Helen Lehndorf

Tag: Slow-Small Media for the Weekend

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #13

    (Above: beach walking with F during a particularly lovely dusk.)

    Hello! What have you been up to? 

    Here’s a few things from my week.

    I finished reading this book, ‘Thunderstone’ by Nancy Campbell and started reading this biography about Roger Deakin. 

    Have you heard of Roger Deakin?

    I think he’s kind of a nature-writer’s writer, in that not many people seem to have heard of him yet his way of life and his nature writing (he only published one book in his lifetime, ‘Waterlog’ and two were published post-humously) are seminal in their influence on writing and eco-memoir, kind of like how people say about the Velvet Underground that they weren’t very big in their hey-day but they influenced thousands of people to become musicians. Nature writer Robert McFarlane remembers him here.  

    I’ve learned about the fascinating back story of Caspian Sea Yoghurt, because my friend Bev gave me some of her starter. It’s very easy to make, no heat needed, it ferments whilst just sitting out on the bench.

    I’ve now made my first batch and it’s so good! It has a mild, sour flavour that is very satisfying. I’m a convert. 

    I op-shopped this vintage-looking (not sure if it is, though) cushion which I just love and have been enjoying gazing at.

    If it IS handmade, the embroidery is so detailed and beautiful. Check out those french knots in the centre!

    I’ve been making variations of this winter tonic each morning, but I often throw in a garlic clove (doesn’t taste great but excellent for gut health and immunity) and a kiwifruit as well.  

    I’ve been watching Wolf Hall and loving the costumes, the intensity of the wranglings of the court and Mark Rylance’s incredible, nuanced performance as the lead character. 

    Anyway, let’s get digest-ing!

    Song for the week: Winter Sun, by Mogli

    I encountered this song when watching a travel documentary, ‘Expedition Happiness’ about the artist and her partner.  

    This brief but darling song is so sweet and captivating. I confess I’ve been adding it to various playlists for years now, but I just don’t tire of it. 

    (You can listen to the whole Slow-Small Playlist here.)

    An exciting new resource for vintage imagery free of copyright

    Public.Work is a very cool new resource for sourcing copyright-free vintage imagery which you can use for creative projects. It’s really nicely designed and fun to use. 

    Here’s what came up when I searched ‘folk art’.

    And here’s the results for ‘woman gardener’. 

    Oh my gosh, so fun! & so much potential. 

    A painting which I saw in real life back in 2023 which has stayed with me

    In 2023, I saw this  painting, ‘Merville Garden Village near Belfast’, by English artist, Stanley Spencer, at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery when I was down there for an event at the Dunedin Readers and Writer’s festival for ‘A Forager’s Life’. (I wasn’t new to Stanley Spencer. I’ve read books about him and admire his work a lot so it was a real treat to see this IRL.) 

    I looked at it for a very long time. It’s even more beautiful in real life. It resonated for me as someone who likes to lurk around marginal spaces and does a lot of gazing over back fences and sideways vistas. On the Dunedin Public Library website they say of the painting, 

    ‘Painted on-site while Stanley Spencer stayed with his elder brother Harold near Belfast, this painting compels us to emulate what this great British painter loved to do: climb up and peer over at ‘ungetatable’ places. (…) he brings the richness of the everyday to our attention. (…) The unpromising view is full of promise.’

    That latter sentence captures so much of a forager’s approach to life!

    Something to watch: a peaceful, inspiring tour of the Mahara Sculpture Garden in Coromandel

    This (24 mins) video is a beautiful slow tour of the unique and spiritual Mahara Scupture Garden and an interview with it’s creator, Heather Chesterman. 

    Heather learned to pot from famous NZ potter, Barry Brickell. 

    I’ve added it to the list of places I’d love to visit in the Coromandel. (Holidays are tricky for us with a disabled (now adult) kid who can’t cope with being away from home for more than a couple of nights…but I trust I will get there one day.) 

    A rebel 74-year old living off-grid in England

    Speaking of potters, I enjoyed this article on World of Interiors about a potter, George Upwell, who was still living off-grid at age 74. I love the photographs of his simple, artful house and rebel spirit. (This article was first published in 2013.) 

    It reminded me a little of the feeling of visiting Wairarapa’s most famous potter, Paul Melser, with it’s large trees, old wooden house and beautiful dry stone wall. 

    Affordable Art

    (Please comment below if you have any suggestions for the affordable art part of my digests. I’d love any leads from you.) 

    This simple and beautiful lino print of our native eel, by Carrie Dingwall is just $40.00. There’s only ten available, so if you share my love for eels, get in quick! 

    A film I can’t wait to see

    Check out the trailer for the latest offering from Happen Films, The New Peasants. I’ve been a little obsessed with Artist As Family for some years now and cannot wait to see this feature length documentary about their daily lives. It is being released at the end of July. 

    *

    Today, my son Willoughby and I weeded, pruned, fed and mulched the raspberry patch. There’s something about doing tasks in deep winter that are about looking ahead to summer eating that make me feel so satisfied.

    We also planted a weeping Kowhai and some more kawakawa…slowly trying to add more native plants to our small urban garden.

    I hope your weekend is a pleasing mix of attending to tasks, resting and topping up your inspiration cup.

    Thanks for visiting,

    x Helen

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #12 

    (Above: recent pot of echinacea flower tea. I love watching flowers and herbs steep through a glass tea pot.)

    How was your wintery week? 

    Somewhat counter-intuitively, winter is the time to be planting fruit trees so that they have time to establish roots and resilience before the heat stressors of summer.

    Do you have any spots in the garden (or in a large pot if you’re renting) that you could plant a fruiting tree? 

    Last weekend we planted an omega plum tree. It will (eventually) hang over our front fence in the hope that passers-by can enjoy some fruit also. In 2020 we planted a Luisa Plum in a similar spot.

    To be honest, it’s meant that we haven’t had many plums off that one because people have picked most of the fruit within reach…but that’s okay…it’s why we planted it there. Eventually, the trees will be big enough that there will be plenty for us and everyone else. 

