100 days of Horoeka/Lancewood

This will be my fourth 100 days project. I'm not sure what draws me to doing these. I know I'll get frustrated at some point. I know I'll 'cheat' at some point (cheating is irrelevant when it's my project and I can do it how I like). I know I'll think what I'm doing is dumb and want to change it. But here I am, doing it anyway even though I know all of that.

Because I also know that there will be times I really enjoy it, and there'll be times when I love what I've done, and times when a flash of inspiration or a new idea makes it all worth it.

And besides, I'm the one running it for Aotearoa Quilters, so I kinda have to do it now!

So what is my project this time around? 100 days of Horoeka, which is te reo for the lancewood tree. Or Pseudopanax crassifolia if you want Latin. I'm also including Pseudopanax ferox, also known as the savage or fierce lancewood. How could you not be fascinated by a tree named savage?

The lancewood is a funky NZ native that completely changes it's appearance between juvenile and adult forms. So much so that at one time they were thought to be a separate species. Juveniles have long, strap like toothed leaves that hang downwards, usually dark in colour with a thick yellow/orange midrib. Once they get above moa browsing height, about 3 metres, the tree begins to branch, and the leaves become shorter, rounder, less toothed and lose the coloured midrib.

Here's my first three days:

I wrote text about lancewoods onto my base fabric the first day, cut out an organza lancewood the second day and sketched a lancewood onto my base fabric the third day.

I'll also be working in a sketchbook for when life doesn't accommodate fabric work. Here's day 4 (today) where I worked in my book that I made specifically for this project. I haven't attached the covers yet, that'll probably come as one of my days of the project.

I've already discovered that I have quite wide parameters for this project. Yes, I'll be working with some aspect of lancewoods everyday, but that leaves it really open and sometimes I have difficulty deciding what exactly to do. I might need to brainstorm a list so I can refer to it when I'm trying to narrow my choices.

Poetry

I had occasion to read this poem out at a ceremony the other day. It's always spoken to me and I thought it might speak to you too.

The Peace of Wild Things 

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Last Day of Lockdown

So that's it. Today is our last day of Level 4 Lockdown. Not much will change much for many New Zealanders as we move into Level 3, but for our little family it means my husband goes back to work.

My kids will be back at school as of Wednesday. Their school kept to their normal holiday regime, so they've been on break for the last two weeks and Wednesday will see them resuming their distance learning. Neither of them are particularly enthused with the idea.

1 confirmed case today, 4 probables, 1 more death for a total of 19.

Let's hope we can keep it firmly contained and we can slowly move down the alert level scale.


Here's two photos for you.

One of Hubby's lockdown jobs was to build a frame around this old bath. We filled it and planted it with seeds and seedlings I had grown and this first photo was taken on the 4th April.

The second photo, for your comparison, was taken yesterday, just over three weeks later. From left to right we have frilly lettuce, pak choi, some younger cos lettuces, peas (we'll eat the shoots as this is to be a salad garden), rocket and radishes. There are a couple of tiny coriander seedlings and a couple of what I think are going to turn out to be self-sown silverbeet.

We're already taking the odd leaf off the pak choi and rocket and they are making a great addition to our salads. 

Very satisfying.

Lockdown Day 32

I didn't write yesterday. We had a deep shock here as a family. I don't know quite what to write or say about it, except that it was hard, and it will be hard for a while yet, and I never, ever want that to happen again, and if you are having a bad time, please, please reach out to someone.

Today is my blogversary. I started to write this blog, purely unplanned, on April 26th 2009. Thats....11 years! Whoa.

So for your nostagic pleasure, I give you my second ever blog post:

My New Mansion

My Dear Husband and I were having an argument a little while ago. Basically, the theme was me complaining that nothing gets done around here (we live in a half-renovated house) and that he always wants to go and work out at "the land" (we also own a block of land on which we planned to build our "dream" house on). 

To cut a long story short, we decided to move out into the shed. We hope that this will achieve a few things: we can finish renovating the place we are in when we move out (MUCH easier!); we can then rent this place out (always welcome a few extra $$); we will be where we really want to be; and when we do finally have enough money to build our house, we'll be right there to oversee it.

But I don't know if I'm excited or just plain scared. "Scared?" you ask. Well, moving out to the shed means moving out to a long drop loo*. Hubby promises to build me a floor and walls in the shed at least, but the long drop will have to stay for a wee (pardon the pun!) while. What am I letting myself in for?

*(For those of you who don't know what a long drop is, think toilet with a view, fresh air and no flush button! That's a picture of my very own long drop up there.)

And then, just for fun, here is a post I wrote a year or so later:

The Day the Dunny Died.

It's windy here today.  Real windy.  Like blow your house down windy.  Or, in actuality, blow your dunny down.

Yup.  That there is what greeted me last time I went out to sit on the throne.  

This is what it looked like last summer - the kids got muddy and decided to paint it (with mud - I guess they were going for the adobe look).

So, what's a girl to do when she's gotta go?  Well, I pushed it back up straight, used it, then got the hell out of there before it blew over again!

I rang Hubby at work.  He laughed.  But then he's at work - with a flushing loo to hand.  Huh.

I think it's time to get me one of those fancy indoor flushing loos at home.

Lockdown Day 30

Three little dickey birds. I'm wondering what to do with these? Should I turn them into applique designs? Or what about embroidery designs?

I'm considering putting together some sort of embroidery kit with my own drawings, my hand-dyed threads and hand-dyed background linen. It'll include simple instructions, a hoop and a needle. And maybe I'll put it all in a little bag made from my own hand-dyed thread.

What do you think?