July 2017

A small classified ad on the Onamalutu Facebook page, asking for the loan or purchase of a bull to provide bespoke services to our heifers, achieved success within minutes.  Some neighbours have a beautiful 2 year old Murray Grey bull who was on a temporary stud-break.  Currently surplus to their requirements, they were happy to offer his services.  He’s a gentle and relatively timid beast who arrived after a short stroll down the road on a lead.  He fitted in straight away, and – joy of joys – has already enjoyed a measure of rumpy-pumpy with Athena.  As he’s not technically ours, we’ve given him a Roman god name, rather than Greek.  Thanks to Peter and Sarah for the loan of the lovely Apollo.  We’ve been feeding out hay for a few weeks now, and all the cattle have become tamer.  Dionysus is quite demanding and can moo very loudly if the need arises, which apparently is quite often.  He’s managing to hang onto his status as top cow, but maybe Apollo will eventually stage a coup.

The sheep are still not obviously looking like lambing, so not good news for Leggy, but not over yet.  It’s quiet without chooks or pigs, but also quite a relief to be free from twice daily feed rounds.  Some work needs to be done with the original chook run as it’s been trashed by the cows and is quite an eyesore, spoiling the view from the sleep out.  We plan to extend the garden area to accommodate Lazy Mazy (in all her future glory) and possibly a small shed to do some produce preparation for dehydrating.

More garlic has just been planted after this month’s full moon.  The vege garden is gently sleeping and enjoying many (bug-killing) stunning frosty mornings.  The frosted parsley looks absolutely gorgeous. The tea cuttings and onion seedlings are still alive and seem to be thriving, and another batch of onion seeds recently sown.  A little more tidying up has happened: lavender hedge trimmed, raspberries trimmed back but awaiting tying-in, more raking up of pea-straw and leaves.  Otherwise it’s been left in peace, though as the seed catalogues have just arrived, probably not for long.

Shiitake mushroom dowels have arrived.  Hopefully we’ll get round to cutting down and drilling some birch logs soon to get them started.  Also in hand is a button mushroom kit, which will be activated soon.  The ‘Fungery’ space is cleared, so we just need to work out how best to prop up the logs and sort out a trough to put mushroom compost in for the buttons.  The research is enjoyable, and I’d be very tempted to attend a mushroom growing course if only there was one nearby.

A new bare-rooted Black Doris plum tree is waiting for its planting moment.  There’s already one in the orchard, but it was badly damaged by a storm.  It’s propped up and looking considerably worse for its ordeal, but we're giving it a chance to re-invent itself.  The fruit we managed to save was stunning and dried beautifully, and it’d be awful to think we’ll ever be without them if that original tree doesn’t recover.   A spot has been dug out for the new tree, and while I was out there, I did some tidy-up pruning and sorting out of stakes.  Can’t wait for the summer fruit crop. It's beautiful to see the blossom buds swelling on the fruit trees, a feel-good sign that spring is coming. The cows have had a couple of sessions in the orchard, chowing down on the green pasture.  They have to be watched in there all the time, and then herded out at the precise moment they decide they’ve had enough to eat and it’s playtime.  Hermes is the worst culprit for lingering beyond last orders.

Our attention has been totally tuned in to the sleep out project.  Myriad tasks have been completed, though several more remain.  The painting is complete and there’s some furniture, including a bed.  We’ve stripped down and up-cycled a set of drawers that was formerly part of a dressing table.  Some decorative knobs (I’ll do the jokes) have lifted it beautifully.  Curtains are still needed, as is a kitchen cabinet of sorts.  We’ll also need to work on getting some internet out there.  We’ve been advised that a booster may not be effective, so it’ll probably mean digging a trench so that a cable can be connected from the modem in the house to the sleep out.  Another happy little project. The room photos are neither 'before' nor 'after', more of a progress record.

Karyn has been helping with the design aspects of the sleep out.  I haven’t yet managed to get her to roll up her sleeves, but her advice has been great, sometimes even golden.  I am a person with no taste, as opposed to bad taste - an important distinction.  When you have no taste, it’s possible to occasionally, accidentally and randomly select something that is utterly tasteful.  This can happen even without the injection of cash, but is more likely if you can throw lots of money at it.  I’ve never been accused of being a perfectionist, really more of a bodger.  I was a tomboy and am now a wild rural woman who has never ever been heard saying ‘what gorgeous shoes’.  As far as I’m concerned, clothes are what you wear to stop being naked, and I know it shows.  Probably a congenital abnormality.  Anyway, the likes of me definitely need the likes of Karyn to save me from my worst excesses.  Thank you for saying it as it is Karyn, and sorry for those moments when I’m totally a lost cause. 

