September 2 2013

Yesterday morning at 9:00 am,  before I had my first cup of coffee, the power went out!  We knew it was going to happen because the notice said that new transformers were being installed in this 'neighborhood', but you don't remember things like that so early in the morning.

Fortunately, the weather was sunny and not too warm so Heather and I headed out to the sad little garden area to begin the job of cleaning up winter's debris and weeds that flourish in the nutritious garden soil.

And after a couple of hours of tugging and pulling at the weeds, we had cleared two of the raised beds. 

And Heather shows some of the weeds and their deep roots.

We returned to the house for a break and some lunch when the bee keepers arrived to check the bee hive.  I didn't get to my camera quick enough to take a picture of them with the hive disassembled, but here they are leaving. They'll be back next month and I'll get a more interesting picture.

But they returned shortly to say that they could not leave because the road was blocked by a large truck.

This is a cement truck trying to deliver it's cargo to the property across the road where a new home is being built.  He pulled into our driveway so he could back into the drive across the way, but with fencing on both sides of the road and the driveways not exactly straight across from each other, he managed to get stuck trying to maneuver the truck and the enormous trailer into the correct position.  My guess would be 30-45 minutes before they finally figured it out! 

Tomorrow, my first assignment from Mike, and the history of kauri.

It is supposed to rain all day today, so maybe shopping is in order!! 

August 30, 2013


The last few days have been cold with rain off and on.  Heather has not been feeling well so we have stayed in most of the time. She is better now, and we made it to the grocery store today, but didn't see anything of interest to photograph.

But we do have a beautiful Orpington rooster, and I know Cathy will appreciate the photos of him below.

Heather names most of her chickens and turkeys, and all of the Orpingtons are named for weather events.  This one is Thunder.


I'm posting a picture of the garden plot as it stands now - pretty bleak!  And I'll post more pictures as we clean up the area and get everything planted.

The structure in the front is the nursery for the baby chickens and turkeys, and right now there aren't any.  We're planning on fixing or replacing the fencing around the garden and hopefully adding another raised bed.

8/28/13  Return to New Zealand


We arrived in Auckland. Monday morning, right on time, but with the airport almost completely fogged in.  Below is what it looked like from the airplane, waiting for the short flight on to Christchurch.

Many flights were being cancelled but ours was only delayed 10 minutes.  Once we flew away from the North Island, the fog cleared. Here are some pictures from the air as we approached Christchurch.

Mike and Heather picked me up and we went back to their place.  Heather was excited to show me their new bee hive!

The rest of the day was quiet and by 8:00 pm I just collapsed into bed!

Up early on Tuesday and Mike refused to give me my "list" of things to do!!  He said I could have one more day of rest : )

I did venture outside to snap a picture of a beautiful sunset.

And on my way back to the house I found this turkey and chicken snuggling together on top of the dirt pile.

I showed them to Heather and she explained that the chicken, Golden, was hatched and raised by a turkey, so she is quite comfortable snuggling the turkey through the cold night!

So Wednesday approaches and we are planning to go shopping.  I will take my camera and get some pictures of the wildlife we see on the way.  Hopefully there will be some newborn lambs!

Before and After

I've taken a few pictures around the house to show some of the rooms as they now look as opposed to last year.  In many cases, the change is remarkable!

Before - upstairs bedroom

After - Mike is using this room as his office

Before - upstairs bathroom looking at sink area 

Before - upstairs bathroom looking at shower/toilet area

After - upstairs bathroom looking at sink area

After - upstairs bathroom looking at shower/toilet area

Before - stairway heading upstairs

After - stairway heading upstairs

Before - stairway heading down

After - stairway heading down

I can't find 'before' pictures of my bedroom (it looked just like the other upstairs bedroom) or the hallway in between the two bedrooms, but here is how they look today.

So that shows what the upstairs looks like.  I'll do the downstairs pictures next post.

Just to show that I AM doing some work, here is a picture of the wood that I split for Mike the other day : )

That is one section of the wood shed and I filled about 1/3 of it.  There are four more sections to the wood shed and Mike will take care of those!!

Update 8/17/2012

Mike put me to work again yesterday, this time splitting wood.  He has a wood splitter, so the work was not that hard.  It's just nice to get outside when it's not raining and get a little exercise!  

The chickens and turkeys have dried out since the rain stopped.  Here are some shots of Heather's Orpington chickens.

The Orpington Rooster

One of five Orpington hens

One day's collection of eggs

I haven't taken any good pictures of the turkeys yet, but will post some later.

Heather has hung some of her stained glass here in the house.

Morning Glories in the window in the upstairs hallway

Love Birds in the window in my bedroom

When we get a really sunny day I will be able to take pictures of the rooms in the house, then I'll post some 'before and after' pictures.

On Tuesday we stopped in to see Simone and her sweet young son Quinn. 

Heather is making pizza for dinner.  Yum!!

A Sunny Day!

August 13, 2012

The sun did come out for a while on Friday, but it was overcast most of the afternoon.  Mike took advantage of the "dry" weather to cut firewood and I spent part of the afternoon hauling the logs out of the forest and up to the wood shed.  Two hours in I was done in and Mike finished up the job.  Saturday there was actually sunshine and Mike was up early to thin the turkey flock and prepare three birds for freezing. 

Mike's parents came out to collect some firewood and here his dad is watching as Mike finishes plucking the birds.

His mom brought some goodies for the turkeys and the chickens.

It rained all day Sunday so we stayed in and watched the Olympics and Heather and I continued our knitting while Mike worked on installing filters in the water system.

Today it's raining again and very windy.  We're hearing reports of flooding but I was getting stir crazy and talked them into taking a drive into Rangiora so I could get more yarn.  Last year I posted this picture of a dry river bed with poppies growing in it that we had to cross to get to Rangiora.

Mike and Heather have been living here in Eyrewell Forest for two years and have never seen water running in this river bed.  Here is a picture of that river bed today. 

I know this is a short post but I have to go and make dinner!  So I will put this up and promise to post again soon

Return to New Zealand

I arrived in New Zealand last Tuesday after a very bumpy flight across the Pacific and I'm finally getting settled in.  It's wonderful to see Heather and Mike again and yesterday we had a delicious turkey dinner with Mike's parents Rita and Dave, his god-parents Alf and Margaret, and close friends of his family Margaret and Brian, who happen to live right down the street from us.  

Heather and Mike have moved out of the Wee Mansion and into the new house which is spacious and beautiful.  A few major projects remain - installing the wood flooring, building the wall of shelving for Heather's collection of books, installing an L-shaped island in the kitchen, and tiling the walls around the spa tub in the master bath.  But overall, the house is warm and comfortable.

The baby turkeys I posted about last visit have all grown to adult size over the past 8 months.  At one point earlier this year there were over 40 turkeys free-ranging on the property and they have pretty much destroyed the garden and the plantings that we worked so hard on last year.   But they have also provided many many delicious turkey dinners as well as some income from the sale of a few breeding sets, two hens and one tom in each set.  The stories of turkeys being stupid birds are completely true.  Mike built a turkey hutch for them to roost in, but instead they just hunker down on the ground, up in a tree, or on anything that is above ground level, and sleep for the night.  The weather does not matter to them and they will sleep unprotected in the rain and even in the snow. Tried to load a video of one of the female turkeys talking to her reflection in the window of the front door, but it didn't work.  Will try again later.