First day of Alert level 3 today. Already the roads are busier. More people going out to their places of work I guess. A fair few in more urban areas going to hunt down a takeaway coffee I hear.

I did have a pressing need to visit the garden centre. My onion seeds are calling to me, and I’ve run out of seed-raising mix to plant them in. I thought I might have to attempt to make my own. Considering that I’ve only in the last year or two managed to germinate good numbers of onion seedlings, I thought it might be prudent to stick to the store bought mix, before subjecting my onion seeds to experimental seed raising mix. I managed to prune the rest of the cherry trees in beautiful weather which lasted for several days afterwards, and darling Zara took on the huge task of weeding them. She laboured long and hard and came inside covered in dirt right up her legs from her bare feet three afternoons in a row. That’s dedication… wonder if she is buttering me up to do her a favour, or if she has actually been listening to my pleas for extra help while I do more project management on the house extension? Anyway, I’m extremely grateful not to have to take it on myself, as after the two pruning stints and trimming the three horses hooves to apply their special Hoof Armour potion my hands, arms and shoulders are a wee bit ouchy. Everything is booming in the garden, except the carrots in Jamie’s bed. We got used to it being rainy and he forgot to go out and water them (and I forgot to remind him) so they haven’t germinated well. We may have to do a resow.

The race is on as to whether the late planted zucchini and cucumber plants will produce fruit before it gets too cool. They are flowering so that is promising.

We are making progress on the house with the help of the wonderful builder next door. It feels quite comforting to have the sound of hammering and sawing accompanying us during the day again. Nice to see the kids ‘Poppa Ken’ most days again, we have been missing the social aspect of the ‘builders morning teas’ we were doing prior to lockdown (and the kids are addicted to the special cheese muffins I was making the builders for morning tea!). I think he’s looking forward to finishing our build (as we all are!) The thought of going back to being retired, and being able to hide in the hills for days on end with only a grubber to keep him company is great motivation.

Garth has been playing with doing some building too on his days at home. Here is his latest effort laid out on the floor and then applied to the wall. It took hours of work taking the old wooden sarking out of the house in the first place, and then sanding, planing, measuring etc before it could be put back up.

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I am managing to squeeze some riding in between lots of other activities.

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Anika

Lately I’ve been getting up at just after 6:30 and leaving for the horses about 7:00. The mornings are cold and beautiful. You can see the sun rise fully above the hills. It casts a golden glow over and through everything which brightens everything from the purplish colour present before the sun rises over the hills. They both make for beautiful photos.

The mornings are not super cold but are about 12 to 16 degrees. Cold enough to make your fingers and noses sting and go numb, but they quickly warm up though. When the suns starting to come up it feels like the world’s waking up with all the birds making noise and the roosters starting to crow. The calves moo and the cows bellow, the lights flick on. Its a beautiful place to be if you can be bothered getting up. I can’t wait for the next morning…….. but a sleep in also sounds nice.

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Pony spam.

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Jamie;

The first day of the weekend was the best in the world. I got to mow the orchard on ‘Little Toot’ (our small tractor). Usually I help Dad, but this time we swapped positions.

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The next day Anika and I went up into the bush without any adults again. While we were up there we found a big hollow tree that we walked straight past last time. This time we spent a lot of time trying to get George (the dog) out of the tree.

After that we moved on quickly in the hope we would cover a bit more ground than last time. After finding more supplejack to swing on Anika and I had a disagreement over which path to take over the hill. We were disappointed to find the stream on the other side dry. We then had fun racing back over the hill taking different routes. I won.

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I found Jamie observing closely for movement as he tracked down his prey by the sounds of its tracks clanking along the road.

Zara;

Over the weekend I completed the seemingly impossible task of weeding and mulching the cherry trees that line the drive. Boy am I glad that’s finished! Until next time. We have still been getting lots of amazing riding in, along with lapping up the autumn weather.

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The first day of level three lock- down today, no changes in our bubble routine yet. Though mum is frantically trying to choose colours for the new bathroom now that the paint shop is open.

I had Jamie dictating his blog to me today. I had no idea it was so frustrating. I don’t think he understands that a sentence isn’t suppose to be five paragraphs long.

More pony spam.

I’m feeling torn between spending time in the garden at the moment and doing planning and designing for the house extension (in between the routine housework and the school work of course). The weather has turned again and is now warm, sunny, absolutely bloody marvellous actually. Always good to have options I tell myself as I frantically try to get laundry done, weed the garden, consult with Garth on the design for one of the bathroom vanities and email the electrician and plumber. Never a dull moment. Luckily my main leisure activity (other than gardening which I super enjoy but is an essential activity for us, rather than really leisure) demands regular attention.

Going with a bit of ‘interest based’ educational activity today by agreeing to Jamie’s continual requests to go bush. Don’t read his section of the blog if you aren’t a fan of risky play! They got the safety talk again before they left for the hills, “Whats the most important thing to do if you get lost?”. They were on to it. Interestingly Jamie has a thing about wanting to go bush by himself. To just be at one with the bush I guess? He was happy to take Anika along today though. I don’t know how many years it will be yet before I will let my youngest baby roam the bush by himself. Not for a while.

