outdoors

Playing with Spiders

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’ll know I love jumping spiders. I’m not alone. In fact, I know people who, in general, can’t stand spiders, but who are nevertheless fond of jumping spiders.

I think part of the reason people like jumping spiders is that they are such visual animals. Like us, they navigate their world using visual cues. They turn to watch something pass by. They walk around objects placed in their path. They react to stimuli in a way we can understand.

The other day, a jumping spider on the computer screen began stalking the cursor as though it were a tasty fly. My husband began to play with the spider in much the same way we dangle a string for the cat. It was terribly cute. I know the cat understands it’s a game, but I doubt the spider did. I’m sure it ended up frustrated it couldn’t catch that little dancing arrow.

Moonlit Night

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I should have stayed in this evening and written my blog post.

But the moon was full, the sky clear, and the sea calm.

They called the family out to the beach, where moonlight sparkled on cresting waves. Where the black shadows of driftwood stumps clawed across the rocks. Where waves hissed and foamed up the sand. Where mist clung along the arch of the shore. Where the salt smell clung in our hair and nostrils. Where one single light, far out on the Banks Peninsula, was the only sign we weren’t completely alone on Earth.

So you’ll have to excuse me, for I’ve written no post for today. I have no photo–only my words to urge you out on this moonlit night.

Beauty Smacks You Upside the Head

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Today was an ordinary Monday. The weather was unsettled–clear before dawn, then overcast, drizzly, clearing somewhat late afternoon. Nothing special at all about it.

Except.

Except I couldn’t help but notice today the way the sunlight on the Port Hills highlighted every ridge and valley in bas relief.

I couldn’t help but see the lush green growth of the grass that showed off the lingering oranges and russets of autumn leaves.

I couldn’t avoid seeing that the clouds billowed across the sky in purple, peach, glowing white, and five shades of blue.

I couldn’t help but see the brush fires, flickering yellow, their powder blue smoke rising to form a xanthic smudge across the sky.

Like it or not, the absurd beauty of this place smacked me in the face today. I grinned like an idiot and nearly drove off the road.

Of course, I didn’t get any photos of it. It wouldn’t have done the day justice, anyway.

Not bad, for an ordinary Monday.

Geeky Pruning

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The newly cleared path and scalped rosemary.

The job had been hanging over me for two years. Every time I went to trim the rosemary bushes by the side of the house, I found them being heavily used by insects and couldn’t bring myself to disturb them. I finally had to admit that there was never going to be a good time to prune them.

So this weekend, when I found I could no longer use the path between rosemary bushes and house, and the bushes were nearing two and a half metres tall, I decided it was time to prune.

Pruning the rosemary is never a fun job—the wood is hard as nails, and every branch seems to need a different size pruning tool than the last one. To make it worse, this time the job took twice as long as it might have, because I checked every branch for preying mantids and mantid egg cases.

I shifted six adult mantids to other plants and collected eleven egg cases by the time I was done. I’m sure I missed some, but I’ve tucked the egg cases into a cage to protect them over winter, and when they hatch out in springtime, I’ll release them back to the rosemary.

A bit geeky? Yeah, I suppose it is. But there was never any question about me being an entogeek. This way, I get my path back, and I get to keep my bugs. Everyone’s happy.

Everyday Beautiful

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I don’t need an excuse to make cake, but today’s icy southerly gales were an excellent excuse, regardless.

I chose to make a devil’s food cake. I generally don’t ice ‘everyday’ cakes–too much work, and none of us needs the extra sugar. This intensely dark cake, though, cried out for something to show off it’s colour.

I filled it with gooseberry jam, and then made up a simple powdered sugar/lemon juice icing to drizzle over the top. The icing was purely for decoration.

Because every day deserves something beautiful.

Colours of Autumn

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Growing up in eastern North America, autumn meant colourful leaves, fading to brown, bare branches. Green fields gave way to gold, then brown.

So it was a lovely surprise to find when we first moved here that in Canterbury, the opposite is true. Summer has its green bits, but because there is little summer rainfall, the summer landscape is predominantly brown.

But with autumn come cooler temperatures and more rain. Grass begins to grow again. Plants that were dormant through summer sprout new leaves. Autumn is a time of lush green—a time of life, not death.

For certain, the days are shortening, and the growth won’t last. Soon there won’t be enough sunlight hours to fuel plant growth. But winters are mild, and the green will remain all the way through until spring.

Today I picked a basket of autumn crops for dinner—all in shades of green.

Happy Mother’s Day

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Trig M, where every table has a panoramic view.

Advertising media has been exhorting us to do all sorts of things for our mothers today—buy her flowers, make her breakfast, take her out to a fancy restaurant, buy her diamonds…

We have a rather different take on Mother’s Day at our house.

After the usual Sunday morning routine where I get up before everyone else, light the fire, feed the animals, and bake something lovely for breakfast, we headed to the hills.

It was two hours of uphill slogging to our lunch spot. One of the best restaurants around, Trig M has spectacular views. No need for a reservation, even on Mother’s Day (we were the only ones there). The ambiance was great, if a little chilly today. The thirteen year-old chef made us an excellent lunch of cheese sandwiches and apples, with chocolate bars for dessert.

A lovely Mother’s Day. I hope yours was / is as nice as mine.

Darkness, My Old Friend

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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

/ 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!

Garden Rescue Mission

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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.