Showtime in the sky on GBI On Great Barrier our lives unfold in an ongoing flux and mix of temperature, wind, clouds and the state of the sea. Whatever the wind direction, we enjoy the continuum of clouds moving across the ranch slider “movie screen". But I’ll never look at clouds the same way since I learned why fine-weather clouds are white, rainclouds are grey, and sunrises and sunsets are multicoloured. A puffy white cloud consists of tiny ice crystals a hundreth of a millimetre across and even tinier water droplets. A cubic centremetre of fine-weather cloud has a few hundred water droplets, and a cubic metre contains just a quarter gram of liquid water. When sunlight enters a cloud, the droplets stand in its way. The light is boomeranged about, scattered again and again. Depending on the thickness of the cloud, the light might or might not find its way out the bottom. That’s why clouds are darker underneath. Raincloud droplets are larger and potential raindrops larger still. Each light ray has to pass through much more water in each drop, and the cloud itself is thicker. Light doesn’t stand a chance of getting through kilometres-tall thunderhead clouds. That’s why they’re so dark! After dawn and before dusk, clouds reflect the splendour of colour. Air molecules and tiny particulates scatter the violet and blue end of the light spectrum (that’s why the sky is blue – for a good explanation, see https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/optics/why-is-the-sky-blue), leaving a beam of reds and yellows. This filtering is only noticeable at sunrise and sunset, when light is passing through hundreds of kilometres of air as it travels across the sky instead of straight down to Earth. And so at sunset, giant sheets of yellow, pink and red filtered light dash over our heads – at the speed of light! – on their way out into the cosmos. The colour passes by unseen unless clouds are in the way to reflect the glow. The clouds are like magicians, pulling rainbows out of thin air. Or perhaps, as Krishnamurti wrote, colour is God. The three cloud images were cropped from previously posted photos. Abundant generosity The generosity of islanders is legendary. Robina said that’s how rural New Zealand used to be. As Ro and I sat down to enjoy dinner one night, we realized that just about everything on our plate was given to us! The cupola pumpkin was from Shona and Darran, the fish from Brett, avocado from Ben, leek from the Community Gardens, lemon from either Dave or Bev & Les, plus capsicum from Gerald & Caity, salad from our garden, and garlic from Dennis Sage! We also had seed crackers baked with a recipe from the new Organic NZ magazine, and our daily kefir cheese from grains Lina gave me well over a decade ago mixed with pesto in the freezer from Dennis’s garlic and Caity’s basil! Thinking of all these giving growers made our dinner even more delicious! As for citrus, people we asked once, a year or two ago, still harvest, bag, tote and deliver sacks of grapefruit and lemons. We’ve almost lost count of how many people have brought them to us – at least nine, some more than once. Their kindness suffuses me with a rush of warm gratitude. For weeks, breakfast has been easy – we just peel four or five grapefruits! These lemons are from Casey up north. Dear Bev even painted the four sides of the box where the tape peeled off! In return we share jars of honey from the five-gallon buckets we still have from our hives in Golden Bay. This is part of one lot of grapefruits from one person. Someone surprised us with nine fruit trees (guava, feijoa and a lemon), Caity and Gerald with another guava, someone else (we still don’t know who) left a big box of ornamentals, another some clumps of non-spreading bamboo for part of a windbreak, plus perennial vegie plants from Jeanne and dahlia bulbs from Jordan! And on top of all of that, several people who've helped Ro with work on the section said they didn’t need to get paid, but of course we made them take it! Bring on the gift economy! (An aside about Bev and Les. Like many of us, they became emotionally involved in the Thai cave rescue. One night, they woke up in the wee hours and couldn’t get back to sleep. They got up for a cup of Milo, put the telly on and learned that just a few minutes earlier, the first four boys had been brought out of the cave. They slept soundly for the rest of the night! Imagine being so attuned! I knew there was something special about them.) Blue’s bees A happy new addition to our section is two beehives being looked after organcally by our beekeeper friend Blue. A continuing supply of honey for gifts and pollination of our trees and veggies are just two reasons why it’s wonderful to have bees again. Sorry about the shadow – Blue was here in the morning. Whole language I had my head down for much of five weeks editing the latest in a long series of theses written by Japanese master’s degree students in Kobe, Japan, who are already experienced English teachers. They’re all students of my friend Reiko, whose doctoral thesis I edited when she was studying in Tucson, Arizona, where Ro and I lived for a year before boarding a containership to start a new life in New Zealand. Here are Reiko (in red) with three of her English-teacher students whose theses I’ve edited. Teachers may recall the “reading wars” that raged fiercely in the 1990s, pitting phonics against whole language: Which is the best way to teach reading? Reiko studied at the University of Arizona with Ken and Yetta Goodman, the most well-known proponents of whole language. The wars are still smouldering, and Reiko fights an uphill battle to integrate whole language into the rigidly prescribed Japanese curriculum. The keywords of whole language are learner-centeredness, authenticity and experiential learning. Whole language is based on developing learners’ language competence by engaging them in meaningful communication. It’s the natural, organic way humans have learned language effortlessly through the millennia, but to phonics promoters it’s a radical idea. These are just a few of the 17 theses I’ve done over the years. All of them centre around whole language projects. I can’t encourage you enough to watch this beautiful and moving documentary, “Children Full of Life”, about an extraordinary fourth grade teacher in Japan who masterfully cultivates LIFE and humanness in his classroom, getting down to the real nitty gritty of emotional issues that usually have no place in public schools. The outcome is probably the most compassionate ten-year-olds you’ll find anywhere. Reiko wrote, “I show this film in my undergraduate class every year, usually at the last session as my final message.” https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/children-full-of-life/ The Spirit of Rose-Noelle Ever hear of the Rose-Noelle? Four guys sailing on a six-tonne