January

It's a stormy sort of day in Pukemiro. The wind rushes up the valley, and you hear it roaring in the walnut trees before the gusts reach the house. So far only a few spots of rain have fallen. It's a nice excuse to stay inside, and a nice break from the hot muggyness.

Not a great deal of progress over the holidays. I've been busy with work and family. One half of the lounge got re-plastered and re-undercoated. Weeds have grown everywhere. Lawns are being constantly mowed, but I enjoy the exercise, I can't stand the gym, I need to be doing something productive if I'm expending my energy!

I haven't seen pukekos or turkeys for weeks now, although I've heard the pukekos in the night. The grass across the road has grown so long that the wind running through it looks like waves across a lake, except it's all a sort of golden syrup-y brown colour. Instead, I've had a family of quails visiting. In the morning three of them walk in single file down the road, calling to each other, and in the evening they walk back again, sometimes crossing the front lawn, and panicking when they lose sight of each other in my "weed strip". (That's a sloped piece of lawn right by the front fence that's too difficult/dangerous to mow. I've let the daisies and dandelions grow there because I don't know what to do about it.)

I came up to the house last week to find this little hedgehog asleep under my tomatoes. I have no idea how he got under the netting, as I could find no gaps! I didn't know if he was trapped, or how long he had been there, so I raised the netting and put a dish of water next to him. He just opened one eye at me and went back to sleep. When I went back in the evening he was gone, and the water was untouched. I haven't had slug bait down since I first planted everything, so he's welcome to feast on those slimey critters. I just wish I knew how he got in!

I picked up a BBQ plate from the op shop before christmas. It turns out to be just the right size for my gas burner, so now I have an indoor BBQ. Very handy when it's windy. I've been grilling the courgettes from the garden. One of them got away on me when I was away for a week and a half and turned into a marrow. I sliced it up and layered it with mince and pasta sauce, and cheese sauce. It took two bloody hours to cook! But it was delicious.

I've made this wall hanging to cover the strange bit of wall in the spare room where a doorway has been badly filled in. It's not proper door sized, so must have been a cupboard tacked on the the back of the house, back when it was a two-room miners shack. In the corner you can see the old wallpaper. The last owner must have painted around a cupboard that was there, but he demolished it before he left.

Dad mad me this lovely little chopping board for Christmas. Isn't it sweet? Mum always calls it "The little house". It doesn't seem that little to me. The rooms in this 1920's cottage are bigger than the room's in mum and dad's 1910's transitional villa in Auckland. But they have nine rooms, (and an awkward layout from when the house was two flats), where I have five rooms.

The pink dahlias are finally starting to bloom. I was beginning to wonder if I had killed them all off. I bought my china doll tree inside last week. It's been struggling outside since I bought it down here. I think it's the wind it doesn't like. It's perked up since it came inside. There are all these plants I want to grow, but I keep having to stop to consider if they can deal with frosts, and wind, and summer droughts. No drought this summer though, not yet anyway. There seems to have been rain every week since I planted the vege garden (yay!). Those water crystals I used seem to be working really well too. Much as I like the idea of an organic garden, right now it just wouldn't work, with me not being here all the time. I wish I could have chickens too.

One day.