TERM 2 // Wk 8 - diary (just thinking on domestic connections)

I've been doing a bit of reflecting this past week after visiting family over the term break. My immediate family have a house in Silverdale, and there are several large olive trees that were planted there when the house was built around 20 years ago. In the first week of term break I was able to collect some fruit before the birds got to it and in the process we trimmed back a lot of dead branches on the trees, most of which had become overrun with lichen. The lichen reminds me of my extended family a lot - my Mum's sister used to use collect and use it to dye homespun wool when she lived in the South Island, and I have memories of her sneaking into a local abandoned apple orchard to scavenge it from the trees for that purpose.

I decided to take a few of the branches home to my flat along with the olives - I wasn't exactly sure why at the time and I'm still not sure what to do with them, but they're interesting. Initially we couldn't tell how the lichen had sustained itself on the branch given that part of the tree was dead - looking at the branches, it was hard to tell whether the lichen grew from the tree itself having burrowed in and grown from some kind of spore in the bark, or whether it was latched on somehow. After some research, the internet told us it "is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship"* which didn't rely on the tree for nutrients, but existed because of a delicate balance between the organisms it was comprised of. They are plant-like, but they are not plants; they can come in micro- or macro-form, a "usefully imprecise" term that tells us more about their growth patterns than their size; and they survive due to an almost parasitic balance between bacteria and algae. Initially I thought the lichen had caused the branch to die, but it seems to be more of a decomposer or composter than a parasite to the tree, growing only when there is a loss of leaves and nutrients to the branch that allows it to begin growing on it. When there is damage to a branch, there is more opportunity for light and rain to affect it, which is perfect for lichen. Rather than causing damage to the tree, if anything it's more of a messenger, saying there's something not quite right where it is growing (on trees at least) - it grows when another relationship else falls out of balance. It is self-sustaining, indicative of a relationship that's taking place; minding its business.

It's curious thinking about all the different relationships that go on around and because of one single tree - my own family's history, the olive fermentation and the sharing that will come afterwards (or composting and happy worms if they don't work out!), the lichen sustaining itself on the tree, my aunt and her wool dyeing... Lots of small but meaningful connections, relationships and processes that aren't really observable but have an impact on everything else.

(Fun article on NZ lichen here)

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Lockdown boredom experiment - growing things from the pantry

Over the past year and a bit I've been going through an intense therapy course. Part of that therapy revolves around the idea of provisioning - making, preparing, and organizing food, habits, schedules, so that old patterns can't creep back in. In doing so, I'm very conscious of what is in my house - not in an obsessively aware or disordered way, but in a way that just involves being conscious of what is there, what I need, and what needs to be prepared for the coming days or weeks. Unfortunately due to lockdowns, what should have been a 10 week process dragged out to 10 weeks - in an attempt to get my brain to relax and find interest in anything, I impulsively decided to plant whatever seeds I could find in my pantry in my flat's garden to see whether anything would grow. Amazingly, most things did, and I now have a scraggly coriander plant, a rather sad looking plot of mustard, and several now-harvested popcorn stalks in the backyard which have given back 20 times more kernels than I planted.

Both this garden experiment and the therapy course have made me think a lot about this idea of provisioning. Caring for the plants meant being conscious of what they needed and what I could provide them (which I didn't do so well at, but it's a learning process). At the same time, it was curious seeing how the ecosystems shifted around them without my interference - the local ants that have been plaguing our flat moved onto the corn stalks and started "farming" aphids that had infested the plant, and while I wanted to deal with the ants I couldn't without the aphids then taking over, so I had to let them both be unless I risked damaging the plant or inviting the ants inadvertently back into the house. During a storm, most of the corn blew over, but in the following days as it recovered the leaves and stalks became a resting spot for several bees, moths, and spiders that were web-less or exhausted by the high winds... What started out as a small spontaneous experiment for myself ended up benefiting almost everyone involved (be they person or otherwise).

I'm not sure where all the different seeds in my pantry originally came from or where they were grown, but it's nice now having seen the cycle of their growth in my own backyard. It put me in touch with plants and systems that I haven't seen grow from seed before (for example, I had no idea what a mustard plant looked like before this experiment, and photos didn't really do its strangeness justice). In gardening for the sake of nothing in particular, with intention but without expectation, the process become more about observing and waiting than getting any sort of outcome. I'm grateful to have taken part in the system of growing and harvesting, even if I was a bad gardener in the process (though for the ants, spiders and bees, perhaps that meant I was a good one).

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Something technical I noticed in relation to the image to the left is that I don't really like the outcome of trying to capture insects and animals via digital means. The images (and the scan that was built from them a few weeks ago) never turn out well - they feel hollow to me and lifeless... I think I'm more interested in capturing relationships, environments or structures than I am trying to replicate life or living creatures.