This month was all about celebrating Matariki. We got together on a beautiful still night with our Waygood Whanau and shared a meal around the bonfire while gazing at the stars.
We also had a Matariki celebration with our children from the pre-school across the road. The children arrived with harakeke gifts for us. We welcomed them with a basket of kawakawa leaves and puriri flowers, which they chose and floated in the little ceramic pool. The children tied their homemade colourful flags on to trees and hung their bunting. We made a bonfire and the children taught us the Matariki Makarena, which lists the names of all the stars in the constellation. A karakia kai was shared by the children and we toasted marshmallows, sipped delicious hot chocolate and ate roast kumara fingerlings.
On our following Mara Tamariki Day we created bamboo tunnels for beans to grow over. The children entered the garden holding their bamboo poles behind them as tails. One of our volunteers delightfully introduced the bamboo to the children, "This is how bendy it is...gasp!...Who eats it? Where are the pandas?".
July’s Te Piha market was another great morning of the community coming together.
With chickweed in abundance this month, Claire made chickweed pesto to bring to the market for people to taste. It’s a delicious spread of chickweed, olive oil, roasted nuts and garlic blended together. It can also be made with a mix of other plants, herbs or weeds like sorrel or plantain.
July was a cold month, and a good time for us to give some extra love to our gardens with mulch and homemade fertilizers. For more information about this, have a look at
We are pleased to see that the pottery kiln is being muched loved and fired up frequently. Originally, it was Nancy’s mother, Zena, who built the Foundation as a pottery studio and placed the kiln there. Our local artist, Sherryn Eastmond has been offering weekly pottery classes, Claytime, which are a great success. More classes will follow in the future, for more information on Sherryn’s pottery, follow @sherryneastmondceramics on instagram.
We had a visit from our local stone artist, Neil Hilton. A few years ago he created the sculptures sitting at our entrance as well as many of our gardens . It was special to hear him explain the sculptures, the Taniwha representing legend and Maori history, the tuatara ancient Aotearoa and the wild pig, the current dominant species in the bush. This felt like a full circle.
