June 2020

NZ went down to level 1 Covid-19 lockdown on June 8th, and life has returned to a new normal for many, except for those who've lost businesses or jobs.  Economically, like everywhere else, the country is pretty stuffed, and so the talk is all about work and money.  We're feeling very grateful to be no worse off financially than pre-Covid.  I'm really resonating with the old-fashioned advice that you'll always have job security as a health professional, a concept that was meaningless to me as a young person.  

Winter has really set in with a succession of frosty mornings and chilly days.  It'll be the shortest day on Sunday - that always seems to come around quickly.  We've had plenty of rain in the last few days - a relief for those who are experiencing a significant drought this year.  This rain has slowed up work on the driveway.  The digger also broke down, and this stopped work altogether except for a little titivating around the edges.  The Ti Kouka tree bed at the
driveway entrance has been extended and planted up in colourful natives.  There are a few more trees and shrubs to go in, but only after the remaining pittosporum hedge has been cut back.  It's a big job and shouldn't be made more difficult by having to avoid new plants.  We've (probably) chosen a charming kit set studio so more specific dimension plans can be made.

Work in the vege and horse arena beds has been happening and wasn't as big a task as I'd imagined.  Happily, no more weed spray was needed for the lemon balm raised bed, and like the peppermint and spearmint beds, it's dug over and blanketed with a liberal supply of poo.  Some horse poo, but mostly cow poo from the newly (though temporarily) resurrected Poo-well CEO, Billy.  The plan is for more poo, then to cover with weed mat overwinter before preparing and planting grains.  Some thought will need to go into irrigation too.  No decisions yet about what grains will be grown, but that'll be an enjoyable research process.

The Aztec corn is now fully dry and is nearly all de-kernelled.  The process of removing the dry kernels is hard on the hands.  The remaining few that are still very tightly attached to their cobs can dry a bit longer as I need that skin on my hands for work.  You can buy gadgets to do this, including some fabulous cast iron manual ones, but can't really justify the expense any more than I can a grain mill, so still desperately seeking a local miller.  Maybe one day we can build one with actual stones - that can go on the 2030 to-do list.

The strawberry bed is fertilised, irrigated, weed matted and planted with 52 young runners.  The only task left for later is to add some bird protection.  I intend to share several fewer strawberries with the birds in summer this year.  Black and white currant cuttings have been added to the existing red currant cuttings that seem to be still alive.  When I can get round to it, the blueberries will be moved to a horse arena bed where they can be also be protected from total bird theft in the fullness of time.  The bed they're in now is also infested with couch grass, so care must be taken to avoid transplanting that.  When the blueberries are gone, I can work on getting rid of it altogether.  Eventually, I'll have separate beds for new black, red and white currants from the cuttings.  It'll be a long process but should be worth it.


The other cuttings - hedge hebes, tea (camellia sinensis), daphne and mock orange are being cared for in Madame Cholet and so far, amazingly, no losses.  The daphnes are even completely over-achieving by producing flower buds.  I wasn't sure if there'd be any advantage by using the tunnel house, but maybe there is after all.


There are now 6 raised iron beds that are housing herbal tea plants (peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, nettle, and camomile in summer) and culinary common mint.  They're all well fertilised and covered with pea straw, and are much more manageable than previously.  A couple of the now-empty half barrels are in reasonable enough condition to be re-used elsewhere, though as yet undecided.

The currants themselves have been pruned (by me but in Karyn-style).  I looked up how to prune them after I'd pruned them and luckily haven't done too much wrong.  Maybe I'll do it the other way round next time.  The woody offcuts are abundant and are being slowly cut into lengths that can be used as fire-starter faggots, probably for next winter.  