Jamie:

This afternoon I went up into the bush with Anika. We got up into the bush and Anika immediately started finding bits for making slingshots. I wasn’t sure why she wanted the skinny slingshot bits because I knew they would break easily. I managed to persuade her to go deeper into the bush. I found a slippery bit and went for a slidey, rocketty roll. I finally made it down the steep bit and we started heading east towards the big line of Puriri trees. There was a bit of Supplejack and lots of Nikau palms. It smelt fresh and the songbirds were singing loudly. We got a bit further into the Nikau palm galore and stumbled over two bits of Supplejack. We cut two lengths of Supplejack off and then moved on, pleased with our find. Then I was surveying a big patch of Supplejack and I saw several pieces twined together. I grabbed them and climbed up the side of the gully. I swung out into the air. It felt like flying!

Anika had a go too but she wasn’t sure if it was going to hold up or snap. We cut several more bits of Supplejack. Then I climbed up a massive Puriri tree and got my foot stuck. I ended up being able to lift my foot out of where it was stuck and climbed back down the tree a bit more carefully.

We moved out of that gulley adn found another huge Puriri tree. We wanted to get down below it but it was a steep bank. I decided I would go down carefully on my feet but as always I slipped and slid down on my butt. Anika laughed and took a video. She managed to find a much more sensible route down.

We packed up and moved on. I think we found the lost creek.

My way of getting to it was jumping down, getting caught up by branches and then going on another steep descent.

We headed back to our grandparents place to show them what we had found and then headed home. Oh no! We were half an hour late.

Anika:

This morning I dug three garden beds in the heat “ugh.” While I was digging I could hear the rhythmic clunk of the fork hitting the soil. Sometimes I would hit a kumara and have to get it out of the way. Some of the soil was a lot nicer to dig and some was quite lumpy and hard to break up. The soil had the look of crumbled chocolate cake. I smelled the earthy smell of drying dirt as I turned it over.

In the photos I’m trying to do ballet while digging, ha ha. Didn’t really work, but at least I’m finished. Time for the next job… here comes Mum.

Zara:

After Bridies performance yesterday mum said I should ride her today. She behaved impeccably for me and did everything I asked, of course. It was funny being back on Bridie after riding Leena, who is so much slimmer, taller and bigger paced than Bridie. It reminded me of old times when it was just me and mum riding Bella and Bridie. Although at that stage my legs only just reached the bottom of the saddle flaps. I rode Bridie for about six years before I outgrew her. We learnt together. I still remember the days when I got bucked off way more than necessary, my first canter and ribbon day. Although they seem like distant memories, I will never forget what Bridie taught me. Even if it was mainly how to not get bucked off! Now I better write about something other than horses before mum goes bananas.

Today I was designated to giving the tomato bed a bit of a revamp. We try to leave our tomatoes in as long a possible in order to continue getting a few ripe tomatoes. The trade off though, is trying to get a cover crop in before the next crop goes in the bed. One of the other problems with leaving them in for to long is that they start to get a lot of diseased bits. This can mean the diseased leaves, spores, and roots can settle into the soil and cause a higher background level of contamination for future tomato crops. Also the tomato house plastic structure tends to start collapsing and requiring a lot of maintenance. Eventually we all get more sick of the work involved than hungry for tomatoes and we take everything out. The garden always looks a lot more tidy at that point, but no fresh tomatoes on hand for the next 6 months or so.

Zara being her helpful self once more, making the weeks coconut yoghurt.

Today I ended up doing a wee experiment. I’m hoping that in spring I will not regret the experiment.

I have been eyeing up the cherry trees along our driveway. They need pruning badly and also weeding badly. Today the forecast was not good for the afternoon but something drove me to start pruning the poor cherry trees. Ideally one does not prune anything when it is going to rain. However I know that if I don’t do the pruning now that it will potentially not get done at all.

I once read a gardening article that talked about pruning cherries and it suggested that the way to get lots of cherries was to prune them hard. The guru writing it was based in a similar climate to ours (pretty warm for cherries compared to their natural range which would get snow and lots of chilling hours to help them set fruit). They do shoot up a lot of new growth each year which doesn’t help in the fruiting department and makes it very hard to cover them with netting to keep the birds from eating the fruit. It also makes it harder to keep pruning them if they get any taller than they are now.

With our wet winters I think getting rid of a lot of the foliage helps keep the tree a bit less shaded and gives it a chance to dry out between the endless rain storms. I decided as the weather got worse and worse, that it often rained after I pruned anyway no matter what time of year I got out the secateurs. That really I was depending on the beeswax based pruning paste applied to the cuts to keep them dry anyway.

I managed to get 3 of the 6 trees pruned before the weather totally deteriorated. I’ll hope for a couple of dry days in a row to get the other three done I think. Then as spring comes along I will keep an eye on how much dieback and disease each tree has around pruned areas. Hhhmmm maybe the kids could monitor this, I feel another science project coming on….

