The Little Things On The Day

So while the men were doing what men love to do with diggers and the such when I was invited to "Come For A Ride To Paeroa" I had my new tool and filled some of my spare time with a few shots.

Just the little things you notice but some times actually just ignore....

 

Come For A Ride To Paeroa

Harry asked me after August’s South Waikato's Four Wheel Drive Club meeting if I would like to come for a drive with him to Paeroa. He had volunteered to take up some cut down concrete power line poles to Paeroa. So I thought why not - the weather wasn’t supposed to be very good for doing much outside in the garden so a ride with Harry for the morning would be nice.

I woke early with the alarms going off (we were supposed to meet in Matamata at 9.00am) and had a cuppa. After the alarm-going-off countless times and Harry pushing the snooze button, I decided that enough was enough and at 7.30am he needed to be up for some breakfast so we could get there in time. “We still needed to fill up on fuel” he said, so he had less than hour.

Needless to say we were late…

Once in Matamata Kevin loaded the sawn off poles into the three trailers with a forklift. Steve and Harry helped ‘direct’ the poles so that they would sit well in the trailers.



We travelled up to Paeroa, through the Karangahake Gorge and up past the Waitawheta turnoff.








Memories of primary school camps for the cherubs came to mind as we drove past the Waitawheta
Camp.

Well it seemed that we were going a lot further than just up from Paeroa but as I said it was nice to go for a drive and I had my latest knitting project with me so I was happy. It was getting chilly but we had the Isuzu’s heater blasting to keep us warm and to cool the engine down as it was struggling a little with the load in the trailer as we wound up and around, the now dirt track, to our destination.

When we arrived there was the digger or “dig” as Harry referred to it. It was unloaded from its trailer and proceeded to unload each trailer of poles stacking them for when they would be used.










The South Waikato Four Wheel Drive Club (SW4WDC) had volunteered to help with an issue arisen with work on the Waitawheta 4WD track.




There has been a lot of misuse of the track and it was getting worse. The Department of Conservation (DOC) closes the track from 1st May to the Friday before Labour weekend but someone (or a group) have been breaking the locked gate and using the track.

DOC have been trying for some time, to keep the track locked but the culprit keeps breaking in and the track is getting worse with huge ruts filling with water after rain and just getting bigger and making the track quite impassable.

With DOC saying, if it doesn’t stop they will close the track completely, the club decided to help as they like to use it when it is open for its allocated season.

The SW4WDC are putting the concrete poles into the track path to stop vehicles going past and will help fill the huge ruts in the track so that by the spring/summer season the track will be usable for all.



This is all well and good but I didn’t know that this little exercise was going to take, what I would call, (I hear echo’s from Miranda) all day!

I would have at least brought the thermos of hot water and makings for a cuppa and a bite to eat. All we had were some lollies in a bag and the glove-box and by 12.30 we were in to them.







As it now seemed we were here for the day I joined the guys and the “dig” as it dug and graded dirt to fill some of the first rut and then finally insert the posts, ducking for cover as a couple of squally showers passed over us.

We finally made our way off the hill at 4.00pm calling in at the Joker Café for some well over due lunch.


So…

The following is a little entry of what the big boys do when the big toys come out

or

an exercise in good citizenship towards the environment.

You can click the You Tube clips in the corner to enlarge them and make sure you have  the sound on 

Bringing up the poles

View down to the car park

Working out the spot for the barriers 

First post hole

Second hole; Note: a frozen Harry

Digging

Trying to pick up the second pole

At last the poles are in 

As seen from the car park.

The Winter Garden

Our garden is still doing well despite the cold wet winter days.

The section of this year’s plot that has not been planted yet is continually being increased with stable scrapings (note the bags we collect free from the stable gates in Matamata, in the next plot to the left), ash from our wood burner and the ‘empties’ when I clean out the chooks nesting area. It is then dug over with a fork and raked. This keeps feeding the garden with nutrients and helps keep any weeds that might pop up, at bay.


We have been eating silver beet leaves when stirred into soups, casseroles and stir-fries, if not quickly steamed and served with a little butter. The plant was one transplanted from the old garden, so it was good to see it survive.

















