Morning Story: Autumn ripe for tree terrorist

Big weather makes for soggy newspapers.

But it also sells a lot of them.

Paradoxical yes, but true.

Big storms, big sunshine, big slips, big surf - hot cakes in print form. (Maybe that's why my editor and I have both unwittingly penned weather pieces today.)

And there's some irony. Big weather is conditional. If last week was any gauge, there is no inclement, good, or bad weather.

Rain, in particular, is relative.

It's a turgid tree fern,

it's a split grape.

It's a Saturday cancellation,

a weekend sleep-in.

A holy marriage with my iron roof,

a downpipe's unfed stomach.

Water fowl are another example. They've been thriving in this rain. Water off a duck's back.

But come duckshooting season in three weeks, the same conditions will force them to fly lower, well within range of a shotgun's thud.

The unruly elements have dominated national conversation for the past week.

It's understandable. For most of us in the Bay the end of summer's a depressing time - particularly as we're still waiting for the start of it.

I began writing this in rain-induced cabin fever yesterday. My kids were assaulting one another in various rooms throughout the house (one daughter used a ukulele as a weapon, another rolled her sister under a Swiss ball).

I tried to comfort myself with the offerings autumn would bring.

One such offering, which I don't subscribe to, is the "lovely"changing red and orange of our treescape. To me, these seasonal colours only underline how exotic-dominated our region is. (Almost no native trees are deciduous.) These new hues we're seeing are alien specimens from the Empire. Rightly or wrongly, it's an aesthetic I choose to snub.

But I lose no sleep over doing so, as autumn also happens to be when cabbage trees' seed-laden stems mature.

Some time in the next few weeks I'll hike to a magnificent 200-year-old cabbage tree (ti kouka) on the hill above Lake Tutira to take seed. Each berry is then cracked to spill the black seed into raising trays.

Then comes the exciting bit.

When they're a few centimetres tall I'll head to our parks, picnic areas, reserves, forests and roadsides to ram as many into the earth as possible.

My wife and offspring hate this clandestine endeavour. I've tried hard enough to convert them, but they're not yet true brothers and sisters of the revolution. Their shame at my subversive planting forces them into playing lookout.

But I take huge satisfaction in it. Partly because it's villainous, partly because it adds a hint of bohemia to my suburbia, but primarily because it's a quiet protest against the exotic weeds our local authorities desecrate public places with.

And then there's the seasonal fare.

This, of course, includes autumn's biggest understatement - the feijoa.

A neighbour's tree hangs wildly over our fence and drops these green gems for the better part of six weeks.

They're endearingly suburban - a blue-collar fruit. Humbly perched next to the urbane fig or lime, they're the lowest-brow character in the Fruit Bowl.

Notwithstanding this, feijoas are insanely overpriced in supermarkets considering three-quarters of their yield lies rotting in our backyards.

In my house they mean feijoa ice-cream. My kids crowd over the kitchen sink to turn out the gelatinous flesh into bowls.

The frozen chunks of pulp and seed add a textural grit that's unbeatable. Poach some pears in red wine and throw a scoop of this stuff alongside. Boom!

Speaking of boom, the other underrated free autumnal fare is hare. This time last year I shot a young buck with my sons near Aramoana Beach.

We took the two lean back strips, cubed and seared, then added a rogan josh curry. Simply terrific.

I'll lay claim to being the first to substitute lamb for hare in this Kashmir dish.

Anyway, that'll be this columnist's autumn - a mix of low-budget gourmanderie and horticultural terrorism.

Autumn will indeed be the winter of my discontent.

Mark Story is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today.