I have come up with an improvement to my usual pruning technique. I hate going back round and putting the pruning paste on all the pruning cuts. Jamie however will take any excuse to climb up a ladder/stepladder and play around with trees. He leapt at the chance to be in charge of applying the paste and did a great job without even managing to fall off the step ladder. I did give him an extensive health and safety briefing. Now I need to weed them although the comfrey round the base of the trees is doing a fairly good job of somewhat limiting the kikuyu invasion.

Leena and Zara went well again today. Leena wanted to be a racehorse and Zara is learning use the muscular tone in her body (especially her core including her back muscles) to help Leena to slow down and balance. Zara concentrates 110% when I help her with schooling Leena (most days!). I think she has amazing focus for her age and she has made huge strides in having body awareness and control. She is naturally very flexible and has had to really work on her muscle control to be able to ride at all without looking like her limbs are made of spaghetti. And unfortunately the broken leg last year really put her back. She has worked even harder since healing the leg though to great effect. She loves this horse so much and the feeling is mutual I think.

Bridie thought she was a gazelle and got hyper excited and started leaping round all over the place. I had to step in and give Bridie a stern talking to, but Anika got on and managed to get her to concentrate quite well considering. Bridie can be quite spirited at times, particularly when she is enjoying lots of lovely green grass so I think Anika should feel quite proud of herself for how she rode today.

Anika has a not so secret desire to be taller than Zara as soon as possible. In these photos she has almost managed to look taller and have the bigger pony.

Anika:

When I look out of my second storey window I see the red, gold and rich green leaves of the Liquid Amber trees. Behind them there’s tall yellow and green poplar trees down one fence line, guarding an almost luscious green paddock. The shape of the paddock is like quarter of a pie. From the corner of the paddock to the middle of the curved bit there’s a ditch. In the middle of the ditch there’s a small pond creating a watch shape with the ditch. You can also see the T junction of the roads leading to our house and a small grey one lane bridge. When the poplars lose their leaves you can see the the neighbour’s horses on the left side of the road, and ours on the right side of the bridge.

If you look down you can see a carpet of ferns that ends when it gets to a line of trees at our boundary. In the middle of the ferns there’s an almost dead tree that splits into 2 trunks. One of them has lots of branches coming off it. The whole tree is covered with a soft greeney moss. By the Liquid Amber lined driveway there’s also another drive about 2 meters away running parallel to it. The Liquid Amber trees are under planted with bird of paradise and flax plants.

From in my room you can hear the throbbing pounding of the rain on the roof.

I can’t wait to move into my new room.

Here are some photos especially for Ramona (the kids sewing teacher). Anika took some green spotty tights off Zara and modified them (apparently she managed to make two scrunchies as well!). This was what happened when I asked her to strike a pose. Thinking about it, Version 1 and Version 2. Thank goodness for the ballet training (thanks Liz!)

Jamie:

Zara:

We got exceedingly lucky with the weather today. We got a ride in and the horse stuff done before the rain started. The rain thwarted any of mum’s plans for garden jobs. The wet weather does mean we will have a ‘school work heavy’ day to make up for all the good weather days we spend outside. It also means that I will be able to finally be able to finish my Harry Potter book (I am rereading them for about the sixth time). The cat has taken to sleeping in my room on all my rosettes. As mum would say, they should not be lying around my room creating clutter.

Back to the golden weather today. Like a lot of things in life, the amazing weather today was all the more appreciated for having been missing in action for the last wee while. After all the rain we have had everything was especially shiny, but the seedlings in the garden had outgrown their strength a little and were looking quite wilted. I had to resort to a very quick watering round. The ‘dancing pea seedlings’ had become the ‘flopping pea seedlings’.

The beautiful whtie dahlias did not come through the rain very well and were looking very sad. So I rescued them.

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I’m very pleased with how Bella is going lately. She seems happy in herself and her body. Now we just have to build her muscles up gradually (and mine!). She always looks forward to her breakfast after our ride with huge anticipation.

Anika:

Today I’m writing about sprouts. Because their growth pattern is interesting. We have got a lot of sprouts at the moment cause we grow them lots.

The first stage of growing sprouts is getting the seeds ready by soaking them for about 4 hours. After that you put them in either a sprout bag, jar or container. Some seeds sprout faster than others and the process often only takes 2-3 days.

The second stage is once the seeds have started sprouting. You keep rinsing them night and morning and they often start to grow really fast. This can be interesting to observe… if you like sprouts.

The third stage is when they’re almost ready to eat. They have tiny leaves and shoots that would turn into roots if they were planted in soil. This is often about 4-5 days after first soaking the sprouts and this is when Mum often starts eating them.

The Fourth stage is when they are actually ready to eat at last. Mum’s over the moon, but for the rest of us the problem is that we now have to have two helpings of greens because apparently “It’s good to have leafy greens and sprouts, blah, blah, blah etc.”

