwi poet! The Art of Walking Upright by Glen Colquhoun.

First bees brought an old friend back into my life decades after losing touch, and now the bees have brought another interesting woman into my life. Perhaps there really might be life after children.

Week one of the next stage

Well, it is a week since Jeff moved out of our home and I remain bereft. Loading his belongings into the van, and onto the trailer was horrible; unloading them was worse. Jeff, Simon and Rebecca were oozing excitement at as they claimed their own space; Mac and I didn't stay to help beyond getting Jeff's stuff in place. We headed off to do a couple of chores, then to the new cafe at Hamilton Lake for lunch, and eventually home to our empty house.

We were both feeling very sad: not just that Jeff was gone, but because suddenly we both had to face up to the fact that a part of our life - perhaps the very best part - was at an end. I thought it would be just me that felt like that, but it is Mac too. Eventually I went and dusted and swept and mopped until Jeff's room was tidy and clean in what seems a most unnatural way. I keep that door closed now too, along with Simon's and Steven's doors. It's too hard to pass by and glance in at their empty rooms.

I know that many of my friends have far worse things happening in their lives, yet this emptiness and and loss of meaning and purpose is so hard. I have spent twenty nine years mothering my boys into independence and to venture forth into the world as young adults - and damn! it appears I have succeeded! Part of me is glad and proud that they have all made it, and that's the part of me that I need to encourage, I guess.

So, to keep myself busy in ways that don't allow me to think too much has been important this week. On Monday, as usual, I worked at Trade Aid for a few hours. Mac had the day off to do some work on our house, so I wasn't alone when I got home.

On Tuesday night I met Mac after work and we ate out at an Indian restaurant (mmmmmm mango lassi) before going to a talk at the university about climate change and its implications for the way we live.

On Wednesday I visited a friend and played Connect Five and Cluedo with her and hertwo beautiful children - that was so much fun, I miss our homeschool game playing days so much - before going and getting a hair cut.

On Thursday I helped a friend move her husband out of their house and into a flat. Despite the sadness, it was good for me to spend time with friends, and keep busy. Afterwards I came home and mowed grass that has not been mowed all winter - some was nearly half a meter long! So the next thing was a long soak in the bath with lavender oil, Trade Aid chocolate and a book.

Friday - I was home alone all day until Mac got home.

It's not really much different from how I could have described most weeks this year, with Jeff away most days at university: it's the knowledge that he won't be home later that makes each day so empty.

But last night Steve and Heidi came to stay and we watched a movie. Heidi left about 2pm today, and I took Steve into Hamilton to meet up with her again after dinner. This morning Simon came out to work on his car with Mac, and stayed into the evening a while. I was so lovely to have them here, especially today, this first weekend after our youngest son moved out. It helped me realise that although Jeff's departure was the end of a part of our lives, it is not the end of it all. I have to learn to relish these happy moments, and to use the memories and the anticipation to get me through the other times.

A life of subtraction

I'm feeling a mixture of depression and panic attacks at the moment. My youngest son, Jeff, is moving out of home on Saturday - going flatting in Hamilton (40 mins away, just down the road from university) with his next oldest brother, Simon. I will still see him every week, but it won't be the same. I will miss him so much - his laughter, the discussions about literature, humour, philosophy, you name it. So many things that I don't have in common with my husband, though of course, Mac and I have other shared interests.


It makes me regret my unschooling days in some ways: living this way has enabled me to become good friends with my sons, but they, of course, have to move on and make new friends and new lives. They seem to add and add to their lives, while mine seems to have become a life of subtraction.

I'm trying hard to add to my life, but it feels like things are just slipping away from me, in the same sad, sweet way that, in mid summer on Ngarunui Beach, sparkling black sand slithers through my fingers as I sit with the sun warming my back after an hour reveling in the surf. Speaking of which - I will no longer have anyone to go swimming with more than very occasionally.

The best memory I have of my childhood was of traveling in a train to Wellington. I must have been very little, because obviously I did not have a seat of my own. I remember my father passing me to my mother to have a turn to hold me. I remember snuggling down on her lap and wishing that I could stay on the train forever, so that I could stay feeling loved and cuddled always. I don't remember being cuddled on any other occasion. I know my mother loved babies, so I hope it is my memory that is lacking, rather than the relationship with my mother, but I am sure that hugs and cuddles were not part of my later childhood.

One of the things I have loved about motherhood is the physical contact I have had with my sons. Cuddling babies, pouring more love than I had dreamed I could possibly give into them was even better than being loved. My boys have never gone through a stage of refusing to give me a hug, even in public. What I hadn't realised was that the physical affection I gave them, knowing how much I wanted and missed that from my mother, was, in fact, also filling the hollow place left over from my childhood.

I'm trying not to think of the fact that there will no longer be anyone to give me a hug in the morning and another at night.

