Our Wee Farm

When I'm not on the farm...

2012-01-28T15:41:00.000+13:00

I've been doing an awful lot of diving this summer. I learned to dive way back in the early 90's so have quite a few hundred dives under my belt. I sort of stopped for a couple of years but have totally got back into it this summer. Lloyd is not really into diving to the same extent I am, so this year I've been lucky enough to find a brilliant dive buddy in our friend Dan and have also been on a few dives that have been organised by Dive North (who are spectacular!) Lloyd and I have joined the bay of Islands underwater club. So all in all it's been a really busy summer for diving.

I've dived the HMS Canterbury and The Rainbow Warrior in the last few days. I thought I wasn't that keen on wreck dives and far preferred pretty reefs, teeming with fish, however the HMS Canterbury was something else!!

I can't take credit for any of these photos ( Dive North took them ) but I thought you might like to see under the water. ( Mum!)

This first one is the Rainbow Warrior looming out at us.

I'm the one with the pink tank on at the back - looking up at the Rainbow Warrior

And some nice underwater stuff...

An Octopus

A moray eel.

Lots to see down there!

So if any of you are divers ( or not!) and are ever in this neck of the woods and want to see what the Bay of Islands has to offer, I can't recommend Dive North enough.

Now, these photos I did take... We dived the Poor Knights Islands a while back and they are right at the top of my favourite dives ever!

Lloyd right in the middle

Me in some kelp

"swim with the fishes"

Sting ray.

Bliss

2012-01-25T16:42:00.000+13:00

My feet. The beach. This morning

BLISS...

Re-painting the kitchen

2012-01-23T18:29:00.000+13:00

A couple of years after we moved to Darroch Cottage, we put in a new kitchen. When we first put it in we loved it. The wood was nice and blonde and I think that because it was such an improvement on what was there before, we thought it was great.
Move forward 4 years and we like it...not so much!
The lovely blonde wood has gone orange - which is irritating as this was exactly what we said we didn't want. And the cream units seemed boring. For a couple of years we've been kicking ourselves that we weren't a bit braver with our colour choice.
So, today I finally plucked up the courage to re-paint it. I had to get some advice from the lovely man at Resene ( a paint shop in NZ) because the finish on it was like it had been painted then baked! It was sort of shiny! (ew!) Anyway, he thought that a paint type called lustacryl should work - and it did!
I had on a pale blue cardigan this morning that we both really liked the colour of so we matched the paint to it.

Before

This was the day it was put in, before the kick boards were fitted. It was also very bare!

Now it's a bit more cluttered, and we've had to replace the dishwasher that broke and was rubbish. We've also added some shelves for our coffee mugs and a wee egg cupboard for all the eggs my lovely girls lay.

This makes it look a bit more purple ishy than it is in real life, the first pic is pretty realistic!

It feels like we have a new kitchen and we love it! It only took a couple of hours to do the whole thing and I only used about a third of the smallest pot of paint you can buy so it was incredibly inexpensive too. Why oh why did it take us so long to pluck up the courage to do this?!

Out and about in the garden

2012-01-20T10:36:00.000+13:00

Veggies first.
Sadly my courgette - which was doing so well - succumbed to all the rain and wet weather and rotted through at the stem nearest the soil. I don't know if I did the right thing, but I snipped off all the wilting and dead leaves, leaving only the very top and let it dry out
( the sun has been out for a good few days now!) So far the top part seems to be growing - but I have planted another one just in case...

Everything else is doing really well. I'm super excited about the loofah - it's growing like a weed up the trellis I put in for it. There are lots of flower buds appearing.

The Chillis are kicking into life. They're always terribly slow to get started but once they do, they thrive!

The sweetcorn is ready. And is so amazingly sweet and delicious. I planted 2 types. Which I'll need to check the names of - but one is a bright yellow one and the other is a paler one with different shades of yellow. I far prefer the totally yellow one. It's sweeter and has more flavour, I think.

Tomatoes - Finally we've managed to eat a tomato from the garden! Only the one, mind, but there are more almost ready. These are sun cherries and the vine is more than a foot long!

Potatoes, beans, herb garden, peas, gem squash are all doing their thing rather nicely.

For the last week we've had 2 of the most lovely ladies here as helpxers. Usually Lloyd 'gets' the helpexers to help him with chainsawing or anything really. I'm sure this is mostly down to the fact that I hate telling people what to do! However Jay and Marion are fabulous gardeners so I laid claim to them and to say they have been amazing is an understatement - the garden has almost never looked so neat and tidy - a HUGE feat as this garden is gigantic! They're leaving today and I'll most certainly miss them. I can't thank them enough for all their help.

Still my favourite place

With all this rain we've had we're still having to cut the grass twice a week - usually by this time in summer we're down to once a week or perhaps once every 10 days. It's bliss as it's an almost 4 hour job so it certainly eats into your time. However it's still growing very fast and very lush. Great for farmers, though, so mustn't grumble. (grumble grumble...)

Chookies are fab, donks are fab, alpacas are fab, dogs are fab, new cows are far from fab! For such quiet, calm wee things they sure know how to break through fences and into our neighbours farm. It's incredibly demoralising. We've spent, quite literally, hours repairing and checking fences. Everything looks good, the electric is up to strength, but still they manage. Even our neighbour ( who thankfully is a lovely guy) is bemused! Their escape antics are certainly one of the major factors in our, pretty much come to, decision of moving into keeping some alpacas rather than steer fattening.

Oh and I've been reading a really lovely new blog - cottonbluehome by the gorgeous Ingrid. If you have a sec go and have a look. It's so pretty and she's new to blogging so it would be lovely if you could say 'hi'!

Finally it feels like summer!

So, what have we been up to?

2012-01-19T15:47:00.000+13:00

Well, we've been quite busy. We've been diving a couple of times. I dived on the Rainbow Warrior which was interesting, but I am much more of a reef diver - I love looking at corals and fish and underwater landscapes rather than a hulking piece of metal!! The following day I went out for some reef dives and caught a few cray while I was at it.

I want to reiterate that there are quotas and size restrictions of what you can take. We always take less than our quota and make sure they are larger than the smallest size allowed. I like to think that we are very responsible about the whole thing. We're lucky to live where we do so certainly don't want to trash the place.

Yesterday we went to the sale yards to see if there was a wee steer we could buy. Lloyd and Danny are keen to raise one and then have it homekilled. I am not naive enough to think that I will manage one mouthful of cow I've seen grow for 2 years. Ho hum! However, there wasn't anything that was suitable, which is probably not a bad thing as last night we pretty much came to the decision that we're going to move into alpacas and sell the cows. If we do this we'll keep just one of the ones we have and sell the 10. Just need to pick up the phone and call the stock agent.....

The sales are quite fun though. There were some really gorgeous looking cows there. I never feel so bad going to a sale cos I think these animals are all for sale to go to new homes. I assume if they are going to the meatworks they go straight there. That's what I think - so please don't tell me if I'm wrong - I'd rather go with 'ignorance is bliss' on this one!

I've been a couple of times before and this sale had a lot more animals in it - way more in fact. And the whole bidding thing is completely crazy - I think we'd need to go a few more times to totally get what's going on.

Moving on - chooks! We had some yoghurt that was a bit out of date so I gave it to the chickens - oh my! They loved it. By the time they'd finished it was all over their faces and their heads, they were so funny.

Now for a bit of fun!! Our potatoes have done amazingly this year - Silje planted them all beautifully and the weather, though not perfect for us, seems to have been rather perfect for potatoes as they are huge! This one is huge AND funny ( and a little rude)! We ate it - it was gorgeous!

The Pip's roof blew off!

2012-01-15T14:32:00.000+13:00

It's no secret that up until now Northland is having the most horrible summer on record. It's barely stopped raining and we've had a lot of strong winds as well. Not ideal summer weather. On Saturday last week I was walking past the Pip with friends and said "that roof is going to need redone very soon" The felting stuff was all worn - it most certainly wasn't made to withstand New Zealand's UV rays!
Well, the very next morning we got up and I noticed that during the night the roof felt had blown off. The roof is only made of very thin tongue and groove and is most definitely not waterproof. My sewing machines are in there and all my fabric!!

So we braved the wind and rain ( it's very hot and humid though) and set about nailing it back on. It was an incredibly temporary measure.
Thankfully we have a friend who is a roofer - how lucky is that! He came over today and put a new roof on - to say I love it is an understatement! It makes it look much more solid and like a real house!
A very dirty real house - the new roof is just what I need to spur me on to give it a right good clean!

Thank you, Craig!

And finally the sun has come out - it feels like it's here to stay for a few days, at least. I hope so, as tomorrow we're off on a dive trip. I'm going to dive the Rainbow Warrior! Exciting stuff.

Feeding time at the Zoo.

2012-01-14T11:54:00.000+13:00

Facial excema season is upon us so we have to be very careful with the Alpacas, as they are very sensitive to the the disease. if anyone is interested there is a great article HERE all about it. We have no visible leaf mould in the alpaca paddock, but are feeding them a special food with a zinc supplement in it. They need to have some of this every day. Thankfully our lot seem to really like it.

Here they are - Darjeeling is chowing down!

Here he is again, having a right good chew!

Handsome Earl Grey - he's such a gentle boy.

And Tetley - who is just an angel!

The alpacas have been such a gigantic success. We're seriously considering buying a girl one and trying to breed some. We're thinking....

Summer's first tomato.

2012-01-13T12:47:00.001+13:00

I planted a couple of Black Krims this year. An old heirloom tomato originally from Russia. It's supposed to taste amazing. We shall see, I just picked it! I also thought the colour would make a nice change in salads.

It smells lovely, really tomatoey. ( is that even a word?)

I've also planted Moneymakers, pink Brandywines, sun cherrys, black cherrys, beefsteaks and a few rogue ones that popped up in the compost so I replanted them in the veggie garden. One looks like a beefsteak, one a brandywine and the last one is a surprise! I love these rogue tomatoes!

It's been a good day, today

2012-01-10T18:38:00.000+13:00

The sun has come out for a fair bit of the day - and going by summer so far, this is a huge deal! We found a break in our electric fence that the cows were escaping through so we fixed it. Our friend Danny came round a couple of days ago to give us a lesson in the traditional way of fixing fences - the good old knots and twists etc. using a strainer tool. We truly thought we'd mastered it but today, without Danny there to keep us right, we were rubbish! And after an age of trying we resorted to our pretendy farmer skills of joiners and metal twisty things to tighten the wires. We're a little disappointed - poor Danny will be begged to comeback and give us another lesson!

However, we shouldn't be too downhearted as the fence is at least fixed. We wouldn't have been able to even do this a wee while ago. We have to remember that! So yes, it's been a good day!

The Woolshed

2012-01-09T11:08:00.003+13:00

When we lived in Glasgow we lived in a big townhouse, so when we moved to New Zealand, to a very tiny cottage, we had an awful lot of furniture and stuff that we just couldn't fit into it! We didn't want to get rid of most of it, a lot of it had sentimental value so we stored it in the Woolshed that came with the property. The woolshed was completely watertight, but was home to rats, possums and about 3 gazillion spiders. It had HUGE potential, though, as it already had water and electricity.
Anyway over the last 6 years we've saved our pennies and finally had what we thought would be enough to sheet it out properly and paint it. Basically make it into something lovely where Lloyd could write, and friends and family could stay ( we have no spare room in our house!)

Before we started the outside looked like this.

By the time we'd finished it looked like this!

During the work it looked like this!

and this was after we'd cleared it all out!

Insulation going in.

Front coming off

Painting done

The bed and the desk were made out of the old shearing shed doors and gates! Lloyd really wanted to recycle as much of the wood as possible. I think it worked amazingly. We also recycled a lot of the old doors - one went on my potting shed. We kept all the original wood in the ceiling - adding a bit more.

We Christened it by celebrating Lloyd's birthday in it - by clearing the furniture and having a large dance floor and chill out area!

And finally! After 6 years in storage our furniture and paintings have a proper home. Lloyd has managed to unpack all his precious books and vinyl - he's even set up his old record player! We did have to recover the sofas as they had got very damp and somewhat covered in rat poop! But they were rescued. Oh and the huge tv? Free with flybys! Save those points people, you can get fabby 'presents'!

We think it's amazing!

A Very Special Treat

2012-01-07T09:11:00.001+13:00

Our friend Sara is celebrating her birthday just now - she deserves to have at least a week of celebrations as she is the last of us to hit 'a certain age' A milestone has been reached!
One of Sara's favourite things to eat is Crispy Duck with pancakes. This is a huge favourite of Lloyd and I as well. We pretty much never have it, though - I think we've had it twice in 6 years. One of the reasons, for me, anyway, is that even though we've hunted high and low we've never managed to find the pancakes. I did look at a few recipes for them last year but thought they looked really difficult.

