On Saturday I took Naomi to Rapaki beach, while Jeremiah took Milo fishing. We got there a bit early (I forgot about the time change!) so we had to wait a bit for the tide to recede and expose the warm springs. We sat side by side in the calm air with the sun warming our backs, Naomi quietly munching a snack, with me just quiet. It was peaceful. I resisted the urge to text Jeremiah and find out how HIS time was going.
cheese!
Eventually another family turned up and Naomi gained a playmate. But since they were Iranian and didn’t speak much English, the quiet morning continued.
We left the beach reluctantly–the forecast for the week ahead was for chilly rain, and so far it has come true.
I have a pet cat. Well, she’s sort of my cat. She lives outside, and I feed her. I also got her spayed, which is a bit of an intimate thing to do to a cat that doesn’t belong to me…so I suppose she’s mine. Her name is Jenny. Genevieve, but we call her Jenny.
She showed up in the garage last winter with two wee kittens tucked into our bike trailer, and I liked her because she was such a dedicated mother. We found other homes for the kittens and got Jenny’s “baby bed taken out” (as I explained it to the kids), and Jenny hung around. Cat food doesn’t cost that much, and she’s independent of my care in every other way.
It was a summer evening the first time we heard the metal food bowl getting shuffled around the concrete patio after dark. We got ourselves a bonus pet.
I don’t know if the hedgehog is a he or a she, nor does it have a name (yet–any ideas?). But if the food bowl is left on the ground it’s a regular visitor. I like it. Like Jenny, it’s independent and low maintenance. “Independent, low maintenance, AND prickly….just like you!” my parents cackled over skype. Yeah, maybe. I like skunks too….
Look at that autumn outlook over the port hills! It was a golden sunny day, not too hot nor too cold, and without wind. The bike tracks up to Summit Rd from Halswell Quarry are still closed after the big fire, so Sunday I drove around the base of the hills to access an open track further east. I haven’t explored the tracks over near Rapaki Rd much (I’m adverse to driving in order to exercise) so I’m exploring most of these for the first time. This time I tried going east from the summit. I’m not a “black diamond” mountain biker, so not too far along this particular track I gave up hefting my bike over the rocks, instead climbing straight up through the dry grassy seed heads to the summit of this little peak. There’s something about getting to a high outlook that’s super satisfying.
Turning the other direction, you get a king’s view over the city. “That’s right,” you think to yourself, “all those people down there are breathing the smog, going about their daily lives, and I’m up here above it all!” Until I ride back down, of course, and resume my own daily life like everyone else. It’s a refreshing interlude nonetheless.
What are these, can you guess? I can’t decide whether it’s an obvious question or a good puzzler.
Hint: they’re growing on a vine on our back porch. They’re grown en masse in NW USA with cultured variety names like Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, Chinook…. English varieties have blunt names like Fuggles and Nugget. We’re growing oodles of them at Zealandia for a customer in Nelson, NZ.
Up close view–you got it? Hops. For beer. Yum. Actually, I just did a tea out of them to see what they really taste like minus all the malt, and they’re BITTER. That’s the point, I guess. They do smell nice at any rate! And now, after spending 30 minutes harvesting one plant, I spent the next 30 minutes watching you-tube videos of hop harvest machinery. Mechanization, it’s a wonderful thing.
Usually a rainy weekend forecast strikes dread into my soul.
That might sound a tad melodramatic, but a rainy weekend with everyone home means the kids will move from room to room strewing lego and dirty socks in their wake. They will move to join me in any room I occupy, even if that’s the bathroom. They will be constantly hungry and no matter how often I wipe counters, there will be more crumbs. I’ll sit down on the couch with the laptop and Naomi will sit on top of me and make a constant stream of jabber. Jeremiah will ask me what I want to do and I won’t have any acceptable answers. Milo will stamp around and call everyone in sight a poo bum, and my failure as a mother will paralyze any ounce of creativity I might have brought to the task. I’ll end up picking up around the house all day because at least that never-ending job doesn’t require concentration and solitude, and by 8:00 I’m ready to go to bed and call it quits.