The cows are being fed out with hay most days now, and have resumed their usual endless mooing when they spot a human capable of feeding them, even if they've just been fed.  There is talk about a visit from the home kill man, so I'm leaving that to Peter.  There's no real hurry, and we probably need a decent freezer sort out before we go ahead.  I've already organised this years' frozen fruit into smoothie bags for breakfasts, and that was an unpleasant enough diving foray into the extreme cold of the chest freezer.  Brrrrr - maybe our next freezer should be an upright.

The sheep have all received another dose of selenium, their first for a while.  There's a chance that the ewes could already be pregnant, though it's very tricky to predict.  We also checked their feet, and Shaggy got a serious haircut, courtesy of Karyn (cue arse photo) and Emily.  It was a job and a half, and when done, it looked like there was another whole sheep laid on the ground.  Poor Shaggy was very patient as if she knew it had to be done.  She'll no doubt be feeling the cold now though.  The worms, on the other hand, will be feeling pretty cosy under their new fleece blanket.

There are now a number of litres of damson, medlar and feijoa gin/vodka at various stages of production.  The medlar gin is looking like a more long term process than other fruits, but maybe they'd have benefitted from being to pierced before steeping.  The medlar wine looked reassuringly as if someone had vomited into the bucket - in my experience that's usually a good omen for wine quality, but I'm still keeping an open mind.  When it was strained, it was a light straw colour, rather than the yukky brown in the bucket.  The 23 litres of elderberry, 20 of feijoa and 15 of mead have been racked, and some of these will be bottleable within a few weeks.

Last month (3rd May) we managed to trap a feral kitten in our porch.  We'd spotted him before and Karyn decided that her home needed a cat again.  He was pretty easy to catch and calmed down straight away in the basket.  Karyn and Em came to pick him up, and within half an hour of arriving at his new home, he was eating cat biscuits from Em's hand.  Probably a dumped kitten rather a feral one, just skin and bone.  But definitely, a cat who'd well and truly landed on his paws.  Dennis (as he eventually became known) is now master of his kingdom, having taken command of Karyn's dog, husband and everyone else.  He swiftly doubled his pathetic weight and has become a delightful and energetic kitten with a penchant for adorable photography posing.

On the home front, there is plenty of news.  Lucas and Laura got married in Seoul and are heading to England at the end of the month!!  BOOM.  They plan to have a more traditional celebration when the world is more post-Covid, so watch this space...  

Sam and Molly are awaiting the arrival of their first fur-baby - a retired greyhound - and it looks like it won't be far off.  Molly is between jobs and has been being very creative at home.  Her Yorkshire Puddings were so beautiful that we had to get competitive.  The photo is of my best effort so far, and I think they're an award-worthy 10 out of 10.  However, it's fair to say there is no consensus from the rest of the jury about this.  Yet.


Billy turned 20 on 17th June - so we're no longer the parents of teenagers hurray!  He's also got work at Peter's place that will be a perfect gap filler until he's able to travel again.  We took him out for a meal to Dodson Street restaurant (using vouchers gifted by Chelsea in thanks for mentoring her first year of midwifery practice - Go Chels!!!).  


Peter has been successfully selling heaps of White Cloud Mountain Minnows that bred prolifically in one of the outdoor water troughs, and also his baby Discus that took considerably more skill to breed.  They've been snapped up by local fishkeepers who we didn't realise existed in such numbers.  Some of them have bought fish from him before and several are asking what else he's got.  It's been promising enough, financially and satisfyingly, for him to plan to do more fish breeding and sales.
  
I'm continuing with my hypnotherapy studies, but we can't really make too many future plans until the world can move on from Covid restrictions.  Seems like a good time to figuratively smell the roses - light the fire, batten down the hatches and look forward to life on the land after the winter solstice.

May 2020

NZ went down to COVID Alert level 2 on May 14th - a great achievement at a global level. Whereas level 3 was sarcastically referred to as ‘level 4 with KFC’, many things have changed since 3 became 2.  Schools are back, bars are open, all with robust distancing and hygiene practices.  Contact tracing is in big-time too.  The buzz at the Beehive is all about jobs and the economy and the National Party opposition are in-fighting.  It feels a bit like normal.

