A day in the office

Not a lot happened today. Some work in the nursery in the morning but otherwise a day spent in the office looking after mum and dad's affairs. This doesn't seem that much but when there are powers of attorney shared over two parents between two brothers, one in Invercargill and the other in Wanganui, it makes simple things much more difficult. Then of course there is always the counter intuitive web sites that have to be visited while attending to these affairs and, well, the day went.

Today was however saved somewhat in the evening when an old friend of Janice's (mine too) called in for dinner and a chat and I got to forget about a Rotary committee meeting. Life has its compensations!

Thanks Carmel

A lovely time of year

The images below have been taken over the last few days while I've been a tad busy with delphiniums, delphiniums, delphiniums and delphiniums and the occasional dahlia.










but mostly delphiniums









There are trials to pollinate.










There are gardens to visit to check on our delphiniums.









There is breeding work to do.

Bad Habits

It looks like I'm slipping into bad habits. Actually, it only looks that way. I'm really slipping out of bad habits. Farmville was the trigger for reminding me about blogging but lately I've been giving Farmville the cold shoulder as other pressing business has been, well, pressing. So you see I'm giving up the bad habit of Farmville but now have to find another one to remind me about my good habit of blogging. Any recommendations?

The weather is cool and showery and ideal for growing, especially weeds.

I've been inside doing book work all day.

I want to be outside pollinating my experimental crosses.

The new crop of flowering delphinium trials have produced some fantastic plants but they are under wraps until later as they are very significant and I need to evaluate them thoroughly before possible release. Yeah I know, that's mean!

I'm busy.

Cheers

Terry

Birds,electrical work, garden and back to work,

Wow! Time has flown again and I have a few things to catch up on.

Sunday Jan 3rd.

Robert, seen in the image below screwing up a lighting system, picked me up at 6am and carted me to a place at the back of beyond. We arrived at the back of beyond at around 9am and by 9:20 were starting on a job wiring the implement shed and workshop of a local farmer at Whakahoro (a good place for you to search for on Google maps).

We had no trouble communicating with the male members of the Steele family as they were all Richards. Richard - the 1st, 2nd and 3rd (Grandad, dad and his son) and we just loved the spread put on for lunch too.
Well, we toiled all day until about 4pm when the job was declared done, helped Richard 1st, who obviously wanted a hand with some Scotch (Thanks Richard) and toddled back home. By the way, the homestead had beautiful views of the Wahnganui River and national park but I forgot to take a picture.

Monday Jan 4th








This was a lovely day spent gardening, doing a little work, walking around a lake with my lovely Janice, having mum visit, visiting dad and otherwise relaxing and enjoying a national holiday.

And so to today the highlight of which was seeing a sparrow feeding off the peanut butter and bird seed pine cones that Aimee and Jessica had made during their Christmas visit. I thought they would have had better things to eat but over the past few days I'd noticed the cones seemed to have much less seed on them, but put that down to rain washing it off. However, this evening a sparrow came right up to the one at the window and helped itself. Janice noticed and I took a few shots to prove it so there you are Aimee and Jessica, your bird feeders worked!!!!!!
And what else today?
A visit to Bristol's place to check up on our delphinium trials (no images, top secret) a couple of hours watering the trees planted a few weeks ago, a few more hours working, a little gardening, a game of Catan with Franziska, the young German woman staying with us at present, and soon, bed.

Cheers

Terry

New Year's Day

A lazy day in paradise.

Sunny

Warm

Beautiful