Private: 13th February 2007
February 13th, 2007 - Posted in Blackball, food & drink - by Sarah|
Loads seems to have happened since our last blog. Having a house, garden and kitchen has enabled us to to do some things that we’ve been dying to do for ages (make beer) and has also forced us to do some other things that have kept us busy (make a bed).
First a bit of admin. We’ve created two new blog categories:
BEER – Brendhan’s beer is making good progress so far but won’t be ready to drink for another 3 weeks or so. He has started a beer blog for anyone interested in the geeky details of brewing.
CHICKENS – Chickens have occupied a fair amout of time too as you can see in the 2 ‘chicken updates’ added earlier today.
NB If you just want to see one of these you can use the categories selection tool on the right to select the subject you’re interested in.
Back to what we’ve been up to…
Having our own bed was a real milestone. No offence to the generosity of those who have put us up since we left Warriston Rd 8 months ago but there’s nothing to compare to your own bed! Sarah made our own king size futon type base and bought a natural fibre futon mattress to go on top… it’s fantastic.
Brendhan planted the other half of the round veggie garden with seeds and filled another corner with seed potatoes and some black turtle beans.
Veggie garden after three and a half weeks.
Everything is growing really well and we’re spending a few minutes every day weeding and squishing caterpillers.
Our compost is also doing well. We’ve got two big bins for for kitchen waste and a huge pile that was from our original clearance of the veggie garden. It gets turned (by Brendhan so far) once a week, when it starts to cool down, and has halved in size already.
Our compost heap after clearing the veggie garden.
On the day that Brendhan made beer Sarah made a batch of Ginger Beer from a recipe in a magazine. However, we didn’t have a pot large enough for the full quantity so had to halve everything. Being Sarah, she didn’t quite follow the recipe but put the full quantity of lemon juice in. The result is nice and drinkable but definitely not GINGER beer.
LEMON and Ginger Beer.
Sarah has been busy in the kitchen making cakes, bread and hot cross buns. She’s also had her first attempt at making Wensleydale cheese. We won’t know for a few weeks whether it’s worked as it needs to rest for a while to let the flavour develop.
First attempt at Wensleydale.
Brendhan built emergency defences for the veggie pa-tch when we noticed that the wild chickens from next door were showing an interest. (For those who have never been near NZ a Pa is a Maori word for a fortified place.) Sarah added the notice – just to make sure.
The Veggie Pa.
For entertainment we’ve been re-watching some of our DVD collection and have also made it to the cinema a couple of times to see The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine. Both really good but totally different – one a gritty drama and the other a black comedy. Both recommended.
We’ve also both signed up for an evening course in Hydroponics at the Tai Potinui campus in Reefton. We had the first session last night and while the theory side may leave something to be desired it looks like it will be very hands-on so should be interesting. We came back home with seeds and planting medium to have a go with.
Brendhan was away this weekend fetching his Capri from Wanganui so to keep busy Sarah made another batch of Ginger Beer, this time following the recipe and making the full amount. It’s even been bottled in glass so looks like the real thing. We won’t know if it tastes like it until Thursday when the first bottle can be drunk.
Real Ginger Beer.
Our project room is also in full swing and we’ve been making contact with Building Officers, engineers and architects.
The project wallboard.
It’s looking fairly positive for our straw bale house at the moment despite there not being another in the Coast region. Brendhan is off on a NZ Strawbale course next week to make some contacts and find out more about the NZ sepcific requirements and solutions.
And finally, last but not least, tomorrow is the big day – we take possesion of 139 Camerons Rd. We’ve not decided yet when we’ll move on as there are many factors at play and we have another 2 months of lease to go here. In the meantime there’s lots we can be getting on with…
Private: Humpy – In Memoriam (or A Tale of 12 Chickens)
February 13th, 2007 - Posted in Blackball, chickens - by Sarah|
When we’d only been here in Blackball a few days we started seeing a couple of chooks wandering about.
Two wandering chooks.
Then, one day, they were joined by a third; with 9 chicks! We had hours of fun watching them larking about (well, Sarah did anyway…).
“Are you listening to your mother?”
Chicken weight lifting.
“Look, we can fly!”
“What’re you looking at?”
The chick on the right of the last photo is (or rather was) Humpy.
Humpy was the runt of the litter. He was much smaller than all the other chicks and got his nickname through standing hunched up like he was cold all the time. We assumed that he was the youngest although we have since found out that two of his siblings had been ‘got’ by their owner’s dog. They all belong to the guy next door who isn’t there very much and just lets them roam about.
One day Sarah saw Humpy standing alone on the lawn shivering. His Mum and the other chicks were 20 meters or so away and Humpy would occaisionally try to move towards them and fall over forwards onto his beak. Sarah rushed to the rescue, putting together an emergency responce centre from a plastic crate and a reading lamp.
Humpy in ER.
We got the temperature up to 25 degrees and eventually he stopped shivering and his beak ceased to chatter. Later in the day he even ate a little and started cheeping. By 5pm he seemed recovered enough to return to his family.
It was a very cold night and the next morning he was in an even worse state. Sarah came to the rescue again and as the day warmed up put Humpy in his crate in a patch of sunshine on the back porch. His cheeping attracted his mother who climbed up onto the deck and demanded his return in no uncertain terms.
The next few days were very hot and Humpy seemed to be feeling better and was able to keep up and peck and scratch with the rest.
Then one day this week Humpy was gone. Perhaps he took a chill in the night, or perhaps he was taken by one of those monstrous four legged things. Whatever happened, Humpy won’t need to worry about the cold ever again.
