Welcome 2010

Happy new year, dear readers.  I hope that this year, 2010, will be better than the last, but honestly, do you think it will? I suspect more of the same bullshit. Ok, that's totally pessimistic of me, I know. For the record, my new year resolution is to "be a better person" and this probably includes having a more positive attitude. Really, what do I have to complain about that is so bad? I have a job that I like, a husband who loves me, 2 dogs and 2 cats who need me and are nice and cuddly, and I live in an absolutely gorgeous country that's not overpopulated (yet), New Zealand.  I also lucky to have good friends here, many of whom I saw over the xmas/new-year holiday.

We certainly have enjoyed gorgeous weather lately, and it coincided neatly with my holiday time off.  Darin and I headed up to our land in Maungaturoto on Boxing Day and camped for 4 nights. The first day we went scuba diving with Poor Knights Divers.  We have dived with them before, and they are really great. They took us to Tye Dye Arch and Blue Mao Mao Arch, both places we hadn't been before and are infrequently dived due to conditions.

We were lucky to hit a calm day.  There were tons of fish, stingrays, eels, and nudibranchs.

The colors on the rocks were amazing. It was an excellent way to spend a day off work. When we returned to our garage on our land, we filled up a plastic tub with fresh water, from our tank that collects rainwater from the roof, to rinse our dive gear. Then we hung our gear on our trailer to dry. We had a hot shower using our propane water heater, which is hung in a private location in the trees behind the

garage.  The dogs obviously couldn't come, so we left them in the orchard. They seemed to handle this just fine, so we did it again the next day when we visited Bayley's Beach and Kai Iwi lakes.  Both places are so beautiful, just look at these photos.

Trout are stocked in the sand dune lakes of Kai Iwi, and I waded out into the soft sandy warm water to cast into the deep part of the lake. We didn't get any nibbles, but it was still a great afternoon.  Afterwards we drove to the west coast beach, Bayley's, which remided us a lot of the Torrey Pines beach reserve in San Diego, only bigger, and you can drive on Bayley's (and no Torrey Pines).

We spent the remainder of our time up north on our land getting work done, playing with the dogs, and reading. 

I recently read Night Watch, a Russian novel about "others", made into two movies which are really fun, Night Watch and Day Watch.  Thus I followed up with the Swedish vampire novel, Let Me In, made into a movie also, Let the Right One In. The book was excellent, better than the movie!

We celebrated New Year's Eve with friends and MEAT. Here's Darin, Master of the Grill:

 

I got some great specials at the butcher shop on the 31st, because they were to be closed for the following two days.  I used the leftover beef rib meat (yummy!) in a home-made chili with whole, dried New Mexico and chipotle chilis, which I've brought from the US and keep in either the freezer or

refridgerator, ground up in a coffee grinder. 

We've borrowed my sister's wood chipper (visions of Fargo, the movie!) to do some yard work. Our yard has been seriously neglected, and the previous owners planted a lot of plants, so this quickly grew into a huge job.  It's great to have all the wood chips to put into the compost, under the plants, and on the path around the garden. 

The garden is looking pretty sad, unfortunately.  I had one good cucumber, but the ones on the vines now are turning yellow and the leaves have the powdery mildew. The zucchini has the blossom end rot and is getting the mildew as well. The cabbage (my first) looks pretty good, despite all the green catepillars eating the leaves.  The lettuce I pulled out and fed to the chickens because it was stunted and started to bolt before really growing at all.  The silverbeet (aka chard) looks really good though, and the tomatoes are setting fruit.  I have two tiny jalapeno peppers.  I guess I'm a lazy gardener; I don't weed, feed, or water as often as needed. 

One more day of vacation, then back to work.  I'll be opening two trials for recruitment in January that I helped set up: One is a radiotherapy trial for prostate cancer, the other is a medical oncology trial for Wyeth's HER-2 + breast cancer drug, neratinib.  Should be exciting! 

Spring 2009, or October doesn't feel much like Halloween.

Spring is full on here, and the weather has been outstanding- well, minus the rain and wind, but it can't be nice all the time.  I hung out a few loads of laundry to dry on the clothesline, bought a few plants to replace the seeds that didn't sprout in my garden, made lemonade with lemons from my trees, and bought fresh strawberries and asparagus that are recently in season. 

