Another week, another lockdown 
The days are getting shorter, the rains have returned, the grass is greener and the lockdowns are back. We were about to go into full steam with two at college and Sarah at school. Bronwyn had the timetable all worked out. But we had another week to get into the swing of things. And get up late!

They're talking of prioritising South Auckland with the virus rollout. The last two outbreaks have started there, probably because there's a lot of port and airport workers as well as low income families. It makes sense, because an outbreak there is much harder to trace.

Bronwyn's postponed graduation is in a fortnight on Saturday. The Kumeu Show has also been postponed to the same Saturday. We could have had church all together today, but there wasn't the time to plan it, so we had it in separate houses instead. It pays to be adaptable at the moment!

I tried making oven-dried tomatoes yesterday. Seems to have gone well. Good thing too; I've just picked another bowlful! Also time for the next batch of ginger beer. And the guava jelly season is coming up soon. Huge bag of potatoes under the sink. And one of our friends has swapped peaches for our eggs. We've recently bought three young hens, so we've now got a good supply of little brown eggs. Spent a long time shelling radish seeds in front of the TV. Pity that I'm the only one here who eats radishes!

We now have a new dishwasher. Within weeks, the drain hose started leaking. So we had to pull it all out again, dry up the floor, and get a friend in to fix the pipe, which had probably been eaten by yet another mouse! So having fixed the pipe, we identified the hole that the mice had come through, and stuffed an old stainless steel scouring pad mixed with putty into the hole. I then found some bits of wood and made one barricade to stop the mice getting from the hole to the sink. More steel wool and putty to fill the hole around the drain pipe, and another barricade to stop them getting from there to the dishwasher pipes. We also have a piece of drainpipe hidden outside containing two blocks of rat bait held in by nails through the pipe.

One block has been eaten already!

Haymaking season is in full swing again. Tractors are breaking down. Allen had to keep swapping batteries over in one because the alternator had stopped charging them. And another refused to work beyond crawling speed because the temperature was below minus 10 centigrade. Dodgy connector on the thermometer! And the 1968 Fordson Dexta? No problems. But the hay is pretty much all in now, and we had some friends over to bring in the bales to the shed. And Bronwyn worked hard to make her Dad a new seat for the Dexta!

Bronwyn has been working hard delivering craft supplies to mailboxes, which we can do at Level Three. She's now attempting to book people into e-Camp (the Intermediate version of Easter Camp). She had anticipated a surge in interest, so she pre-booked 30 places. She's now filled them up and needs room for another 7 plus the leaders of that group. The website won't let her book more places until she's registered the first lot. Those places include the leaders, but the website won't let her register them because they're too old. The option to register leaders appears to have disappeared. Once she's done that, she then needs to work out how they're all going to get down there!

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