Work on the driveway is really getting underway.  Our neighbour Craig has dug our most of the old hedge stumps and started shifting the topsoil to bed the gravel extensions.  The whole space at the front of the house is looking very open.  The remains of the pittosporum hedge will be lopped down to about 6ft, and the lengthy gap where the hedge had died will be replaced by an assortment of shrubs and small trees, yet to be decided.  Shopping for plants? Well, someone has to do it.  

The total persimmon crop was 3, and that’s thanks to our furry possum friends.  They’ve feasted in our orchard this year, for the first time.  They are quite evil-looking creatures with a very ugly cry. They occasionally turn up on the balcony and make a heck of noise climbing up and around the roof.  If they continue to be such a pest next year, we’ll have to work on mitigating their damage somehow. As if the rabbits weren’t destructive enough.

All the medlars have been picked and are happily bletting away.  Such a weird fruit that totally suits its French name ‘cul du chien’ (dog’s arse).  Some have been gifted, and the rest will be transformed into Medlar wine, which is a thing apparently. And so is Medlar Vodka. I’m dubious but intrigued.  

Three of the 5 small raised iron beds for herbal teas are in place and planted up.  The remaining ones should go in over the next few days, using the driveway topsoil.  The old beds will need digging over to remove the bulk of the mint roots - it's on the to-do list but it’s a nasty job that I’m guessing will keep being overlooked.  The old lemon balm bed will, unfortunately, need another dose of weed spray, and that needs to happen soon (note to self).    

Peter’s fabulous compost construction is the size of a king bed and the perfect zone to chuck heaps of woody prunings.  They’ll provide an aerating base layer for future weeds and would have been a pain to get rid of elsewhere.  Building the compost structure has also focused some attention on that previously unkempt area of the vege garden.  The little pond has been moved and rocks added so that the bees have places to land when they drink.  More gravel is needed to finish it all off, and that will come from the driveway order (whenever that happens).

The olive trees have had a very decent short back 'n sides, and have been weeded.  Each has the best part of a whole bag of horse manure at its base and will get a layer of pea straw when the manure has broken down a bit.  I’ll eventually get a replacement Frantoio olive tree for the one that died years ago.  Better add that to my plant list wahoo!

The pigs are no more and the process doesn’t get any easier. At least Peter was home on the day of doom, and I was out.  Billy was struggling too and kindly messaged to delay my return home.  3 of the pigs are now in friends' freezers, and one is in ours.  Dwelling on their fate doesn't change anything for them obviously, hopefully, time will lessen the guilt...

The bees have been wintered down and insulated, and all 3 colonies look to be going into winter reasonably strongly.  The miticide strips were removed, but a single mite was visible crawling over the back of a worker bee (spotted by my friend and colleague Jo and her husband Mike, wannabe beekeepers who came along for the ride).  I need to get advice about this, as it may mean that I'll need to re-treat.  It was hard to disease-check the top bar hive because the main brood zone was tightly sealed with propolis.  Too much leverage risks disconnecting the comb, but I managed to prise it apart enough to see.  Yep, definitely need to re-visit some books and get advice from someone in the know.

The green manure remains magnificent and is definitely doing its job of weed-suppressing.  The mustard is a particularly beautiful spring-green that looks stunning in the early morning light.  They have yet to flower, but when that happens they'll be chopped down.  The beds that will lay fallow next season will then be covered in pea straw, and those that are to be planted will eventually be loosely dug into the top layer of soil.  

The hot water tank cupboard in the hall is full of a variety of brews, including 23 litres of elderberry wine, 15 of mead and 20 of feijoa wine.  I hadn't planned to make any of the latter this year, but last year's feijoa wine was bottled and so delish that it would be a crime not to make any more when we're overcome with volumes of fruit.  I've ditched the beetroot wine plan (ate too many beetroots oops) in favour of the medlars.  And 23 litres of beautiful Apple Cider Vinegar have been bottled. 