trimaran, on a two-week pleasure cruise from Picton to Tonga in June 1989, had their voyage literally turned upside down just three days into the trip when a giant wave, roaring like a freight train, flipped the boat and trapped them, terrified in the darkness, as sea water poured in. John Glennie’s beloved trimaran in happier days They weren’t far from the coast. They were confident they’d soon be spotted and rescued. But their beacon lost power and they endured 119 days adrift. Family, friends and authorities gave them up for lost. They thought they were heading towards South America, but because of unusual winds and currents, they had a surprise in store. They spent much of their time packed like sardines on a small shelf, the only high, dry space in the water-filled cabin. When the weather and sea were calm, they would venture onto the upturned hull, which they’d cut through to get out. These drawings are from the book Capsized by crew member Jim Alepka. The long trauma ended (though they were psychologically scarred for life) with a crash landing on a reef at the foot of a steep densely bush-clad slope. They didn’t know until much later that their landfall was the only stretch of coast that wasn’t sheer rock. Anywhere else, they wouldn’t have been able to get to shore. After another night of depravation, though on land, they found a dirt road and broke into a bach, where they gorged themselves on food and drink from the well-stocked cupboards, washed and shaved for the first time in four months, “borrowed” clothes from drawers and closets, and slept on real beds. They heard a phone ringing in a nearby bach and broke in to use it. A neighbour happened to be on the party line, their first human contact. Only then did they learn they were on Great Barrier Island! I interviewed that neighbour recently for the island’s oral history project. The essential comforts they availed themselves of in the bach were held against them, but not because of breaking and entering! When land and sea law enforcement interviewed them, though they were thin, they looked too healthy and presentable for their story to be believed. Their great survival saga was downplayed and the media focused on nailing them as drug runners to South America! The epic tale is told by John Glennie, who’d spent years painstakingly and lovingly building the yacht of his dreams and fitting it out to the finest detail. Any hope he had of salvaging it from the reef was literally ground to bits. It was heartbreaking to lose it all. His second big regret was that his companions weren’t his friends, but people recruited for the trip when his original crew had to withdraw close to departure. He knew the physical and emotional ordeal would have been tempered by comaraderie and bonding rather than intensified with animosity and ill will. Instead of a mutual feeling of triumph in their acheivement, the crew remained estranged and never communicated again. The crew’s pose in this photo days after landfall belies their true feelings. John Glennie is second from the right. Even so, the four guys were forced to work together through storms and near starvation to meet their needs for food, water, rest, warmth and protection from the sun. They managed brilliantly, pooling their ingenuity and honing their improvised systems for catching fish, trapping rainwater, and keeping warm. If they hadn’t, they would not have survived. Importantly, some of the foodstores Glennie had stashed onboard were in watertight lockers that he could dive to and retrieve. His third big regret was that all the records he’d kept, designs and drawings he’d perfected, personal correspondence to people close to him and precious small objects, which he’d managed to protect until the very end, were lost as the crew struggled to shore. Great book! Thanks to Winnie and Charlie for recommending it and lending me their autographed copy. Charlie was one of the locals who went to the wreck trying to find salvageable items belonging to the crew. Rural Women Got a call inviting me to speak at the monthly meeting of Awana Rural Women. “We heard you do editing and it sounded interesting, and the fact that you’ve come to the island and commited to staying here is enough to be of interest.” Winnie thought the “adventures” Ro and I had over the years would be more attention-holding than editing. I put together a slide show of the sequence of places, events and decisions that brought us to Great Barrier Island, starting way back when we met in the 1970s. No need for nerves – very low turnout, and I knew most of them. Men are welcome at Rural Women events, so Ro was there too. When I put up this 1985 photo from the solar home construction site, I realised that on this day 33 years later, Ro was wearing the same vest and I was wearing the same sweater as we were back then. I don't know what the group made of that! Take it where you find it Twelve hours of continuous rain and near-gale winds, sea ferocious on both sides of the island, river a torrent, parts of roads and even a bridge under water. We were about to admit defeat on a swim when Charlie rang to ask how we were getting on in the storm, and where was Joanna going to swim? “Any ideas?” asked Ro. HE ACTUALLY HAD ONE and it was just two minutes from our house! He’d dug out an area in the reserve for sand many years ago. We’d seen it, but never filled with rainwater, so we didn’t realise its potential. “Is half a metre deep enough?” Off we went! Ro gave it a pass but I splashed about, kicking and frog-kicking in delight at the miracle of my pop-up pond!! The next day the water level had dropped and the miracle pond didn’t look quite as inviting. Hat trick One day at Medlands I forgot to take my wool hat off before our swim, but it took a while to realise it. I reached up and laughed, but then I stopped laughing and thought, you know, my head is toasty warm and that’s a very good idea! I’ve been wearing it over my swim cap ever since. Spring is in the air, though, isn’t it?! GBI fashion Bring your compost to the Community Gardens (or your own compost pile) in style with the Medlands Handbag, courtesy of Envirokiwi. Their motto: "We’re firm believers in not just talking rubbish, but in doing something about it." Ro sets out for a morning walk in the reserve Swimming in the rain at Blind Bay (the dot nearly halfway up the photo and slightly left of centre) Fleur delivers her yummy kombucha These are berry and rhubarb, and ginger and lemon. A paddle boarder at Medlands Rough sea at Kaitoke and Palmers too We’ve had heaps of rain and rainbows Do you or someone you know need some editing done? Book, brochure, website, thesis, anything at all? After 16 years of nearly continuous editing, including 18 books, I have a gap in my schedule. Please comment with your email address and I’ll get back to you.
0 Comments
|
Archives
August 2021
|