Unless my marbles have eluded me again, I don't believe there have been any disasters affecting our little corner of the planet - natural or woman-made - since last month's blog. Slack or what? On the contrary, there have been some seriously joyful moments: significant tidying has happened, the vegetable garden is nourished and already welcoming seedling occupants, water is flowing in the right direction in the orchard, the hole in the pizza oven is being fixed, a bonus lamb arrived, and Billy the prodigal son returned home.
The lamb was born to Stormy, one of last year's triplets. She's very much a young teenage mum. Her own mother, Skylar, is one of our original ewes, so is getting on a bit. She's been a fantastic mum to tiny lambs but seems to lose interest when they get older and more demanding. Stormy had been left to her own devices for a while, and maybe that's contributed to her getting pregnant so young. She seems to prefer her own company and keep apart from the flock. Despite all that, young Stormy has taken to motherhood beautifully. Her lamb was born on a day of historical significance (08.09.2022) so she had to be named 'Elizabeth'. That set a theme for the older yet-to-be-named lambs. We now have Margaret, Ann, and twins Camilla and Charles. Elizabeth was born much smaller than her cousins and with a distinctive black front foot. What she lacks in size, she makes up in feistiness. She stamps her teeny little foot to intimidate us - so cute!
The pig run zone in the orchard has always had a tendency to be boggy, and that seemed to be worsening. Rainwater is funneled from the hillside opposite via a black plastic tube culvert beneath the road and used to make its way to the wetland via a vaguely-formed dent in the land. Now the water trickles across the orchard along a formed stream bed. Our neighbour, Craig, hired a digger and created the stream bed. It was deeply satisfying to then dig out the overgrowth and rocky mud from the culvert to clear the route to the stream bed, and watch the water flow through. It's a task I've been meaning to do for years, in the hope that it'll improve the drainage of the pig run and contribute to the improved health of the fruit trees. Laura helped me plant numerous flaxes into the banked-up soil alongside the stream. They had previously been lurking unhappily in one of the dry horse arena raised beds, so hopefully, they're heaps happier in their new home. 
Another task I've been meaning to do for years is to install a water tank. Because our water supply is pumped up from a well, we lose water when we lose power. We have gas hobs and a woodfire that we can cook both on and in, so can cope without electricity for everything else, but a lack of water is tricky. We keep stores of drinking water but not enough for toilet flushing or washing. Now we have 800 litres in a tank by the house, filled with rainwater collected from the roof. Another small step towards self-sufficiency and self-preservation for future weather events. One day we'll add some trellising to camouflage it a bit.
While he had the digger, Craig also dug a huge hole in the hay-barn paddock that has been filled with random crap lying around. That saved us a couple of trips to the dump in town and. has resulted in significantly improved accessibility to the carport and pool room, zones which are now unrecognisably tidy. The digging also revealed an underground seam of clay, enabling the repair of the pizza oven. The oven was forgotten during the July flood and left exposed without its cover. We were probably quite lucky that it didn't all wash away, but there was a huge hole and the surface all over was eroded. Lucas has been keen to fix it and so far we've got the inner and middle layers in place over the hole. It's a slow process, waiting for each layer to dry properly. Just the final layer to go - my favourite! It's the 'plaster' layer for weather-proofing, made of clay mixed with cow poo. Guessing that'll be my job - there's not likely to be any other volunteers to do this mixing. Jane won an auction for 2 queen bees who flew in from Christchurch in their little plastic cages. I had plenty of brood frames in all of my 3 hives, so was able to remove enough to make up 2 nucs. We figured that 2 queens doubled our chances of a successful split, and have happily ended up with 2 new colonies. I've kept one of the nucs here, putting it above one of my hives as a separate colony, and was able to spot the queen within a few days. Jane was delighted to spot hers too. My friend Jo in Havelock lost both her colonies over winter, so she'll be able to get started again with my spare nuc.
Friends of friends were keen to see inside a beehive. It was a miserable day when they came, and I was keen not to expose the hive to the elements for too long. I put them both in bee suits and I just wore a meshy hat. It was fine until the bees found their way into the meshy hat and all of a sudden there were loads inside. I got at least 2 stings, one on my jaw and the other on my eyebrow and was thereby magically transformed into elephant woman. My eye got hideously swollen and it looks like I'd been punched. This morning it's completely swollen shut. Though it looks awful and has affected my vision, it's not sore at all, just a bit of a nuisance. I'm hoping those anti-arthritic qualities of bee stings are really a thing. Meanwhile, I'm writing this blog with one eye.
My garden fairy Laura has now completed the clear-out of the compost heap, weeded paths, re-weeded planting beds, dug out the raised bed that temporarily housed flax, and sown seedlings in her plot. Some of these have succumbed to pest damage (birds and/or rabbits) but others are thriving. I've also planted out seedlings - carrots, onions, shallots, leeks, assorted brassicas, spinach, beetroot and radish outside, and some others in Madame Cholet. It's time to plant seeds again according to the moon planting guides, so Laura and I will have another happy session with the next batch.
Early spring is sap-rising time, so we've tapped a couple of birch trees and collected their sap. I won't do wine again but have had a go at birch sap syrup. Just a case of dehydrating the sap until it turns into syrup, and a log fire is the perfect place for it. A few litres reduces to about half a jam jar. The syrup is sweet and kinda earthy. Quite different from maple syrup or honey. Not sure what we'll actually use it in, but great to finally create it.
Access to the valley has been fine since the huge slip was dealt with. The bunding worked really well to contain some enormous rocks that fell from it the day after an earthquake (Richter 5.8 with epicentre in the Sounds, so quite a rattle). It'll probably take months before the area is properly cleared as there are still plenty more loose rocks to come down. It was Laura's first earthquake experience.
Sam and Molly came over for a couple of days. We'd hoped to join them in Hanmer for a brief getaway, but Peter's working hours scuppered that so they came to us. Sam enjoyed messing around on dad's old keyboard - apparently, they're making a bit of a comeback so he's taken it back with him. It's lovely that it's in use again. When they returned to Rolleston it snowed - Molly's first snow experience. It was just a sprinkling but I told them it was tradition to make a snowman - so they did!
It was our wedding anniversary on 18th September (29 years eeeek) and we went to Picton to do the Snout walk. It's a loop walk from Picton centre. going across a pointy bit of land along the Queen Charlotte Sound. There are intermittent sea views along the way, and the far point looks out towards Karaka Point. I had a yarn there with dad before we set off back. 12+ kms of relatively easy walking, a really lovely day.Billy's settling back in at home, and future plans are yet to be decided. His return means calories are abundant, from bought British food treats and his own baking. Maggie is still hanging on in there, declining very slowly and gracefully. Peter's still working shifts and some long hours that are pretty exhausting. He took Lucas, Laura and Billy out fishing on Gladys on a day that didn't conform to its relatively positive weather forecast. They managed to catch some kahawai for dinner though.
We've had glimpses of sunny days, but still heaps of rain and more than usual cloudy days for this time of year. The long-term forecast is for a dry summer, so maybe we should be more grateful for the rain. I'm still basking in the joy of being ahead in the garden (thanks to Laura's stellar work). Karyn's bed is even tidy enough to not lower the tone! The clocks have changed and more evening light is definitely a gardener's blessing. Lovely spring, the season of fresh promise, is definitely here 😀.
