THE BAY OF ISLANDS 1

At the end of last year I bought a deal for three nights at the Copthorne Hotel at Waitangi.  It had to be used by the end of this month so on Tuesday we headed north.  Our first stop was at Kawakawa to look at the new Hundertwasser Park Centre.  It is built out of Sirewall an insulated rammed earth construction with lovely  colours.  The building includes a Museum to Frederick Hundertwasser who made his home in Kawakawa, a library, toilets and showers  and the council offices.

The "bottle screen" in front of the toilets

The lovely colours of the rammed earth

Upstairs

The lovely bright toilets

We then carried on to Paihia where we had lunch on the waterfront and I was served a delicious gurnard baked in foil, a lovely change from  the usual gluten free alternatives to battered fish and chips.

EARTHQUAKES, TSUNAMI WARNINGS AND GARDEN

I didn't have a particularly good night, in fact I spent most of it awake.  Various reasons but one of them might have been an earthquake off East Cape that may well have woken me as it was felt over most of New Zealand.

There has been a swarm of earthquakes including some large ones around New Zealand and the Kermadec Islands and these generated Tsunami warnings.  Our phones have been going mad with screaming alerts.  First my phone has the alert then Doug's a few minutes later.  

People were evacuated from the coast and the Whangarei CBD was also evacuated being at sea level.  Luckily we are quite high up so no problems.

We had intended going to the Bay of Islands this week but our car had a problem and the earliest it could be worked on was today as the garage is so busy.  If we had been up north we would have had to go to higher ground as the hotel is at sea level.  

As it was our car could not be worked on as Nissan had shut for the day due to the Tsunami alerts and a part was needed.  The garage had checked the part was in stock but left it till today to buy it.

Luckily there were only tidal surges and no damage done. and the alerts were lifted after lunch.

I have been busy in the garden removing most  of the tomato plants and everything is looking a lot tidier.

This is a map of the earthquakes on earth today.  As you can see there are an awful lot around us.

JOBS WELL DONE

The other day Doug sharpened the blades on my little mulching machine.  These photos are from a couple of years ago.

Straight after breakfast I pulled out all the old stems from the alstroemerias and then put them through the mulcher.  It was so much better with sharp blades.  While I was mulching Doug cut back the earliest flowering crepe myrtle and I put them through as well.

We also had a seedling peach that we had let grow in the back garden but it was, obviously, going to be too big so Doug cut that back.  I put the smaller branches through the machine and the larger ones will be firewood or kindling.  

While I made a cup of tea Doug cut back the fuchsia plants then he mulched them while I prepared about 8 capsicums for the freezer.  We also tried a branch of buddleia in the machine and it worked well so later on when the second crepe myrtle has finished we will get the mulcher out again. 

The mulch has gone around the banana plants.  About six wheelbarrow loads of branches don't make a lot of mulch.

Doug then mowed the back lawn while I did some weeding. I then got lunch ready and this afternoon we have taken it easy and enjoyed the rain showers.  Slightly cooler today with a high of 27° C although it has cooled with the showers.

today's harvest

 Not as many tomatoes today as I gave them a good pick yesterday.  The capsicums are still doing well in spite of losing a couple of branches to earlier wind.  

Jean's beans are, once again, providing well.  Two good handfuls.  Will definitely be growing them again next year.

Instead of freezing more raw tomatoes I cooked up a good batch today with just a little sugar, salt and black pepper added.  I have a feeling the result will all be used fresh instead of freezing.  It is delicious.  

I used to have a mouli for processing the tomatoes.  It was very old, owned by my late in-laws, and has disappeared during my last moves.  I was looking at getting another one or a tomato press but reviews were so variable I have not done anything.  It is a bit near the end of the season anyway.  Today I blanched the tomatoes and then emptied the seeds and juice out before cooking them.

Does anyone have a really good press they would recommend?

We were supposed to get thunderstorms and heavy rain today but just got a couple of short showers and claps of thunder.  Temperature was 28°C.

WARO LAKE

 It was back to Waro Lake at Hikurangi for today's Parkinson Walk.  We had a good turnout of 15 people which was great and the forecast rain held off.

The reflections on the lake were really good today 

Everyone managed the walk around the lake and six of us then walked around the rocks but the opposite way to our usual walk meaning we had a different view of the rocks.I had not noticed this tree growing up in the middle of this rock before.

While we were walking a man arrived and set up a foil ski and, just as we were leaving he went in front of us.  It looked great. 

COVID AND BOBBY & SWEETCORN

 We got Emergency signals on our phones at about 9 p.m. last night.  It was to announce that Auckland has gone to Level 3 and the rest of the country to Level 2 for 7 days for Covid 19.  

This is because people who were supposed to be isolating have been going to work or the gym.  Level 2 is not too bad for us but it is amazing how people can be either so stupid or so uncaring.  We are still going ahead with our Parkinson walk tomorrow as it is around a Lake and there are not likely to be many other people there.  The reason we cancelled previous walks was because they started and ended at the Information Centre where there could have been people coming from Auckland.

Auckland is actually in Lockdown and people can only travel to other areas for a valid reason but I gather people were heading up here before the road blocks were put in place.

Now to Bobby - yesterday he brought us two raw sausages.  Someone must have left them out, presumably to thaw.  It amazes me that people leave food out like that, think flies and other insects.  I know it doesn't excuse Bobby but he, obviously, had to fend for himself for several months so grabs anything available.  He got growled at but was so proud of himself.  We are going to try and train him to use Kim's old run so that we can at least keep him indoors at night.  

We went to the Tikipunga Market this morning and bought another 6 sweetcorn and I have just processed them and they are now in the freezer.  

Off the cob

and ready for the freezer

THE GARDEN

 I have been kept busy in the garden and dealing with the produce.  Finally, the peaches have come to an end.  I have 30 packs of lightly stewed peaches in the deep freezer weighing about 700 grams each.  These will mainly be used on my morning porridge but also for crumbles and sponges.  

We still have tomatoes ripening and should do for a while yet.  I have not counted the number of bags of tomatoes in the freezer but about the same as the peaches.  There is not a lot of room left for sweetcorn although we did buy some this morning at the market and it is off the cob and in small packages in the freezer.  I will try and get some more at the Tikipunga Market tomorrow.  I made a batch of tomato chutney and, if I get time, will make some more or tomato sauce.

The beans I was given by Blogger Jean have done really well.  For a couple of weeks there were no beans but they have started providing a good crop again and we had the Dalmation beans as well.  

We have been giving away beans and tomatoes all summer.

Here are some photos taken today.  The butterflies and bees are enjoying the plants we put in for them.

The bananas are shooting up and now have three baby plants. 

Opposite the bananas is the "plantation" of Swan Plants for the butterflies.

I have planted silver beet (Swiss Chard) and Perpetual Spinach.  I bought two 6 cell pots of seedlings and only used 2 cells of the silver beet and gave the rest away. They have been in the ground about a week and are looking good.