Written By:
notices and features - Date published:
2:01 pm, November 28th, 2014 - 22 comments
Categories: weekend social -
Tags:
https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.jsShe chooses poems for composers and performers including William Ricketts and Brooke Singer. We film Ricketts reflecting on Mansfieldâs poem, A Sunset on a ...
https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.jsKatherine Mansfield left New Zealand when she was 19 years old and died at the age of 34.In her short life she became our most famous short story writer, acquiring an international reputation for her stories, poetry, letters, journals and reviews. Biographies on Mansfield have been translated into 51 ...
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
I wonder what Prime Minister Cameron Slater is doing for his socials this weekend?
…mincing around Omaha in a black leather jacket harassing the youngsters..?
He does have John Key on a leash at the moment which is an appalling state for this country to be in, but this is about the weekend…
…and I am working a double on Sunday. đ
I’ve posted this before but for Wellington dog owners wanting to socialize their pet Izard park in Wadestown has a informal daily gathering every day at approximately 5 pm.
It is located where Norwich St intersects with Wadestown road and is a council designated dog park.
Dogs need socializing and this provides a good place to do that.
No politics! đż
Go to Open Mike. and vto you should know better ;-p
[r0b: Quite right! Moved some to OM, left some that are marginal.]
This weekend I plan to do my tiny bit in defiance of global corporatization by sowing some heritage seeds (though they should have been sown weeks ago). No GM or roundup resistance – take that Monsanto !!
What are you sowing?
For now just courgettes, beans and some herbs. Have some tomato seeds which I might as well sow but might be a bit late for them.
Growing heirloom food is one of the most important actions we can take đ It works on so many levels – undermining Monsanto/GMO, creating local resiliency, mitigating AGW, futureproofing. Sorry, gardening politics (blame vto).
I couldn’t agree more đ Am sowing more than I’ll need so I can share with a couple of uni students I know who want to try a bit of guerrilla-gardening.
For anyone who wants a true horror story to watch this weekend I recommend this… The World According to Monsanto
http://documentaryheaven.com/the-world-according-to-monsanto/
There is a really good heirloom seed collective in Ranui weka. They had some great old school tomatoes, these I grew a few years back – made great pasta sauces with those lovely fruit. Moved and lost my garden – and I canny be bothered doing a container garden – just don’t get the same results as in the ground.
Since the glasshouse was (finally) done, took out the old driveway a couple of weeks back. So Saturday will be framing up for a new concrete pour. Good times!
After the warmest autumn in 247 years, winter has hit with a bang in Vienna. We’ll be getting out though to check out the Christmas lights and the markets and sample the food and drink.
I went to Vienna once. I liked it down by the river, but I hated the centre. Everything was too big and so obviously built to make the subjects of the empire feel inferior. Bratislava has similar architecture, but on a human scale.
How long ago where you there? I love Vienna. I do agree that the Hofburg palace and imperial museums are dominating and definitely there are remnants of an Empire in the central city, but otherwise it is so full of tourists that I don’t see the architecture as being too big. I like that ‘the people’ own it now.
I use empire references as a starting point for learning about the rest – different building styles, the Rathaus (city council building) facing off against the imperial palace – the volksgarten… you can see the crumbling of from empire if you look around. I like the little stories based around the buildings and who frequented them, then there is of course Red Vienna with it’s social housing history and the wars inter-weaved into the fabric of the place. But then again I’ve been here awhile and live in one of the inner suburbs so keep finding out bits and pieces that are not that obvious.
Bratislava is interesting. It has had the palace rebuilt (keeping up with the joneses?) and the city is being refashioned as a twin city with Vienna, with both combining as single business gateway to the Eastern European countries.
I was there about 10 years ago, and only for one day. I was with a Russian guy who kept saying that everything in St. Petersburg was much better and may have spoiled it for me. I went on to Innsbruck and liked that more.
Heh – not a lot of love between the ordinary Russians and Austrians. I guess you got to see the Russian monument đ
My wife organised a Christmas trip to Vienna and also Saltzburg. Loved the way that they closed down most shops and kept the weekend kind to families. Did a bike tour and as with most of Europe those old gracious buildings seem to dominate. Keep on thinking of the wealth of the aristocracy at the expense of the poor. Unfair really.
Yes, it’s amazing the changes in this part of the world in just a few generations. From servitude, wars and unable to feed its population well into the 1950s it’s now one of the most equal countries on earth.
What are heritage seeds?
Heritage seeds- explained below.
“Story of the Seeds
Since 1900, the world has lost more than 90% of the global genetic biodiversity in our food plants. They are extinct, irretrievable. These plants have disappeared largely as a result of the industrialisation of our food production.
In particular, the Koanga Institute is saving the seeds that are New Zealand heritage seeds â those that were brought to Aotearoa by our ancestors and grown in gardens here.”
http://www.koanga.org.nz/products/seeds/
Also worth reading is the article below which discusses the way .rules are being put into treaties to prevent the sharing of seeds and therefore attacking biodiversity.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101027091239.htm
Sorry this is in weekend social column. I feel quite buoyed after a week when it is beneficial to my health to interact with the MSM for a change. I am going to revel in this feeling while it lasts!
The wonderful Kay Baxter talking about the importance of heritage seeds.
Well I get my seeds very year from the WareHouse and every year I have a large vege garden full of good food.
Seed potatoes alway early and we have been eatiing a variety of types for over a month. All my plants are early this year,however im afraid my capsicums look very sorry for their selves . My need a bit of warm weather,