Wow! Time passes so quickly. We are working on an uptodate blog and I discovered this draft from November. The beds that the chickens had dug over and fertilized for us have grown the most amazing cucumbers, zucchinis and rockmelons. The rockmelons and cucumbers are still going and the rockmelons are the biggest I have ever grown. Yay! for chooks (when they aren’t escaping and causing havoc).

Anika:

The weathers been very bad over the last couple of days especially today. After I finally got out of bed this morning I realized just how windy it was when I saw the tomato house plastic flying straight out behind it. Over the weekend we also dug over some garden beds and the chooks are loving it. It took team work to do all of the work before it got too hot.

As the branches danced And the leaves are blown. Outside the rain prances

And surrounds the house

On the way to get the wood I stepped in a puddle

Near the shed I tripped what a muddle

Got back with a spluttery splat

Strait to the fire where my dry clothes sat

And got a ‘oh your back’ look from the cat

Jamie:

20yds of visibility is about all you have before it turns black and white. I got up when the wind was howling. The pin oak leaves were getting torn off their safe holds. It was like watching the leaves falling in an autumn breeze except that the leaves were a fantastic green blur instead of brown. It ran through my head that I was so grateful that the big gum trees have been cut down. They would have been a hazard in the wind.

I had to go and do my chicken jobs. The chickens were all huddled under a little iron shelter. I emptied the scraps for them and thought about how it would feel to spend the night out in the howling wind. I thought about them perched up in their tree all huddled together while the wind and rain tore at their grip on the branches. I also noticed that the ducks were missing and I knew it would be my job to go and find them. I searched our paddocks but they weren’t there, so I went and got some cherimoyas to take to GG Muriel next door. I got over to Nana’s with no sign of any white bobbing heads in the paddocks. Then I went and dropped the fruit to Nana’s and asked if I could have an orange, as I thought it would be nice for the journey home. As I peeled my orange I looked down the bank to see if I could see any ducks. When I walked down the track I saw our duck with her two ducklings had crossed the river and were playing in a puddle on the other side. Unfortunately the river was way to high to cross so I had to leave them there. As I was walking down the drive way I saw the others digging up grubs in the paddock.

Zara:

It’s been super windy today. We spent an hour today repairing the plastic house after the wind got a good start at pulling it apart. The tomatoes are also sporting a bit of a blow dry gone wrong look.

Dad’s week of ”holiday” has been spent finishing some sanding and painting. The library is now painted and ready for for the book shelves to start going up. He also painted one of the toilet rooms yellow. I came up from the horses that day and went to use the bathroom, but when I opened the door the once was white room was yellow. I might just of said a bad word before exclaiming loudly, ‘It’s bright yellow’. A bit of a shock that’s for sure.

I’ve also been getting a bit of gardening done for mum. It’s now impossible to even go near the garden without Inca the garden helper. She usually just ends up sitting on you or your tools.

Well it feels that spring has finally sprung, not only are day temps getting up to 24 degrees at time but the night temps have come right up. This sort of weather (which has included a bit of rain as well) is what turns my garden into a crazy jungle. We have cherry blossom and roses galore!

Keeping on top of the lawns is proving challenging. Especially as our lawnmower is in the shop getting fixed. Everything is broken at the moment, the lawnmower, both dishwashers, the vacuum cleaner, the petrol water pump, the solar panels. The weed-eater is only just still going and the car is overdue for a service. Oh dear! Thank goodness for having my parents next door who lend us all their stuff when ours is broken. Thanks Mum!

So its been an exciting and busy time for us as we welcomed a new member into our animal family last week. Bella is proving to be a very good companion for Dee Dee as we take him out and about round our local track and paddocks. She will happily stand and wait while Zara does schooling in a paddock.

Anika:

The weathers been nice with the exception of the last few days which have been changeable and annoying. We’ve been doing a lot in the garden and almost all the paths have been weeded. I weeded the beans and the mesculin bed and things are looking great.

The ducks have been having a great time in all this wet weather which means they’re very active and get out a lot.

Jamie:

Today I noticed that my herb garden needed weeding. Some of my patches of thyme were looking very sickly. I also notice some of the oregano had started growing where I didn’t want it to. The oregano can be pulled off in big layers and it makes great compost. My rosemary also needed a good trim. I decided that I would put some of the big trimmings in a roasting tray to dry. Now I need to mulch the bare areas.

Zara:

I’ve been able to do lots of riding at the moment, having two awesome horses is definitely a plus. It’s way too hard having to chose which one to ride when though. I generally ride Leena on her own. She loves this because it means she get all the attention.

Bella and Dee are quite close to matching (they are nothing alike other than being bay coloured and similar height) . Dee came with a trimmed mane and our two had quite long manes. Apparently that’s how our neighbor was telling them apart because after I trimmed Leena and Bella’s mane she said to me, ”I can’t tell them apart now that they all have the same haircut.” I found that very funny. Dee is so good to ride, everywhere he’s been has been new to him and he isn’t phased by any thing. We did have a look at the quad and trailer with the farm dogs on it this morning though.

The other day I left Mum in charge of the night feeding while I went sailing. I believe she managed just fine. I did leave her a list of instructions!

Well the month is flying by. The drought proofing is going well with the flash flood last week and some lovely gentle rain falling today. Maybe if we keep exhausting ourselves moving huge amounts of mulch around it will be good luck and the rain will keep falling regularly!

