Cold as Ice

While you Kiwis and Australians have been sweltering in the heat (especially Auckland, with a heatwave of at least 20 degrees...) you might be pleased to know that we have been shivering in our shoes, literally. We do feel sorry for the Melbournites who are currently struggling with temperatures into the 40s and are having to deal with bush fires and destruction of property.

Last week on Thursday the snow started coming in and is still here. The last few nights have been bitterly cold at -8 or -10, with last night being our coldest since we arrived here, at -12 celcius. The sharp air cuts through your lungs and seems to bite hard. The ice wave of UK finally made its way down to south of France and caught us up in its grip.

street in the village

chemin du relais towards reservealong the Southe oaks retain their colour in the reserve

We have both been knocked out with the flu or a cold or something in between - lots of sniffling and not being able to breathe properly, hacking coughs, headaches and just feeling lousy. But, Wouter is a few days ahead of me and is well on the way to recovery. I am feeling much better too, so it's all good.

During the snowy weather we also got some sun, so Wouter took the opportunity to go out and take some photos. You can't tell from some pictures, but the snow was around a meter deep in places. According to Wouter he had to shake out his boots several times. As the snow starts to melt, icicles are formed and today we saw some which were at least a meter long. If snow has been compressed on the ground, walking can be dangerous if the compressed snow has turned icy so it's best to walk in softer snow.

view from the front window

snow drift on east of property

hope the broad beans make it through....

I think this looks like woolly mammoths climbing our hedge (we just saw Ice Age...)
and the tobacco plants look rather glum under the snow

Cassy has enjoyed the one walk I've made with him in four days (due to flu) - there were so many new smells to sniff out - he was almost in heaven. Although he later showed his true labrador traits when I felt sorry for some birds who could not find food, so made a melange of rolled oats, pumpkin seeds and breadcrumbs and bacon fat. Cassy made sure the birds didn't get a taste for this new cuisine as he found every single crumb. But he paid the price by having sore gums later on - having spent a lot of time with his snout in the icy snow.

The forecast for tomorrow is for up to +12 degrees so no doubt it will feel absolutely tropical!

Pedro

A couple of weeks ago there was a dog advertised in one of the local papers - it was an "elderly" couple who rescued a dog and were not able to care for it where they were. So we replied and heard nothing more until the other day when I had a call from the lady owner who said she would give me the dog.

We arranged to go there on Sunday and have a look around and see the dog and then decide if we would take him or not. So "Enzo" was there, black, part labrador (and definitely part something else), somewhere around 4 months old. We decided he looked ok, and he had been vaccinated and micro-chipped. The young girls at the house were a little sad he was going, but it seems the family did not have the time to look after the dog and he had no company so it was better for the dog to have another home - they told us this is what they explained to the children.

When we got him home we introduced the dog to Cassy at the neighbouring property to prevent any territorial disagreements. But everything seemed to go well, and after a couple of hours both dogs were playing happily together on the lawn. He is not at all used to the leash, but after a couple of walks down to the reserve he seems to be improving. He likes to mouth everything, which is typical for a puppy. But I don't like nippy or licky dogs so we'll work on that one.
Apart from a few small habits he seems to behave reasonably well, and we hope that within a week we'll have him obeying commands in English. He seems to adore Cassy. But Cassy, at 8 years old, needs his grandpa naps and a break now and then from an energetic puppy. However, there are advantages on having another dog around - there is an extra bone once his is finished and puppy is not yet top dog so he can just whip it off him.

We didn't think the name Enzo fitted the puppy and spent a bit of time looking for a more appropriate name - a lot of names for black dogs seem to have sinister connotations, but in the end we chose Pedro, which we think suits him well.

