April 2015

Autumn’s definitely here.  Even some frosty mornings which have just finished off the outside cucumbers, courgettes and pumpkins.  After months of drought and hot sunny days, the cool nights and dewy mornings are welcome.  We’ve had enough rain to get the pasture growth going, and the sun shines, keeping us in the low 20's most days - especially beautiful after chilly nights.  It’s perfect weather for outdoor work.  A fabulous climate all up.

Collingwood beach

I’ve finally managed to get round to a going on a basket-making course – something I’ve wanted to learn to do for a long time.  The course took place at Collingwood, in the far north west of the South Island.  Another really beautiful spot, with plenty of West Coast charm.  Sarah, the instructor showed us how to weave baskets out of flax, and finish them off by twining the combed flax into rope.  Mine ended up very much ‘home-made’ but will at least function as a basket.  It got better as I went along, so hopefully my next baskets will be better.  There’s plenty of flax right here on the property, and heaps more all over NZ.  It’s great to have the skills to create something useful out of a freely available material.

The newest raised beds in the horse arena are being topped up with composting materials.  A stray pumpkin seedling put in a late bid but has since been finished off by the frost.  Hopefully they will turn into beautiful soil by spring, so the olive trees which are currently bedded into the vege garden can then be re-homed.  The weeds in the rest of the horse arena are above waist height so we’re really going to have to prioritise them sometime soon.

 

The chopping down of pine trees in our part of the valley looks to be finally coming to an end.  Hopefully it’ll be a fond farewell to the dulcet tones of chain saws and logging machinery which have kept us company since we arrived.  Only a few patches of trees remain on the hill to the east, though there’s plenty more elsewhere in the valley.  The hillside behind our house has greened up a lot, though mostly this is from weedy bush growth than from the new pine plantings.

A final rabbit catastrophe has ended our rabbit-keeping experiences.  The one remaining buck was being spoilt with lots of food, until one morning when he didn’t come out of his sleeping quarters.  He had been brutally murdered, and left matted in blood and with bits missing.  It was a gruesome sight.  Something had prised open the hutch roof, pinging off a couple of nails, and squeezed in to do the deed– possibly a stoat or a cat.  Maybe the roof had already been damaged by a grazing sheep unbeknown to us.  A very very sad ending for him.  The only tiny shred of consolation was that it was definitely the right decision for us to no longer keep rabbits.

The veg garden is slowly being worked through and either re-planted or closed down for winter.  The photo below shows a ‘before and after’ view of one of them which has been partly cleared.  It’s great to have copious quantities of the ‘burnedy’ hay to use as a mulch.  The corn, pumpkin, courgette and outdoor cucumbers have been harvested.  Not as many pumpkins as last year, which may not be a bad thing as there’s still some in the freezer.

Two demi-johns of mead have joined the other wines in the hall cupboard.  Peter brought home a few buckets of red grapes, mostly Syrah.  We’re going to have a go at brewing only the juice, rather than letting it sit on the skins.  This should produce a wine with less tannins, which optimistically won’t give me a heinous hangover after half a glass.  It’s a delicate pink, which will be named ‘Pete’s Pretty in Pink’.  The earlier batch of wines (pear, rhubarb and blackboy peach) will have their first racking next weekend.  They’re not looking great – lots of fruity debris - but hopefully will turn out alright.  The worst-looking batch of wine I ever made was a marrow and ginger.  Before filtering it looked like someone had thrown up in the bucket, but it went on to be truly delicious.  You can always be optimistic with wine-making. 

The rosemary hedge around the former compost circle has been planted.  Amazingly the cuttings I’d stuck in a plant pot were already rooting.  The bed will be mulched over winter, and a decision will need to be made about what to put in the centre.  This keyhole bed is smaller than the others, so it’ll have to be something petite.  I’m thinking of another herb, perhaps some variegated sage or something more unusual. 

The flower gardens need a decent tidy-up.  The tansy has gone wild alongside the chook run and is still in full bloom.  Otherwise it’s mostly the geraniums and cosmos which are still flowering and keeping the busy bees supplied.  The chocolate cosmos is as beautifully scented as ever.  Several flower seeds have been saved for next year, and many more will self-seed (and probably be weeded-out by accident).  Some vege seeds are also saved for next year. 

The pomegranate tree in the centre of another keyhole bed is coming along really well.  It was originally rescued from a garden centre sale, and was touch-and-go for a while.  It’s now bushy and is flowering.  Quite an unusual time of year for blossom, so I ought to find out more about it.  They’re pretty flowers – hopefully one day they will fruit.