We recently made some big purchases.  We bought a front-loading washing machine to reduce the amount of water we use, save our clothes from agitator abuse, and use less energy. We also got a new computer, another Dell, because the one we brought with us to New Zealand 3 years ago is on its last legs, so to speak. Darin uses it for work, so it's important to have a computer he can rely on.  Also, some new cookware has been purchased. The old stuff is still functional, so it will go up to the garage in Maungaturoto for use there. We have a propane camp stove up there that we use when we stay up there.  We were last there with about 24 bulls browsing around and vocalizing their unhappiness at our arrival.  Fortunately they respected the electric fence around the garage, and the dogs stayed away from them.  

Also, on that same visit to our "farm", Ruby hunted down, caught and killed a possum.  I was worried that she was bitten or scratched, but I couldn't tell if the blood on her was hers or the possum's. She had one small scar on her elbow, later, to show for it. After her gleeful, vicious, murder, she located the tree where another was located, and Darin shot it out.  This brings the total possums killed on our property to 3.  By the way, notice the pistol grip on the .22 rifle he is holding in the photo above. A change in NZ law required that he get a different firearms license and buy a new storage case.

So Halloween is just a few days away, and I don't have any plans. So I sent an email to my friends and asked if they wanted to dress up like a zombie with me and go on a pub crawl on Halloween. Only one of them emailed back to say he was busy. I probably won't do it on my own, because that's just not as much fun.  I've attached a picture from 2004, when we lived in San Diego, of me with my crazy friend. We had a lot of fun, but the drama was just too much. So when I moved to New Zealand, I vowed to myself, no more crazy friends.  But I haven't even met anyone crazy here, so that must mean that I am the crazy friend. I am sort of okay with that, because I know I'm, well, eccentric is probably a good description (deviant is too!).  I could also be considered an iconoclast. One of these days, if I am ever rich, I will buy about a hundred precious moments porcelain figurines, and make a video of each one being destroyed in a different way. Anyway my craziness or lack of it is not really the point. To me, the point is that people need to be reminded to be adventurous and playful and step out of their circle of comfort once in awhile, damn it! I need a crazy friend again, I guess. Even if I don't make a batch of fake blood and dress like a zombie on Halloween, I still may pull out the old severed neck application I'm wearing in the dead nun outfit (above). It looks pretty realistic. 

I saw District 9 a few weeks ago, and enjoyed it.  I had recently watched Dead Alive (also known as Braindead), one of Peter Jackson's early movies, and found several similarities. For example, the young man who strives to please the mother or father-in-law, when in fact he is being manipulated by her or him, the sympathetic treatment of the zombies/aliens, the beautiful girlfriend/wife who believes in him, and of course the fun gore splatter scenes. I am really looking forward to seeing Zombieland, which is getting good reviews, and REC2. Both REC and REC2 are Spanish films, the second to begin immediately after the events at the end of the first. This film was remade as Quarantine in the US- I haven't bothered to see this, as REC was just THAT good. 

I've been reading a fair bit lately too.  I read Guilo (Golden Boy in the US)  by Martin Booth, which is a memoir of a childhood in Hong Kong, which is really fun to read, and well written.  I also read most of The Opium Wars, which was enlightening because many places in New Zealand are named after the British men responsible for the atrocity that was the Opium Wars: Auckland, Palmerston, Wellington, and  Napier. The book was overall rather dry, so I didn't finish it. It starts out well, with a horrifying description of British and French military burning and looting the Emporer's Summer Palace, China's extensive collection of buildings, art, and gardens.

I've just finished Julie and Julia, which was fun to read. Not too many of the books I read can make me giggle audibly, but this one did. I'm looking forward to this movie also. I was glad that it didn't end like I predicted it would. It made me think back to my early cooking experiences, which typically involved a box of Hamburger Helper, Rice-a-roni, or a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Life was so much simpler then. Now I have two boneless veal legs in my fridge, and only a vague idea of what to do with them, having never cooked veal before. In my defense, this is NZ veal, they are byproducts of the milk industry and were two for $25. What I really wanted was lamb shanks, but at $15/kg, that was a bit too dear. I am a huge fan of lamb now, whereas when I lived in the US, I don't remember ever eating it.

