Advice for these troubling economic times

Some pearls of wisdom from toothworts blog.

Care clings to wealth: the thirst for more grows as our fortune grows.
I stretch my store by narrowing my wants......
We are not poor
While nought we seek.

[Horace]

If you have two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one and a lily with the other.

[Chinese proverb]

Never own anything you have to feed or paint.

Ghosts of the past.

After reading 'Fingerprints of the Gods' about the virtual certainty of ancient civilisations I thought it was all very far away from NZ. However in Maori (who have been here 8oo odd years) oral tradition they speak of a fairy people with 'pale skin, pale eyes and reddish hair' and standing stone circles and alignment sites are being discovered which tie in with such sites as stonehenge. Also stone obelisks have been found with spiral incising and ballauns (Neolithic 'holy wells') hand cut into them and covered with ash from the Taupo eruption of AD186 (the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, heard even in China!). A pre-Maori European skull has also been found which deepens the mystery. Could some answers to the birth of civilisation be in my back yard?
I'll see you later, I'm going digging!

Chicabonita

So above is my answer to reducing my carbon footprint. Go sailing! She is a 36' catamaran that has sailed down from Florida and has all the ocean going gear. I don't have experience in sailing big boats but we have a wonderful playground here to learn for a few months then the world is our oyster. With a solar power system, sailpower and the ocean as our larder we can live very cheaply and as the ocean rises we rise with it. Don't know where I'm going to fit all the animals though.

We have to get a survey done which might turn up some problems but I'm in love already.

Boats

Been away looking at a yacht and dreaming of far horizons.

Some images from the exhibition by Annabel Nesbitt we have on at the moment. She has sold nine paintings which is extraordinary considering the economic gloom at the moment. In fact I don't think any artist has done better here. We bought the second to last one with the scallops in the basket. Homely but with the jagged curtain threat and a storm brewing out the window.

The last image is my studio at the moment. You can see why I'm not getting any paintings finished! No starving artist in the garret here. I pour my gin and tonic, settle in with my paintbrush and fall asleep perchance to dream.

Sail away

We have officially put our section on the market and the horizon I can see past Shakespeares Cliff (named by Cook in 1769) is compelling!
My grandfather, Hugh McRae, was a naval architect. He came out from Scotland early last century to build floating gold dredges on the west coast of the South Island then went on to design the paddle steamer Earnslaw which was the mail and supply boat on Lake Wakatipu out of Queenstown. She is still running and is now a tourist attraction coming up 100 years old.
I built my first boat at 11. I hammered out a piece of corrugated iron till it curled up, brought the ends togther and bent them over with greasy rags as caulking to form the bow and stern. Then I lashed two lengths of big bamboo to it forming an outrigger with more bamboo as floats. My mother refused to let me take it out to sea so I mucked around in the estuary spearing flounder and catching crabs which I once boiled up in an old paint tin. No wonder I can hear voices!!
My first sailboat was an old kauri P class built like a brick shithouse and if I capsized it more than three times it would slowly sink until only the nose could be seen. Great fun though. I made a spinnaker out of mums old sheets and cruised along happy as a sandboy.
While in High School I raced Arrows, an open dinghy with mainsail and spinnaker, out of the Howick Sailing Club. There were 70 boats in the club so it taught me a lot about performance. Then I found fishing and a procession of adventures in speedboats followed.
But that's another story!

Don't look back

But I still long to kiss your brow
And taste your little finger
And feel your secret inner-thigh warmth
For as a woman
I have known no other
As you
And never will

I cry for you
I would bare for you
The music of my soul

Books

I'm even managing to read a few books.
Tried Eric Claptons autobiography. Interesting times in his early musical years but then he lurches from excess to excess. Drugs, alcohol and then even more nauseatingly love and religion. Yech!!!
Now reading Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock which I've had for a while. Loving the theories.

High spirits

The gulls had found a thermal updraft and circled high against the cloudless sky.

But why? They were a black-backed species that scavenged on the ground. Could it be for the sheer joy of rising so high without the beat of a wing? Do they have the same yearning to soar like the spirit of man?

Then they are gone in a long downward glide to a distant destination.

Practical after all.

Gallery commission

The Artspost Gallery where I have some sculptures told me they take 40% commission which in my language means they put 40% on my price and keep it when the piece is sold. If I want $3000 the sale price is $4200 and they keep the $1200. But no. They take 40% of the sale price so put 40% on my price and then take 40% off the inflated price. 40% of $4200 is $1680 which leaves me with $4200 - $1680 = $2520. So to give me my $3000 they put 67% commission on..... $3000 x 67% = $5000.... 40% of $5000 = $2000.
Now I still get my $3000 but I think it is deceitful to say they only charge 40% and it inflates all their prices so less art is sold.
We don't take any commission at the restaurant because we like to have changing art on the walls, it helps the artist and it keeps the prices down. We have sold 10 paintings since we opened in October which doesn't sound a lot but in these hard economic times it's not bad.
A local artist, Annabel Nesbit, opened her exhibition of landscapes yesterday and we bought one, not only because we liked it but she needed money for more canvases.