Sprouts can be eaten in many ways. We tend to have them in salads or sprinkled on top of meals.

You can pretty much sprout most edible seeds and legumes which is almost a little bit cool. I don’t mind sprouts, but they’re not something I would choose to eat by choice. (She actually likes sprouts more than many other things of the green variety!)

Jamie:

At this time of year my favourite place to be is in the bush above Ken and Leila’s place next door. It is native bush filled with tea tree and tanikaha. I love to climb the huge fallen over Puriri trees.

The light filtering through the trees is like a patchwork quilt in the middle of a dark room. With all the different leaf shapes it is like a puzzle and you have to work out which leaves belong to which plant. Being in the bush is very cool, it feels like you are in your own private kingdom.

I like exploring from ridgeline to ridgeline and valley to valley. If you walk from the ridge down into the valley and back up to the next ridge that’s a good way to find the little creek in the middle. The little watercourses have mossy banks but can be elusive to find. Sometimes it can be like finding a pin in a haystack.

The back of the hill has got trillions of very tall trees that I can’t specify as to what they are. It is especially fun to run at them and use the strong vines hanging down from them as swings.

I see fantails and tuis ducking in and out of the trees. The tuis perch and pick berries and the fantails snatch at insects. At this time of year I think in particular that with the tuis and fantails singing it is like being in a theatre with an orchestra playing. I like to look at all the trees growing in their natural environment. I also like to see the birds in their favourite place. Bush, bush, vines and insects galore.

Zara:

Today we have had some more of the amazing weather we seem to be getting between the bad stuff. We went for anther peaceful ride on our deserted roads. They weren’t so deserted today, we met two cars.

Later in the morning I stewed some of the apples we picked yesterday. The first stage was to decore and cut the apples up. We have a special implement to do this that we call a twirly whirler. The twirly whirler takes the core out and the skin off, and cuts it into a coiled snake like form. We cut the snake in half before adding to the pot to cook. The smell of apple cooking is a favourite of mine, it smells appealingly of sweet fresh apples, what could be better?

While the apple is cooking I wash the Agee jars in boiling water to sterilise them, and to get the layer of filth that seems to build up off. Once the apple is cooked it kind of resembles flesh coloured pulpy stuff. Lets just say it tastes way better than it looks. I then ladle it into the jars before topping up with boiling water so there are no air bubbles. I then put the seals on with the screw on tops to help get a secure seal. Because every thing is hot when the apple goes into the jars, when it cools the lid is suctioned on to the jar. Before we squirrel the apple away for the winter we label the lids with the date.

Yesterday we heard the news that Level 4 lockdown is going to stay in place for another week. For us it doesn’t matter too much and we hope it will aid in the elimination of the virus, but for businesses out there who are struggling I hope it doesn’t push them over the brink. I also hope that as businesses reopen everyone thinks carefully about what purchases are essential to a good life and what are luxuries. We all have options every time we purchase something (although for those on a really tight budget the options can be quite limited). Thoughts around questions like “Is there a way to support a NZ business, especially a small business if possible, rather than buy an imported product that is not likely to last?” Not that all imports are of poor quality but there are plenty that are (the big red shed I’m looking at you). I’m a firm believer that everyone can save money on their grocery bill by digging up some soil somewhere and planting things in it. I hope lots of families have had the chance to explore gardening while they have been at home over the last month.

A very domestic day today while the rain keeps us inside. Wonderful to have all three children around the kitchen table writing away in their school books and calling me over as they need feedback. Also lovely to have Garth at home today, he is beavering away preparing salvaged boards to be remounted on some sections of walls as sarking. It’s very rewarding to be able to do our small bits of helping on this renovation. My contribution has been largely endless amounts of sweeping. I have found this quite therapeutic in terms of activities to stop myself going stark staring mad at the amount of mess being created. First it was sawdust, nails and screws. Then we moved on to the ultimate in mess. The dreaded gib-stopping plaster. Thank goodness for the handy donation by a brother in law of extra wide rolls of plastic sheeting.

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Anyway at least things are starting to look nice in the garden. Harvesting mesclun while hunched under the microclima tunnel in the rain gave me a fine appreciation for the warm, sheltered atmosphere in there. The mesclun is loving it and I’m wondering if I should have started harvesting it a little earlier! It is delicious and not too peppery which I thought might have been an issue.

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It’s so warm out there, the garden is bolting away. Jamie’s beans caught my eye as having shot up again overnight, and the snow peas look like they are dancing with their outstretched tendrils (they need a bamboo supporting structure pronto!). Zara planted out a bed of linseed plants on the day we removed the kumara plants. We have never grown this before. A bit of an experiment. Apparently it has pretty blue flowers and then one can harvest the seed. It is supposed to be grown in spring so who knows if it will survive the winter? There is an old bed of cabbages beside where we have planted the linseed. The cut stalks are re growing multiple new cabbages from around the stalk. We find this only works in winter as in summer they go to seed if you try to do this.

