A wind, or a Hurricane?

Tuesday 10th September 2013 - News Flash! Winds up to 225km per hour hit North Canterbury.  Anderson family huddle in the lounge while extreme winds buffet the house.  The children of the family go to bed without fuss and go to sleep, blissfully unaware of the malestroem raging outside.

Anna paces up and down, worrying about chookhouses, and woodsheds.   Mark helps her to put away the BBQ furniture and the patio heater, and to weigh the spa pool cover down with large rocks.  Then, Mark, always the pragmatic one, goes to bed.  Anna paces up and down some more and then makes a foray into the winds.  Battling her way to the gate, the hinges of it break off as she goes through, leaning into the wind.  The chookhouse is safe, and all doors are still shut.  The woodshed is still standing.  Thinking it might get even worse Anna makes her way to the 4bay shed and retrieves the Emergency Kit, complete with torches, candles, food, matches and more.  Just then the power goes out and all is plunged into darkness.

Fighting her way back to the house, she makes it through the glass doors and inside to safety.    The house is dark, and she lights some candles.  Then she gets ready for bed.  But going around the house to check for broken windows and more, it is then that she sees out the doors a fire glowing at the corner of the property!  Soon there is smoke, a red sky, and emergency vehicle lights can be seen.

Worrying about the fire catching into the boundary windbreak Anna puts back on her clothes, ready to make a run for it if necessary.

Several hours go by.  The chimneys whistle and bang, windows bend and rattle, and all manner of noises can be heard outside.

Eventually the fire dies down in the distance and Anna makes her way back to bed, to try and get a few hours sleep before daybreak.

And, look at the aftermath...fences down, 20 large pine trees down, trees down over the road, and chairs and bits of corrugated iron everywhere.

We will be chainsawing for the next year to get all this cut up!  And then replanting the shelterbelt, and then splitting the wood, and stacking it, and, and, and....it's a big job!

A Beehive has arrived!

Not the up-do, but a hive full of busy, buzzing bees.

They came today, a Sunday, delivered by a very nice bee man.  These bees are rented.  We are paying $300 per year, and get 10kg of honey.  Apparently, they leave 10kg for the bees, we get 10kg and they get 10kg.  They are going to come and service the hive every 6 weeks.

I must say it really was an incredible sight when they were delivered.  Beeman and his daughter suited up with allover bee suits, I stood a good 10m back.  They took the bees out and shook them into the hive, and my goodness, the frames they took out were filled with the most amazing sound!  not only was there a crescendo of buzzing but also a tornado of bees over the hive.  I was surprised none came to pay me a visit.

We have been given some instructions on irrigating (only in the evening, so we dont drown our bees).  To report clusters of dead bees, or swarms if we see them.  Also it seems they also have territory fights with other bees, and we will know if there has been a battle if there is lots of chewed up bits of wax outside the hive.

Its' pretty exciting and I am looking forward to learning a bit more about them

Muck Raking and "Cow Poo Soup"

Spring is in the air! and I am planning for a wonderful year of veges.

On walking out of my front door today I noticed that my Blueberries were all covered in weeds and in dire need of some attention.  Their ground is stony and hard, and not very nutrient rich.  So I started to think on something Hubby had been commenting on a few weeks ago.

Out in the paddocks where he feeds the cows, where the round bales of hay sit in a feeder while cows stir up all the mud, there is a pad of hay still sitting.  So I wheeled my barrow round and filled her up with this amazing, fragrant, hay rich, poo rich, stinking, amazing goo....and started spreading.

BEFORE (above): stony, hard, weed ridden, non nutritious...

AFTER: (above): rich, moisture retaining, nutritious, fragrant...

I have also been making "cow poo soup"  - a 40gallon drum in the vege garden, filled with water, and then add 4 large cowpats (fresh or dry, doesnt matter).  I've been feeding this to my garlic (who are hungry) and to the brassicas.  Wow, they love it and are really growing.

Unseasonally warm, what is going on??

