Update

As always time is whizzing along very quickly. My blog posts are now very few and far between. So sorry for that and for this longish update.

Next year I'm thinking I may be changing the way I present this blog, perhaps just a monthly round up (might be more achievable) and possibly more photos than text.

 

 

 

The first of the Early Red peaches

Anyhow at the moment in the garden we have growing:

Tomatoes
Sweetcorn
Yard long Beans
Melons
Pumpkins
Zucchini (harvesting now)
Potatoes
Garlic
Kale
Strawberries (harvesting)
Raspberries (harvesting)
Coriander

Jocky cap flower

In the polytunnels we've got:

Tomatoes
Basil
Peppers
Chillies
Eggplants/Aubergines
Yakon

Pepino
Coffee plants
Curry leaf plant
Ocra
Galangal cuttings

All doing well although I did have a few aphids attack my eggplants, the ladybirds took care of those though! The coffee plants are ones that were planted outside but had not thrived. They are now doing really well although still a long way off producing berries!

We also had our large heifer butchered in November, and now have plenty of delicious beef in the freezer. As she was part Jersey the fat is very yellow, the meat is still just as tasty however!

Our own beef fresh from the butcher.

 In November we also enjoyed a visit to the wonderful Hamilton gardens.

The Indian garden - very pretty

The rose garden was spectacular in full bloom

The Italian garden - fabulous pergola with grape vines

This was our second visit to the Hamilton Gardens and will not be the last. The first time we were there it was pouring with rain so we didn't stay all that long. However, the Japanese garden was especially lovely in the rain as it had a large pond. This time round we saw some of the other areas we'd missed previously. Still at lot to see though and I could have spent ages smelling the roses! Hoping to get back there again at the end of summer.

Meanwhile our excursions are closer to home, namely walking the dog! Not that walking the dog is a bind though as we get to enjoy the beautiful Kaipara harbour only a few minutes walk from home.

Roxy enjoying 'walkies'

The new blender

After a bit of research I've purchased a new blender to make green (and other) smoothies. I decided on getting a Ninja Nutri blender. They have a few in their range, but I opted for the Auto -IQ one with a 1500w motor and it has a large pitcher blender jug as well as 3 sipper cups of various sizes. It is GREAT! You just put the ingredients in the cup/jug, fit it to the motor base and press the button. EASY!

Having a lot of fun experimenting with ingredients and steadily working through my green smoothies recipe book.

A healthy spring lunch and a bit of an update

Hey guys, how's your Spring going? Mine's a busy one with work, family, puppy training, gardening and cooking from scratch. Also getting a bit of a health kick going with some 'clean eating' and exercise. Booya!


Walking and running with the dog is great for weight loss, but doing yoga and weights/exercise/aerobics not so cool with doggie jumping on me during my workout!!

Being a bit of a sucker and not putting her outside in her kennel.......!

Anyhow, here's what I had for lunch recently:

Homemade roasted red pepper hummus with wholemeal pita and some nice greens, plus a few herbs and some nastutrium flowers. Yum.

I'm still doing well with avoiding cane sugar (as much as I can) and trying to kick the cravings for sweet food. In fact, the times when I have given in to my cravings I have instantly regretted it and found the sweet 'treat' all too sickly. A good sign huh.

Next up is green smoothies. I'm currently researching a suitable blender, although I have a gutsy stick blender that will suffice for now. I fancy one of those blend and go machines with sipper cups.. Bought this recipe book to get me started:

With green smoothies in mind I now aim to harvest the kale and celery doing great in the garden, blend it up and freeze in ice cubes. With warmer weather on the horizon (although you wouldn't think so today with a cold southerly wind and rain), these crops may soon come to an end. Some of the celery I spied yesterday trying to flower/seed and the kale might follow suit soon. Time to harvest these babies before they spoil.

