December 2019

Maggie 14 years old

Which orifice did December just disappear into?  My level of garden task denial may have reached new heights.  I'm watering the Madame Cholet residents, and eating the fruits and vegetables of my labour when I have time to gather them.  But otherwise the vege garden has had no attention.  On-going intermittent rain has provided adequate moisture for everything to thrive.  This includes weeds in beds and paths, and also pasture thistles that must be on steroids. On the plus side, the flower gardens are looking fab - expanding plants and flowers everywhere.   

Christmas has been and gone, and this year it was definitely unusual.  Firstly, no Billy!  The first year that we haven't been altogether at Christmas.  Secondly, Lucas' girlfriend Laura (they arrived mid-December) had been feeling unwell on Christmas Eve, and this culminated in hideous stomach pain, a trip to ED, admission to hospital and finally an appendicectomy on Boxing Day!  Happily she seems to be recovering now, enough to celebrate her birthday today (28th) a little.  We ended up eating Christmas dinner and opening most presents without her, which was a real shame.  Her gifts for us all had been beautifully wrapped - as modelled by Sam and Molly in the photo.

A call from our next door neighbour about what to do with a bee swarm on their property meant that the top bar hive got itself occupied.  It was a decent swarm and seems to be very busy settling into the new home.  We opened the hive up 6 days after transferring the bees and they'd already built large combs from about 6 of the top bars.  I've been reading up about how to manage top bar hives and it sounds like one of the main issues is when the bees build cross-combs.  There are a number of strategies to avoid or correct this, but happily, none of those was needed as these bees seem to know what they're doing.  They had built the combs markedly over to the left side of the hive, and we had to break off some small attachments to the side of the barrel.  When we checked with a spirit level, the hive was not straight, and we think those clever bees were accounting for the imbalance.  I'm going back in sometime soon to double-check.  In the meantime, I put an escape board in the hive that was last season's swarm.  The very heavy honey box that was taken off the hive the next day contained nearly 10 litres of the best honey in the world.  The other (original) hive swarmed a few days ago, and the bees took off towards the river so were lost to me.  I'm hoping they swarmed because the hive was full of honey, and really must get in there very soon to confirm (and harvest).

Building a solar beeswax filter has been on the to-do list for a few years, and has been more on my mind since dreaming up the top bar hive.  There are a few YouTube videos showing a dark and knobbly pile of dirty wax transforming magically into gorgeous and immaculate yellow wax - using only an elastic band, a piece of paper towel, a sandwich box part-filled with water and warmth from the channelled sun.  Surely not?!  Solly, the solar dehydrator, didn't get hot enough.  But using the Sunflair solar oven to channel those hot rays came as divine inspiration in the middle of the night, and by the end of the next day, I had 2 gleaming stacks of golden wax.  Absolute alchemy.  Substituting tights for paper towels also works, and maybe reusable if cleaning them isn't too arduous.

The piglets next door came of age and we went to collect them.  Three boys (Percy, Pepa and George) and a girl (Babe) seemed to be settling in OK, but by the time we got home from work the next day, they were gone.  We sent out a search party, and eventually, Peter located them in the paddock with the cows.  What a nightmare to attempt to round them up.  Finally, Peter managed to grab Percy and put him in the trailer.  He squealed all the way back to the pig run, but it did the trick and the others followed on.  After lots of chasing around, we eventually got them all back into the run and then attempted to secure it.  We assumed that they'd escaped under the fencing somewhere, as previous pigs had done.  Then we went indoors for dinner, but when we checked on them a little later, they were gone again.  Aaaarrgghh.  This time they were easier to find and return to the run, and this time we hung around to see how they were getting out.  Turns out they are jumping pigs, whoever would have thought that? Some serious improvements using wire fencing and baling twine did the trick to keep our porcine friends secure, and there have been no repeat attempts since. 

Our annual (and completely non-competitive) Christmas cake decorating came around soon after Sam, Molly, Lucas and Laura arrived.  The theme this year was 'our place', so pretty much anything went.  It was a new experience for Laura and she got stuck in with some creations of a higher-than-usual standard.  Lucas and Laura decorated the tree when the infamous Marlborough wind eventually died down and also helped Peter to erect a gazebo on the deck over the table.  We've since added some solar lights to it, so it's all very twinkly out there.

