Jenny Litchfield

This evening we watched several Pukeko grazing on carrot weed roots in our paddocks, using use their strong red beaks to gouge the roots from the soil. We’ve taken special interest in one little family. Himself put up an electric fence around the nesting area to stop our inquisitive cattle from nosing amongst the grass that hides the nest.

I dared to snap a couple of photos of the nest before the mother bird hurried back. I counted four chicks and two unhatched eggs. There were originally eleven eggs. I guess a rat or stoat must have taken some eggs. I beat a retreat so she could tend to feeding her chicks.

This season, these birds have decimated the sweet corn crop in my vegetable garden. They efficiently stripped the husks and pecked the kernels from the cobs. Pukeko can be regarded with either irritation or amusement - depends on the situation. We have have observed Pukeko raid the nests of other birds. We’ve also watched noisy ground-aerial battles between Pukeko and the hawks that circle before attempting to swoop on the fledgling chicks. Screeching aggressive stubborn birds.  But, on the other hand, Pukeko are often fondly viewed as character birds and feature in New Zealand stories or songs, design media and more recently, in advertisements.   Enjoy these Youtube snippets filmed by other people showing Pukeko in different situations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw8QJWdC650&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkbO2cMILE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRCc4hJO40A&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TvaafbahDU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8e6MUyJddI&feature=related

Sometimes I think I must seem to go on about trees being planted and trees being felled. Trees are the ultimate plant. In my previous post, I quoted Al Gore: ”… the substantive significance – of planting a tree has universal power in every culture and every society on Earth”.  Planting any tree is an action that forges a deep connection between human emotion and the well-being of ecological environment.

The significance of growing a tree has its roots in the mists of time. In this country, we have a taonga - a treasure, a living legacy. Tane Mahuta is a giant kauri tree growing in Northland’s Waipoua Forest and is considered to be more than 1,200 years old. Imagine. In its lifetime what has occurred on this earth. And it still stands, silent and statuesque.  According to Maori mythology Tane is the son of Ranginui the sky father and Papatuanuku the earth mother. Tane was the child that tore his parent’s parental embrace and once done set about clothing his mother in the forest we have here today. All living creatures of the forest are regarded as Tane’s children. We need to know this story. We need to be reminded of a dimension of life that is greater than ourselves. We need to understand the importance of what we do now and the impact it has in the future.

I’ve just read a moving post written by in21 who beautifully  describes the impact of her father’s concern for the future. 

http://in2l.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/legacy-of-a-parent/

Quote: … he told me his goal was to plant a tree at every house he ever lived that would outlast his time in that place.  He had a notion of leaving behind a living legacy. I have re-visited the houses where I grew up and there are beautiful trees in each lawn - a 40+ year old red maple in one place, evergreens and a gorgeous crabapple at the other.  His most recent home has had its challenges with pear trees that break apart.  But he is still working on leaving his legacy behind, even as he enters his late 70’s. I had to tell him that his legacy would continue through my efforts and I fully expect through the efforts of my children. 

A flick through my posts and I see I’ve mentioned planting trees in relation to feeding the birds, shady spot for sitting under, remembering births of grandkids, fruit, firewood, shelter, carbon sink and visual appeal. Trees give so much.

“Plant trees, lots of trees “
An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore

Willen Van Cotthem writes in his Desertification blog how more than billion trees were planted in 2007 as part of the UN Environmental Programme Plant for the Planet: One Billion Trees Campaign. This year, UNEP seeks for more people and organisations everywhere to pledge to plant another billion trees.

Let’s do it. 

http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/Treeandhumanity/index.asp

In 2007, I fulfilled my online pledge as part of this campaign to plant trees.  I personally aim to build more carbon credit-worthiness. I’m conscious of the compelling connections between the health of the planet and the health of the people.

“The symbolism – and the substantive significance – of planting a tree has universal power in every culture and every society on Earth, and it is a way for individual men, women and children to participate in creating solutions for the environmental crisis.”  Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

It’s a balmy evening. No cloud cover. The sun has set and the moon hasn’t risen yet. Himself and I went for a stroll up our rural road. No torch. No traffic. No streetlights. Few house-lights pinpoint the countryside. Ridges of the hills and local mountain are silhouetted against the faint glow of distant city lights.A remarkably still night and good visibility for stargazing. 

A possum grunted. Pukeko squawked their raucous squawks.  Morepork or Ruru ’s (New Zealand’s night owl) distinctive moooorpoooork call echoed among the trees. Last year, friend Trish and I were lucky enough one evening to see a young morepork perched silently on a branch of one of our Totara trees. We stood still and silent. Round unblinking eyes solemnly stared. I’m not really sure who was watching who that evening. It was the night bird’s space.  We were the intruders, so we quietly retreated.     