Madame Cholet has been totally cleared out.  There were a few tomatoes and peppers, and several cucumbers and chillies left.  They were harvested, and then the barley straw ‘soil’ was compacted by me jumping up and down on it.  It looks more like proper soil now, and it seemed a shame to just let it sit there doing nothing.  I had a brainwave and decided to plant some peas (plenty spare and good nitrogen-fixers).  Then I had another brainwave and planted some carrot seed.  Time will tell if that’s genius or just nuts.  It does look like the carrot seeds are germinating, but they could just as easily be tomato seedlings from the ones that got away and rotted…

The last crop of tomatoes

The pizza oven is still in one piece, and still a triumph.  We’ve cooked whole meals in it – a roast, baked potatoes, roast veges and even Yorkshire Puddings.  We’re slowly getting the hang of it.  It’s one thing to cook meals made from food grown at home, and another to be able to cook it using free wood fuel.  Self-sufficiency or what?!

On the home front, the boys are just back to school.  They've both spent a few days in Christchurch with Lucas and Sophie, no doubt wearing out their internet. Sam's hoping to pass his full driving licence sometime soon, and is keeping as busy as ever with band commitments.  We're going to see the local production of 'King and Country' this week - a play about New Zealanders during WW1, accompanied by the brass band.  Billy's soccer season has started and the wine vintage has ended.  Perhaps a bit of normality is afoot, whatever that is.

This quote by Roald Dahl was on the Collingwood school classroom wall.  We're very blessed that it only takes a glance out of any window to generate good thoughts.

'If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely'. 

March 2015

The drought isn’t over but we have had some rain.  Not enough yet to fill water tanks, but enough to trigger some pasture growth.  Combined with some cooler nights and dewy mornings, the land is looking a little fresher and less brown.  We’re still having some warm days (25 degrees a couple of days ago) but nights are definitely getting longer and day temperatures are occasionally dropping below 20 degrees.  It’s completely dark by 8:30pm now and the end of daylight saving is nigh.  There’s a sense that we’re plunging into winter with only a brief glimpse of autumn.  Happily the council have just announced that the fire ban has been lifted.  The pizza oven was fired up, and we've already enjoyed home made garlic bread, roast beef and of course, pizza.  Truly delicious - even Peter said it was the best pizza he's tasted.  We're really thrilled that something we built actually works.  It just requires a bit of fine-tuning, things like checking out which woods burn longest and hottest, how soon to crank it up, how best to move things around etc.  In the interests of good taste perhaps, Billy has decided to remove the decorative iPod.  Sighs of relief all round.  

The sprinklings of rain have been very much welcomed by the weeds, which seem to come up overnight.  I’ve started closing down some of the keyhole beds in the veg patch using compost and straw.  We’ve been lucky enough to bag as much burned straw as we can take from a local farmer whose giant stack went up in flames.  He’d already been approached by other neighbours and is grateful that he won’t have to find a way of getting rid of it all. From a gardener’s perspective it’s perfect – already composting and with added charcoal.  The orchard trees have all had the same nourishment. and even some rain to bed it all in.    All they need now a bit of end of summer pruning and they're sorted for winter.

We’ve also bagged a huge pile of mulch chippings for the vege garden paths.  It’s immediately tidied the place up, even though it’ll only be a matter of a few days before the weeds that were covered find their way to the light.  Our ‘hayman’ Steve, who’s also an arborist, dropped it off and we paid for it using the usual currency of beer.  In the vege garden, autumn/winter seedlings are planted out, mostly crops for animal feed (sugar beet, mammoth mangels and kale) but also some extra brassicas, soy beans and a couple of packs of carrot seeds which will hopefully have enough warmth and moisture to germinate.  We still have plenty of mature carrots and other vegetables that we’re harvesting.  Thankfully these pukeko weren't interested in the vegetables as they passed through.

The pigs are being seriously indulged with fruit.  We have a relatively steady supply from friends, which is supplemented from our own orchard.  The stone fruit are coming in big time now, especially the peaches.  The peachcot has a magnificent crop for such a young tree, and the fruit is totally delicious - much better than peach or apricot alone according to my humble taste-buds.  The plumcot and tomcot trees alongside haven’t fruited at all and look a bit raggy.  Perhaps next year they’ll come right.

