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Bronwyn had been googling it. The procedure called for a hollow needle to release the gas. She had a few syringes that we used for penicillin, so she took off the needle, said a quick prayer, and popped it in. It worked. Lulu is still with us along with Larry, and apart from one more occurrence, she's been fine and moving onto solids. Or grass, at least.
One case of delta and we went into national lockdown within hours! But a week later we were getting 80 cases a day, and it could have been a lot worse. The internet hasn't been good though - everyone is trying to work from home and I think they're getting increasingly bored and watching too many movies! And Zoom calls. We seem to have at least four a day in our family.
It's been quiet. Mavis the duck hasn't been seen since lockdown; I'm guessing she's now got plenty of attention (and food) at home now that everyone is forced to stay in! The traffic has been a lot less, although there's one white van that appears to be stuck in first and I can tell it going past without even looking...
Although we did have a bit of chaos this week. On Monday night and Tuesday we had 200mm of rain. A small but slow moving depression managed to keep overhead for about 16 hours. There were reports of a house that had ponies upstairs because the paddock and downstairs were under water. Kumeu was cut off, lots of houses and businesses flooded and there was a car that landed in the ditch near us and was almost out of sight. It's probably the biggest flood since the bridge got washed away in 1971, or possibly the big one in 1928.
We were OK. Most of the farm is on a hill, although we did have an olympic sized swimming pool by the driveway. It's all gone down again, and I hear there's been a lot of cleaning up. Here, it's just soggy and the grass is enjoying it!
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( 3 / 818 )Apparently the container ship we saw in Bluff was stuck there in quarantine, with a number of the crew having Covid. Fortunately it was several kilometres away, on the other side of the harbour, on the end of a very long pier!
My laptop died after Wellington. Had to share Bronwyn's laptop in the South Island. And my mouse died simultaneously. But all working now, and considerably faster. Fortunately the hard disk was still readable. I'm taking several backups as I type...
One lamb is due to be collected by a foster family. We named her Lulu. There's also Larry and Lilly. So far we've had a good season. Usually we lose quite a few, but only two lambs and two sheep so far.
And apparently we are now the proud owners of a duck. Mavis has been hanging out here for months. Her previous owner says she was a rescue duck, and since she's adopted us, we might as well have her. Not that we really own her. She obviously eats very well in our dam, and just hangs out when there's a chance of chicken food!
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( 3 / 814 )We're back home after a week touring the far south, and that should be the last of our trips for a while. Nothing else planned, anyway.
Had an action packed three days in Wellington with the youth work conference, which very nearly didn't happen. The week before, someone came to visit from Australia, spent the weekend visiting museums and restaurants in Wellington, and then went home. And tested positive for the Delta variant. So Wellington went into level 2, and we were on edge - any actual cases and it would have gone to level 3. We dodged a bullet, and somehow no cases were found. So the first two days were at level 2. They had prepared for this, and we had to meet in two different churches to keep the numbers below 100 each. On Monday night, we had dinner in shifts, and they disinfected everything in between. On Tuesday night we had a dinner in the cathedral. With a huge curtain down the middle. North Island people one side, South Island on the other.
Day three we were back in level 1, which meant we could have the dawn visit up to the hill and a gathering outside Parliament all together. The National Archives building is next door, and is a stunning Victorian building of polished granite. The next building is almost as stunning. I understand that they spent a lot of money on those two buildings. The actual Parliament building (nicknamed the Beehive due to its circular domed shape, and the amount of noise and hot air it generates) looks like something they threw up in the sixties with lots of grey concrete and glass. We got a photo shoot outside the middle building. My MP was officially greeting us and recognised me. It's not hard to get to know your MP in this country.
Took a few days to recover from Wellington, and then we were off to Dunedin. Day one; a trip up north to the Moeraki boulders, where we stopped at the Moeraki Tavern and I had a Moeraki burger. Very nice too. The boulders are almost spherical, made of limestone and about 2 metres across. Spent a while hopping boulders and then back home, with a stop to spot seals on the rocks.
Next day, Dunedin peninsula, Larnach Castle and the Albatross sanctuary. Larnach Castle was built by a wealthy banker and MP. He started well, but it was a tragic tale. After three wives, business disasters, and a family scandal, he shot himself and the castle was largely abandoned. A family bought it in the 70s, and have been restoring it ever since. We climbed up to get the view from the top. At the Albatross sanctuary you have to keep out of sight, so we were in an observatory room looking out of the windows. These are Royal Albatrosses, which aren't the biggest, but still have issues landing!
