Thankfulness

November 22, 2024 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. Since we’ve been in Aotearoa New Zealand, we don’t celebrate the holiday—who has a harvest festival in springtime? Add to the seasonal disconnect the dumpster fire that is world politics at the moment, and you could be forgiven for not feeling terribly thankful this Thanksgiving.

But it’s good to set aside all the frustrations in life (like the frost that has hit the vegetable seedlings every single night since our ‘frost free’ date), and reflect on the good things.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for a multitude of things …

My coworkers at my day job—teachers, teaching assistants, and support staff—who are all absolute legends, working under stressful conditions for lousy pay, usually without any recognition of the amazing work they do.
The fellow authors in various author communities I’m a part of, who are supportive of all writers and work together to support, encourage, and promote authors, books, and reading. You are rock stars!
The members of my local garden group, who share freely of their gardens, knowledge, and experience. You are inspiring!
My garden. Maybe it is weird to be thankful for it, because it doesn’t just happen—my husband and I have worked hard to turn this sad paddock into an oasis of food and flowers. But I am thankful for all the plants and soil organisms that have worked with us to make our efforts pay off.
My husband, who is my best friend, greatest fan, and partner in all things.
My kids, whose passion for the people and the world around them remind me that all is not lost yet.

Do you notice the pattern? It’s all about communities—of people, of living things.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the world over the next few years. Much of it will be pretty bad, I’m guessing. But there are communities around us working for good. There are people who want all our tamariki to be able to read, to have healthy food to eat, clean water to drink, health care and mental health support. There are people around us who don’t think in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’, but embrace humanity as a whole, in all its diversity. There are people everywhere who care about the people and the world around them.

I am so thankful that these people exist. I am thankful to be part of some of the communities who put this caring into practice in their daily lives.

So, while the world burns around us, I give thanks for the small communities that work tirelessly to put out the fires.

Sharing Gardens

November 14, 2024 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

It’s easy to feel like the world is going to hell in a hand basket these days. You can readily believe that there is no kindness left in the world. That no one cares about the earth or community. That values such as integrity and selflessness are dead. That people’s only motivation is money.

Of course that’s not the case, and I’m reminded of that regularly.

I am blessed to be part of a community of vegetable gardeners—people who can restore my faith in humanity. I’ve written about gardeners in the past, but it bears saying again. These are people who have a deep sense of community. They pay attention to the effects their actions have on the land. They give of their time and are generous with food, seeds and plants, sharing what they have with others.

They organise local food pantries and community gardens. They raise funds for charities. They give away produce to those in need. They share their knowledge and skills freely with others. One gardener I know even hands out jars of jam to strangers.

And when those gardeners get together, they can make a difference in communities. Here in New Zealand, it is common for houses in towns to be surrounded by high wooden fences. But in the nearby town of Akaroa, fence heights are restricted, so that people share their gardens with the street. What a difference it makes to the entire feel of the community! It actually feels like a community, and not a collection of houses. I love walking the streets and enjoying everyone’s beautiful gardens.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve turned to my own garden to escape the drumbeat of depressing news from around the world. The flowers and vegetables transcend politics, war, economics and societal dysfunction. They centre me and give me a respite from the troubles of the outside world.

And as a gardener, I feel compelled to share that respite with others.

So I invite you to come on a brief tour of some of my garden. Stop and smell the roses. Enjoy the scent of the herbs as you brush past them. Munch on some early produce from the vegetable garden. Say hello to the chickens. Bask in the warmth of the greenhouses. Take a moment to unwind and relax.

And most of all, stay safe, stay hopeful, and look after one another.

Being True to Yourself

October 24, 2024 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I recently participated in ALLI’s SelfPubCon, which focused on the business side of writing. There were sessions on using social media, monetising YouTube, website design, using AI for marketing … I watched video after video that made my brain turn off. Video after video teaching me how to cash in on the advertising deluge we all suffer from online. How do you get those irritating ‘commercials’ into your YouTube videos (so you can make money on them)? How do you use Facebook Ads? How do you cash in on third-party advertising on your website?

