Paul's new toy

Yep, it's a lawn mower. But not just any lawn mower, this one runs on Paul power. No petrol. Also doubles as a good cardio+strength workout since our lawn is one big hill. Now if we just had some real grass. As we learned on the innagural run of the Masport 2000, we have more weeds than actual grass. And to make matters worse, they grow sideways. So when you mow it, it looks fine until you try to rake. Then, as Paul says, it looks like the lawn has a bad comb over.

Guess we'll have to wait til fall to plant some lawn seed. Til then our lawn is a bit like Donald Trump.

Mucking in

Mucking in, getting stuck in, whatever you call it, we spent the weekend getting into the garden. It really defies description, so I'm going to rely heavily on pictures. Much of it is native trees, palms, ferns and other tropical-looking things that neither of us have any idea what to do with. We figured a good place to start would be getting rid of the dead looking stuff though, and that was more than a weekend's worth of work pulling out and raking up the dead fronds, leaves and branches, revealing lots of new and also unidentifiable stuff. Obviously, that must be the good stuff, so we watered and put down compost on the most promising looking specimens and will sit back and wait and see what develops. Please excuse our oh-so-fashionable gardening attire. We've both designated a couple "gardening only" outfits in order to keep all the dirt and allergy causing nasties outside. Paul also thought gardening would be a good time to counteract his everlasting golfer's tan by cutting off his tee-shirt. No worries, rest assured the garden is well fenced and private so he's not showing off his muscles to anyone but me and the bees.

Meanwhile, what I thought were just tropical grasses in the front garden have now started sprouting lillies! I could hardly contain my excitment long enough to snap a picture.

The Belles of the Brunch

Had our housewarming, aka "Blank Slate Brunch" on Sunday and after much panic on my part after not being able to get the oven to work properly (more on that saga later), the belles of the brunch turned out to be the simplest things that required no cooking: a side of hot smoked salmon with all the fixins from the local fish monger and fresh fruit kebabs with passionfruit puree drizzled on top. A hit with both kids and adults. Dead easy too. The puree keeps the fruit from going brown while sitting out for hours and "brings it to a whole other level" as one guest remarked. I'll be making those kebabs a lot this summer for BBQ season! Thanks to Hilda, who turned me on to the passionfruit puree idea. You can buy it in a jar here but soon I'll have fresh passionfruit to make my own! Even better.

surveying the land

So on Saturday morning, I'm hanging the laundry out to dry (yes, we actually do that here and save electricity for more vital functions) and what do I see peeping out in the bush but a rose. Upon closer inspection I found that we have at least 4 rose bushes in the side garden. Now as I retold this story to a friend back in the States, she said "Just how big is your yard, how can you not notice 4 rose bushes. I'm getting an image of your house as a vast estate!" Well not exactly, but it's not laid out like a typical house in the states sitting in a flat section with a yard and perhaps some bushes along the border. We're literally in the bush, as they say here. The house is perched on the top of a hill and about 20% of the land is relatively flat yet heavily landscaped in native palms, grasses, and other assorted things I haven't quite figured out yet. Then the other 80% of our roughly 900 square meter section is native bush going straight downhill. To give you an idea, here is our "backyard." (don't ask my why the picnic table is perched on a percarious platform on the brink of a steep cliff, though I would love to make that platform the taking off point for a rope swing, wheee!)



Now this included trees, wildflowers, large canna lillies (like a big Calla lily) and assorted other flora and fauna. So you can literally discover something new every day. I've staked out a small vege patch on one of the flat sections, but the rest I'm slowly trying to learn how to deal with.

The garden, and by garden in the Kiwi sense I mean entire section of land we own, has been largely ignored for the last year or so. So first we've got to clear all the dead palm leaves etc out and see what exactly we've got. Aside from what I've planted, so far I've identified:
A gathering of Bamboo trees,
4, perhaps 5 rose bushes mostly white,
many "cabbage" palm trees,
a very large Pohutekawa bush, otherwise known as the Christmas tree here for it's large red blooms that emerge in Dec.,
a native kowhai tree, whose yellow blossoms are the national flower of NZ,
many different ornamental grasses, some green, some red, some purple, and a host of unknowns.
Perhaps I'll start an "identify this plant please" section of the blog.