    An Australian man using YouTube to Plant a Forest

    Speaking of planting trees, if you will oblige me by giving this video your attention (it’s just 12 minutes long), your ‘watch’ will contribute to backyard adventurer Beau Miles planting trees on both his own land and other farms in his area, in Australia. 

    I follow Beau on YouTube and when I first watched this video last week, it only had a few hundred views and at the time of writing this it is up to 237, 000 views! 

    (Like I said last week, I love random side-quests.)

    Affordable Art: Studio Soph Tea Towels

    (Above: image borrowe from the Tikitibu website.) 

    I love the bold wittygraphics of New Zealand artist and designer, Studio Soph. 

    Many of her products are outside the $50 cut-off for ‘affordable art’ but she has a fantastic range of tea towels which retail for just $25 each. 

    After all, what is a tea towel but a large rectangle printed surface? With the right presentation, a tea towel can be wall art! Either gun-staple it over a cheap canvas from the op shop, or sew hems to slide pieces of dowling into, or just pin it to the wall as is! 

    She has lots of great tea towel designs, but I particularly like this ‘Bird in Flight’ design, available at Tikitibu.  

    (If you’re new here, I hunt around the internet for affordable art. ‘Affordable’ means $50 NZD or less. I believe everyone should be able to access art and beautiful things for their home.) 

    Something inspiring for your eyes – a street artist paints bee swarms on urban walls to bring attention to the plight of the bees

    I love these urban street swarms by Louis Masai.

    What a fantastic way to get a message across. 

    Poem: The Potato by Joseph Stroud

    What I enjoy about this poem is how a simple encounter with another person (and a potato!), a small exchange, becomes a deeply embedded sense-memory for this poet. 

    Here’s an excerpt: 

    ‘I met a farmer who pointed the way—

    Machu Picchu allá, he said. 

    He knew where I wanted to go. 

    From my pack I pulled out an orange.

    It seemed to catch fire 

    in that high blue Andean sky. 

    I gave it to him.

    He had been digging in a garden, 

    turning up clumps of earth, 

    some odd, misshapen nuggets, 

    some potatoes.

    He handed me one,

    a potato the size of the orange

    looking as if it had been in the ground

    a hundred years…’

    A poem about people exchanging crops with a message of gratitude for the simple things? 

    Yes, please! 

    This week’s song

    This song, ‘Dirty Mattresses’ by Canadian duo, Mama’s Broke, evokes such melancholy in me. The lyrics seem to be about a very relatable wrangling with privilege and failing people. 

    This opening lyric 

    ‘I’ve crossed a hundred rivers today

    And did not feel a thing…’

    really gets  me every time. How flying in planes, over mountains, over rivers, is such a miracle, and such a privilege…and yet we so often ‘don’t feel a thing’ about flying any more. If anything, it’s seen as a major hassle to be endured to get where we want to be. 

    I love their harmonies, their future-ancient sound. All of their work is beautiful. 

    (You can listen to the whole Slow-Small Media Playlist here on YouTube. )

    A  yummy and bright soup:

    Where I can, I like to promote New Zealand food writers because we have many excellent ones. 

    Seeing the produce, writers and food photographed in recognisable New Zealand contexts really fires me up to get out into the vegetable garden and get cooking.

    I really enjoyed the recent book by ‘Reckless Foodie’, Tracey Bennett. 

    (Above: Photo borrowed from Tracey’s website.) 

    It’s shot by my clever wild foodie/photographer friend, Sophie Merkens. See more of the gorgeous images from book here on Sophie’s website. (& Sophie has a very exciting book of her own launching later this year. Stay tuned for more on that!) 

    I enjoy recipe books which are focussed on bright, colourful, fresh vegetables, and Tracy’s book delivers on this. 

    Carrots are often sidelined as a vegetable, but their sweetness means a soup that is mostly carrot has a beautiful, refreshing flavour. Here’s a simple and gorgeous carrot soup from Tracey’s website.

    Another option I like to make for a carrot soup is to cook it with indian spices and then in the last few minutes of cooking, blend in a cup of cashew nuts. It’s spicy, creamy sweetness is reminiscent of a korma sauce, but in soup form. 

    ‘How to walk away from Empire‘

    If you’ve been feeling a bit low from how things seem to be crumbling around us at a frightening pace, go and read this short and heart-lifting essay by Nicolas Triolo.

    It gave me solace this week. 

    Here’s a taste: 

    ‘The moving toward is the whole point. 

    Toward family, toward one another, toward abundance. Let your body’s movement abandon lines. Those lines are the way of empire—extracting, penetrating, demanding, colonizing, ripping, and now, dying.

    Embrace nonlinear meanders, worshipping a circumference held together by a center of unknowability.

    Because another world awaits, is remembered in the shape of a field, a meadow for which there is no label to monetize, no body to exploit, no peak to bag.

    As things die, they also begin anew, becoming something far more curious, rounded, and life-affirming. To walk away from empire means to walk toward a different shape. 

    Firepit, egg, seed, eye, sun, wheel, Earth.’ 

    -Nicholas Triolo 

    *

    Have a good weekend, everyone. 

    Try not to be busy.  Keep it simple.

    Eat some good soup made by someone you know in real life.

    Lie on the ground and look out of the window at the sky.

    Keep going. 

    x

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #11

    (Above: a blazing nasturtium in the vege garden. I’m grateful for their bright faces on these gloomy winter days.)

    I bring this to you from a late-afternoon energy lull. Does anyone reading suffer insomnia? 

    Over the last month, I’ve been wrangling with insomnia which hasn’t been much fun. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. (Currently at bedtime, I take a valerian/hops/passionflower potion and rub my feet and legs with Magnesium oil which used to work a treat but recently, not so much.) 

    Enough about me! how are you?

    Here’s a bunch of random good things for your weekend: 

    A sweet poem

    I have a surname that people frequently struggle to spell, but it’s not as intense as the surname of this week’s poet, Amy Nezhukumatathil. Amy’s work is sensuous, at times humorous, she knows the natural world and writes it with great attention. I very much recommend her poetry.