Ugh!

I hate the constant bombardment of ads for crap no one needs. Do I really want to be a part of that, even if it can make my writing business profitable? Is that really why I write—so people’s interest in my writing can sell salad spinners, ‘miracle’ weight loss pills and erectile dysfunction products?

I despaired until I stumbled across a session on selling physical books. The panelists in this session talked about selling books at markets and fairs, doing school visits, exploring unusual sales outlets like tourist destinations, how to encourage people to buy your books face-to-face.

Yes! This was my kind of marketing. The kind of marketing I’ve been focusing on in the past year. Talking to people, talking about my books, being in the same physical space with potential readers, watching how people interact with my books. Getting that personal connection with readers in the real world.

Start talking to me about SEO, CTR, and ACOS, and my eyes glaze over. But throw me into a room with a bunch of potential readers, and I’m all over it. Watching the session on physical book marketing, I finally realised that it’s not that I can’t understand the online marketing game, it’s that I don’t want to.

Making money from random pop-up ads in my online content goes against my values. Putting my own random pop-up ads in someone else’s online content goes against my values. Bombarding potential readers online every day goes against my values.

And that’s okay.

I don’t have to participate in that madness.

And, yes, perhaps if I had to pay all my bills with my writing, I would feel differently, because god knows it’s hard to make a living selling books at markets. But I like my day job. And while I would love to write full-time, I know that I gain a lot of writing benefit from my day job. I would be a poorer writer without it.

And if making art is about expressing yourself and your values, then why wouldn’t your marketing reflect that as well?

Indeed, how could I, in good conscience, make money from plastic widgets advertised on my website when my books and stories contain so many environmental themes?

So I will continue to trot out my books at local markets, beside other local artists. I’ll continue to work on the board of the Tamariki Book Festival to help other authors do the same. I’ll chat with readers, listen to grandparents talk about the sorts of books their grandkids like to read, discuss dragons and my favourite dragon books with kids, hand out stickers and bookmarks, visit schools and tell children how hard writing is even for me. And I will sell a few books, sign people up for my newsletter (people who actually want to hear from me), and probably end up spending half what I’ve earned buying art from others.

Is that so bad?

Sounds perfect to me, because it is much more aligned with my values. It values personal connections and supporting others. It recognises the value in the art itself, rather than measuring the value of the art in terms of what else can be marketed alongside it.

And maybe I won’t ever be able to support myself with my writing. But I will be true to myself.

And … um … not to deluge you with marketing, but if you happen to be in the area, come say hello and pick up some Christmas gifts at these upcoming markets:

Sunday 3 November—North Canterbury Creative Market, 11 am – 3 pm, Rangiora Showgrounds
Sunday 10 November—Goode Christmas Market, 10 am – 4 pm, Pioneer Stadium, Christchurch
Saturday 7 December—Rolleston Market, 10 am – 2 pm, Rolleston Community Centre
Sunday 15 December—North Canterbury Creative Market, 11 am – 3 pm, Kaiapoi Club

The Importance of Microclimate

October 18, 2024 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I’m part of a local group of keen vegetable gardeners who meet fortnightly throughout the growing season. Each meetup involves a tour around someone’s garden, and then a cup of tea, while we discuss our gardens and gardening, complain about the weather, and generally catch up with each other.

Our most recent gathering was at a garden just 200 metres down the road from our house. Bev’s been gardening there for over 20 years, and the property is beautifully sheltered by large hedges and mature plantings.

And even though we live only a three minute walk away from one another, our gardens grow remarkably differently.

Bev’s is almost always a week or two ahead of mine. And not just because she plants earlier than I do—her tree and berry crops leaf out, bloom and fruit before mine do. She plants out her tomatoes before I do, her carrots germinate more rapidly and grow more quickly, her peas outstrip mine within weeks of germination, her green beans produce pods a week ahead of mine. The differences are remarkable.