We're lighting the woodstove most days now, and this brings an abundance of hot water.  Baths and candles are in, and - boy what a bath!  Such a perfect shape and depth in which to relax, a place where hours can be wiled away in blissful navel-contemplation.  Hypnotic even.  Oh yeah, gotta love these chilly seasons.

 

Billy is actively seeking work, and in the meantime doing quite a bit of relaxing himself.  He has been more than helpful with outside jobs, and has got our old Wii working again.  Peter and me seem to have somehow lost our previous high level of competence (whatever), and he's thrashing us at every turn.  Too many 'old people' jokes to count, eh Billy?

Mother's Day was appropriately acknowledged with love and gin.  This time it was Cannabis Gin - no HTCs so totally legal, but actually also pretty lethal.  It's a gorgeous, cheerful and earthily-delicious green spirit that belies its ability to remove legs.  Not that I'm complaining of course.  But as a gift from my offspring, I am wondering about the implications for my parenting. Mother's Ruin and all that.  Let's not go there.  Instead, let's celebrate all that's good about Aotearoa, including its Covid-19 response, and wish upon the rest of the world that one day they may too dispense with egotistical stale, pale males, and replace them with leadership of our current calibre.  Thank you PM Jacinda Ardern and all those who've helped to keep us safe and proud of our collective achievements.  

April 2020

This is my 'return-to-haven' view of our home that is always such a sight for sore eyes after returning from a shift - especially welcoming in these Covid-times.  It's been an unusual month for everyone, but hope is at last on the global horizon, even if we're not that close yet.  Mount Riley stands proud in the background, as if it's reminding us that the world keeps turning even if its human occupants are in a kind of parallel universe.  NZ will move from level 4 lockdown to level 3 on 28th April, and will stay there for at least 2 weeks.  At work it probably won't look much different from level 4, but final decisions have yet to be made.  In maternity one of the single biggest concerns is visitor restriction.  Many women are simply going home within hours of birthing, and most seem to be hanging onto their babies and just staying pregnant. 

Meanwhile life on the farmlet has kept us happily occupied.  Peter's extra time off work has allowed him to tackle tasks that had been quite a long way down the priority list.  Him and Billy have collected vast volumes of acorns for the grateful pigs, and made significant progress on the wetland crack-willow.  They've discovered previously hidden plants, like these gorgeous reeds.  Once the plant nurseries are open for business, we'll get a few more native plants/trees and try to get them established before the dastardly willow takes over again.  If only we could train the wild rabbits to eat the willow.  The enormous rabbit-hole entrance in the picture leads into the wetland, so they do have easy access.   

The orchard is nearly finished with its autumn bounty.  The apples, pears and quince are all done, just the medlars and persimmons left to ripen.  The sheep have been moved back in to clear the weedy grass.  It doesn't look too wild in there though, and that's not really down to our tender loving care.  We have mowed and tidied up in there occasionally, but finally we are reaping the benefits of tree maturity.  Just some organic matter around the treelines (probably horse poo) and a decent Derryn-prune should be enough to winter it down.  

The monumental challenge of tidying up the Gin Palace has finally happened, and this has contributed to the vaguely organised feel of the vege garden.  The green manure in the vege gardens is coming away beautifully, and not too patchy either, except for where the carrots, beetroot and purple-sprouting are still cropping. There is a bit of weeding to be done in the blueberry and peachcot beds and some pathway weeding (or organic weed spraying), but otherwise it's actually looking quite tidy out there. The half-barrels are decaying fast now, and will be replaced by some bought corrugated iron raised beds.  The plan is to transfer the peppermint, spearmint and lemon balm from the horse arena, and transplant the existing nettles and common mint into them.  These are all delightful and delicious herbs, but invasive and in need of better management than they've been used to.  