Exciting news in the horse department. I will let Zara tell you more about it but our pony Bridie has left home to go live with our friends Steph and Carsten. Their wee girl Willow has cerebral palsy and loves to ride. She was outgrowing their wee pony so Bridie is going to be Willow’s new pony for her to adore and ride and to help her develop physically. We are missing Bridie as we are so used to having her around but are happy that she is living in such a good new home with two knowledgeable horse people in the family and also a donkey and mini pony to keep her company. We are not missing her escape antics through all our fences and her bossing all the big horses around!

Have planted out the capsicum and eggplant plants. Twice…. sigh. Birds scratching and slugs and snails decimated the first lot. I always keep some spare seedlings to replace ones that die once planted out (oh there are so many ways for those beautifully nurtured seedlings to be destroyed out in the big wide world of the garden!) but I’m almost running out now. Fingers crossed for this next lot.

Lat Sunday we took some time out and headed down to the beach. There was swimming, sleeping and reading under the shade of a pohutakawa to be done. It was very restorative. It can be hard to take a break when there is such a long list of things to be done.

Anika:

I imagine that its been very different down at the horses now that Bridies left. We are all going to miss her even Jamie I reckon. I bet that Zara’s been finding the horses a lot less complicated now that she doesn’t have to booby trap the float, double check all the fences, deal with rubbish scattered everywhere , and chewed up pockets or anything else that has food in it.

I enjoyed cantering her bareback anywhere but especially round their track with only a neck rope after I got her out of where she had broken into the night before. I also liked brushing her and getting her clean. I found it quite funny when the first thing she did when she got back into the paddock was to roll as if to say “haha look at me I’m dirty again”. One thing I didn’t always appreciate was when I went into the water with her as she usually always got me soaked. I hope that she is having fun and that she likes her new friends.

Jamie:

The other day I woke up excited wanting to leave straight away to go to a knife making course with Dad and Anika. I made a skinning knife with the help of Dad. We started by collecting flammable stuff to start fires with. We spent hours learning to use flint. We eventually got the fires going before we put the in the forges and had morning tea. We used a single round of a spring to make our knives. We heated up the metal and hammered it into shape we also whittled handles before we burnt the metal into the handle. This was great fun and took us three days.

Zara:

The other day Mum got me to plant yet more herbs in with the tomatoes. I swear there is more herbs than actual ground showing now. If I didn’t know better I’d say Mum has forgotten that they are actually spose to grow and get bigger.

With Bridie moving on to a new amazing home we had the room to provide a home for a new horse. I certainly didn’t expect to find one so perfect so soon. But we now have another amazing horse in our paddock. Dee is 15.2 ish unraced bay thoroughbred. He has fitted in with our girls very fast, they both love him.

Over the years and recently also we have been offered some wonderful horses for Zara to ride. Because of the track system we keep the horses on, our mares temperaments and the fact we keep our horses barefoot it means we have to be very careful what horses we add to our herd. Thank you to everyone who has offered their lovely horses to us for Zara. We really appreciate it. If we could clone Zara and also win lotto to pay all the expenses we would take them all in! Anika is taking a break from riding at the moment which will allow her to relax a bit and concentrate on her other pursuits, but she might be able to help us out with hacking etc. at some stage as she would be a great size jockey on Leena.

Wonderful spring weather in the garden, but with some cold nights still. The new tomato house structure does not look quite as pretty now it is swathed in a well worn plastic coating but it came through the torrential downpour the other day without any pooling of water on the roof or blowing off of plastic so that is definitely a success.

We are eating loquats (see picture below) and cherimoyas. It is really awesome having subtropical fruit at this time of year. This is the first year we have had a substantial harvest of cherimoya. The chooks have taken to roosting in its branches and we think the sudden increase in size of both the tree and the fruit is likely due to the chickens. Not only are they fertilizing the ground under the tree but we think they are stopping the rats and possums that like to eat the cherimoyas from being able to access them as easily. We are still having to bait for rats as well unfortunately as there is a huge rat population near our subtropical area/chook run and they decimate the fruit if left unchecked. We have finished the blood oranges but are still eating mandarins and are on to the Harwood late oranges. Our aim is to have fruit ripening all year round and it feels like we are getting there! There is nothing quite like being able to go out and pick fresh fruit every day. Last year we even had enough grapes to be able to send a few harvests down to the local dairy for them to sell. Our local dairy sells a lot of locally produced fruit and veg so it’s a nice option to have for any excess that we end up with.

Our citrus trees have been slow to establish (except the blood orange in the garden which is in a better spot and grows like a weed) and have been hammered by citrus borer. The Harwood Late orange trees are doing well but all the rest look a bit sad. As part of our continuing drought proofing efforts the other day we applied a thick mulch of woody, composty material from out of the chook run (with horse manure mixed in for a nitrogen boost) around the citrus and then grass clippings. Part of the problem for the citrus has been the poor soil and varying moisture levels over the years so hopefully this extra mulch will help keep them moister over summer and they will hopefully like the extra organic matter breaking down into the soil. The comfrey plants round their drip lines are also coming away nicely. The comfrey (other than being a fantastic companion plant in terms of mining minerals from the subsoil and making them available to the tree and shading the soil to help retain moisture) helps keep the mulch around the tree when the chooks invariably get out and scratch at the mulch. We are trying to treat the citrus borer with pyrethrum and one tree that has just never managed to get away has been removed and we have planted a new Carter’s Navel orange in its place. There is one sick looking tree left which has been doing its darndest to grow. If we can’t get it coming away I will remove that one too and try a new tree in its place. After seeing the new blood orange coming away in the garden, growing like crazy I have decided I am sick of looking at sickly looking citrus trees in the citrus orchard so am being a bit more proactive in getting them growing or gone. I love the smell of the flowers and the sight of the fruit ripening through winter and I know that potentially each tree can produce substantial harvests so we have deliberately not planted huge numbers. But it does mean that each tree needs to pull its weight.

