Christmas eve eve…

December 23, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Surprisingly, a day of calm. It was overcast and rainy. The garden is reasonably well weeded. The berries and peas were picked yesterday.

Tomorrow I will clean the house (because Santa doesn’t visit dirty houses—I’m sure my mother taught me that one), and the peas and berries will need to be picked again, but today there was remarkably little on the to-do list. I’m not sure what happened, because usually the lead up to Christmas is a frenzy, just so I can feel free to take the whole of Christmas day off.

So, I gave myself an early gift—a day of sewing. I managed two new desperately needed t-shirts for myself, and did the finishing by hand while listening to a recording of my far-away family reading A Christmas Carol. Then I picked roses, and played a game with my daughter.

Such a lovely, relaxing day, I hardly need Christmas at all…

Poem on Moose

December 15, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

What happens when I let my daughter decorate Christmas cookies.

Literary ungulate
In gingerbread.

This poem is either
On a moose,
Or on moose,
Or both.

Your palmate antlers,
Distinctive,
Tell me you’re a bull.
They beg to be bitten off.

Then you would be a cow
Only your drooping nose
And your beard
Giving away your moosy nature.

But why a poem
On a moose
(Or on moose)?

I do not recommend
Writing poems on moose
(or is it mooses?)
Unless they are of the gingerbread variety.
The icing tickles
And moose (meece?) snort when they laugh.

But if you try,
I suggest a stepladder.

Christmas-lite

December 11, 2016December 9, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Strawberries, gooseberries, black currants, red currants, cherries, and peas—ah! The signs of Christmas! They’re red and green, just like those in the Northern Hemisphere, but the greens are brighter than pine tree green, and the reds more succulent than holly berries.

They are just as festive as the colours up north, though in a different way. While you look inward, gathering around the hearth on long dark evenings, we look outward, sitting with friends on the beach on long summer days. You dream of white snow, we dream of white sand. You have visions of sugar plums dancing in your heads, we have visions of fresh strawberries dancing in ours. While you sing ‘let it snow’, we sing ‘let us go’ (to the beach).

Now and again I miss the cosy dark of Christmas in the north. And every year, I wish summer gardening, Christmas, and the end of the school year didn’t happen simultaneously. But I’ve grown to appreciate the summer Christmas. I appreciate not having to plan Christmas dinner, but letting it spring from whatever is abundant in the garden. I appreciate being able to sit outside on the porch in the sun after gifts have been opened. I appreciate the barefoot, short-sleeved, nature of Christmas here.

It’s like Christmas-lite.

A Christmassy Dinner

November 30, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Once a year, I make broad bean burgers. They’re a mission to make, because you have to shell them, cook them, then peel of the skins, then turn them into burgers. So once a year is enough.

As I mixed up the bright green burger mix, I thought about what I was going to serve with the burgers.

Well…

It’s the start of the holiday season…

A red and green meal was in order—green burgers with ketchup, peas, and strawberries!

Not exactly a Northern Hemisphere holiday meal, but perfect here.

Spring Roller Coaster

October 10, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

rollercoaster_expedition_geforce_holiday_park_germany

Photo: Boris23; Wikimedia, public domain

The kids are back at school today after two weeks of school holidays. It’s the last term of the school year, and the start of what I always think of as a roller coaster ride.

For the past two weeks we’ve been slowly climbing the first hill. I could hear the tik-tik-tik of the chain winching us up, to perch at the top of the slope. Today we begin the descent to the end of the year. It will start slowly—I’ll be lulled into thinking I have plenty of time to do the gardening, get all the nagging spring DIY done, think about Christmas gifts, plan summer’s vacations. But before I know it, we’ll be hurtling along toward the end of the year, much faster than I anticipated. The garden will take longer that I’d hoped. The end-of-the-year school activities will start piling up. I’ll put off worrying about Christmas gifts until I’m frantic about it. Three DIY projects will balloon into ten. Late frost will keep me scrambling to protect plants. Livestock will get sick and require extra care. School will end much sooner than I’d like it to.

Time will compress. A month will be over in a week. A week will last a day. A day will be over in a blink of the eye.

Before I know it, we’ll be heading into the week before Christmas, and my Spring to-do list will be every bit as long as it is today.

I’ve learned to accept this state. I’ve almost learned to enjoy the frenetic insanity of the combination of the end of the school year, holidays, and spring gardening all at once.

But every year I sit here at the top of the roller coaster wondering if I really should have gotten on in the first place.

The Spotted Owl

October 5, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Back in the late 1980s, during the time when I was going to university, there was a great deal of controversy around the Northern Spotted Owl. Conservationists were trying to use the bird as a tool to limit logging of old growth forest in the Pacific Northwest by encouraging its listing as an endangered species (it was listed as threatened in 1990). It was a hot topic in conservation at the time.

Home for Christmas one year around that time, I was presented with a gift specifically from my grandfather.

That was odd. It was the women of the family—grandma and mom—who shopped for gifts. What could Grandpa have for me?

It was a small box. Inside, nestled in tissue paper was a small piece of wooden dowel with crude blotches drawn on it with a marker.

He watched me unwrap it, clearly struggling to hide a smile.

I pulled it out of the box and turned it around in my fingers. I was obviously supposed to figure out what it was. I wracked my brains. What was this spotted stick supposed to be?

