Wow!! I have been running as fast as a mongoose between traps, with a hunter in hot pursuit!! At last, I can breathe just a little deeper! Since returning from our tropical holiday in Rarotonga, we have had 2 weeks of finishing off our solarium building project (so many little details to think of) and of course, getting all our ducks in a row in order to plant our first trees in a local reserve - Kati KaiWay is born! A community project dedicated to planting fruit trees in a local reserve, in order to strenghten our town's economic resilience in the face of future economic uncertainty. Free fresh fruit for all. What an awesome project to be part of - it blew me away to see about 45 people attend, amazing to consider people gave up their precious weekend time to come and help dig and plant trees, for the good of the collective! Heartwarming fuzzies!
A talented helpxchange American couple arrived in the midst of all the chaos of our lives, to live alongside us for 2 weeks. Justin is a chef (lucky us!!) and has been cooking up a storm in the kitchen, giving me a much-needed break in the kitchen! Mekayla is a jeweller-cum-artiste extraordinaire! They have been a whole heap of help, allowing me to focus on the KaiWay project. 8 cubic metres of firewood has been beautifully stacked in our new recycled firewood shed. Yeeha! We will be very warm next winter! And our firewood will be tinder-dry! Makes sense to buy your firewood at the end of winter, for the following winter!
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| What a beautiful sight..... geometric patterns! |
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| Paintings of African ladies, done by my sister-in-law , Mary-Anne Lang. |
During the lead up to our Kati KaiWay project last Saturday, everything that could go wrong, did! But on the day (Saturday), all was good and fine and well! People pitched in, last minute plans were made and some miracles were performed! We busied ourselves digging turf, loading barrows-ful of tree and leaf mulch for the extended fruit tree beds and planting feijoa and plum trees. We will have to follow up with a second planting day next winter, to add the next groups of trees......... citrus, persimmons and figs. By the end of it, I had to take a Nanna-Nap to recover!
On Sunday we worked in our garden, I managed to plant a whole bunch of new seedlings - Mignonette. Did a wheelbarrow load of weeding and managed to set up the bird netting to protect the new fat strawberries that the birds are snacking on. I also re-erected the blueberry enclosure.
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| Strawberry netting |
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| Blueberry enclosure to protect our budding blueberries and strawberries |
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| Set up another passionfruit trellis on left and bean frame on right. |
I've direct-sown some black Maori corn behind the bean frame, and new Hopi black beans on the bean frame. Below are some further images taken on the weekend, I love the profusion of colour.......... It's great to see little buzzy bees and busy bumblebees at work.
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| Newly painted bench by Mekayla |
A week has passed since I started this post - the weather has improved and the garden is smiling!
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