We had an enjoyable outing to a practice dressage day at Awanui/Waipapakauri Pony Club grounds. Zara rode Bella so she could start getting back into dressage test riding mode. Bridie came for the ride to keep Bella company. We did a day trip to Whangarei and enjoyed a glorious sunny afternoon catching up with Garth’s sister Shane, and her wee man Benedict. The family bach at One Tree Point was sporting stunning coloured wild flowers.

The yellow rose is a Grahame Thomas rose, we planted this in memory of my grandfather Bob Coppins as Muriel and Bob always had one planted in their garden. They were great gardeners over the years, vegetable gardens, flowers, fruit trees etc etc. We are so happy that Muriel has decided to stay up here permanently with Mum and Dad next door as she can beetle around observing all the plants. We get to benefit from her decades of gardening knowledge also.

Anika:

The gardens starting to look less dirt and weeds and more like an area of ground with edible plants in it ( haha… it never looked like just dirt and weeds thank you very much Anika!). The ducklings are growing fast. I caught them swimming in one of the big puddles a whole lot of rain had caused. The brown duckling ” Ducky ” blended in with the murky water perfectly. The yellow one ” Nugget ” stood out against the brown puddle as its little legs propelled it through the water. I walked down the twisted, stony, silver grey road to take some pictures of the flash flood which had arisen during an hour of heavy rain. The vast quarter circle shaped paddock beside the horses paddock was mostly under water. The paddock looked like a large pond after a storm what a surprise. The water raged down the main current beside the bank carrying debris at a shocking speed. If I was blind I would have been able to tell that the river was not its normal self because of the sounds that it made as the trees stood up to the waters that were trying to be the master of every thing that they could reach. After the sun came out I could smell the dampness and it was very humid.

Jamie:

Today my job was to hand screws up to Dad so he could put the rafters on the tomato house. The reason was that it was really difficult pulling the gib screws out of their casing while holding the drill and the rafter with your hands. It took us several hours to complete the mission. Then we figured out that we had run out of rafters so we decided to use our new Fergie tractor transport tray to go down and get some more bamboo. We cut the bamboo to length while we were down there so it would make the trip up the road easier.

I came home from my homeschool group and one of the students had to stay with us for the afternoon as her parents were flooded in at their place. Luckily the river was going down fast so they were able to get out from their property after two hours. We scoffed ourselves with loquots and read virtue books. We talked about how the flood waters went up so quickly. Two metres in an hour. A good flash flood.

Zara:

I’ve had my first official swim of the summer now. It wasn’t too cold, just refreshing. It hasn’t been swimming weather in the last few days though, it’s been cold and windy.

The tomato house is now completed, and I’ve just finished planting all the herbs in with the tomatoes. There was the most amazing smell wafting around from all the herbs. It was a bit of an interesting smell with the combination of all the different herbs mixed together, the thyme defiantly stood out as the strongest smell. It was kind of potent if you got too close. It was very fresh smelling though. That was until the wind picked up again and blew it all away. The other thing I’ve noticed is how many flowers we’ve got in the garden at the moment. It’s almost ridiculous, everywhere you look there seems to be flowers of some description. I am enjoying all the colour though. The bees also love them. The roses are starting to come out. My favorite ones are the light purple ones. The petals are so silky, and they’re very fragrant.

On Sunday mum very kindly lent me her horse Bella to ride at a little dressage practice day. Bella was such a good girl, she did get a bit excited though. It was very windy that day and in most of the photos her mane is blowing everywhere, she looked very majestic. Auntie Kobi took these photo’s. So handy having an auntie who was a professional photographer at one point in her life. She takes amazing photos!

And a few cute cat photos!

Well the heat of the sun is saying that summer is near! The tomato shelter structure is going up and the tomato plants have been planted under it despite the fact its not quite finished. The structure is mainly to protect them from rain, so they should be OK until we put the plastic up over the structure imminently as its not raining.

This hot dry weather has me freshly enthused about ‘drought proofing’ our garden. Not that it is possible to totally do this, but my strategy is that if we water the ground round our fruit trees and hedgerow plants etc well and then apply a thick layer of woody mulch and/or compost and then some grass clippings on top that hopefully the added organic matter will help provide a moisture sink. This is involving a lot of work and my troop of helpers is flagging in the heat.

We are enjoying (well I’m enjoying!) lots of fresh greens again, and I think I’m getting the hang of harvesting the mesclun it in a way that there is always some growing back. It takes a bit of managing and I don’t think it will persist as well in this warmer weather but its great while it lasts.

The girls played in a piano recital in the weekend and did really well. It was to celebrate 250 years since Beethoven’s birth and there were lots of Beethoven peices played, along with some other environmentally themed pieces. The girls played two duos arranged for them to play on their piano teachers upright and grande piano’s. They sounded great. It was lovely to have Garth’s parents, my parents, and GG Muriel all with us for the event.

Some work on the library ceiling has resumed but then the weather was so good that we all ended up in the garden again. Every day there seem to be a thousand bees in the garden enjoying the forests of borage and phacelia. Every day there seems to be a new flower coming out.

Anika;

I took some photos of a sheep and her lambs in the dark. On the way back I took photos of some flowers and the sunset. The blue of the borage against the black of the night was a startling contrast but brilliant. I could feel a soft breeze with the cold not far away. The smell of grass and earth left me as I was enveloped by warmth when I walked inside.

