Little Creatures

Holly says my blogs have become too general and not homely enough so here’s one for you Darling. Or Darl, should I say! Well, I thought of you after our Skype and went out into the garden again which was sadly neglected after the winter rains. I had the ancient cat shadowing me and Jake the Flake dog took off to chase rabbits in the kiwifruit orchard. Not that he will ever catch them being so short sighted.

It was misty and not quite raining but dull and warm so the tools of the trade accompanied me; wheelbarrow, clippers, Japanese magical gardening tool, rake and my latest accessory – an old pillow! Perfect for the knees.

As I was zenning out and the cat was yowling and cruising and being a bit of a nuisance – always being right where I wanted to weed. Then, I reached under the rosemary hedge to extricate the stubborn leaves of Autumnal origin. I disturbed a cute little hedgehog, fast asleep under layers of warm leaves. I left it alone and proceeded to barrow out more and more leaves and the cat started staring at the ground – I had not noticed the number of creatures I had disturbed; bees, earwigs, centipedes, ikky things with lots of pincers and legs and finally a ring necked pigeon!

By then, I was scratched, itching, bleeding from flaxy plants but thanking some Saint that we do not have snakes or too many ‘bitey’ things or spiders or lizards that have saliva that makes you skin atrophy or any number of dodgy deterrents from the gentle pursuit of gardening. This is when my former self kicks in and when I thought of gardening as a chore, a thing to fit in in the weekend between other chores. Now I hear the trill of tui birds, sweet summer singing of the sky lark, urgent call of quail birds, squabbling of the Canada geese, Honky the goose, alarm of the blackbirds and secret whispering tweets of the yellow and wax eye birds. Holly, you wanted a homely one but I wish you could have helped me with the raking. Never mind.

Moon lit

Sunday nights will often see us dining at the ‘local’.  Forta Leza Country Inn is the historic milk factory/creamery converted into a restaurant for nearly thirty years and still hosted by Hayden Belcher.

Sunday roasts are the special of the day and we meet with the regulars and smile at the memorabilia along with the rough stucco paint finish, adzed ‘70’s furniture and ‘chink chink’ of the gaming machines.

Ha ha – we were found gambling by our neighbour.  Our princely gambling money is a $2 allocation and for the second time in three recent visits we won enough to pay for our dinner. We left with gold coins jingling and ran in to the resident artist, Antony.  He paints the most mystical images of real life subjects – read sort of gauzy and ethereal.  If it is frosty, the white on a painting will glow. If it is stormy the colours will glower. We chatted and asked him what he was painting and where was he exhibiting and he was very happy, he was doing well and becoming renowned as a ‘good artist’.

Then he said, “You have some of my very good paintings.”

I said, “And, I love them.”

“I know you do.”

…and he wandered off repeating, “My very good ones….”

Rivers and things

For a bunch of colonials I think NZ serves the most amazing freshly brewed coffees in the world.  I am no expert but we did not find anything as delicious as a trim flat white in Europe.

So, what one does (sounds pompous already!) is seek out a decent  cuppa in every town or city one visits.  Even the Caltex petrol service stations ‘Wild Bean” cafes on the motorways and  State Highways do a brilliant take away  coffee.

We went to Hamilton to measure up a job for Roger’s FRP. He dropped me off in Hamilton’s city centre and I walked the length of Victoria Street and was appalled …..

Homeless, scruffy, aimless souls, run down shops and an air of a dying city centre?   I had loved the main street of the city in the 1970’s when I was a university student and would go into the posh shops to covert the most amazing furnishings or the book shops to revere the quality hard bound books.  There weren’t many decent restaurants to enjoy in those days but the affluence of a thriving farming based economy was obvious.  Not now.

I enjoyed a delicious coffee at Scott’s Epicurean café and ambled on down into the Art Gallery.  Hamilton has always done art well. And, I love the river behind the gallery, its strength, its power, pretty tree lined and park like surrounding banks and the tiny pavilion I was privileged to solemnise one of Nikki and Rick’s friends’ marriages there.  Not to mention flying over that part of the river, more than once in Max’s hot air balloon.

So to lunch – we could not find anything appealing on the main ‘drag’.   The only populated area was the fore front of the Sky City gambling place and there we found a very subdued but tasteful restaurant called Silk.   Roger was more than perplexed when asked for his ‘action’ card to pay for the meal.

Goosey Goosey Gander

Whither do you wander?  Upstream and downstream …

Spring is on its way with the weirdest surrogate mothering arrangement, again this year, on the farm.  What happened to Daddy Drake?  Did Honky the noisiest goose ever, fight him off?  What compels a bedraggled Goose specimen to assume the role of chief Duck Defender?

 The black swamp hens (Pukeko) are paying all too much attention to the little ducklings, for my liking. The peril of eels under their wee legs in the stream doesn’t bear thought. All of that weed in the stream should have died off with the frosts.

We did not have a true cold snap this year; a few token frosts, a smattering of snow on the ranges and sometimes an eerie mist wafting up the valleys in the early morning then dissipating into the harbour. That’s all.

New Zealand food prices are exorbitant this winter and I am a strong advocate of the 100 mile food gathering philosophy.  Who wouldn’t be around here? The Bay of Plenty: maize flour, every semi tropical fruit, avocado and olive oils, a host of vegetables and best of all - WINE!!! Morton Estate winery is a five minute drive away. My vege garden is sporting a new fence –well, nearly finished.

We have enough home grown vegetables and salad greens to keep us well fed so I have started planning for the summer.  A trip to Kings Seeds on a Friday morning gave me the inspiration to plan to plant a few more annual flowers as well as more vegetables for Nikki’s wedding.  (We’ll still be raiding the roadside dahlias though!)