With all this weather, warm, hot in fact! everything is going beserk....

- The roses have all had to be pruned and they are bursting into leave already.

- The daffodils are coming out everywhere.

- The fruit trees are coming into budburst!

I have sprayed everything today with copper and conqueror oil.  Not green, I know, but I hate losing fruit, flowers and leaves due to nasty pests.

Then as I was wanding round the vege garden looking for things to eat, I found this!!!!

An Artichoke! ready to eat

and five more on the plant.  Usually the plants are about 1/2 a foot high, and overwintering is a bit of a hit and miss affair.  Some years I have packed straw round their bases to keep off frost and snow, and they only come away when spring is really here in earnest.  But, this year, August, the plants are as high as my shoulders and have edibles on them already.

I find it amazing, especially when I think of the snow storm in September that Montana-Rose was born in? will we get something similar this year, or is the bad weather gone for good?  only time will tell....

A Hankering for a Mulberry Tree

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have always had a hankering for a Mulberry Tree.  These huge trees can live for 400 years, and they have the most amazing fruit.  Larger in size than a boysenberry, they seem to grow straight out of trunks and hardwood on the tree branches.  They are beautiful to eat, and are a very attractive tree.

My ex motherinlaw in UK had a large one in her tiny Fulham house, and every year she let the fruit fall on the ground and it stained all her concrete and her carpet as it got trodden inside on shoes.  I thought it was such a waste and a few times managed to pick some fruit for eating.

I have had a couple of abortive efforts at growing them...the first, I bought 3 tiny 4inch trees off trademe and only one made it through the first year.  Being in pots and living in Central Otago combined to kill them off with heat exhaustion.  The last one left I planted in my vege garden where it has "bonsai'd" itself.  It is know about 4 years old and its still only 10inches high!

Then I bought a 2ft one off trademe from the nursery in Mapua in Nelson, where they have a famous big tree.  But it died last year of unknown causes.  It just curled up its leaves and died.

I have just taken delivery of two more...1 is 1.5m high and looks very healthy.  The other, from a different nursery, is smaller, and I am not sure how well it will do.

The large on is now in the lawn, in its own special spot, pride of place.  The smaller one has been added to the orchard....and now I cross my fingers and wait!

More Trouble with Cows

I've heard it all, "I'll only put the little ones in there", and "I've sold the one that jumps" and "There is plenty of feed"...well, it happened again.  A cow in the vege garden.  Just one cow, but what a lot of destruction.

It just about made me cry, all that hard work gone to waste.  Not only did it eat all the leaves off the broccoli, but it ate all but 3 of the Cabbage heads, pulled up Bok Choy, trampled through the raspberries to the other end of the garden just to eat the Cauliflower, ate one of the Red Cabbages, trampled all the leeks, so now there are only sparse bits of row, trampled the broad beans (which luckily look like they might survive this trauma).

So, in one morning I had a quick lesson in how to set up the electric fence.   Really it should have been set up when the cows went in.

Dammit.  Dammit.  Dammit.

I was so cross.

I did wonder for a while if I would ever bother putting in more veges.  There seems to be some sort of natural animal disaster every now and then which puts paid to all the hope of vege growing.

But, I know that I will get my growing mojo back in a little while.  For the moment, the garden will just have to rest, while I recover....

Quilting - A Great Winter Activity

In the summer I get all inspired by my garden, the outdoors and the pretty summer days, but now winter is on its way.  Offically.  In NZ winter is June, July, August.

A friend came for two nights with the intentions of finishing a quilt she has been planning for the past 10 years!  and so out came the machines.

Even my daughter, who is 7yr, got involved and worked away on her quilt at the end of the table.  She is just learning about seams and zig-zag, and it was a real shame when her machine (an oldy) broke down and she had to stop.

Lynda actually got to put on her binding and what an achievement!  (that is my Albie (5yr) there helping her take pins out).

I managed to finish my quilt this weekend, and here it is in all its glory finally.