The wild city garden.
The last few days I have focused on personal admin. When I discovered the term personal admin I was thrilled. It gives a person permission to block out a period of time and work on things like personal banking and taxes and booking travel and planning next steps, Illinois family admin and booking New Zealand graveyards – all as though it is a job. I had always tried to do these things in and around other daily tasks. Now I make a list, block out personal admin time and do it all at once.
So for the last two days my writing time was pure personal admin. Isn’t it great when it’s finished!
Now we are in better order I am back to writing time. Until the little people wake up! It is morning here in New Zealand.
I am in Wellington City until Friday then back up the coast to PekaPeka again for a few days and another sorrowful goodbye, then a bus straight through the island to Clive in Hawke’s Bay – Hawkes Bay is on the East Coast – and out to Te Awanga Beach for a few days with my elderly godmother. Then drive along the beach and into Napier and up to the hill for a weekend of bad behavior. Then my brother picks me up and we go to find my mothers grave and bury my Dads ashes in by her. (Hence the volley of emails with the bone-yard man). Then on up to Mount Maunganui further up the island.
Unbeknownst to me. My brother had my Dads ashes loitering in his wardrobe all this time. For the life of me I thought he had been buried after his funeral. HERE is why I missed that step. I literally watched his funeral on my phone. I was not allowed to travel to New Zealand due to Covid. I said goodbye to him on the phone hours before he died. And I was a bit of a muddle at that point. It was a miserable time.
Anyway. Much stronger now. My brother will bring his ashes down from Mt Maunganui (or The Mount to the locals), collect me from the hill and we will go out to Mum’s grave. We will meet one of sisters there. The graveyard staff will dig a little hole at Mum’s headstone, leave it covered with a board and we can pop Dad in. Anytime between sunrise and sunset. They even leave us a shovel to fill in the hole.
My brother and I have filled out all the forms, I have paid the internment fee and hopefully all is in order.
This is one of the reasons I want to be buried in a hole in the ground, my body in a willow/bamboo/ untreated wood natural burial eco-friendly casket. (And I want a bowl of paints and brushes beside my container so anyone can paint a message on the casket). No concrete vault like they do in the states. Just bury me and let the worms do their work. Ashes can be lost track of but there is no way a body can be stored until everyone has time. Lordy. Poor Dad. We could say he was rolling in his grave but he does not even have one yet. I am working on it.
This afternoon I am off out to another beach for dinner with a friend. In Island Bay. To help with your perspective there are three miles between the blue dot and the umbrella.
Wellington is heaving with little bays.
Gardening and writing for me today. Have a lovely day!
Celi
Garden sounds coming shortly on TKG Take Ten.
The Kitchen's Garden 
28 responses to “Back in the City Garden”
I’m glad you sorted that out! My friend Audrey, in New Zealand, has been trying to sort out her parents’ estate and has had considerable resistance from her sisters.
I want to buried too! The heat/fuel required to cremate a body equates to driving 4,000 miles! …and I think a body should be fertiliser instead of wasted ashes.
Wow! That is a really interesting fact! I had not even factored in the carbon footprint of cremation. Another excellent discussion!
I’ve always wanted to be burried, but I was totally convinced when I saw a documentary about Viking or Anglo Saxon funerals about 20+ years ago. It takes 8 – 10 fully grown trees, burning all day and night to provide enough heat to turn bones to dust. Cremation is a dreadful waste of energy and fuels global warming.
How did ordinary vikings get buried – I think they sent the chiefs out to sea in burning boats or something. Viking burial? But what about all the others?
They were cremated with their possessions – they believed the smoke would take them to Valhalla.
Wow, you’ve been busy! And i love “personal admin.” I’ve been doing what you’ve been doing for years. In fact, on my desk within inches is my checkbook as I pay bills and then read your blog. Got to get organized.
I have files in their own space for personal admin back at the farm – though most of it is online now. I manage all of my mother in laws affairs from here too.
Well clearly you have moved into the busy part of the trip it seems. Lots going on and travel within travel but it seems that the timing is right to put things in order and have things settled. I have left explicit wishes for a very simple green ending to my body on this earth. I will leave the box out entirely and simply go with a shroud to decompose and become earth again. I would like a small bit of that new compost to be lovingly tossed off of a mountainside. My final wish is to be carried as high as at least one of my kids can go and send me away into the sky to settle somewhere for a brand new beginning.
Wrapped in a shroud sounds quite lovely. And settling some where for a new beginning – I like that a lot.
Even if they don’t manage to get me tossed into the wind I am happy to know I can be the start of something new ecologically- perhaps a small bed for a lovely new cedar tree in the foothills of our mountains.
I love personal admin time and will adopt it immediately
Let me know. I love it too!
These are the conversations we should be having!
Not wanting my bones + superfluous receptacle to take up valuable earth space I’d previously settled for cremation and wind/water dispersal but if when my time comes compost is an option then so be it.
Immediately adopting the term personal admin, and enviously contemplating desirability of bad behaviour weekend.
Dale, there are about 4-5 states that have adopted human composting as an option. I live in Washington and we have numerous opportunities here and the industry is growing.
Human composting is a very direct term! I need to look that up
Yes, no doubt what it means. We even have lands specifically set aside where bodies can simply be placed out among the foliage, not even buried…among other options.
I like that idea of a eco-friendly casket! I want one also
There are so many options but maybe I have to do some homework!
I think it is a very good idea
I have read about eco-friendly burials. I do not think there are options around where we are yet … but I bet they are just around the corner. You could build an entire separate page on your site for info to be shared on that option! It would be even more of an offset than your farmy ‘forest’! 😉
Oh yes!! We are looking to build a sustainable home page now – so I will be sure to include this.
I have found there are a couple of places here that will do the eco friendly burial. I should probably get something set up – I’m not getting any younger and I have to believe you need things to move pretty quickly once you die, (unless you have a really large fridge/freezer!)
When my Mum was dying (it took her years) she spent a lot of time organising her own funeral and how to be carried to her resting place.
In Australia there is glacial change. I think the best so far is some states allow a shroud and non standard coffins eg cardboard, wicker and some forest plantation burials where a tree is planted.
Those forest plantations sound interesting.
https://www.gatheredhere.com.au/green-funerals-australia
Hi Celi. You picked the right time to leave Kapiti. After lunch today the sun hid and the skies opened giving us a downpour of the much needed rain.
I am glad that you are dealing with your father’s ashes. I have said I will be cremated and my ashes put in the plot next to my husband here in the beautiful Karori Cemetery, in Wellington. I love the idea of eco friendly burials but am not sure if my family is ready for that.
I am sure that the folk in Illinois are missing you and counting the days. We are lucky. We get to chat and interact with you wherever you are.
Personally, I’d quite like to be composted. At least there’d be a use for all the complicated nutrients I’d been ingesting all those years. Sadly it’s not yet an option in Australia, but I’m sure it’s coming. I feel for you with your frather’s ashes. My brother has Pa’s. I wanted him to bring a portion out when he visited last year so I could share Australia with Pa and maybe scatter him somewhere lush and tropical. But you wouldn’t believe the complexities of try to fly with cremains… So the upshot is Pa’s ashes will be interred in my brother’s family grave plot, so at least he’ll be in good company.