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Anika:

Lately its been raining a lot. I feel sorry for our chicks, not the nicest weather for them. When we go riding we have to be careful not to be caught out in a downpour. When it’s raining it reminds me of when I had to write a story based on a real life situation for a writing class. Mum will try to include a link to the story if anyone would like to read it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UFAZsnrTqpsZHX3ZBjSZ8KQ15sxWa0ah-qIqKcmNal4/edit?usp=sharing

Jamie:

This morning I was awake at about 4am. The long bit of spouting still coming off our roof had water shooting off it and onto the deck. It sounded like heavy metal drumming.

It kept me awake till about 6 o’clock pondering on how much rain we would have in the rain gauge. It was still raining when I got up at 8.30 but it had eased.

For breakfast we had German Apple Pancake. It was very tasty. It is my favourite breakfast.

Then I put on my wet weather gear and went and fed the chickens. I noticed that every tiny bit of the rat bait in the subtropicals has gone. We had some sapotes on our tree but the blistering blue barnacles rats got most of them.

Our baby chickens are good. I had to make them a ramp today to get up over a bit of wood.

Mum and I were in charge of making tuna salad for lunch which consisted of; tuna, mayonnaise, carrots, lettuce, mesclun, parsley, spring onions, avocado, mango, lime juice, gherkins and my favourite – sunflower sprouts. It was very tasteful and like a maze of colours. We had quarter of the bowl each and all wanted more.

Zara:

Today I woke up to the sound of rain softly drumming on the roof, again. The sound of rain on the roof is starting to get quite familiar. The other familiar sounds are Anika telling jokes, Jamie being told to do his school work, dad sanding in the unfinished bedroom, and mum cleaning the pantry out while keeping up a steady rant of things like, ”Why can’t people just put things back from where they came from.” Oh, and the chickens peeping when the rain eases enough for you to hear them. I of course am just working perfectly quietly, NOT.

Yesterday we went apple picking, so for pudding it was baked apples with date and almond filling. Breakfast was a German apple pancake.

Today the horses got another day off, we now just have to ride when we can because the chances are that it will be raining the next day. The lower lieing areas have started to puddle, but no mud yet.

Sprung! I tried to get away for a quick ‘rest’ with my current book. Not only did the cat find me but also the mother.

The harvest season continues in Peria with an abundance of mushrooms coming up on many properties. A bucket full was delivered courtesy of my parents. Like so many harvesting activities the picking is often only the start. I spent a painstaking evening cleaning the delicate goodies and stacking them in a box but now they are all ready to use and they have featured in several meals already. Delicious! Some of the younger members of the family are not so keen but can be enticed to eat most things by judicious applications of cheese.

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Still getting tomatoes, peppers, beetroot and carrots from the garden. I’ve decided everything looks tasty if you chop it all up into nice pieces. I was thinking of you Daring Donna while we enjoyed this.

The greens drought in the garden has finally ended with the lettuce planting spree in the garden finally at edible size and the mesclun harvestable as well.

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Today we were generously offered the raiding of a friends apple trees. Since every one in this household are apple eating maestros (except me) we accepted and made off with wonderful apple plunder. We rely on a steady supply of stewed apples throughout the year and don’t have many jars done yet so this will really help us out. The tricky bit is stopping the family eating them before they make it to the pot. Also received feijoa booty from next door. We will scoop and freeze as many of these as we can.

And finally on a seemingly improbably note. Rockmelons! Sitting quite happily in the garden surrounded by their dead vine. Thought I better rescue them and bring them inside. Some went into my tasty breakfast this morning along with some yellow guavas and sunflower seed sprouts. Yum.

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Anika:

At the moment we have baby chicks. They hatched a few days ago. I had to help one to survive. We put in front of the fire so that it could keep warm. When I picked it up it felt fragile, but it peeped every time I touched it. This made me think that it was strong enough to survive with some help.

Once it had dried out it looked liked a little black ball of fluff. I put it back under its mammy. It felt soft, fluffy and delicate. It would have kept mum and dad awake all night because the fire is close to their bed and it made a lot of noise. All the chicks make very loud peeping noises.

There are six of them; three yellow and three black. One of the yellow ones has brown stripes down its back and Jamie’s named it Stripey. They all almost look like pheasant chicks but fluffier. I don’t know which ones are boys or girls yet as they are to young to be able to tell easily.

The mummy is an Orpington X. They hatched under an trolley filled with garden pot plants which was where Jamie found them.

They are now in a run on our front lawn. On the way to put them in the run Dad was carrying the Mumma. I put the chicks in the run first and Jamie suddenly said, “Where’s Stripey!” Dad at that moment was putting the mumma down when a blur of yellow fluff dropped in to the run. Stripey had got a ride tucked up under the mumma’s wing.

We have got the run under a tree (and a tarpaulin as well) where they can stay dry and safe.

