New camera, 4-wheeler, undershirts, and scarf

Despite the fact that it's supposed to be summer in July, but instead it's raining pretty much daily, I am elated to have the most luxurious, handknit mohair scarf that I've ever seen. The scarf was made by a fellow American expat living in Hamilton, NZ (she has a really nice blog) who I've never met, but loves knitting and was taking requests for items. I am really getting into the lovely wool and natural fibers available here. I now have 2 new wool sweaters; one merino, one merino and angora, 3 scarves; one mohair and merino (the new one), one alpaca, one pure mohair, and 2 hats; one an angora blend and one mohair, and, a gift from my sister here, two fine spun merino wool undershirts. I've been thinking I should learn to knit, but it's one of those things I rejected as a girl as being too "girly". It was the 1970's and I had a t-shirt with the sparkly letters that said, "anything boys can do, girls can do better". I was in Girl Scouts and learned a lot of fun stuff, but knitting and embroidery were not liberating enough. Now, I realize how practical it is and the lovely texture and variety of yarns and knitting. Well it's never to late to learn something new, I say. The problem is finding the time or making the time. Typically this means sacrificing something. I don't mind doing this, in fact I quit the Thursday night poker games at the Lincoln Green pub to instead take a pilates class.

July is shaping up to be busy, with one of my favorite bands, Dinosaur Jr. playing on July 9. We saw them on our first visit to NZ in March of 2006. I was turned on to them back in Fargo, ND, in the late 80's by my sister's ex-boyfriend "Dooba", who worked at the only record store worth going to, Compact Disc and Tape Masters. Dinosaur Jr. broke up years ago, and last year was the reunion tour. Now they've got a new CD, Beyond, which gets great reviews, and is comming in a package from my eldest sister in Minnesota any day now. I ordered it from Amazon.com and sent it to her, to send to me, because the cost of that CD new here in Auckland is about $35. I think I paid $10 USD to Amazon for it. Granted, I'm still waiting for it, so no instant satisfaction, but that's worth the cost. She is also sending the iPod Nano 4GB which we bought on eBay. Again, there is a huge markup on these here. To buy one new in NZ is about $300, vs new in the US about $140.

The new camera also came from the US, and due to the cost, we had to pay the NZ government sales tax. Still, we saved money, because it cost more to buy it here in NZ. It is a Cannon PowerShot SD1000, 7.1megapixels, fast on/off and shutter speed, large display, and lightweight. It has an underwater setting, and I also got the underwater housing and a larger memory card. WOOHOO! Happy birthday to me! (Thanks Darin!) The photos in this blog are taken with this new camera. Also new is my sister's 4x4, which we drove around the paddock this afternoon. (to hell with housework, I need to play!) Sadly, her husband Eric popped his achille's tendon on Friday evening playing netball (one of those Kiwi sports), and is stuck in a cast for 8 weeks. He had to watch us play from the house up on the hill.

The camera also does video, and I've made a video of the pets eating the raw possum. Unfortunately the camera doesn't come with video editing software. We have Adobe Premier Pro but it is profoundly un-friendly. Any suggestions?

The pictures of the lemons are from our yard, and there are 3 eggs in the bowl. We are getting 3-4/day.

During a break between rainstorms, Darin, Fargo, and I drove a few minutes up Scenic Drive to the Waitakere Dam. This walk is about an hour roundtrip, downhill to the dam, all uphill back to the carpark. We chose this trail because it is paved. As the Waitakere regional park is quite hilly, the trails get slippery in the rainy season. The photo of Darin and Fargo in front of the Kauri tree is from the trail. The first "bush" photo in the blog was taken in Barb's backyard. There is an underground stream, and the thick jungle there is where we quickly got lost back in March 2006 (a 3 hour tour!).

Weta in Winter

This is a weta who showed up on our front porch one day. It patiently waited for us to take its picture before we caught it in a towel. We took it to the chickens, and they ate it. Click here for more information about weta. I can't be sure what species this is, but look at the holes on the front legs- I think these are like ears. It is truely a "god of ugly things" (wetapunga, the Maori name).