The garage bathroom has been mostly re-decorated, but a small disaster on the toilet front has delayed progress and we may need to get a plumber to sort it out.  My fault of course.  The toilet has always rusted up quickly, and it didn’t take too much detective work to realise that it may be because the cistern was coated with rust and full of ghastly orange water.  The task to clean it out was unpleasant but successful, except for the little matter of the leak. 

The bees are still buzzing whenever it’s warm enough, and I’ve been unable to turn down the opportunity of adding another hive.  Peter’s dragged out a solid pallet and hive 3 will sit behind Madame Cholet, alongside the grape vines.  I really really don’t need any more hives but the universe must have realised that actually I really really want another, and conspired to bring one to me.  Here’s hoping that hive 1 is strong enough for a triple split in spring, or maybe I’ll be lucky enough to acquire a nuc from a fellow beekeeper.

Progress has been made in terms of researching a possible solar-dehydrated business.  I’ve run the idea past an environmental health officer, who didn’t show any outward signs of thinking I’d lost my marbles.  She had a couple of suggestions that will need following up, such as testing our water supply to make sure it meets commercial standards.  The council’s small business adviser has put me in touch with local food safety experts, and confirmed that I’m allowed to run a home based business on this property.  If it goes ahead, the business will be known as ‘Kai-Dri’.  It has an impressive logo, designed by Lucas.  He’s already got some ideas for a website.  The business is officially registered, making me not only a CEO, but also the principal share-holder, and the proud owner of one whole share.  A totally novel experience.  Here’s hoping I can get the business off the ground next year.

Sam’s been home for a weekend, after a hideous drive via the inland route.  Bad enough in itself, but a 4 hour delay at the site of a burning chemical truck extended the 6.5 hour drive considerably.  Snow also slowed up progress.  Lovely to see him, and roll on the completion of the coastal road repairs.  Billy is waiting for confirmation of an apprenticeship that will mean a move to Christchurch.  Amazing that all 3 boys will end up in the same city!  And another adjustment for us oldies left behind.  I should probably book in for a bit of therapy.

So much for a lifestyle block blog this month: very little to say about the land.  Could that possibly reflect the preparation and graft that has kept us busy these last few years, that we’re finally getting organised?  Nope, too ridiculous.  Maybe winters have always been like this?  I don’t think so.  In total denial?  Yep, that’ll be right.

June 2017

Yes it definitely feels like winter.  Frosty mornings (that I love) and crisp sunny days, logs burning on the fire, entire families of mice setting up home in the tunnel house and at various choice locations around the property.  Perhaps our rodent strategy isn’t working too well after all, even though we’re no longer storing any chook or pig food.   Winter benefits include bacon butties - the home-made bacon, infused with other home products, is totally delish.  We cooked one of the hams when Lucas was home for a few days.  Like Christmas turkey, it stretched to several meals and is still appearing in sandwiches from packs in the freezer.  When it’s finally down to just me and Peter at home, a ham will probably last us a fortnight. 

I defended my title of the queen of Onamalutu cider and again won a prize.  Unfortunately this time it was the booby prize – a wooden spoon saying ‘try again’!   Not even a bottle of wine with it to drown my sorrows.  In retrospect, I wish I’d entered the really explosive ‘Silke’s Rough Again’ – at least that would have provided some extra entertainment.  Oh well, there’s always next year.  Maybe then I’ll even have real cider apples to work with.

The vege garden is peacefully slumbering.  A little more tidying up has happened, and the task of sweeping up the fallen leaves (and also the peastraw that the birds like to flick off the beds) from the pathways is like painting the Forth Bridge.  They are providing lots of leaf mulch, which is being either added to compost or mixed with pea straw as surface mulch.  Garlic was planted according to the moon calendar last weekend, some in one of the keyhole beds, and the rest in the half-wine barrels.  Fingers crossed it grows into fat bulbs, not the spindly specimens I usually get.  On Karyn's advice, we lit a fire over the asparagus patch, burning the old dried asparagus shoots that had become wild and woolly.  Managed not to create any disasters in so doing, quite a miracle really.  The patch is now covered in a mound made of ashes, pea straw and heaps of horse poo.  I'll also start adding the ash from our woodburner too.  Is it possible that abundant asparagus treasure might grace our table in spring?  Ah the the eager anticipation that is part of the joy of gardening!

