There are signs that summer is starting to give way to hints of autumn. We're still getting some hot days in the late 20s, but days are shorter and mornings are fresher. The photo shows the clouds dispersing as the sun rises - such a gloriously beautiful start to the day.
The two honey boxes yielded a few litres of fabulous sweet honey. Some of the frames were still heavy when they came off the extractor. The honey that was left was thick and I had to scrape it off the frames. It was delicious but took ages to filter through the sieve. I used the solar oven to warm it up to make it more runny, but it was hotter than I expected and that melted some of the wax into the honey. The honey still tasted good but I've bottled it separately and called it 'cooking honey'.
There are 20+ litres of elderberry and 20+ litres of rhubarb wine in one of the fabulous demi-johns that Shona gifted me. When I realised that the cranberry bush was fruiting its little heart out (and with no need for several kgs of cranberries to eat), it was an easy decision to make another 20-litre batch of cranberry wine. Several kgs of Packham's pears will also be converted to wine once fully ripened. That's quite a lot of dubious-quality wine fermenting in our airing cupboard. Hopefully, it'll all be delish, but if not, I have a cunning plan to convert it to fruit vodka in my new bench-top air still. The still is ordered but has yet to arrive. I'm very excited about its potential, and also a little worried about its potential to speed up my demise. Molly uses this kind of still to make gin, and my friend Jenn gifted me a generous sample of totally tasty vodka, distilled from some dodgy mead that her husband made with my honey years ago. I'm gonna need plenty of wine to experiment with.
The garden is productive and I'm slightly concerned that we're approaching tomatogeddon. There are 4 patches of tomatoes (18 plants all up). Each plant had an egg cracked into its planting hole and they're all showing off. I'm thrilled to have this 'problem' and delighted that I have plenty of options for dealing with the glut. The tastiest toms will be turned into relish, and there'll be plenty of bottled tomato sauce for the freezer, even if I eat a mountain of tomatoes every day. Can't have too many tomatoes!
The squashes are also productive. Several 'Baby Bear' pumpkins will turn into orange lanterns and a few butternut squashes are fattening up. The gherkins are monstrous and the gourd plant is producing enormous cylindrical fruit that I have no idea what to do with. Yet.
It's been a poor season for stone fruit in the region, so not just mine. It was delightful to find a few (5) Blackboy peaches on a tree that has looked considerably unwell for a while. Many of its branches are dead, but those remaining are in full leaf and with spectacular peaches aboard. It'll get a good old prune in a few weeks (along with the orchard trees) and hopefully will live to tell the tale next year.
Peter has been making steady progress with the fruit cage and self-wicking beds while I've been working. The cage structure is concreted and secure, and the netting will be attached once we've filled the self-wicking beds. Most of the beds have drainage and just need to be placed in their final positions before adding geotextile wicking membrane, sand and soil/compost. Then the planting fun can begin.
Peter has also been working on the firewood pile - splitting and stacking. Several firewood piles around the property should keep us toasty for a few winters to come. If George has anything to do with it, there'll be more on the horizon. We've also cut up several lengths of smaller branches to fit in the char kiln when we start lighting fires. They'll provide beautiful bio-char to nourish the planting beds. He's also completely repaired the Womb roof that was damaged in a storm. Instead of roofing felt, he's attached more resilient corrugated iron which has improved its aesthetics.
The dahlias are still filling the flower gardens with happy colour. They really are the flower that keeps giving. In a few years, the garden will probably be wall-to-wall dahlias, but I probably won't be complaining. They are so vibrant and it seems that everyone has a favourite.
I had to laugh when I looked closely at the 'Bug Hotel' that hangs from the Gin Palace. I'm not sure the biodiversity was intended to include the paper wasps that managed to find a gap big enough to build a nest.
After-dinner dog walks along the Ohinemahuta River provide a very pleasant evening stretch, and for many weeks we've been serenaded by avenues of wild carrot flowers. Umbels are an impressive flower form and it's fab to see bees scouting for nectar and pollen, even if having a 'bumble on your umbel' sounds more like a medical condition. There are other wildflowers too. We've also been tracking a huge eel at various places along the river, and sometimes its smaller mate, though no sightings for a few days now.
Sam and Molly with friends JJ and Dan came to Blenheim for the Wine and Food Festival. The NZ Army Band were playing - awesome! Peter got a bit carried away and showed everyone how to do a foot-tapping dad dance that I'm sure was universally admired. It was a seriously hot day and much ambrosia was consumed.
We all walked Bracken after dinner along the river and played our usual Pooh Sticks. The sun's descent timed itself perfectly for the reflective photos from the bridge.
Auntie Sally arrived as planned, with her trademark tiny suitcase. She got a lot of stick about wine consumption - check out the items on her grocery bill!! We decided to have a couple of days at Hanmer Springs where we stayed in a lovely cottage, enjoying gorgeous weather and great food. On our way home we pulled off the road to watch a big pod of dolphins playing in the sea near Kaikoura. It was lovely to share Sally's happy energy again.
Sally's partner Keith arrived after a few days too. He'd been staying with family in Melbourne and was keen to explore the South Island. Peter and Billy took him fishing in the Kenepuru in Gladys where they caught snapper and snaffled green-lipped mussels. I took them to Nelson for a day too, and we all swam in the sea at Tahunanui beach. We also did local walks along the river and at the reserve.
I'm really looking forward to some more time at home soon. I've resigned from work and will take a few weeks or months' break before finding work again. I had planned to do that on my return from Aus, but that thought got waylaid so I'm resurrecting it again. I'm feeling in need of some garden healing and want to also pick up weaving and learning the keyboard again. Work has been taking up far too much of my emotional energy and has resulted in some neglect of my precious friends. That definitely needs rectifying. Maybe I'll be able to lure them with some homemade spirits...
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