Sun glimmers through the Redwoods at Te Mata Peak
It takes me by surprise my love of the seasons sometimes…I dread to think we are now in Winter as from yesterday. I loved the Autumn walnut and apple picking, the smell of stewing up orchard-fresh apples with cinnamon, nutmeg, honey and dates. The cool, crisp mornings, dewy and refreshing. The golden harvest moon at night combined at dusk with a hickory smell as fires start to burn brightly in the homesteads throughout the small township, rural outskirt properties, and the local village nearby.
Sometimes I feel I live in a small paradise of my own..
This is the time when magic happens, when black cats with yellow eyes roam the night (mine included). The haunting, melancholic call of the morepork shines out in the night, rain falls softly on the rooftops, the town’s night time cafes light up with night diners, and people finishing their shifts at work, popping in for warming hot chocolate and coffee. To sit and ponder the day’s events, to unwind and relax.
Early mandarins start to ripen as June / Winter has hit now, the lemons will come later in a few months only. The rosemary, as always my hardiest of herbs beckons me daily to come pick it, to put it on winter roast lamb and into morning omelettes. If only the rest of the family were as rosemary-crazy as I, perhaps I would use it more often. But even if I don’t use it much, just keeping it on the windowsill is enough of a reminder that I have an ample supply of the stuff.
Wandering through the next door neighbour’s orchard picking up ground apples for the pigs, the wild rabbits suddenly look up, alert to my presence. Wild rabbits abound our place and the neighbour’s orchard, understandably so – we have lush green Autumn grass in the paddock now and apples – both from our apple tree and the neighbour’s orchard entice and feed these beautiful creatures. They speak to me in a silent language that yet I understand. I tell them “I won’t harm you, be at peace with me…” and so they are. Their beautiful, soulful eyes look at me and understand what is safe and what is not. Their instinctive fight or flight nature calms and they sit and observe me from their perceived safe distance a few feet away.
My black sage pot and witch brooms next to the door, the brooms used generally to sweep leaves from the porch concrete and grass, gives a Halloween look somehow to our place, especially when my black cat sits next to them. This was quite an unintentional bonus.
My vege garden, smelling sweetly with new silverbeet and spinach, lemon balm, parsley, spring onions and herbs of coriander, oregano, and chamomile, not to mention my sweet-smelling slug/snail bait trays…start to struggle a little more with the lack of warmth and my garden will go into hibernation soon, cowering under frost coverings at night. Perhaps planting some Blue Lupin may work for a winter green crop to brighten it up.
I’m thinking of trying to plant Garlic this June….if anything I won’t have any Vampires I suppose but then again, what is a Halloweeny “look” without a vampire, a witch, a black cat, sage pot and millet brooms – most of these I unintentionally already have, maybe this is why I’m always reminded of Halloween somehow when I walk out the back door. Not to mention the cooler weather, dark moody skies, soft rainfall, spicy food cooking in pots, the smell of cinnamon and apples… and full moons hovering above.
Lately I am into spray painting my dried Agapanthus a silvery colour and then I will put them into a vase with fairy lights strung around them. I long to buy lanterns, light my tea candles at night, put on home made soup to simmer in the crockpot… and create an atmosphere of warmth and coziness to match the cooler seasons.
Scarlet, yellow and golden leaves fall from the trees outside creating a haven of golden brown hues, mellow yellows, reds, tarnished oranges and auburns over the grass. Pulling on snug clothing, gloves, warm shirts, Ugg boots and scarves to go outside and collect wood, feed sheep, cuddle my soft, fluffy rabbits feels wonderful to me.
When I was young I was a dreamer and a loner… I imagined my life, my future and my present life were filled with simple pleasures – long walks down to the river, and around the farm, animals and solitude. I already lived in the countryside and I used that to my full advantage somehow, the quietness of farm and country life fed my soul, and my dreamy state was intensified because of the vast rural atmosphere where I spent my childhood days. I didn’t need friends and I had only a few.
My pleasures were few – books, alone time, reading copious fairytales and other books, magic and nature. I made fairy gardens out of petals and somehow, even though I never told my mother, the next day I would race out and find golden, shiny coins under my fairy garden petals. My mother was always “astonished” when I raced in to show her my latest “golden fairy coin” discovered from underneath a petal – though of course she obviously had planted them under the petals in the first place! How she got them shined up so well, I’ll never know to this day. Was it a secret white vinegar recipe perhaps? I’m intent on trying myself one day. My grandmother also would tell me of fairies who lived at the bottom of her garden in all seriousness and of course, I believed her. And she knew it too!
My mother had an elaborate book of the most intricate fairytales, but these weren’t just ordinary short fairytales….this book contained stories that were almost book-length and went into full detail – descriptive and imaginative stories from everything from Alice in Wonderland to the Snow Goose, the Selfish Giant, Thumbelina, Rapunzel, and so many more. Also her books like Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Peter Rabbit fueled my desire even more to create a fairytale life for myself somehow.
Growing up in nature, owning pet rabbits and cats from an early age and hearing stories of Elves, Gnomes, Fairies and “animals that talked” in the Beatrix Potter Tales was not an unusual thing for a country child….but for me, I lived within the stories being told. I didn’t listen from the ‘outside’….when my mother read to me such books, I became captivated inside the story itself. This still happens when I read. I become part of the story, not reading it from the outside…but actually living within the story that I am reading. This feeling fostered in me a love of books from a very early age onwards.
I imagined my life getting married, still living in the countryside in a cottage with a white picket fence, some animals and a child or two. Having a garden – both flower and herb/vege gardens, a checkered tablecloth on the table, vase of fresh flowers on the windowsill, smells of home baking in the oven, a roast cooking, my small family coming home each night. The warm, cozy atmosphere of a simple country life and family. Somehow that came to fruition for me. I now have the white picket fence and gate, I have the husband and child, I have fruit trees, a vege garden, rabbits and cats, flowers, the checkered tablecloth and crochet throws. A puzzle sits patiently waiting to be finished on the coffee table.
Books sit waiting to be read by the fire, magicky novels and others. Stories that create visions in my mind – giving me their stories as well as the one I’m actually living. I don’t know why I am always into magical and mythical books – but somehow the presence of such books fits in with my introvert and nature lifestyle.
Is this my dream coming to fruition for me. Is my next dream to fulfill somehow my urge to write such books myself? Also my urge to be around animals in any which way I can whether this be pet-sitting which I am working on…or some other avenue in the animal industries of vets, animal centres, SPCA and the like. I have goals and aspirations – small ones but goals all the same. These keep me going forward. We all must have them, we all must keep track of our goals as life moves on whether we like life moving on or not, its going to do so, so we may as well be ready.
Walks through Te Mata Peak lately, the majestic Redwoods hovering lazily above me, welcoming me as one of their own somehow as I wander aimlessly through them. They tell me that all is going to be OK, they tell me not to stress and worry because all is well when I’m with them.
The solitary and peaceful nature of walking through Redwoods in Autumn is the most brilliant feeling, restoring my Soul, creating a beautiful, meditative trance caused by nature, quietness and serenity mixed together as one. Fantails call out and fly around me, the soft call of nearby sheep and cows, a lone Tui cries out. A dog barks somewhere in the distance but yet all I hear …. is peace. All I hear…. is my soul saying “you are home now and all is going to be OK…”.
This is undoubtedly where I belong. This is my peace and sanctuary. I’m living it. I’m actually living my childhood dream..