    But this week’s poem is slightly different from her usual style. It’s a found poem which is comprised of fragments of letters from high school students who are studying her poetry for their exams. (Note the misspelling of her name in the poem’s title.) 

    It’s affectionate and funny. I could feel the collective stress of the poor students rising up off the words. 

    A beautifully-written essay about a painful subject

    Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been very much enjoying reading through the essays and articles on the Substack of the Wizard of Wellington, Rosie Whinray. 

    You didn’t know Wellington had a wizard? 

    Well, that’s because unlike the Wizard of Christchurch -who is mainly a satirical figure- Rosie is a real wizard…although she would never make that distinction (‘real’) herself. 

    Real wizards are very modest. 

    Rosie has written a beautiful, meandering, thoughtful, honest essay called Precariat Blues about the pain of losing her latest home (another rental sold out from under her) and about precariat housing (and living) generally. 

    From Rosie’s essay:

    ‘Chop wood, carry water, by all means dig. But if you rent, I would advise applying your effort to things you can carry with you when you go. Never forget that you stand to lose your labour. Human ingenuity is bonsai’d by the learned helplessness of tenancy. This pinching out of side-shoots is maybe the greatest tragedy of what renting does to a person’s soul.’

    Because she’s a real wizard, she makes a very sad subject beautiful. You’ll read it and possibly  feel sad, mad, bad, but also so glad that you read it…because it really is phenomenal writing. 

    I really hope Rosie publishes a book of her essays one day. 

    Affordable Art

    In this week’s affordable art is these striking sgraffito ceramic birds by Borrowed Earth 

    They cost $45 (our budget for ‘affordable art’ cuts off at $50) and there are five different designs. 

    (Above: Photo borrowed from Little Beehive Co website.)

    One would be beautiful…or if you have more than $50 to spend on art, you could have a pair…or a flock! They’re like a contemporary take on the classic flying duck wall ornaments. 

    Music

    The addition to the slow-evolving ‘Slow-Small Media’ playlist over on YouTube this week is not just one song but a whole record; it’s Ben Harper playing his 2020 album ‘Winter is for Lovers’ live in his music room. 

    This live version has a vibrant, compelling quality. Plus, if you’re watching as well as listening, it’s soothing to watch Ben noodling away in his music room surrounded by his beloved musical instruments. 

    In the kitchen: three ways to eat onion weed

    Did you know you can eat onion weed? It’s particularly succulent and good in winter and spring in New Zealand and it’s SO easy to find….a ‘Foraging 101’ kind of plant.

    Here’s a beautifully-produced video from local weeds-loving, vegan chef Anna Valentine on four ways with onion weed.

    She shares a mayonnaise, a super salt, a salad and a tempura which use the bulbs, stems and flowers of onion weed.

    An article about the world of miniatures

    There’s something so hugely compelling about tiny things. 

    Once, a friend bought me a miniature bok choy plant made of resin because ‘I knew you’d love it’. She was right, I do. 

    I bought my Mum a miniature Victorian copper kettle for her recent birthday because I knew she’d love it. She does. It’s now sitting on her dresser. 

    Here’s an interesting NPR article about the world of miniatures. 

    I googled where to buy cute miniature things in New Zealand. I’ve always dreamed of having a green Aga stove and from the In Miniatures shop, I could have one for just $29.00. 

    & something very, very, very silly to finish

    Last night I had insomnia so after lying in bed staring into the dark for two hours, I eventually gave up on trying to sleep, lit the fire and opened Youtube. 

    The first thing the YouTube algorithm suggested was a video where comedian crafter,  Ash Bentley, knits herself a ‘cursed outfit’. I was skeptical, but also wired and tired so I watched and, oh my goodness, it is worth watching Ash’s reveal of her cursed crafting effort. 

    The video is almost an hour long but -unless you have an interest in watching Ash figure out how to knit all the components- just do as I did and watch her introduction and then skip through to 52 minutes in for the big reveal. Now, imagine watching it in the subterranean state of an early insomniac morning. 

    Trust me, it’s worth it. It’s a horror and she’s a crack-up. 

    (Given I mostly watch foraging, permaculture and ‘slow life’ Youtube, I have no idea why YouTube suggested this to me…but I’m not mad about it.) Gosh, I love a silly side-quest.

    *

    The weekend ahead: I’m trying to do something of a midwinter-clean, like a spring clean but in winter. My fantasy is that we won’t need to spring clean because I’m going to do so much over July and August that I will land in September all sorted and fresh. Clearly the kind of thing us Virgos daydream about. In spring I’d rather be in the garden than in the house.

    At the moment, this looks like a pile of boxes and supermarket bags in the hallway floor spilling over with the recently-culled.

    If I have friends visiting while such piles are lying about, I always invite them to mooch the op shop pile before it heads off to the op shop. Already I’ve re-homed some clothes and some books. Happy friends and less for me to cart to the op shop. Hoorah! 

    So this weekend, I’m going to carry on with a bit of that. Last weekend I tackled my wardrobe, this weekend, it will be our bookshelves. Might be time to give some books the chance to be read and enjoyed by other people instead of gathering dust here. Not every book is going to be one that you re-read, right?

    I have a pile of shiny, new permaculture magazines from the library to read. Our library is so great in the variety of magazines they get. I can’t believe there are multiple permaculture titles to mooch.

    & I got a big fennel bulb in our CSA vege box so I’m going to make a fennel gratin. 

    It’s Palmy Crop Swap weekend and so I’ll head off to that on Sunday with some succulents I’ve potted up and some of my herbal tea to share. 

    That feels like enough ‘might do’s’ for the weekend. I like a ‘might do’ because if at the last minute I feel lazy and don’t do any of it…having a rest is a great use of a weekend, too. 

    I hope there’s some resting, some cheerful eats and some fun in your weekend. 

    x x

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #10

    (Above: F and I like to have fires in the backyard, whatever the weather. A recent violet dusk.)

    Does it feel to you like the weeks are whizzing by? Friday seems to come around faster and faster lately. Here we are again!