My cousins came over and Evie helped me plant some cauliflower and lettuce seedlings. We were planting, watering, mulching, and covering the seedlings and picking up cabbage tree leaves.

I plaited up Bridie’s mane while she was having her feet trimmed. I thought it looked very pretty.

Jamie;

My cousins Taine and Evie came over the other day. We helped tidy up all the lawns so they could be mowed. Then Taine and I rode on the trailer down to get some bamboo for the tomato house. To get the bamboo down Dad used his electric chainsaw. Dad’s chainsaw cut through the bamboo quick as a bullet. Then we got some smaller stuff to use for stakes. On the way back up the road the bamboo that was hanging off the trailer swept the road and made a whole lot of dust. Taine and I also had lots of fun having sword fights with the long bamboo poles.

A couple of days later our grandparents Mike and Kerry came up for a visit. I was very excited as the next day their old Massy Fergusson tractor was coming up (and it was nice to see them). The next day I was very happy to see the tractor arrive. Once the chains were taken off the tractor rolled off with the help of some winches. It has already been put to lots of good use.

Zara;

It is really starting to feel like summer at the moment. Especially now that the garden is requiring a bit of watering. On the plus side we did get the tomatoes planted today. They were really getting a bit big to stay potted up for much longer.

This morning mum very kindly let me ride Bella which was pretty cool. She was such a good girl. I also had a rare ride on Bridie as Anika was at a friends place.

We’ve had quite a productive holidays so far, clearing up rubbish, mowing lawns, gardening, and lots of horsey stuff.

It was a very busy week making time for Zara to do her photography for the Mental Health Awareness Week Photo Competition. There was a different theme each day which was thought provoking and involved interpretation through photography. A great exercise, but one which probably required more time that we were really able to put in to it this week to do it justice!

We continue to work with Bella and Leena, taking advantage of the perfect condition of the ground. Not too soft, not too hard. Bella continues to act like a giant soft cuddly toy. She recently had a birthday and after 10 years of a very up and down time health, metabolism and personality wise she finally seems happy. She was born down the road at the horse grazing when my sister Kobi was grazing it years ago. After travelling around a bit with Kobi as a youngster she now lives in the same paddocks that she galloped around as an adorable long legged baby.

Bella went to stay with a master horse trainer called Leanne Franklin last year and had the one on one attention of an expert for months that she needed. She came back a different horse. We continue to try and build her strength but she is so much more comfortable in her body and happy in her mind after her time with Leanne. Thank you lovely Leanne for all your work with Bella and the ongoing advice!

GG Muriel has taken to Far North living like a duck to water and will return for good once she is taken back to Auckland to pack up her apartment there. The kids take turns going over the visit her and help her with her jigsaw puzzles. Jamie’s ‘quick’ visits take a long time as he gets lost in conversation with Muriel. Muriel is 96 and we enjoy hearing about her early years in particular. She has a great memory. The other day she told us about starting work at an underwear factory. She had left school at about the normal age and started work…..she was 12 years old. She told us that she didn’t start on the sewing machines straight away as she was too young. She began on the machines when she was 13. She remains a keen and capable sewer to the day, although now she mainly knits (in between doing puzzles and reading).

Anika:

Lately we’ve been having great sunsets and I took some photos of them. Jamie had his end of term performance and afterwards we had a weed fight and I took a picture of a weed carrier looking like a fairy. We had a frost and Zara said that the horses looked like they were in the snow. Zara’s been doing a photo comp and she took some photos of me over at Nana’s place. I’ve learnt to edit photos quite drastically and I’ve added a few of those below.

Jamie:

When we had the proper frost a few days ago I noticed that the daffodils had started blooming. The daffodils are planted under the nectarine tree. It was nice and protected from the frost there, maybe not from the cows though. I also observed that the plants at the top of the hill had been affected by the frost more. Later that morning Dad and I went for a walk around the farm and noticed that the last sheep had lambed. The other day I got to read to Zara, It was very cozy sitting on the couch in the sun.

Zara:

We had a miserable morning yesterday. I loved watching where all the the water went, and where it puddled in all the dips. It was also great fun clearing and redirecting the drains. Everything looked so clean and fresh afterwards. I’ve also noticed that the loquats outside my room are starting to ripen, the birds have also noticed unfortunately.

Recently the horse float has been getting a bit of a spring clean. I hadn’t realized the top had got so moldy and gross. It was very satisfying scrubbing it all off. It also amazes me how many spider webs collect on the sides.

Clever Anika managed to get Kobi’s old camera going and the new secondhand one that Kobi got hold of was able to go back to her. The kids have all gone mad photographing everything that moves…. or doesn’t move. It has been difficult to get this blog organised because there are so many photos to sort through!!!!! On the less positive side I have flared up my old back injury quite seriously doing the last painting in the master bedroom (and the floor sanding and oiling). I’m on physio’s orders not to do anything that involves bending forward. This rules out many things that I ‘need’ to do and means I am having to delegate to the kids even more than normal. They are going through stages of being super helpful and super unhelpful but we are ticking along OK. In my spare time that is not being used to do more painting I have been round the house and cleaned windows and picture frames. Something that never gets done usually. We have managed to hang some artwork and have moved into our new room. It’s very lovely and we are so enjoying the sunsets out of the large westerly facing windows. The golden window frames are perfect with sunset colours.

