Honouring the ancestors

All Souls day this year I spent at home, in silence, mostly sewing. Amongst other things,  I mended Motherʻs old nightdress even as I remembered Teggy, my dark, fiery element father who was born on a November 2nd, way back in the 1920ʻs.

Mother knitted the lace on the neck and hand tucked the hem of the homemade, humble, dacron cotton garment. The last time I saw her alive, in 2008, before her transit to ancestry in 2011, I persuaded Mother to give the nightdress to me. rather I told her I was taking it and she said: "That old thing? I can buy you something new, you know". And I said: "No. I want what you have made and dreamed in."

And so it was.

It was already old and worn then.

Maternal grandmother Kate, besides being a librarian, a botanical artist and one of the first women of her generation to hold a graduate University qualification, was skilled at sewing, knitting and all the yarn arts such as lace making, tatting, crochet, embroidery. She handed those skills on to her daughters and granddaughters. If Teggy, my fatherʻs watercolour painting and engineering creativity wasnʻt enough environmental influence for me, Mother made all our clothes, nurturing a love of all manner of fabrication in her daughters: sewing, knitting, embroidery, beadwork amongst them.

On All Soulʻs day I also managed to pick enough marigolds from my garden to make a small garland for the ancestral altar.

This set me wondering if anyone in Deadhorse Gulch did indeed remember me in flowers by sowing the marigold seeds which I handed out on my leaving. I have not heard a word.

No matter if they did or did not. Really.

Wherever I am, I carry the seeds of my ancestry and remembering into the future. That I gave Deadhorse Gulch a part in the story is neither here nor there. Sometimes seed falls by the wayside.

Still I am sad sometimes thinking that Deadhorse Gulch was a case in point. Three years of my heart and soul. Given away. Fallen by the wayside.

In the end I just didnʻt have enough cougar pride. Whatever it takes.

The Black Queen

There is a new queen sits at the feet of Ganapati at the front door. A Black Queen. A bit of a snooty, snouty lady, if you ask me.

How could I resist. A black anthurium.

The Spice Diaries: introducing the Black Prince

On Wednesday mornings there is a Farmerʻs Market at the Paniolo Heritage Centre in Kamuela (aka Waimea, if you want it that way).

A young native Hawaiian couple trade this market with plants, mostly native but some food or just interesting, and sometimes lovingly constructed, whimsical birdhouses or plant containers. The young couple are knowledgeable and engaging, fun to talk with as they blend and balance art - the poetic knowledge of legend, metaphor and story -  with science.

They keep a pile of well thumbed botanical reference texts on their market table. The librarian in me cannot help but be impressed.

My conversations at this stall over the months have added significantly to my knowledge of gardening on the island. These two have become my homesteading kumu.

Their plants are very healthy. They radiate aloha spirit.

I had not intended acquiring another chili pepper quite so soon. After all, the Hawaiian hot pepper is currently proving to be so prolific almost to the point of profligate. It is completely adequate for my spicy needs.

One Wednesday during the summer, however, I was seduced by a dark knight at this stall, at this market.

Enter the Black Prince, who has just begun to flower and produce little spears of hot peppers of the deepest darkest midnight black.

I believe Black Prince is a variety of hot chili pepper with the botanical name of capsicum annuum longum "Black Prince" . Lovely, enchanted Mexico is rumoured to be the point of origin for its ancestors.

The leaves are also decorative with their black tinged edges and veining.

Who can resist a dark Mexican prince? Especially one who comes bearing little five petalled purple flowers. Frida Kahlo is bound up in my dreadie babies. I HAD to bring the Black Prince home.

I believe this is a hot capsicum, but not quite as hot as the Hawaiian. The proof will be in the tongue test.

For now I am loving the beauty. As if purple and black are not enough of a gift, the berries are apparently going to turn bright red when ready for harvest. Imagine!

Spices! This fascination is what drove the sailing ships of old across oceans, beyond points where there were dragons, throwing sailors into the arms of mermaids, sirens and wild seas.

Note: I am using a macro lens mode for these images. For scale: the blooms are smaller than my little fingernail. Tiny.

Old friends

At a farmerʻs market in the summer, oblivious to the intelligence in my feet, I stubbed my toe on a pot of variegated sanseveria hyacynthoides: a few yellow-white and green snakeskin patterned spear shaped leaves, cramped and struggling, with the roots distorting the little black plastic pot in desperate attempt to have life and have it more abundantly.

