Felix in autumn light

When he isn’t dragging a blackbird along the deck while you run to lock the cat door, or up a tree with a glint in his eye, or waking you at 3am by trashing the bedroom, or stealing your chair the second you leave it, or tearing up the carpet outside the bathroom door, he looks very sweet basking in a sunny spot.

Taking notice

I made a loose resolution to notice details of things this year. Reading Louise Erdrich’s book The Night Watchman yesterday as I sat in the sun reminded me of this. It’s a book I’m reading with my heart in my mouth, vicariously experiencing the vulnerability and danger in the lives of the Native American characters. Then there are descriptions of the landscape.

The road to her house ran alongside water, and the cool air smelled of rain drying off the yellow leaves. The cattails on the sloughs were soft brown clubs, the reeds still sharp and green. On the lake, wind was ruffling up blue-black waves so lacy that foam rimmed the beach. The sun beamed from between dark scudding clouds.

I looked up from the book and saw an interesting beetle on a leaf.

Then I remembered an interesting translucent stalactite-like formation I’d seen earlier on a pittosporum beside the garage. It is still there. It turns out to be a fungus, rather than sap as I had supposed.

Noticing these details gave me a sense of wonder and a curiosity to know more – even if the bug and the fungus indicate danger and decay, just as Erdrich’s landscape has hints of menace.

I put both photos on the iNaturalist app. The bug was identified as a Southern Green Stink Bug, the stages of which are described in a link on Kath Irvine’s Edible Backyard site. I think my bug is in the fourth or fifth stage of the life cycle.

Research tells me the fungus is probably Crystal Brain Fungus. The presence of fungus can indicate your tree’s health is compromised – which I guess also applies to a huge bracket fungus on my cherry tree. This means that while I’m taking notice of fungus, it is giving me notice. One site had the amusing heading: When a tree falls in the forest, fungi hear it.

A sigh of relief

It’s safe to look at the garage cupboard again. Not an ant to be seen. All extraneous stuff has gone to the eco drop. Some shelves are half empty!

Parting with Mum’s old Kenwood mixer wasn’t easy. But it wasn’t functioning well. Someone might like it for a retro display. I saved her old wooden clothes pegs, however, washed them and hung them up to dry.

On this lovely sunny day I’ve been enjoying other insects, such as the bees in the abutilon. So here’s a feast of lovely things in the garden today to erase those pictures from my last post from your mind.

Japanese anemone
First violets
Calendula
Iceberg roses against the clear blue sky

Eeew! Yuck! Gross!

I know I’ve posted before about being kind to insects, but when they take extreme liberties with your stuff, all bets are off.

Brace yourself before scrolling down to the photo. This is what I discovered in the garage cupboard today. I had to pull everything out and try to stay calm as I sorted out this catastrophe.

It was an ant invasion. I think they were coming in from the back corner which is where they were concentrated. When I moved things out, they ran all over the shelves.

They’d got into my oldest photo album. I soon realised it would be difficult to salvage as the ants were behind the photos and were eating them. So I vacuumed up the ants and took a photo of all of the pages – travelling back in time as I did – and ditched the album.

I thought the problem was just the two lower shelves but decided to clean out the whole cupboard anyway. The third shelf seemed fine, until I reached the far corner…

At that point, I realised the ant spray I had would not do the job, and went to Mitre 10 for reinforcements. The helpful assistant suggested some ant traps, but when I showed him the photo, he turned to a shelf higher up. A gel spray effective for up to 6 months was recommended.

I sprayed, vacuumed, sprayed, vacuumed, washed, wiped, and sprayed some more. The ants had spread right across the garage floor wherever I’d put things down. I began to feel itchy and at one point a huge insect came into my field of vision and, snatching off my glasses, I found a fine specimen of an ant walking across the lens. When everything finally seemed to be under control, I dealt with the pots I’d taken out onto the lawn. Lifting the lid of one I found another mass of ants.

The clean up took all day. I filled the wheelie bins and transferred some things into containers which I hope will be ant proof. After this experience, I imagine there will be nightmares.

Views from the sea

Rakiura

The artist featured in the exhibition Encountering Aotearoa at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū is Cora-Allan Lafaiki-Twiss (Ngāphuhi, Ngāti Tumutumu, Nuiean). I am fascinated by her work. She went by boat around Aotearoa to look at the land and sea. In part, this was to see the land as the crew of the Endeavour might have seen it – with Tupaia and his assistant Taiata on board – as they circumnavigated and mapped the land. Cora-Allan asked her pāpā, Kelly Lafaiki (Nuie – Liku and Alofi) to accompany her as assistant on the journey. Videos screen on a wall, documenting the journey and the making of the work.