Countdown to Christmas

Once again, my friend Holly and I hosted a Thanksgiving picnic. This year's picnic was held at Muriwai Beach, on the west coast north of Auckland. A lot of people showed up, each bringing a dish to share, creating enormous amounts of food. Holly's partner Steve is shown above, cutting up the wild turkey they prepared. Darin shot it on our Maungaturoto land, but Steve and Holly plucked and cleaned it, and prepared it. I baked roast beef. Strawberries are in season again, and they are in abundance. The day was glorious! Still, because this is a remote beach, I was shocked to see so many people there!

Christmas is nearly upon us. Just 3 days of work next week, then 11 days off for the Xmas/summer break! Yippee! Last week, we returned from our weekly trip to Maungaturoto (water the trees, play with the dogs), and found this in our mailbox:

Our next-door-neighbor's son made this for us. Byron and his younger sister Bronte were then ringing the doorbell to ask if we got it. I told them how much I love it. I don't think the photo displays the pop-up design. The reindeer have hats on, and Santa's mustache is green! I love it as much as the Santa my niece Lydia drew for me years back: He appears to be saying HOI HOI HOI because the exclamation points (!) are upside-down. (Ho! Ho! Ho!). Anyway, Byron and Bronte got home-made chocolate chip cookies from me.Darin and I enjoy playing board games with our friends here, and we decided we needed to buy one to share. Agricola is the #1 boardgame on boardgamegeek.com (all the geek details are here). We really like it. Darin has won every time he's played, and I'm struggling to figure out how to do better. Meanwhile, we are mirroring the actions in the game, one of which is butchering a sheep. In the photo below, it is a goat, but that's a minor detail. This photo depicts our other new Christmas gift to ourselves, a butcher's bone saw. We decided to get this after seeing a distributor selling whole frozen goat carcasses for $5 per kilo. Apparently they were for export, but for some reason the sale didn't go through. We ended up with 4 of them, each about 15 lbs. We LOVE having chest freezers (yeah, we have 2: one for people food, one for dog). The idea was to feed the goat to our pets, but then I got to thinking that I should try to prepare some of it and see how it tastes. That is on my list of things to do during my holiday break.
Darin also bought a whole albacore tuna from the fish market. We ate some of it as sashimi (shown above, in soy sauce), some of it grilled, and froze the rest in vacuum sealed packages. The grilled tuna was so delicious! The recipe is to marinate tuna steaks about 30 min. in: dry sherry, 3 crushed garlic cloves, salt, pepper, and finely chopped parsley and cilantro. While it grills, a peeled/seeded mango is blended with orange juice, white wine, and 1 habanero pepper. This sauce is served over it. It's shown below with the grilled zucchini. One of them was the first one from my garden.Here's how the garden is doing: Those are lettuces and carrots on the left, then moving right: another variety of carrot, spaghetti squash, tomatoes, sliverbeet (chard), red onions, spring onions, yellow onions, garlic, zucchini, another spaghetti squash, and a cucumber (the last two have yet to fruit). Darin sprayed the "wooly jumpers", but they are unaffected. So far, no sign of the nasty green stinkbugs, but the slugs have been having their way with some of the lettuces.

I have been taking Ruby to the Dogsport NZ Auckland club for a few months. They have accepted me as a new member, and it's interesting to compare it to the Schutzhund clubs I knew back in Southern California. They hosted a trial this weekend. Two of the teams I train with earned new titles: the BH (obedience) and IPO I (tracking, obedience, and protection/"carachter work"). I was impressed with the performances overall.

Also this past month, I went to the 24-hour Incredibly Strange movie marathon.

