What a difference a day makes

Yesterday was one of those days where almost everything went wrong. Today was one of those days where almost everything went right. No, I'm not going to speculate about tomorrow.

Because things have gone well there isn't much to blog about as I've spent most of the day in front of my pc writing strategic plans and project management type stuff for the business - all deadly boring unless you are involved, when it becomes extremely exciting.

Actually it became so exciting that I completely forgot about an important Rotary meeting I should have attended tonight and by the time I rang they were well into business and it was too late for me to promote some things I needed to, but there will be time later, hopefully. Whoops.

Of course by 3pm today I was ready for a break so I did another bike ride round my 40 minute circuit and was delighted to find that, even though it was a good training run, I was absolutely not puffed at the end and felt like I could do it again, but was a good boy and returned for more work.

Oh, the ploughing did get done yesterday and very well too.

Enough for today

Cheers

Terry

Open Week End

Wow, nothing since Thursday. Well, it has been really busy.


Last weekend was our annual open weekend when we throw the nursery open to all comers and show off our delphiniums. Nothing unusual happened except that the weather was fine, just the right temperature and calm, something that is very unusual for this time of year. We were extremely pleased.

Janice did most of the work while I juggled the incidentals - like pollinating some trials, fixing some irrigation and generally hanging around trying to stay out of trouble. The sun brought our lots of customers and lots of lookers and we met up with many old friends. All in all it was a successful weekend.

Saturday evening was the Daybreak Rotary Club Christmas do so we didn't have to cook dinner after the day in the nursery. It was a great evening of boulles "petanque" style and charades with rather nice food too.

Sunday was dinner at the Gaskin's place so we didn't have to cook then either and tomorrow is the backgammon Christmas dinner. All in all some very lazy days not in the kitchen.

The delphiniums are now well into their pollination and the bulk will indeed be mostly finished by Christmas. The new season's trials are not yet flowering but some day lilies I bought from Nan Ripley a couple of years ago are beginning to show off so that's what you see in this blog.

All for now.

Cheers

Terry

The Visit

Today started well with a bike ride at 6:30am. I hate riding in the mornings but this morning it was reasonably calm (only a 5-10 knot wind) and forecast of increasing to 15-20kts later in the day, so I opted for the early start. My legs ached but the main problem was the sun in my eyes on the way home. I'd forgotten about that.

After the ride I made a huge list of tasks to be completed today and I'm happy to say, managed to complete them by blog time. The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the trip to our nursery that the Home of Compassion organised for 7 people, including my mum (rest home) and dad. Dad is in Hospital care in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease and is only able to visit with special wheel chair transport. They came to see all the delphiniums in flower.

Mum has seen the nursery before and remembers but dad's memory has been so far gone for so long that we wondered if it would register. Dad has been a grower almost all his life, growing tomatoes and chrysanthemums mainly, so being round the nursery would maybe catch his interest we thought. Well, it sure did. He was actually smiling and animated for the first time in ages. Twas a joy to behold! Janice wheeled him round while I helped some of the others then I took over the driving. He loved it. Later, in the packing shed, he ate a great afternoon tea and when I moved outside he made a great lurch to follow, which he could not do of course, so he got another ride out to see more delphiniums. It was real cooooooool.


Another item of note in the day was the White Ribbon March against violence upon women.

A few hundred of us males turned up to march up the central street of Wanganui to raise awareness that violence against our womenfolk will not be tolerated. It may or may not make much difference on its own but combined with growing publicity and awareness of how much family violence there is in our society and that it is not acceptable it will contribute to a change in attitude, we hope. So just remember fellas - cut it out! face the issues, be a man and most of all, love your family, they are the best treasure you will ever have.

So, against those two items the rest of the day pales but between the excitement I sure got a heap of work done too, including checking up on our trial delphiniums at Bristol's place. They are doing fine, just like the weeds.

Now I'm going to play a little guitar and wait for some visitors to arrive.

Cheers

Terry

Rotary Monday

On Sunday we normally eat with Robert and Jennifer. This Sunday we had two other people to cook for.....but they didn't come as work intervened...so we got to eat too much very nice food. Such is life, and to top it off I didn't go for a ride either. Such is life. But I did get some good gardening done. Such is life.


Monday at 7am is almost always Rotary time and this Monday was one of those almost always days. I got to listen to a very interesting talk from a prospective new mayor of Wanganui who came along to tell us about himself. Himself is a safety engineer specialising in coal mines, latterly in China. Safety in Chinese mines in improving, it needed to.



There was also a presentation of a $9,500 cheque to Birthright Wanganui. This was the proceeds of the Last Night of the Proms concert our club produced back in August. Hence our club president, Val is decked out in the Union Jack for the occasion.

The rest of the day was spent getting seed orders out, doing organising stuff and pollinating the trials.

Now can I do Farmville please?

Cheers

Terry

On being a Good Day

Today was another good day on a nursery in Wanganui. The sun shone brightly upon the weeds that were hoed up this morning. The wind has added its drying effect to that of the sun and now,
with luck, there will be a little rain tomorrow to wash in the fertiliser that I spread over the newly weeded delphiniums. What more could a grower want? See before and after images.


Last August in New Zealand was a warm and sunny one. Since then although it has been cooler than normal on occasion, many occasions actually, but there has been a great deal of sunshine too. This has resulted in the delphiniums starting to flower about 2 week earlier than normal and it now looks like we'll get all the first flush of pollinating done before Christmas. Yay! We'll see.



One of the jobs I have to do this season is to finally sort out a stable cross for a bright blue with a black bee. We have one that gives blues with black bees but it has too much variety of colour, too many shades of blue. Another cross has a beautiful blue but gives plants that are too weak. This year we will nail it....please. The experimental crosses from last year have only just been planted so we won't know for a couple of months yet, in the mean time I'm making more crosses.



I've really let my fitness slip over the winter and today was the third bike ride of a let's get fit again campaign. I'm not riding far yet (never do) and not quickly either but I reckon that in a couple of weeks I might be ready to time myself without fear of being too embarrassed. We'll see on that score too. Today my legs protested a bit but least I finished without being out of breath.

This evening was an important one. I accompanied a male friend to a Rotary club in town in a bid to encourage participation in a male march against violence towards women. This will be on 25th November - White Ribbon Day. Let's hope we get a good turnout! See http://whiteribbon.org.nz/

Cheers

Terry

Navel Gazing

Mondays are usually gentle starts to the week which begins with a Rotary meeting at 7am. This morning's meeting was however unusually boring because the club spend all of the time navel gazing - at best uncomfortable and at worst disturbingly ugly and boring. It was an "at worst" gaze this am.

Rotary clubs do from time to time - well every year actually - worry about how their membership is aging and falling. Some of them do constructive things about that, getting out into the community and publicising their efforts to help others. Other clubs navel gaze, write lists of possible members and suggest someone approach them, then go back to navel gazing. I fear we have just done the latter.

Fortunately we had a hugely successful, well publicised project a few months ago which does, and did wonders for recruitment and retention. Some of the team below:-


Please club, leave our navel alone and if you must gaze at navels, please make it someone else's.

The rest of the day has been spent battling with an irrigation system, tidying my desk and doing the Monday chores and other sundry work, and visiting mum and dad.

Right now I'm going off to navel gaze. No, I won't tell you. It's none of your business!


Cheers

Terry