Invasion

Crazy time of year. Very busy with making coffees, baking cakes, cooking fresh kingfish in macadamia chilli crumb and avoiding foreigners (city people) running on the roads (I can't see a fire!). They come on holiday and bust their gut so they can have a trim laite and a piece of cheesecake!

Years end

Last day of a year that has been good to me yet strangly troubled. I feel I'm at a crossroads and turning around and going down the same path is not an option.

It's a waiting game.

Man walking fish

Surfs up

A photo son Sam took of his surfing mate Reece at Hot Water Beach. The boy has potential with his composition!

Mary Xmas

A Very Mary Xmas to all my blogger friends. I want you to exercise restraint as above.





I'm having bacon!!

Hamilton Exhibition

I'm stoked. My treepee won the peoples' choice award at the exhibition worth $700 worth of prizes and I conned the gallery to let me leave it on the street (above). It's a risk because it could be stolen or damaged but it's great promotion as it's the main street of Hamilton, one of our biggest cities and right next to their prestigious museum.

We also did a round trip to Tauranga to deliver the portrait I painted of Elpie for her 50th birthday on Xmas Eve. Yes that is a gorgeous single malt whiskey from her fathers' distillery at Campbelltown on the Mull of Kintyre in my arms. Fair swap!!

Fresh scallops

A food magazine requested our scallop recipe so you (yes you) might as well have it too.

Fresh Scallops on Corn hotcake with Pernod Cream Sauce

Corn hotcake
3 free range eggs beaten
400gm can creamed corn
400gm can whole kernel corn
1 ½ cups flour
2 tsps baking powder
2 tbls sweet chilli sauce
½ tsp tabasco
½ red onion chopped fine
3 cloves garlic chopped fine
small bunch coriander chopped
1 cup sour cream
½ tsp salt and ½ tsp fresh ground black pepper

Simply mix ingredients until incorporated

To cook hotcakes…. heat oil in a saucepan until hot then spoon in mixture to make fritters golden on each side.

To cook scallops….we are lucky at Eggsentric, our local macadamia farm (Cathedral Cove Macadamia) makes us a macadamia chilli crumb which we mix with Japanese panko breadcrumbs and we toss the scallops in this mixture before cooking. You could use just the panko crumb or cook without crumbing.
Heat oil in a saucepan until hot, add scallops and cook quickly, perhaps a minute, then turn, cook for 30 seconds and flash the pan with the pernod. Cover the bottom of the pan with cream add flakey salt and fresh ground pepper to taste and cook until sauce thickens. Don’t overcook the scallops, take them out if this is happening and finish the sauce by itself.
Remember taste, taste, taste. This is how you learn about flavours.

To assemble…..Place a scallop shell on a large plate, lay two corn hotcakes on its’ edge with the scallops on top and pour the sauce over. Garnish.

The leftover hotcake mix makes a marvelous breakfast with bacon, hollandaise sauce and sweet Thai chilli next morning.

Oh Christmas Tree

OK, I was seduced by the prize money!! But now I cringe to think I put all those baubels on my lovely treepee. Good road trip with Sam though. He drove his new (old) ute all the way to Hamilton (5 hours) without a hitch and without his father screaming. Called in to see Marion at Artspost Gallery and she will take some of my wooden sculpture for their foyer. All is not lost!

Death of Honesty

It is with great regret that I announce the death of Fern. It's not a physical demise but a blog site of honesty, joy and sadness. Her site came into her family domain and she felt her honesty about her feelings compromised family relationships and so with one push of a button obliterated all that wonderful poetry and insight.
Maybe in hindsight a change of blog name might have been better Fern.
I am constantly censoring my site for family and community reasons which isn't very truthful but I think even in everyday life we censor to make our society work. The truth isn't always right.
But in saying that I've always felt I need a blog where I can be brutally honest and swear and be vindictive with no chance of damage and retaliation. I think it would tell me a lot about myself.
So I'm sorry, dear readers, if I've given you the impression that I'm a nice bloke when underneath I'm a raging psycopath and I'm sorry to lose my blog pal Fern, may she rage in peace!

Reason (season) to be jolly. I hate this time of year when the feeding frenzy starts to buy, buy, buy, yet I get to be Santa. First at a pre school called Country Kids then at the local Playgroup. Now although I'm getting porky round the middle I don't fit the rotund bill so have to tie a pillow against my chest to fill out the santa suit. Then I try to put my socks on!!
I get to ride on a fire engine or a helicopter or a farm bike or just take my little car and startle the odd pedestrian with my long white locks blowing in the wind ( I can bring a smile to the lips to even the most hardened teenaged criminal, not that we have many!)
You probably think Santa is easy, just sit there on your decorated chair and hand out presents to the adoring kids but a lot of them are shit scared of you and you have to decide which of the gorgeous mammas you have to have sit on your knee to show the kids how it is done.
So the challenge every year is to try and get every one of the sixty odd brats to at least come forward and take the offered present. I lie on the ground with my legs in the air (it's alright this ain't Scotland!), sing badly, crow, shout, pretend I'm sunning myself in Samoa, promise playstations, even try to be meek and mild which I sure aren't. Then after three years Amelia finally overcomes her fear and she is off to school and I have to start afresh on Ryan, Anika and Jackys' mum (sigh).