But this rainy weekend is different! The kids aren’t any better and the rain isn’t any less wet, but the context is different. Rain puts out fire.
We’re so thankful for the rain!
The fire on the port hills started Monday night–we heard the fire engines wailing past the house while we ate dinner. On Tuesday morning we surveyed the plume of dense grey smoke moving up the dry hillsides, and cursed the warm norwest wind that drove it on. By Wednesday the wind turned easterly and turned the blaze back down towards the hillside suburbs.
Every so often the wall of flames would eat into something new, sending up billows of black smoke. There were a dozen helicopters with monsoon buckets busily scooping water and dumping it on the blaze, but helicopters are really small compared to a bush fire, reminding us that we might think we have control over our environment…. but we don’t.
On Wednesday night I packed our passports and toothbrushes, and put my rollerblades into the car. Silly, those rollerblades, I know, but some emotional part of me wanted them to be safe. If we had to evacuate during the wee hours I figured we’d grab the kids and their quilts and a few granola bars, and go. Jeremiah said I was being foolish, that the fire wouldn’t get down this far, but he added the box with birth certificates to the pile.
He was right. Over night the earth movers must have turned the tide, and the by morning the billows of smoke had turned to smoldering wisps all over the hillside. A day of busy attention from the helicopters and the pace of advance was controlled. We were all glad to see the rain move in on Friday, even though the firefighters said it made visibility tough.
1800 hectares of ground were burned, several houses were lost, and one of the helicopters crashed, killing the pilot. Monday is set to be hot and windy again, and we hope the firemen have put out all the hot spots before that happens.
It’s hard to imagine the time when this whole valley was filled with a river of ice, but Lake Wanaka is a glacier lake, like Lake George in the Adirondacks. Now it’s a tourist town, and it was our destination last weekend.
Friends. That’s a main ingredient of a good weekend, and Naomi’s best buddy Stella came with her parents and baby sister. Wanaka is about a 5 hour drive from Christchurch, so we opted to take the trip down in two stages, with the first night spent at Twizel. I’m wasn’t really sure why the town of Twizel exists, plunked as it is in the barren tussock lands of the MacKenzie Country, until I happened to check its spelling on Google and Wikipedia mentioned that it was founded in 1968 to house workers who were building the big hydroelectric schemes that take advantage of all those former-glacier lakes. Now on weekends it houses sport fishermen keen to catch big salmon and trout in the hydro canals.
Twizel does have a town square of sorts, with a playground and a public toilet surrounded by shops. Hurray for kid-friendly NZ, where even the small towns have good playgrounds.
The next day was February 3rd, Milo’s birthday (6!). We got to the holiday house about 3 p.m. This one would definitely NOT be classed as a bach. It was pretty upscale, thanks to prior planning by a well organized member of our group (not me!). Carrie and Ben (Stella’s parents) were avid rock climbers before the advent of children (sigh), and they still have all their gear and much of their enthusiasm, so we make a quick pizza for the kids and headed out to the rocks. Milo gave it a good go, and was sure proud to dust his fingers with the chalk like the pros.
Not many rock faces have grassy valleys at their bases, but the kids took full advantage of this one.
A couple days later we tried some rocks that didn’t have the run-around space at the bottom. The answer to that puzzle was popcorn, and lots of it.
Naomi was happy to give the climbing thing a try too.
Wow, that’s a lucky six-year-old.
Aunt Rebecca started a trend when she suggested to Naomi that she might like a pink elephant cake for her third birthday. Milo wanted an elephant cake too. Thankfully they’re satisfied with a round cake with a frosting-elephant painted onto it. Next time, Bec, you might suggest something simpler. A hockey puck perhaps?
I got out on a hike one morning with the girls and Mark (who was happy to remain behind the camera). Roy Peak is about as accessible as they come with views that entice scores of people, and we joined the throng. It was a bit of a test for my back, climbing with a day pack. I’m please to report that it passed.
