Truman Track

This is where we went today:

More info on this track here, where you'll note I've copied the photos from (is that allowed? please tell me quick if I've lined myself up for a court case). No camera was even thought of in our haste to take off with our chicken sandwiches and fruit.

We walked down through native forest in wonder, then through flaxes and then some kind of primrose and then onto the beach. We explored caves, let beautiful multi-coloured pebbles run through our hands, climbed on rocks, drank in the sky and sand and waves, marvelled at the echo which magnified the sound of the waves.

And I thought of Rob. Of Denise and Woody and Mungo who will bury their husband and father today in England. Goodbye Rob. Will you let the pray-ers pray for you? I hope the Spring birds sing when you go down into the ground.

As we left, I gathered a small handful of sea kelp and carried it back up to the road, to the car. It's resting on the garden at the moment, but it will go in the hole which we dig when we plant a tree in your honour, Rob.

Growing onion sets

I was reading about onion sets here this morning. I grew onions from sets in London with good success. But nobody seems to have heard of the practice here in small town.

We don't (or not usually - we are having a warm Autumn this year) have a particularly long growing season here and I had little success growing onions from seed this season just gone.

I would like to learn how to grow the sets and see if I could create my own kick start conditions. Any tips most gratefully received.

scrap GST on veges and fruit

I've been reading about calls to scrap the GST on fresh fruit and veges in New Zealand. Here is a summary of the topic.

I'm not feeling eloquent at all tonight, but I would like to record here that I agree with this call. This week's Listener magazine ran an editorial on this topic and used the term 'agflation' to refer to the dramatic rises in agricultural goods in the last 12 months. Good word. I'll be adding that to my lexicon, another very good word itself.

The cycle of life

How I angsted over the title of this post. It is still very unsatisfactory to me but sometimes I just have to get on with it and write.

I've been thinking about how we leave this world. Or in some ways I have not been thinking about that at all. Because bodily, we don't leave this earth when we die. But I have been thinking about what happens to our bodies when we stop breathing.

My friend is burying her husband in a woodland. I've found the website which gives more information but I'll leave UK readers to google. I have funny feelings about posting a link like a commodity for this topic.

I thought that in NZ, embalming was compulsory. But a bit of googling showed it isn't. A place called Natural Funerals on Auckland seems a bit progressive and also I found an archived Listener article (google 'green funeral') which suggested some woodland burial opportunities in Wellington.

I would like worms to help decompose me, to leave my nutrient to grow trees for the living world to enjoy. I would not like embalming fluid and toxic caskets to be my legacy to the ground. I would not like the fumes of a crematorium to be my legacy.

Please God and nature that I have the opportunity to breathe here a long while yet. There is yet room, I hope, for small towns and rural areas to also offer burials more in keeping with the spirit of renewal, with the needs of our nutritionally impoverished earth.

Lament for the naked scarecrow

I'm late. Very late. I can explain, it may even seem very reasonable. But the fact is that I am late.

Anyway, today was the first day I got to actually creating our scarecrow. I've thought about our scarecrow at times, and had cleared weeds and rotting logs from the area last month. While teh nasturtiums were rambling everywhere, I was thinking of creating a 'Queen of the Nasturtiums'. But then I weeded and thus the nasturtiums disappeared. So that seemed less appropriate.

Then our friend Rob died and every time I surveyed our back garden, I could only think of Rob, and a scarecrow seemed too frivolous. Today, still mere days after Rob's death, I spent part of the morning pulling out the spent tomato plants, weeding and beginning to come to terms with the cycle of life and death, winter and summer. I was getting a little closer to being able to start our scarecrow.

After school I started I showed Fionn the cross I'd made. That too was reminiscent of death. We gave the cross a head and just as I was thinking our scarecrow would be nude for the night, we found an apron and tied it across his front.

I/we are only on the beginning of our scarecrow journey. But I'll keep you posted.

farming chat

So we went to a fifth birthday party this afternoon. Gorgeous day at the beach (great venue cos you don't have to sweep the floor afterwards) and while kids ran free, my farming friend Mark and I chatted about farming and the global shortage of FOOD. Just that stuff that keeps us all alive, that's all.

A few weeks ago I reported the doom story about the near future economically from the left - few New Zealanders would dispute Sue Bradford's left wing credentials. In fact, I recommend you read the link on her anyway - one inspirational, committed activist for a better world.

I think it is safe to presume that the messages Mark was getting at a recent luncheon presentation by Ravensdown, a major fertiliser manufacturer, were to the right of the economic spectrum.

And the messages were very similar. Food shortages, rising prices, small amounts of land viable for food production and even those under threat. And a realisation that the old dig for victory campaign in the UK in the second world war could be wise, indeed necessary, again here.

Then we got talking about cows. Turns out that fertility is now a significant problem on NZ dairy farms. Some farms are running at 20% infertility. Which is pretty damn costly when a cow currently costs $2500. Do the sums on that for a 400 cow farm...

Whyt the rise in infertility? Because NZ farmers have been using a lot of US breeding stock (artificial insemination straws I presume rather than exporting live bulls) and as they are raised and bred there on corn, not pasture, and milked continuously, not seasonally, fertility is poor.

So New Zealand farmers are returning to traditional, local breeding stock and methods.

Not before time.

Rob

Rob our mad Essex friend. Dad to our friends Woody and Mungo and husband and partner to our friend Denise.

We will miss you. We enjoyed your company (even the conspiracy theories!) so much in England but we never thought the goodbye was forever when we left your place to catch the plane back to New Zealand on New Year's Eve, 2005. We'd all talked about New Zealand and thought we would see you again over here one day.

Life can be cruel; death infinitely more so.

I wish you peace as you go to rest in your woodland grave. I think of daffodils and trees and bluebells growing around and hope for more peace in this world.

We love you all.