Whole Wheat Bread

May 10, 2017 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I ran across this photo today–one I took several years ago–and thought it was worth sharing.

Most of the bread my husband bakes is utilitarian. It’s beautiful but, since he bakes two dozen loaves at a time, he necessarily can’t take a lot of time on each loaf. So he sticks with the tried-and-true bread shapes that are quick to form, and take advantage of the different stages of heat in our wood-fired bread oven.

But now and again, he makes different shapes. This one is simple and clever to form. The dough is rolled out into a long, flat shape, then slashed through at regular intervals down one side, leaving just a small edge uncut on the opposite side. Flip every other ‘flap’ created by the slashes to the opposite side, and when the bread is baked, the loaf resembles a stalk of wheat.

Simple and beautiful. The bread is perfect for parties, because it’s easy to tear off individual ‘grains’ from the stalk–it’s practically pre-sliced.

Darkness, My Old Friend

May 8, 2017 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I was off today. Scatterbrained, uncentred. I couldn’t focus on a task long enough to complete it. I forgot to hang up the wet washing before leaving the house for the day. I left things at home that I needed to take with me. I grumbled through the day. Everything irritated me.

So when I finally remembered the washing late this evening, I was seriously annoyed with myself–a beautiful clothes-drying day wasted. I snatched up the basket of wet clothes and stomped out the door headed for the shed where the clothes dryer is…

And stopped dead.

The chill night air.

The gibbous moon illuminating a mackerel sky.

Silence.

Darkness.

I took a deep breath. Centred. Collected.

And walked slowly to the shed, letting the cool night and glittering stars bring back my good humour.

Happy World Naked Gardening Day

May 6, 2017 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Well, you learn something new every day. Apparently, the first Saturday in May is World Naked Gardening Day.

Thankfully, I only learned that fact after I was through with the day’s weeding and mulching.

I suspect that whoever came up with the idea of World Naked Gardening Day didn’t have a garden like mine. I spent my day pulling nettles and thistles—just the idea of doing that wearing less than long pants, long sleeves, and gloves makes me shudder. I also did some pruning. Yikes! Wielding secateurs in the nude? Then there’s the cold. It was one degree Celsius this morning. I was wearing a merino top, a jersey, and a wool hat when I started the day’s garden work, and even so, my toes were numb by morning tea time. Had I been nude, it would have been full-blown hypothermia.

I’ve got no problem with the idea of hanging out in the nude, or playing nude volleyball, or whatever, but gardening? I’ll pass on that one, thanks.

But, you know, if you’re keen, today’s the day. Happy World Naked Gardening Day!

Homemade Pasta

May 3, 2017 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

2 1/4 cups of flour
3 eggs

It is one of the simplest ingredient lists ever. It is the recipe for homemade pasta.

I don’t make pasta often–maybe once every two months or so–but it’s always a pleasure to eat homemade noodles. With such a short ingredient list, I should probably make them more often, but there’s more to a recipe than the ingredients.

There’s a learning curve to pasta. It takes patience to master the feel of the dough–to know when to add just a little more flour, or when to stop kneading it and start rolling it thin.

I used to stress about making pasta. I found it quite frustrating. It was always too wet or too dry. It ripped when I tried rolling it through the pasta machine, or it wouldn’t go through at all. It became too elastic and chewy. It seemed everything that could go wrong did.

I’ve learned a lot about handling the dough through making mistakes. But I think the most important thing I’ve learned is to have patience–with the dough and with myself.

The dough will behave badly. I must accept that and have patience, working with it until it starts to feel just right, and not getting upset when it takes longer than I want it to.

Once I think the dough is perfect, it will prove me wrong, and tear as it is rolled thin. I must accept this, set the offending dough aside to rest for a few minutes, then try again.

Even the most perfect noodles will clump, or break, or otherwise be marred before they are cooked. I must accept this, and cook them anyway–they’re going to be chewed up and swallowed, and no one but me will pay attention to whether they have been broken beforehand.

Making homemade noodles is a luxury and a privilege. Not everyone has the opportunity to do so. I must accept this, appreciate this, recognise that I do this because I enjoy it, not because I have to. Even if it goes badly, it need not cause me stress. Even if I struggle with it, the end result will be delicious.

Garden Rescue Mission

May 1, 2017 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

A southerly storm blew through yesterday, and the clouds cleared around midday today. The sun was warm this afternoon, but the wind remained chilly. This evening was clear and still. Perfect conditions for a frost.

There are few summer vegetables left at this point. The tomatoes outside the greenhouse are all dead. The peppers and eggplants are ripening their final fruits, the zucchinis and cucumbers are maturing at a tiny size. The corn has all been eaten, and the runner beans are giving just a handful every few days.