Wanaka has lots of good biking trails too
Milo got the hang of his hand breaks on his new bike after a couple days, and shifting gears mid-pedal won’t be far behind. Right how he thinks the highest gear is the best because you can go the fastest on it….though he has discovered that it’s not the best for climbing hills.
It was wonderfully warm while we were in Wanaka, warm enough to put toes and even knees into the frigid water.
“Why is that tree growing in the lake?” I don’t know. I really don’t know. But it’s famous, and now we, too, have a Wanaka Tree picture.
Flash house, eh? Body wash foamed up nicely in the Jacuzzi.
Charlotte, Stella and Naomi. A TROUP of happy little girls, washed and ready for bed.
School Holidays….ah. The joy of kid-dom, but the bane of working parents.
However, this time I organized with some friends to do a kid swap for the three weeks after Christmas vacation and before school starts (here I pat myself on the back smugly for my astute forethought and dexterous planning). This meant that I had three extra kids on Tuesdays, while they had mine on Mondays and Wednesdays, an arrangement that mostly covered my working days.
To my surprise, I’ve really enjoyed these few weeks. My kids are happily occupied with playmates over on Tuesdays. I still get a break from the family by going to work. And I still get Thursdays to do special things with both of my kids. The day light is long and I’ve had time to do a few bike rides in the evenings. Simple pleasures of life.
The Kid Swap boys were occupied for two full days building a fort in the bushes. Thank God for a wild green yard with overgrown giant camellia bushes–it’s super for kids, and unusual in the city.
When the fort-building wore thin we moved on to eel catching. What boy can resist the delight of having a writhing wriggling eel thrashing on the end of his fishing line? What mommy can resist, for that matter? We tied bits of meat to the line, no hooks involved, so eventually the eels fell off…and it’s a good thing. I shutter to think about removing a hook from an eel’s toothy mouth.
One hot afternoon after work we made hats in the fort bushes, just enjoying the lack of goose bumps even in the shade. The mosquitoes enjoyed the easy access afforded by our summer attire as well.
One blustery afternoon we went to Clip-n-Climb, Christchurch’s indoor kids’ climbing wall. it’s a neat place, set up with self-retracting climbing ropes and brightly decorated walls. Both kids were bold and capable. I take it for granted and complain about their independent streaks that surface at the most inconvenient moments (“Come ON, Naomi, can I just buckle your shoes for you, we’ve got to get GOING!”), but at times I have to appreciate their spunk.
Naomi didn’t want to put on that harness at first, but it took about three seconds watching her brother climb before she was itching to join.
I suspect that having an older brother makes Naomi a resilient individual. Yes, he’s brandishing something above her head, and she’s still smiling charmingly. Something about adversity being the mother of invention?? Or was that necessity?? Well, overcoming the daily challenge of living with Milo does seem to be a necessary adversity with which she’s coping well.
Speaking of which, I’ve been coping with Milo better as of late as well. I’ve discovered the obvious; that when a person is held in contempt, they aren’t very motivated to behaving charmingly. Milo has the perverse habit of intentionally acting naughty when he’s bored, to get attention (or so I presume). He finds the getting-ready-to-go-out process boring and by the time he’s buckled into the car on the way to whatever pleasant kid-centered activity I’ve planned for the day, I’m generally sick of the sight and sound (and even thought!) of him. His disgusting behavior makes me feel a failure as a mother and offended as any abused human will feel. If I can heave a gusty sigh and FORGIVE him his impudence and speak to him as if I still like him (which at that instant I most certainly DO NOT), he will start afresh and be the lovely capable boy he can, at times, be. The rest of the day is likely to go great, and if the hiccups are forgotten quickly, the relapses of bad attitude are likely to be short, and I can, genuinely, enjoy my boy.
The Buskers Festival has been on the last couple weekends, and we went to see some of the street performers. They are extraordinary people, not primarily for their acrobatic skill, but because they are shameless hustlers, bold entertainers, and I just can’t stop wondering what they’re like as real people.
