Fun at Oakley Creek

Today has been my 'sabbath' (something I usually take on a Monday), where I take the whole day to rest, relax and 'be'.  My only 'have-to' on such days is generally to take a time of reflection, and ideally I also do something fun.

For reflection, today I took myself, my Bible (aka my phone with a Bible app) and my journal down to Oakley Creek.  As well as reading and praying, I spent some time wandering around on the grass barefoot, noticing what was around me.  There was a strong smell of onionweed and also, puzzlingly, a salty smell like the sea.  I heard two kereru flying high overhead, various song birds I couldn't identify and, I think, a riroriro.  I nibbled on the leaves of some kind of radishy weed.  And here is some of what I saw.

A clump of some kind of mushrooms.  I took a couple home to see if I could figure out what they were (and if they were edible!), but still have no idea what they are.

Lockdown 4.0

The other week Auckland spent a week at Covid Alert Level 3 - which, from my point of view, mostly means no buses, infrequent grocery shopping (with everything getting washed or put in quarantine) and Martin and Sarah working from home.  This time it also meant really not leaving the property for a couple of days, as I had a bit of a sniffle so had a Covid test on the Monday and we were told to not even go out for a walk till the result was back.

Still, I had quite a fun week.

A house on our street was knocked down that week to make way for 6 townhouses.  On the weekend (before my sniffle) Martin and I went scavenging and came back with these glorious flowers.

So many lovely things to see recently!

A couple of weeks back, I went for a wander around Western Springs.  It was lovely and full of life!

You can't really see, but one of the trees here has a bunch of white birds perched in it.

Lockdown adventures

Like everyone else, over the past 6 weeks or so that we've been in lockdown I've had very few face to face interactions with other people and none, other than with Martin and Sarah, at a close distance.  It's a very curious time.

I've been thinking about many things over this time - and have been coping more and less well at different points in time! - but here I want to write about  the non-work things we've been able to do even though many options have been taken away.

Kawakawa berries

Ages ago, a foraging blog I used to read taught me that kawakawa plants, not only produce leaves that make yummy tea: the plants come in male and female variants, and the females produce delicious berries.

I haven't managed to find anyone who sells 'sexed' kawakawa seedlings, but a few years back I did find someone selling lots of 8 seedlings very affordably.  So I bought them, and planted four each on either side of the oak tree.  My hope was that there would end up being at least one male on one side and at least one female on the other: when they revealed themselves, I would kill the rest :-)

Unfortunately, it initially appeared they were all male.  For some years now we have had many male cones appearing on both sides of the tree.  The seedlings are also all now large plants that are thoroughly intertwined: uprooting unwanted ones (without disturbing the others) is no longer an option.

Then, maybe a month back, I noticed one 'zone' on one side of the tree was covered in bright orange female cones.  I had at least one female after all!  I got to work picking the berries, and also cut back all the branches without berries: hopefully that will give the female plant lots of space to take off in future :-)

about half a cup berries, picked today (my third picking from the bush this summer)

 

Recent happenings

A few recent bits and pieces from me...  In general, physically I'm getting stronger and stronger, although mentally I seem to have crashed quite badly over Christmas.  I'm struggling to face any 'thinky' tasks.  I was working quite hard on Just Kai stuff in the lead-up to Christmas and am hoping I've just overdone it a bit.  I'm trying to leave the thinky things alone for a while and hoping things will come right soon; it does seem a bit better today and yesterday.

But here's some of what I've been up to before and after our Taupo holiday :-)

Friends who are missionaries in Japan came to visit - and brought us yummy Japanese snacks!

Living in the jungle :-)

Friends of ours are overseas at the moment and have asked me to care for their houseplants while they are away.  I ended up putting them all in our bedroom: I'm rather enjoying living in the jungle!

The 'bearcam' that I've watched in recent years is live again now, too, and I'm loving it.  There are currently six cameras live, giving different views of Brooks River, the salmon swimming up it and the bears catching them.  Today I had a lot of fun watching a mum with three yearling cubs (i.e. ones born last year) spend half and hour or so at the lower river.