Also on the gardening front, D wants to have a vege garden this year so we have got him his very own garden bed. On the weekend we sowed spinach, basil, carrots, and radishes. Indoors he has sowed some sunflowers in newspaper pots, and we 'repurposed' a plastic food container as a mini greenhouse:

This year I used my heat pad to help raise the tomatoes and it did seem to make a difference to germination - they now need potting on and moving to my small outside greenhouse.

Tons of stuff still to do outside, it never ends. More mulch to apply to the garden and orchard, and loads more weeding. As always these things will get done time and weather permitting!

Halloween 'Fright Night'

Here's me and D dressed up for 'Fright Night' - a function run by a local sports club. There was a good turn out, lots of fun for the kids - some great costumes and make up on display. The club did a really excellent job of the 'Haunted House' walkthrough, with zombies etc jumping out of nowhere to spook us! There were games and a lolly scramble outside on the sports field. Music and dancing. Ended with supper - BYO plate of halloween themed food - there were some cute ideas - I especially liked the mummy pizzas with olives for eyes and strips of cheese for the bandages!

Hope you had a great Halloween!

A bit of time out

After some busy weeks of fruit preserving, we had a well-deserved short break away doing some good old-fashioned Kiwi camping. After a bit of a wild night with ex-cyclone Ita hitting us, the next day we tentatively headed off to the tip of Coromandel peninsula - Port Jackson.

The campsite at Port Jackson is a lovely spot right by the surf beach. It has been quite a few years since we were last there and is now a heck of a lot more popular, but fortunately for us the weather had put a few folk off, so the camp site was not too busy. When bad weather strikes, there are often slips along the road and sometimes it is closed, but when we arrived the road was open.

The weather was actually really good for the time of year, we had a lot of sunshine and hardly any wind. We did get a good downpour of rain one afternoon but it didn't last too long.

After a few nights at Port Jackson, we spent a night down at Hot Water Beach further south of Coromandel. Here you can dig into the sand at low tide and the pool fills up with (very) hot water from underground springs. It was crazy busy when we were there as you can see from the photo, but we still had a lot of fun. D was super excited the whole trip, but especially with the hot water pools.

So we're back home now and it's back to the apples and now feijoa harvest. Time to get busy with bottling again!

Beautiful NZ - a video

Just sharing a video this morning, sent to me by my lovely brother. Nothing to do with CTF.

Something beautiful to start your day.

Enjoy!

Rules and regulations for lady teachers

Believe it or not, this is a genuine sign, spotted in the local Museum! I wonder what rules we have these days will be laughed at in 100 years!

Questions and answers - I've been tagged

Maa over at Maas Life Journal has tagged me. So here goes with the questions and answers:

1. If you could be any historical or current character who would you be?

I'm not sure I'd want to be anyone else but in terms of notable people Florence Nightingale would be up there, she really did amazing things to bring up the standards of care for the sick and also raised the status of nurses.


2. Name an interesting fact about yourself.

When I was young I found something. It was a hand grenade in our back garden at home...and Dad had to call the police and the bomb squad came to take it away! Exciting stuff!

3. If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?

I wouldn't have wasted so much money buying 'stuff' I didn't need

4. Which character traits annoy you?

Overblown self importance and a tendency to patronise others


5. Name one thing that you would change in yourself?

I'd be less selfish and give more time to others


6. What do you consider your biggest achievement?


Can I give 2 answers? Giving birth would be up there, but I guess moving away from the UK too.

I crashed but survived!

Well all I'm thinking right now (maybe I should have saved this post for tomorrow's 'On My Mind' over at Down to Earth) but gee am I glad to be alive today.

The other night at about 11pm I lost control of my car while driving home from work. After sliding on some loose gravel and going through a fence, then down a hill, I ended up on the roof in the middle of a neighbouring paddock...!:

 

 The rubbish bin had food scraps for the chooks, which of course ended up strewn throughout the car interior, eewww!

The next morning after some help to right it

I probably would have gone a lot further down the hill if I'd gone off the road in a different spot and since it was late at night I doubt anyone heard a thing..

Yikes!

Bye bye little car, off to the wreckers!