    I’ve had some lovely feedback for these Slow-Small Media digests. Thanks to everyone who has been in touch. I’m so glad you’re enjoying them. I really enjoy ‘foraging’ for things to share with you. 

    A ‘corny’ song

    This week’s addition to the slow-growing Slow-Small Media playlist, is ‘Close My Eyes’ by Arthur Russell. 

    I was new to Arthur Russell until I recently watched this fascinating documentary about him. (I love music documentaries even if I don’t know the subject. I find a lot of new-to-me music this way.) 

    If you’ve been reading these Friday digests since the beginning, you’ll probably know by now that I love nature-based songs, or songs that reference growing food and tending gardens. This beautiful soft song references a corn field: 

    ‘Will the corn be growing a little tonight

    As I wait in the fields for you

    Who knows what grows in the morning light

    When we can feel the watery dew.’

    (I add one carefully-considered song per week. You can find the whole playlist here. It’s nice to listen to on a weekend morning.)

    An ‘Eat the Weeds’ Pesto

    I am a massive Nicola Galloway fan so it meant a lot to me that she gave ‘A Forager’s Life’ a little shout-out in this column in ‘Life and Leisure’ magazine. 

    In the article she shares a delicious version of a foraged weeds pesto.

    Pesto is one of the best ways to ‘sneak’ weeds into your family’s diet if they are weed-resistant. They’ll never know once it’s all blended up and on pasta or some crackers. (Other good ways are soups, smoothies and quiches.) 

    Something to watch: a fascinating wild honey bee conservationist making beautiful hives from wood and rushes

    In the UK, Wild honey bee conservationist and carpenter, Matt Somerville, has designed a beautiful, natural, handmade hive habitat and over the last 14 years has installed 800 (!) for the wild bees. No honey is ever harvested from these hives – they are installed just to support wild honey bee biodiversity. 

    This beautiful 12 minute film about Matt’s work is inspiring in terms of how much of a difference one person with a big passion can make. I so appreciate that he wanted the hives to look appealing as well as being beneficial. 

    Some sweet, sweet cakes that are food for the eyes only: 

    Artist Heather Rios makes delightful cakes from polymer clay and embroidery.

    A feast for the eyes and oddly uplifting to regard, I found.  

     (Above: photograph borrowed from FrogsbyGigi.) 

    Affordable Art: 

    Felt Shop artist Gigi handknits frogs and dresses them in tiny jerseys or overalls.

    They come in under the $50 budge for affordable art and although you might argue they are toys not art, I’ll bet most of them are purchased by adults and then perched on bookshelves and desks…which means they are qualify as works of art. 😉 

    Aren’t they adorable?

    ‘This is the best domestic perfume: an ode to the humble onion

    I like how in this week’s poem William Matthews elevates the humble onion to it’s rightful place as the beginning of many things good in the kitchen. 

    This poem reminds me how good poems are all about looking at things, even humble things, very closely and being curious about what’s to be found there. Over the years, I have written poems about garlic, pasta sauce, my bicycle, and many other tangible things.

    An Anarchist Gardener’s Club on Substack!

    I think I know who the writer is behind this fabulous ‘Anarchist Gardener’s Club’ on Substack…

    …enjoy their call for collective green-fingered mischief!

    “We will cultivate whatever we can.
    We will grow flowers in the cracks.
    We will seed bomb every desolate corner of the scrub land.
    We will enjoy a brew and a biscuit as we do it.”

    Count me in!

    *

    I’m always overly-ambitious for how much I can fit into a weekend.

    Here’s my ‘might-do’ list for this weekend.

    -make kimchi. We got a beautiful cabbage in our CSA box and it’s calling to become kimchi, I think.

    -plant the dahlia bulbs I dug up and divided two weekends ago

    -work on my poetry manuscript some more

    -do some food prep ahead of the week -mostly washing and chopping vegetables- so we are more likely to eat them in salads and stir-fries

    -finish reading this wonderful book by Nadine Hura 

    I think that’s enough of a list, hey? If I even get a couple of those things done I will feel content. 

    What’s on your ‘might do’ list for the weekend?

    Try not to do too much, hey? And always factor in some fun.

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #9

    (Above: low winter sun through some crops gone to seed at the Awapuni Community Garden.)

    Hi lovelies,

    Jeez, another week of scary news in a world gone mad. I hope you are faring okay and doing plenty of sensory, nature-based things off screens to give your nervous systems a chance to recover.

    Winter calls for an encounter with ‘a Wild God’

    Long a favourite poem of mine, I went looking for a shareable version of ‘Sometimes a Wild God‘ by Tom Hirons and saw, to my delight, that you can both read it and listen to it being read by the author here. There’s something about listening to poems read by their authors which is really special.

    This poem speaks to that longing inside us to connect with nature’s raw wildness…how that raw wildness is no joke…and it also has such a great ending. A modern classic, I think.

    Song for the week

    This week’s song is gentle, evocative and sounds a bit like Nick Drake. It’s ‘Crow’ by English ‘folktronica’ band, Tuung.

    As a poet, I can’t fall 100% in love with a song unless the lyrics are thoughtful and interesting. The chorus for this song are so good:

    ‘And we bide our time
    And we shed our skins
    And we shake our bones
    And we sink like stone
    And we crawl through mud
    Til we reach the sky
    And we bide our time.’

    (Listen the full playlist of Slow-Small Media songs here on Youtube.)

    Sally Wise’s ‘Apple Day‘

    Nothing warms my heart like friends and communities getting together to work on food harvests and processing together. (If you didn’t catch it already, here’s an article about some friends and I doing just this with green tomatoes.)

    Australian food writer Sally Wise just wrote about her annual ‘apple day’ here.

    I especially like the photographs. What great seasonal fun.

    Make a liver-cleansing, iron-boosting tonic from a much-maligned weed

    Most people I talk to are unaware that yellow dock, a plant loathed by many, is a powerful medicinal plant.

    When I did a live-cooking event at the Womad Festival last year, one of the things I made was some wild seedy crackers which had yellow dock seed in them which I foraged.