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Jamie:

In the weekend I found a little surprise. Baby chickens! I found them by the noise they were making. We were pumping up Little Toot’s tyre (the little tractor) when I started hearing musical peeping noises coming from the area under my tree house. I went to go out into the garden to find our newly Tanikaha handled grubber. Then I saw the mother hen out walking around. I had a closer look and there was a newly born chicken. It had two stripes on its back and was yellow and black. I shot inside like a cat chasing a mouse to tell Anika and Zara. Zara came out with the camera. We took photos and then backed off. Later on Anika rescued a chicken that hadn’t hatched properly.

Yesterday we checked out the eggs that were left in the nest after we moved the hen and chicks to a run. There was one dead chicken fully formed in an egg but it still had an external yolk sac. The rest were rotten.

Yesterday I named the stripey one ‘Stripey’, one of the yellow ones ‘Plainy’ and the rescued one ‘Peepy’. The other three can be named by Anika. This morning the mother taught them how to eat chicken starter food.

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Zara:

This morning we got wet for the first time while out riding. We made a quick turn around and trotted a bit more on the way home than usual. The horses loved it, breakfast sooner!

Over the weekend we didn’t get as much riding in as usual thanks to the bad weather. We did dig up the rest of the kumaras and took some cuttings from them to overwinter and grow next years kumara plants from. I was put in charge of potting them up. I find this quite a time consuming task, but I love getting all the kumaras the next year.

Because we grow a range of heritage kumara varieties there is a variation in leaf shape and colour. The effect of them all potted up together is kind of like a green mosaic, as mosaics are never perfectly even in shape or colour. With all the poplar trees losing their leaves we are able to see almost all of the horse grazing from mum’s bedroom window, which is cool.

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A very quiet day today as it is still wet, cloudy, and windy intermittantly and sometimes all at once outside. Feeling grateful for our wonderful place in the world here, having space, land, fresh air and plants and animals. I love the changing of the seasons and how it encourages us to be present and observe whats going on. If I had to have a favourite season, mine would be autumn. I totally love it. Garth says he totally loved it just that tiny bit more last week when it wasn’t raining but hey, its still lovely now.

Also grateful to be in lockdown with my lovely family. It’s all action, never a dull moment and there is certainly friction at times but its just another time to work on trying to achieve family harmony. We always love it when Garth has time off work, and at the moment he is getting a few more days at home than normal. Not only can he get some of the hefty jobs done that require stronger muscles than the rest of us have, but he brings a playfulness and silliness to a lot of what we do. He has always been a hands-on and involved Dad so we are enjoying a bit more of that at the moment. Dad’s rock!

Anika:

This morning I had a nice ride. While I was riding I thought about how it feels to be up on a pony. Horse riding can be frustrating and difficult but also fun and rewarding at times. To get your position right on the horse can feel almost impossible sometimes. When you are on horseback everything looks and feels different. I like going fast although my pony isn’t always keen. With the wind whipping past your face you feel almost carefree. That’s when my pony gives out an excited buck.

You don’t see much more from on top of a horse or pony than on the ground, but you see everything from a higher point of view giving you a lofty feeling. The walk is almost bumpy feeling but sort of smooth. The trot is bumpy and quite hard to sit to. Canter and gallop are my favourite paces and are very smooth. They can be scary though. I like the sound of the horses hooves hitting the ground with a ‘clip clop’ sound. It’s very peaceful and rhythmic.

Unless you are looking out for something in particular you don’t often notice what you are seeing when you are riding because you are thinking about your position and what the horse is doing a lot of the time.

Sometimes we ride down the road, or we’ll go up a runoff track on a dairy farm. Its got huge paddocks that you can get up a fair speed in, or you can keep going on the track. Quite often you will go past bulls or young calves. There are a few rabbits that are always there, and some nice hills to canter up. It’s one of my favorite places to ride and we feel lucky to have access to this large farm (and several others around also) thanks to the generosity of our farming neighbours. We also go up our road, and up Fern Flat road.

My pony is a good girl and most of the time behaves well. But occasionally she likes to try and buck me off. Not in a nasty way, she is just having fun.

Jamie:

Today we made chocolate. It was fantastic and very delicious. I made some in scallop shaped moulds. They looked very good and tasted even better!

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Zara:

This morning I woke up to the sound of rain tapping on the roof. There was also a constant pounding sound of the rain running down the currently unguttered roof onto the concrete path outside my door. I did vaguely think about getting up to make sure the the horses had water proof enough rugs on. But as usual my reluctance to leave a warm bed got the better of me and I stayed in bed. It was still fairly dark outside, and by that stage the rain had started to ease. The horses got a day off and were extremely pleased to get their breakfast a bit earlier than usual. Bella decided to be a wuss and stayed hiding under the trees from the rain instead of going up to the paddock as normal.

Later we made some chocolate creations. Very messy, but tasty. Of course I got left with the clean up, probably fair though as I made the most mess.

Here is a bit of a photo essay of us shifting our cows during a let up in the weather this afternoon. Glorious! Photos by Josi.

These guys never just walk anywhere. This is, believe it or not, cartwheeling down the hill.