Anyway, Lloyd decided he'd really like to make it for Sara's birthday so I thought if he was going to do the duck ( he used THIS RECIPE and said it was brilliant - as well as the duck you also end up with lots of duck fat - MMMMmmm roast potatoes, and a lot of incredibly delicious stock for a noodle soup! Also the duck tasted pretty excellent as well)... the least I could do was try my hand at the pancakes.

I found lots of recipes and they were all pretty similar - I ended up using THIS ONE because it also had a video which was so easy to follow. I followed it to the letter and the pancakes come out beautifully.

Now, I made these the day before - and I'm glad I did, because it took me 2 hours - the only problem is that I didn't want to freeze them because we were just using them the following day, but I wasn't sure how to store them. I ended up wrapping them in a tea towel. To heat them up, we don't have a steamer, so I wrapped them in a (different) damp tea towel and sort of steamed them in the microwave. It did work, but they cooled down very quickly and as they cooled some of them went crispy, which made them a little tricky to roll. I think they were a success though. But I reckon that if you could make them on the actual day you're going to be eating them they would be better.

Anyway, here's a finished crispy pancake roll

We had all the usual trimmings - spring onions, cucumber, hoisin sauce and Lloyd made a home made plum sauce from our own plums. It was all delicious!!!

The best gardening tool in the world?

2012-01-02T15:23:00.000+13:00

....Probably.

I've seen these around - I know The Stone Store in Kerikeri sells them - and I've often been so close to buying myself one. Now I wonder why I didn't.

I was lucky enough to get one for Christmas this year from my lovely friend, Kate. The weather has cleared up today for pretty much the first time since Christmas day, so I decided to get off my bottom and do some well needed weeding.

And it was a revelation! This tiny wee tool makes everything so much easier, and there are so many different ways to use it. I wish I'd bought one the day we moved into the farm.

If I get loads of comments saying

yes of course!

Can't believe you didn't have one already!

Aren't they great!

I'll be most unhappy. Don't you realise us novice gardeners need all the help we can get? We're on a steep learning curve, here! Don't keep secrets from us!! We need you!

Can you tell what it is, yet?

Yep, it's one of these. A weedy, hooky, thingymi jig . I don't even know exactly what it's called. A weed hook? Who knows, but it is quite simply the best thing I've ever seen. ( for gardening ♡ ) Now, I wonder if they do it in pink?

well, hello 2012.

2012-01-01T11:47:00.000+13:00

We celebrated Hogmany last night with some close friends, just a few of us, who sat down to the most gorgeous meal that Vanessa must have spent the day creating. It was delicious. A lovely end to what has been, on the whole, a really good year.

We've had fantastic visits from family ( it's always awfully sad when they go home, though) I had a great trip back to Scotland in April ( it was mum's 70th, my niece was born and I had a huge school reunion), the dental practice is pottering along. We've worked out how things work now, and I don't go into a state of meltdown panic if the bookings are not there for the following week when Lloyd leaves on a Friday, because without fail it always fills up anyway, so we've tried very hard not to worry! We also bought the building that the dental practice is in. ( That'll be our retirement then!)

Lloyd had a BIG birthday which was celebrated in the most wonderful way - all our friends in fancy dress, dancing into the wee small hours. He felt very loved that day - and so he is!

We've done an awful lot of building work. We had a new bathroom put in, done up the laundry and also ( I've not written about this really) completely re-done the old woolshed. This has been a dream of Lloyd's since the day we moved into this farm over 6 years ago. Finally we had the savings to do it. The actual building work couldn't have gone more smoothly. The painting took longer, mainly due to weather constraints - we did choose to get the work done when the weather decided to turn very nasty. But it's done and it is beyond amazing. I really will have to do a post on it. I can't tell a fib though, so I should say I found this incredibly stressful. Not the work itself, everyone that worked on it was amazing, but the mess digging new drains made. The garden was like a mud bath and needed a lot of re-seeding. It's all back to normal now.

In August we had a trip to Bali with 2 friends - Lloyd has known Chris for over 30 years. Bali was spectacular and so are Chris and Dan. My only regret about this trip is that about a month after we got home I was reading a blog and found out that there were orangutang babies, that I could have visited, about half an hour away from one of the places we were staying. This is a life long dream of mine so I was very sad not to have known about it before we left.
We also went to Sydney and met up with Chris and Dan. I had never been and it was the best trip ever! I loved it.

On the farm we've fed up steers, sold them, then got a new batch in. We've added 3 alpacas to our animal family and this has been a monumental success. Sheba a new donkey friend for Rachel arrived. We re-homed the highland cows. We've gained chickens by broodys hatching eggs and we've lost a chicken. We've also lost a duck. The downside of having animals.

We had the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand!

I've been doing a lot of diving ( I've swam with turtles twice this year!) and I took up swimming again. Originally I had a goal of doing the state ocean swim Russell to Paihia - a mere 3.4km in open water. Sadly I realised that I actually am a bit of a scaredy cat swimming in the sea ( odd when I have dived for years under the water and I'm sure this must be a lot more dangerous!) however, I did manage to do one of the shore swims. I was incredibly proud of my friend, Carol, who I swim with. She did the long swim in the most amazing time. I had brimming eyes when she crossed the finish line!

There's been lots of baking, sewing, painting, tree planting, veggie growing, dog playing and just plain old living going on.
As I type this I can see that finally, after days and days of rain, the sun is shining and the cicadas are singing. So on that note...

...we shall close the gate on 2011.

..and welcome 2012.

Wishing you all lots of health and happiness.

Laura

Vegetables galore ( Almost!)

2011-12-28T12:45:00.000+13:00

That's a bit of a fib really as the only thing ready are courgettes. BUT it's only a matter of time. Not long till we have sweetcorn, peas, chillis, tomatoes and all the other bits and bobs. However, just need to be patient for now.

Sweetcorn - getting there

Barlotti beans - our favourite!

I only planted barlotti bean seeds - some dwarf and some normal, tall ones. However, I seem to have rather a lot of red flowers - now in my incredibly meagre knowledge - these look like scarlet runners to me? Anyone? I must admit I'll be rather disappointed if they are scarlet runners as I'm not a big fan.
(and I flipping BOUGHT these!) The dwarf plants have barlotti beans on them but they were sort of hidden so I didn't see the flowers, but I'm sure last year they were a lovely lilac. We shall see...

I love how the beans are using the sweetcorn to climb up. They are on a trellis but some obviously prefer the more organic approach.

These tomatoes are "Black Krims', an old heirloom tomato which I haven't grown before. I thought they might be nice for a bit of a colour difference. I've also planted some black cherry ones this year.

A pepper/capsicum going red already.

The courgette which is looking lovely and is really prolific ( as usual!) I went back to green this year. Last year I had yellow ones, but we like the green ones better!

wee Cos lettuces

This is exciting! My luffa/lufah/loofa has teeny, tiny flowers on it. I've never grown one of these before so I am really keen to get a lufah and dry it out. One would be nice, more would be amazing. I only planted one plant this year as a total experiment, but it seems to be growing really well, so I'm very pleased.

Passion fruit - another huge favourite of ours. They, quite literally, grow like a weed in our garden, This is a self seeded one which is totally gigantic and laden with fruit, there are pounds and pounds on it. Bad news is, it can't stay where it is - it's growing up the water tank and wrapping itself round our gutters, so after this year I'm going to have to remove it - pity. Thankfully I do have another one - planted on purpose - growing beautifully up it's very own, purpose built, trellis.

The flowers are cool too

So all in all I'm very pleased with how things are going on the growing food front. Less pleased about the terrible weather forecast we have for the start of the year... gales and rain warnings - oh joy.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T15:17:00.000+13:00

It's all over, but it really was the most lovely Christmas, ever!
Lloyd and I started the day with coffee, toast and pressie opening which was lovely, then we got ourselves organised for the rest of the day.

Table all set

(we got out the good crystal!)

We had a group of friends and dogs over to celebrate, everybody mucked in and we all made various foody delights. There was banoffee pie, crayfish, home grown potatoes, home made lemon ice cream, a whole eye fillet of beef and much, much more... we were spoiled rotten! There were 6 dogs and each and every one of them was angelic.

Friends tents up - everyone stayed.

The day was warm and sometimes sunny. After a late lunch we went for a walk round the farm with the dogs. Then it was rounded off out on the deck until 1am with the firepit lit, lazing around on beanbags, with blankets, watching shooting stars. BLISS. We also ate an awful lot of the leftovers!

Lunchtime

Dogs, hoping for some treats

Belle

Bob

Exhausted Brodie

Happy Wilson

After lunch it was time to have a little rest on the deck, in the sun.

Then it was time for our secret Santa. Well, it wasn't really secret, but we had all got small presents for eachother.

By evening we were all happy to just sit around and chat. The fire pit kept us warm as it got darker and darker.

All in all I would say it was a pretty perfect day.

When we made the decision to move to New Zealand ... all the way to the other side of the world... one huge concern I had was that friends and family would be so far away. I was so busy worrying about this that it never crossed my mind that I would have to make new friends. I'm not the most sociable person and I'm quite shy ( though I hide this terribly well). I would be in danger of staying in my nest and talking to chickens all day! ( Lloyd is our social co-ordinator!) so I consider myself incredibly lucky that we have this group of friends, who I feel I've known my whole life and who, I consider my family, here in New Zealand.

I hope everyone had as lovely a day with friends, family and loved ones as we did.

It's been almost a week...

2011-12-22T08:15:00.001+13:00

since I last wrote! I have no idea where the time is going in the run up to Christmas. We seem to be rushing about every day. And with that in mind, yesterday we took the afternoon off and went to our favourite fish and ship place up at Mangonui.
Here's me modelling some of the catch! ( I particularly like the chocolate ice cream growing out of my shoulder!)

As ever the food was lovely - they've added salt and pepper squid to their menu so we had to give that a go as it's one of our favourites - it didn't disappoint.

We spent a lovely few hours up north and on the drive back home we admired the many pohutakawas that are out in full flower. They're more commonly known as the New Zealand Christmas tree and I absolutely love them.

The only one in the north island that hasn't come into flower yet would seem to be our one!! If it doesn't hurry up it won't make it for Christmas, and we'll just have to make do with this one!

I'm going to try and make time to take some photographs of the veggie garden today, as it's looking good and things are really coming on now.

Note to self...

2011-12-16T12:53:00.001+13:00

Do not leave dogs unattended when there are presents under the tree!

I'm fairly certain this was Brodie, it has him written all over it, that and one of the presents he'd opened was to me from him! Thankfully the only thing damaged was the paper so I have re wrapped them. Obviously the one to me is no longer a surprise but I'll work hard on my amnesia.

I am, however, incredibly pleased with this - new candelabra. About 2 years ago Lloyd and I came to the decision that we wouldn't put a fire in here. The regulations meant that we'd either have to remove the mantlepiece and part of the wall - or have the fire sticking way out. Neither appealed, so after 'thinking' about this for eons, we decided to just sheet out the fireplace in tongue and groove. Sitting in this space had been a piece of driftwood that we just sat candles on. (I've just realised that if you go to the previous post you can actually see the chunk of wood in one of the Christmas tree photos). Anyway, two days ago I saw this in a shop - and after thinking about it, almost constantly, I went and bought it today. I love it!

Anyone else treated themselves to something recently?

Rain, rain, rain

2011-12-14T09:14:00.000+13:00

Over it now! It's been raining for days and going by the weather forecast we've more days still to come. It was incredibly dry up here so we needed some rain desperately, but that's enough now.

My main work is outside in the garden and the farm. It's so miserable that I just don't want to go out in the torrential rain and weed... or cut the grass! However, if it keeps up for much longer I'll just have to. And it's making a right mess of my roses, which is just not on!

Also, sadly, this morning one of my chickens, Gertrude, died. She'd had a virus for 5 days and I had put her in a nice warm house on her own and had been giving her probiotic yoghurt to try to fight the bug but, I think yesterday, I really knew she was getting no better, so if I'm being honest I wasn't surprised that this morning she had died. I was sad though. I kept thinking, should we have put her out of her misery a couple of days ago ( when I say 'we' I mean poor Lloyd) but then I kept thinking what if she gets better. Anyway, she'll be buried in the orchard.

On a happier note, Mavis and her babies are all doing so well. From what I can tell there only appear to be 2 boys out of the 8 - if so this is great!
And! this morning Mavis laid an egg. Back to laying already - what a good girl.

