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 … Continue reading the last
I didn’t have much luck with sunflowers last summer – I planted a whole packet in the corn bed but only three came all the way up and one of those got blown over and snapped in a storm. Still, the two that made it were glorious in the way that sunflowers are. There’s nothing … Continue reading golden sunflowers inside
…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, … Continue reading This is not a gratuitous cute kitten photograph…
I visited the creek. The stones hosted the leaves. The leaves bathed in the water. The water held the sky. Continue reading leaf water stone sky
Summer = season of green. Broad beans until we can’t face another broad bean. I divided up my monster stinging nettle plant and now I have baby nettles thriving away. (Anyone local want a nettle plant?) Nettles are a wonder herb and are seriously good for you – very high in iron, it also builds … Continue reading green bean serene
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. … Continue reading lean in
A few years ago, I rescued a whole lot of plants from a garden in my old neighbourhood which was about to be demolished. When I moved to my new house, just over a year ago, I was careful to shift a lot of the tiny poppy baby plants from the legacy of that garden-save. … Continue reading the poppies live on
The garden is warming up to the point that some of the things which have been in it over the winter are starting to bolt. I harvested my beetroots the other day, as they’d been in there since autumn. Time to pick them to make room for some more exciting summer vegetable. Beetroots are great … Continue reading peel the beet
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 … Continue reading keeping the prunings
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 … Continue reading fly away home
Helen Lehndorf 