I have found over the years that it’s really easy to let current events get on top of me.

At this moment, wars are being raged. A genocide is occurring in Gaza. Donald Trump has been elected president of the US for the second time. The Covid-19 virus continues to be passed between us, mutating into new and surprising forms. Bird flu inches ever closer to possibly becoming the second pandemic within a decade.

Meanwhile, back home, our own coalition government has begun an attack on the founding document of our country.

Toitū te Tiriti!

Oh yeah, and scientists are telling us the outcomes of human-driven climate change are coming to fruition much sooner than originally believed. Women’s rights to make decisions about their bodies are being eroded very close-to-home. And for some reason amongst all of that, a lot of people find the existence of transgender people to be really, really frightening – a belief that at best makes the lives of transgender people uncomfortable, and at worst ends their lives entirely.

And look, I get that we are all different and hold our own political views. But I write, maintain, and pay for this here website. And I find all of the above to be pretty disgusting.

So quite frankly, if your politics are different, please close the tab and go to another corner of the internet. I’m not here to argue about it.

But if you share the beliefs that genocide is bad; Donald Trump is a disaster; pandemics are real and vaccines are effective; that Te Tiriti should be honoured rather than re-written; climate change is real; women’s healthcare and bodily-autonomy is important; and that trans women are women – well, stick around.

This one is for you.

Fruits of our labour

Back in 2019, Richard and I spent a morning planting native trees and bananas. Five years later, those trees are considerably taller than I am.

And those trees are beginning to attract birds. There is a quail couple who like to wonder through my vegetable garden, and more recently the tūī have been coming closer and closer to get into those trees we planted.

It’s really fucking cool to see such a stunning creature coming in to feed and chill out on trees that are only there because we planted them.

Tradition

After the results of the 2023 New Zealand General Election were released last year, I got out my Christmas decorations and lit up the pinenut tree.

I did a similar thing this week after Donald Trump won the 2024 US Election.

I now need a ladder to decorate it – and my ladder is already a bit short for the job.

Still, this year I was able to re-use my lights without adding another string. I wasn’t expecting that, but I’ll take it.

As an added bonus, I’m pretty sure the tree has produced both male and female reproductive parts this year.

That means that possibly sometime in the future this tree will be more than a Christmas tree, it’ll produce pinecones containing pine nuts too.

Better plant the basil!

Silliness

On Thursday, I found myself in a local shopping precinct with a few hours spare while my car received its Warrant of Fitness.

I went for a long, lazy walk around The Warehouse and found a packet of googly eye stickers.

Immediately, my only desire was to do this:

But the packet of eyes had more options, so I wandered around the garden, finding places for googly eyes.

There is no rhyme or reason to this. I felt a bit deflated walking around the store on the morning after the US election.

This silliness – at least in part – helped lift that funk.

Gratitude

My car received its Warrant without any trouble, and didn’t go over the annual maintenance budget in the process. I’m very grateful for that, and for the local mechanic who keeps us running.

I’m grateful to be here in my little corner of the world, growing food and living amongst nature. I feel gratitude for the birds that visit, the neighbours who look out for us, the trees that grow us fruit, and the garden that produces crops to use throughout the coming year.

I’m grateful for my friends and readers that come back to this website each Sunday, and who have commiserated with me through DMs, calls, and instant messages this week. It’s OK to feel bad right now – I think there’s a lot to feel bad about, honestly.

But at some point we’re going to have to pick ourselves back up and keep working towards the world we actually want to see. So let us recharge in the ways that work for us.