Day three. Paid homage to the World's Steepest Street. It was only half a kilometre from where we were staying, which was also very steep. Dunedin is in a big old volcano, and the hills are all quite steep compared to the rolling hills elsewhere. They have an annual race every year where they roll chocolate balls down the street, and the first one past the line gets a prize. On our visit, there was black ice at the bottom. We didn't try driving up it! Had a very long and scenic drive down to Fortrose. Nice place there. Very quiet and well away from any towns!
Day four. Went as far south as we could get at Slope Point, where after navigating a very muddy paddock ("Enjoy your visit - Antarctica View Farms") we reached The Signpost (and the trig point and lighthouse). On to a beach that was known for seals. We walked all along the beach and didn't see any. So we walked back and got cornered by two that had just arrived. You're supposed to stay 20 metres back. Nobody told the seals that. On to another beach where we spotted one yellow-eyed penguin (my only wild penguin). And then off to Invercargill.
Day 5, had a quiet day around Invercargill. It's the southernmost city in the world, although it's not all that big. We were next to the park, which had a little zoo and botanical gardens. Rach has become obsessed with plants, and spent a while looking for anything she recognised. Our house is getting full of weird cacti and other oddities.
Day 6. Bluff. Southernmost town. A surprising of industry down there, and a port, with a large container ship. It's also famous for oysters, although we didn't try any! More climbing over beaches, and back for dinner in Invercargill.
Day 7. Very long day. Out west first to Gemstone Beach, where we didn't spot any gemstones but a huge variety of coloured pebbles. Came home with quite a collection. Then a bit further west to Tuatapere, which is about as far as you can go before reaching Fiordland, where there are no roads. And a long drive back to Dunedin. Decided to have lunch at Gore. The GPS took us down a rather odd route. I believe it was trying to avoid traffic. We reached the main street and immediately got stuck. Seemed odd to have so much traffic in a rather small town. Then we saw some horse drawn carriages, and a guy riding a horse up the street. And tractors. Lots of them. And utility trucks with dogs on the back. And lots of people and sign boards. "Ah", said Bronwyn. "It's the farmers' protest!"
After crawling along the main street and finally finding a parking spot, we had lunch in a cafe and watched the tractors go by. Apparently there were 800 of them. Plus two combine harvesters and some tankers. They were protesting about the pile of regulations over land use, diesel vehicles and other things that The City People had put on them. Bronwyn was on the phone to her Dad giving a running commentary while we sat there tractor-spotting.
We'd had good weather all the way. On the last day, we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Dunedin botanical gardens (more plant spotting) before the weather closed in as we headed home. Pity there wasn't any snow, but virtually all the rain was in the night.
One day after we returned, our first lamb was born. Then four the next day, and then lots. We've got three in the back yard, and I try to leave by the front door to avoid getting trampled on by the delightful but rather muddy and leaky little bundles. We've been out round the paddock checking on the sheep, and delivered several in the paddock. Lost a couple of sheep and at least one lamb, but otherwise going OK so far. We've had a lot of rain, which might explain the sudden arrival of lambs. But it hasn't been too cold, and the grass is making the most of it!
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( 3 / 514 )It was about 12:30am. There was a loud boom, followed by a clatter. Bronwyn and Rach went all through the house but couldn't see anything. Or outside either. Then Rach noticed that the cupboard smelled of ginger beer.
After making the feijoa wine, I had half the yeast left over. So I put some in three bottles of the next ginger beer batch. The yeast powder comes with its own vitamins and minerals. What happened was that the minerals effectively woke up the yeast in the ginger and left it to use up all the sugar. The first bottle I tried tasted like ginger flavoured soda water - no alcohol, very little sugar, and lots of CO2.
The second bottle exploded. The blast shook the two shelves above, and knocked over a jar of chutney and several empty bottles. It also blasted into the bottle next door, which also went off. One bottle top landed behind the hot water cylinder. No idea where the other went.
Fortunately they were in a polystyrene fish box and most of it ended up in the bottom. Still smells of ginger in there, but I managed to sponge up most of it. I released the pressure in the third bottle (which had somehow survived) so hopefully we won't get any more surprises. At least I now know what a bottle looks like when it's about to blow up!