It never occurred to me that it was a joke. I finally had to ask.

“It’s a spotted dowel!” Grandpa said, breaking into a grin.

I have no idea what other gifts I got that Christmas. No doubt, whatever they were, they’re long gone from my life.

But the spotted dowel has it’s own special place—its own little drawer in a small-parts organiser that holds all my buttons and beads and other odds and ends. I often run across it accidentally while looking for something else, and it still makes me smile.

Eating Together

December 30, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

At the festive time of year, it seems right to blog about family meals.

There has been a great deal of hoopla over the past ten years or so about family meals. Some researchers have claimed they reduce childhood obesity, raise GPAs, reduce depression, reduce delinquency, and a host of other benefits.

The truth isn’t quite so amazing. When factors such as socioeconomics, family structure and other demographics are controlled for, it appears that family meals slightly reduce childhood depression, and that’s it. All the other ‘benefits’ are simply correlated with the other features that contribute to a family that sits down together for a daily meal.

But I like to think that, just as smiling makes you happier, sitting down to a family meal every day makes the family better. It makes it more likely the family will have the other characteristics that lead to higher GPAs, lower obesity, etc.

A family meal is a time to talk to each other, to discuss current events, ideas, and feelings. It’s a time to teach children manners and respect for one another. It’s a chance for quality time with the people we love—why not take advantage of it? You’ve all got to eat—make the most of it.

We eat dinner as a family every day, and on weekends, we eat lunch together. Sunday, we even sit down together for breakfast. Sometimes I’m reluctant to take the time for a family meal, particularly lunch, when I’m in the middle of the day’s work, and would prefer just to grab a quick bite and be on my way. But a family meal forces me to slow down. It forces me to check in with my family and see how their day is going. A family meal reminds me that my work is less important than my family, and I regularly change my day’s plans based on what I see the family needs when we sit down to eat.

Because we eat together, I not only talk to my family more, but I play more games with the kids, I do more projects with them, I go to the beach more often, and I stress less about life.

So pull up a chair. Fill your plate. Sit down, and tell me about your day.

Best Christmas Gifts

December 27, 2015December 26, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The best Christmas gifts are made by hand and predicated on an intimate understanding of the person receiving the gift. My husband is supremely talented at these sorts of gifts.

This year, he made for me a clever rack for drying zipper bags. We use these bags over and over, washing them between uses. But the drying bags take up space on the kitchen counter and blow around the house on windy days. Not anymore! This lovely rack holds the bags open to dry. It is bolted in a convenient, but out-of-the-way location, and has arms that move independently and fold out of the way when not in use.

It’s a gift I know will get near-constant use for a very long time.

A Day Off

December 26, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

I don’t do anything on Christmas Day. I take the day off. Well, okay, I have to do the milking and the other animal care, but I do only the essential daily tasks.

Before Christmas, I make sure the garden is well-weeded, so I’m not tempted to pull any on the day. I make sure all the picking and processing of fruits and vegetables is caught up, so I don’t feel I have to make jam or sauerkraut. I make sure the laundry is all done the day before, so I don’t feel a need to do washing. As soon as I’m done with the morning chores, I put on a skirt, just to make it harder to do work.

I don’t even cook much. Christmas breakfast—sticky buns—are made the night before, and left to rise in the fridge overnight. All I do is throw them in the oven in the morning. Lunch on Christmas is leftovers from Christmas eve dinner—usually calzones. Christmas dinner is salad, cheese, and bread. Easy and summery.

So I take a day of rest, and I enjoy it a great deal. I read a book. I take an afternoon nap. I do a little sewing, I play games with the kids.

The problem is the next day.

My body is obviously made to be in motion. Sitting around all day is not good for it.

The morning of the 26^th of December, I can barely get out of bed, my back is so stiff and sore. I hobble around groaning for the first hour of the day.

So I’m happy to be back at work on Boxing Day, weeding, harvesting, doing the laundry. Good thing Christmas comes only once a year!

Summer Christmas

December 25, 2015December 24, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

Photo: Ian Dickie

It took me a while to get used to Christmas in the summer. Walking past shop windows frosted with fake snow while wearing shorts and a t-shirt, decorating a tree with lights that we don’t bother turning on because they can’t be seen in the long summer days, listening to Christmas carols that speak of snow…it’s all a bit ridiculous here.

But I’ve learned to be flexible and view Christmas as a summer holiday. And we’ve picked up a few southern hemisphere Christmas traditions.

Champagne with strawberries—nothing says summer better than a little bubbly with a fizzing strawberry in the bottom of the glass. Anytime after 11 am on Christmas day is time for a little champagne.

Christmas camping trips—this is a Kiwi tradition we’ve embraced wholeheartedly. We enjoy a pre-Christmas tramping trip every year to get us in a festive mood.

Trips to the beach—The holiday season wouldn’t be complete without at least one day on the beach. It should also include ice cream.

A laid-back approach to life from mid-December to mid-January—it used to really irritate me that I couldn’t count on anyone being in their offices for the better part of a month around Christmas. I was the sort of person who worked up until Christmas eve, and was back at it no later than the second of January. But I couldn’t get anything done because everyone else was on vacation. Eventually I got the message—it’s summer. Relax. The work will still be there in February. It can wait.

Have another glass of that champagne.

Seasons greetings to you all!