Cherry Ripe

It's funny, isn't it, what memories come to you when you are reminded of something from years gone by. At the moment our cherry tree is loaded with fruit. We thought it wouldn't be ready for ages, but the presence of lots of birds and one yellow labrador-shark circling underneath told us they might be ripe enough to eat. The other day Wouter let Cassy out for his usual morning activity and later went to look for him but he seemed to have vanished, but then he saw a tail wagging - only the tail as the rest of him was buried deep in the cherry tree. Cassy has also learnt to climb the pile of builders mix we have underneath the tree, and then to place his paws on one of the branches so he can reach further up into the tree to help us pick.

cherry blossom

tree in blossom

My first memory of anything cherry is when my sister and I used to sing along with my mother when she played the piano. The song was "Cherry Ripe" and it goes something like this:

Cherry ripe, cherry ripe
Ripe I cried
Full and fair ones
Come and buy

this is from a poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and if you are interested there is a link below which plays the tune - the second link is to a (wiki) detailed explanation of Cherry Ripe and associations:
Cherry Ripe tune

Wiki article

two weeks ago

cherries on tree

Then the other day I found out it's my sister's favourite fruit - never knew that before.... I've only in recent years come to enjoy the fresh cherry and I've never been too fussed on the jam or other cherry preserves.

So yesterday evening we went out with a big bowl, and again this morning and this evening. So now I am faced with loads of cherries and wondering what to do. The crop is finite, so I guess they will survive a few days in the fridge and we can just snack on them.

ripe for the picking

if it falls where will it go?

In anticipation of being able to do lots of things with the cherries we've been searching for a cherry pitter to no avail. I had heard you can use a bent paper clip, which we tried but it didn't work out well as the paper clip was not strong enough. But then I thought about a crochet hook - luckily I bought a set of three recently as they were on special for 2 euro and one never knows when one may need such things.... and they work perfectly well as cherry pitters!

slurp, slurp, slurp

trail of evidence

I'll just wait until I have room again....

second pick

After picking several kilos of cherries the backlog meant I had to do more than just eat them fresh. So after giving away a few, some have been pitted and gone into the freezer for muffins, pies and desserts etc, some are drying as I write to be used as cherry raisins, some are soaking in sweet juice for making glace cherries (this is particularly useful as I have not seen them for sale here yet), and soon I will make a cherry leather, a bit like a fruit roll-up. We estimate the total crop is something like 25 kilos - yesterday we picked 8 kilos without trying.

pitting for cherry raisins

and then there are the broad beans

Next year we will be better organised and I can spend more time trying out new recipes and ways to keep the cherries for later, but meanwhile we continue to eat them fresh as they sure make a change from broad beans!!!

Another update

We worked on the toilet and back bedroom at the same time, due to the location. The toilet, as you may remember, had pinky-purple floral paper and a beige radiator. The walls underneath were a kind of yellow and the back of the door was a greeny-yellow.

before

The walls were stripped, cleaned and covered with a mix of paint and sand and this was painted with the Vent de Sable colour from the hallway but at a quarter strength. The light colour is lovely on the walls and it highlights the flecks of stone in the light floor tiles. The radiator was painted white and the paintwork (window and door) have been painted blanc casse - broken white. The ceiling was painted a soft white.

after

tile detail

All together it's a warmer feel and smarter look than before. Just a note that the outside of the door remains as is until we have finished with the new bathroom and toilet as there will be so much mess and we decided to wait until that's finished to decorate the hallway. No pics yet of the bedroom as I still have to do the windows.

We are working like the clappers to get the large dining room done so that when the plumber and builder come in to work on the new bathroom and toilet we can focus on getting those finished - getting there!

who's behind the new door?

Meanwhile the weather has taken yet another lovely turn and it was positively warm today with 22 degrees and Cassy panting and looking for shady spots! Spring is really in the air and the plants - and weeds - are busting into bloom - it's really quite amazing. The change of seasons here is much more dramatic than in NZ (at least Auckland) with the hesitant "shall we flower or shall we wait a bit" feeling. We can expect this weather for the next 10 days or so.

acacia (or mimosa) - classed as a weed here!

erable

planting gladioli bulbs

Lastly, it was Cassy's 8th birthday last week, so on the weekend we decided to give him a nice long walk at one of the local parks. He was having a ball sniffing places he doesn't normally go and suddenly he disappeared from view - just at that moment we realised we were close to the fishing pond.... We heard "quack, quack, quack" and called Cassy back. As we reached the brow of the hill, there he was standing, dripping wet, wagging tail, ducks looking put out and two elderly fishermen further round the pond.... as I slipped Cassy's leash on both Wouter and I tried to look casual as we continued our walk. Needless to say, Cassy had a great time! Luckily for us he didn't try to catch a fish or a duck.