The sheep and cows seem to be doing fine.  We’re still not completely sure of the pattern for when Athena is on heat, so haven’t managed to get her inseminated yet.  We’re still feeding out hay, but neither the cows nor the sheep get too excited about it like they do in winter, so probably they are managing to find enough pasture to eat. 

We’re down to one last rabbit as the others have sold.  He seems a bit sad out there on his own, but probably that’s just our projection.  Maybe he’s delighted to finally have the run to himself.  It’ll be the end of an era when we have no more rabbits to feed.  At least it’ll make the whole feeding round less complicated when we’re busy or away from home.  Maybe we can move onto thinking ducks…

8 chicks hatched but we’re down to only 5 beautiful little bundles of mischief.  We’re not sure what happened to those that didn’t make it, but it seems that they can get out of the run if they want.  We’re not sure where their escape route is yet.  The mother hen has been a very dutiful parent and takes great care of them.  She does have a habit of bedding them down on the ground, so maybe rats have taken the opportunity to grab themselves fresh food.  Cornelius is in the freezer, and our dreams of peaceful nights were immediately scuppered by 2 of the young chooks who have decided to compete for top rooster.  Their cock-a-doodle-doos are still on the pathetic side, so they’re putting in lots of practice.

The grape harvest is starting and Peter’s about to start working ‘vintage’ hours.  He’ll be on night shifts again, which makes life a bit tricky at home.  Hopefully he’ll be able to bring home some of the excess grapes.  The home harvest is also coming in.  There are batches of tomato sauce going into the freezer every couple of weeks, and other veges bagged up in the freezer.  The corn is just ripe and is being eaten daily.  The excess kernels will be stored with the sunflower heads for feeding the chooks in winter.  The ripened chillis have been threaded onto cotton and are now hanging to dry alongside the herbs on the suspended clothes dryer in the living room.  Strawberries are jammed, crab apples jellied.  Autumn wines are in progress – so far pear, blackboy peach and rhubarb, and there’s plenty of honey to make a few more bottles of mead.   Last year's wines are nearly all bottled now, and are definitely better than just drinkable.  There are also several litres of sloe gin and vodka, and new for this year, Blackboy Peach brandy. 

 The bees are looking fabulous.  Hive 1 worker bees had totally re-filled the honey frames which were emptied a few weeks ago, so I’ve had to take off a few more frames, remove the honey and return them to the hive to give them a little extra space for more storage.  Hive 2 has also made great progress in terms of honey supplies, so should have plenty to see them through winter.  It’s lovely to have abundant honey again and of course a real privilege to have the best-tasting honey in the world.  I’ve designed some sticky labels (actually ‘designed’ is quite a stretch, but I did manage to print them out from our computer, eventually) and put the honey into 2 different sized plastic jars for gifts.  The recently extracted honey can’t be given away as there is a risk of tutin poisoning this late in the season.  I’ll just have to be a beefeater and eat it all myself, or at least eat enough to know it isn’t harmful.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed the company of Claire (second cousin and little sis of David from England who came a couple of years ago) who spent a few days with us.  We had a glorious trip to Lochmara in the Sounds.  The day got off to a brilliant start when we spotted several starfish, and a couple of seahorses in Picton harbour.  None of us had ever actually seen a seahorse in the wild.  The photo’s not great, but there it is – a seahorse in its natural environment.  We also had a day out in the Abel Tasman National Park – Marahau and Kaiteriteri.   It was a bit showery but we had a gorgeous walk along the first part of the track and a boat ride.   Claire’s wanderlust is taking her further south and then onto Australia.  We’re hoping that she’ll persuade her parents to come here on holiday.  If you’re reading this Janet and Steve, please consider yourselves invited!

 

Another month in paradise passes by for us.  But sad news from the mother-land has meant we’ve been in touch with relatives in the UK quite often.  It’s usually lovely to catch up with everyone, but not in these circumstances.  Take care Jeremy, we’re thinking of you.  Kia kaha (stay strong).