Garth has started work on the library/hallway ceiling. This is the room that he is most looking forward to getting finished. The cat continues to be very helpful (not). Moving our bed out of the lounge space has meant that we magically have our floor space back and have been able to rearrange everything (which the kids did extremely well while I was at my physio appointment).. There is even room for my newly pricked out tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings to spend their nights tucked in beside the fire.

It has been a time of new arrivals with Angel’s new calf doing really well and three new lambs. The lambs are totally adorable as they are every year and we often use up a bit of time watching them frolic around. All lambs are adorable but we do love the perky, curious nature of our Wiltshires and the ewes are wonderful mothers and milk well. The fact that they don’t need shearing is a real bonus for us. We are also getting lots of eggs from the chickens which is a pleasant change.

Also my Dad’s mother (known as GG Muriel in these parts) has come up to stay with Mum and Dad next door. Muriel is in her late 90’s, in fairly sound health and totally on to it. We are hoping she is going to stay up here permanently. We are enjoying making deputations over next door to catch up with how she is going and tell her all the latest news. Every day Jamie in particular gets up and says “I must make sure I go and talk to Muriel today”. Talking, it must be said, is Jamie’s forte! We gave Ian and Sheila (my Auntie and Uncle who brought Muriel up north) the tour of the renovation.

In the garden we are at that exciting but difficult time where beds need to be cleared in preparation for having spring crops like tomatoes, peppers, beans etc planted. The old mesclun bed has run wild and is covered in rampant vegetation and flowers. It’s a sight to behold but unfortunately for us and the bees it has to go to be ready for planting out our sweet peppers. I try to make sure there are always beds with flowers at all times in the garden to support the bees and the beneficial insects. We are always planting more flowers along with the veges so its just a matter of trying to stagger when each bed gets cleared out. Last years pepper bed is also on the ‘beautiful but must be cleared’ list. It’s covered in nasturtium and all sorts of random flowers both planted and unplanted (weeds!) and looks amazing.

We planted out the pea and bean seedlings. It may be too cold yet for the beans to get away but we can always cover them and they are in a raised concrete bed which holds the heat. Some cold nights still, but the days have been warm.

Anika:

Our great grandmother is coming up to stay at Nana and Poppas place and over morning tea we caught up with relatives and I managed to take some photos when Zara and Jamie weren’t pulling faces which was lucky. Dad worked out a camera lens that had me confused. It turned out it was for real close ups so I took a picture of some fruit. A couple of days later Jamie’s friends came over for a couple of nights and we had a fire. The fire was a pile of sticks about one and a half meters high. When I walked down the driveway all I could see was a ball of light with funny shaped figures scurrying to and fro from the fire. On closer inspection the funny shaped figures were the boys carrying branches to the fire. As I walked closer I could hear the branches popping and crackling away.

I dug over a bed full of cover crop and once the cover crop was turned over as much as possible all I could see were little bits of greenery sticking out like small trees. We dug the cover crop in so that it could start decomposing and adding nutrients into the soil before the tomato’s get planted in this bed.

Anika neglects to mention that she has taken approximately 2 million photos of everything! Here are some taken in the garden. We are all very much in the experimental stage with the camera but there is plenty of experimenting going on.

Jamie:

Our farm (and neighbouring farm shots) by Jamie.

Since the last blog we have had three more baby lambs born. The older lambs are always posing cutely and leaping around teaching the younger lambs how to play (and look handsome).

Garden shots

I was looking forward to swinging my machete at the nice blue borage flowers. But with that came the risk of the bees, who love the borage flowers, attacking me. The lettuce varieties made a work of art, red and green weaved in together with the borage, mustard and evil red mustard flowers.

My friends came to stay for a few nights. We played a game of darts but we couldn’t tell who had won because the numbers had fallen off the dartboard. We decided to take down some pesky flame tree branches. They were easy to cut down with machetes but had horrible spikes on them. My favourite tool is the small orange machete. That night we lit a fire in the orchard. We burnt up all the prunings off the plum and apple trees. Then after the supply of that wood ran out we harvested twigs off at fallen gum branch. That night we roasted bananas with chocolate inside them. They were delish!

Zara:

Still riding most days which is awesome. Leena loves getting out every day and doing stuff. If you give her a day off she stands at the gate and looks longingly at the other horses going out.

With mum injuring her back she hasn’t been able to do what she usually does with the horses, so she’s started teaching me a bit about trimming the horses hoove’s. I absolutely loved it, I don’t think Bridie was quite so impressed with how long it took though.

We’ve also been back out in the garden. My latest job was pricking out the lettuces and cabbages. I’m still no good at straight lines, but when I was watering the ones that mum had done they weren’t too straight either.

These last photos crack me up as she is doing gardening in her horse riding clothes with her hair in a bun like she puts it up for her ballet lessons!

After the excitement of the cross country event was over it was back into garden and horse training priorities. I spent a whole Saturday morning planting seeds while the girls were at their ballet practice (driven there by their ever patient father). On the seed planting menu were tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, lettuces, cabbages, celeriac, beans and peas, and a range of spring flowers. I had been putting this planting off, as although I knew it needed doing, I also knew that once planted the seeds would need constant love and attention and the whole spring season of intense garden work would be underway. On the plus side, seeing seedlings popping their tiny heads up out of the potting mix is always exciting. Many tiny miracles of germination. Its amazing that when within sometimes even a few days given food, water and warmth, an inert seed can spring to life and produce a baby plant.