    Dock root is rich in iron, minerals and vitamins. Check out this recipe for an Iron Rich Liver-Cleansing Support Oxymel from one of my favourite New Zealand food writers, Anna Valentine.

    Lot’s of weeds are a bit of a pain, it’s true (hello, tradescantia, hello, convolvulus) …but so many weeds are edible or medicinal. I feel like re-learning all of the offerings of local weeds will be an important passtime for the coming years.

    Here’s to the humble dock plant: mineral-retriever with it’s deep taproot, generous-seed-offerer, cleanser of livers and booster of blood.

    This week’s affordable art: Whakangā

    This week’s affordable art is not wall art, but an artful object, a meditation tool, a little something perfect for the wintery months. This would make a beautiful gift.

    (Above: photo borrowed from the Creative Hive NZ website.)

    It’s a little beeswax candle set from the Creative Hive NZ. Whakangā means in Māori to take a breath, catch your breath, rest, relax or inhale.

    From their website: ‘This beautiful Whakangā set is the perfect addition to your wellbeing with 21 small beeswax candles and an exquisite artisan ceramic kawakawa leaf holder.’

    I think it qualifies as ‘art’ and is very reasonable at just $35.00 for the set.

    This is such a thoughtful product. The tiny candles are made to burn for twenty minutes; just long enough to take a break or meditate. A friend of mine has a set and the candles are so very small and sweet.

    How to make a Wild Food Map of your neighbourhood

    This is a great article from Milkwood Permaculture on how to make a wild food map of your neighbourhood. I haven’t done this but I’d love to. If you have younger kids, it could be a fun activity to get them involved in over the school holidays?

    As well as great instructions on this project, this article has a handy list of links for online community food maps at the end, like Falling Fruit a global map of crowd-sourced information about public fruit trees. It’s very fun to type your address into it and see what’s within walking distance of your house. You can add your local knowledge to it, too.

    Something chill to watch: a Brixton folk artist’s beautiful house and studio

    This short (9min) clip featuring folk artist Abe Odedina on the World of Interiors YT channel is a good time.

    He’s a vibe, and I loved seeing his house and studio. His house is beautiful as is his art. I also appreciated how much he talks about loving being at home. I think since the pandemic, many of us feel the same way, hey?

    (I lived in Brixton a zillion years ago when I was on my travels. I found it such a vibrant, exciting suburb of London.)

    A Manifesto for Stubborn Optimists

    From the Montague Workshop (Brad and Kristi Montague), a Manifesto for Stubborn Optimists:

    ‘We believe that care is courageous.

    Joy is rebellious.

    Wonder is defiance.

    We believe in the builders,

    teachers, growers, healers,

    quiet ones making room at the table,

    the messy middle, the long haul, and

    in the overlooked beauty of a slow repair.’

    This manifesto gave me some solace this week. I love manifestos. I think most things I write end up being thinly disguised manifestos; I can’t help it.

    I’m going to print it out and stick it on my fridge.

    This weekend my oldest ‘baby’ turns 25. Quarter of a century!

    (Above: the oldest baby when he was 4. A favourite pic.)

    I spent my 25th birthday dancing at Duckie London – a queer club night that’s still going! But I started off the night straddled across one of the bronze lions of Trafalger Square in London, drinking straight from a 1.5 litre bottle of Absolut vodka. Classy, aye? (I wasn’t always the quiet homebody I am now.)

    It’s funny, because I remember clearly thinking back then ‘I’m going to climb up here and get on one of the lions…because then I will always remember what I did on my 25th birthday’ …and it worked, I do!

    Anyway, there will be birthday celebrations this weekend and no doubt F and I will have a tipple of whisky and contemplate the bizarre passage of time.

    Hope there are sweet, calm things in your weekend, too. x

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #8

    (Above: a wintery table top and typical scene in our whare.)

    Mānawatia a Matariki!

    I hope you have a restful, peaceful day ahead for this special holiday. Today’s digest is Matariki themed. I have some friends coming over for a huge pot of soup and some sharing from the heart.

    A ‘Matariki banger’

    To get us rolling, here’s a sweet short (4mins) documentary about the making of a new Matariki song:

    ‘When Professor Rangi Matamua, Rob Ruha, Troy Kingi and Kaylee Bell link up — we get a Matariki banger.’

    (For northern hemisphere readers, Matariki is the Māori New Year in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It happens around the winter solstice when the the Matariki star cluster, known in English as the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, is brightest in the sky. The names o the stars in Māori are:  Matariki, Pōhutukawa, Waitī, Waitā, Waipuna-ā-rangi, Tupuānuku, Tupuārangi, Ururangi, and Hiwa-i-te-rangi.)

    A beautiful essay about brief but strong connections, grief and lessons from a marae kitchen

    I’m part-way through Nadine Hura’s wonderful collection of essays, ‘Slowing the Sun’. I have to keep pausing because it is powerful writing. So much grief, so much truth, so much beauty.

    This week she published this essay. I loved how she conveys the fun but tough environment of the marae kitchen.

    I’ve done a bit of time in marae kitchens myself and you learn fast to keep your head down, get on with any work assigned to you and stay outta the way! It’s also where all the good stories and gossip are…and the place to be, really.

    A couple of recipes

    Given it’s Matariki, here’s one for traditional Māori Fry Bread

    It’s kind of like a doughnut…but it can be served savoury or sweet.

    The marae I had the privilege to eat at sometimes as a kid used to serve it piping hot, drizzled with golden syrup and fresh runny cream.

    Can you imagine the decadence?

    & for a hearty dish which uses a native plant, here’s a stunning recipe from Dunedin food writer Alby Hailes, Turmeric roast potatoes with crispy kawakawa & brown butter whip I haven’t tried this one yet…but it’s on my want-to-try list.

    I’m intrigued to try the crispy kawakawa. Frying sage leaves in butter is an extraordinary thing so I imagine the kawakawa would develop a similar spicy umami.