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters

compared to what lies within us”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

February 2015



It’s been an exciting few weeks, though at times a bit more excitement than was good for us.  After weeks of dry weather in Marlborough, the fire risk has become extreme.  Fire started in a forestry block in the Onamalutu Valley, close to its junction with the Wairau North Bank.  At the last count, it burned through 600+ hectares and took more than a week to be fully contained.  Luckily for us, the wind direction was in our favour, and it blew the fire further away.  The fire-fighting efforts have meant that no harm came to stock or properties.  Only a few farm buildings were damaged – an amazing feat given the ferocity and extent of the fire.   The Onamalutu residents had evacuation plans A - D in place (plan D – most favoured by the boys - was being helicoptered out from the reserve), and we were given lots of advice about making our properties easier to protect from fire.  The neatly stacked firewood and the barbecue gas can are now in the trailer in the middle of the hay barn paddock, and I’m researching fire-resistant plant varieties to replace some of the plantings around the house.  The boys were definitely more excited than scared.  Missing the first day back to school was a triumph, and having a nearby film set of choppers, planes, monsoon buckets, fire engines, huge bulldozers and clouds of thick smoke was definitely an added bonus.

The lack of rain is visible on the property.  It’s never browned off like this before.  We’re having to feed out hay to the cows and sheep as there’s very little for them to eat.  The long range forecast suggests that there isn’t much rain on the horizon for the next few months, so hopefully the hay will be enough see us through winter.  Even the garden lawn is browning in places.  On closer inspection it’s mainly the grass which is dying off – where it’s green it’s thanks to the weeds.  Another good reason to avoid a beautifully manicured lawn.   And another good reason to start reducing our stock numbers.  The home-kill man is coming out this week for 2 of the ram lambs.  He was originally booked to come earlier but the fire closed the road to non-residents for several days.
                             

Progress on pizza oven Mark II has been swift.  It’s good-to-go, but ironically can’t be tested until the region’s fire ban is lifted.  It’s a considerable improvement on pizza oven Mark I, which looked OK but collapsed one rainy day before we could use it.  Mark II began with a layer of fire bricks (our only expenditure, though quite expensive at $9 per brick x 20) on which a dome-shaped mould of sand was placed.  The first, inner layer was made of river sand and clay.  This was followed by 2 insulation layers of sand, clay and sawdust.  The final weather-proofing plaster layer was constructed by adding the traditional building material of fresh manure (cow) to the sand and clay mix.  Making the plaster was a bit like rubbing fat into flour in cake-making, and as expected, the men of the house were too precious to get their hands in and mix it properly.   Thankfully I had no such qualms, and it all came together beautifully and without aroma.  It’s been decorated with some paua shells, a heart-shaped rock and some signatures.  Oh and an old ‘Ipod Touch’ of Billy’s to create a modern theme, or something like that.  Maybe one day we’ll decorate over it with mosaics. 

 

Valentine’s Day was memorable this year for being one out of the box.  We’d decided to forego a meal out (good food at home/too tight/Marlborough’s Food and Wine Festival the same day) and go to the cinema instead.  We sat on the back row (everyone else was watching 50 Shades of Grey) and the film (The Kingsman) was great.  When we got home we discovered that Billy had washed and dried the dishes, tidied up the house, walked the dog, and arranged red rose petals in a heart shape on our bed with our names on either side.  Who is this child????  

The bees have been enjoying the array of flowers in the flower border and Joanna’s Patch.  Some of them are perennials, and some are annuals grown from seed.  Many are annuals which have haphazardly seeded themselves.  Whilst it’s been lovely to have plentiful flowers, there isn’t enough time to keep on top of dead-heading and clearing away those that are past their best, so the garden looks colourfully unkempt.  On the plus side it does mean that seed-collecting is straightforward.  And there hasn’t been much need for weeding as the straw mulch has worked brilliantly at keeping them down.  The weeds have had to be more subtle and disguise themselves to stay alive.  It’s amazing how weeds are clever to pop up among similar-foliage plants.  The photo shows a dandelion alongside a red Geum.   You wouldn’t know it was there except for when it flowers and gives itself away.  I’ve seen this happen with other weeds elsewhere in the garden – the feathery foliage of yarrow in the lavender; leafy wild sorrel within the arnica.  Maybe these are just the weeds that take off because you miss them when weeding, or perhaps it’s a phenomenon for which there’s a very long word.

The bees have also been busy making honey.  Hive 1 yielded 11 litres which was extracted manually – scraping off each side of the frames and then straining the honey and wax through a colander and a sieve.  The resulting honey still has small amounts of wax in it, but for me this adds to its scrumptiousness, rather than makes it less perfect.  Of course it’s stickily spread onto just about every surface in the kitchen, but it is totally delicious.  It doesn’t look like there’s any spare honey in hive 2.  That’s OK because it’s a new colony and they should have enough to last them through winter.