The Buskers were performing in the city center, where there still exist pay phones, in the old English style. Naomi didn’t recognize it as a phone, as she has only ever seen a flat picture-taking device that fits in a pocket. Cheese! Take a photo for posterity!
Also on the weekend docket was some blueberry picking. We’ve been back to this blueberry farm every year we’ve lived in Christchurch. The blueberry season is extraordinarily long, I think primarily because the summer isn’t super hot so the berries ripen more slowly than the furious pace of ripening in NY berry patch.
A day at home means enough time to set up a sour dough loaf to rise for dinner, and Naomi was an enthusiastic helper. After that she asked for our home-made bread by requesting “the bread what has flour in it.”
Summer means beach weekends and barbecues. Jeremiah enthusiastically chars meat on our portable grill wherever we go. In this case we’re camping at Gore Bay with our friends Laura, Audrey and Noah.
In this case we’ve wound our way out to Tumbledown Bay on the Banks Peninsula for a day at the beach in all its sandy glory.
We made a frog…
And then a “snow” man (in honor of the northern hemisphere winter), both of which were enthusiastically destroyed moments after their photo was taken.
The muddy tidal pools are the warmest ones, Naomi discovered.
Today playcentre was back on for Naomi but Milo’s school hadn’t yet started, so big brother came back to playcentre. A hot day, we made a water slide, fantastic fun for all.
Grins and giggles! Hurray for summer, and may the wonderful warmth last yet a while longer!
Titorangi Bay is at the end of one of the Marlborough Sounds, at the end of a two hour tortuous twisting road. There is a sandy beach and a farm that lets you camp in a paddock, and a bay with fish.
We arrived just as the rain was clearing. All the tents were huddled near the back of the sand dunes and the wind-swept trees grew sideways, so while it was still during tent-set-up, we had a clue as to the wind potential.
Somehow I never got a photo of a windy day, but the calm was picturesque.
Looking out from the point where the land-bound fishermen held their vigil.
A fresh water creek made a good place to rinse the wet suits. Many mornings we awoke to sheep being moved to a new paddock by the farm dogs.
Bath time
Our friend lent us this “flash” (i.e. fancy) tent for our trip. Room to eat inside when it’s windy and cold.
The main draw to Titorangi is for the fishing, and the fishing improved for our fisherman once our buddies arrived with their boats to occupy the bach next door. They arrived with a passel of kids, so our kids gained playmates as well.
There is a proud fisherboy! Jeremiah pulled two blue cod out of the bay whose stomachs were full of perfect miniature paua, which I gleefully kept for future adornments.
Gurnard, with its startling upwards gaze and surprisingly decorated fins, is hands-down the prettiest fish of the catch. The sea is generous there, providing a smorgasbord for those who can jet off to the good spots in a motorized craft. Guess what our fisherman has been shopping for….
The Kiwis live it up for Christmas–most professional offices are closed for 2-3 weeks, kids are on school holiday, and everyone gets out their trusty trailers, packs their tents, and goes a-camping. This year was the first time we were at home for Christmas day, NOT backpacking or camping, making a traditional Christmas breakfast a bit easier to pull off. We ate fruit salad, cinnamon roll, egg bake, and bacon (instead of sausages), and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.
“On guard!” I am about to be shot at or turned into a princess, or both. Jeremiah got the kids a pair of nerf guns, but Milo lost his within hours (that’s what happens when you shoot your sister’s face), and I found myself ranting “THIS is why my parents never let us have toy GUNS!” as I shoved the offending weapon onto a high shelf and glared at my husband. They really do love those things….
A princess at the beach!
The beach was pretty quiet when we arrived, as it was overcast and a bit chill, but the novelty of going to the beach on Christmas day is still worth it for us. Sand + Water = Kid Happiness. Us parents sipped our coffees with Baileys and avoided the incoming tide.