One good thing about this terrible weather, it actually does make it feel like a Scottish Christmas! Pelting rain and a howling gale ( ok it's not actually windy at all) we just need it to turn to snow and get rid of some of the humidity and it would be perfection. To get into the spirit of the whole thing we put up the Christmas tree. I love our tree. I have the same lovely glass decorations I bought about 20 odd years ago, it's a lovely feeling unpacking them every year.
Lloyd and Lulah both helped - if you look closely you'll see Lulah has her teddy in her mouth, she obviously thinks it would make a better fairy.

New Shoes...pppfft!

2011-12-13T08:15:00.001+13:00

An obscure quote from "Twin Peaks" might alert you to the fact that this is not Laura, but her partner in decidedly non-criminal behaviour, Lloyd. I have hi-jacked her 'blog to write a thank-you note:

You may remember a while ago the lovely people at Natureshop let Laura try out a pair of Simple Shoes, well they're back, and this time asked if I would like to try out some Merrell shoes, naturally, I didn't want to disappoint them. I'm such an agreeable person like that.

So here are the shoes I chose. They're very "technical" which is another way of saying that I have no idea what they're made of. But they weigh about half of a sparrow's fart, and are as comfy as all get out. They breathe (well, not literally), and have hardy Vibram soles, a factor that has influenced my shoe-choosing since I was about 7. Actually, I was doubly delighted that I'm their new owner, firstly because they are a very practical pair of shoes, and also because (and I know it's a long way off yet) I'm going to do a half-marathon next year. If I write that in lovely Laura's 'blog, then it HAS to happen, and I reckoned that a half marathon was a good distance for someone who hates exercise. (After all, if the first Marathon runner, Phidippides, died after he completed the 26 miles, hopefully, I'll only be half-dead)

But back to the shoes: They appear to be really well-made, they are very comfortable, and need no breaking-in. They even look quite smart with a pair of jeans! I couldn't be happier! Thank you NatureShop - www.natureshop.com!

For all you people who might want to know more here's a direct link to where you can buy the shoes from http://www.natureshop.co.nz/merrell for New Zealanders and http://www.natureshop.com/au/merrell for those if you in Australia!

In other news, and she wasn't going to mention it, because she is a humble person, not given to boasting, I'm very proud of Laura who swam in last Sunday's State's Ocean swim series competition. Whilst Laura is a very good, and very keen swimmer, who can comfortably swim for miles in a pool, she really dislikes swimming in choppy seas, and on Sunday the weather was awful, the currents strong, and she completed the 300m swim in 5min 40sec which is FAST! So well done Laura, my wonderful, and swimmy wife!

Christmas Gingerbread Men

2011-12-12T15:21:00.001+13:00

Yesterday I was feeling rather sorry for myself with a poxy migraine. Lloyd had gone out to meet some friends at a cafe we go to all the time ~ plug! Cafe Cinema in Kerikeri ~ and when he came home he gave me a lovely gingerbread man Therese had given him for me. It totally cheered me up! Isn't he lovely!

So I was inspired to make some. I've never made them before and I realise that they are pretty simple and people make them with children, but I got myself in a right mess.
I made the dough perfectly, then cut out lots of wee guys and put them in the oven. Then I remembered that I hadn't taken a photo of them all out on the baking tray so grabbed them out. Unfortunately in the 30 seconds they'd been in the oven the tray had heated up to about the temperature of molten magma so I dropped it - gingerbread men and all - they landed all wrapped up in the baking paper in a big sweating blob. I had to remould the dough and it's presently back in the fridge to see if it'll chill.

However I did get the first batch out - after burning myself on the arm.

Anyway, here's the recipe...

Ingredients

2-2 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp Ground Ginger( I didn't think this was very gingery so am going to double it next time)
1 cup (220g) firmly packed Soft Brown Sugar or Dark Cane Sugar
150g butter
1 egg, beaten

Method

1. Sift flour, baking soda and ginger together and place in a bowl or food processor. Add Soft Brown Sugar or Cane Sugar.
2. Add butter and rub in with fingertips or pulse in food processor until resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add egg and stir or pulse to mix. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour to the mix and wrap in cling wrap. Refrigerate for half an hour.

3. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
4. Roll out on lightly floured surface or between 2 sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick. ( I made mine too thick) Using cookie cutters, cut shapes and place on tray. Form leftover dough into a ball and re-roll and repeat cutting out until all the dough is used up.

5. Bake gingerbread men for 8-10 minutes or until cooked and golden. Remove from oven and cool on baking rack.

Once they've cooled ( and you've smothered your many burns in lavender oil) you can decorate them however you want. I've gone for the more traditional method.

Next I think I'll do some Christmas trees and angels.

Now, tomorrow I have a guest poster...... he's pretty brill....

A Garden Day

2011-12-07T08:07:00.000+13:00

I pretty much spent yesterday in the veggie garden. After a few days of totally torrential rain ( which we were crying out for) everything is really growing well. Weeds and all! I was able to get the last of my tomatoes in and organise the irrigation around them. So finally all the veggie seedlings are in the the irrigation for this years layout is up and running. I love the irrigation system we put in last year, especially because you can change it really easily from year to year depending on what you plant, where.
Like tomatoes ~ they like being watered from below, it stops the leaves getting wet and then getting fungal diseases like blight. ( ok they can still get blight - but it helps!)

At the front of this is the chilli bed, there's thai chillis, habaneros, capsicums, all sorts. I've planted 7 different types for Lloyd to make sauces and eat. He LOVES them. Me, not so much.
Then there are 2 beds of tomatoes with aubergines in the middle, one bed of sweetcorn and barlotti beans, also the garlic we planted last year - we'll harvest that in a couple of months. You can't see the Alderman peas which are at the back, nor the gem squash or the loofah! I planted one this year - I'm so keen for it to flower and form loofahs. I'll keep you posted on that one. Anyway, after an incredibly slow start things are moving along nicely now. We're harvesting a courgette every day.

Now! Mavis's babies. Because they are so much smaller than other chicks we've had, I waited longer to let them all out of their wee house, but I could see Mavis was going stir crazy ( keep in mind the house is at last 30 times the size of something a battery chicken would be kept in - with 2 stories and things to play on, it doesn't bear thinking about how those poor chickens must suffer.)

So I let them out yesterday and wow! they had a ball. They all started to fly, then run around like wee crazy things. All the other chickens didn't pay them one bit of attention. They had a communal dust bath and generally had a great time. I did check on them about a gazillion times to make sure everything was ok.

Last night at chicken bed time I went out to see what was happening, I had hoped Mavis would take them all back to their house to go to bed there, but she had other ideas - she had missed roosting in the tree so she just went up to sleep. At first I thought "no way will the wee chicks get up there" and I was all set to lift her down and get them into the house - but nope! All 8 of them flew up into the tree! SO funny, half of them were under her, roosting and 2 were sitting on her back, quite the thing.

Look closely, you can see (from left to right) a bottom, a head, and 2 bottoms! See, chickens - endless hours of fun and amusement.

Learning New Things...

2011-12-06T08:54:00.001+13:00

I love sewing and make lots of my own clothes, but I'm self taught and cannot follow a pattern. Usually I see something in a magazine, or have something already that I love and I just copy it. I wear pretty simple clothes! However, in April when I was over in Scotland visiting my parents, I bought a wee summer dress and I love it. I wear it all the time and eventually it's going to 'go'. I really wanted to make a copy, but it has smocking ( I think it's also called shirring? Is it even the same thing?) on the back and all the edges are finished with binding made from the fabric. Two things I have no idea how to do. However, I do have a lovely friend who is a clothes designer/maker who lives over in the Hokianga and she said "Come on over, I'll teach you, it's easy!" So I headed over there yesterday morning and had the most lovely day, sewing, eating scones, drinking tea and chattering. Then I came home and immediately went out to my sewing shed, which is really called The Pip because it's in the orchard. But I never remember to call it that! If you do go and look at the link I should be honest and tell you that it no longer looks as clean and tidy as those photos would have you believe - in fact it's total chaos!

However, it's still conducive to making things. I finished the dress in a couple of hours ( amazing what a difference a home made pattern made out of newspaper will do!)
And here it is...

Look at that lovely binding! ( Oh yes, I learned all about cutting on the bias)

Smocking! I could now smock till the cows come home.

Just before I was leaving, Carol said, "would you like some pink hydrangeas?" Would I! I have shades of blue, and a white one I bought, but our soil is not naturally what makes hydrangeas pink. I've just put a cutting in a pot so I can try to control the colour better - lime helps to keep them pink, something about the lime making them not absorb the aluminium in the soil because it raises the ph...Anyway, I now have a vase of gorgeous mixed hydrangeas. I love them!

Yesterday was a lovely day...

2011-12-03T08:55:00.001+13:00

I went for a sea swim over at Paihia and as we were getting our wet suits on absolutely torrential rain started to fall. It was so heavy we were almost instantly soaked with warm tropical rain - it was lovely - and such a shame it only lasted about 5 minutes. Everything is so dry up here after weeks of no rain that we really need some more.

When I got home this was the view that greeted me

Banana, the cat, hanging out with Billy the Tractor.
(see how yellow and dead the grass is getting)

Poor Billy doesn't take too well to being left on his own all winter and come summer he never starts. His battery needs some tlc. It's our own fault, we really should give him some attention all through winter, then I'm sure he would thank us by starting in the summer!

And I couldn't resist this. I should explain. There is a chest that we keep linen in. At the moment the winter duvet is folded on top of it waiting to be put in the cupboard ( it's summer duvet time, now) Brodie thinks this is the most lovely spot to sleep, even more so now that it has some extra padding on the form of goose down! Too much cuteness!

Yesterday evening was the Santa Parade in town. It's always a really great evening out and the streets are totally packed. It's such fun. Lots of happy, smiley faces. (However, even after 6 years I still have a problem with blue skies and palm trees at Christmas, surely it should be snowing?) But I wouldn't miss this - I love it. In fact living in a triangle of 4 towns I can go to a Santa parade every weekend for a month!

And now a something that will mean nothing to anyone except me and Alison ( you know who you are! ☺ ) Thank you! You made my day... week... nah, probably my year! It was absolutely lovely of you to take the time and do what you did.

aha - now are you all intrigued!?

Meet the New Additions

2011-12-01T18:27:00.000+13:00

About 6 weeks ago we asked our stock agent to see if he could get us 10 weaner steers. The grass was all grown again and it was time. However, the market went a bit haywire and even though we contacted him a few times there was nothing doing. So after faffing around we decided that as the grass was too high now anyway and it also had a lot of carrot weed in it we would get Billy our tractor out, slash a couple of paddocks this week, let one paddock grow nice fresh grass that we'd get cut for hay in a few weeks and put calves in the other cut one. ( and leave the rest for now!) However, the best laid plans and all that!
Last night, about 7.30pm, Lloyd and I had just finished dinner when a rather large cattle truck appeared in our driveway. Lloyd wandered out to ask if he was lost, but no, he was in the right place and he had 11 wee moos for us. eh??
Turns out the stock agent was at the sales and the prices had dropped so he got in there and got us exactly what we wanted. However, he didn't tell us that.
It didn't really matter that much, as we'd done a huge check over and fix up of the fences last week in preparation so we just put them in a very long paddock for now. I'll hopefully get it cut this weekend.

They are the most gorgeous wee things, very quiet and they've been hand reared. They're charolais/dairy crosses. If we were rich we'd probably go for pure bred angus or something, but we're not - and anyway, these are pretty!

This one's my favourite, he has a wee heart.

So, they'll be with us for the next 2 years, pretty much, then they'll go to "pastures new".

Other happenings today ~ well, as it's really warming up, Brodie needed to go for a haircut. I must admit to liking it when he's all long and curly, he looks like a teddy bear. But it's far too hot, so it's off with his curls.

This is what he looked like this morning

And by afternoon it was all gone.

aw!

Is there something sillyish you've always wanted, but never had?

2011-11-30T15:52:00.001+13:00

I've always wanted a dressing table! I've never had a real one. Living on a farm I don't spend much time 'getting ready' for the day. Often I don't brush my hair for a couple of days, but if we're going out somewhere nice I do make an effort ~ and I do actually own a brush. When I was younger I used a sideboard thing, and up until today I had a mirror beside a chest of drawers, in a wee dark corner.
However, yesterday a friend pointed me in the direction of a trade me seller she thought I might like - might like!? I LOVE her! And in the background of one of her photographs was a distressed, pre-loved dressing table. I emailed her to ask if it was for sale and it was. So today we drove to have a look at it
(I was clutching the money in my sweaty little hand, so there was going to have to be something terribly wrong with it for me not to get it!)
Anyway, I loved it, so now it has a new home and at the ripe old age of 43 I have a real dressing table.

