Day Off

We had a day off today.

Family

After dinner last night I suggested to Janice that we play hooky today. She agreed. We did. Instead of doing any work we just went out and enjoyed ourselves. First we both went into Wanganui to my Rotary club (well, not all mine) for breakfast at 7am, listened to the speaker telling us about best practice in hospital management systems, had a chat to our mates and then just set off, away, gone!

Hey! Where'd Janice go?

It was a fine, sunny day (except for Stratford which is always cloudy even when its sunny) and we simply drove up the west coast stopping at a couple of beaches we hadn't visited before, looking at a few shops, some scenery and stopping for morning tea and lunch on the way.

Mt Taranaki, a dormant volcano of around 2000 metres high, is a great sight to see when snow capped and without cloud. Unfortunately lack of cloud cover is something the mountain does not suffer from so we hardly saw it at all and even when we did it was not snow capped as this is the end of summer. we settled for looking at a lake and the beaches instead and went for a short walk.

After all that strenuous exercise we drove slowly back to Wanganui where we just had to check out the progress on the refurbishment of a restaurant in town. This restaurant has already had three incarnations since we've been here (ten years) and is now almost ready for a new life as an Italian restaurant. The new owner was out painting the entrance and window sills as was delighted to know he would have some customers once it opened, which he thinks will be in about 2 weeks (depending on a liquor licence and final decorative effects) . It certainly helps that he is Italian himself. It may be good.

I checked on the nursery while Janice rustled up some delicious dinner and we've had a lazy evening too.

Work

Nothing to report

Other

Nothing to report

And now - The diary Format

This is the new diary format, the latest ruse to get me into the blog again.

Nursery

This week we’ve been concentrating on setting up some trials under lights to see how our varieties respond to night-break lighting over winter. We have a number of good cut flower varieties and also some promising pot plant varieties that we want to evaluate. Our background in growing chrysanthemums many years ago means we still have the equipment to do this and some experience to draw on. We’ll also be conducting a small trial under lights with a heating regime.

The week has also seen the start of some major planning for next season.

Garden

Nothing much has happened this week as we’ve been busy on the nursery front. Janice has however completed her “French Rooster” quilt and the cleaning up work I did in the garden last week still looks good. I’ve still not pruned the Wedding Day rose. The grapes and apples are ready but the tomatoes won’t last long as they have the start of blight and I don’t want to spray them.

Family

Janice is well and very beautiful. I am well and as handsome as ever. Sarah is back into running, Emma had a hard week but is on the up and John is somewhere in Auckland.

Other

It looks like the barbeque I was planning for Sunday will be an indoor job as it may be cool and rainy with a breeze blowing in our faces – not a good look.

Images

I'm having problems moving images so I'll work on that next time

Back to the Blog

I've been doing a little gardening lately. Don't worry northern hemisphere folk, you'll get out there soon!

At the weekend I tidied, weeded etc all the area visible from the dining room, then swept the courtyard, pruned Cecil Brunner and the rampant weeping elm tree that was preventing us using our entrance gate, and then had a rest. In the evenings this week I've pruned the Westland(?) rambler over the woodshed and weeded the gardens near there, removed the peeling blue gate and generally tidied the area, then had a rest. Tonight I removed a few wheelbarrows full of soggy clay from around the back of the house and cleaned up the mess that the builders had made over a year ago. Then had a rest. Tomorrow evening I'll tidy up the area around the ferns near our water tank. Friday evening I'll just rest.

The Wedding Day rose which is now threatening to strangle the new porch is in line for a prune next weekend.

Janice has a broken tooth and needs a crown on it. She is booked in for next Tuesday. She'll get lots of sympathy from me of course, but I'll probably be quite busy gardening.

Could be I'll add a photo or two tomorrow.

Cheers

Terry

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