I am trying to add to my life.

I have so many things I want to do more of - gardening, book making, and maybe one day I will be able to write poetry again, though at the moment the muse has fled.

Mac and I have enroled in a night class together, which is less of a class than an series of presentations about political / economic / ethical issues - not just because it sounds interesting, but also as something we can do together.

Last term I did a course in beekeeping, and now I am all set up and ready - I just need to find som bees. That may be difficult as I was told by a man who sells nucs that he has had more people looking for bees this year than ever before. It is a scary challenge, but one that will introduce something new to my life.

Bees have already brought something new - or perhaps old - renewed - into my life in the form of the woman who took the night class. She turned out to be M, who I had worked with in 1972, in the Post Office Savings Bank. We had been friends back then, but our lives took different paths and we lost touch decades ago. Now this amazing, strong, alive woman is back in my life and inspiring me with all she has done and become, despite having many bad things thrown at her over the years. She too is soon to have her youngest child leave home, so after all these years our lives have drifted back together.

And I think this may be part of the answer: strengthening the connections and relationships with Mac and with other friends, and perhaps even establishing a few new friendships.

But oh, how I will miss the presence of youth (I already do, with Jeff being pretty independent the last couple of years, and the others having also been gone for years) and the physical, immediate presence of my boys.

To Kaiapoi and Back

Well, our holiday was wonderful! I enjoyed our time with friends, and our time on our own, just the two of us was great. I did wonder for a little while, why we were going away - our place looked so beautiful when we got up on Fathers' Day Sunday to leave:


But we did go - and had brilliant sunshine the whole time, until the last day when we were driving home - and even then, we only got five minutes rain, quite a lot of cloud but also some sun. On the way down to Wellington we could see not just the central North Island mountains, but also my favourite, Mt Taranaki. (Didn't get a photo of that though.)


In Wellington we stayed two nights in a Railway Welfare Society apartment even though it is 22 years since Mac worked for NZR. It was great being in the centre of town, so we could walk everywhere - but I don't like apartments; they make me feel very claustrophobic.


We had a day in Wellington when we went to Te Papa (Mac took the camera and took dozens of photos of the Formula One racing cars that I didn't even go and see), then the next day we were off on the ferry.

It was interesting to see the wind farm as we left Wellington harbour - soon we will have one on the hills by our place. Fortunately, I think they are lovely!


No matter how many times I enter Queen Charlotte Sounds, I can't imagine that I could ever tire of the sight.


On our way to Kaikoura we saw some seals - and I managed to take photos of them without poking myself in the eye like last time we went south - I ended up in A&E and had to have eye drops and very dark, huge coverall glasses for a couple of weeks that time!


Last time we were at Kaikoura we were tenting and it was cold and raining - in January. This time it was early September, and the weather was perfect! Again, we stayed in a Welfare place - a three bedroom, older house, very comfortable, just across the road from the water and a pub, and looking out at the mountains. This was the view from the sitting room window.

The shags on the rocks across the road:

The house we stayed in:


Sunrise: worth getting up for! This is what I looked at from bed!


I don't get up at sunrise just for sunrise itself though - we were off whale watching.

We saw five whales. And it was just as awesome as last time.


And a Wandering Albatross:


In the afternoon we went for a walk along the waterfront - I loved the rocks, they were amazing!

And then when we got back, it was a few drinks at the pub before we stumbled home across the road.


The next day we headed off for Christchurch - and saw these amazing Cathedral Cliffs on the way.


The first morning we were there, we dropped Malcolm and his son Hamish way up river somewhere and then went back to their place and waited for them to make their way back down again.


In the afternoon we went fro a drive to Taylor's Mistake (so called because of the ship's captain who ran aground, mistaking this small bay for Lyttleton Harbour.) There were lots of amazing old baches tucked into the cliff faces.


Malcolm and Mac sitting in the ruins of an old house.


On Sunday night we finally caught up with James, who had been away most of the time we were down. It was so good to see him, and where he lives now, as with Malcolm and Vicky - I have a need to be able to visualize people in their places.

Then on Monday it was back to Picton. We got there early, and the ferry was delayed so we were able to have a good look around for the first time - in there past we've just been there for the ferry.


We got to Jenny's house and collected the key from it's hiding place at the neighbours - but nobody told us about the alarm. I'm not sure they are worth installing, as nobody called the cops, despite the awful noise. I had to run down the road to the neighbours and then they had to hunt out the bit of paper with the alarm number on, and in the mean time poor Mac was being deafened and wondering if he was going to be arrested! But it wasn't long before were were in bed asleep. In the morning I walked around and took lots of photos of Jenny's gorgeous garden to make her homesick.


And then we drove and drove and drove and came home to this:


In the (approximate) words of the story about a knight that I used to read to my sons when they were little: "It's a fine thing to go adventuring, but it's great to come home."