The soil for the new beds will come from the original pallet compost heaps, that have decayed beyond the point of functionality.  They were the first garden structure to be built, so they absolutely don't owe us anything.  The compost has been dug out onto some old tarps, and some of it painstakingly sieved to use in next year's seedling compost.  The seiving process is not for the faint-hearted - hard on the back and shoulders, and absolutely not to be attempted in the absence of a seriously robust bra!  Peter has retrieved some big, solid plastic pallets from the haybarn that will make the base, and the final result will have to wait until next month's blog.      

The horse arena beds have even received attention. They were quite low on the list, but despite working extra hours I seem to have more spare time on my hands than usual at this time of year.  Maybe that's related to less socialising, and more making-the-most of Billy's willingness and energy.  Also cheating with the biggest task has hugely reduced the workload.  Cheating in the form of commercial weedspray.  Eeeek.  I chopped down and then weedsprayed the peppermint, spearmint and lemon balm beds.  These would have been impossible to eradicate by manual weeding, and were duly sprayed one evening by the light of the moon.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one dose will do the trick, and am distracting myself from the chemical horror by the prospect of setting up some proper irrigation and planting some experimental beds of grains there next year.  Before spraying I dug out several plants from each bed and re-planted them in large pots.  They can eventually transfer to the new raised iron beds.

The flower and herb gardens around the house are now all cleared and pea-strawed, and the outdoor colours are now less flowery and more autumnal.  It's been a stunning autumn - mostly blue-sky days and chilly nights, but with occasional rain to nourish the land.  The tulip tree has nearly shed its stunning huge leaves, and most other deciduous plants are in the process.  As always, the mornings are particularly ethereal, as the sunlight begins to penetrate through the early mist.  It's so good to be home on these days.

The native bed at the side of the house is also blanketed in peastraw, and the plants, including the glorious horopito in the photo, are looking great.  Billy constructed the new pathway edging from rocks on the driveway after I'd cleared away the scruffy old woven low fence.  It's been great to finally get round to these kind of little jobs.

The woodlot has 10 more trees - 4 peachcots, 5 oaks and a carob - all grown from seed.  Some have been planted in new spots, and the rest have replaced those that were lost, like the eucalypts.  There are some delightful honey-traded pinenut tree seedlings (thanks Jenn) that can go in next year when they're bigger.  We've also planted heaps of acorns, including the competition acorns.  Peter, Billy and me have 6 acorns each in a planter on the deck, all lovingly selected from our acorn hauls.  We put them in the freezer for a few days in an attempt to simulate winter - time will tell if this actually makes a difference.

The autumn harvest is being processed, and this is a very enjoyable time-waster.  We gave Billy the task of gathering the sweet chestnuts, and wish we had a sound recording of the shrieks that came when he shook the tree to get the prickly-shelled nuts down.  To his credit he completed the job, and we got a gorgeous crop of our own chestnuts for the first time.  I'd originally planted 2 chestnut trees that were pollinators for each other, but one died.  I've been wondering if that would mean no nuts from the remaining tree, but it doesn't seem to be the case.  There were lots of small, flat nuts within the shells, but still plenty of full-sized, juicy nuts among them.  Perhaps a pollinator would improve this quantity, but no real need to pump up the volume for our (my) needs.  

Whilst he was hacking back some of the forestry broom, Peter brought back some wild rosehips.  I found a UK website called 'eatweeds' that showed how to avoid the long drawn-out method of cutting them in half to scrape out the itchy hairs.  They were topped and tailed and dehydrated whole, and then blitzed just enough in a food processor to break open the hard hips.  Seiving out the pesky hairs was easy, leaving the hip shells and seeds good-to-go.  A very satisfying process and a decent batch of rosehip tea.

