What's new?

Well - I haven't blogged for ages - so quite alot!! Dante thinks he's the king of the couch... nothing new there...

I've been on a Herbal Life Weight Loss programme and I've lost nearly 10 kilos... yeeha... now I am selling the stuff and all my friends are losing weight too! For all my friends in Oz yes I can sell to you and get it delivered to your door.

It's pretty easy - you replace two meals a day with a smoothie. They are really filling and it's a great way to cut out gluten and still not feel hungry.

Got a new kettle...

When Mum was here for 10 days, she planted up this corner garden for us - how cool is that!

And re-potted my herbs...

The flaxes are all flowering and we have Tuis everywhere!
The baby birds are everywhere too!

We are in drought now again - officially - no rain since September now.... so we've been watering the trees and they are looking fab.

The Pohutukawa trees are flowering!

The veggie garden all replanted and doing just fine.

Mum also weeded round the feijoas and then George put up some wind sheet and they have really come away superbly.

The hay shed was concreted - yay - no more rat tunnels under my hay.

This is Santas present for Carlos - sssshhh - don't tell him.

So beautiful

Don't we live in a beautiful area!

Sculptures from the air

On the way back from Whakatane a couple of weeks ago George took me over this guys place which is on the way to Matakana.... he has all these huge sculptures on his farm - and some giraffes although we couldn't see them this time.

Strawberries!

We flew to Whakatane to see Dad and got two huge punnets of huge strawberries!! Yum. Was a gorgeous day as you can see.

Spring time...

My boys love sleeping in the sun... and we've had no rain all month - and dare I say it we could do with a little.... just enough to get my new grass seed growing again please.

Mum arrives next week for 10 days so we'll be doing alot of babysitting. :-)

Spring has sprung

We headed down to Raglan in September and then again on Saturday just gone... it's now quite warm with a nice cool air early morning and late afternoon. Just my favourite time of the year. It was a bit chilly the day I took the top photo - Raglan is quite a bit cooler than home. The 2nd one though was Saturday and I was too hot in that coming home. Had to put the air con on - aka the vent.

Yesterday we met Shawn and Carlos and Micheal and Carole for breakfast at Andiamo in Herne Bay.
We got there earlier than the booked time of 10.30 (and we'd already been to the hardware store to get some drain guttering stuff for the front of the float park which is getting concreted at the end of the month)... so we decided to get a coffee at the French Boulangre, George snuk in a croissant too as they are very authentic here.
This is my iceplant - I got it a year ago at Mitre 10 in Helensville and stuck it straight in the clay - I have to get some more. We see it from our bathroom window.

It's been a month since my last..... blog

Contrary to what the cats and horses think - Quite a lot has happened...

• It's stopped raining!! The paddocks have dried out.
• We've sprayed the weeds in the orchard.
• We harrowed the track paddock and sowed some more grass seed - it was a bit pogged from the hard life it had this winter.
• I've been titillating my float as it's for sale... had someone come look today - they seem very keen.
• George has had to mow the lawns twice so far this month.
• He sprayed the cobwebs outside with 30 seconds - and it did nothing so don't waste your money on that stuff.
• A baby bird fell out of (or was pushed) out of the nest in the washbay ceiling
• The swallows have two nests on the house - one outside the single garage, and the other outside the bedroom. No babies yet.
• The plover had three eggs - but something got two of them - a hawk I think.. or rat maybe, now they have one left and it's in the round pen and taking ages!!! Still sitting on it they are. I shouldn't care as they are squawky bloody things but it's sad when the hawk lands and they are 'screaming' - it's horrible.
• I've booked to get concrete in the bottom of my hay shed and float park - yay.
• New float should be ready any day.

This iceplant I got at Mitre 10 last year and planted it straight in the clay - amazing how well it's doing - but do you think I can now find anymore?

We babysat Carlos last weekend (or was it the one before) and had a big walk round Herne Bay, had some lunch and back home again (his home) while Shawn and Tracy went and played tennis... that was fun. I didn't take this - just thought it was cute though.

We have Dante 2 - he lives in our orchard.... he's a Birman... he runs away if you get too close...hopefully he'll chase our rabbits away too.

The citrus are going crazy!

Stormy

We had a big storm on Friday night - and Maraschino not only had a bout of colic but the power also went out, so once I stopped checking on Maraschino (he came right), we cooked a boiled egg for dinner on bread and ate by candlelight.

On Sunday - it's still blowing now - hasn't let up since Friday night and not likely to until Friday apparently. Equinox storm apparently, anyway - on Sunday we heard the steam train and went out to look at it but we missed it - and Dante's face says it all about his cat house.

The Mickey trap in the barn caught one (peanut butter does the trick nicely) and George kindly disposed of Mickey today.

The plovers have laid 3 eggs in the nest in the grass in the round pen (not too clever) but so far they have managed to chase the horses away from them - quite amazing really.

It's all coming along just nicely

George's friend from work took the two topsoil piles away so we added some grass seed once the digger driver had titivated it.

You know - if we didn't get rain - we'd never see this...
I finally got my photos printed onto canvas for the other alcove!! What do you think?

Concrete

Well finally the concrete was poured yesterday at 8am, George slept through it after a late shift the night before. Then his friend called and woke him up! It's a bit hard to see the exposed pebble since I took this photo from inside.
These two were when the surface had not been exposed yet. It was blowing 100kmph! You can see the slant on the grisalineas.

Lavender bank

I know - it's been nearly two weeks already since this bank was started so I have been a bit slow at getting a photo up - it doesn't look much yet. 160 Lavender Dentata!

We have a couple of wilting ones - surely they can't be thirsty!!

The spring winds have arrived which will really help the paddocks dry out even with the squally showers we are still getting - the first day of spring was gorgeous but it's rained both days since then.

The boxing is in for the concrete drive - it will go under the pergola, and along the front of both garages - it will be great to be able to have visitors and hang out the washing (only two times we use the front door) without having to have shoes on, and for the cars not to bring all the gravel dust in with them to the garage.

Mandarins!

The first of the mandarins are ready to eat and we harvested a bag full the other day - wow - so sweet and juicy and a little tangy - yum! Still loads more coming along too.

We actually had a few days where things dried out a little - just goes to show how quick everything will dry out once we get into Spring properly. The track as you can see is 'beaten' to say the least. Once it dries out a little I am going to harrow it and re-seed - saving the middle as you can see....
I made some chocolate cupcakes and ANZAC biscuits this weekend - yum - these cupcakes are so easy - really needed some fancy sprinkles for the top though don't you think?

Ah - yes - the MUD... Jean can you imagine trying to fill all these pogs in? I gave up quite some time ago!
The middle paddock is the only thing keeping me sane at the moment.... the boys are not allowed in there till it dries out.

Oh - and we have two lemons now too!! Mum you'll remember when I planted this... a year ago.