After getting my seatbelt off and opening the door I clambered out and scrambled up the hill (fortunately I had a torch on my cellphone - no signal though to call for help!), climbed over the fence and walked home on the gravel road for about 500ms in barefeet..ouch!
After the initial shock, Hubby drove back to the scene in our other car to assess the situation and retrieve some of the contents that I'd left behind, which included groceries and the bin of scraps for the chooks!
Unbelievably I came off relatively unscathed, just a few cuts, knocks and bruises and my back is sore but otherwise hey it's great to be alive! and I'm SO glad I didn't have my wee boy in the back seat...
Best wishes everyone

A day at the beach

This morning I took D out to the beach (Waipu Cove) and met up with some of his Playcentre buddies. We all had such a great time, it was so beautiful. We all went beach combing to find various objects and then explored rock pools and dipping in the water.

Checking out the surf

Rock pools galore

A shelly cove to explore

Fun climbing on the rocks

Big gnarly pohutukawa tree

The 'treasures'  we found

I found this interesting ?bulb skeleton

 

 

Time at the beach

Yesterday we did our usual run up to Whangarei to do some shopping and on the way home we stopped off at Uretiti beach on the East coast. How wonderful to be able to pull off the main highway and after a short walk through the dunes, this beautiful place. Much enjoyment had, especially by D!

Remember, remember the 5th of November

We've been having 'Guy Fawkes night' as it's known here in NZ (bonfire night in the UK).

Why do we 'remember' Guy Fawkes and celebrate with fireworks? Because of the gun powder found under the Houses of Parliament. He was part of a group that wanted to blow up the Protestant King at the time (James 1) and replace him with a Catholic one. But the reason I think most people celebrate (apart from the fun of the fireworks) is that they like the fact that GF was trying to 'stick it to the man'!

Homemade goodies for a space-mad boy!

I got my sewing machine out tonight and made this cushion cover for D.

He won't see it until the morning, but I'm sure it will be a nice surprise.

He is crazy about rockets, aliens, flying saucers, planets etc! I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, especially as I haven't done any sewing for years!

And on the topic of aliens, here is a chocolate lollipop alien I made as a special treat for him:

Matariki - the Maori new year is today

Today is Matariki - the Maori new year.

Traditionally a time of remembering the dead, celebrating new life and honouring Papatuanuku or Mother Earth.

This site has a great description of its meaning.

So today I will be thinking of loved ones who have gone, and those who are still to follow.

Something a bit retro!

Not sure how we acquired this book. Published in 1972.
It has some interesting little snippets in it. For instance, how the Maori measured the progress of the year based on how man and agricultural activities were affected by monthly changes. The Maori new year begins in June. The book states this about the first month - Pipiri - "All things contracted by cold, including man". Here is a link for more info.

Problem leaving comments on other people's blogs

It's very frustrating when one wants to leave a comment and for some reason after all the typing... nothing happens! This was the case with me a couple of times of late when visiting 2 blogs: http://maehegirl.blogspot.com and http://suburbanjubilee.blogspot.com. If you guys are reading this - I'm not sure why but I wasn't able to leave comments either using my Google log on, or putting my URL address, or even anonymously.. Weird.. Not sure if anything can be fixed, (it might be something at my end) but I don't usually have a problem when the comments have to be word verified.

Best wishes, especially to Maehegirl

My baby just turned 3

He and the other children enjoyed little cupcakes at Playcentre to celebrate.

Interesting news item this morning!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/video/news/video.cfm?c_id=1501138&gal_cid=1501138&gallery_id=110174

Ever seen anything like this before Ngaio?

At last.... some photos of England

My parents' back garden after a heavy snow fall.



Oh the excitement of the first ever snow man!




Just about to go up on the London Eye.Big Ben and Houses of Parliament viewed from the London Eye.

Off home today

Well we are heading off home today, stopping en route in Hong Kong. Looking forward to getting away to some warmer climes, although it has been very pretty with all the snow.
Will post some photos of our trip when we get back.
Oh and Happy New Year!