We also spent a nice morning helping out the “Friends of Rangikapiti Pa” group down at the coast. This is the community project that we have opted to be part of as a community service part of our homeschooling. We are also keen to help out the local Landcare group with track maintenance and pest trapping up in Honeymoon Valley. So far Jamie and Garth have been on a few outings up there with great enjoyment. It feels so good to fill the lungs with the cool fresh air in native bush. I take photos while the kids help with the gravel as my back isn’t up to carrying heavy metal. Some of the photos ended up in the paper. The girls got a great workout carrying buckets of metal up a steep track. The DOC workers who were there were very impressed with the girls strength and fitness. There was a teenage lad there who had been training up to try and pass the fitness test to get into the police. He claimed that both girls were far stronger and fitter than he was. Both girls claimed bucketing metal was nearly as hard work as their ballet conditioning class…. but not quite!

Anika:

The weathers been fairly good but its still very cold most mornings. I’ve been taking Bridie out on rides most mornings. Mum’s said she’d teach Zara and me to trim the horses feet and it was not as hard as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t exactly easy. On Fathers Day we went down to Mill Bay for a picnic lunch as Ken couldn’t bring himself to leave the boat because it was out of the water. While we were down there I did some rowing. First in a little dingy by myself before doing some rowing with Jamie.

The wind was a gentle wind that played with every thing that it could. Sometimes the sun beams would peek through the clouds and dance on top of the water. I could smell the salty air, hear the occasional squawk of a seagull and softly lapping waves.

Lately I’ve been taking a lot of pictures with a very fancy camera of my aunt’s. I’ve also planted some beans in the garden and now that the house is tidy the garden will be on the top priority list.

Jamie:

A wee while ago I woke with the sun shining and thought today we are going down to have Father’s Day at Mangonui. I got up quickly and packed my life jacket so we could go rowing in my Granddad’s boat. When we got down there I was busting to shoot out of the car and ask Ken about the sounder that he had just put on his boat. He showed me the bit underneath (the transducer) on the hull stripe where it sat. Then I asked Dad if he could get out the biggest little rowing boat so I could get rowing.

Also that week we did some care work on Rangikapiti Pa.to help the group out shifting the gravel onto the path and building drains to let the water off the path so it didn’t hollow it out. John and I were looking at the paths to figure out where the water was going and how to stop it getting up too much speed and taking away the gravel that we had put on the paths. I had picked up several places in the path that John hadn’t where the water would become a nuisance. While working on the paths we got to know quite a few of the nice bird sounds. Because John knew lots of the native trees we were able to ask him lots of questions about the trees. John told me the path that we were working on used to be an old horse road so some of the track was already formed, that made life a lot easier as not too many big drains had to be dug. It was quite shady under the trees but there was a warm sea breeze blowing. The ground was littered with leaves and there were some weeds popping up. The Asparagus weed was very pesty and will take a lot of effort to get rid of. There were a whole lot of small trees that had been planted including bush flax, manuka and kaka beak. There were thousands of different shades of green and because it is spring we could see the buds on the plants. When you looked up there are big teatrees always forming a continous arch over your head. The air was scented with a sweet smell of manuka.

Zara:

We’ve been making the most of the mostly settled weather to get a bit of gardening done. Along with lots of riding. Leena and I are getting quite good at weaving in and out of the sheep that spend there days lazing on the arena. Especially since they don’t tend to move themselves. Lots of horsey photos!

We have also recently spent a morning at Rangikapiti pa. We were on carting buckets of gravel up a steep set of stairs. It was then wheelbarrowed around the track to help patch the track up. We somehow made it in the paper for doing so which was a bit of a surprise.

Lots of photos this time and not much writing. I got quite behind with writing my blogs so they are fairly brief mainly because I start forgetting what happened when.

Very slow on the blog production again sorry readers. The kids are doing great at getting their writing done, but sadly the time and effort on my part has been lacking. I so value them doing this blog so I will try harder to get back into it. I have been painting again. The goal was to get the painting in Garth and I’s new bedroom/ensuite finished before the cross country. It was achieved narrowly.

We are totally loving the golden colour on the inside part of the window frames. Probably the boldest colour choice in the whole house. It wasn’t a total leap of faith as the window frames arrived preprimed in a very similar colour and we enjoyed that colour for the last 9 months or so. Garth make the final choice of which shade of golden we would use and made a great choice. Luckily the many things that Garth is somewhat easygoing about include paint colour choices. He was very understanding when I told him I couldn’t live with the light shade of lilac that was his preference for the bedroom. Even after we had spent weeks viewing sunsets trying to identify the precise shade of the sky in that instant before the sun falls behind the horizon. He did tell me though, that in consultation with the Resene shop staff in Waipapa, between them they would not be enabling my test pot addiction any further as the 35 test pots we had already were enough.

So when I told Garth that the only way to make a final decision on the colour for the library was going to involve just a few more testpots…….. he agreed to get them on his next trip in to Kaitaia at the Resene shop there. They are very understanding in there. I will have to invite them to the renovation warming party. The lady who usually mixes up the paint for me is quite interested in all our colour choices. To the point where she queried me on the paint for the walls of our bedroom. She said, “Are you sure this is the colour you are after? It’s a bit restrained for you.” I assured her she had heard the name correctly. She will totally understand my grand plan if she gets to see the golden ‘Rob Roy’ window sills with the pale blue of the ‘Tranquil’ on the walls. Did I mention I also painted the outer trim of the windows, gib coving and the skirting boards ‘Half Chateau Grey’? Yep the colour obsession goes on.