A frost will kill everything left in the summer garden, so I went on a rescue mission this evening. I gathered in everything that was still decent, whether it was fully ripe yet or not, assuming that anything left in the garden will be dead by morning.

It felt oddly good.

It’s not that I won’t miss the fresh tomatoes and eggplants of summer, but I also look forward to the pumpkins, potatoes, and beans of winter. As they say, variety is the spice of life. I would say that seasonality is the spice of life. Food marks the course of the year, and each crop has its own time. It gives the year variety and interest. It gives us things to look forward to with each season.

So, while I mount my summer vegetable rescue mission, I don’t worry about the loss of those summer crops. There are other delights to come.

Building Castles

April 30, 2017 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Patrick Dougherty is a North Carolina artist who builds amazing structures from tree saplings and sticks. His works are remarkably detailed. They evoke movement with their swirling lines and often skewed shapes. They provoke thought and reflection. Most of them invite you in, to experience them inside and out. And, by nature, they are ephemeral.

I can’t help but think we’re all building stick castles. We take the materials around us–the stuff life has dealt us–and build a structure we call ‘me’. Every ‘me’ is different and detailed, and many are wonky. Every ‘me’ is in motion–ever changing as we add new materials to our structure. Hopefully our ‘me’ invites people in for a more personal experience. And, ultimately, our structures are ephemeral.

Dougherty began building his stick structures with material that happened to be available in North Carolina. When he first started building structures in other places, he brought his materials with him. Over the years, he’s discovered that suitable materials can be found nearly everywhere, and he now finds what he needs close to where he’s working.

Likewise, we start off building our ‘me’ structures with the materials around us, and as we grow, hopefully we learn what we need to create strong selves. Hopefully we learn how to find those things, no matter where life takes us. The older we get, the more refined our technique, the more efficient and skilled we are at finding materials and building ‘me’. It doesn’t mean we aren’t wonky anymore–it means the wonkiness is perhaps more deliberate, planned, and stronger than it was before.

Dougherty builds about one structure a month, and he accepts that his artworks will only last two to four years. But though the artwork itself doesn’t last, its impact lingers in the hearts and minds of those who have experienced it. May our own ‘me’ castles do the same.

A New Jumping Spider

April 28, 2017April 27, 2017 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I met a new spider today–Phidippus whitmani. This one appears not to have a common name, though a related species is known as the red velvet jumping spider.

Yesterday, I noted that the red-spotted newt uses warning colouration to tell predators it is toxic. This jumping spider uses the same sort of colouration, but in this case, the warning is a lie.

Like other members of its genus, this spider protects itself by pretending to be a velvet ant with a powerful sting. Unfortunately for this spider, who had to put up with my attentions, I wasn’t fooled, and instead was quite taken by his fuzzy red velvet.

Red-spotted Newt

April 27, 2017 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I was pleased to see today one of my favourite North American animals, the red-spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens). These colourful little salamanders have a complex life cycle that includes an aquatic larval stage, a terrestrial juvenile (eft) stage, and an aquatic adult. The terrestrial efts, like this one, are brightly coloured.

Like most bright colours in animals, the red skin and spots of the red-spotted newt are a warning. The red-spotted newt has toxic skin secretions that protect it from predators. This toxic defence gives red-spotted newts the ability to live in permanent bodies of water with fish in them, unlike many other salamanders which fall prey to fish, and rely on temporary pools.

Wool Sower Gall

April 26, 2017 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Visiting America is always a rewarding experience from a naturalist’s point of view. Though New Zealand has some spectacular wildlife, it simply doesn’t have the sort of diversity one finds in North America.

This visit’s best find so far has been the wool sower gall.

This spectacular fuzzy ball, found on the twigs of white oak trees, is caused by the tiny wasp, Callirhytis seminator. The structure of the gall is reminiscent of a fluffy seed head of a plant. Small ‘seeds’ inside the fluffy exterior house wasp larvae.

Galls are fascinating structures. They are made by the plant in response to chemicals produced by an insect or mite. Galls are incredibly diverse in structure and location on the plant, but all provide food and protection to the insects or mites as they grow and develop. Essentially, the insect has hijacked the plant’s biology to create a perfect home with a built-in food source.

Gall-making evolved several times in different groups of insects and mites; it’s clearly a successful survival strategy.

But the plants aren’t entirely defenceless. In response to the gall insects, many plants produce chemicals that attract predators to eat the damaging insects.

In turn, some gall-inducing insects can turn off these chemical defences in their host plants. Host and insect are constantly evolving, each trying to get the better of the other. The galls are a spectacular result of their arms race.