The young Granny Smith apple tree by the sleepout seems to have recovered from being blown over by the wind, and has produced a good crop.  These apples are so tangy and delicious when dried, they don't last long.  Two dozen apples pretty much disappeared in a puff, eh Billy?  The fig tree has also recovered from being blown over, twice, and produced a bumper crop.  This year I've had a bash at drying them too.  They were cut in half and it took hours of dehydration.  They don't look or taste like the juicy whole figs you can buy, but they are still perfectly snackable.

The 6kg of elderberries that were in the freezer has been magically made into wine.  The fruit spent 2 weeks in a barrel, bubbling away vigorously (not unlike an old man farting) and has now been strained into a large demi-john.  It already tastes pretty darn good already, so here's hoping that it makes a tipple akin to the famous and fabulous 2018 vintage.  I've bottled the remaining pear wine but this is disappointing.  I should have bottled it all ages ago. The quality is diminished to the extent that some is now pear wine vinegar.  I'll bottle the feijoa wine today, in the hope that it hasn't undergone a similar fate.  I've spotted a recipe for beetroot wine that I can't ignore, and will also make more mead out of this year's honey.  These will have to wait until retail re-opens as we're out of wine yeast. 

Damson gin is steeping away, hidden at the back of the pantry.  When I can get some gin, I'm going to have a bash at Feijoa Gin - in the interests of experimentation, obviously.  The delightfully-named 'Feijoacello' recipe that I found uses 4 cups of sugar in 700 mls of gin.  I'll be using considerably less sugar, but I'm cautiously optimistic that the end result will be fantastic.  Maybe it'd work with vodka too...  

The Aztec corn was harvested and is definitely a must-grow crop of the future.  Those cobs are absolutely stunning - multi-coloured rows of shiny pearly grains.  The husks have been pulled back and used to hang the cobs to dry.  I've tried my darnedest to get my head around the bewildering difference between cornflour, corn flour, corn meal, grits and polenta. I'm thinking I'll just dry and grind them and then decide what to call it.  Hopefully I won't actually need a grain mill to do the grinding, that some other kitchen implement might work.  Otherwise I'll try and beg, steal or borrow a device to do the job.  Spending hundreds of dollars on a grain mill for two dozen ears of corn is probably not cost-effective, though maybe it's a future investment...  

The new loves of my life - gourds - are now suspended in various ways for their 6-month drying time.  I've been drooling over the images of gourd craft on the internet, inspired by the possiblity of creating of numerous bird houses, lamp shades and bowls.  Decorative pyrography is a new concept that I'm drawn to, though in the interests of safety, I should probably leave that to Peter's creative talents.  He's having a play with last year's (what I now know as) pathetically tiny gourds, using his Dremel and acrylic paints.   

The driveway is still awaiting its evolution into an attractive welcoming zone.  When our neighbour Craig is released from lockdown and has time on his hands, he'll come over to help dig out the old hedging and dead tree stumps.  He can access a small digger that should lighten the load.  There's no real hurry though, and it'll probably be easier as a winter job.  We'll have to find a new zone for the mushrooms when it's done - they've been happily thriving in that damp, dark corner of the property that we'll eventually open out. 

Karyn's dedication to the roses has been severly tried these last few weeks.  The threat of chainsaw pruning action even made her consider breaking lockdown to prevent that potential catastrophe.  She allowed me to do some cutting back of the longest, drapiest branches of the red rose bush/weed so that the peastraw could go down, but otherwise she'll deal with them whenever she can legitimately get out here.  Her absence means no photos, and I'm aware that this leaves an arse-sized gap in this blog.  Looking forward to having you back in the garden Karyn!

Lots of outdoors time clearly results in a monster blog.  Sorry about that.  I'll sign off finally and get back out there - might as well get my garden therapy and 'make hay' while the autumn sun shines.  I'm optimistic that New Zealand will be a better Covid-19 place by the end of next month, and hopeful that's the case for the rest of the world too.  Best Autumn wishes in the meantime!