The pot of what I think is the South African east cape natives came home with me. They sure looked like they needed rescuing. If this specific variety isnʻt east cape native, a close relative certainly is.

I liberated and divided the plants into the border garden which was developing alongside the driveway under the palms.

Sansevieria has a lot of common names, most of them not very nice, and derived from their strong, upwardly growing leaf shape: mother-in-lawʻs-tongue, devilʻs tongue, djinnʻs tongue (oooh I do like that one), snake plant, snakeʻs tongue and so on. Most people know them as a houseplant.

Actually these plants are hardworking beings, needing little attention in an interior, except for dusting. While they are visually interesting with strong lines and colour, especially in the variegated ones, for feng shui purposes they draw chi/energy/attention upwards.

I have seen sansevieria feature in glossy high end interior decor magazines. Those kind which specialize in the lean, mean and minimalist with expanses of chrome, glass and blonde wood. And come with high price tags.

Sansevieria are also thought to help with air purification and thus sick building syndrome, by absorbing toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde. For these reasons, and their undemanding, robust nature, I have often selected sansevieria as my library plant. And suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous comments from the general populace, usually male of a certain age,  about mother-in-lawʻs tongues.

I personally love sansevieria outside in a landscape where they can articulate space in the linear way which they do so well: line, spear or arrow form (the Zulu impi of my heritage revealing itself in my aesthetic maybe) and the magic of their strength. Ikaika! Fitting plants to have at the front gate. I imagined a mass of warriors spears, there on the right, welcoming me home every time. Standing guard as I left.

When I met that little pot starved for affection at the farmerʻs market, I was excited to realise that I could grow these lovely old friends outside again, after my twelve years of exile in cold climate gardening.

I have never thought of them as blooming plants.

Last week I found that my rescue sansevieria had put out a flower. A beautiful stem of delicate white blooms.

This is the first time in my long life of living alongside sansevieria that I remember a bloom. Curious. I sat there alongside the plant, slapping at mosquitoes and thinking about how a flower always seems like a gift. Also how wondrous it is that familiar and old friends still always possess the capacity to surprise us.

If we allow them to.

Knowing how to receive is part of the process.

Also, if I am understanding correctly, this particular plant is not going to grow more leaves, now that it has bloomed. It will just produce plantlets from its rhizome. At least it will not die like my bananas which are spent once they have bloomed and fruited, as they put their whole heart and core into that process.

Invasion biology: dis-ease in the garden of earthly delights

I discovered a new housemate recently. A large land snail.

Of course I took pictures. The images sat on my computer a few weeks until I had internet and time enough to do some research to try to trace the genealogy and habits of my companion species.

Enter the Evil One.

I think this fellow is Achatina fulica aka Giant East African Land snail. There is a great and informative article here.

If I am correct, I have been given a great, big, red, warning flag.

The greatest lethal threat which these snails pose to humans is eosinophilic meningitis. This is the illness caused by the rat lungworm parasite, angiostrongylus cantonesnsis. As I understand it, these molluscs are a stage in the whole parasitic cycle, which also involves rats.

Humans can become a part of the pestilence when they eat the snails or plant matter contaminated by snail slime.

From what I have heard, the resulting condition in humans is extremely uncomfortable, to the point of being lethal, depending on the extent of the compromise of the health of the immune system.

Interestingly, rat lung disease has been entering my consciousness from a number of different sources recently.

Only this weekend did I find myself having a conversation with my fav veterinary pathologist about whether I should be worried about rat lung disease. We looked up details about the disease on her iphone while driving around the island. Statistics did not seem to indicate that there was major cause for concern.

That, however, was before I discovered that the carrier is in the house. So to speak.

A month or two ago a colleague mentioned that rat lung disease is probably in ALL the slugs and snails of the region.  In passing, over a lunch of pasta salad with Thai basil, fresh harvested from the garden.

After that conversation, I asked my new tropical botanist friend whether I had cause for concern. His response was a resounding YES. His stories were dire.

I have survived meningitis twice already. I am not sure that I want a third bout.

I am also not sure that it is true that ALL local gastropods are carriers, but I do trust the Columbia scientists who have it that my gastropod housemate is a host. If I am correct in my identification.