I'm thrilled!

And then, to make life complete, my magazine was waiting for me in the mailbox when we got home!

Happy days.

Feels like Summer

2011-11-28T16:54:00.000+13:00

The weather has been lovely for a few weeks now, but it's only in the last few days the heat has really kicked in and it feels like summer. It's not...yet, but the lush spring green is fading fast as we've had no rain for over three weeks, and with the heat, a few breezy days and the blue skies it doesn't take long for the ground to dry out. We're luckier than most as we have an irrigation system for the veggie garden and the farm has lots of water.

Some of the animals are really relishing the heat, though. Here's Pango having a snooze.

I chased this bee all around the chive flowers! It was having none of my nonsense and made absolutely no effort to stay still, at all. He was far too busy.

Tonight is home made pizza night, we're firing up the pizza oven and we've got some lovely Mahoe mozzarella and basil to top them with. Bliss.

It's our Wedding Anniversary!

2011-11-25T12:09:00.000+13:00

I'm so lucky, because I have the best husband in the world.

Love you Lloyd xx

Very Sad

2011-11-24T17:36:00.000+13:00

One of the boy ducks has gone.
I suppose in my heart of hearts I knew it was only a matter of time. They have taken to wandering all over the place, out of our farm, down the road, over to the neighbours, you name it they go. For a while we tried shutting the farm gate, but it made no difference as they went into the stream and swam out that way!
So I was kind of resigned to the fact that one day one or all weren't going to be there for breakfast in the morning. He's been gone for 3 days now. I think he's definitely not coming home.

Alpaca shearing time

2011-11-22T08:32:00.001+13:00

Yesterday evening our alpacas were sheared for the first time in their lives. It was something Lloyd and I weren't totally looking foreward to, mostly because we had no idea what to expect. We needent have worried ~ it all went amazingly. The shearer arrived and he was lovely, so we were off to a good start. We'd got the alpacas in the wee yard already so it was just a case of setting up the table and getting to work. The shearer was like a well oiled machine and so gentle. He explained to Lloyd and I exactly what we needed to do and off we went. They were all quiet as mice and totally calm ( except Darjeeling who had a wee moan about it all)
I was astounded by how absolutely tiny they were when their fleece was all gone.
Darjeeling is the boss so when he was up on the table I thought the other 2 would be delighted, but in fact they were rather worried about him. They came right up to the table and were sniffing him all over. Tetley even went to all the clippings ( the bits you don't use were all over the ground) and pawed at them until he'd made a pile then curled up in them, like a wee bed. I think it was like his security blanket?
So they all got a huge haircut and their toenails clipped. The toe clipping has to be done regularly, the shearing just once a year around now, before summer kicks in and they start to get very hot.
We're going to save the fleece and when we've got enough are going to get it spun and made into a blanket. I'll have to find out how much fleece we'll need for this. It's gorgeous and so, so soft.

Here's a before and after pic. Darjeeling is in the front and Earl Grey is hiding behind him.

Tetley and his wee nest ( Tetley is completely adorable)

Then this morning I went out to see them and make sure they weren't too cold. Also hoping they had forgiven us for the indignity of it all. And they had!

Tetley and Earl Grey having a cuddle

This is hysterical ~ spot the difference in the next to photos!

Darjeeling was doing his usual and hanging back... I think he looks like Bambi!

and here's the fleeces. I wish pics had a feel - they are like fluffy clouds.

As far as the fleece is concerned the best bit is the big part from round the middle of the body. The next good bit is from round the neck. The rest isn't really usable, but the shearer told me it makes great mulch as it releases nitrogen slowly. So I'll dig some of it in round the trees.

Anyway, the whole experience was so successful that we're seriously thinking of getting some more!

I've been asked to join this!

click on the picture to take you over to Frugally Sustainable for lots more lovely reads.

yesterday...

2011-11-21T09:11:00.001+13:00

...was the most lovely day. We spent the whole day with friends. Exactly what a Sunday should be.

My favourite photo of the day.

Kiwi Blokes and their barbeques.

See how we've grown

2011-11-19T10:21:00.000+13:00

The chicks are almost 2 weeks old now, and they are smaller than other chicks we've had at 2 weeks, but they're adorable. All 8 are doing incredibly well. They are so super speedy, running around all over the place. Usually I would let them out of the broody run around 2 weeks with mum, but as these ones are so small I'll definitely leave them longer. They've got feathers through and some have wee tails. I have no clue as to sex of them and as they are half araucana ( notoriously difficult to tell) I'll have to wait for ages. I'm so hoping for at least 50/50 girl boy.

Here they are yesterday evening, going to go to sleep

This one was still up and jumping around - he's probably a boy!

I think poor Mavis is getting itchy feet and would like to be out, roaming free. Poor thing.

On My Mind

2011-11-18T13:29:00.001+13:00

I'm joining in with Rhonda's Down to Earth 'On My Mind', today.

Our Dishwasher is leaking - BIG time. I know exactly what's happened as this is the second time this year - mice. The wee monsters have eaten through the second outlet pipe. Who knows what the three cats are doing, but it's not keeping the mice out ( or maybe they are and it would be worse if they weren't here) Anyway, this morning I did the dishes by hand and I actually enjoyed it. I suppose that's because there were very few. I think my enjoyment of the task would decrease rapidly if we'd had a crowd round for dinner, but for now, I don't mind.
I didn't used to have a dishwasher. When I was single ( many moons ago) I just did all the washing up by hand, this was probably because I had the smallest kitchen in the world so there was no room for a dishwasher, and also I couldn't afford one.

Nip over to Down to Earth to see what other people have on their minds.

How Lucky am I?

2011-11-16T13:06:00.000+13:00

A friend came round this morning, and not only was she bearing cakes, but she also had a pile of Uk Country Living magazines she had finished with! There are few greater gifts than Country Living back issues!!

She's very brave, I can't bear to part with mine.

I'll spend hours reading these ~ Happy Days.

The wild flowers are actually still doing beautifully. Well, I say 'wild flowers' but pretty much everything is eclipsed by poppies, vast amounts of poppies. I don't mind, though as they are so pretty.

I haven't posted any photos of the veggie garden recently, this is probably because everything is growing so slowly I'd need a huge macro lens to see anything. Also the birds have pecked out 2 tomatoes and a couple of sweetcorns - this has never happened before.

I'm at a loss as to why it's all so slow this year. The weather is pretty nice, it's warming up well, the irrigation is working, there seems no reason, I'll just have to be patient, but when I compare it to what it looked like this time last year there is no comparison. Here's hoping the summer is a long one!

A Very Blue Sky Day

2011-11-11T17:20:00.000+13:00

We woke up this morning to the bluest sky day.

Kopi Cat was sitting up on the roof of the house, sunbathing.

She really was enjoying herself. She's up here pretty much every morning. She climbs up one of the palm trees! I think she's just surveying her kingdom.

Sea swimming has started up again properly, now that we're into spring, and this morning it was a total delight. Flat calm, lovely and warm and pretty stunning. I should add that it doesn't always look like this! But here's hoping for a summer full of days of blue skies.

Yummy Victoria Sponge

2011-11-10T15:10:00.000+13:00

This makes the most lovely, moist sponge!

Ingredients

225g/8oz butter softened at room temperature
225g/8oz caster sugar
4 medium eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
225g/8oz self raising flour
milk, to loosen
Preparation method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Grease and line 2 x 18cm/7in cake tins with baking paper.
3. Cream the butter and the sugar together in a bowl until pale and fluffy.
4. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, and stir in the vanilla extract.
5. Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon, adding a little extra milk if necessary, to create a batter with a soft dropping consistency.
6. Divide the mixture between the cake tins and gently spread out with a spatula.
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
8. Remove from the oven and set aside for 5 minutes, then remove from the tin and peel off the paper. Place onto a wire rack.
9. Sandwich the cakes together with jam, lemon curd or whipped cream and berries or just enjoy on its own.
  
  There's not a whole lot left today, but I did send a lot up to work with Lloyd!
And what can you do with a bowl that has a teeny bit of whipped cream left?

Cuteness Overload!

2011-11-07T13:14:00.000+13:00

The chicks are doing great. All 8 of them are out and about from under mum and exploring their wee home. I'll open the door of the nesting bit they're in, maybe tomorrow, to let them explore further, then in about 3 weeks they'll get out properly. Maybe a bit longer as they seem to be super tiny. I'm not one of those brave folk that let their chicks wander around with the big ones from day one. I'm a terrible wimp and keep them with their mum in their own enclosure until they are a bit bigger and a lot less fragile looking. It obviously works as I've never lost a chick yet. I shouldn't have said that, as now I'm totally tempting fate. Forget I mentioned it!
Now... let me introduce you...

Oh look, I've got a tiny sawdust hat on.

" So, anyway, I said to her...."

"No, you didn't"

What is this thing?

Oh, it my foot, excellent.

Now, if I hide right in the middle, here, she'll never see me. Will she?

Who doesn't love wee baby chicks!

2011-11-06T13:41:00.001+13:00

Mavis and King Bertie have done themselves proud. Eight eggs hatched! I am delighted. Firstly because I had no idea if they were fertile or not and secondly because it's a really great hatch rate! 90% give or take!!
They are all mostly black with varying degrees of white on them. Just little bits, and the cutest wee things ever. I state the obvious in the video and say there's only 4 out. The other four were under Mavis.

wee melting moments

2011-11-05T15:40:00.000+13:00

A little while ago I made some melting moments. I made some more today, but this time I made them half the size, much more dainty looking, and added more lemon juice to the creamy filling. I think they are even more yummy!

I'm pretty sure they won't last long.

Oh and do you remember that Mavis is sitting on eggs? Well they were fertile and some of them are hatching as I type! Nature being nature, I'm sure they won't all hatch, but I can hear cheeping and I saw one wee, tiny greyish, blackish head peeking out! By tomorrow morning I'll be able to tell how many of the nine hatched. Please keep fingers and toes crossed.

Quackers

2011-11-04T17:00:00.001+13:00

I am really pleased by how happy the boy ducks seem to be. I was a bit worried about just keeping three boys with no girls for them to hang out with, but they're fine. Inseparable, but fine.

They're very content to wander round the garden, go swimming in the stream and our neighbours pond (thankfully the neighbours love them as much as we do) and lie under the table on the deck.

They are a joy.

The potatoes that Silje planted a while back are coming on brilliantly. We've had a fair amount of rain so lots of things are growing like crazy. Brilliant for the potatoes. Shame the same can't be said about the veggie garden. It seems to be growing terribly slowly. I was chatting to one of the growers at the market a couple of weeks ago and she was also saying everything is so slow to get going this year. I planted my seeds a month earlier than last year, yet they are much much further behind.

Still, the view from my potting shed window is quite nice so I don't really mind that half my seedlings are too small to go outside and are still trying to grow in there. I do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in the new potting shed.

I'm still trying to get my blogging mojo back. I have no idea where it's hiding!

Pretty

2011-10-30T22:20:00.000+13:00

We had R&V round for dinner last night. It was V's birthday so we had a surf and turf treat. It was such a lovely night.

I even picked the first bunch of roses!

Gorgeousness!

2011-10-27T16:53:00.000+13:00

It really is one of my favourite times of year! I've just been mooching around the garden taking photos and the main thing that struck me is the smell. ( ok not too fabby for hayfever sufferers ~ my nose is permanently blocked right now!) But apart from that!

The balustrade round the house is covered in wisteria. It looks beautiful and smells gorgeous. This was a gift from our lovely neighbour for all the eggs I gave her. I'd mentioned how pretty the white wisteria was round their stunning house and next thing I knew there was a very pretty wisteria plant on our deck. She said I'd be cursing her in a couple of years as it would go haywire - but I'm not. With some pruning ~ little and often ~ it's no bother at all.

The first of my roses are blooming. I was going to get some darker, dusky pink ones this year, but I totally forgot and now's not the right time to plant them, so I'll have to try harder to remember next year. Doh.

This is my favourite, it's either True Love or Aotearoa I can't remember which.

We have a pom pom/snowball bush that we planted last year and it's pom poming all over the place. It's so cute.

I feel I've been terribly lax with the blog recently. First excuse was that the mums were here and we were just too busy and now the excuse is the weather has suddenly got amazing and there's so much to do in the garden. Then with the good weather comes all the other lovely things to do, like boating and diving, dinner at friends houses, barbeques, outings to the beach. I have no idea how we're going to fit everything in this summer.