Frames around many of the paintings remind me of boat windows with their rounded edges and toughened glass. The artist uses hiapo, traditional mulberry bark paper often known as tapa cloth. It was soaked in sea water in each place a work was created. I looked at the back of the hanging paintings and could see where the sheets of paper had been joined and I could appreciate its texture and thickness.

Hiapo, mulberry bark paper, is used for the art works

The pigments used are from the whenua (land). So the making of the work is as fascinating as the paintings themselves. In a glass case, are some sketchbooks and a marvellous wooden toolkit which folds out, with a sliding drawer in the base and a leather handle. This would have been ideal when working from a boat.

A panoramic sea view on panels stretches across the gallery space on a wooden frame.

In the entrance to the exhibition, these islands seem to float on the grey/blue background.

Large hanging paintings lead you further in. The details are intricate and significant, with traditional and contemporary elements, and the photos don’t do them justice.

Maunga (mountain), Moana (sea), Whenua (land) and Waka (boat)

I look forward to visiting the exhibition again.

Post Script: I particularly liked the painting Rakiura. Later, I realised I was wearing a Glowing Sky jersey which seemed appropriate being a brand named for Rakiura (Stewart Island) with its views of the southern lights or aurora australis.

Top to toe

Looking after Mum today included a haircut and a pedicure. We found The Palms mall very convenient for both of these without booking in advance. Today we returned the bath board to Burwood Hospital – another step in the recovery process. We had hoped the hairdresser at Burwood (‘Walk-ins Welcome’) could cut Mum’s hair, but no luck, hence the choice of the mall which was on the way home. It was a good choice: there was only a brief wait for the haircut and, as we’ve struggled to find someone to ‘do the toes’, were pleased to discover a few nail places to choose from at the mall, and no waiting. Mum sat in a massage chair with her feet in a little spa bath, then her nails were cut and her toes buffed, oiled, massaged and moisturised.

The outing was an opportunity for Mum to get some walking exercise. She managed well with just her stick and it helped that we were able to find a mobility park close to the entrance of the mall. At home, her walker is often parked somewhere and she is able to walk about independently.

I enjoyed choosing some cuddly flannelette sheets for Mum a couple of weeks ago to keep her warm on these cool autumn nights. The temperature was forecast to drop to 2 degrees last night, so I put the new sheets on the bed yesterday. She found them very cosy. Aren’t they just the ticket!

Darn it

I like to darn clothes, particularly woollen socks and jerseys, if they develop holes. Fine merino garments are a bit more of a challenge. Wool is too thick, so I use cotton – or polyester thread (cotton thread is no longer available as far as I know) and a fine needle. This morning I darned a favourite fine merino top which, like many of my tops, had holes at the front above the hem. I wonder if these holes are caused by leaning on the kitchen bench. I’m trying to break that habit.

My darning is a bit clumsy, but satisfying to do. I do the horizontal threads first and then weave in and out vertically – the weft and warp. I’m reminded of the women weavers in a book I just finished called Unquiet Women by Max Adams. He writes of the huge weaving production barns in medieval times, often attached to country houses, where women sat in lines at many looms working long, hard hours. The making of linen was particularly demanding as the rendering of the flax into fibres for weaving was an exhausting and dirty job. The author quotes a woman’s will in which she carefully details items of clothing to be passed on to her surviving family members. It’s clear that clothing was well made and highly valued.

I am also reminded of the women I saw in Peru and Bolivia, spinning with drop spindles as they watched flocks of sheep and alpaca. Then would follow the dyeing and weaving and the cloth could be seen in the clothes they wore and at markets for sale. The cloth on these spoon dolls is faded (I’ve had them for over 40 years), but the female figure on the left is holding a drop spindle.

In a small way, my darning is part of a long tradition.

Felix at 18 months

Looking at Felix tonight I can see how much he has grown. He is almost too big for the chair.

In February last year, at 4 months old, he was a tidier fit.

But by April last year, at 6 months old, he seemed to have had a growth spurt.

I just did a bit of quick research and learned from several sources that (with the exception of some breeds) cats stop growing at about 12 to 18 months of age. So the chair might do for a while yet.