Stop.
Soak up the still silence.
Except that it is neither still
Nor silent.
Wind tumbles
The leaves of the trees.
Overhead in the branches, sounds
The pebble-in-a-still-pool languor
Of the bellbird,
The electric zit-zit
Of the rifleman.
Nearby, a small stream
Hisses over the rocks.
And from farther away
Comes the deep rumble
Of the river
Shaking the stone
As it crashes
Headlong
Down the mountain.
This past weekend was the annual Ellesmere Vintage Club’s Ploughing Match. Our neighbour hosts the event, so we walked down there on Saturday morning to watch the action.
It was slow-motion action. No big thrills or adrenalin. Just the rumble of diesel engines and the smell of freshly turned soil. It was clear the point was a perfectly-turned patch of ground, not speed. There was a lot of starting and stopping, and adjusting of freshly-painted ploughs.
A pair of horses joined the 1940s and ’50s era tractors. Watching them work, it’s clear why tractors have taken over on the farm—there was significantly more fiddling to be done by the horse team in order to perfect their rows.
The demographics of the crowd were predictable. Before we arrived, I commented to my daughter that we might be the only women there. Her response was that she would likely be the youngest person there…by about 70 years.
While the majority of competitors were as vintage as their tractors, there were a few younger ones. Two or three other children were there, too, though they were sitting in a car playing on an iPad. And there was a small contingent of women. A few wives watched from the sidelines, and a woman drove the horse team.
It was a true small-town event—25 competitors, and perhaps 40 people in total at the event when we were there. Participants were shuttled to the local hall for lunch on two long benches, set back-to-back atop a flatbed trailer.
Later, as the event broke up and tractors motored past the house, we laughed—it was hard to tell which vehicles were en route from the competition, and which ones were simply on their way from paddock to paddock. Many of these vintage tractors still get regular use on the farm.
Of course, I have to wonder what will happen as the vintage tractor enthusiasts and their machines age further. Will younger farmers grow nostalgic about tractors from the 60s and 70s as they age? If not, we’ll see a lot fewer than 25 contestants at vintage ploughing matches in future years.
It’s Maori language week, so I thought I’d share one of my favourite Maori words—tūrangawaewae.
Tūrangawaewae is a place to stand, where a person feels strong and at home. It doesn’t really have an English equivalent. Homeland comes sort of close, but one’s homeland is not always one’s tūrangawaewae.
Though I am not a religious person, I am a spiritual one, and the word tūrangawaewae speaks to me in a spiritual way. I know where my tūrangawaewae is. It’s not so much an actual place, but a biome–the forests of the north eastern US. I am an organic part of that biome. It is wired into my nerves and muscles. Every leaf, animal and rock feels familiar.
I have little use for American culture, and no affinity with the cities and interstate highways that encroach upon my tūrangawaewae. I have honestly tried to find a new tūrangawaewae here in my adopted home. There are many places here I love. Many places to which I feel drawn. But none matches my tūrangawaewae for that deep sense of belonging.
Where is your tūrangawaewae?
Until we moved to New Zealand, I would have laughed at the idea of opening the windows and doors in mid-winter. When it’s well below zero, a fresh breeze through the house isn’t exactly welcome.
Somehow here, the idea of a fresh breeze through the house at any time of year is welcome.
It helps that the climate is warm—there’s never a day that remains below freezing, even in the depths of winter. But even so, I noted after I flung the house open today that the outside temperature is only 11°C (52°F). I’m sure I never opened the windows at that temperature in Minnesota or Pennsylvania.
Of course, in Minnesota and Pennsylvania, the windows never ran with moisture. Puddles didn’t form on the windowsills every morning (in MN, it was ice, but that’s another story). The winter air here is warm enough to hold plenty of moisture, and without central heating to dry out the air, it can get pretty damp indoors. A couple of hours of a brisk breeze on a sunny afternoon can do wonders for the indoor humidity.
Perhaps that’s part of what I like about living here—the opportunity to invite the outdoors in, even during the wintertime.
As Horace Everett wrote (to Aaron Copland’s music): Stomp your foot upon the floor / Throw the windows open / Take a breath of fresh June air and dance around the room.
The Abel Tasman was our first Great Walk as a family. It was also our first family tramp longer than two nights—the kids were still at the stage where they sometimes needed a prod to get to the top of a hill (or more accurately, the promise of chocolate at the top).
The Abel Tasman was the perfect trip—long enough to give the kids a ‘real’ adventure, and easy enough that they didn’t struggle with it. The distances between huts were short enough that the kids could spend hours playing on the beaches along the way and still get to the hut by mid-afternoon.
I’ve heard that the track is miserable in bad weather—all those exposed beaches can’t be fun in the wind and rain—but we were blessed with perfect sunny days. Though it was April, the weather was warm enough for lots of swimming along the way, and the whole experience felt more like a frolic than a tramp.
For me, the best part about the trip was gaining a greater appreciation for tides. The surges of water, so different from the normal waves, that fill the estuaries, bringing schools of fish and rays with them. The rippled and exposed mud flats of low tide. The twice-daily rhythm of inundation and exposure of the coast.
It wasn’t a wilderness experience—the huts were filled to capacity, and boats stopped at most of the beaches—but it was a beautiful chance to explore a rich and dynamic coastline.
Saturday morning, we took advantage of the lovely weather to take a walk out on ‘our’ beach. Not just any old walk, but one that would take us beyond the lake opening onto Kaitorete Spit.
I can’t believe that in the eleven years we’ve lived here, we’ve never done this before. We’ve walked to the lake opening many times, but always when the lake was open to the sea, to see the dolphins and seabirds that congregate there eating the fish migrating in and out of the lake.