    The delight of hearing Hone Tuwhare reading his poem Papa-Tu-A-Nuku

    National treasure Hone Tuwhare died back in 2008. He read his work aloud with such spice, intensity, joy.

    Here you can hear him read his short and lovely poem, Papa-Tu-A-Nuku (earth mother.)

    ‘We are massaging the ricked

    back of the land

    with our sore but ever loving feet’

    It’s worth listening to for his ‘aaah’ before ‘we love her’ which doesn’t appear in the printed version of the poem.

    A beautiful story about a Kapiti teacher who guided his students to hand build a Free Kai Cafe for their local community

    Teacher, Adi Leason wanted to engage his teenaged students in something meaningful; hands-on learning that would result in a community asset. Here’s the story of their project.

    & Here’s a short Te Ao Māori News clip about the cafe.

    (I visited the Leason family permaculture garden some years back. Check out that post here.)

    Affordable art: the Matariki edition

    Here’s three Matariki-themed things for your walls. (As always, to be deemed ‘affordable art’ it has to be less than NZD $50.)

    A Matariki wall tile from Raglan pottery, Monster Company. ($46)

    Ceramic Matariki stars by Borrowed Earth ($28 each.)

    A poster of the Matariki Constellation ($30)

    Or, for no money at all, here’s a handy YouTube clip on how to fold a Matariki star from two leaves of harakeke.

    A song and video to melt your heart

    This song, Polytunnel, by UK folk singer Richard Dawson, is so spare, simple and sweet…with his vulnerable, slightly off-key singing. It’s all about the joys of gardening an allotment and community spirit.

    And the video! Oh! The video.

    Please take the time to watch the video. It stars various members of his allotment and is a sheer joy to see all these happy, connected gardeners. I hope you love it as much as I do.

    (Listen to the whole slow-growing Slow-Small playlist here. It grows at the rate of one song per week and will keep growing for as long as I write these digests.)

    (Above: kumara soup + feta, smoked trout cream cheese dip with carrot sticks and nuts.)

    Keep warm, beauties.

    Eat soup, find your gratitude, take some time to reflect on how you’re doing at this mid-point of a fast-moving, nerve-rattling year. x

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #7

    (Above: Kitchen table vignette. The bowl was my grandmother’s.)

    Happy Friday 13th…lucky for some…let’s decide to claim it as lucky for us, hey?

    Winter is now truly here. We had our first frost this week. The fire is a fairly constant companion. I’ve had my first experiences of getting summer vegetables out of the freezer and feeling grateful that I preserved them: Luisa plums, cherry tomatoes, pesto.

    & Next weekend is Matariki & winter solstice already! That seems so strange…I’m having a subterranean-feeling year where I’m struggling to keep track of time.

    Here’s this week’s digest of things I’ve been digesting:

    A poem about strangers becoming fast friends because of a fig tree

    I love pretty much everything Ross Gay writes. This is one of my favourites, about communal joy and ripe figs.

    An indulgent way to get some Vitamin C:

    This year the mandarins on my mandarin tree are really small for some reason. It could be because it was a hot, dry autumn and I didn’t water it enough? Any thoughts?

    Anyway, they are fine for juicing and for this recipe for boiled mandarin cake. This makes a bright yellow and moist cake and it is relatively healthy…made with almond meal, eggs and no butter. The longest step is boiling the mandarins…maybe put them on to boil at breakfast time and then make the cake for afternoon tea?

    Something to watch:

    A beautiful film (40 minutes) about a UK folk singer Sam Lee who is in deep relationship with the threatened nightingale bird. He spends each spring living in the forest and making music for/with these vulnerable birds.

    It’s also about the old folk traditions of the UK. It’s is visually gorgeous, calming, the perfect weekend watch for rattled nerves.

    What pottering is… and isn’t:

    A little article about the gentle art of pottering:

    “It’s important that pottering activities aren’t taxing, time-sensitive or goal-oriented. Pottering isn’t jobs. It isn’t chores. It involves tasks that are so low down the priority scale that they don’t merit a mention on any to-do list…

    …Importantly – and this is good news for pottering’s greatest fans, prevaricators and procrastinators – pottering projects can be abandoned unfinished, to be re-continued in some as-yet unspecified future timeframe.”

    -Judy Rumbold

    I love it when I have the time to potter. Lately, I love any unscheduled time…calendar days without commitments…staying in on weekend nights…days where I don’t really need to know what time it is…

    This week’s affordable art:

    I love these murmuration prints from artist Lesley Ann’s series of paintings. (They are all beautiful…but in case anyone is shopping for me, I like number three the best, lol.)

    (Photo borrowed from Lesley Ann’s Felt Shop.)

    Monty Don being very opinionated about what to wear in the garden

    This very old (2005) article I like to re-read every so often, just because of how certain Monty seems that he’s right.

    I also like his particularities: trousers must be high-waisted, cashmere makes a good first winter layer (nice for some, Monty!), & jeans are ‘stupid’.

    How charming and precise is this?: “If you are uncertain about the required cut, (for trousers) check out photographs of agricultural labourers in summer (ie, jacketless) circa 1880-1914.”

    (Above: Of course I had to go and find such an image for you. Essex grain harvesters, early C20th.)

    A song about foraging:

    This week’s addition to the slow growing Slow Small Media playlist is a song about foraging…mushrooms to be precise…

    I love this British duo, Small Plant. All of their songs are so sweet and gentle…but of course I had to choose the foraging song to share with you.

    From the ‘Mushroom Walk‘ lyrics,

    ‘Slow Down…. and bring your awareness to the ground’.

    Indeed!

    *

    If you’re enjoying these weekend digests, please do share them with a friend.

    I hope you have some time to go slow and forget clock-time this weekend. Wishing you zingy cakes, drowsy afternoon naps and soothing short films aplenty.

    x Helen

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #6

    (Above: the sweet and tiny reading hut at the Red Bach, Turakina, where I recently had the good fortune to spend a weekend.)

    I lost most of this week to dental surgery recovery and felt quite sorry for myself…however, it has not prevented me from rambling the internet with my forager’s bag over my arm looking for good things for you to read.