This was hosted at the Hollywood Cinema in Avondale, where they have a Wurlitzer organ and big balcony. The seats in the center front of the theatre were moved to make space for people to bring their bean bag chairs. People were also allowed to bring outside food and drink. The event was sponsored by the energy drink V, and 3 were given to me as I went inside. I had two of them plus a couple of cans of Coke, so my stomach was in a knot from all the caffine. I did manage to stay awake during most of the 15 movies, which included: Lady in a Cage, Krull, Role Model ,The Ruins, Dying Breed, The Road Warrior, Desperate Living (John Waters), Mr Mike's Mondo Video, Moonshiner's Woman, Ninja Turf, The Last Dragon, Small Eyes, King Dinosaur, and Time Machine (the original). Highlights were Dying Breed, Desperate Living, The Last Dragon, and The Road Warrior.

Finally, books. I don't think I mentioned that I finished Roots, but found that I lost interest when he got to Chicken George. This section went on way too long, and then the characters started changing quickly, so they didn't get developed as well. I finished In the Land of Invisible Women. I was annoyed with the writing or editing, because names come up without any background mention. The author is both very forgiving and at times very critical of the Saudi culture. She went on WAY too long about doing a muslim pilgrimage (ho hum). It confirmed what I knew and gave me new knowledge about the society, and it's really ugly. I'm now reading Heat, An Amateur's Adventures as a Kitchen Slave (etc). Pretty good subject, insight, and entertaining writing. I'm nearly finished with it, and next is Steve Martin's biography, Born Standing Up. Three cheers for the library!!!

Two years in New Zealand!

Wow, two years now. I think back to when I first arrived, and how weird I felt. I'm not sorry I moved, but I still think about and miss my friends in San Diego. I hope my friends and family aren't suffering too much from the historic failure of the US economy. I'm a bit freaked out by the train crash in LA that injured many and killed a bunch of people recently. The same thing could happen here- there are single tracks along the route that accomodate trains going both directions. Even the same company, Veolia Transport, is operating the trains here. I still continue to commute to and from work on the train. I pay $160 for a monthly pass. My drive to the station is about 3 minutes, the train comes every 15 minutes, and the ride to my stop is about 50 min. The walk to the hospital is about 10 min. I like avoiding the hassle of finding parking and dealing with traffic. As a bonus, I am getting a lot of reading done. I read The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and felt like I needed a companion Spanish-English Urban Dictionary to decipher some of the text. The book is about a Dominican boy/man looking for love, despite a curse on his family/culture. Lots of dark and dirty history there, too. I also requested the library get Mary Roach's new book, Bonk, The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex and they did! Yay for the Waitakere Library! I really enjoyed Bonk, but it could have been another 600 pages. I think I should write a sequel. Her first book, Stiff, The Secret Life of Human Cadavers, is still my favorite. Highly recommended. Now I'm reading Eiger Dreams by John Krakauer, a collection of short essays about men and mountain climbing. The book was handy, and is filling the gap until I get the next library book, Persepolis. This will be another history-rich fiction, which I tend to prefer.

LAND UPDATE

Spring is definitely here. We've been spending almost every weekend at the farm. We just go for a day, stopping at the Italian Bakery in Kaiwaka on the way. Check us out in our new coveralls! We are kicking ourselves for not getting them sooner.
The photos below show the erosion along the banks of the stream through our property as a result of the heavy rains this winter, and the evidence of flooding. On the plus side, we now have a more sandy bottom.

We plan to put in a small bridge across the stream at the corner shown below, from the tree to where I and the dogs are hanging out. In our hikes around the land, we found that we have several more swampy areas than we'd known about. I hope they'll dry out some, or we'll be sucked dry by mosquitoes. Because the land is pasture for cows and sheep, there are ticks. We found lots of tiny baby ticks on the dogs and Darin. The dogs are getting treated with Frontline for the forseeable future. We've developed some ideas for where to put the fencing, to break the land into 4 grazing paddocks. The orchard is currently being fenced, thanks to assistance from our awesome neighbor Don. Darin planted two avocado trees last weekend, and there seems to be room for 2 more. I am advocating for an apricot.
TURKEY TALK

In my previous blog I mentioned the 9 turkeys we shot and butchered. Their scent seems to appeal to Ruby, now that she's eaten plenty of raw turkey meals. We saw her tracking instinct kick in as we walked uphill toward where we'd seen the turkeys retreat when we arrived. I thought that they'd crossed the fence to the neighbor's paddock, but they were still there. She never saw them, only scented them in the grass, until they took off about 20 feet away. These wild turkeys can fly pretty well, but not very far. Still, we never expected that she would have the ability to chase one of them from one end of the property to the other, but she did. She must have surprised one on the initial charge, and trapped it in the ravine. Darin put the bird out of her misery, and butchered it for the dogs when we returned home. Ruby was so proud of herself! She and I are now going to the Dogsport (Schutzhund) club in Auckland, as a way to focus her drive into obedience training.

