Championship Pumpkin

Our collection of ceramic fruit and vegetables was boosted this Christmas by the arrival of this fantastic pumpkin soup tureen.

The tureen has had some bad press but I think it looks pretty damn fine atop our linen cupboard.

Extreme Baking

My year of learning to bake had two objectives: successfully making a first birthday cake and baking my first Christmas cake. The first birthday cake, back in August, was a little dry but looked good. I used my grandmother's recipe for my first Christmas cake so was optimistic that the cake itself would come out well.

However, as my grandmother used to say, she could make a delicious fruit cake any week of the year but call it a Christmas cake and it would go wrong. The cake looked fine though I cracked it when I lifted it out of the pan and onto the wire rack to cool. No worries - I could just cover it up with the marzipan and icing. 

The next issue was the lack of marzipan in New Zealand shops. I could find almond flavoured icing but that was missing the point. So I was forced to make my own. It was a bit sticky (too much egg) and wouldn't roll out. But I managed to slap it on using a spatula and it came out fine.

More of a challenge was the royal icing. I was so busy worrying that the lack of glycerine would mean that it set rock hard that it didn't occur to me that it wouldn't set at all in the hot and humid weather we've been enduring. Out came the fan and the breeze dried out the top layer at least!

Lifting the cake onto the base plate opened up the original crack and the icing took on the appearance of a glacier hit by global warming. Never mind! The Anglo-Kiwi decorations took attention away from the cake's imperfections and our guests seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. Success!

Mystery Object

Shining Cuckoo

We found this little bird looking rather stunned beneath the rumpus room window. I was a bit baffled as to what type it was at first - it looked like a mistle thrush but had a finer head and bright green feathers. Luckily it had disappeared by nightfall - it must have recovered and flown off.

Eventually it dawned on me that it was a shining cuckoo - not all that rare but rarely seen. I'm fairly certain that I've spotted it since in the magnolia tree at the front of the house. We've had other birds nest in that tree in the past so maybe the cuckoo has found a new host for its eggs.

Pick Your Own

Happy Christmas!

Ismatullo from Tajikistan

Ismatullo is a resident of the Pyandj region. He is 42 years old, married, and has four children. Ismatullo raises small cattle. He wants to increase the size of his herd.

Ismatullo is trying to raise $750 to buy new beasts. You can help him do that by making a loan via Kiva.

Happy Christmas! 

Growth

Welcoming Committee

The Return of the Digger

After the last digger broke our septic system, another digger had to come along and fix it. 

And a truck was thrown into the deal too! So much excitement! 

A sign of things to come

This is our grapefruit tree in blossom - you could hear the bees buzzing around it from the deck above.

Tealights at teatime

I'll be looking out for sieves and steamers in op shops from now on with a view to recreating this amazing chandelier that I saw at NZ Sculpture on Shore...

Fantail 2

Fantail 1

Gold rush

With Christmas rapidly approaching, I was keen to make a few more decorations for our tree. These are pine cones that I gathered as firelighters - I sprayed them with gold paint and will put them around the base of our tree.

Bonfire Toffee

I had a bumper baking session at the beginning of this month - parkin for Hallowe'en, bonfire toffee for the following week and my first ever Christmas cake, based on my granny's recipe.

Most of the bonfire toffee is still sat in the back of the fridge - it doesn't work well in warm weather and we don't have a toffee hammer. We'll have to get the rolling pin out again and bash it up into bite-size pieces. I was really pleased with how authentic the finished result was - I think the sugar thermometer was the key to my success. Next time I'll be trying that other northern classic, cinder toffee.

Dust bath

A pea hen bathing in the pea gravel which is waiting for our drainage works to start up again.

New sheep

This shot is for Jennifer - our new sheep who are enjoying the fresh grass after we had the paddock topped.

Broody boy

When I went to check on our girls one evening whilst they were still sitting, I was amused to find one of our roosters in the coop too. He stayed there for a few hours and did it again the next day. I'm not sure if he was keeping an eye on them or just enjoying their company!

Spring chicks

All our hens decided to sit at one - three in the coop, one in the bush. We counted up about 23 chicks in total but couldn't be certain as they wouldn't keep still. So far we've given away about 16 chicks to neighbours and have 7 left. Could you home some of our lovely chirpy chicks? I'd happily keep them but I'm worried about what would happen next time some of our hens get broody!

Treat 'em mean...

I'd despaired of our agave ever sprouting babies. I'd seen agaves with pups galore along the high streets of some of our local suburbs but there was no sign at all of any appearing in our garden. Then the agaves had a year of maltreatment - hidden under the scaffolding then badly knocked by the digger building our deck.

And lo and behold! Babies emerged from the undergrowth just a few weeks later. Success! I think I'll leave them in place to fill out the border and deter the chickens from using it as a dust bath. But if they just keep coming, I'll be keen to work out how to propagate them and populate other beds around our property.

Rearranging the deck-chairs

The final piece of our renovations puzzle was the decking. We were finally let loose on the deck about six weeks ago and then got all our furniture in place a few weeks later.

It looks a lot more inviting with some chairs and a table - before that it was like the deck of a ship, albeit a ship that was sailing through a forest.

I wish that I could say that we're all finished now and ready to sit back and enjoy the view. But sadly the digger that helped build the deck broke the septic tank so there's just one more thing to do...

Too close for comfort...

The day after I took these photos, one of the doubled-up hens ejected her bunkmate and four of the eggs. The rejected hen is now sitting in the bottom of the coop like a second class citizen. Poor thing!

