March 2021

before...

...after (kinda)

Much of our available time in the last month has been spent shifting downstairs furniture and stuff here, there and everywhere. It’s all been very much worth it as the house is pretty much transformed. The living and dining zones are nearly done, but I’m allowing about 4 years to complete the gazillion little finishing off jobs in the kitchen. Still, it’s looking great and functions perfectly. And we’ve finally got our new toy - a dishwasher.

I’ve been away for several days this month. A work training event, a hypno weekend (my last official one though I’ll do some repeats) and a gin tour. The latter was a trip to gorgeous Reefton on the West Coast, the home of a gin distillery that produces ‘Little Biddy’s’ and with grand plans to distil whisky. I went with a group of nurses/midwives and appropriately we stayed in the Old Nurses Home, currently being converted into holiday accommodation. The trip was likely the first of many gin-associated adventures, and I’m hoping that Reefton may have recovered by now...The photo shows the ethereal sunrise over the Lewis Pass en route to Christchurch.

Work on the land has been minimal, but that’s not been too much of a problem at this time of year. It’s quite a mess (distinctly an understatement) of course, but that’ll all be cleared up once the cropping is done. Preserving the abundant fruit and vegetables is always a time-consuming task and one that I sometimes have to let go of. The Bramley apples have been grossly under picked, and a fair chunk of the massive pear crop has also been left to rot. The peaches, including the blackboys, cropped very poorly this year, and that was almost a relief. There are still plenty of eating apples remaining, and these will be made into Apple Cider Vinegar just as soon as I get one of those round tuits.

  

There's still plenty of production on the vegetable front.  The photo shows one day's pick of stuff that just couldn't be left any longer.  Polly, our neighbour's pig, is still troughing on the fantastic marrows that continue to balloon, often cleverly hiding away among the lush foliage.  There can't be too many more days before the first frost, and then all will be revealed.  The same goes for the gourds too, but in their case, I'm hoping there'll be heaps of them waiting to be discovered.  Last year's smallest gourds that were planted up with succulents have been much admired, so I'm planning to make heaps more with this year's batch.

   

Peter's spuds are still feeding us, and we've started to stockpile acorns for our next pig project.  We don't have specific plans for more pigs, but we can't seem to completely let the acorns go this year.  We pass a number of oak trees on Maggie's daily dog walk and just can't resist gathering them up.  Interestingly some of the oaks have hardly any acorns on them, and others are reasonably laden.  I did manage to stop myself picking the elderberries this year, which is a tiny bit heartbreaking, though I did gather some for a friend who makes elderberry jelly.

 

The Aztec corn is stunning and likely to be ready to pick soon.  Those planted in one of the raised beds are a total disaster, and I won't make that mistake again.  The ones in the keyhole bed that was supposed to be fallowing are absolutely amazing - very tall and robust.  Can't wait to get a look at their colourful gems.  The buckwheat and amaranth, both also planted in raised beds, have done quite well.  The buckwheat is harvested and drying indoors, and the amaranth is maturing nicely (though hoping it either gets on with it or it's not frost tender).  The few quinoas that germinated in the second germination attempt are also maturing in one of the keyhole beds.

The citrus are all doing their usual trick of having the fruit of varying maturity at the same time.  There are heaps of new grapefruits, lemons, oranges and mandarins coming through, that'll need to be protected within the next few weeks.  The lemon needs another Karyn-style prune, but it may be a while until that becomes a priority.  

The fruit and veges that have been frozen for breakfast smoothies have finally been amalgamated, re-packed into mixed bags and returned to the freezer.  This is quite a major task that has been a painstaking process in the past.  This time I had a brainwave and cleaned and bleached the bath.  The fruit was efficiently dumped therein, mixed and re-packed in a fraction of the usual time.  Very satisfying indeed, and great to be set up for the next few months with a healthy start to the day.  

The dahlias are continuing to show their joyful longevity, and there seem to be more flowers than ever.  I'm very happy with this mini take-over, as it's as practical (at keeping weeds down) as it is beautiful.  One of these days I'll get round to picking up some straw mulch and winter-down the flower bed, but as long as the dahlias are displaying, there's time up my sleeve.  

The beehives will also need wintering down soon...actually very soon.  Eeek another priority.  There was another 45 litres of honey from the 3 hives that were extracted one very long day.  Oh boy, was I ever totally over honey and being sticky by that evening.  The new extractor certainly sped the process up, but still a heap of work.  It's all in buckets and will need bottling soon, in case it's fast-granulating like last year's.  The smallest bucket is full of honey from the newest colony - the one gifted by Derryn in spring.  Amazing that there was honey to take off such a young colony, let alone a whole super-full.  This honey is much lighter in colour than that produced by the other hives.  I've seen this difference before, but it's still pretty incredible that the honeys from the same tiny apiary can have this level of variety.  Such clever bees. 

Lexie

Billy is now officially 'between jobs' and hoping to get his Covid vaccination sooner rather than later so he can get out of the country and head back to Europe.  Lucas and Laura are planning to come over from Seoul later in the year to spend some time here before returning to Australia.  And Sam and Molly are staying put near Christchurch for now.  I've been very happily staying with them and greyhound Lexie when I attend the Christchurch hypno weekends.  Peter has been very busy both at work and home, sorting out the renovations.  He's hoping that the anticipated wine bottling lull will actually happen and he'll have a bit more energy when he gets home from work.  This year's grape harvest in Marlborough is very light (about 20-40% down) so vintage should be over by the end of the month.  No change for me, and I'm delighted to report that I'm actually getting on with my hypno portfolio - thanks to motivation from friends Vida and Roz.  England is finally making good Covid progress, but international travel without isolation costs feels a long way off.  

In theory, the small volume of life-sentence block work that has been undertaken this month should translate to a much shorter blog.  But somehow I still manage to ramble on and on.  Um, sorry about that.  It's not like there's nothing else to do, eh?   Autumn is yet to really show off its best colours, and that flippin lawn still needs mowing again.  Ain't no place like home :)