The veg garden continues to be abundant and beautiful.  In the old trough pond, the water lily is getting on with the business of flowering.  It’s definitely one of my favourite flowers.  We’re harvesting carrots, peas, salad, brassicas, spuds, beetroot and greens.  There’re loads of giant sugar beet (now closer to a football size than a foot) and sunflower seed-heads for the chooks.  Amazingly the corn is magnificent, and I’ve finally got my corn circle.  It may not technically be a corn circle as it’s a circle of standing-up corn, rather than an alien circle of mown-down corn.  Alas, as with most of my brilliant ideas, it’s totally flawed.  I’d pictured myself sitting on a deck-chair inside the shady circle, glass of gin and slab of chocolate in hand.  But I’d somehow overlooked that in the centre of the corn bed are the globe artichokes – massive, spiky, full of bees, perennial…  Other than that, the bed is doing well.  The pumpkins are creeping everywhere and keeping the weeds down.  Some of the peas have germinated and are climbing up the corn.  And the 6 tobacco plants grown from seed are outside the corn circle and looking stunning.  They’d started to flower, so the lower leaves have been harvested.  They’re now hanging from a pole in the car port, gently swaying in the breeze.  Alongside them are the plaited onion and garlic crop. 

 

         

Two hens became broody, but only one of them (a Cochin) has remained steadfastly sitting on her eggs.  The other broody hen was the hen-mother of the current pullets.  It was a surprise when she went broody again, and we had to put some fertilised eggs from the other hens under her.  She was as uncommitted as she’d been with her previous brood, happy to hop off the eggs relatively frequently for a feed or stretch.  Last time she did stick it out though.  The Cochin hen is still with the others in the main run - hopefully they’ll all be OK in there.  We didn’t dare risk moving her and the eggs out, after the last experience when the hen abandoned her eggs.   Once they’re hatched we’ll probably move them.   That won’t be long - the pitter-patter of tiny chick feet should happen any day soon.

The pigs are growing and generally behaving well (hope not famous last words).  Aside from upturning their feed trough most days, they’re managing to stay in the run and it still feels safe to get in there with them.  They’re loving their grains, which have remained their firm favourite food.  Next on their list are the plums which are chucked in from the tree alongside on a regular basis.  Other scraps come their way from the vegetable garden, like apple cucumbers of which there are hundreds.  A recent tidy up of Madame Cholet revealed a mass of overgrown cucumbers.  Though there are 6 cucumber plants in there, it’s the single apple cucumber which has gone bananas.  Cucumbers had been a bit of a nemesis crop for me until this season.  Now even the ones planted outside are prolific.

Peter’s built another raised bed in the old horse arena, which was necessary because the last raised bed is full enough of organic materials to be shut down.  This includes the added kelp seaweed which Billy and me collected from Kaikoura when we were coming home from a Christchurch trip.  It’s also blessed with masses of cow poo.  I’ll cover it with straw for a few months and put the next weeds in the new bed.  We’ve opened up the huge circular compost bed in the veg garden and have started to spread it in the gaps where crops have been harvested.  It’s gorgeous stuff – black, soft, crumbly and cool.  It’s never been turned (didn’t think through how that could happen so never did it), but time looks to have done the deed.  Once the compost has all been distributed, the bed will be key-holed and used for planting in spring.  It’ll need a hedge border.  I’d planned to do a step-over espaliered fig, but more research suggests that it’ll just get too big for this purpose.  I’m now leaning towards using an upright rosemary instead, which are apparently easy to propagate from cuttings which can be stuck straight in the ground.  Perfect!  

Note the professionally tied up raspberries, boysenberries and blackberries in the bed behind the compost.  It was a good morning's work to untangle the mass of prickly canes and secure them - which would have been impossible without the skill and dexterity of Karyn, who nobly offered her services in exchange for eggs. 

I’ve been able to get on with a whole lot of tasks outside because I’m finally enjoying reduced working hours.  I worked several extra shifts last month, which have provided the leeway to actually have a couple of days off in the week.  It’s a good time of year to have a bit of extra time on your hands.  Harvesting, storing, preserving and clearing up are enjoyable but lengthy, so it’s great to have the luxury of getting some of them done during the week.  Having been through the experience of possible annihilation by forest fire, such work is even more gratifying.  We feel truly humbled and blessed that we’re not facing a total wipe-out of the last 3+ years on this land.  We’ve fallen on our feet again. 

Right – time to get on with bottling wine, making beeswax candles and putting some crumble over the rhubarb which was harvested yesterday.  It’s a hard old life etc etc.