    If you love me don’t feed me junk

    Those of us of a certain vintage *cough* possibly have a certain nostalgia for the wholefood health shops and cafes of the late 70s through the 80s. I really enjoyed reading this very personal, quirky and interesting research project by artist Faythe Levine about her parents involvement in health food education when she was a child. This research is presented in such an interesting way.

    It sparked a lot of nostagia in me of the health food cafes of the 1980s in Taranaki and the Manawatū which I would frequent as a punky teen getting interested in all things countercultural. I would gnaw down the sprouted lentil salads served in gritty pottery bowls, eat the earnest sugar-free carrot cakes with oily carob frosting and feel like I was really living on the edge.

    A song

    This week’s song is my one of my favourite bands, This is the Kit. I love this band so much. They sing about things familiar to me…like gardens, and cups of tea, staying in to cosy up, friendship heartbreak, and environmental angst.

    I thought I’d share this song ‘Empty No Teeth’ because I’ve been laid up with dental horrors this week…but also, because I love that the lyrics for this song mention ‘autumn…compost….leaf mulch’ …

    (I used to put compost in poems so often that my poet friend Jo banned me from using ‘the c word’ any more. It’s hard, though, because compost heaps are so full of life! and metaphor!

    *By the way, you can listen to the slow-growing playlist of Slow Small Media songs over on Youtube here. (I don’t do Spotify…because #payartists)*

    Affordable Art

    This week’s affordable art is a beautiful scene of a lakeside path meandering through trees. The artist, Gill Allen, writes that it is a scene from Mistletoe Bay in the Nelson region of NZ. I love the dappled light and it makes me think of my slow foraging walks. It offers such a peaceful feeling, I think.

    & you can buy an unframed A4 print for just $39!

    (By the way, if you are an artist who has affordable art to share…or you’re an art-appreciator who has some good leads for me, please share in the comments or email me.)

    A comforting dinner

    I’ve been eating soft foods this week because of dental pain…so here’s a soft and nourishing main dish which uses that handsome vegetable, Italian kale, Kale and Chickpea Ragu, served on polenta.

    Polenta is such a comforting rice/pasta alternative for the colder months…and so easy to whip up.

    Art to admire …surreal reading women

    I spotted these reading women by american artist, Rick Beerhorst on Lithub. I really like the way he captures something of the magic of being lost in a book by the way he paints hovering birds and the like in front of the women. He’s a contemporary artist but they feel like paintings from another age.

    Radical Neighbouring

    This is a new film by inspirational film production company, Campfire Stories, about a man who was gifted a farm (!) and grows food to give away. It’s a beautiful and inspiring story.

    A beautiful photo essay of some urban ‘neopeasants’

    If you’re a permaculture person, you might know of Artist As Family, an Australian family who have a poetic, creative approach to urban permaculture and ‘re-common-ing’ the ‘burbs.

    They just shared a beautiful photo essay (photos by Max Roux): ‘Max slung his camera over his shoulder as we forested, farmed, gardened, creeked, salvaged, ate, played, loved and listened to one another’… and I find it very earthy, heartening, inspiring.

    A tantric, non-dual poem expressing life’s ineffable beauty

    The Secret of Contentment

    By Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
     

    To be the seed and not
    wish to be the flower.
    Or to be the flower and
    not wish to be seed or rain.
    To be the rain and be grateful
    to be the rain. Which
    is to say, to be the self
    and delight in being the self.
    But when I say self, I mean
    to know the self as seed.
    As flower. As rain. When I
    say to know, I mean to
    ever be in wonder.

    *

    I hope there are good things in your weekend. I hope you still have moments in your life when you can ‘delight in yourself’. I hope someone buys you coffee/cake/wine/chocolate when you least expect it. I hope you have access to a cosy fire, a good book.

    See you in a whole new week

    x Helen

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #5

    (Above: My inspiration wall. Are you an inspiration wall / mood board kind of person?)

    Let’s start with poetry:  

    How are you doing?

    Every time I catch up with the news, I feel pretty bleak for a while afterwards so I’m making myself go in search of a poem to remind me of all the good in the world. This one from Ada Limon is very beautiful and helpful, ‘Instructions For Not Giving Up.’

    Do you spend time in NZ bush huts? Here’s a cool collaborative creative challenge… 

    Check out this wonderful call out for anthology submissions from creative powerhouse couple, Kemi and Niko . 

    Go to a favourite bush hut, respond to your surrounding in words and/or images, submit! 

    Dancing our work, dancing our meals

    I love this piece which was on Dark Mountain recently about a dancer in dance-training in Japan where the class danced every aspect of their lives. 

    They danced their garden work, they danced their food, they danced from place to place. 

    From the piece: ‘Ours was a dance that featured the odd, the twisted, the dark, the ugly, the sick, the old, the infirm. We danced as bodies coming from the earth, eating the earth, becoming the earth.… we were animal, human elemental, sometimes all at once.’

    I don’t entirely understand what is happening in this piece and I loved it. Sometimes good writing can have that effect, hey?

    It made me want to dance my chores….dance my sweeping, dance my cooking, dance with the weeds as I kneel on the ground. 

    A long and melancholy song

    After I posted about my recent discovery of Sun Kil Moon, a friend asked me if I knew of this song ‘Farewell Transmission’ – full of yearning and foreboding. 

    The song was recorded with the whole band playing it live after just learning the song’s bare bones. It has a potent energy that can only come from when musicians are in the moment together, riffing and  trusting, watchful and present. At first the song didn’t especially grab me…but then it traverses through some interesting territory and the spare and repeated refrain of ‘listen’ at the song’s end becomes really powerful. 

    I have been listening to the song on high rotate since my friend told me about it. 

    Of course I ended up researching the band and the song a bit, because: nerd, and found this moving article on Orion magazine about the song and the sad demise of the writer and vocalist, Jason Molina. Jason Molina died of alcoholism, as did his mother. One interpretation of the song is that it is like a warning from his mother about his potential trajectory…which he ultimately did not/could not heed because of his illness. This only adds to the song’s haunting quality. 