However, the most pressing thing on the 'to do' list right now is fencing. Our grass is going haywire so it's almost time to buy some new baby moos. But before we do this there's a fair amount of chainsawing to be done. Fallen trees make short work of breaking fences. So after the chainsawing there's the fixing of the fences that said trees fell on top of and squished. I suppose we need to make a start on that this weekend.

Lovely

2011-10-27T10:15:00.000+13:00

Woke up this morning to yet another glorious day. It really feels like spring now and it's warming up nicely.

All my wee seedlings are finally looking like they are actually growing and I've got quite a lot in the veggie garden now. I've also been sorting out the irrigation ~ which is an absolute necessity during the summer months.

Yesterday we went diving. Got up nice and early and were out on the water by 8am. As usual, the bay was just beautiful and the diving spectacular.

Dan caught an octopus. He took it up to let Lloyd see it, then we put it back and it swam off, quite the thing!

It's Labour Weekend

2011-10-22T13:46:00.000+13:00

Which means it's a holiday. It's also the traditional time for planting out your veggie seedlings. And also, as usual, it's gorgeous. I think every Labour Weekend since we arrived in New Zealand has been gorgeous. So far I've spent the whole day out in the veggie garden. Loving every second of it.
I've planted out all the different beans, my one tomato that's big enough, and lots of sweetcorn. The gem squash and the courgettes. It's looking good. And the potatoes are coming up beautifully.

I love this time of year in the garden, everything is bursting back into life ( including the weeds, of course)

Down the garden path...

Even the ducks seem to be chatting about how lovely it is today. I wonder if they get a long weekend holiday as well?

After faffing around I thought I should pick some of the broad beans - we love broad beans. I may have overdone it somewhat.

Might have to freeze some!

Out and About in the Garden

2011-10-20T14:44:00.000+13:00

Finally, we have sun and blue skies. They've been an awful long time coming.
I've been mowing the grass all morning then I went to check on Mavis. She's gone broody and is sitting very peacefully on 9 (hopefully) fertile eggs I gave her. Usually I get heritage breed fertile eggs when I have a broody chicken as it's nice to keep these old breeds going. But this year I have King Bertie and I'd like to know if he's fertile or not ~ just for interests sake, and I think some of the crosses I have might make for interesting looking wee chickens! I mean how about a silver laced wyandotte and an araucana cross? Could be fun.
Here she is ... growling at me.

I have high hopes that she's going to be a good mum. I've never had a broody that has sat so tightly on her eggs before. Time will tell. They are due to hatch on the 6th November.

Some trees are almost fully in leaf now, while others are still bare. This tiny pin oak was Lloyd's christmas present from me last year. I love how miniscule the leaves are. To give an idea these are perfectly formed and around half a cm long.

And I know it's early but look! A strawberry, and it's almost ready. Lloyd was given a few strawberry plants from friends for his birthday. I admitted that I had never grown them as I didn't really like them, but Lloyd does. So it's a treat for him. I potted them up in hanging baskets as I had the veggie garden all planned and didn't really have room for strawberries. It seems to be working really well.

and, what I think are some of the most beautiful flowers, pink daisies. They are out in force now. I love how simple they are.

Melting moments/Yoyos

2011-10-19T14:11:00.000+13:00

We took the mums down to Auckland yesterday and waved them off. As usual we can't believe how quickly their trip went. We had such plans, but the weather was against us for a lot of their stay so things like kiwi watching and boating have been put off until next time.
We did, however, have an amazing time while they were here. We even got them into watching the rugby.
Hopefully my mum will be back in February and Lloyd's parents will come out again soon as well.

So, today is the first day I've been home alone for three weeks. I gave the house a right good clean, then it was a choice between mowing the lawns or making melting moments. Melting moments won - not least because it came on torrential rain. ( story of the last month !)

Here's what I did.

Recipe

for biscuit

Preheat oven to 150

and line a large baking tray

190g butter - softened

60g icing sugar

1 vanilla pod

38g cornflour

210g plain flour

Put icing sugar, butter and vanilla into a bowl and either beat or use your hands until it's all smooth.

Add cornflour and combine with buttery mixture. I used my hands.

Add the flour and blend well.

By now a lovely ball of dough should have formed.

Using your hands roll the mixture into either 40 small balls or 20 larger ones - I did 20 larger ones.

Then using a glass slightly flatten the balls then use a fork to press them down.

Put in the preheated oven for 20 - 30 minutes. The base should be getting just a hint of colour.

Cool on the tray for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Filling

150g icing sugar

45g softened butter

3 1/2 tea spoons lemon juice

Beat these ingredients together until smooth.

Put around a teaspoon of the filling onto the flat side of one of the biscuits then top with another.

Voila !

Normal service will be resumed...

2011-10-15T09:28:00.000+13:00

SOON.

I promise !

Kerikeri Basin

2011-10-10T09:49:00.000+13:00

We had a nice, calm day yesterday. We all wandered around the Sunday Farmers Market in Kerikeri then went down to the Basin to go to the Stone Store - which is lovely, and Kemp House.

There's also a great art installation down in the inlet - a giant plug!

It's been done by a local artist called Helen Jean and we think it's totally brilliant!

Lloyd's Birthday Party.

2011-10-08T16:53:00.000+13:00

It was Lloyd's party last night and I have to say it was absolutely brilliant. It was fancy dress and if people wanted to they could come as cowboys. indians and superheroes! We cleared the furniture in the woolshed so that there was a large dance area and put the sofas over to the side and made a sort of chill out area.

We were so, so lucky because the weather has been absolutely horrible, but when we got up in the morning the sky was actually blue and the sun was shining!

We blew up balloons and hung them from the blossom trees.

Nick came round in the morning and helped to get things organised. ( he's so lovely!)

It took us all day. People could arrive from 5pm onwards and at 2 minutes to 5 we were still in the woolshed, not even in our fancy dress costumes.

So we zoomed to the house and got ready.

Lloyd went as Superman and I went as a Pocahontas sort of thing.

Cheesiest grins ever!

There were a lot of cowboys and some very glamorous cowgirls!

Dione, Richard Poppy, Milli and Ness.

~~Lloyd and Judy~~ Superman and Wonderwoman.

Everyone went to so much bother with their costumes it was amazing.

As the night wore on there was an awful lot of dancing. Lloyd had even got a disco ball ( so cool!) It was such a brilliant night.

Who says cowboys and indians don't get on??

We got to bed about 2.30am - unheard of for us - I usually go to bed about 9.30. Amazingly, in the morning, our heads were still intact and so were those of our friends who had stayed over. I have no idea how we all managed this.

Everyone said what a great time they'd had and I was just so happy for Lloyd. He's having a lovely birthday and it's great to have the mums here to help celebrate it!

Spring is well and truly sprung.

2011-10-04T15:02:00.000+13:00

Auckland Trip

2011-10-02T10:30:00.000+13:00

It was a flying visit of an overnighter, but we packed a lot in.
We were really keen to see what's going on down at the Waterfront for the RWC and we weren't disappointed. The work that has gone on down at the quays is amazing. They've built quite a lot new things, some permanent like bars and restaurants and some temporary like the "cloud' and the rugby ball.

This is one of the pedestrian areas down at the Quay.

The Cloud - it's a temporary structure especially for the Rugby World Cup. Read more here

Along the pedestrian areas are play parks for children, sculptures, bars, restaurants and there are plans for apartments.

They've used a lot of lighting effects to make things look really interesting at night.

Finally, the famous rugby ball!

So that was Wednesday night. It was lovely because we met up with a friend who is away working on super yachts. His boat happened to be in Auckland when we were down so we all had dinner together - lovely to see you, Tom!

On Thursday we were picking up the mums but had all morning to do whatever we wanted. We had a lovely breakfast of eggs benedict and then decided, as it was such a lovely day, we'd go to Cromwell Park and up One Tree Hill to see the views of Auckland from the top. It was great and here we are at the summit.

Then it was time to drive to the airport and get the mums! It's great to see them. ( the weather is now beyond rubbish though!)

The Mums

2011-09-30T23:24:00.000+13:00

are in the building!
Well, they've arrived. All safe and well.

Lloyd and I had a wonderful overnight trip to Auckland thrown in. I shall write more once I've stopped rushing around and catch up with myself!

The A to Z of me

2011-09-27T11:28:00.000+13:00

Sue over at Living the good life posted an A to Z of me this morning and I thought it was great! So here goes mine.

A=Age; 43 and a bit. ( I typed that as 41 ~ does that mean I wish I was 41??)

B=Bed size; King, cos sometimes we share it with huge dogs.

C=Chore that you hate; cleaning the fridge. Mainly because I know I need to do it and right now would probably be good!

D=Dogs; Bob, Brodie and Tallulah who are all labradoodles, but Tallulah was a rescue and tbh even though it says on her card shes one we highly doubt it.

E=Essential start to you day; Loo, coffee or tea and a slice of toast.

F= Favourite colour; probably a sort of duck egg blue

G=Gold or silver; Silver ( or platinum!)

H= Height; 5ft 3in or 160cm
but with these on I am much taller

I=- Instruments you play; I play the coconut shells to make donkey clip clop noises rather spectacularly.

J=Job title; Farmer/gardener

K-Kids; none, just the dogs

L=Live; I was Born in Aberdeen in the NE of Scotland but now I live in New Zealand.

M=Mother's name; Denise

N=Nickname; My family and school friends all call me Lo. My dad still thinks it's hilarious to say "Hi, Lo"

O=Overnight hospital stays; Never once. Probably for this reason, hospitals scare me.

P=Pet peeves; em em em em the amount of fluff Bob Dog sheds all over the place. Lloyd has made me feel slightly better about this by telling me that he's just spreading the love.

Q=Quotes from a film; I think there's just one kind of folk. Folks. Scout - To Kill a Mockingbird.
May I admire you again today? ~ duckie in pretty in pink - what can I say, I'm a teenager of the 80's

R=Right or left handed; I'm a total lefty!

S= Siblings; One brother who I really miss cos he's so far away.

T=Time you wake up; 6.30am on a usual day. 5am on a swimming day.

U=Underwear; Marks and Spencer cotton pants!

V=Vegetable I hate: beetroot. It tastes like mud.

W=What makes you run late; disorganisation

X=Xrays you've had; ankle x ray, lots of chest x rays as when I was injected with TB stuff I was allergic to it. Didnt need to get that horrible big booster, but I did need to go for chest x rays for about 5 years.

Y=Yummy food that you make; pavlova

Z=Zoo animals; Not so keen on zoos. But understand the good they can do. My old dive club in Scotland used to clean out the penguin pool at Edinburgh zoo.

A Present for the Chickens

2011-09-26T15:37:00.000+13:00

I have a wooden 'chooketeria' that my chickens eat their food out of. It's one of those feeders that has a step and when the chickens stand on it the door opens and their food is free! I tend to have the feeder in their house so it's not out in the elements. I now have a lot more chickens, and it's been so successful that I decided to get another one. This time I went for a metal one ( it may be aluminium?) as I thought this may be more durable . It remains to be seen how long it takes them to master it. It took them months to learn when I got the first one. I really hope they learn quicker this time round. (Oh and if you think that if they can use the old one, surely that can use the new one? Think again! I may as well have put an alien space craft in the chicken run!)

Anyway, here they are, pretending to use it.

Next... the signs I made a couple of days ago are all up in the right places.

I'm really pleased with them. I think it helped that I found an old bit of wood to paint on.

And finally more flowers!
It's spring...sorry!

Everything is bursting into flower, bud and leaf. My favourite time of year.

My New Pride and Joy

2011-09-24T12:18:00.005+12:00

I have a lovely husband, and when a 'room' that we had been using for storage became available because we emptied it, he arranged for our ace builder, Matt, to come and put in a huge window ( which we already had) and put on a new door ( which we already had.)

This would then become my Potting Shed.

I have a potting shed!!

and...

I LOVE it!

From the outside - the 'Potting Shed' sign I just painted is going to hang on the door.

And from the inside

What do you mean you've never seen a chandelier in a potting shed??

It still looks very bare, but I'm sure I can fill it. I've got lots of NZ Gardner Magazines and gardening books to put on some of the empty shelves.

I'm just painting some more signs - one for the Wood Shed and one for the Tool Shed.

Spring is definitely here with a vengence.

One of my favourite spring things is the kowhai flowering - it's only a matter of time until the Tuis and Kererus find it.

oh and I've just been out in the garden and collected these.

I know, I know, the asparagus is small, but I couldn't resist.

Guess what we're having for dinner, tonight?

2011-09-21T14:49:00.000+12:00

WARNING! Don't look if you're squeamish of shell fish and the like.

We went out diving this morning with Dan. Lloyd was safety boatman and Dan and I dived.