Vermicompost has been dug out from Worm Hollow, and another batch of vermiliquid has been diluted and applied to the olive trees.  There were still a few worms in the dug compost, so it’s been put into a couple of large tubs and stored in the Gin Palace to keep dry.  The remnants of the sheep wool have been generously applied as a duvet to the worm farm and on the top of both tubs to keep the worms toasty.

Plans are afoot to create a sanctuary for mushrooms – would that be known as a Fungery?  Next to the car port and behind Worm Hollow is a densely-planted area that is always shady and cool.  Peter’s done a bit of chain-sawing and opened up access to a space that is dark and damp – perfect for mushroom growing.  We’re awaiting the delivery of mushroom-spore dowels (Shii-take) that can be hammered into some birch logs.  Later they’ll be joined by some button mushrooms.

The lowest shelf on Gin Palace has been extended so that it can now be used as a potting shelf.  The bench in the Palace wasn’t central, and this addition still leaves enough space to get round.  It means that the previous potting shelf in Madame Cholet has been much reduced, freeing up more sunny, rather than shaded, planting space. At least it'll be free once I sort out the crap in there.  Among the crap are tea plant (Camellia Sinensis) cuttings that I took from two bought plants. 9 out of 10 are still alive, so that's pretty promising.  There's also a large tray of onion seed that should be germinating soon.

The cows and sheep still have enough pasture on which to munch, so we can hang onto winter stocks of hay for a little while longer.  There are no obvious signs of pregnancy in any of them, which is gutting.  Whilst we’re very much hoping to be wrong, it’s not looking good for Leggy – could it be his last leg as the flock ram?  Peter’s wondering if we should loan a bull for a while.  That wouldn’t give us Speckled Park calves, but maybe once both Hera and Athena have had a calf, they’ll be easier to inseminate for subsequent calves.  At least that’s what we read.

One of the beehives seem to be holding out against the cold.  The other colony in hive 2 – that liked to swarm repetitively – was no more when I put in varroa strips several weeks ago.  It’s sad, but a bit of a mixed blessing really.  I was planning to replace that queen anyway, ideally with one less prone to swarming.  Now I’ll be able to split my existing hive in spring and take it from there.   The remaining hive is strong and produces good honey volumes, so it's a good gene pool and hopefully will cope with a split.

Serious work has begun on the sleep out.  Now that there are less boys at home, we’re in with a chance of creating a decent-ish place to accommodate visitors.  The walls and ceiling are clean and freshly painted, and the wall that connects to the garage is papered in blue, using a textured paper that mostly disguises the rather uneven wall.  Unfortunately we managed to destroy our landline whilst wallpapering around a phone jack (I'm trying to live and learn and not just swear loudly).   We just need to get hold of a bed and a few bits of furniture.  There’s a thought that if it works out well, we could make a bob or two by letting it via Air B&B.  Then we could also get on with Lazy Mazy and add caravan accommodation to the package.  It could possibly happen one day, though it’s fair to say that I’m usually bigger on ideas than action.

The British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand is underway and Peter is gripped.  The New Zealand Army band is the pre-match entertainment for the three All-Blacks test matches, and it will be Sam’s first big gig.  We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled in case his bit is televised.  He’s going to China twice in September, once with the Marlborough District Brass Band, and then also with the army.  In the meantime, our baby Billy celebrated his 17^th birthday (on June 17^th 2017).  He was a millennium baby, which has always been very handy because it allows us to calculate how old everyone else is by comparing their date of birth to his.  In moments of quiet reflection about the massive world terror events, I wonder what the world will be like for them when they're old and wrinkly.  Will there even be a world at all?  Martin Luther King has the best words:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

May 2017

                                  

It’s the peak of autumn and there have been several opportunities to enjoy some psithurism, mostly in the form of raking up leaves.  The autumn colours at home and throughout the valley are stunning, as are the crisp mornings that give way to glorious sunshiny mornings.  As soon as the sun goes down at the end of the day the temperature plummets and we’re grateful for the penetrating heat from the wood burning stove.