But our goal this time was the wild tip of the spit.
You would think that a mere couple of kilometres would make little difference in the beach, but the change was positively stunning.
On ‘our’ part of the beach, the dunes are covered in non-native shrubs and ice plant. Not a native plant to be found.
An hour’s stroll out onto the spit took us into a different world. Non-native plants all but gone on the dunes, replaced by pingao. Behind the dunes, native broom, Raoulia (vegetable sheep), and Muehlenbeckia.
The shape of the dunes was different. The whole effect less verdant and more windswept.
Naturally, we searched for kātipo spiders among the pingao, as this is one of the few places this endangered spider can be found. We found none, but we did find a number of other spiders, lots of spider egg cases, and a couple of sand scarabs (including an adult, which was a first for me).
We knew all this was out there, but knowing and having experienced it are two different things.
And now that we understand what’s out there, I’m sure we’ll be going back again soon.
I spent the weekend in Wellington at a convention, but I have to admit that the best part of the weekend was walking around the city.
I could never live in Wellington—I’m just not a city gal, and it would kill me—but I love to visit. Yes, I enjoy Te Papa, and the Carter Observatory, the World of Wearable Arts show, and all the other indoor attractions. But mostly I like going there to walk.
And I have to think I’m not the only one who enjoys walking in Wellington. The streets are full of people walking—to and from work, during lunch breaks, to shops, to the bus stop…
You can walk along the waterfront, or through the residential neighbourhoods with their many finial posts, through the parks or the botanic garden, or along bustling Cuba Street. You can even walk to the airport, if you’ve got time and inclination—the city is compact enough that nearly everything is within a reasonable walk.
Well, reasonable by my standards.
Of course, when Wellington’s weather turns, it’s not a place you want to walk. I’ve been drenched by wind whipped waves on the waterfront, even when it’s not raining. But on a good day walking Wellington is a delight.
This past weekend’s weather was crisp and clear, with almost no wind. Perfect. I did about 10 hours of walking from Friday to Sunday, and would have happily done twice that much, had my schedule allowed.
So, if you’re planning a trip to windy Wellington, be sure to pack your walking shoes.
Wellington is a city rich in finial posts.
And…um…what’s a finial post?
Finial posts are the ornamentation found on the gable ends of roofs. Roof finials have been used for millennia all over the world. They originally served the purpose of capping the point of a roof, where the tiles come together (think of the fancy post on top of a Japanese pagoda). You need something to cover the unavoidable hole where all the tiles meet. Many roof finials still serve this purpose, but they are also ornamental.
Gable finial posts were popular in the New Zealand villas built between about 1880 and the beginning of World War I. They were just one of the many ornamentations (inspired by the new steam-powered woodworking tools of the time) used in these houses. The style (including the finial posts) was also popular during this time in America and England. Folklore in the eastern U.S. suggests that finial posts were not just attractive, but also prevented witches from landing their broomsticks on the roof.
At this point most of you are wondering why on earth I even notice finial posts. My appreciation of finial posts started when we did a major repair on our own house—a tiny villa built around 1880. The front gable was rotting and in need of replacement. It had been repaired in the past, and in one of the repairs the finial post had been sawn off at the roofline. This is a common fate of finial posts on old villas—re-roofing is much easier without finial posts in the way.
When we repaired our house, my husband insisted on restoring the house’s finial post, and this started a whole-family appreciation of finial posts. Now we can’t go anywhere without noticing good finial posts, or noticing when they’ve been removed.
And so, while in Wellington this weekend, I took several long walks, simply to admire the finial posts.
Of course, the question I have is, with so many finial posts in Wellington, do witches need to land at the airport instead?
One of the best things about living in the temperate zone is the long sunrises and sunsets we get much of the year.
When we lived in Panama, the sun would leap into the sky in the morning, and dive out of it in the evening, with little in the way of lingering twilight. It was like flicking on and off a light.
The more gradual appearance and disappearance of the sun in the temperate zone is far more picturesque, and there are few places on earth more picturesque than New Zealand when it comes to sunrise and sunset. Between mountains and wild weather, you can’t beat it.
Lovely, but doesn’t make me feel at home.
When Europeans settled new lands, they had a habit of bringing all their favourite plants and animals with them. The result has been a plague of invasive exotic species all over the world. It’s easy to dismiss these settlers to as misguided imperialists, and I’ve done so myself.
But being a stranger in a strange land more than once in my life, I have to admit that I understand the desire to bring a little of the homeland to a new land.
Autumn is when I feel it most.
Most native New Zealand trees are evergreen. There are no native autumn colours, no piles of native leaves to be raked and jumped in. No smell of wet leaves carpeting the ground on crisp autumn mornings.
Last year my daughter and I found a lovely little path along a stream on one of our city walks. Dropping down to the stream edge from the street, I was first struck by the fact that all the trees were non-native oaks and maples. Then I was struck by the smell, and the rustle of fallen leaves on the path, and the glow of yellow that suffused everything. The familiarity of that little stretch of path lifted a weight I didn’t know I carried—the weight of being away from home. For the three minutes it took us to stroll through that little patch of Northern Hemisphere trees, I was in my element. The illusion came to an end all too quickly as we stepped back out onto the street.
So, while I still advocate native plantings, and whittle away at the non-natives on our own property as our young native trees grow, I don’t pass judgement on those early Europeans. They carried a weight in their hearts greater than mine—once they were here, there was no going back for most of them. Never to return to their homeland, they needed to bring a piece of it here. I can sympathise.
Robinne Weiss 