First dive was a scallop dive. These are pretty boring dives as scallops like a sandy bottom, so there's never much to see and you spend all your time rummaging around in the sand. However, after 50 minutes we got our quota ( well I reckon Dan got about 2/3rds of it) I was also freezing. A 2mm swimming wetsuit is still a little too thin for spring diving!

You are allowed 20 scallops per diver and 20 for the boat person. They also have to be of a specific size, so we have a measurer thingy.

Dan and Lloyd ate 2 each raw, sashimi style.

It was a stunning day. The water was flat as a pancake and it was lovely and sunny.

The second dive was MUCH more interesting. It was a forest of kelp with drop offs, loads of nooks and crannies - perfect for crayfish. On a crayfish dive I am the bag handler and Dan is the catcher. This is ~~mainly~~ purely because I am rubbish at catching them, but I make a right good bag holder upper!

Dan got a huge cray within seconds of us dropping down. By fluke we had found the most amazing spot, which will forever be the three of us's ( yeah that's a word!) secret.

We saw lots of sting rays as well.

We got three more very quickly but they all had eggs so you put them back. After that we found a few crevices that were absolutely packed with cray fish, but a lot of them were too small so we didn't even try to get them.

Eventually after a lot of scooting around in the kelp - it was such a great dive - Dan found one more. So that meant there was one each. Yippee!

It's a real feeling of satisfaction actually collecting your own food like this. It makes it even more special.

And by lunch time we were home.

Dinner

Kit you need to catch dinner!

Thunder!

2011-09-19T13:42:00.000+12:00

We've just had a warning for severe thunderstorms - don't think the warning was necessary, all we had to do was look out of the window to see the clouds and use our listening skills to hear the thunder as it crashes overhead!

I adore a good thunder storm!

Around the garden this morning.

2011-09-18T09:08:00.000+12:00

After a breakfast of the most amazing scrambled eggs ( I truly do have the best chickens in the world!) I went for a wee wander around the garden.

and......

We have asparagus! This bed is now 2 years old. Last year I didn't pick any so all the energy could go back into the crowns. This year there are actually some really good, strong looking spears, so I reckon asparagus is on the cards for tomorrow night's dinner. If I look after this bed well it should keep us in asparagus for the next 15 years.

The potatoes are in, thanks to Silje who planted them all for us. Hasn't she done an amazing job. Hopefully when they come back in November she'll see the plants!

The wild flower bed is already blooming, Far too early, I reckon as I've no idea if there will be anything left by summer. Lesson learned! Sow the seeds much later next year.
The poppies are beautiful though.

Wee Kopi Cat always follows me around the garden. Here she is keeping watch, guarding the veggie patch.

Oh and on a totally different note!

We went over to Russell for the Oyster Festival yesterday. It was really good and amazingly the rain stayed off. AND the Tongan world cup rugby team came too. The children at the local primary school welcomed them as they got off the ferry with a haka and some singing. Then the team signed lots of autographs.

it was really cool.

I have to admit to sort of liking rugby, I've been to a few games and also worked in a rugby club bar when I was a student, but I am amazed by how caught up in the World Cup I've got. New Zealand is putting on an amazing show and really making us all proud to live here. The visiting teams have all been completely embraced in the most lovely way. Yes, we all feel very happy right now!

It's the little things...

2011-09-15T17:02:00.000+12:00

A friend sent me this and it totally made my day.
Thank you, Helen
xx

Rain and wind! Typical spring weather.

2011-09-14T08:57:00.000+12:00

We've also had a bit of thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure.

I'm not complaining, though, as the rain has kick started the grass back into life and finally it's growing again. Whew! We may be able to get some new calves sooner than I thought.

We've had a couple of Helpexers here for the last 10 days or so. Silje and Jon from Norway and we are seriously considering not letting them leave tomorrow. They have worked so hard for us it's been a joy to have them around. They are totally lovely, really funny and Silje is a great cook!

They have a brill blog HERE of their travels so far. It's in Norwegian, of course, but if you do THIS it will translate into English, cos I don't know about you, but my Norwegian is ~~a little rusty~~ non- existent!

We will miss them big time, but hopefully they will come back for a wee holiday before they go back to Norway! ( please come back, guys!)

I am heading down to Whangarei tonight for one of the Rugby World Cup matches. Canada v Tonga. I'm very excited about it!

Spring is still springing..

I think I may have seeded out the wild flower bed too early this year, as already poppys are flowering! If they keep this up there'll be no flowers for summer.

Oh and, very exciting, Lloyd's mum and my mum are arriving in 2 weeks! Yippee!

Chickens are funny!

2011-09-10T19:18:00.001+12:00

I have three chicken houses. The big one, and 2 little ones. The 2 little ones I really use as broody houses, but now that I have 13 laying chickens I like to give them a bit of variety for where they might like to lay their eggs so I opened up one of the broody houses for them. It would seem they rather like it - in fact they like it better than their lovely big house...

I should explain...first pic is Maude in the nesting box laying an egg - see her grey feathers - she's coming up for 5 now but still laying almost every day.

Second pic is Mathilda and Abigail queuing to get in and lay in the same nesting box.

I should point out that there are actually 2 nesting boxes in this house, but only one of them will do!

Third pic is Mathilda and Abigail, with Gertrude and Mabel joining the queue!

Geraldine is the sensible one - she's laying her egg in the lovely big house. She's filthy because she was just having a dust bath.

King Bertie is just bemused by the whole thing and who can blame him.

Rugby World Cup fever!

2011-09-10T09:06:00.000+12:00

New Zealand is hosting the Rugby World Cup this year.
Rugby is like a religion in NZ and the All Blacks are gods! This is a HUGE deal for everyone here.
Northland, where we live, is hosting the Tongan, Japanese and Canadian teams. With these three teams having red flags the towns have gone for a "Paint it Red' theme and there are all the national flags flying alongside the silver fern and the New Zealand flag. The Canadian team have been busy travelling round local schools. It's been really lovely.
I am going down to the Big Smoke ( Whangarei) on Wednesday to watch Tonga play Canada.

Last night was the opening ceremony and it made me so proud to be a McKiwi. It was simply amazing.
These photos are all from the part of the ceremony that was down at the waterfront in Auckland. I took them with my iphone from the tv!!

The firework display was amazing.
Then there was the opening match. The All Blacks v Tonga. The opening haka and the sipi tau from the Tongans were brilliant! All Blacks won.

Spring is most definitely here.

2011-09-08T17:43:00.000+12:00

Which is lovely, as I always find winter long. It's not like we even had a particularly bad one or anything. There was a terribly wet, soggy spell for a few weeks. but that was it. However, I always feel much happier when spring is here.
The best thing about this spring is something I spied yesterday when I was in the garden.
Can you guess what it is?

It's avocado blossom!! Our three avocado trees that we panted as little sticks, 2 years ago actually have lots of blossom on them this year! I so hope some turn into wee avocados!

The peach tree in the chicken run is bursting into flower as well - because the chickens roost up this tree it gets the most amazing amount of fertilizer. To thank the chooks for this is grows about 10 feet every year ( not kidding - I have to prune it in half each autumn) and is absolutely laden with fruit. It has the most beautiful, delicate pink blossom.

The plum trees are absolutely covered as well - so it looks like we're going to have a bumper fruit crop. Yippee.

and here's another 'guess what'?

It's a spring onion seed head! If you let a couple go to seed you'll end up with lots of wee spring onions self seeding!
It's a beautiful evening, which is just as well as our helpxers had the day off today and headed way up north in our trusty old jeep, however it turns out she's not so trusty today and has broken down/overheated way,way north of Kaitaia. Oh dear. They are in the process of limping down to Kaitaia so they can meet Lloyd at work and he can take them home. They're not having much luck as yesterday Sillje fell and cut her hand quite badly on a ceramic jar - I zoomed her to the medical centre and she got it all bandaged up so I really hoped that they would have a nice day today as they are the loveliest of people.
Bum!

Bob

2011-09-06T18:10:00.000+12:00

It's Bob's birthday on the 8th.

He'll be 8

He's my baby.

I love him more than I ever thought it possible to love something that isn't a human.

I call this Nut Pate

2011-09-03T06:54:00.001+12:00

But it's not really just nuts, it's more like nut, seed and garlic pate.

This has been a favourite of mine for about 20 years, going back to when I was a pretendy vegetarian. ( I didn't eat red meat or pork for around 15 years)

Anyway, I got the recipe from the chef on an old fishing boat that had been converted to a dive boat. A group of us went diving, way up the west coast of Scotland in the most horrendous weather ever. I do have very fond memories of the 'lock-in' at the MishNish on Tobermory though, but that's a totally different story!

We ate very well on the boat and I think most of us came away with this recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups cashew nuts

1 cup pumpkin seeds

1 cup sunflower seeds

1 cup vegetable stock

salt and pepper to taste.

Garlic (in my younger, more adventurous days I was known to put in around 8 cloves - this just about blew everyone's heads off. Now I put in 2 and it's enough. You can just put in however much you like.)

Put the seeds, garlic (chopped) and nuts into a blender and blend.

Add one cup of veg stock, salt and pepper and blend again.Then add some hot water - about half to one cup until mixture is sort of globby.

Let cool. It will set a little.

Now I realise that this doesn't sound that spectacular, but it is totally delicious and so simple.

Especially yummy on buttered toast.

The Yellowest Mayonnaise

2011-09-02T12:13:00.000+12:00

On my sidebar you'll see a recipe for speedy mayonnaise. It is a great recipe ( stolen from Masterchef Australia) but it has one huge pitfall. It doesn't always work. Even if you do exactly the same thing each time. We decided this wasn't great as it wasted eggs and oil, so we went back to the good old fashioned way of egg yolks, oil, a touch of vinegar, salt and mustard with the loooooong, sloooooow drizzle/mix method, and this does really work, every time.

My wee chookies are doing us proud and laying like they're all having a wee competition between themselves. We can hardly give the eggs away fast enough, so today I've been making a pavlova for a doggy birthday party, tomorrow (it's for the humans!) with egg whites, and with the yolks I made the yellowest mayonnaise.

I could, however, have used a smaller jar!

A job well done.

2011-08-31T16:05:00.001+12:00

We've extended the chicken run numerous times as I've added more chickens to my collection. We have gates so we can close off areas to let the grass grow again that way they have something tasty to eat ( along with their proper diet that I feed them, of course!)

For a wee while we've been planning to section off another area, it's the smallest part of the run, perfect for sectioning off to plant some of the King's seeds "Chicken Greens" ~ this is a mix of seeds that will turn into nice tasty green things that chickens love. You can plant them in trays then take them out of the run to recover, but we went for the plant them in the run idea, with the plan that we'll close that part off to let the plants recover once they've been noshed a bit.

Today we put in the new gate and built the little fence. It wasn't a huge job and we didn't have to buy a thing. We reused an old gate and an old post and we had left over chicken wire from the last run expansion!

You can see we flipped the gate so it was taller.

I dug up a wee bit so that the chickens would scratch around and break up the soil a bit before I plant the seeds in the next couple of days. The packet seems very full of seeds, but I don't know how much of this area it'll cover - we shall see!

We screwed on recycled gudgeon thingies and hung it from an existing post that just happened to be in the right place. Then we cemented in a second post and made a new bit of fence. It didn't take that long and it's just what we wanted. The chickens tried to help but were pretty useless!

Heres a bit more of the run. You can see 2 gates - these close off the area in front of where I was standing so all the kikuyu grass can grow again. The green leafy plants in front are actually huge weeds, but the chickens love them to have dust baths under and lie around in the shade.

Oh and this has nothing to do with chickens, but the camillias are still flowering and I love this one.

Twin Coasts Cycle Trail

2011-08-28T17:34:00.001+12:00

We made the most of the stunning weather and got out on our bikes with Danny and Paula and did part of the Twin Coasts Cycle Trail today. On the map in the link we did B to C, but we did there AND back. I am not a cyclist, in fact the last time I was on a bike I was probably about 16, so I really thought I hadn't a hope of managing a 28km cycle, but I did it and I completely surprised myself by actually enjoying it! Who'd have thought.

All set to go, after a little seat adjustment.

Lloyd just about to set off

Me just about to set off - check out my appropriate cycling gear! ( totally clueless)

Dead bikes! ( we really must get some stands for ours)

Some Maori carvings to mark the start of the route.

We live right where the trail is, but have never seen the scenery from this angle before and it's really gorgeous. Lake Omapere was still and blue today ( usually its sludgy brown and wavy!) It was incredibly hot, bearing in mind it's still winter ( yeah, I know!)