Then we realised that we were all at the bottom of the hill and that actually most of us needed to be at the top of the hill. So the girls raced up. Hard to believe that these children have about 10 years of gymnastic training clocked up between them!

We are very proud of our stock that we raise. This is Dawn (the lighter coloured one) and Angel (black whiteface with the black markings on the white face in the shape of an angel). Their 18month old calves are as tall as they are now and will fill out over winter. They would usually be filled out already but we have been carrying extra stock for a year or so and the effects of the drought (somehow seemed to acquire a few extra for some reason). We prefer to stock lightly and grow the young stock on fairly quickly. The little cuties are this years calves that have been weaned. They are very round in stature and barely noticed being weaned.

Found a couple of cowgirls just chilling out waiting for the cows. Did a bit of horticultural and rural view appreciation as we walked down the road.

Kids shepherded the cows safely down the road. Pretty much no traffic at any time on the road anymore which is handy! They like to hoon around their new paddock everytime we shift them.

The boys check out the cows settling in to their new paddock while the girls start putting up a dividing fence in the paddock. I do a bit more tree appreciation.

Mushrooms? Could this afternoon get any better? Anika hand-raised Dawn as a calf. Dawn is a wee bit of a pain in the behind sometimes but you can go right up to her and give her a scratch which is nice. Can do the same with Anika, but you have to catch her quickly while she is distracted with something like say…. sausages.

Bridie likes attention but loves food. Bella loves food and pretends that she is not interested in cuddles at all but looks at you sideways if you cuddle anyone else. Leena flat out demands to be cuddled (accusing looks if you go anywhere near her without pats and cuddles!), loves food but would almost choose a cuddle over food. Leena has been the latest addition to our herd of mares and she fits in really well. Bridie used to be the boss of everyone, but as Bella has got a bit older and Leena has settled in, they now all seem to do their own thing.

Peace reigns again. On the way back up our drive I notice the cabbage trees we planted when we first moved in to our property 10 years ago are flowering. Very beautiful. Lovely to have our beautiful native trees as well as the deciduous ones.

Another beautiful morning, another serene wander down the road in the early light. It’s a hard life! We are trying to make the most of the good bits of weather as at this time of year we could start getting prolonged periods of rain at any time. As my children will attest, I am not a fan of being wet or cold, so less riding gets done once bad weather kicks in.

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Anika:

Anika is struggling with writers block today. Stay tuned for tomorrows entry. She claims that she was so busy concentrating on her position in the saddle that she didn’t any attention to her surroundings.

Jamie:

This morning was a wonderful morning. My breakfast consisted of home made coconut yoghurt, feijoas, persimmons and red kiwifruit. It was very tasty and it looked like a work of art. I ate it in front of the fire. I was in heaven enjoying the warm glow of the fire and the delicious breakfast. So much so that it took me 20 minutes to finish eating….

After I got dressed I went down to the horse grazing and grubbed some gorse. I ran into Nana on her bike on the road. I ran beside her being careful to maintain my distance.

Today we finally transplanted our beans and some peas into my garden bed. We realised we had made a little fumble by leaving a space for the beans in the middle of the root crop part of the bed. This is going to make it hard to cover the beans and carrots appropriately. The beans like warm, and the carrots shady until they germinate. So we realised we needed to put plastic over the beans and shade cloth over the carrots. The beans were growing very slowly, the peas that we planted later are growing faster than any other specimen in the seed tray.

Zara:

This morning I decided to get up a bit earlier than I have been doing lately. It always amazes me how bright and sparkly things are early in the morning (when the sun is out). I was glad to have my horse back this morning. Leena was glad to have me back too I think (no offense Mum). After a couple of showers around lunchtime the day has turned gloomy enough to keep us inside with the fire on.

Mum thinks it is still blimen cold outside. I believe she used a stronger word than that, but I thought I’d use the polite version ( I totally dispute this!). She also has kittens if the door is left open longer than a millisecond. This is while the rest of us are going round in shorts and T-shirts, and possibly teasing her a little bit.

Going out riding in the morning is so peaceful and quiet at the moment. The few people we do meet are our friendly neighbours, who we exchange pleasantries with before continuing on our way. In the mornings everything seems to glow and sparkle with the morning dew. As I look at the surrounding hills, the effect of the sun catching on the dew along with the mist rising from the valleys, looks like rays of glittering diamonds falling on to a forest of green.

It was totally worth getting up early to see it, now I just need to find an effective way of getting my little sister out of bed in a timely manner every morning.

Today its my niece’s birthday. We can see via our FB chat group that it looks like she is having a great day with plenty of presents and we will video chat later with all the family and sing her Happy Birthday.

It feels like a temporary hiatus in the garden as we wait to feel inspired with some better weather. We have a few more seedlings to get planted out though over the next few days. We did manage to squeeze in some more riding this morning but now it feels like time to hibernate in front of the fire and read, write and play. Its feeling extremely autumnal now with increasing numbers of leaves coming down everywhere. The poplars down at the horse grazing look like a painter has applied millions of yellow splodges to a wintery grey background to shape the trees image. Its very appealing.