The veg garden is still being bedded down for winter, and most areas are nicely tucked up.  Once the leaves from the step-over espalier apple trees have fallen, then that bed can be tidied up properly.  That’ll include pruning the apples, cutting out and tying in the raspberries, and then digging up the boysenberries and replacing them with 3 other berry fruit plants (berry crosses that produce large berries).  The boysenberries haven’t ever fruited really well, and they are very rampant and prickly, so I’m keen to try something else.  They’ll probably be a nightmare to remove. The fig tree bed also needs some final attention. There are carrots in there hidden amongst the weeds.  The fig tree itself has been severely pruned and re-balanced after it was wind-ravaged.  Fingers crossed that's what it needs.

I’d thought the fruit was over, but had totally discounted the humble feijoa.  There are 4 trees, one of which was originally on the property when we arrived, and then dug up and moved into the vege garden.  It’s the biggest of them all, though that’s not really very big at all.  There was a small crop last year, but this year it’s dripping with fruit, and the other 3 trees have also fruited.  I’ve dehydrated some and they work well as little pockets of tangy dried fruit.  Such a pleasure to have fresh fruit at this time of year, though they are a fruit that polarise people in terms of love/hate.  A bit like sprouts.  Or pumpkins.

There are still some hardy veg hanging in there, but we’re mostly down to the stalwart (and totally fabulous) carrots.  A patch of leeks are nearly ready to eat as baby leeks, and there are a few final brassicas left.  There are the stored pumpkins, onions and spuds too.  The remaining kale is getting a bit too robustly brassica-ish, even for my tastes.  The currants need some tidying and the asparagus has to be cut down and fertilised with generous dollops of horse poo.  Finally there needs to be a bit of raking the organic matter from the gravel paths around the beds and making a decision about how to deal with the pathway weeds. 

Karyn demanded a parsnip re-count, and it has to be conceded that I had considerably underestimated.  There are 6 parsnips in her bed, not 3.  Not exactly a panacea for world hunger, but I stand corrected.  She’s also growing some pretty impressive cauliflowers, broccoli and cabbage.  There, I said it.

The giant pumpkin weighed a whopping 25kgs.  It was great fun hacking it with a machete.  It was soft and quite edible, though not particularly flavoursome.  The pigs had a good feed of it, and there’s some in the freezer waiting for me to ‘tszuj’ it up into a soup or something.  I’m hoping the other pumpkins from the veg garden will be tastier.

Thyme, sage and fennel seedlings have been planted in the last raised bed in the horse arena.  They’re quite small and I’m hoping that it’s not a mistake to have planted them now.  The soil beneath them is still a composting work in progress and is quite woody in places at the top – a kind of upside-down hugelkultur bed.  That means they’re planted quite deeply and there’s a risk that they might be overwhelmed by the surface pea straw.  So far so good, but knowing me I’ll probably take my eye off the ball at the key moment. 

The gardens around the house are also being prepped for winter.  Most of them, including the herb garden, have now been weeded, horse-poo’ed and hay mulched.  A few hardy flowers are hanging in there, but most of the remaining colour is autumnal.  I’ve dug up, divided and re-planted a large patch of paeonies that were too close to the new hedge, and also planted some gifted iris bulbs.  Hopefully no perennials were weeded out, and hopefully there are plenty of annual seeds poised ready to pop up in spring. 

No chooks mean that the farm is eerily quieter than usual.  And now no pigs too - Bruce, the local home-kill man came for them.  Friends Carol and Karyn have one each, one will return to us from the butcher as hams, bacon, sausages and loins.  The last pig was initially stored in Bruce’s chiller, and then transferred to our dining room table where Peter honed his amateur butchery skills again.  One of the hams is now being brined (in a cool box on the front door step), and the other is salting to become prosciutto.  There are 2 shoulder joints soaking in a brine/cider (batch 3)/honey solution in the fridge, which will be sliced into bacon.  With Karyn’s help and plenty of innuendo-filled banter, several pounds of mince were fashioned into sausages and chorizo.  The joy of transferable skills!

There have been no more cider explosions, but it has become necessary to store the ginger beer outside.  As we were watching Coronation Street one night, there was a great big BOOF.  One of the ginger beer bottles had exploded and re-decorated the kitchen.  The top and base of the bottle was blown off, and ginger beer dripped from the ceiling, the walls and the benchtops.  Bugger.  Even despite a major clean up, it only takes to the sun to shine in a certain direction to reveal more sticky streaks all over the place.  That’s a pretty poor track record for my ferments this year, though it does confirm the power of wild yeasts.