In the background is Te Ahu Ahu volcanic cone, it's extinct, thankfully!

We discovered a nifty new use for a water bottle holder - WINE bottle holder!

As the trail is mostly along an old railway line it's not got a lot of hilly bits in it so ~ allegedly ~ it's a fairly easy cycle. The only steep bit is right at the start and because we did there and back it meant the very last part was a steep uphill. ( I had to walk a bit, that was when I could actually still walk, I am now sitting down and am afraid I won't be able to stand up again for quite some time)

For anyone who lives up in this area I would highly recommend it, it's a great afternoon out and children could easily do it - if I can anyone can. It's had such a lot of work go into it it would be a terrible shame if it didn't get used.

We're going to do it again, I just need to get a wicker basket for the front of my bike and I'm set!

Edna laid her first egg!

2011-08-25T15:16:00.000+12:00

And it is absolutely miniscule - only slightly larger than a quails egg but perfectly formed.

I thought she was going to lay soon as a couple of days ago she was sitting on top of Maude when she was in the nesting box laying her egg. Maude was completely unfazed.

Edna's sister Mavis hasn't laid anything yet, so perhaps it won't be long now.

The chickens are doing amazingly. Up until today I had 10 laying chickens - some of which are 4 years old now and more often that not I was getting 9 or 10 egg a day! Now there's 11 laying. Good old Edna.

This is Edna, she's a beautiful Silver Laced Wyandotte

And Mavis, her sister, a gold laced Wyandotte.

Here's some of the other's having a wee snack, King Bertie's bottom, Elizabeth and Gertrude.

Two days worth of eggs!

Best day.

2011-08-21T20:56:00.000+12:00

We were lucky enough to go out on "TB" today and had the most spectacular time. Good friends, good food, amazing weather, calm seas and to make it even more perfect, a dive thrown in!

We organised our lovely neighbour to come in and let the dogs out, he also played with them so much that they are all totally crashed out.

We left in the morning and drove to Whangaroa - which is a stunning harbour and tiny village. We lugged all our provisions and my super heavy dive kit down to the boat and set off with perfect blue skies above us.

Nick and Dan

We cruised out to the Cavalli Islands and once we got there Dan and I went in for a dive while everyone else lazed around in the sun and most likely had a glass of wine!

The dive was absolutely stunning. Lots of wee crevices, lovely underwater landscape, lots of Moray eels, stingrays and huge shoals of fish swimming around us. Magical.

Doing our buddy check

I've dived a lot, I learned in Scotland more years ago than I care to admit, and have done 100's of dives but this was my first dive in a couple of years and I was using some new kit, so I was a little nervous. I needn't have worried, Dan was the perfect dive buddy and I loved my new kit instantly.

I need to explain this photo - on the boat there is a hot shower at the back - this is the height of luxury! Dan was so cold he stuck the shower down into his wetsuit to warm up!

After the dive we had a great lunch and chatted on the deck in the sun. Today was so lovely and perfect I had to pinch myself!

The Cavallis

Danny

Sara

Dan

Lloyd and Nick!

I feel I have absolutely nothing to say!

2011-08-19T14:09:00.001+12:00

Since we got back I've been totally exhausted. But not at 2am! Wide awake then. Which makes it incredibly difficult to get up in the mornings.

The weather has been cold but absolutely stunning, so I've been getting a lot done in the garden, but boring stuff to write about; like grass mowing, weeding, a bit of spraying, all necessary but hardly makes for scintillating conversation!

It is, however, lovely to be home.

Spring is in the air.

The blossom is beginning to appear on some of the early trees

But, because of the cold we have absolutely no grass. We've got a lot of kikuyu grass, it grows really well in Northland and is originally from Africa, I think. However if it gets too cold it dies, well sort of goes to sleep. The green top bits go completely brown and crispy but it's still alive underground as it shoots back into life in spring. At the moment we have paddock after paddock of brown crispy stuff. Thank goodness we sold the beef cattle and re-homed the highlands.

I even had to move the donkeys and alpacas into a bigger paddock yesterday. The donkeys were cool as cucumbers, having been in this paddock many times before, the alpacas, however went absolutely scatty!

It was brilliant. First they went for a wee explore then they just put their heads down and ran, and ran, and ran! The wind was blowing in their faces and I swear they were laughing their heads off. It was an absolute joy to watch.

So that's just what I did, sat down in the paddock and watched.

For ages!

Getting organised for Spring

2011-08-16T14:06:00.001+12:00

Before we went on holiday I got myself organised, made pots then planted out my veggie seeds for this years garden. Since I got the wee portable greenhouses last year I realised I could get the seeds in much earlier and get a really good head start come spring.

I planted a lot of heritage tomato seeds, lots of chillis, courgettes, various different beans, gem squash, sweetcorn and aubergines.

Come real spring I'll also plant some things straight into the ground, like peas, broad beans, lettuces and stuff like that.

After several years of veggie growing I've sort of worked out what works best for us and what we actually use.

Like this year I have planted 3 times as much sweetcorn as last year as it was a huge success and we could eat every last one.

Barlotti and snake beans

A courgette breaking through. This is actually the slowest one, the others all have leaves already.

Lots of sweetcorn this year. I think I've planted about 20 and all bar one have come up.

Leafy courgette

I'm hoping we may even have edible asparagus from the new asparagus bed. I'll keep you posted on that one.

Now, the rest of New Zealand is pretty much covered in snow, they've even had some in Auckland which is pretty unheard of. We've never had snow up here, ever. Which is a little sad for me as I love snow.

However we just had a hail storm for about 30 seconds and that was pretty cool!

It is bitterly cold, though. Probably the coldest we've ever had in the six years we've lived here so we are making good use of this...

We went through that much wood yesterday afternoon!

A lot.

Bali trip

2011-08-15T18:03:00.004+12:00

We got home last night totally exhausted. The house was freezing as NZ is having it's coldest weather in living memory! Dog cuddles soon warmed us up though.

Bali is not a particularly easy place to get to from new Zealand and by the time we got home we'd been on the go for over 40 straight hours. We got home about midnight, exhausted, and woke up this morning at 1/4 to 10!!

Anyway, more about Bali.

I did no research at all before we went. Lloyd had been before so I was just going with the flow. However, in my head Bali was all tropical jungle with monkeys jumping around, inland and lovely beaches on the coast. It was unspoiled, quiet and had little fishing villages dotted around the place. This was what I thought Bali was like before I went, so I got a bit of a shock!

First thing to hit me when we got off the plane was the humidity and heat. This wasn't a surprise and I had been expecting it. The second thing was the amount of people, cars and mopeds. Everywhere. I wasn't expecting that.

We were driven to Ubud. This is a town in the centre of Bali and is often regarded as the cultural capital. It's a very artsy crafty place and has some amazing architecture. It's actually 14 little villages all joined together with lots of rice paddy fields round the edges. The main part is very busy, and even though there is a lot of traffic on the small narrow roads it does feel laid back and somewhat serene! This may have something to do with the Balinese people who are totally lovely and all the incense burning everywhere.

We had booked a lovely villa to stay in, there were four of us travelling together, Lloyd, me, Lloyd's friend of many years, Chris and Dan, so we thought the villa way would be nicer than hotels. I think we made the right decision.

The villa in Ubud was stunning. When we got there our first thought was "why are we only staying here for three nights?"

If anyone is interested we stayed in Villa Di Abing

And it was gorgeous.

We now had a few days of exploring Ubud. First stop was the spa next door. Massages are quite the thing in Bali, so when in Bali... It was rather excellent.

After that we were relaxed and up for anything.

Everything is walking distance, but it is hot so it's a slow walking pace - well for me it was.

One of my highlights was the Monkey forest where there are, quite literally, monkeys everywhere, and it was brilliant.

( I couldn't get the baby one to keep still)

We spent a lot of time just wandering the streets and exploring. Obviously we had to stop and eat sometimes and one place we wanted to go was Bu-Oka

Rick Stein and Anthony Bourdain have both eaten here and said it was the best pork and crackling ever - I tend to agree.

We went to Tegallalang to see the rice terraces and this was another highlight.

Also drank some Kopi Luwak coffee, it's the one that's made from beans that a civet has eaten, supposedly choosing only the best beans, then pooped out!

Well it just tasted like coffee to me.

We had one 'blow out' meal - it was the birthday clebration meal, so we booked a restaurant called Mozaic. It's a multi award winning restaurant and I could see why. It was amazing and amazingly expensive.

But what an experience.

So, I loved Ubud.

Next we were off to Lombok for three nights. Lombok is an island off the coast of Bali and is about an hour and a half by boat. ( but a day of travelling!)

We were staying at Santai in incredibly basic, grass huts. No hot water, no shower, just a pitcher of freezing water which was placed above head height and to get a shower you simply removed a stopper and the water gushed out... freezing. Got used to it pretty quickly. ( and it is so, so inexpensive!)

Nice view, though!

There were communal meals at night and the food was lovely. It was also nice sitting with all the other guests and getting to chat, some sampled rather a lot of the local home made pineapple wine, supposedly it's rather nice!

The huts were small and dark, so we didn't spend that much time in them. What we did however, was take a day trip both days we were there over to the Gili Islands. Which are simply beautiful and unspoiled. The snorkelling was amazing and we spent hours and hours doing this ( too many hours as I actually burnt my back which was stupid) but it was worth it as we swam with turtles!!

This was the wee boat we hired to take us over. Chris named her Francine.

I should point out that this wasn't a beach filled with sun loungers and umbrellas, these were it!

Final destination of the holiday was Seminyak, back on Bali.

Up until about 10 years ago Seminyak was a bit of a backwater but it's fairly exploded now, and was as far removed from my 'pre-Bali idea of Bali' as could be. Even more busy than Ubud, but much sleeker. No hippy, crafty markets here, but lots of expensive boutiques. I have no idea how these shops survive as I almost never saw anyone in them, beautiful as they looked.

We were staying in another stunning villa, probably made all the more luxurious in our minds after the grass huts of Lombok!

It was one of the Chimera Villas and again I would highly recommend it. I spent a lot of time in this pool, reading with the odd bit of swimming thrown in ( but not much)

I'm probably not quite cool enough for Seminyak, but I did go out for cocktails to a couple of the ultra trendy places, Cu De Ta and Potato Head! Possibly the most uber cool places I have ever been to have a drink in!

We ate out well here too, but the foody highlight of the holiday was a street stall selling Soto Bakso - thats noodle soup with dumplings, to me and you, and it was amazing.

On our last day we had to leave our villa by 11am but our flight wasn't until 10pm, as Dan was staying for an extra week ( lucky thing!) we booked a hotel for the day/night that he could stay in and the rest of us could use until it was time to leave. It made sense for it to be near the airport, so it was in Kuta. Kuta is full of people, FULL of people. A lot of people love it. I'm not one of them.

Give me Ubud any day.

Cu De Ta

One of our Balinese meals - Siam Sally's

I loved the frangipanis all over the place

Lloyd and I on the ferry back to Bali, from Lombok

Lloyd, Chris and Dan at Potato Head

I like this as I am all 'holiday'

Final night, Bali sunset

I loved Bali, I loved that if you changed $100 to rupiah you were a millionaire for a few days, that was funny!

I loved the people, I loved the smell.

A snippet from Bali

2011-08-04T11:20:00.004+12:00

Just a wee taste!

It is simply gorgeous here, we're loving every second.

I'll tell all properly when we get home. iPads do not make blogging the simple thing it should be!

This may or may not work, but there are lots more snaps here

my facebook bali album

Bali

2011-08-01T21:13:00.001+12:00

We have arrived in Bali. I may have died and gone to heaven.

We said goodbye to the highland cows

2011-07-28T09:38:00.001+12:00

For over a year now, I have been scared of the highland cows. Our 2 original ones are terribly feisty and often come running towards us really fast. They always stop but with those huge horns it totally freaks me out.

They were all pets, who we had planned to have here for ever, just hanging around, eating grass and looking pretty, but it had got to the stage that I wouldn't even go into the paddock with them and Lloyd wasn't much more confident ( but braver than me!)

So we made the tough decision that we'd find another home for them. But it had to be a home where they were going to be pets, with someone who had more experience than us and the 4 of them had to stay together. We though it was going to be really hard to find someone, but as is often the case, when things are meant to be it was really simple.

When we were getting our new drain dug, the driver would come each morning, start up his digger and while it was warming up he'd wander down to chat with and pat the highland cows. He loved them. We mentioned that we were looking for a home for them and he jumped at the chance! He came back with his wife so she could meet them as well, then yesterday the highlands went off to live with lovely Steve.

I felt like a weight had lifted.