The following weekend we went to the land, Darin and I worked on her recalls, and I kept her on a short leash for a short walk. We didn't see any turkeys around, so I let Ruby off leash, and she was totally fine. I had been concerned that she would run off looking for the turkeys, but she didn't. She is getting so big.

THE GARDEN

We've done a bit of work in the garden at home. Darin put chickenwire around the perimeter to keep the dogs and chickens out. I turned the soil, pulled out the lemongrass (it might survive in the pot) and all the weeds, and mixed in the compost. We planted lettuce and carrot seeds, spring and yellow onions, silverbeet (chard), and garlic. I've never grown garlic before, and it may be too late to be planting it (should be put out in winter), so I'm curious to see what happens. I collected a bag of espresso grounds from the coffee shop in the hospital and put it into the new batch of compost I made.

My sister Barb was recently back in the US. I ordered a pound of the Bold Taco seasoning from Penzey's, had it sent to my sister in Minnesota, and Barb brought it back. Yay! Darin and I are huge fans. The fajita seasoning is also great.

Asparagus season is here, and I've been using our fresh eggs for asparagus and cheese omelettes. YUM! Tomorrow I'm going to make a (wild) turkey and asparagus strata with cheese.

Dog days of summer

We have been in a holding pattern since the agreement to purchase the farm (which needs a clever name, any suggestions are welcome). Several phone calls to the solicitor/lawyer, Kaipara District Council, and the bank have advanced the campaign, and next week we'll "go unconditional". This means we'll pay for it.

The summer has been very dry. The weather has been gorgeous, really spectacular and perfect for the beach. I took Fargo to Bethell's (the local west coast) beach on Monday, and gave him a bath afterwards. The garden has needed water more than I have been watering, so the tomatoes are struggling, but there are plenty of small green ones on the vines. The zucchini plant just keeps giving, and the silverbeet/chard too. The pumpkin (volunteer plants) has dominated one corner of the garden and spilled over into the rest of the yard. There are several pumpkins on the vine looking mighty tasty. The lemons, OH the lemons, so many, what to do? I kept thinking I should make cookies or muffins or sorbet or something, but it never happened. Finally I remembered the saying that "if life gives you lemons, make lemonade"- so I did. We developed a delicious strawberry lemonade with lots of ice, using fresh strawberries, that was perfect for these warm summer afternoons. As they say here in NZ, "choice" (SO 80's!) We are going to have a massive crop of blackberries, which are growing on thornless vines, fortunately. They are currently plagued by little grey moths, so I've been going out there after work to spray them with my homemade pesticide garlic spray. I have no idea if it works or not, and I might be infusing the berries with garlic- yikes! I'll find out soon enough, eh!

We saw the movie Cloverfield last weekend, and really liked it. I thought I might get motion sickness from the handheld camera movement, but it didn't bother me. It was predictable, but that was part of the fun. I recently found a few DVDs for less than $10, so bought House of 1000 Corpses, The Thing, and Evil Dead 2 to add to my collection. I had an awesome collection on VHS before we moved here, and am trying to rebuild it slowly on DVD.

Darin is away this week, so this is a perfect opportunity to watch horror movies.I watched House of 1000 Corpses tonight after being inspired by all the fresh raw meat we picked up at the home kill butcher's home. It cost $1 per kg, and the bill was $188 so I guess 188 kg! Well that's based on the cow's carcass weight, so the cut meat would be less than that. Darin saved the liver, heart, and tongue for the pets. I fed them the tongue this week, and they really liked it. Barb gave her cow tongues to a Philipino co-worker, who made a dish with them she claims her family is very fond of. Bones were also saved for the pets, but they look good enough to use to make stock.