There has also been the occasional meal off the transplanted broccoli plants left over from the old garden and safely regrowing after the shift.

And I am pleased to say that we have had our first meal off a couple of the new broccoli plants and despite them being home grown, there were no caterpillars (Katrina) and when served at our annual mid-winter feast there was none left over. I try not to use any pesticides in the veggie garden as I am still not convinced they are safe even if the correct period of ‘waiting’ is adhered to and they are washed thoroughly. This means in the heat of summer, there is often a long process of picking out the caterpillars when they are being prepared to eat and sometimes they will still fall out upon cooking. If I have still been amiss they may still end up on one’s plate, an event Katrina will never miss telling me so.

It was lovely to go and harvest some greens from the garden for our meal with the family and even more of a joy to have young Natalie help with the carrying of the basket.

One of the bonuses of having the garden run amuck and the parsnips going to seed last summer is that there are lots of self-sewn parsnips coming up and those that I have let grow are now just coming on ready to eat. We are even having a little side serving of salad leaves from the lettuce plants, when I peel off some of the outside leaves allowing the plants to continue to grow and mature.

Another hat....

This time for a friend.

In a post from earlier this year I shared about one of my Pinterest boards called "Things I want my Mum to Make" and the little earflap hat I crocheted for one of my granddaughters.

Our minister and wife have just had their first grandson and the minister's wife thought it would be really nice if she could give an earflap hat to him especially as it will be winter in the USA, where they live, when Noah will be six months old.

She came around and we hunted through my bag of leftover balls of wool and she found a couple of colours she liked.

It didn't take long to make up especially as I had already made the first one and I knew not only how to make it but the best way to make it nice and thick and warm.

I used some left over double knit wool but a smaller crochet hook than last time so the stitches were closer together and so thicker...

This meant the tension was different so I actually had to undo it a few times to make sure it was going to be big enough.

To make it bigger I just had to increase the number of 'increase' rows at the crown before starting the rounds with no increases that would then make the sides of the cap.
Then it was just a matter of making up the ear flaps starting at the right position in the hat.

This time I made a woggle to go on the ties so the hat could be secured under the chin by pulling it up but still having the ties joined in a loop. This is so that if the hat slipped off it would just hang round the neck.

And then to finish, I made a nice thick pompom.

When I was a child, I was given a kit (similar to the one in the pic) as we often give to young girls who like doing crafty things and I made pompom toys many years ago. I have kept the plastic 'frames' and they are really handy now for making pompoms for finishing off outfits instead of having to thread wool round and through a couple of circles of cardboard..

The New Zealand Wood Pigeon

A Pigeon by any other name, the New Zealand wood pigeon is known as the Kuku or Kukupa in the far North, but the Kereru by the remainder of the country except on the Chatham Islands where it is called the Parea.

When we were sorting out the plum tree after the leaking spouting and then the kitchen window, Harry spied in the neighbours privet tree a wood pigeon. It was having a wonderful time feasting away on the berries and enjoying the sun shine. We figured it was one of the reasons why we are often pulling out the privet trees that seem to sprout up around the section - trees known to aggravate asthmatics (and my sinuses).

But I couldn't resist taking some pics of it.

Tirau’s history is recorded as a town known as a resting place for the travellers on their last stop from Auckland or the north before travelling by horse pack over the Mamaku Ranges to Rotorua before the railway line opened up.

It is also reported that the Wood Pigeon came to rest and to feed on the berries and flowers of the Cabbage trees.

Early Maori spoke of Tirau as a wonderful place to catch the Kereu or native pigeons. The birds would feed up and become very heavy and reluctant to fly off so were easy prey.

The birds used the many Cabbage trees in the area as overnight resting places and large parties of Maori came and gathered them at night.

For this reason Tirau is also known as the catching place.


Very interestingly the Kereru is still a sort after delicacy by some, since I have taken these photos, even though it is a Native protected bird.

Ngapuhi elder Sonny Tau has stepped down as the chairman of Tuhoronuku - the iwi group charged with negotiating a Treaty of Waitangi settlement with the government - while he's under investigation.