I am resolved, now, to take extra care with washing anything which I harvest to eat raw from the garden. Hydrogen peroxide lives on the kitchen sink.

Should I put up "Do not eat the snails" signs?

And where did this little Horseman of the Apocalypse ride off to?

Cost of living: thoughts on sustainability. Corruption begins at home.

One Saturday recently I paused to photograph my weekʻs fresh produce shopping.

Four George Washingtons ($4) got me 7 avocados, 2 bunches of curly kale, 2 bunches of bok choy, 2 papayas. All this bounty was grown organically less than a mile from my kitchen, and picked just hours, if not minutes, before coming home with me.

If that was not enough to supply my fresh needs for the week, my carport architect arrived with a gift of a grocery sack overflowing with  5 long refreshing cucumbers, 13 lilikoi, 7 Asian eggplant, a papaya and another mound of kale, fresh harvested from his garden in a neighbouring sub division.

I also often find free fruit in my path. For example, since I arrived five months ago, I have noticed guavas, avocados and mangoes falling from the trees on the routes I drive. Enough to supply an individual with a high percentage of their raw food needs. If they were prepared to eat slightly bruised under or over-ripe items. I have feasted on some of the most delicious green mango chutneys and curries from vegetarian road kill.

I do not earn a lot, but I do work part time, I do have a pay check, I do pay taxes and I do eat really really well here. The food gods are generous with their abundance. I am thankful to all those who supply me!

Then I can get to ponder this notion of high cost of living and sustainability. When I am not thinking about garbage, that is.

My incredible cornucopia of fresh local food notwithstanding, the "state" of Hawaiʻi is regarded as having one of the highest cost-of-livings in the United States. For this reason, the rate of pay for welfare aka food stamps or EBT - is higher than mainland states.

I stand in grocery store lines watching the bizarre collections of luxury items, much of it highly processed, high end or imported-to-the-island products, in the shopping baskets of people paying with EBT cards.

I watch teens wielding EBT cards as their birthright.

I see students bring largely nutritionally impoverished junk "food" items (purchased on EBT cards) to school for lunch.  

I listen to conversations amongst teens about what age one has to be to get ebt and how many $$ they have on their cards.

I pay taxes from my meagre pay check. A percentage of those taxes support the welfare programs which result in these EBT cards.

Somedays I feel like telling these people in the grocery store line in front of me that I have a right to catalogue their purchases, and make other, more nutritionally healthy choices for them, because I, along with all the other hardworking people in the nation, am picking up the tab for their chosen lifestyles.

I idly wonder if it would work to require nutritional counseling before letting someone loose with an EBT card. Of course it wouldnʻt work. Like my idea of only allowing drug free people to be on welfare. Why am I supporting addiction and self destruction? Remind me?

I take a deep breath and try to let go of this negative direction in my thinking.

And I find I am looking at a person with 7 children holding office on a local sustainability organization, with the t-shirt to prove it,  while some of those 7 children turn up to school regularly without having had breakfast. Her eldest child, having achieved maturity (by the numbers, if nothing else,)  is  "on EBT" all his own.  Some of the same individualʻs school age children have been observed to go on a school field trip, which involved a 5 mile wilderness hike, sans breakfast, with a sack lunch which consists of a (high end) packaged meal item in at least three containers, two of which involved plastic and which required water and a microwave to be edible.

Sustainable? Where shall I begin with the issues?

Connect the dots.

I am made very sad.

I am going to crawl under my rock again.

Messages of transformation: ecdysis

Another day, another lizard.

This scaly, delicately patterned, stranger was encountered on the front step one sunny day recently. Oooh! a new cousin brother! I thought. And rushed off for the camera to document. 

On looking closer, however, I think what I have encountered here is a skin shedding, growth and transformation stage: ecdysis. Not really sure though.

From my researches on the topic, it seems that, unlike snakes, most lizards shed in pieces rather than a whole skin. That patchy bit on the head and lumpy, bumpy, whitish tail could be explained by ecdysis.

This set me thinking about how we need to shed skins, habits, stuff and ways of being when we outgrow them. In fact we HAVE to shed in order to develop and grow. Otherwise we stunt any transformation process.   

Thus the affirmation from this messenger: the new has grown and developed enough, to allow a shedding of the old. Sometimes it is a bit strange, ugly, lumpy and bumpy this transformation process, but growth it is.

Yes. Noted. 

Thank you, little messenger.