We are so close to one another, the temperature and rainfall on our two gardens is all but identical. But Bev has created an amazing microclimate for her plants with rich soil and excellent shelter.

Other women in the group have done similar wonders on their properties, creating striking pockets of abundance by carefully manipulating the microclimate in their gardens. In fact, my garden is sometimes behind other group members’ gardens in colder locations.

It’s something to aspire to. Having started with a bare paddock with no topsoil four and a half years ago, we’ve come a long way on our property, but we also have a long way to go. We are incredibly fortunate to have amazing gardeners nearby to inspire us to keep working towards our own pocket of abundance.

The natural microclimate of our property is apparently perfect for dandelions, because they are abundant and healthy everywhere.

Enjoy the Garden

September 30, 2024 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

It’s always exciting when we cross over onto the light side of the equinox. The whole garden responds to the rapidly lengthening days. Daffodils and tulips run riot. Pale fingers of asparagus poke up through the mulch. Artichokes spring up from winter-lush plants. Perennial herbs suddenly flush green with new growth. Fruit trees turn snowy with blossoms. Vegetable seedlings seem to double in size overnight.

The weeds, too, spring up overnight. And the rats and devouring sparrows multiply. Aphid populations explode. Spring isn’t all fun and games.

Fortunately, the gardener responds, too. I wake with the magpies warbling as the sky begins to shade from black to grey. I spend more of my weekend hours in the garden. I snatch a few minutes to water or weed before and after work. On my writing days, my lunchtime walk is replaced by lunchtime gardening. Daily life begins to mould around the sun and the plants that respond to it.

It is exciting, and it can be daunting to look forward to all the work that the new growing season entails—the planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, processing …

But it’s important to simply sit and enjoy. Our garden is four years old this year, and this spring I feel as if it is coming into its own. My husband recently built trellises for espaliered apple trees, and with the planting of those trees, the gardens in the front are finally ‘finished’. Not that there isn’t lots of work to do out there, but all the pieces of the plan for that space are in place.

In the vegetable garden, too, the final piece—the garden shed—is enjoying its first spring of use (and what a joy to work in there, potting up tomatoes or planting seeds!). After the application of, literally, tonnes of manure and compost over the last four years, the garden soil promises reasonable productivity, and we can count on plenty of fruit and vegetables in the coming months.

I find myself spending more time enjoying the garden this spring than I remember doing anytime recently. What better excuse for a cup of tea on the porch than that the daffodils are spectacular, or the bees are humming in the rosemary blossoms?

So here’s a bit of my spring garden for you. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

The (not quite) Perfect Icing, Part 2

September 18, 2024 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

I took another step on my quest for the perfect carrot cake icing on Sunday. This variation on cream cheese icing is made into a fluffy confection with the addition of quite a lot of cream, slowly beaten into the already fluffy cream cheese.

I had my doubts. I’m not overly fond of a straight whipped cream topping. Would the cream cheese flavour come through enough? Would there be enough tart zing to it to offset the sweet?

The answer was no.

Don’t get me wrong, this icing is GOOD! There’s enough cream cheesy goodness to give it body and depth of flavour. And the addition of cream means it gets away with having half as much sugar as other cream cheese frostings. The texture is divine—smooth and creamy, with a lightness you don’t often get in a cream cheese frosting. It’s delightful on the lemon and blackberry cupcakes I used it on.

But is it the perfect carrot cake icing? Not quite.

So, the first icing was great on flavour, lousy on texture. This one is amazing for texture, not right for flavour. I can work with that. Trial number three will be a fusion of the two, hoping for that perfect balance.

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. 😉

Meanwhile, I do recommend frosting #2. I think it would be spectacular on chocolate cake, and absolutely stunning rolled up in a bûche de Noël. Here’s the recipe if you want to give it a go:

170 g cream cheese
3/4 cup icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar), sifted
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup heavy cream

Beat the cream cheese until fluffy. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. With the mixer on low, slowly pour in the cream. Then turn the mixer on high and beat until stiff peaks form.