Despite being grazed by the sheep, the orchard was getting overgrown. There was nothing else for it but to get the mower out.  Not a pleasant task, but quite satisfying, and much more manageable when taking turns with Laura.  There are nowhere near as many pears as last year, and peaches look a bit sparse (but then they always do at this time of year).  Apples are abundant, as are plums, and happily also greengages.  Mulberries are also a-plenty, but have yet to turn black.  The birds will be very happy to pick them as soon as they do, so I'll be keeping tabs on them. 

The first batch of this season's redcurrants are in the freezer, and lots more to go.  Blackcurrants are ready for picking too, they're next on the list.  Raspberries have also been grazed, and some of them are absolutely huge.  Strawberries are a disappointment this year, totally the fault of my neglect.  They were re-planted through weed mat and more attention should have been given to them.  Weeds in the bed pushed up the weed mat, starved the strawberries of light, and then penetrated the cut-outs themselves.  Hopefully the hundreds I gave away have fared better.  The thyme and sage have suffered the same fate - they may be salvageable if only I had enough time to get out there and stage a rescue.

We're still eating a range of veges from the garden, although increasingly they're disappearing amid a mass of weeds.  Though it looks really untidy, it 's definitely not necessarily a bad thing of course.  What is truly gutting is when perfectly perfect veges go to seed because I missed their key triumphant moment.  Maybe one year I'll actually manage to keep my working hours manageable at critical garden moments.  Only a little dehydrating has happened.  Chamomile flowers have been picked and dried in Solly, as have a few other herbs like mint and thyme.  Many others are about to flower so I've missed that boat, at least for a while.  It's a good feeling to at least be doing some preserving.

One of my Christmas presents from Sam and Molly was an oyster mushroom kit.  I got it started straight away, on a tray in the upstairs shower.  Within days they had sprouted and must be about ready to eat already.  Totally amazing, hope they're as delicious as they look!  I've just harvested more shiitake mushrooms - incredible that they are still fruiting after all this time.

8 demi-johns of wine, some pear, some feijoa, have been racked (also long overdue).  None had quite finished fermenting, but some pear wine was bottled to release demi-john space.  It's quite sweet and very drinkable.  It was originally fermented in the huge demi-john where it bubbled furiously for ages, so despite its desert-wine sweetness it could pack quite an alcoholic punch.  In contrast, the feijoa wine isn't a patch on previous incarnations.
Feijoas are very late fruiting, and by the time I started the wine using frozen feijoas, the environment temperature was already quite cold.  Fermentation was slow, so that the wine isn't great is no surprise.   

The go-kart has been charged up and driven through numerous cowpats.  Both Molly and Laura shrieked their way through go-kart joints and returned duly splatted, though smiling.  The cows and sheep were unsure if it was friend or foe.  It may be a useful bribe when it comes to hay bale collecting, though there is not yet a date for that.  Our neighbour Ross will let us know when we get to the top of his list.




Molly celebrated her birthday on 20th December.  She had to work that day, but celebrated with a strawberry cake when she got back.  Sam has his usual 6 weeks off over Christmas and summer, and he and Molly picked up some extra work at a local vineyard/winery so they moved back home for a while.


 

The bathroom is done and totally perfect.  The bath looks great and is ideally curved to support your head at neck level - just right for headache relief.  The rainfall showerhead is more luxurious than I'd imagined.  Overall, far too up-market for us, but we'll cope somehow.

Lucas has been doing some web work while he's here.  He also got into DIY mode and constructed a weights bar out of some leftover branches and firewood.  Very creative eh?  He and Laura will be travelling to Bali in January where he'll be able to work as a digital nomad.  I'm not sure he has a career in gym equipment construction ahead...

Another year in paradise is passing, and still no yearning to return to the bright lights of the city.  We can even travel vicariously through our off-spring.  We have so many blessings to be grateful for.  I guess that has to include Peter's baubles...