Who is prouder of the bridge creation, Milo or Mark? We enjoyed Christmas dinner with our friends Mark, Steph and Irmana. We are holidaying (is that really a verb?) with this crew for the coming week, but we were all in Christchurch for Christmas day, and Steph proposed a joint meal. Good thing she did! With my level of Christmas cheer I would probably have had the family eating scrambled eggs and going to bed early.
Every year I think Jeremiah can’t fit another thing into the car, but every year we manage to bring more paraphernalia with us at Christmas. This year he had a roof box, a bigger car, and a bike rack, and we’re still chocker. Poor Naomi threw up in that green bucket three times on the way up to Nelson, and though we’ve got barfing-on-windy-no-stopping-place roads down to a science, we still soiled the princess dress.
With a 5:30 departure from Christchurch we made it up to Nelson before lunch the day after Christmas, where we stayed with our friends Audrey, Noah, Laura and Jordy in their beautiful new house. Romi, the kids’ grandma, was there for the holiday, reminding me in many ways of Mommom ten years ago; eager to impart the wisdom of the generations but also understanding of the kid zone. I liked her.
Two late nights and two early mornings set us up perfectly for sleepage during the second day of windy-road driving, and we arrived in Anakiwa rested, with all the stomach contents in place, packed to the hilt with groceries.
Kelsey once gave me a pin-on button that read “I like poetry, long walks on the beach, and poking dead things with a stick.” It’s true. On our first walk out from the Anakiwa bach we found this dead sting ray. I was more interested in it than Milo (did you know they have one large long bottom tooth??), but he was keen to get the rest of the crew to see it.
The bach we’re staying in for the upcoming week has grapes growing over the deck railing and overlooks one of the Marlborough sounds. I think we’ll like it here.
Monarchs are the panda bears of the insect world–everyone loves, them right?
Right. Except if you’re in the peculiar position of trying to grow monarch fodder for customers who don’t want their plants pre-eaten.
As we are at Zealandia.
We’re wholesale plant growers. We sell plants to big box stores like Mitre 10 and Bunnings (the NZ equivalent of Lowes and Home Depot). Customers buy plants from these big stores to feed their own caterpillars, and don’t want to be buying more hungry mouths to feed with their plants.
We still love monarchs; everyone does. But they present us with an interesting puzzle.
The roofs of our greenhouses open. The wind and direct sun help keep the plants strong and stocky–but they also let in all manner of insects, including mama monarchs. One of my jobs and the nursery is pest control, and when monarch caterpillars are eating our asclepias plants (what monarchs eat in NZ instead of milkweed) before we can sell them, that’s a problem.
I think we might try growing some big aslepias in the greenhouse, with the thought that mama monarchs might choose the biggest plants around on which to lay eggs, and leave our small ones alone. Hey, it’s worth a try.
In the mean time, I got to bring home a big tray of caterpillar-laden plants. We’ve distributed the gems to school and to neighbors, and planted a few plants in our garden in the attempt to grow some monarch food to feed the ravenous hordes later in the summer.
“We have a whole life cycle!” Milo exclaimed, delighted. Hurray for the life cycle poster-child. Every kid starts their entomology with these flashy specimens. (apologies for the out-of-focus white speck on the leaf–that’s an egg)
Next up, the tiny stripy babies.
Eating and pooping makes the caterpillar grow, and complicated hormones govern each molting of the skin.
The caterpillar chooses a nice leaf to attach its bum to with super strong silk. It curls up in a J and starts stewing in hormonal juice, forming a chrysalis skin under the old stripey one. Soon the skin at the back of its neck splits open and the pupae wiggles and shrugs until the dry husk scootches to its silk-glue end.
I have yet to actually see this shrugging off of the old skin in person. You-tube is amazing. After much twisting and turning, the pupae hardens and all motion stops. Yet another hormone-mediated change is taking place. We don’t have any adult butterflies hatched yet, but if we catch any drying their wings, we’ll have to put up a picture.
Give It A Burl 