I really enjoyed getting together with some of our homeschooling friends for our wee cross country running event. We ran the races and then tucked into a feast of wonderful, super tasty healthy food. It was a bit unnerving having so many people to visit while the house and property in general were still so messy but it was a lovely day and I’m hoping we will achieve a greater tidiness quota soon. The kids ran for the fun of completing the quite challenging terrain course. There was no recording of results, no prizes. I bet they all know where they finished in the line up though! They all seemed to enjoy themselves immensely and everyone wants to do it again next year. My favourite moment was seeing the older kids decide spontaneously that they would join hands for the last section and finish together. Perfectly in tune with our ethos round here of collaboration being more important than competition. I also really enjoyed seeing my kids step up and be responsible for tidying and cooking for the event while I painted. They are so capable, it’s very handy! Zara’s paleo lemon meringue pie is becoming quite legendary.

The cats also mightily enjoyed the day. Our demented elderly puss stalked anyone who sat down inside and pounced on them. Inka the farm cat was seen rolling on her back being patted for hours on end by a stream of children on the lawn. Cat heaven.

We have had two trips up to the end of Honeymoon Valley lately which have been awesome. We were blown away by Wayne’s ‘labour of love’ stone paths through the bush. They are works of art and walking along them is the most tranquil of experiences. And then back again that week even further up the track for a birthday party complete with handmade sauna. Such amazing places at the head of Honeymoon Valley watched over by Maungataniwha.

Anika:

The last four days have been absolutely marvelous. The sun has been shining and it hasn’t been to windy. On Saturday we had a mini cross country for Jamie’s friends. It involved a lot of tidying and cooking but was fun. On the first two days of fine weather the horses had days off as we were busy. But we rode them on the the third day and they were full of beans so that was fun, not.

We went to Honeymoon Valley to visit some of Mum and Dad’s friends. While we were up at their place us kids went for a walk in the bush along a path. Wayne built the path that was called the Green Room Path. The path forked near the end and one of the forks lead to a small round wooden table that had a concrete bench seat surrounding it in a circular shape. We could hear the flowing sound of the river when you sat on the seat. He used an electric wheelbarrow to cart river stones to create walls that were around forty cm high over the rough ground . He then filled between the two walls so that the path was even and easy to walk on. As you walked down the path we could smell an earthy woody smell that you can only smell in the bush. It had trees forming a ceiling above our heads and their leaves were densely scattered over the path. The other fork of the lead to a beautiful river. Back at their workshop where they made concrete sculptures I played darts for the first time and it was epic

I haven’t been doing to much in the garden lately but once I’ve finished writing this that will probably be my next job.

Jamie:

Last Thursday we had a mini cross country with a group of friends. The categories were under 6, over 6 and the older kids. The medium kids were to race first which was my race. We walked the course first. One, two, three, go and we were off. We raced down the hill at lightning strike speed. Then we went through a flat, waterlogged paddock. We swerved around a gatepost. We ran by a fence with a ditch beside it and then did a sharp turn and jumped over the ditch. Then we went through the pine trees up a very steep slope. Next we ran on some wide sheep tracks along the side of the hill. We threw ourselves off the bank onto some flat ground and started along a ditch. We had gone along in advance and lifted up bits of the wire netting fence so we were able to run under it and right along the ditch. Then there was a little stretch of ditch to go before being on the home run. We raced up the hill and were pleased to finish.

After that the little kids and Anika’s group raced. I lead the way for the little kids so that they wouldn’t get lost. Then the older kids raced. They didn’t go at their full pace as they were good friends and chatting (total supposition on Jamie’s part, they actually seemed to be running quite fast). They held hands at the end and finished together.

We had a great big feast of salads, kebabs and cakes. Then everyone started leaving to go home.

Mum and I started sanding the ensuite floor. It was a really gnarly job because the sawdust went everywhere. Soon my job was sweeping the floor over and over so we could see where we were sanding. We had to dry mop it to get all the dust off so the varnished surface would come up well. Mum quickly finished the dry mopping and started varnishing. When the varnish was wet the floor looked really shiny.

Zara:

The horses are absolutely loving being able to have their rugs off during the day at the moment. While dealing with three mud monsters at the end of the day isn’t so fun for us, I know they love it. Bridies latest stunt has been locking me in the feed shed (Our old horse float). She obviously thought that dinner was not being made fast enough. Needless to say she managed to slide the bolt across leaving me trapped in the float. I don’t think she thought that one through. It certainly didn’t speed dinner up. Must have been having a blond moment.

When Bella sees her feed coming she tips her feed bin off the rail onto the ground and then taps the bottom of it with her hoof. Very cute, it does get a bit annoying having to put it back onto the rail all the time though. She too hasn’t figured out that this manoeuvre actually slows down the process of getting her dinner.

The last blog post seemed to spread some entertainment around which is gratifying. From our dear relative reading it while cooped up in her Melbourne apartment under Covid restrictions to our good friend cooped up in the wilds of Peria with a leg in plaster. So we will try and keep some new posts coming for your further entertainment. The wild weather continues here. Today we had sun, rain, thunder, drizzle, and wind throughout the day. Nothing like a bit of variation. Schoolwork and painting was done, watched over by the demented cat.

On Saturday while Garth took the girls to ballet in Kerikeri Jamie and I spent the morning in the garden. The forecast was for rain in the afternoon so we thought we would get as much done as we could while the ground wasn’t too wet. Well by nightfall it still hadn’t let loose with the rain. I seconded the girls into the garden as well and we got heaps achieved. The body was not pleased with the hurried garden work but the mind is very happy to have the onion bed mulched, lettuce and spinach seedlings planted and seeds sowed of mesclun, rocket, spinach, coriander and beetroot. We also weeded and mulched some other beds including the asparagus bed. Very productive. I was supposed to be painting but the fine weather had to be taken advantage of. I need some time outside for my mental health also. If I don’t get outside enough I start to get a bit like the cat (old and demented!)

