Zana Bell’s latest novel Close to the Wind is a playful romp that takes its characters across the world, from Britain to New Zealand. It’s fun, funny and meticulously researched – I know this because a while back Zana was querying how long it would take to travel by horseback from Christchurch to Dunedin, in …
Category Archive: Rae’s Blog
Nov 19
Freedom campers need to play by the rules
I hadn’t thought ‘lightly’ and ‘politely’ could be interchangeable until a letter from a rental vehicle company proved that, indeed, this is so. We share a Kaipara beach with ‘no camping’ signs which were ignored by some freedom campers I met during a preprandial wander. The couple, whose van had been parked all day, were …
Oct 29
Passersby get bearings wrong
Spring has sprung, the grass has ris’, daffodils are blooming and lambs have bloomin’ popped out everywhere. But unfortunately it’s not always a lamb that pops out but what farmers call a ring or bearing. In fact, it’s a prolapsed vagina. The farmer reckons about three of his sheep a year suffer this misfortune which, …
Jul 08
Slimy brown scum – it has a name
Anticipating cultured conversation after a local theatre performance, we retired to the bar for a night cap. But as this is a rural area, talk was all about an entirely different type of culture – a strange gooey, gunky and shiny brown growth. I’d first spotted it while being a marshal for the Rally of …
May 27
The learner gardener – just do it
Here’s a gentle plea to all those passionate people who exhort the rest of us to grow our own food – kindly stop insisting it’s all such jolly good fun. These gardeners – who you’ve seen on telly and read about in newspapers and magazines – gush and enthuse and rave and chortle. Gardening is …
May 10
Talking to the animals
At a seminar about the challenges farmers face when employing staff, the farmer turned to me and whispered, “This is why I work with animals.” When you work with animals, you don’t need to talk to them and if you do, it doesn’t make a jot of difference to their behaviour. When he moved sheep …
Mar 15
Moving feisty bulls – green exercise
My fitness programme – moving cattle every other day – is apparently ‘green exercise’, not because grass is involved but because it serves a purpose. However, like other fitness programmes, I soon didn’t want to do this one either. After turning off the power, I’d pin down the electric fence in the technosystem and step …