KAWAKAWA BALM

Yesterday we drove to the other side of Kerikeri to a Kawakawa balm making workshop (Kawakawa is a native plant). 

There were seven of us taking the workshop and we thoroughly enjoyed the day.  We had an introduction and then drove a short distance to the bush where we learnt not only about the medicinal properties of Kawakawa but of other native plants as well.

Then it was back to the house for a shared lunch followed by the making of the balm as well as  a lip balm.

As my cough had worsened during the past week and I had a coughing session while there we purchased some dried kumaraho and, when we got home made a tea which I drank and, I must say, the cough was a lot better last night and I managed to get some sleep.  It was interesting that it was kumaraho that is the plant for coughs as that is a plant that Doug was excited to see on a previous walk we did in Kerikeri.  He hadn't seen it in years as it only grows in poor soil and does not like fertiliser so is only found in barren land.  It needs to be harvested when in flower which is why we bought some dried material rather than picking some.

We went home via Paihia as a young lady needed a lift there.  It was still a sunny day when we were there but a short time later we were in a storm and, although we managed to keep going slowly for a while, we eventually pulled over with some other cars until the worst of the torrential rain had passed over.  When we got home there had been some rain but not a lot still it saved having to water the garden.

OAK LEAFED HYDRANGEA

Our Oak Leafed Hydrangea is covered in these wonderful flowers.  This one is 35 cms long.  Some are larger.

CORRUGATED ROOFING

Yesterday, Doug picked up the corrugated roofing that we ordered last week.  This morning the forecast was for showers and there was a breeze with occasional stronger gusts  but he wanted to get the iron up.

Luckily, the showers kept off so an 84 year old and his 76 (this month) apprentice managed to get the large sheets of iron up on the roof where Doug fixed them down.  Just as the job was finished we had a heavy shower.  We had to be very careful with some strong gusts of wind.

There is still the flashing to go up and then new guttering but we are pleased with ourselves as I am quite sure that a lot of younger people would have had difficulty doing the job.  We were very lucky with the weather as further down the Island winds were 100 kmh and I have just had an email to say that the weather was so bad at the north of the South Island that the courier was unable to pick up parcels.

APPARENTLY IT WAS BIRD POO

Apparently it was bird poo that caused the outage that shut down the whole of Northland on Wednesday.

The investigation has narrowed the site down to an area close to a tributary of the Kaipara Harbour.

From the N.Z. Herald

Perched high up in a power pylon, a heron peers across the Kaipara under a brilliant blue sky.

The bird launches into flight, relaxing into the air and letting loose a stream of poo that splatters across a pylon.

On this occasion, says Transpower, it believes it's likely the stream of poo formed a bridge for electricity creating a "flashover" effect.

This is the scenario Transpower has described to explain the three-hour power outage that affected 92,000 homes and businesses across Northland on Wednesday.

ELECTRICITY

At about 9.30 a.m. yesterday morning I was multi-tasking (as usual) printing Christmas letters to send to the U.K. while talking to a friend of Doug in Australia when everything went dead.  The power had gone off.

It turned out that one of the two high voltage circuits that feed Northland had tripped and the second was down for maintenance, this left the whole of Northland without power - 92,000 properties.

Doug had an appointment to have stitches removed from his face and, as we assumed power would not be needed for that, we went in to the surgery.  On the way there was a policeman on point duty directing traffic.  Without power the surgery had no record of the appointments for the day but the nurse was able to remove the stitches and we went on our way.  (Luckily the cost was included in the cost of the operation so no Eftpos was needed).

We were then going to visit the Library, the Chemist and the Vets but decided to go home as power would be needed for the transactions, however, when we got back to the intersection the traffic lights were back on so we went to the Library only to find their power was still off.  We were able to find some books (using the torch on my cellphone) and check them out manually.

Just before we left the power came back on so we decided to go to the Cafe de Paris for lunch where their power had also just been restored and go on to the Chemist and Vets for our other purchases.

The first to have power restored was the Hospital and emergency services.  One other major place without power was the Marsden Point Oil Refinery which shut down as part of its safety procedures.

The Council was urging people to conserve water to make it easier for the system to recover when power was restored.  It certainly makes you realise that we depend on electricity for just about everything these days.  The power was off for about 2.5 hours and, in fact,business stopped in the whole district.

PARKINSON WALK - LAKE WARO AND ROCKS

For today's walk we headed north to Hikurangi and walked around  Lake Waro and then the rocks alongside it.  Another lovely day and we had a good walk followed by a cuppa at a nearby cafe and then discovered an excellent wholefoods shop a bit further down the street. 

When we got home Doug finished putting the ply on the new roof.  We are having to water the garden regularly now and there is no rain on the immediate forecast.  I picked our first Courgette/zucchini 

PROGRESS

We skipped the gym today so that Doug could get on with the new roof.  The sheets of ply are 1.2m x 2.4 m x 12mm and Doug has managed to put 6 of them up today (I think he would have carried on with the last two if I had not put my foot down.

It is hard work getting them up onto the roof.  While he was doing this I prepared our lunch, did the dishes and other jobs that needed doing.  I was allowed to help align a couple of the boards into the joiners.

We are waiting to see how dark it becomes and may have to put a skylight in.  Tomorrow morning is the Parkinson walk so we will see whether he is able to get some more done in the afternoon.

Already it is a lot cooler without the hot sun coming through the clearlite roofing.