Whilst up on Mt Victoria with Peter L, I grabbed a stack of pictures to stick together..
Hope you like.. (Very large picture, but great to pan along to see all.!)
Click on thumbnail for major picture..
Filed under: Blogroll, I need new fish!!, breeding, dragonfly, earthquake, fish, pond, rabbits, water
Well it’s been a while now and the pond has a “lived in” look now.
Kids have ran about it, earthquakes have shook it and bloomin cats have put their dirty paws in it to eat the bloomin’ fish..
(ha ha… still 9 left..)
The plants have grown and it definately looks like it has been there for many a year..
We have a large community of dragonflys that are breeding like rabbits..(I counted 11 the other day..)
Hope you like..
Yes REB!! The woman statue has gone to another place.. (Sorry Sarah)
Click on thumbnails for larger picture..
A slo mo of water dripping out of the urn, good sound..turn it up loud..
UPDATE!! Nov 07..
I Have only 5 fish left of 15..
Hmmm.
My neighbour noticed a Kingfisher cruising around..
Bastard!!
Oh well someone got a good feed..
I am never going to net the pond.. looks like crap and so yick!
So off to the fish store again..
I NEED NEW FISH!!
UPDATE!! 23rd July 2008
The fishies “got it on” over summer last.. We now have around 100 babies. 3 seperate births..
Gave alot away and may have to sell some when they get bigger.. Standby for new fishie fotos..
Filed under: Brenda, Kids, Model T, Steve, hotrod, house, neighbours, visitors
After arriving and finally having time to chill, we have been welcomed with open arms by our neighbours!
Jackie, Jason and kids used to live here and have been a great help to John and I..
Thank you so much!!
Kelly, Steve and little Brooke (kid on right above) live next door and we have spent some great times together, they also have renovated their garage into a bar. Good old Kiwi home made bourbon is Mighty Fine!!
Have also lavished us with advice, Thanks Steve for the help with fence and also lots of home grown veges! The Rhubarb is going great guns!!
Here is Steve’s Hotrod. Original Model T Ford 1927. It’s for sale if anyone wants it..
Brenda remembering the olde daze.. With Steve..
The list is growing..
Tiny little leaf hopper, cute little things and everywhere..
If you see these 2 odd creatures, watch out and hide your wine..
Whatever you do.. don’t let them in your house.. They will grab a blanket and remote and not move from the couch..
Thought I would add this to the creature file.. As in 1 month it will be just a husk and dragged around the yard by a certain dog.Stand by for after shots..
MARCH 28TH!!
TEDDY UPDATE!!
Well here it is 2 months later.. I am quite surprised it lasted so long.. Wigs found it again hidden in the bush..
Nov 21st !!
Teddy update..
Wigs recieved this Gorilla about a week ago.
Getting trashed, forever picking up it’s fluffy guts of the deck.
Already one leg gone.
he looks kinda worried.
As most of my buddies know.
I like to be in the garden.
Since i had finished all the maintenance for now i started on the garden, cos of all the rain is going great guns..
We have all we need to have a bounty of all veges and herbs for the cookin that we love.
So far the list goes like this…
corriander, tomatoes, zucchini (courgette), basil, spinich, rhubarb, parsley, thyme, leeks, rocket, rosemary, sage, pumpkin, oregano, mint, blood oranges, tahitian limes, daisies, lettuce, sunflowers, spearmint, cinnamon, basil and italian parsley. Lookin good I reckon..
This is my first bucket of compost..
“Goop of the Gods”
Then there are the flowers, but there are too many of these and some are natives that i don’t know what they are called..
here is my Pansies and snapdragons which are in abundance on the wall.
The corriander plants grew to about 4.5 feet tall, so i hacked them down and made a corriander, garlic and lemon sauce..Actually it made a few jars full so i gave some to the neighbours to try..
The rocket is about the same height and falling around everywhere and going to seed, which is great as i will have an abundance of new shoots any day now.
I decided when getting here to buy a stack of tomatoes of all different varieties, as they are so delicious and varied.
Now is the hour to say that i have over 100 fruit on all the bushes/trees!
Cant wait for all of them to ripen up and be consumed..
This is my first opened tom flower and first fruit, which is a beauty…The flesh is blood red/black and has been told to be the tastiest..
We have under the deck a massive prickly blackberry bush, which has now flowered and starting to fruit..John insists i gather the fruit and he will make something from it..i do not think this is an equal share.. hmm crumble..
As Stokes Vegas is full of nannas, the garage sales here are rockin.. I picked up this orchid about 2 months ago and is flowering beautifully.
Will keep you posted with new thingamys growing in the garden..
Filed under: Brenda, Chanpagne, Christmas, Colonial goose, Mayonaise, Roger, Trifle, cherries, deck, ham, house, john, tree, visitors, xmas
Well now we have calmed down a bit and gotten over our hang overs and exessive eating I can post about our first christmas here.