So it's winter here. The past two weekends have been stormy, interrupting our plans to go scuba diving. The weather was pretty nice during the week, but crapped out on the weekend. I've been doing a lot of cooking and baking to help heat up the house. We've had some friends over to eat, too. Last weekend I spent a good 30 minutes spraying dilute bleach on the windows and frames to kill the mold growing as a result of condensation. We have an old house, and I've mentioned before how the wind seems to blow right through the windows. Homes with single-pane glass windows, unglazed, are common here, which is, to be blunt, bad design. The condensation moisture is very damaging to buildings. The cost in wasted energy is worse, because there's a limited supply of energy, and here we are, throwing it away. Our attempt to minimize this loss is to minimize our living space to the center of the house, around the woodburner.

Possum Hunt

Oh, my dear reader, you are in for a REAL treat! Just an hour drive from Auckland, in a rural farming/ranching community of New Zealand, I found a truely unique experience! But first, be warned:

The following photographs show dead possums. There are a lot of possum.

The possum in New Zealand is a pest. They were introduced from Australia for a fur industry- their fur is really soft and warm, and it is woven with wool into luxurious yarns for sweaters, hats, scarves, etc. Unfortunately, becausethey have no predators, they have overrun the forests, eating and killing trees, especially the native trees. It is the duty of every New Zealand citizen, I'm told, to kill a possum if you see one. Hence, the Possum Hunt. This one was a fundraiser for a rural school. I found out about it through my NZnaturaldog yahoo group. Apparently, possum has an excellent nutritional profile for dog and cat food. Poison is a common method to knock down their population, and various types are widely used. Basically this means you must keep dogs out of areas treated with possum poisons. The poison will remain in the carcass and is toxic to dogs even after death. The possum hunt I attended was in an area untreated with poisons. I drove down to this event to collect some carcasses and see if my pets would eat possum.

The school raised funds by selling entries into the hunting competition, and offering prizes for the most killed. I met a member of my yahoo email group there, and she feeds the whole carass to her dogs. We donated some money to the school in hopes that we'll get alerted to the next hunt and hopefully support the non-poisoning landowners. The remaining carcasses were getting tossed into an offal pit. I took more than I could count, I think about 25, but I don't really want to know. This is because I needed to butcher them before
freezing, otherwise they would not fit in our freezer.



The butchering process was a learning experience. I learned that the skin only comes off easily if they are freshly killed (we got day old carcasses, but weather was cold). The possums have really sharp claws. I was told dogs can digest these, but I didn't want to take chances. Initially, I dissected them- removing head, tail, paws, and guts, saving the carcass with heart and liver. Their stomachs and guts were full of food. They smelled bad. They were not going to fit in the freezer whole, and I had a pile of dead possum to process, so I started saving only the arms and legs, and discarding the rest. To get through all of them took me 4 hours. I did it on the front porch, and a cold wind was blowing. I had to sharpen the butcher knife after each one was done. It was dark when I finished. Fortunately, the cats and dogs like to eat it. I can see from watching them that eating the possum is a bit of work. This makes the meal take longer, so I enjoy that Jazz is not immediately crying for more food after I feed him. The first time they tried it, the pets were unsure about the fur. Now they eat it all.
Regarding the fur, for some reason I don't quite understand, the possum carcasses had to be shaved along the back . The fur was collected (see photo).



A group of boys searched the possum pouches for joeys, which are baby possums. They found several still alive, and collected them in a sack. The eldest boy was very outgoing and friendly and helpful, picking out possums for me and putting them in my box. Everyone there was very nice, very genuine. Check out the picture of the boy standing next to the dead possums with bare feet. I think this is a great example of how laid back the Kiwis are.
The time and hard work it took to butcher all those dead possum was worth the experience, but I won't take so many next time. I feel good that the possums didn't go to waste (well, entirely). I was so glad to see the trash bags I'd set out on Sunday evening were still intact Monday morning. I'd had visions of a dog or cat getting into the bags of carcasses and spreading them across the road. Thank you very much to the trash men who picked it up next morning!
Update: The possum were shaved and the fur collected for sale. The proceeds of this sale went to the school. The price for possum fur is around $120 per kilo.