Anzac Day was as poignant as ever.  We decided to go to the Blenheim ceremony so that we could watch Sam march and play with the Marlborough District Brass Band for the last time before he left home.  It was a gorgeous Marlborough Day (as it often is for Anzac) and Seymour Square was beautifully autumnal.  Sam left soon after, driving to Burnham (Christchurch) via the Lewis Pass.  It was a hideous drive for him as the Pass is well munted from all the extra traffic and the freight.  He did get there ok though and is now settled into the army barracks, getting straight on with recording a brass band CD, acquiring heaps of kit, and looking forward to playing at the British and Irish Lions rugby in July. 

We’re beginning to adjust to being down to 3 at home.  We didn’t see a great deal of Sam when he was here, but there’s still a Sam-sized hole in our lives.  Pass me the pipe and slippers. And the gin.

April 2017

Cyclone Cook has been and gone and was much less of a disaster than predicted.  For us at least, though not for the far north east of the North Island, who really copped it.  Otherwise it’s been quite a mild autumn so far.  There’s been a run of cloudy days that are definitely not conducive to solar dehydrating, but can’t really complain.

The gardens had been neglected a bit, and the weeds were thriving as usual.  The Easter weekend allowed for some good progress in terms of clearing and tucking up most beds for winter.  The last of the tomatoes have been harvested, and the green ones are now ripening indoors.  Only a few crops remain in the ground.  The cleared beds are receiving a top dressing of horse poo and a layer of pea straw that should serve them well.  The pea straw contains lots of pea seeds that should add more soil nutrients by germinating.  I’ve also thrown in a few broad beans and lupin seeds for good measure.  The pea straw copped that recent deluge of rain and is now very difficult to handle.  It’s slimy, mouldy and is generating a fair amount of heat as it decomposes.  Yum.  It has an earthy sort of smell too, not unpleasant, though not the kind of scent you’d want to dab behind your ears.

Weeding of the pathways has started, and that’s a stern reminder of the drawbacks of using gravel.  It gets very hot in summer, too hot to kneel on to work the beds.  It’s also impossible to keep out the soil that falls from the raised beds, so weeding becomes an ever-present task.  Then there’s the pain of kneeling down with gravel in your gumboots.  It always manages to find the most painful place on your foot or ankle to dig into.  And old-age knees mean that kneeling down to weed for long periods is just not going to be a forever option.  I’ve bought some ‘organic’ weed-spray, but have been reluctant to use it.  Probably I need a long hard word with myself.

Cropping is still ongoing – carrots, cabbage, beetroot, kale, tomatoes, turnips and of course, pumpkins.  The cabbages are mine, but the cauliflowers in the picture below are Karyn’s.  She’s feeling smug because she’s got 3 more parsnips than me, i.e. she has 3.  But with a pumpkin that big, I’ve surely got the monopoly on smugness.  The plan is to pick it at its biggest and before it starts to rot.  What could possibly go wrong?

There are herbs lined up ready for planting.  They just need to wait until the pea straw has bedded itself down, and in they’ll go.  The thyme cuttings weren’t very successful – only 3 survived, and they’ll be planted with some bought thyme (pizza, purple, silver and golden).  The sage (plain and variegated) have propagated much more prolifically and will be planted alongside the thyme in the remaining raised bed in the horse arena that was the previous compost bed.  A few bronze fennel will also be added.  Parsley seedlings (that self-seeded in the peppermint bed) are poised to go in the rosemary-hedged bed next to the Gin Palace.  Hopefully they’ll all put down some good roots over winter and take off in spring.

There are a few autumn raspberries, and the strawberries have fruited again - a smaller crop that the birds mostly got to first.  The strawberries need some serious thinning, that one day I’ll get round to.  In the meantime I’ve potted on several of the runners.  These will be planted in one of the citrus beds.  They’ll eventually be crowded out by the citrus, but we should get a couple of years fruiting out of them before that happens.  Wild alpine strawberries in the flower garden have been dug up too.  Some are potted, and the rest are planted in the other citrus bed. 

There’s been a late flush of flowers that have brightened up the flower garden.  The nigella is a long-standing favourite, and the dahlias are abundantly cheery.  That the hollyhocks are still upright is a tiny miracle.  Dandelions and other weed flowers add a touch of sunny yellow.  Some serious weeding and a good dollop of pea straw mulch is on the cards.  That’ll be quite a task once it hits the top of the priority list (probably the middle of winter).