Spring Is In The Air

The weather took a lovely turn for almost two weeks and so while we would love to keep working inside, we felt we must make a start on our vegetable plot and other areas if we are to reap the rewards later in the season.

Daytime temperatures were getting up to 19.5/20 degrees, which is not bad for February - you could compare this to end of August in NZ. Our nights are still cold but the days have been brilliant and I'd love it to be like this most of the year. Having said that, we are just having a cold snap - Kiwis should know what that's like :) Many things have started to flower - the apricots, cherries, mimosa and a lot of spring flowers both in pots and in the garden. the irises are shooting up large new leaves in preparation for their beautiful flowers (which I can't wait to see).


Now preparing the soil is important - we let things slip during late autumn and winter for a few reasons - we didn't have our things from NZ until late October, we planted a few things in beds but soon after that the weather deteriorated pretty fast, the soil is not very nice to work when it's wet - it's very claggy clay just like Auckland soil, but once it dries it becomes sandy - we will need to add organic matter over time to improve the soil structure.

We found out that the land we are on used to be a river, and therefore the soil is from the river bed. We find lots of stones while working in the garden and leave them in small piles until we have enough to go around and collect. Wouter is the 'slasher' (as well as the pole dancer!) and is getting rid of the large weeds, turning the soil once to dry it out a little and then running a manual tiller over it to fine it up. It seems to be working ok.

preparing more beds, broad beans in foreground (left)

Before winter set in Wouter planted a whole lot of things which just sat there all that time nice and cosy - heaps of onions, garlic, shallots, broad beans and so on - won't mention the obvious...... and now they are starting to shoot away. In the beds which are already prepared I've planted some more radishes - we got quite a few before the winter, but the ones which were left were eaten out by slugs and the local rabbit! An aside here - I put the old and crusty radishes in the wheelbarrow so they could be put onto the compost heap or just thrown out with the rest of the weeds. The following morning Wouter found Cassy half in the barrow having a feast of radishes...

Some seeds have been sown in pots to germinate and await warmer nights before being planted out. These include capsicums, tomatoes, chillies and aubergines. They should be planted out when they are a bit bigger as we will have problems with snails and slugs - we will do our usual trick of "hunting by torch light" and either burn them or pop them into boiling water and let the birds eat them the next day.

We've also bought lots of flower seeds - things like sunflowers, prairie mix, poppies, cornflowers and so on. It should be a riot of colour here later in the season.




For now we have jonquils flowering, daffodils, crocuses (in pot), cowslips, violets. The existing hydrangeas are budding - we transferred some round to the southern garden where they have the spring sun but in summer have shade from one of the trees - they are looking happy so far and we will need to water them in summer. The oleanders we planted earlier are looking fine, and some of the other shrubs we transferred from spots in the garden we didn't think they belonged also seem to like their new spaces. I must say that it's quite fun playing around in a new garden - loved my one in Waimauku and often miss some of the things there (especially my lemon tree, which I may have mentioned before...) but it's exciting to create a new look with different variables and see how we manage to feed ourselves and have flowers throughout the year from this new place.

Now for another story about the dog - while we were working in the garden, Cassy was getting the occasional ball throw and having a lie down on the soft soil in between - every so often he would get up and sniff around underneath the fruit trees with obviously fond memories of the figs which used to be there when we first moved in. Lo and behold, he managed to find some old potatoes - so, the garden once again becomes an interesting place.

While our backs were turned he had a munch - I called out to Wouter to check out what he was eating and we found it was raw, but fresh, potato. The following morning the potato magnet was strong and Wouter found Cassy slinking back into the laundry, looking very guilty, and his paws were so caked with mud that his toes couldn't fit together any more - this must have been really uncomfortable and was a dead give-away as to where he had been - you've guessed - in the vegie patch to find more potatoes. Pity we don't have truffles......

I'll just wait until they're not looking...