It is sad when you start something with such good intentions but learn that it's not working and have to make some tough decisions.

So at the moment we are totally cowless at the farm. It feels sort of odd, it will be nice to get some calves later in the year and start again with the feeding up. It's very therapeutic having cows mooching around the place.

Frost

2011-07-26T08:57:00.000+12:00

The rest of New Zealand is fairly shivering in it's boots. There's record snow falls and all my friends down south are posting beautiful photos on facebook - I am totally jealous. I love snow, absolutely love it.

We did, however wake up to a frost this morning. Our skies have cleared and are that lovely winter blue colour, the clear skies meant we had a freezing night. It's absolutely gorgeous this morning.

A Sea of Paper Pots

2011-07-24T21:04:00.000+12:00

On Friday Lloyd and I are going on a very special holiday to somewhere I've never been before, but Lloyd has, several times. Bali. Lloyd has a significant birthday this year, as does another friend of ours, Dan, so we're all heading off to Bali together. It's so exciting and couldn't really have come at a better time for me as my stress level - due to building work, mud and rain, has almost reached as high as I would like it to be! That being said it's SO much better since the bathroom was finished. (Oh for those who have asked for more photos, it's incredibly difficult to photograph! It's a tiny room with not much natural light and nothing looks like it really does when I try to take photos, so you can take my word for it, it's flipping gorgeous!)

Anyway the point of this post!

I want to get my seeds into their pots before we leave. If I wait till we get back they'll be 2 weeks behind where I want them to be, so today I made about a gazillion paper pots.

I find it very therapeutic, actually. What I do is work out what I want to plant, then make out a ground plan of where I want the things to be in the veggie garden. I've been doing this for a few years now so that I rotate things around.

After I've done this I think about how many of each thing I want to plant. Like tomatoes - this year I'm going to go for somewhere between 10 and 12 plants.

So once I've done that it's just a case of adding everything up to see how many pots I need. I make big ones for the tomatoes ( I don't fill them right up with compost initially, so that when the plants start to grow I can top up the compost a few times, this means that the stem is nice and strong, with long roots.) Big ones for the courgettes as well.

Everything else gets small pots.

And as I said last year these get planted out ~ round about October time ~ pot and all, as it just bio-degrades into the soil and the little roots don't get damaged.

Tomorrow's job is to plant everything and make sure they're all labelled.

I shall be tying my wee greenhouses to the deck, and the shelves to the greenhouse this year so as not to have a disaster like last year - HERE'S the sob story.

Curry Cup 2011

2011-07-23T18:13:00.000+12:00

I mentioned in Lloyd's rendang post that we have a Curry Cup each year. Well today was the day and the standard was ridiculous! It had the most entries ever and each and every one was delicious ( our local curry restaurant could seriously learn a thing or two!) It made it really hard to vote for my favourite three, and I won't say who I voted for, as it would be telling! Suffice to say everyone votes honestly and not tactically. In fact Lloyd and Danny, who tied for first place after the tasting, actually voted for eachother. Which was really lovely.

Anyway, here's a selection of what we had.

The "Curry Cup" which is presented to the winner, what you can't see in the photo is that the names of the winners really are engraved on the plaque - we take this very seriously!

Anyway, as I said Danny and Lloyd were tied on the vote so it went to a tie break - they had to name the 16 ingredients that went into the Tom Kha that Bart had made. Danny won ( by a whisker!)

But Lloyd was still happy as he got a really cool rosette!

Next year's competition will be held at Danny and Paula's house, can it get any better?

Stay tuned.

We have a bathroom!

2011-07-22T16:55:00.002+12:00

Oh joy of joys!

A loo, a sink and a working shower. All surrounded by beautiful tiles. This is the most lovely bathroom I've ever had. It was worth the wait!

Even today it wasn't without it's traumas. Essential fittings missing - and found again, sink moved so that the pipes didn't fit - mad dash into town to buy new bits. At one point there were 5 large men in a wee, tiny space all trying to do their bits.

I just had a shower.

Wonderful!

Am I happy?

Oh Yes!

What do you do when bananas really do grow on trees?

2011-07-21T06:32:00.000+12:00

I'd be the first to admit that I don't love bananas. But I do like them in a cake.

Oddly, even though we're in the depths of winter, our bananas are getting ready. Lloyd picked this bunch a week or so ago and had them ripening in a bag on the table on the deck.

They're beautifully ready now so I decided to make a cake with some of them ( Also our hens are laying like crazy right now so I could use up a few eggs as well.)

I've never made a banana cake before so here's where the good old internet came in handy. I looked for a very easy recipe and this popped up.

INGREDIENTS :

¼ cup milk

1 teaspoon lemon juice

250g (8oz) bananas

1 cup sugar

2 cups self raising flour

2 eggs

60 g (2 oz) butter

METHOD :

Combine milk and lemon juice. Peel and mash bananas, put into bowl of electric mixer. Add sugar, sifted flour, lightly beaten eggs, softened butter and combined milk and lemon juice. Beat on low speed until combined, then beat on medium speed 2 minutes. Turn mixture into greased 23 cm x 12 cm (9 in x 5 in) loaf tin which has the base lined with greased greaseproof paper. Bake in low to moderate oven approx 1 ¾ hours or until cooked when tested. Cool in tin 10 minutes before turning out on wire rack to complete cooling.

I got it from Here, and they have some really nice looking recipes. I followed it absolutely exactly and it really did take 1 hour 45minutes to cook. Probably when the writer of the recipe made their one they didn't splatter banana cake mix gunk all over their laptop.

I did.

When it was finished it looked like this!

and after I ate a bit it looked like this!

It was really lovely, more like banana bread, though and not quite as moist as I expected, but delicious all the same and not too bad for a first attempt.

My 7 links

2011-07-20T09:08:00.003+12:00

I'm taking part in My 7 links as the lovely Melanie over at Frugal Kiwi listed me as one of her five blogs. You need to go over and look at Melanie's 7 links, they're so good.

Thanks Melanie.
My Seven Links was started by Tripbase Blog and bloggers are asked to list 7 posts that fit into these categories...

- Your most beautiful post

MMMmmmm I think my most beautiful post is B is for Borage. I was so pleased with the bee photographs.

– Your most popular post
is Speedy Mayonnaise. This was mostly thanks to a link in 'Almost Bourdain' (which is no more *sad face* ) I think I need to do a bit of 'full discolsure' here - this recipe doesn't always work. I only learned this after I posted as the next couple of times I tried it it failed miserably, then worked, then failed then worked... so as not to waste lots of olive oil I went back to the good old fashioned way - failsafe!

– Your most controversial post

I'm not really very controversial at all - the only post I could come up with was this one!

The Queen's Moko. I only got one negative comment which was actually a surprise (as I fully expected more) and I didn't post it. My reasons were that the poster did it anonymously, which they are entitled to do, however I feel that if they felt that strongly they should stand by it, not hide behind anonymity. The commenter wasn't too thrilled with my decision, but if they'd put their name to it I would have happily posted it. The painting has been the cause of heated debate in New Zealand.

– Your most helpful post

The Paper Pot Post, I got a lot of 'thank yous' for this :) Which reminds me ~ this weekend is going to be spent making many, many, many of these, it's that time of year again when I need to get my seeds in.

– A post whose success surprised you

Make do and Mend. This was just me rabbiting on about a pair of old favourite jeans! Who knew old jeans could stir up so many emotions. Looks like we all really love our jeans.

– A post you feel didn’t get the attention it deserved

was the wee baby chicks. I was so excited! I'm sure there are probably more meaningful posts that reflect this, but I remember being really disappointed that wee baby chicks didn't really do it. I mean, it's wee baby chicks, people!

– The post that you are most proud of

Seed Saving. I only started to save seeds a couple of years ago and I'm really pleased with how well it's going! What was also lovely about this post is that in the comments I got some really helpful advice.

I hope you've enjoyed the wee stroll down memory lane as much as I did, and

now that I've had a lovely wee meander I'd like to nominate these 5 blogs

http://hazel-dene.blogspot.com/
Cos she always, always makes me giggle

http://fromsophiesview.blogspot.com/

Biased? Me? Sophie is the spitting image of Lulah and I think the photographs are just beautiful.

http://www.houseofhumble.com/

Reuben and Katie have the most beautiful blog full of simply beautiful things. I'm a bit stalkerish of this blog.

http://ournewlifeinthecountry.blogspot.com/
Sue said this best - "us, but upsidedown!"

http://mudpiehomer.blogspot.com/

lovely photos and always makes me smile.

I'd like to nominate more, but rules is rules!

Pork Rendang by Lloyd

2011-07-19T08:38:00.001+12:00

Marinade the pork in the following

coconut milk

toasted and crushed cumin and fennel seeds

garam masala

ground coriander

turmeric

paprika

2 tea spoons of prawn paste ( belacan)

1 piece of cinnamon

some bruised lemongrass spears

and some keffir lime leaves

Toast some coconut.

After about 2 hours of marinading take out the pork and batch fry it until brown. We used 1kg pork steaks and this fed 4 people.

Once all the pork is cooked on the outside add all the marinade except the lime, lemongrass and cinnamon bits, and cook slowly. As the liquid reduces add three tablespoons of toasted grated coconut.

Keep reducing until the sauce is almost dry and just coating the meat.

This takes about an hour and a half.

Serve with coconut rice.

And eat with friends.

Oh! I totally forgot to say why Lloyd was trying this recipe out. A whole lot of our friends are amazing cooks, love food and are incredibly knowledgeable about it - I do not include myself in this, as much that I love food, I'm not so great at the other 2 things!
Anyway a few years ago we all started the "Curry Cup" this is held at one of our houses - usually the winner of the previous year - and everyone enters a curry. We eat our way through at least 12 curries then roll home!
The standard ~ as well as the stakes ( super cool curry cup) ~ is mind blowingly high.
This year's curry cup is on Saturday, I can hardly wait!

Finally...

2011-07-18T13:22:00.000+12:00

some sunny weather. It's a gorgeous winter day. 18 degrees ( that's the warm 18!) blue skies, the sort of winters days I love. So do the dogs.

We've just been playing around in the garden with them, chasing and catching balls. Their favourite thing to do, ever.

Still no bathroom...

the good news is the tiling is finished, just the grouting to do and it looks spectacular.

The bad news - we don't even have a toilet, it's empty of all the usual bathroom fittings *sob sob* Fingers crossed not long now. We've been managing pretty well all these weeks and making the best of it, but we're nearing the end of our 'make do' attitude. We just want it finished. Lloyd reckons that by the end of this week it'll be done!

So, how many tradesmen does it take to make a bathroom?

Seven - yes, seven!

Plumber, builder, waterproofer, tiler, electrician, glass man and painter ( painters are Lloyd and I so make that eight!)

Who knew.

Our Wee Farm

When I'm not on the farm...

Bliss

Re-painting the kitchen

Out and about in the garden

So, what have we been up to?

The Pip's roof blew off!

Feeding time at the Zoo.

Summer's first tomato.

It's been a good day, today

The Woolshed

A Very Special Treat

The best gardening tool in the world?

well, hello 2012.

Vegetables galore ( Almost!)

Christmas 2011

It's been almost a week...

Note to self...

Rain, rain, rain

New Shoes...pppfft!

Christmas Gingerbread Men

Ingredients

Method

A Garden Day

Learning New Things...

Yesterday was a lovely day...

Meet the New Additions

Is there something sillyish you've always wanted, but never had?

Feels like Summer

It's our Wedding Anniversary!

Very Sad

Alpaca shearing time

yesterday...

See how we've grown

On My Mind

How Lucky am I?

A Very Blue Sky Day

Yummy Victoria Sponge

This makes the most lovely, moist sponge!

Ingredients

Preparation method

Cuteness Overload!

Who doesn't love wee baby chicks!

wee melting moments

Quackers

Pretty

Gorgeousness!

Lovely

It's Labour Weekend

Out and About in the Garden

Melting moments/Yoyos

Normal service will be resumed...

Kerikeri Basin

Lloyd's Birthday Party.

Spring is well and truly sprung.

Auckland Trip

The Mums

The A to Z of me

A Present for the Chickens

My New Pride and Joy

Guess what we're having for dinner, tonight?

Thunder!

Around the garden this morning.

It's the little things...

Rain and wind! Typical spring weather.

Chickens are funny!

Rugby World Cup fever!

Spring is most definitely here.

Bob

I call this Nut Pate

The Yellowest Mayonnaise

A job well done.

Twin Coasts Cycle Trail

Edna laid her first egg!

Best day.

I feel I have absolutely nothing to say!

Getting organised for Spring

Bali trip

A snippet from Bali

Bali