Fowl weather gardening

By our standards, we have had a busy week. You may remember, Dear Reader, that last Sunday Lyn from over the road came for dinner, along with Frances. She was explaining that she had bought a shipping container. The location in her garden where it was to be sited required the removal of a tree stump and a Portuguese Laurel tree. She was philosophical but sad about the laurel tree, until she came up with the idea of offering it to us. Liking trees, we readily accepted.

We had significant rain over night, and woke on Monday morning to discover that the puddles in paddock had turned into ponds, complete with ducks! At 7.45am, while sitting up in bed having our first pot of tea of the day, Lyn telephoned to say that Jono would be arriving at her place at 8.30am to extract the tree, and was strongly recommending that it be replanted asap. We needed a hole, about a metre square, so we quickly changed gear and started our day. Nicky had an appointment at the medical centre at 10.30a.m. so she stared digging the hole, while I popped over to see Lyn and the tree. When I returned, I assisted with digging until Nicky departed, and then continued and got the hole finished about 10.45. 

At 11, Jono and the tree arrived and we manoeuvred it into the hole. This was a bit of a challenge due to the size of the tree, and the increasing wind coming up from the Whanganui River. Nicky bought more compost on her way home, and the sunshine turned to hail as the wind got stronger. After lunch we braved the 47kph wind to finish planting Stan (the laurel tree) and tidying up. We really enjoyed getting into the warmth and stillness of our home later in the afternoon with a pot of tea. A few hands of Mah Jong helped our limbs recover from our exertions. However, we are very pleased with our new tree and really hope that it survives.

Tuesday morning was a much more gentle start with less wind and clear sunny skies. A couple of loads of washing were done and I was about to head off to Mitre 10 to buy some wood, when I discovered that Luna had a completely flat rear tyre. I set about putting the skinny spare tyre on, but wasn’t able to get the jack out of the wheel well. It was completely jammed in the retaining bracket. So, I called our Roadside Rescue service, and 15 minutes later a very nice man arrived and quickly changed the tyre. He then explained why I had been unable to extract the jack and showed me what to do, which was very helpful. On my delayed journey to Mitre 10, I dropped the tyre into Beaurepaires to see if it could be repaired or needed replacing. I got the wood planks and headed home for lunch. Beaurepaires phoned to say that they had been able to repair the tyre, but that the wheel hub cap was too badly cracked to go back onto the wheel. We were already one short, so I decided it was time to get a new set of wheel hub caps. I bought some after having the repaired tyre fitted and they look pretty good.

Nicky spent the morning baking, making slices for dessert, for 60 people at Alpha. She continued doing this after getting back from Life Group, and then headed off to Christ Church, where the Alpha course is being run, while I tided up the kitchen and enjoyed having a quiet evening.

Wednesday had a clear and promising start. Nicky had a hair appointmnet and wanted to shop for ingredients for making Alzheimer’s Curry for 60 for Alpha next week. I dropped her at the hairdressers and then did our own super marketing shopping. I texted Nicky to see if she was ready for collecting, but got no response. I assumed that she had started doing other things in town, so I went home. Some time later Nicky rang from the opticians to say she was having a problem with her phone. Later she rang from the supermarket so I was able to go and collect her and her heavy shopping. It transpired that her phone had decided it didn’t have a SIM card anymore. Popping it out and then back in again solved the problem. I spent the afternoon on a long support call and then made soup for dinner.

Thursday required a quick bit of shopping for Friday afternoon, and Nicky started cooking the curry. The weather was fine so Nicky also did laundry, and I started using the wood which I had purchased in Mitre 10 to fill in the gap under one of the fence panels. I had come up with an idea of how to do it and wanted to see if it worked, and it appears to do so. Nicky did some ironing in the evening, but being quite jaded we had an early night.

On Friday afternoon we had Fiona, Mandy and Steve from down the road coming for afternoon tea. Nicky was up early cooking brioche and scones. I made tuna tarts, curried egg sandwiches and open sandwiches of prosciutto and cream cheese. Even though Nicky had started before 7am, the cooking and preparation of the house took us until just a couple of minutes before our guests arrived. We had a very enjoyable time and enjoyed their company. After they had left I did a MacOnSite support call. We had soup and lobs for tea, followed by some telly and an early night for Nicky.

The overnight rain gave way to quite a bright start on Saturday. We breakfasted on boiled eggs and soda bread toast, piled into the car and drove over to Springvale for the Whanganui Home Show. We didn’t know quite what to expect, but knew that we wouldn’t be alone because the car parks were chocker. We found some street parking not too far away, but the breeze was quite biting during our walk to the Jubilee Stadium. The exhibition however, was well worth the effort and gold coin entry fee. We found some interesting stands and had some informative conversations. I arranged for two visits for quotes for work for next week, and we bought goodies: beer, bread, cheesecakes, earrings and Merino wool socks.

When we got home Nicky continued with curry production and I assisted a little. In the evening we had a good chat on the phone with Felicity in England, then watched Cool Runnings, about the Jamaican bobsled team at the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Today has been largely sunny, and was quite calm to start with. I did some laundry and Nicky headed off to church. On her return she continued with curry production and I did a little more work on “fence gap filling” and the ironing. I now feel I have a good way forward with how to minimise water and debris running under the fence onto Jacqui’s section. It will take me awhile to implement, but feels like a positive development.

Take care, Rick