Rising from the Winter Sleep!

Wrapped up against the cold.

It has been hard to find words for the blog over the last month or two, but I have made a start today, maybe spring isn't so far away now and I am rising from my winter torpor!

One winter, a few years ago, I found a sleeping hedgehog all tightly packaged in a nest of grass that it has rolled around itself to keep out the cold. I had been trying to bring some order to a rather wild part of the garden where long grass grew under some trees. I felt sad for having disturbed the hedgehog, so covered him up again carefully, and left that part of the garden alone so that the hedgehog, and any friends that he might have had, could sleep on untroubled by any human activity.

Probably the words, "hibernation" and "New Zealand" don't associate all that well, as we are not famous for the sort of climate or selection of animals that really require a lot of hibernation! Go for a walk in the high country, and you won't find a slumbering bear snuggled up in a quiet corner somewhere, because we don't have them... bears that is. We do have bats that hibernate, but hardly anyone has seen a NZ bat, except on the cricket field... and that is something different!

Skeletal seed pods of New Zealand Flax (Phormium tenax)

Our winter, though mild, does affect human behavior. There is a tendency to "hunker down" and look inward. To retreat. In the small towns, shops go quiet, there are still cars on the road, people travelling from A to B, doing what they have to do, but few stop. I do not think there is less time to stop, but there is less desire! I often listen to the breathy rush of cars going past, and the snort and snarl of trucks, and wonder where they all go. I guess that most are people driving to the city to work, and back home to sleep. Work. Sleep.... Rush, Shush.

Orange, black, brown, ochre, purple and grey. Colours of winter.

The sun is rising on a new day as I write this. Two minutes ago the sky was blue grey bleeding blood red near the horizon, and now it is all shades of purple and violet that warm through to salmon pink. 

I like the winter sky. Grey is often more interesting than blue!

I have done very little actual potting since I last posted, but there have been some useful improvements made to the studio and gallery area here. With help from our friend Mark, a store room was made, so that there is a place to put finished pots, and pots that are waiting to be glazed. I reorganized the two small rooms that make up my potting studio. The wheels are all in one room now, and most of the glaze materials, and shelves to dry work are in the other. The gallery where we display our art is slightly smaller, but visitors say that it looks lighter and fresher.

I turned some old drawers into shelves for the wall, and it is nice to be able to make a special uncluttered display of some pots, without them being all jumbled together with the others.

Laura has been starting to paint and draw again, and does most of that sitting close to the pot-belly stove in the studio. We are planning a little private space for her to work in, and will commence sorting that one out in the near future.