It’s a good night to gaze at our summer night sky. We have often sat in our garden to watch the evening stars using binoculars and telescope with friends. Tonight, we had no need of these tools. While I recognise the Pot, I do need to refer to a NZ astronomy website to learn the names of the stars.  A few I do know. Mars is distinctive.  The seven sisters or Pleiades (Maori call this cluster Matariki) I’ve referred to in a previous post. The four brightest stars (on the NZ flag) of Southern Cross point the way to New Zealand. As wonderful as ever, Orion Belt - the Milky Way galaxy stretches across and into the night.

Maori have ancient knowledge of stars and they have many stories to tell. “Swimming across the darkness is Te Ikaroa (the Milky Way), the great fish of Rangi, the Sky Father.”   

Adding to the magic tonight, a satellite sped across space and a meteor showered ever so briefly  as it streaked northwards. So, I did what people do at moments like these and wished upon a shooting star ….

Please bear with me. It’s taken me all of today to teach myself how to use Flickr. This is my test post using a snapshot of the grounds in front of the historic Government House in Rotorua which is now a museum and art gallery.

Historic Government House - now a museum, originally uploaded by Jennylitchfield.

Obviously still some refinements needed. That’s tomorrow’s effort.

How often have I walked in My Garden and not looked at what’s beneath my feet?

When I have the time to take a walk, I would often take the time to admire
the grass.   Grass doesn’t make a fuss.  It doesn’t try to be beautiful or
outstanding.  It doesn’t want to attract attention.  It is so humble that it
even allows people to walk all over it.  Yet, it possess such strength.
It glows in healthy green despite being stepped all over, and when a
typhoon strikes and all the flowers die and all the trees get uprooted,
humble grass survives.  And humble grass, in its own humble way,
provides food for animals, shelter for insects, and joy to some funny
guy walking past.  I think a virtuous man should be like grass.
Humble, unnoticed, yet possessing great strength and kindness.
-  Tan Chade Meng

More ancient wisdom:

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.
- Confucius 

Here you are, Nezza - some of my Rotorua photos (03 Jan “Away From It a Bit” Blog) for you in larger format because you wished you could view them a little bigger. Enjoy.

Lately, My Garden hasn’t had the attention it deserves because my Mum has increasing palliative health care needs. She remains in her own home with support. It’s important my brothers, sister and I are there for her in the time she has left to her. We talk about her family and childhood upbringing in England, Dad and the farm, gardening, books, her seven great-grandkids (numbers eight and nine are on the way) and eleven grandchildren, high humid temperatures, community gossip, you know - the stuff of life. Mum always sang about the house and in the community, so it must be sad for her that she no longer sings in the local choir or no longer has the energy to play the piano now.  My sister and I maintain her small garden - the roses continue to make a great showing outside her lounge windows where Mum can see them.

In contrast, my own climber roses are wind-blown and are not dead-headed. Triffids is a description that comes to mind when I look at my garden. I can barely keep up with picking rhubarb, zucchini, apple cucumbers and scarlet runner beans. The coriander and other herbs are rampant and producing seedheads. The Luisa plums took a battering in the easterly winds from a tropical cyclone that recently hit Northland. I pick up the fallen fruit and ripen them in the kitchen. I don’t get into a sweat about this - such things happen.

At the moment, Himself is head down in the tractor engine doing mysterious machinations with some wiring. He’s setting up an electric motor to drive a spray pump unit. A noxious weed Wandering Jew, carried onto our place with flood debris has been rapid in its growth and invasive in its spread.  

   It thrives in damp shaded areas and has carpeted our  stands of native Totara trees along the stream banks. Leaves and stems grow roots on contact with the ground.  Aquatic birds that inhabit our stream - Pukekeo and Paradise ducks also spread this weed in their webbed wanderings on land. Anyway, we now have a major noxious weed problem under our trees and along our stream banks. 

    It’s choking our regenerating native ferns and tree seedlings. So sadly, we’ll have to  spray using a herbicide as advised. Because we don’t like to spray we usually grub, smother or hand-pull weeds. This is a last resort decision for us. By now, you’ll have worked out that this is big stuff that we do sweat about.

This morning, New Zealanders  are honouring a modest and great man in their own ways and celebrating the life and adventures of our Kiwi hero. It’s amazing how he inspired so many people to make a difference that transformed their lives. His  values were and are timeless. We’ve learned among many other stories, he was responsible for reforestation of rhododendrun trees that used to grow prolifically on the Himalayan foothills before the wood was used by climbers for their campfires in subsequent decades.      

New Zealanders are in mourning. Today we learned Sir Edmund Hillary died. Like others, I can’t recall life without this great man’s presence. Is there a Kiwi kid who since the 1950s, hasn’t at some stage in their schooling done a project about this great Kiwi bloke? His remark after scaling Mt Everest, “we knocked the bastard off”, is pure laconic Kiwi style. His face has adorned the NZ$5 notes for decades. He made national and international news. He is our national treasure. Humble and compassionate he inspired people to reach out and to conquer their own mountains. We will remember him.