If you'd like to join in the fun, the feeds are here.  Having so many feeds running at once might slow your computer down - if that happens you can click on the 'Youtube' logo at the bottom left of the feed of your choice.  That will open that camera's feed in a separate tab on your browser and you can close the main page down.  I find it helpful to open the comments feed in a separate tab - clicking across to that when something interesting happens is very helpful in understanding what's going on.

Enjoy!

Oakley Creek with Michaela

Yesterday we introduced our niece, Michaela, to Oakley Creek :-)

Checking out a spot I think would be great for an evening picnic.

Christmas

The Sunday before Christmas, Sarah arranged for a couple of friends to come over for carol singing.  It was such a happy time - one of the nicest things we've done in ages :-)

Martin brought through our advent wreath for the occasion

Birthday flowers still blooming

I'm very much enjoying a few flowering plants at the moment, all given to me for my birthday:

This African Violet from my mum lives on the windowsill in our toilet.  It arrived covered in flowers and is just starting a second crop :-)

The moth orchid from Martin's mum is on our bedroom windowsill and keeps producing new flowers.

And this moth orchid from friends from church (given to me for my birthday two years ago) is getting ready for its first flowering of the year - somewhat delayed after I accidentally broke off its growing stem some months back.

Happenings

I've been for a few walks now - on Friday and Tuesday I went to visit two different neighbours who both live across the street from the end of our driveway.  It was the first each of them had known that I was better, and their delight and excitement was fun but also quite overwhelming.  Each time the next day I struggled to get moving all day and didn't do heaps.  I wondered if that was because of being overwhelmed by those reactions, rather than the exercise itself.  So today I went for a walk where I basically went down the driveway, did a loop of most of the flat part of our street, came home and then did a loop around the house.  I deliberately avoided going as far down the street as the house of another friend who is home during the day, so she wouldn't spot me and get excited - I'll save that for another time (although she knows I'm better).  My walk was just under 10 minutes.  I also did some weeding and sweeping outside this afternoon but no overwhelming people stuff.  We'll see how I'm doing tomorrow!

In other news, I'm delighting in this gorgeous orchid Martin's parents gave me for my birthday.

Happy Birthday to me :-)

It was my birthday on Saturday.  We were staying at my parents' place and I had a few friends over for afternoon tea.

Sarah and Anna

Temi in her fabulous dress

Things I'm enjoying looking at :-)

We have a wee raised area on the corner of the wheelchair ramp where I keep pots.  I'm particularly enjoying some of them right now.

A 'coral' manuka that I'm keeping in a pot until it's big enough for the flower garden.

A lovely weekend :-)

Martin and I took the weekend 'off' this weekend to just hang out with each other with no 'have tos'.  It was lovely, although I'm pretty knackered this morning!

We had lots of yummy food to nibble on through the weekend.  Martin bought French cheeses, salami, macarons, canelés and tarts from Pyrénées, the French deli in Mt. Albert, and I made a Zopf.  I'm still so happy that we bought a beater with a dough hook some years ago - it's lovely to be able to make bread without my weakness getting in the way :-)

Zopf - a Swiss bread traditionally eaten for Sunday breakfast.  The name is the German word for a plait.

A lovely weekend

Last weekend was our regular six-weekly 'quiet weekend' where we try to clear the calendar of obligations and relax and do nothing in particular :-)  It was lovely.  Martin ended up spending a lot of the time baking - as well as pikelets for Saturday morning tea, he made bitter chocolate cookies for afternoon tea:

A visit from a possum

Our garden's a wasteland at the moment - mostly neglect, but also a number of plants have been eaten right down to the ground.  We think this fellow (and one or more companions/rivals) are the culprits for that:

possum on the fence out our kitchen window last week

So we borrowed a trap off a friend, and on Friday morning woke up to this:

A lovely Saturday

Yesterday was a fun day :-)

Martin and I had our first go at bottling mussels.

2kg mussels ready to go