I temporarily stole Zara’s horse for a ride, worked Bella in hand and helped Anika do some training with Bridie. Might need a day off tomorrow!

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Anika:

I have been learning ballet with a local teacher for about 3 years. When you learn to dance it can be difficult, sore and quite often frustrating. Overall though, it’s fun and exciting even though it’s challenging. Once you have learnt the choreography of a movement, dance or exercise it’s very hard to forget it. Sometimes it’s a bit hard to understand the names of movements as they are French names. For example there’s Assemblé, Battement Fondu, Plié, Sissonne and about a thousand others.

Once you’ve learnt a dance to a piece of music you don’t really ever forget it and quite often you find yourself humming the tune a lot.

Shows are always good, and bad. You have to get to the venue a long time before you dance. Its seems even longer because you are so nervous. You have to have your hair and makeup done and also warm up. The amount of makeup you use is crazy to keep you face looking ‘natural’ under the stage lights. You always have to get new shoes and skin coloured tights or have to try adn clean your old ones well enough to look new. You have to keep two pairs of everything just in case you lose soemthing or accidentally damage something.

The good part about performances is the fact that you have worked so hard and practised so many times it feels great to finally ‘show’ it off. It’s also usually the end of the term and we get to know what we are going to be working on next.

How to get a nice daughter and pony photo………

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Jamie:

Chicken watching!

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Zara:

Day 11. This morning I woke up to the pleasant surprise of the smell of pancakes. Anika had got up early and made them. An uncommon occurrence, but one we all appreciated.

Today mum rode Leena. Although she insisted she wasn’t trying to steal her, I’m not quite sure I believe her. It was cool though to see her being ridden from a different point of view.

The horses are really enjoying their sandpit at the moment. It has just been rotary hoed so is all soft and fluffy. They come down the track in the morning covered in sand and with a definite white tinge to their coats. It does keep Bridie looking deceptively clean.

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We put the sand play area in a few years ago. We did this so that when the paddocks are too wet for the horses to go out and graze they can still have somewhere to lie down or roll. They don’t tend to do this on the metalled surface of the track. When the horses first got access to the sand pit they thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. They raced around and rolled over and over again. Bella came out looking more ghost than horse or like someone who’s just been pranked with a very large bag of flour.

We have noticed a bit of a problem with the sand that we got put in the sand play area. It is very fine, and tends to compact down to quite a hard surface. The horses prefer it when it is nice and soft again and often play in it like a giant sand pit. It’s covered in hoof prints at the moment from their boisterous play and also flattened areas where they have reclined all night.

The wild weather continues today. I put washing on the line thinking I would give it half an hour to blow some moisture out of it before bringing inside to finish drying on a rack. However the threatening clouds didn’t actually divulge any proper rain, the sun came out and I had totally dry washing this afternoon. What a bonus. However the incessant wind did not lend itself to wanting to be out in the garden.

Here’s a rarely seen photo of me on my horse. Bella is both the light of my life (ranking narrowly behind Garth and the quite lovable children) and the source of most frustration. She is high maintenance and has had constant health and soundness issues from a young age. I also don’t have the time to devote to her that she would really like. She is doted on by the kids as well as myself though so really she doesn’t do too badly. When we have a day like today where she feels great and can work in a slightly better way biomechanically, and is happy, I just enjoy it while it lasts. No two days with Bella are ever the same but with the help of an amazing horse trainer I feel like hopefully we are on the right track now. Being responsible for Bella has led me along a lot of paths that I never would have gone down without trying to find solutions for all her issues.

Please excuse the not very traditional riding attire, Zara usually refuses to take photos unless I put on my proper riding clothes but for some reason she eased up on that policy today.

Anika:

This evening we did a little exercise with some photos Anika took just after dark, playing with making up metaphors and similes to go with the images. We are at the super beginner level with metaphors and find them very hard work. The reader gets to figure out which image and which phrase go together. We have mixed them up!

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Eating like a greedy possum.

They shone prettily in a merry festive way.

Like a gruesome Halloween mask.

Like squares of light to guide you home.

It covered the stage in a softly patterned expanse.

If flared out of the darkness twinkling brightly.

Jamie:

I notice when I open the chook run gate that the bantam comes out first. We think the bantam is at least 14 years old. She is mostly grey with a few black feathers. She likes to eat on her own. Our big black rooster comes out second. I reckon he could eat twice as much as the bantam in one minute. I went in to do the water and the food, and collect the eggs. When I came back out some more chickens were out. There was another black chicken and a blown up version of the bantam.

Zara:

This morning we went for another amazing ride. It was amazing except for having to avoid the frequent rain showers. We got it just right today and didn’t get wet at all. With this slightly cooler and windy weather, it has been raining golden leaves non stop for the last couple of days. We now have more leaves than grass on the lawns. After lunch I was caught guiltily holding the couch down. I was then told to get up and do something useful. I knew it was too good to last.