We had 2 visitors come over for a stay, Brenda and Dodgy..
The weather was a bit iffy and threatened to rain, then did, then the sun came out etc.. etc..
I had earlier tramped up the bush and cut down our own tree, we have a large pine plantation behind us.The bush is quite thick and by the time the tree had made it down, ahh…. put it this way, it looked alot better up the top..
But we dressed it and it looks like it should..
We camped just outside the french doors which had a bit of shelter and had a lovely champagne breakfast with tasty local fruit..Yeah of course we had BANNANNAS!! mmmmmmm.. remember the taste??
Also plopped a few of the wonderful Marlborough Cherries we received as a gift from Reb, Flims and MN….Thank you so much for these, twas such a surprise when they arrived. They have to be the biggest and tasties cherries I have ever seen.
Then moved onto some frozen Margaritas, (as the sun came out..)
Almost time for lunch so we hauled out the table and John prepared the Smoked Ham with marmalade glaze.
Locally grown, cooked and smoked. Way delicious!
Followed by a good salad with the traditional Mayonaise from Glynn.
Very easy!! Will show you how..
Home made traditional mayonaise the Kiwi way!! (Also called Highlander Milk Mayo)
1 Tin of sweetened condensed milk.
1 Cup of malt vinegar.
2 large tablespoons of grainy Mouse turd. (Mustard)
1 Tablespoon of good olive oil.
Mix altogether well and you have some pretty amazing Mayo!!
We saw a great food show about a week before christmas on an olde Kiwi Christmas meal called “Colonial Goose”.
Basically the settlers could not get their mittens on a goose for Christmas, so they used what they had a shite load of and that was Sheep….. Actually Mutton.
So they kept the shank on hollowed out the main bone and stuffed it with traditional stuffing.
Looked good so they say..
Followed with a traditional Trifle..
_____________________________
Now…
As John was preparing the glaze it went rather paer shaped and chewy.. I rather liked it, but hey I did go to bording school for 7 years.. So the ham was good, just not the crackling..
We basted and basted and marinaded the goose, kept the temp low and slow cooked it.. Tested it, sang carols to it.
But..
Burnt on the outside, raw in the middle..
(lets put that one aside for later.. I can see a good lamb curry coming on in a few daze..)
To top it all off the Trifle went places it should not have gone.. i think the jelly had just too much grog in it to set and the custard was slightly lumpy.
But the berries on top were mind blowing.!!
Poor john by this time had drank his shame away and we all sat down to our first Christmas in Kiwi.
By the way, the ham is still being eaten with passion for lunch on rolls, Brenda had 2 serves of the Trifle last night. (unheard of) and the curry was bloomin amazing..
Thank you John for making such a wonderful effort and keeping such a brave face!!
Around 3pm we went to our neighbours place, with wigs, for a “Family Christmas”. Including food and fireworks when the sun went down..
Yay for Xmas Day!!
Get messy, love yourself and hug everyone.
Love Dru & john xxoo
Click on image!!
Filed under: Blogroll, Brenda, creek, rainforest, toilet, utube, wetfoottrack, wigs
In Kiwi there is one creature hated more than any other…
That being the elusive possum..
They are in plague proportions here in Stokes Vegas and the council has dealt with them in a major way!
They shoot em, skin em, make clothes out of em, and mostly bait em..
We have baits all around our place, fortunately not on our property.
The baits are only on this side of the Hutt River, so I searched on the net for groovy “Tramping’ tracks and discovered this little baby!
Only about 8 mins drive from our place and is called Wet Foot Track..(Self explanitory..)
If you need explanation go to the toilet and put you foot in the bowl.. Hmmmm..
Anyhoo.. It is the most amazing place i have seen in a long time.. Totally blew me away..The birds, the trees, the water…
And my wet feet…. Oh don’t forget Wiggly dog, she seems to go crazy there..
I think I swa Bilbo baggin’s house through the trees as well..( such elusive little creatures..)
Here is a link to a few vids i put on Utube.. Great site if you have not been there..
Watch out for this one below, it’s a little scary!!
This creature attacked me as I was wondering through the creek.
Then I encountered “Brenda…Olde man River…Errrr Creek..)
And some stunning images from “Hobbiton/wet foot track.”
Filed under: Blogroll, Stokes Vegas, Wellington, google earth, house, map
I took this from Google Earth showing you the proximity of our place from Wellington City.
We are really not that far away… About 20mins drive, shorter by train.
Click to enlarge!!
Also this is a view from Wellington with the Interislander Ferry in shot.. Our place is just to the right in the hills above the back of the ferry..
These lovely people helped John so much when he was without a house, he stayed with them at their hotel in Wellington.
We have been trying to hook up a time to catch up and finally did.
Home made lasagne and salad hit the spot, and a few good wines and conversation.. How can you go wrong.!
Thanks again for coming along Sarah, Ross Dianne and Blue!!