Because of the quantity of cream in this frosting, I recommend storing cakes with this frosting in the fridge.

Baking One for the Team

September 6, 2024 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I’ve recently sent out my next book, Demonic Summoning for the Modern Gardener, to beta readers. It’s a more fleshed out tale than my husband read and commented on last month. A few weeks ago, I mentioned on the blog that my husband had requested more carrot cake in the story. In my rewrite after his comments, I made chasing the perfect carrot cake a sort of running gag/tiny subplot through the book.

Then I decided I should include the perfect carrot cake recipe in the back of the book.

I had already developed the perfect carrot cake recipe, so that was easy to include. But the frosting … I’ve made some very good carrot cake frostings, but I can’t say I’ve hit on the perfect frosting. Everyone agrees, of course, that carrot cake must be frosted with a cream cheese frosting, but there’s a lot of variation among cream cheese frostings. I’ve had them too sweet, too grainy, too dense …

No better excuse for baking!

So last night I whipped up a carrot cake and tested out a new variation on cream cheese frosting. This one has no butter—just cream cheese as the fat. It also contains lemon zest and lemon juice for a bit of added tartness. Lots of potential to be awesome!

Flavour-wise, it’s good … the texture, not so much. It’s too gummy. Not fluffy enough. Definitely not the perfect frosting.

But never fear, we’ll suffer through this almost perfect cake (have I mentioned that I’ve had two pieces of it already, and it’s been only 12 hours?), and then I’ll make another!

Because I couldn’t let my readers down with sub-standard carrot cake, now could I?

If you have a favourite cream cheese frosting, let me know—maybe I’ll try it out. How many cakes do you think it will take to reach peak frosting?

Canterbury Springtime

August 30, 2024 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

We’re two days away from the official start of spring here in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the atmosphere is definitely vernal.

The daffodils are up, and I expect them to be in full bloom within a week. The tulips are following close behind them.

Artichoke buds are beginning to form, nestled among winter’s leafy growth, ready to shoot up and deliver gourmet meals for the coming three months, and the fruit trees and berry bushes are flowering and leafing out, despite the fact there are frosts to come.

In the tunnel house and cold frame, vegetable seedlings bask in the sun. The first ones will be ready for planting out this weekend. In the warmth of the living room indoors, seeds germinate by a sunny window. They, too, will end up in the tunnel house and cold frame before long.

The bumble bees and honey bees are blundering around in dandelion blossoms, the ladybugs are out and about, and I’m keeping an eye on a preying mantis egg case which should hatch before too long.

The sounds have become spring-like as well—frogs trilling at night, magpies warbling before dawn, and white-faced herons croaking in the treetops.

Along with the bucolic scenes of flowers and bumble bees, spring in Canterbury brings howling wind. The wind whips up clouds of pine and wattle tree pollen, which settles like gritty mustard powder on every surface. The windows are hazy with it, and I find myself swiping my computer screen clear several times a day.

The wind makes springtime a challenging season—blossoms blown off the trees; fresh growth flattened to the ground; trees (and the occasional camper van or centre pivot irrigator) tipped over; trampolines, greenhouse panels and rubbish bins flying free … A lot of people struggle with springtime wind here. And of course, there will be more frost. There may even be snow yet to come. Plants out in the cold frame will have to be hauled back into the house and out again several times, tender plants will have to be covered with frost cloth. Invariably it will be too hot and dry for the early crops one week, then too cold and wet for the late crops the following week. There will be multiple disasters in the garden due to weather, pests, irrigation malfunction, or any number of other factors. I’ll struggle and I’ll stress …

Moody springtime sky, with rain obscuring the mountains.

But there will be moments when the wind stills, the sun is warm, and I can sit among the spring blossoms drinking a cup of tea and watching the bees and dreaming of summer.