    (& you can find the slow-growing playlist of all of the Slow Small Media songs together here on Youtube.) 

    In the kitchen

    This weekend, I want to play with making beetroot lattes! A while ago I bought some beetroot powder on a whim because I couldn’t resist the colour. I’m yet to use it so I looked up some ideas of uses and was taken with the idea of a bright fuschia-coloured latte. 

    I will use this recipe as inspiration but will play around with various powders I have in the cupboard…medicinal mushrooms, maca, spices. If it goes well, I’ll report back. 

    Affordable Art

    This week’s affordable art is just $25 for an original, inky linoprint from MairangiAtelier! What an amazing price for something hand-cut and hand-printed.

    There are several native birds to choose between in this listing but I particularly like the hawk, the Kārearea. 

    I have a pair of Kārearea claws which I preserved in salt (saved from roadkill)l. I love to hold them and visualise the freedom of soaring high, high above the land as a hawk. 

    Music nerd fun

    Let’s round off with a fun one. I love to watch the iconic Amoeba Records series called ‘What’s in my bag’ where famous musicians (and others) share what they have just shopped from Amoeba. It’s always interesting learning about people’s obsessions and a great way to find new music, too. 

    Comedian Bill Hadar’s ‘What’s in my bag?’ is a nerdy delight (18 mins) I especially love that they didn’t actually invite him. He’s such a nerd for this series he emailed them and asked to appear on it. How very geeky and sweet. 

    *

    This weekend is my city’s iconic Red Cross Book Sale, three huge halls full of second hand books! It’s a joy for the bookish, a highlight of the local calendar and it goes allllll the long weekend. I usually go along at least twice. 

    I also have a friend’s 60th birthday party…because apparently I’m now of the age where friends are turning 60! Not sure how that happened. 

    I hope all is well in your world & I hope you enjoyed at least one thing from this week’s digest.

    I’m enjoying sharing the strange corners of the internet that I lurk on with you.

  • Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #4

    Somehow it’s the weekend again, friends. What even IS time lately?

     

    (Above: Black peach cake. We’ve been exploring butter-free baking due to butter now being mostly unaffordable in NZ. More about that below.)

    What does it mean to get older consciously? 

    At the start of this year, I started a Pinterest* board: ‘Conscious Ageing’. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to fill it with. So far I have been stowing in there memes about integrating the past, looking after yourself well and any images of older women that I find inspiring. 

    I wrote a little in ‘A Forager’s Life’ about being on the threshold of ‘baby eldership’. I don’t want to get older before my time (I know 52 is not that old) but I do want to walk into my elderhood with open eyes and conscious integration along the way. 

    With these sorts of things in mind, I enjoy reading material written by people a little further along the path than me and I really enjoyed this article by Laurie Wagner about her observations of her changing self as she gets a little older. Honest and compelling writing. 

    (Beautiful artwork by Dee Nickerson.)

    Heartening writing on finding joy in spite of/amongst a heavy care load: 

    I really appreciated this article about the tensions of caregiving but/and joy in spite of it all. By Elizabeth Kleinfield.  

    This line from Elizabeth’s article:

    ‘The worry is constant, a background hum beneath everyday life’

    really captures how life has felt for me as the parent of a kid with a disability. Even when I get an opportunity to ‘relax’ …I can never entirely relax. The hyper-vigilance of care is as deep in me as my bone marrow. 

    How to easily increase the yields from your garden harvests by reframing how you see vegetables: 

    Are you a vegetable gardener? Here’s a helpful and interesting video (11 mins)  from garden writer Huw Richards on how to get more from your harvests in the garden by considering all of the parts of a plant…it’s kind of like ‘nose to tail’ eating except for vegetables. Eat those flowers! & in some cases, eat those roots!

    A beautifully-written origin story: 

    I really enjoyed this article by New Zealand writer and reviewer Lucy Black about the origins of her ravenous reading habit (I know Lucy IRL and no one reads more books than Lucy!) I always appreciate articles which explore working class experience and Lucy’s article is buoying and beautiful. 

    Affordable art: Iko Iko’s Cavallini Posters

    I promised to find you affordable art under $50 NZD. This week’s is under $20! Iko Iko’s Cavallini Poster range of vintage-inspired posters are just $17 each.

    Predictably, I have this foraging one on the back of my front door. I also have this dandelion which I bought a few years ago. Most of them are so gorgeous…I’d love more but I don’t have much wall space left. Luckily my big dandelion still brings me joy every day. 

    A no-butter-needed tea loaf 

    In New Zealand, butter prices are rocketing. We can no longer afford to buy butter each time we grocery shop as we used to. 

    But my sons like to bake so I’ve been encouraging them to find recipes with little to no butter…which has cause a tea loaf revival in our house. Old-fashioned tea loaves are often dairy and egg free, yet still turn out moist and light. There are endless variations, date loaf, ginger loaf, here’s a nice dried fruit version we made this week. 

    Inspiring Creative Process videos

    Country Living UK has a Youtube channel and within it, they have a series of beautiful short films (around ten mins) about the creative process of artists who make work (from lots of different mediums)  inspired by nature.

    I’m slowly working my way through the playlist…but none so far have disappointed. 

    Calm, cosy and soothing viewing. 

    A beautiful song

    I love this sweet and poignant song by New Zealand artist Maisy Rika, called Reconnect. If you are not from NZ, the ‘Tui’ and ‘Huia’ mentioned in the opening are new zealand native birds. I love this repeated lament towards the song’s end…

    ‘Change is inevitable, things don’t last forever…

    things don’t last forever, things don’t last forever‘

    (By the way, I have started gathering all the songs I’m sharing here into a slow-evolving playlist. You can find it here on Youtube. )

    Tell me in the comments what you’d like more of or less of for these Friday digests. 

    This weekend I am going to a wild west coast beach for a gathering of witches. *cackles manically* What are you up to? 

    (*Pinterest is the social media account I have the biggest following on. I have 16, 000 followers over there! I’m not quite sure how that happened…perhaps 15, 990 of them are bots?)