January 2013

We went back up again for New Year's, and we were lucky: The weather was great, and we had a fabulous time. And slowly but surely we are getting ahead pof the weeds!

We have a vast variety of spiders up there - all sorts of shapes and sizes ;-)

Summer feast

Cooling down!

December 2012

End of the year. I have travelled for about two and a half months September to November and then again end of November to early December, and when we got up to Hukatere the first time after that I almost fainted: Everything was totally overgrown with weeds! We had been up once in between and all was good. Just the last month it got warm and we had lots of rain - perfect condition for weeds ;-)

But not only the weeds were growing nicely :)

The rosemary and the silver plants are actually in the planter boxes!

 

The great news is that we will build a new bach! The new one will have a proper bathroom and kitchen. We can't wait to have a shower up there (instead of the solar outdoor shower bag), and also to not need to use the camping toilet in the shed any longer! I submitted the building consent application to the Council a day before I left for Canada (26th November), and before Christmas we had the building consent! Our Council up there is well known to be very friendly, helpful, and fast. We were not disappointed! Our current bach will stay where it is and will be my office. That way I will be able to work up there, especially write. It will be fabulous!

Our building site was also totally overgrown:

 

Between Christmas and New Year's I started weeding with our (baby-)weed eater. The building site needed to be cleared, so that the positions of the pile holes can be properly measured out and drilled. One day, Adrian came up and brought his 'real' weed eater. Man, what a difference! It was a solid 3 hour job, and while he was cutting the stuff, I kept raking the chopped weeds out of his way.

We always thought there was a ridge, but what we had was layer over layer of old grass. Adrian had to go through it layer by layer, and finally we saw the real contour of our land, haha!

 Thick layers of old grass!

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And done: The building site is cleared (for now)...

September 2012

Yes, it also rains in Hukatere from time to time. This weekend in September it never stopped!

The first time we have seen Hall Road partly flooded. God really had opened the flood gates this time!

July 2012

One weekend in July Neil had to work, so I went up by myself for some R&R. It was an amazing weekend: almost 25 degrees (in the middle of winter!!!) and sunny - perfect!

This was one of the first two plants we put in, and I absolutely love watching it grow.

Here is a reminder how it looked like when we got it in September 2009:

 Enjoying the winter sun at 25 degrees - bliss!

This is an interesting one. You can see our bach on the right side, tucked away under the large pine trees.

I love fog days! Often, the valley is filled with fog, and on our ridge it is clear. However, this time, the fog even came up to our land. Not long and the sun has it all burnt off...

It was the first time that I saw the fog even passing over the ridge and going down into the forest.

The sun breaks through, and the fantail loves it :)

 

The valley is almost clear, except for the water...

Our big harvest this year: One (1!) lemon. The plant didn't do too well, and the rest was done by possums. I never thought they'd like lemons, but you can often clearly see the tooth marks in the half eaten lemons they leave on the ground - grrrr!

 

Our toi toi are doing very well. And they started spreading all over the place - lovely!

 

Another first: In my many years in New Zealand, this was the first time I have seen a stick insect! This one was on the shed door.

January 2012

OK, it's been an entire year since my last update, so here we go. Overall, the weather wasn't great, and we spent significantly less time in Hukatere. Having said that, we had some great days nonetheless.

Here is Neil playing with his new toy:

 

We got a bit annoyed with the constant wind when sitting on the deck, so we thought that putting up a couple of glass panels would help. It was a sh*t job, but eventually we got it done, and it helps indeed. 

 And job done:

I love those flowers! It was another "surprise buy" for $1 from Mitre 10. Almost dead, and no idea what it was. I put it in one of the planter boxes, but it didn't do well. So I planted it next to the pond, and there it thrived. I guess it loves the sun and the warmth that is refelcted from the stones. It continuously has flowers all year round. They close at night, and are back open in the morning...

And yes, I do love our agaves. They just grow incredibly well, and they are so beautiful!

Our standard annual view - just to document progress ;-)

And another planter box - this time I got a very cheap kit set, so it was quick and easy to put together...

 

 The little pond is pretty healthy now :)

Garden in a bottle! I had the bottles in there to provide some water when we are away, and the clover thought it would be a cool idea to grow into it...

 Wildlife!

This view is what made us decide to buy the land, and I never ever get tired of looking at it. And you can observe lots of things happening - the tides going in and out, a variety of birds, the cows, dragonflies, etc etc..

A different view - haven't taken photos from the driveway before...

 One of our standard dinners: Steak and baked potato - yum!