Had a large crop of borage in the veggie garden. I had a go at making borage jelly. I wasn't impressed, so I pulled out the rest of it and gave it to the cows. They weren't impressed either!
The film crew arrived, and filmed a goat peering at its reflection in our water trough. They had wanted a herd of cows, but nobody told them about the tuberculosis regulations. So it had to be a goat instead. Well, two actually. They're extremely social animals, and they had to bring another goat along to keep the main goat happy. They also put green stickers around the trough and some tennis balls down the paddock. Apparently they will get replaced with computer graphics. It's an advert for Sky TV, so it'll be interesting to see it if and when it comes out.
Bronwyn had a good time at the youth leaders conference in Rotorua. Sarah's St John's training weekend in Taupo didn't go so well - she set off at 3pm, got to the bus south of Auckland at 5pm and discovered that she wasn't going to get any dinner, and the bus wouldn't get to Taupo until 9 or 10pm (after picking up lots of others). She also had to be out and ready at 6:30 each morning, and got told off at 6:25 for being late. So Bronwyn had some words with them, and drove from Rotorua to Taupo afterwards to pick her up rather than have her go home on the bus.
Bronwyn had a group assignment to do as part of the block course she did last month. She did her part (and a lot of the rest) and left it to the others to finish off. Apparently they never finished it. Fortunately she had plenty of evidence of her work and her messages to the others, so she certainly won't be getting the same grades that the others do. But that was quite a bit of stress this week!
In two weeks I'll be off to Wellington for my youth work conference, and in July we'll all go to Dunedin. This will be the last of our travels for the year...
The band had a joint concert with North Shore Brass to show off our music for the national contest, which is at the same time as our trip to Dunedin. So that will be my last time with the band for now, although I'm sorting out the hotel and flights payments, extra concert shirts and probably several other things. Pity. It's been great fun playing next to three good trombonists; it's probably the strongest we've ever been!
And Rachael's car has finally been fixed. I watched her confidently drive it forwards into the shed. This I took to be a good sign, because for three months it hasn't been capable of going backwards and we've had to leave it somewhere outside with a clear path forwards...
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( 3 / 773 )Sarah is now 16, and Rachael is 21 today! So far we've had a couple of family get-togethers (and far too much cake). I've switched the photo frame to show Rachael's pictures instead. Celebrations will continue. And Sarah has passed her theory test and has a learner's license! Now she just needs some real driving lessons...
Bronwyn was out last week for two nights at a block course, sleeping in a spare room at the college. The week before, she was down in the south island at the Baptist Leader's retreat. And she'll shortly be off to Rotorua for the Baptist Youth Leaders conference. They're now opening it up to intermediates teachers. But then I'll get the chance to escape to another youth work conference in Wellington for the trust I'm involved in, and we'll all be going to Dunedin and Invercargill on holiday in July. At the same time as the national brass band contest in Christchurch unfortunately! I did look at travel options, but it's still a 4.5 hour drive on Google maps. Fortunately we've brought in another trombone, so I'm off the hook for now. We're all hoping the Covid alert levels stay at 1!
I played my first solo at the regional contest yesterday. I played Cavatina, which has a very high note. Last time I tried it, I couldn't quite manage it, but this time it was fine. And loud. So I'm happy even if I didn't get a placing. Not sure what I'll try next year. Nobody entered the not-slow contest for two years running, so I'm tempted to give it a try.
Having made jams, jellies and far too much chutney, I still had lots of feijoas left. So I tried making feijoa wine. Thanks to Rachel for the fermenter, I now have about 9 litres of rather sweet alcoholic fruit juice. Might try a bit less sugar next time! Still, it doesn't taste too bad, and works well with the ginger beer. There's another ice cream tub of feijoa pulp in the freezer, and a tub of cherry guavas. I'll leave them for later!
We've had a fair amount of rain. That's good, because a few weeks ago one of the pipes came loose and we lost most of the tank. Apparently Sarah complained about being kept awake by the water squirting out by her window. Pity she didn't tell us! But it's now full again, and the hills are green.
Should get a film crew up this week. They wanted some rolling hills to film an advert. They're going to bring in some cows, too. Apparently, they wanted to clear out the murky water from the cattle trough and put some fresh stuff in. We suspect they'll also have to give the trough a good scrub too, otherwise it won't look any different!
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