Inspiration

It's going to be some time before I'm ready to grow prize-winning produce and I doubt I'll ever produce blooms of the required quality. But if our chickens will only co-operate by laying in the coop, I might just be able to enter some eggs at next year's Kumeu Show... And I know just the right person for making vegetable conveyances in years to come.

A year's supply of pumpkin pie

At Kumeu Show

Fantastic Beasts

At Kumeu Show

Prize Poultry

At Kumeu Show

Autumn Sunshine

Jaws 2

Jaws 1

Zombie Spiders

I was mildly alarmed a few weeks ago to have this small green orb web spider fall on my head as I closed the curtains. I've never seen such a bright green spider. The plot thickened when the spider didn't run away when it fell to the carpet. 

It turned out that the spider had dropped from a mason wasp's nest in the folds of the curtain. The wasp had paralysed the spider and its relatives and placed them in the nest for its offspring to consume at leisure.

Moth

I've found big moths like this one in the chicken coop and the bathroom. They're almost impossible to photograph whilst alive because they love dull little corners. 

New Zealand seems to have so many moths though that I have no idea what kind it is. 

Big Stick (Insect)

I'll be posting some creepy crawlies over the next few days so if you're not keen, look away now! 

I found this ginormous stick insect, the size of my hand, on my Swiss ball and it was a bit of a surprise.

Honey

In return for hosting his bees, our friendly beekeeper left us these three tubs of honey. They're quite different colours and flavours - we had a lovely time conducting a tasting session - so I imagine that they come from different vegetation.

Little and Large

We found the tiny egg on the left lying on our gravel driveway. I'm not entirely sure what bird laid it - it looks too plain to be the egg of a California quail and too small to be a pukeko. And I don't think that many other birds would still be laying so late in the season. Any ideas? 

Offspring

The upside of the sad demise of our rooster was that we wouldn't have any more unwanted chicks to deal with. But those hens are not better than they should be (as my mother says) and they headed next door to visit a different cockerel. We are now in a heated dispute with our neighbours as to whether they should pay us chick support or we should pay them a service fee. Harumph.