Think Pink!

Any ideas what these mystery plants might be? They're blooming in the problem border that I posted about yesterday.

Re-taking control

Unfortunately, the kind of laissez-faire attitude that I described in yesterday's post didn't really work well with the border at the front of the house. By the time we moved back home after our renovations, it was completely swamped by creeping kikuyu grass which had spread from the lawn below. I had a few goes at pulling it out and some of our visitors kindly weeded and dug the top section of the border. But more drastic measures were required.

A nice man came and strimmed the offending weeds then sprayed extensively (and billed us for it). Once it had all died off, I pulled out the dead vegetation whenever Lark was asleep in the car on our return home. Any re-growth was re-sprayed and the border is now largely clear of weeds although there is a persistent bramble which might benefit from some herbicide gel.

Sadly the rosemary bushes suffered under the matting of grass. Some of the bushes are now reviving (see the green growth in the top left picture) but others had died completely and I had to pull them out (bare earth in the top right picture). The day lilies continue to thrive (centre image) and there's a red shrub which is doing well too (a barberry?).

I wanted to put some ground cover into the border before summer to repel any further kikuyu invasions so didn't have too much time to plan anything. It's already a mix of natives and exotics so I've not worried too much about sticking to one or the other.

I planted my long-suffering ginkgo tree with some spare sedums beneath it at one end (top left picture). I picked up some native grasses (bottom right) at a local market and then some low-growing native shrubs at a garden show. I've planted them about one metre apart from each other and crossed my fingers in the hope that they'll grow quickly and cover the bare earth in between. Finally, I've potted on some of the yellow flowering plants from my containers amongst the day lilies, to keep the colours consistent.

Hopefully, the new plants will grow more vigorously than the kikuyu grass which will be discouraged with regular spraying along the front edge of the bed. In time, I can revisit my planting scheme and come up with a more coherent design which will keep the weeds at bay but also produce an attractive border at the front of the house. That's the plan anyway.

Back to Bush

Since we moved in almost 3.5 years ago, we've been wondering what to do with the area of our land that we call the "back paddock". It isn't fenced and it's quite steep - not easy to mow with a ride-on mower. It has very poor grass and although not too soggy in winter, the earth does tend to crack in summer. We considered pigs but we don't dislike our new neighbours that much and goats would need better fencing. Luckily nature has taken the decision for us.

We noticed recently that there are lots of manuka saplings taking hold and growing well. In the light of that, the logical option seems to be to let the land return to bush. I hardly dared to read up on regeneration techniques, fearing that the preferred option of letting it re-grow naturally wouldn't be feasible. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that we can leave the land to its own devices and still expect some success, providing we take some steps to protect and encourage the emerging native species. This article in the NZ Listener debates the pros and cons of the passive regeneration method.

We have an area of native bush to the south-west of the back paddock which I think is the source of the manuka saplings which can be seen in the centre picture below (the ones with the little white flowers). I've also been slowly planting out some more diverse species along the edge of the lawn - coprosmas, puka, hebes, kaka beak, cabbage trees and so on. We protect and encourage the birds which will spread the seeds of the native plants by poisoning the possums and letting the grass grow long. We're hoping to have some bees soon too which will help the pollination process.

The most invasive plant species (particularly the convolvulus) is sprayed regularly and I hope to go out and use some herbicide gel to attack a few tobacco plants, sapling pines and other intruders. Leaving the grass long in the back paddock will have helped the existing seedlings to grow and those will now provide shelter for new seedlings. Eventually, when we have more time to get out on the land, we should be able to add to the diversity of the area by planting a wider range of native species. I hope that within the next five years, this will be more like bush than paddock. Watch this space!

Debris

The gales in mid-October brought down trees and power cables across Auckland and strewed whole pile of pretty debris across our drive. I was loathe to sweep it up so snapped this photo of it before I did.

Leaf skeleton

Visitors

Every spring we're visited by a family of pukekos with their new offsprings. This time there are four adults and two chicks. I'm not sure exactly what the domestic arrangements are but wonder if two of the adults are last year's chicks.

We had a nerve-wracking moment with the chicks when the hawk swooped low and sent all the birds running for cover. I could only see one of the two chicks but luckily the second fluffy bundle emerged from the bush a few minutes later. Phew!

Fingers crossed!

After the recent demise of a few newborn chicks, one frosty night, I hadn't the heart to disturb the two broody hens. No eggs for us for a few weeks but maybe we'll have some more fluffy babies soon.

Apple blossom

Tiny horses

There are lots of miniature horses round here but our new neighbours must be particularly ambitious expecting their tiny horses to jump those gates!

Peacocks on the prowl

It didn't take long for next door's peacocks to find (and foul) our new deck. I was amazed to find a peahen looking at me through the kitchen window and wondered if she'd flown up to the second storey. I soon discovered that she'd climbed up - along the handrail on the stairs!

Pine cone in production

Strawberry bowls forever

The latest addition to J's collection of pottery that looks like fruit and vegetables...

Two birds in the bush

Dust bath

I wouldn't have thought a border with a rose bush would make the ideal dust bath but our chickens seem to think differently.

A Sad Story

A little while ago, at the end of winter, one of our hens went missing. I'd stolen the eggs that she'd been trying to hatch and so I suspected that she'd disappeared into the bush to lay another clutch. Almost exactly three weeks later, my suspicions proved correct as she emerged with four little chicks.

Sadly there was only time to snap a few quick shots as the next night there was a late frost and we didn't see the chicks again. Better luck next time!