 

We’re still holding out that there are some pregnancies among the cows and sheep.  We

moved them all into the hay barn paddock when the heavy rain was forecast (it’s our highest land) and it’s here that they enjoy finding many ways of making mischief.  The hay barn itself is a source of much entertainment – how best to break in to get to the pristine hay for example.  Then there are the joys of crashing through the chicken wire into the chicken run, and the potential for breaking into the wetland or orchard. The cows are the worst culprits, though their naughty behaviour can sometimes be quite endearing.  Hermes, the last in the cattle pecking order, has discovered that he can exert his power over the sheep, and spends many a happy hour herding them onto a corner again and again.  Dionysus is the noisiest and the beast most likely to give you an ‘I’m a big angry bull’ look, before shooting off with his tail between his legs when you raise your voice and arms at him. 

‘Solly’ has been cranked up at every ray of sunshine.  We’re still trying to tweak her to increase the heat capacity, and have added a fan powered by a solar panel to improve the air flow.  Peter’s also rigged up an attractive fan ‘brake’ – a piece of wood that can be swung down to shade and thereby halt the fan.  It was a joy to discuss the fan with the geeky staff at Jaycar’s, who seemed quite genuinely intrigued by the whole solar dehydrator project.  So far the fan experiment is looking very positive, and optimistically will extend our dehydrating season. 

Three batches of cider are bottled up, just in time for the 2017 Onamalutu Cider Competition in June.  Batch 3 (‘Silke’s Rough Again’) is not looking a likely contender because of its explosive tendencies.  The first clue came when the brown plastic bottles wouldn’t stand up because the pressure generated by the wild yeasts pushed out the base, and also the flat-caps were strangely convex.  An earlier and relatively minor eruption from a bottle of ‘Scrumpy Jill’ that coated the kitchen benches and windows, meant that we figured it would probably be a good plan to open ‘Silke’s Rough Again’ outside.  The video proves that this was one of my best plans.  On balance, I won’t be entering it into the cider contest, though it’s tempting. 

The chooks had gone off the lay, and we made the decision to not carry them over winter.  They’re now in the freezer, except Sweet Pea – last year’s hen who’s younger than the others.  Luckily we found another home for her at our neighbour’s place.  Shona and Craig have several other hens and were happy to add another to their flock.  Having no foul means we can really sort out and clean the hen house/run, and in the absence of stored feed, optimistically we’ll have a better chance at hammering the rodent population.  It’s been a while since we were without chickens, and it’s quite an adjustment. 

The pigs are on countdown too, probably early May or before.  There are still a few old apples around, and plenty of weeds when I get round to weeding, so they’re not devoid of food treats.  But these are drying up and the pigs are robust and a decent size.  And there’s space in the freezer.  We just need to make a few decisions about processing (in the absence of that cold-smoker that’s been on the to-do list for a few years now).

Peter hadn’t ridden a motorbike for years, and figured if he didn’t get round to it again soon, then old age and senility could well prevent him from doing so in the not too distant future.  A cute little red Ducati for sale on TradeMe tempted him, and it’s definitely his new toy.  He’s made a couple of work trips on it already, but the plan is to use it as a commuting vehicle in the warmer months.  Maybe I’ll even take it for a spin one day (if I’m allowed).

Sam has just had confirmation the he’s starting in the army as a musician.  He’d been waiting months, and suddenly it’s all happening and he’ll be moving to Burnham, Christchurch next week.  The lengthy process to date had lulled me into a false sense of ‘never-going-to-happen’, and it’s only really dawning on me now that he’ll actually be leaving home.  I’m feeling a sudden urge to dig out baby photos and assemble a survival food pack.

As another child packs his bags in search of a life more exciting and happening than the one he’s leaving behind, it’s an appropriate moment to reflect on our not-very-exciting life here on the block.  It’s not something I’d have aspired to as a young woman, but somehow my life has driven itself to this place.  It’s more a place of contentment than excitement, and so arguably more in-keeping with my life-stage.  I do get excited about things others would find mundane (like solar fans and giant pumpkins), and I’m massively grateful that my good health enables me to work hard physically when that’s required.  I love a good old belly laugh, and the firewood in the photo really tickled me (and shows that we don't only do rude carrots here...).

However weird I might be, I feel blessed that this is a felicitous life for me.  Happy days.