Wendyl Nissen, creator of Thrive Magazine started her magazine containing delectable articles, such as one all about compost. How to make a compost bin and the glories of compost teeming with more worms than you could sensibly choose to count... that was the kind of stuff people gleefully would choose to read when picking up Thrive, as they pondered how best to thrive not only in the garden but also in life.
A parcel arrived today from my mum up in Auckland and within it was another Thrive magazine for me to enjoy. Flicking through it briefly this morning, I admired once again the beautiful photographs and noted some of the articles I will really enjoy reading over a herbal tea. It was a blessing being sent this parcel of goodies from my beloved mum, and having something like Thrive included in it was just so lovely.
Wendyl is someone I am inspired by. I am inspired and I admire Wendyl not only for knowing what to deliver from the get go to launch her newly created magazine, but because she knows her stuff both in the garden and also when it comes to things like natural cleaning products you can easily make from scratch yourself, and that you can choose to keep readily on hand indoors under your kitchen sink.
Wendyl is something of a guru on the home and garden front here in Aotearoa New Zealand. She inspires many of us fellow kiwi wives and mothers with her very healthy can-do attitude. I am one of those inspired by her, and the beauty of a good compost bin and its contents is not lost on me.
Wheelbarrows laiden with cowpats, chicken manure, seaweed, comfrey, lawn clippings, withered and dried out autumn leaves and sticks all appear to have contributed to the making and the launching of Thrive. How awesome is that! Not only did it help launch a magazine, I imagine she has had quite the most fantastic of food crops repeatedly and plentifully growing on her own piece of kiwi turf also, all due in part to a simple and humble compost bin steadily and quietly working away making over a variety of compostable materials. This inspires me. It makes me want to keep trying to quietly do my best in the garden and to work away steadily that bit more towards those dreams & visions I have also.
Imagine just how colourful and tasty every one of her heirloom tomatoes and the highly likely glut of zuchinnis could possibly be, as a result of magnificent compost, all created through quiet, steady perseverance and patience. The classic kiwi barbeque at Wendyl's would be quite the neighbourhood soiree to attend, I'm sure!
As I ponder the possibilities of how best to prepare my own garden for the potential food crops it could provide in the coming growing season, my own compost pile looks nowhere as splendid as I imagine Wendyl's did and still does. Yet, I live with hope still flickering in my heart.
The wheelbarrow that I think would help me best, has a screw or two loose yet again. With the repetitive rain that is currently about, my compost pile is also far from steaming with signs of sound health. Compared to Wendyl's, my compost pile surely doesn't and won't for some time cut the mustard at all, and yet it is what it is and it is all that I currently have. A gal with a pair of gumboots willing to go on her feet has to start somewhere, right?
Sometimes it is easy to slip into feeling discouraged and disheartened, and the gift today of this sweet parcel from my mother with a delightful copy of Thrive really spoke to my heart and encouraged me on. The beauty of compost and the wise, positive words of Wendyl encouraged me on... thank you Mum and thank you Wendyl.
My latest read, or at least I should really say, the book I keep trying to pick up to read, is Martha Inc. The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Like Wendyl, Martha seems to know a thing or two about compost, as well as how to perfectly go about pruning roses (mine gaze back at me through the window at this very moment, even now professing how unpruned and shamefully neglected they truly are). Martha clearly has the skill and know how to cater for a crowd, whilst also slipping out multiple how-to books like Entertaining (Wow! There are over 340,000 copies of that very book, tucked away on many a homemaker's bookshelf, according to the stats I have just read).
Wendyl and Martha. Martha and Wendyl. These are two women that appear to have succeeded on so many levels, whilst a good many of us very ordinary homemakers just hope to once again drag ourselves out of bed to get the child to the school gate in a timely fashion each morning, and then work out how best to tackle the dishes still lurking on the kitchen bench alongside all the other projects demanding our attention.
I admire both Wendyl and Martha, I truly do, and I can only hope something of their knowledge, their skill and their ability will gradually rub off also on me, as I read their various writings and watch a related Youtube video or two.
Wendyl knows a thing or two about compost and I greatly admire her. Martha knows a thing or two about compost, pruning roses, doing numerous handcrafts and putting on exquisite dinner parties and I greatly admire her.
These two amazing, dynamic, successful women make you want to go out and make your own meagre compost a masterful artwork and the most productive of steaming successes. I want to look out via the dining room window and see the roses skillfully pruned. I even want to strike cuttings and gain success financially at some point in the future if I possibly can, because somehow by some amazing miracle all the cuttings would choose to successfully strike and go on and produce the most stunning of blooms.... wouldn't that be great?!
I want to wear bright and happy aprons, produce the most delightful smelling afghan biscuits and have my children think I am the world's best mother, as I aim to greet them at some point in the near future with freshly squeezed fruit juice grown from our very own fruit trees. I would like Wendyl and Martha to both be quietly proud of me.
I want to do things as well as Wendyl and Martha and I don't think it is a bad thing at all to aim to have such standards as they project. I want the success and the productivity, throughout both the house and the garden, that they each seem to have and my often grubby hands testify to that fact that I am endeavouring to give it a go to try and make it happen as best I can.
I want to drink myself healthy and eat myself healthy. I also want to be unapologetically me and those that are threatened by it can just back off and slink away. I want to push through the self doubt and the fear of failure and get on with getting on, and I truly want my compost to be the best jolly compost it could be! May God help me, and so too please may all that Wendyl and Martha have each put out into the universe that I have read to date help me also!
I want to see, feel and experience the same blissful, rewarding success these two awesome and awe inspiring women have had come their way............... and I am choosing today to see it start within the simple confines of the humblest of compost piles at my place, built from recycled and repurposed building materials found about the property.
Compost? You've got it sorted Wendyl! Compost, rose pruning AND putting a luncheon together for 240, you've got it in spades, Martha! God bless you both. The inspiration, the encouragement, the extra push & motivation you both gave this little kiwi mama today, it is highly appreciated. Now, I best go out strike on my gumboots and get busily working yet again on that compost!
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