Dog days of summer

Ruby and Fargo at Bethell's beach, about 18 minutes from our house.

The weather has been warm and sunny. It hasn't rained substantially in weeks. Everything is looking rather brown these days. Our weekend tree-watering in Maungaturoto is now a necessity. Now that our garage is finished, we took advantage of the holiday on Friday, Waitangi Day, and took a trailerload full of stuff up there. Our futon and frame, two sleeping bags, a spare cot, a folding table, our gas stove, two folding chairs, and the lantern stayed up there. We camped overnight so that we could take advantage of the cool evening and morning weather to get our work done. We took turns pushing the mower around the orchard in the evening, then watered the trees in the morning. The creek is getting really low, but there re still areas where the dogs can swim. In the morning, an unsuspecting duck flew into the stream directly in front of Ruby, and of course she went after it. I didn't see it fly up, and it wasn't in her mouth, so I looked for it. I found it lying perfectly still, blending into the mud and algae, trying to be invisible, before it spooked and took off. The water, with the level getting so low, is looking really yucky. There are areas where no water is moving through, and this multi-colored scum is... growing. We would really like to see some rain flush it away. We're still able to get water from the stream with our bucket, but our plan is to get a water tank connected to our garage to collect rainwater. That will drain downhill to the orchard at some point in the future. We had another holiday 2 weeks ago; the Auckland Anniversary Day. This was the opening of the new toll road on the 1 motorway going north from Auckland. This saves us about 10 minutes on our drive to/from our land, and has a really cool bridge and tunnel, so we're happy to pay $2.

Anyway, we managed to get our bedroom painted during the Auckland Anniversary holiday. The color is called "canopy" and we're so pleased with the color. Before, it was white and marked up and totally BLAH. Nice bedroom set, right? That's Rimu, a NZ native. Now, the bed has mosquito netting over it, so we can keep the window open at night and not get sucked dry by mozzies. Still, they manage to get in, but at least the temperature is tolerable.

One thing about the windows in this room: This is a very old house, and the windows are pretty worn out. Darin had to replace the ONE that opens, because the frame cracked and was in danger of falling off. Fortunately, we had a spare in the lounge because of the rumpus room add-on. Unfortunately, the frame is warped so the window required major effort from Darin to plane it down to fit properly.

The tomatoes are ripe! I'm eating them every day, yum! I planted two varieties, and of the two, the cherry tomatoes are doing best. They are prolific producers, and the fruit is sweet.

So what have I been reading lately? I read Merchants of Fear, which was interesting but too text-book-ish. Again, the Waitakere Library got a book at my request: Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food. This is a really good reference, and I've used several of the recipes. One we enjoyed while camping in our new garage was Herb Butter, specifically, basil from my garden. I made it, chilled it into a log, then cut it into pieces and froze them. I used it last night over steamed green beans, with, you guessed it, cut up cherry tomatoes. Delicious. The other book I'm currently reading is The Tortilla Curtain, recommended by my friend Roberta. It is SO GOOD, very compelling. I also LOVED The Kite Runner, so I've been doing well lately. I had to wait quite awhile to get The Kite Runner from the library, and I didn't see the movie. No wonder it is popular.

Two movies I've seen recently are worth mentioning: Kenny, an Australian pseudo-documentary about a port-a-loo maintenence man, and Zac and Miri Make A Porno, a Kevin Smith film that reminds you that Seth Rogan is a really good imitator of Kevin Smith. This movie was really funny, the sort that you find yourself chuckling when you remember scenes from the film.

By the way, I just have to bitch about My Sky, which is the only NZ option for digital recording. It cut off not only the end of the freakin' super bowl (and you know it was close), it also cut off the end of the movie Fright Night, which is an ok 80's vampire movie. I never got to see if the boy saved the girl from the vampire.

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.

We bought the farm!

WE DID IT! Sooner than we thought, we knew right away when we saw it that it was THE place. My Fotki account is full, and KodakGallery is down for maintenence, so here's a few photos of the 10 acres on the North side of the Kaipara Harbor, about 1 hr 45 min from Auckland, on the way to the Kauri Museum (which is AWESOME). It's close to Maungaturoto. The land has a beautiful stream, mature native trees, is on a tar-sealed, low volume road, in the midst of much larger farms.

We have been looking at property since the beginning of the year, and decided that we want to be near-ish to Auckland so we can go there on the weekends to work on the land, that is, to plant trees, build a long drop/pit toilet, driveway, water cistern, etc. Our plan is to develop the property slowly over time, and eventually move there. For now, we're arranging for cattle/sheep to graze the land and keep it tidy until we decide we want them (previous owners) to put up the fence.

Meanwhile, we managed to hunt down our wayward cow, get her loaded into a horse float and back to Barb's property before she jumped out. Now, if she will only stay there until Wednesday, we'll have satisfying free-range beef in the freezer soon.

Other news concerns the Rottweiler pups born Dec 30, 2007. I saw them at 2.5 weeks old, and they are precious.