Category: nature cure
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warm autumn
Here is how the big vegetable bed looks right now….because it has been such a warm autumn, everything has grown quickly and lushly, which you might think is a good thing, but it isn’t really. It means that everything will be read to eat soon, and then when the really cold weather hits, the garden…
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the last
I write about the seasons a lot, don’t I? I can’t help it. I grew up in a small town in the middle of farmland – my Dad was (still is) a hunter and fisherman and so we ate with the seasons and the seasons were meaningful in a way they may not be for…
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In the garden…
The tomatoes are ripening by the bowlful every day and we are eating lovely pasta sauces and soups which taste of the sun and make me realise how insipid tinned tomatoes are! The chillies are starting to fruit – just in time for the cold of autumn, which will stunt their growth in no time.…
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This is not a gratuitous cute kitten photograph…
…it’s a cute chicken photo, instead. This is Cockatrice – one of our hens. She is the leader of the pack, top of the pecking order and frankly, the brains of the bunch. She was also a quick developer – the first to grow her full comb and to start laying eggs. Cockatrice is intelligent,…
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leaf water stone sky
I visited the creek. The stones hosted the leaves. The leaves bathed in the water. The water held the sky.
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seed heads
Often, if a plant isn’t taking up space I need for something else, I’ll let it go to seed. Partly because then it will drop it’s seed everywhere and next year I might get plant babies, and partly because I love seeing what plants do when they go to seed. Have you ever let a…
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lean in
I went to the Pohangina valley. Clean spring green. PIcked up heart shaped rocks. Picked up broken glass. Picked up. They were throwing stones in the water. I walked away from the splashing. I walked past the Friday night fire pits, the Woodstock cans and pizza boxes. The trees along the bank were just flowering.…
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the trail is not a trail
One of my favourite poets is American poet Gary Snyder. He is described as the ‘poet laureate of deep ecology’ by some and I would agree with that. I guess he is a natural fit for me – he studied Zen Buddhism in Japan for years and writes a lot about the human spirit and nature.…
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keeping the prunings
Every time my lavender needs a prune, I tie up the prunings and hang them up in our porch to dry. Then, some months later when I have a spare hour, I pull the dried blooms off the stalks and add them to my lavender jar. My friend Melissa makes lovely lavender sachets with hand-printed…
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fly away home
I was sitting at the table and Willoughby said: ‘What’s that black spot on your skirt, Mum?’ It was a green ladybird (I think) – dark, pearlescent green. I’ve never seen a green ladybird before. I looked it up on the ever-wise internet and found that ladybirds can be “yellow, green, orange, grey, white and…
Helen Lehndorf 