Darin is on his 5 day sailing course, and having a great time. He's in cell/mobile phone range sometimes so calls or texts in the evening or morning. I encouraged him to take this course because I was sure he'd be good at it, and pretty sure he'd enjoy it. I have such a hard time finding good gifts for him, but this one is worthy. Expensive, but worth it because now he will have a skill he can apply recreationally.

Better to be...

BONUS!

Darin and I bought beer on Friday. So what else is new, right? Tui Beer is having a promotion, where they put $10, $20, or $50 bills in empty bottles in cases of beer. We got a case with $50, check out the photo. Cool, getting paid to drink beer. By the way, the $50 bill has a mushroom on it.

What did we do with our free money? Well, we bought an Xmas tree for one. Choice is pretty much limited to pine, but price was right- $30, for a 7 footer. Barb and Eric came over for dinner and helped us decorate it. We were pleased to see all our ornaments made it to New Zealand safely. We had to borrow Barb's tree stand though, because we got rid of ours before the move from San Diego. There are so many things we got rid of that I now regret, especially the wood folding chairs. Well it's fine anyway.

We also spent some money on fresh strawberries, now in season and grown locally. There's a place north of us that sells fresh strawberry ice cream, mmm. We're also enjoying fresh lettuce from our garden. I spent several hours in the garden weeding and mulching. It should be good to go now, at least until the bugs get it. I have been taking a free class called "gardening for migrants", and I learned of an organic pesticide: 1 litre of water, a squirt of dish soap or vinegar, and 3-4 smashed garlic cloves. Let sit in a sunny location for about 10 days, then load into the sprayer. Should be toxic to pests but safe for people.

Last weekend I took Fargo on a hike around Piha. Piha is a west coast beach community about 40 min drive from our home, very popular with surfers. As you can see from the photos, it was a beautiful day. The hike was challenging in parts, but the views were the payoff. Fargo still had energy at the end to chase the tennis ball into the surf. A playful dog I called David Bowie (one brown eye, one blue eye) hung out with us.

Book update:
The China Study was didactic, preachy, and depressing. I returned it to the library. Now I'm reading (when I have time) Collapse by Jared Diamond. Good, gritty stuff. Also on the agenda is Stephen Colbert's I Am America, and So Can You! Obviously, Americans are suffering tragically from the writer's strike- I refer of course to the mall and church shootings. What, you think they're not related? Bah.
Movie update:
We saw This is England at the swish Rialto cinema, and it was great. It reminded me of American History X, the brilliant and gruesome film starring Edward Norton. I like him almost as much as Johnny Depp. This is England is great for the 1980's noir and realistic acting. Another movie I've watched recently is Fido. This was ordered on eBay from Singapore or somewhere. It was released on DVD in the US in November, and no one seems to know when it will be available in NZ. So I imported it because it's about a pet zombie. Funny and dark, it is well worth a watch. The father is played by Dylan Baker, who is another great actor. He reached the highest "creep factor" in Happiness.
I've also re-watched Donnie Darko. Wow. If you haven't seen it, what are you waiting for? It is a classic in the vein of Repo Man.

Music update:
The most recent CD purchase was a 3 CD set of Queen's greatest hits. Ok I'm a geek, like I care. The other CD I've bought is I'll Be Lightning by a NZ artist, Liam Finn. Nice, mellow. The title of this post is the title of one of his songs, and I chose it because I'm planning some changes, I hope for the better. Let me elaborate.

I mentioned in my last post that my work is unsatisfying. My sister Barb has been working as a Clinical Trials Coordinator for a few months, and told me they have another position open. She said the work is interesting, the people are nice, and that I should apply. So I sent my CV and got an interview. They wanted my current supervisor as a referee (reference). I told them that he doesn't know I'm here. After the interview, I was told they'd offer me the job if my references checked out, and so I had to tell my supervisor that I wanted him to give me a reference. I was nervous about this meeting with him, but he was understanding and nice. Whew! I knew when I accepted the job I have now that I was taking a big risk and was prepared for a challenge. The challenge took a different form than I had expected, and this position has pushed me into a new direction. A direction which I think will be positive, a new learning experience, and I'm always up for that. The pay cut will be a drag, and it will be strange to work in the same office as my sister. I'm ready though for a change, for the better.