The old mesclun bed is in the last stages of its lifespan. Its looking wonderful with the plants flowering but even I couldn’t finish the red leaves on my plate the other day. Their full spicy heat has developed marvellously to the detriment of edibility. I do hate digging out plants before they really really have to go as the flowers look pretty and the bees appreciate them. The next stage for this bed does need to progress (a green manure crop while the capsicum and eggplant seedlings grow on).

Clearing out beds always leads to culinary consequences. We have been eating miners lettuce and kale for three days as it had to come out and was not to be wasted!

The blood orange tree has flower buds. This always amazes me that it flowers while still bearing the current seasons crop of fruit. It does make for a very pleasant time weeding the tree though as one can smell the heavenly orange blossom scent and if needed a tasty snack is close at hand. That’s if the kids haven’t scoffed all the fruit first though!

The almond trees are blossoming. And this other thing in the hedgerow with nice smelling flowers. A Michelia I think. I lose all the name tags.

I always remember a piece of writing by Kay Baxter the Koanga Gardens gardening guru. She wrote about how her 4 children were all different as to what they enjoyed about gardening (one liked the flowers, one liked the bugs etc, etc.) In our garden Zara likes to get out there and get the job done… as quickly as possible…… so as to get on to something else. She is very capable and helpful although often seriously lacking in the art of the finer detail! Zara prefers to work by herself as her younger siblings are in her eyes purely distraction. Zara loves being in the outdoors. It doesn’t phase her in the least if it is cold, wet or windy, in fact she seems to positively love those conditions. I take my hat off to her for her total robustness and stamina. Our family as a whole would not be able to do what we do without her help. She may indulge in some gardening in her future if only to grow special treats for her beloved horses.

Anika wants to photograph everything and is keenly aware of ever detail. Colour, form, insect life, soil texture… the list goes on. If a particular job takes her fancy she is capable of motoring though it with extreme effort (she once dug over a whole raised garden bed of about 12 square metres with great energy and enthusiasm in one sitting). Sadly this rarely happens as she is more likely to be found checking out the soil texture by making dirt bombs and throwing them at anyone else in the vicinity. Anika prefers to work with others. She feels less bad about having to work in the garden if someone else is being exposed to the same torture. And she requires others to throw dirt bombs at and generally distract. Anika probably of all three of my brood has the most natural sensitivity to the plants needs. I hope that as she gets older she will develop this skill and use all of the gardening knowledge that she has been unwillingly soaking up while doing her garden torture.

Jamie is the most cheerful helper. He enjoys being able to help and has great ambitions for all that he is going to do. He starts out with speed and vigour but often runs out of steam part way through a list of tasks. This may be partly due to the energy required to think about every possible aspect of the garden and the world as a whole. Entire philosophical conversations are to be had. The mother sometimes has to stop weeding temporarily when the the questions get so complex that she might lose concentration and pull out totally the wrong plants. Jamie is still at an age when he is amazed by the many wonders of the natural world and I get to see things from a ‘child’s eye view’ when I’m out there with him. Partly it’s his age but also his personality. I hope he will retain his wide-eyed enjoyment of the natural world as he gets older. I think he will.

Anika:

More wet weather, yippee, not, but the couple of days of nice weather have been great. We went down to help Ken clean his boat and it was very wet but as we were water blasting it didn’t really matter. I had a lot of fun doing it as I usually don’t get to do the water blasting. All the slime, grime and barnacles managed to transfer themselves onto me but they didn’t smell too bad or taste that bad actually. By the time we were leaving it was hailing and me and Jamie were soaked. We got home and had hot shower’s and felt a lot better. On the weekend one of my friends came over and we went for a ride. On the way back I picked a bunch of freesia’s which smelled very sweet . The next day we went down and did the horses then went to ballet. We did some stuff in the garden after ballet, I weeded the asparagus bed then had dinner then got into bed.

Jamie:

A couple of days ago Ken’s boat was due to come out of the water for repairs and cleaning. That morning I raced through my chores and got my wet weather gear ready so I could go and help water blast the boat. We missed the boat coming out but were there in time to start water blasting. It was horrible weather with the pouring rain and mistiness.

With all the bad weather it was poor visibility. The water blasting spray did not help. The water blaster has a rotary head on it so it covered a large surface area at a time. The boat had collected a whole lot of barnacles and sludge on the bottom. It looked like a man’s beard that had not been tended to for a couple of months. On the other side of the boat the wind was blowing all the spray on my face. Not pleasant. But I did have a great woolly hat on that covered my ears. I was very thankful for that.

Zara:

With all the wet weather we’ve had lately the housework has been kept fairly up to scratch. Plenty of school work has been done, and we’ve even made it out into the garden longer than just to say, “I’ll do that later.” before leaving again. I had to mulch the onions with a combination of seagrass and red seaweed that by the smell of things was already mostly decomposed. It was also unpleasantly slimy. That however did not stop my faithful gardening companion from coming to help. Little did Inca know how unhelpful it was to was to sit on the onions and squash them.

A couple of days ago we got a phone call from Poppa Ken who had a donkey on the loose. Jack had got off his tether and was roaming around and did not want to be caught. I’m not quite sure what got into his head that day. He doesn’t usually even bother moving when being caught let alone trotting around. He must have been seriously over standing around in the bad weather.