Bananas in the Wind and Walking in the Woods

Lavender , lavender ....
Your smell transports me to  my imaginary Mediterranean place in the sun!

The wind, the wind!  (I'm trying desperately to not swear in cyberspace.) It's blowing gales outside.  I forget each year about these #*$!! buggery winds.  They come with such force and vengeance from the weather gods in desperation for losing their hold on winter.  Just when all the spring blossoms are showing!  One can only watch with helplessness, as myriads of petals take flight and are whipped like confetti around the garden.

Bananas are hardy sub-tropicals which don't like frost but amazingly, always tenaciously spring back to life after a seemingly burnt-out death from winter frosts.  The one thing they can't withstand is leaf-shredding high winds, particularly when they are top-heavy with a huge bunch of fruit!  So a mercy dash out into the whip-ass wind saw me make a make-shift crutch for leaning against the swaying, toppling banana a few days ago.  I took 2 pieces of bamboo, lashed them together with an old bicycle tire inner, slashed in half length-ways, and then secured to the banana pseudo-stem with the other half of tyre inner.  I haven't been out to check today as it's blowing gales (again!).

Bamboo support

Banana crutches.  Does the job.

Worth Saving

The Banana flower at the bottom of the bunch

I have always made banana ice-cream in the Oscar machine which crushes frozen bananas and creates this amazing super-healthy ice-cream.  But of course, I love to experiment and so I have taken banana ice-cream one step further.  I created 3 different ice-cream flavours:  1- Banana, Date and Brazil nut ice-cream  Yum!  2- Banana, Vanilla, Brazil and Carob and 3- Banana, Double Cocoa, Vanilla and Stevia.  Each one unique and interesting.  The brazil nut mix gives a great textural nutty-fudge-like flavour.  These mixes were achieved by dropping all the ingredients into the blender and mixing them all up, then popping them into containers that are freezer-safe.  They are best eaten when you have taken them out the freezer and allowed them to thaw out for half an hour before eating.

Step 1: Frozen bananas through the pulverising Oscar machine

Step 2:  Throw all the mixes into the blender and buzz till well blended

Step 3:  Freeze overnight

I must remember to feed the bananas with some sheep poos, since they are fruiting, to improve the quality of fruit.  Yum, second hand sheep poos!  Well,  I guess sheep only eat grass, so we can still boast being vegetarian despite eating the sheep poos (just not the sheepie!).  Great stuff!

While out enjoying Rotorua, I took these pics at Hell's Gate Geothermal Reserve.  The afternoon sun was slicing through the trees and highlighting the orangey moss that grows in this sulphorous wonderland.  Beauty!

Gnarley roots dotted with mossy lichen

Where are the fairies??

Stunning lichen/moss growth patterns

And veering off at right angles to the Geothermal front where there was boiling, steaming water, back home, I've taken our old Vortex machine out of it's dusty storage to re-install in the kitchen.  The idea is that the powerful magnet at the bottom creates a vortex and energises and oxygenates the water for 9 minutes, similar to the action of water running down a mountain stream and being energised by all the rocky obstacles in the pathway in a natural vortex movement.  This "living water" re-hydrates the body with ease and allows the cells to better utilise the water.  We bought this little fancy-pants machine when Mike was ill and used it for about 2 years but grew out of it (just like fashions - they come and go).  I am simply re-instating this technology in our drink bottles!  Apparently, indoor plants and pets also benefit from this water!  I shall have to experiment with our kitty-cat.  Watch this space.........

Vortex machine to energise water

The miracle of Nature in all it's forms, colours, patterns ............

Cheapskate Millionaire

Yup, I'm a cheapskate millionaire!  I mean, not that I have a million buckaroonies stored in the bank but that I have everything I need (and then some!) and I hardly pay truckloads for what I have!  We just recently went to a garage sale across the road and picked up a vegetable drawer set for $20!  I have always wanted one but been reluctant to pay $260 for it.  So here is one, a little scuffed and worse for the wear but I dare say, with a little TLC (I'll wait for my Christmas holidays to do her up), she will be quite the little useful and beautiful piece of furniture she was meant to be.

Vegetable drawers with bottom screen for aeration
The top opens up .... great for storing root vegetables.

I found 4 books, and 2 Indian statues for a total of $4!  I am not into dust -collecting ornaments but these little guys will find another life as something else soon - a garden deity tucked away or furniture decoration perhaps.  We'll see.  The books are handy for holiday reading. (Nope, don't have an electronic kindle - don't even have a mobile phone!  Never had the need.)   Have already finished one book - An Equal Stillness by Francesca Kay - delightful book about an artist.  Well, delightful is not quite right - it was a bit tragic, but I loved the descriptions of the art materials and art works.  Made it seem so real!

And at the same garage sale, I found a table.  $10!  Not in the best of condition but a throw hides the hideous veneer top (which, I might add, is an extending table in working order).  The legs are good.  Almost as good as mine, my hubbie joked.  I think mine have a bit more substance to them!

Indian inspired knickknacks and holiday reading

Front room table served the purpose

Final resting place for our as-yet-unrestored
veggie drawers.

Now, while still on holiday at home, Mike took us off for a little romantic night away, for 2.  We stayed at a favourite motel in Rotorua (Mike stays every 2 weeks for work, and being on a loyalty card, for every 11 nights he stays, he gets one free night - ha!)  So off we toddled.  First stop - an Opp shop where I managed to score the coolest gear for a princely sum of $4 each (the blanket was only $2 as it has a burn mark).  All washed and fresh - pre-loved but new to me!  The woolen poncho is pure angora wool - beautifully soft and decadently warm!  I think I shall work a renovation miracle on the little woolen blanket.

Opp Shop treasures.

Then we headed off to Hell's Gate in Rotorua.  Rotorua is New Zealand's Yellow Stone National Park equivalent.  A thermal wonderland!  Now a little while ago, we purchased an Entertainment Book from our Kindergarten fundraiser - with all sorts of special deals and coupons.  Cost $60 but we have long since recovered our initial expense.  One of the coupons was a 2 for 1 at Hell's Gate, hence the outing.  It is the first time we have ever been there (even though we have been to Rotorua several times) and we were veritably impressed.  It has bowls of burping mud, venting plumes of steam, bubbling,boiling water pools in excess of 100degC and terrain akin to a lunar landscape.  The walk took us an hour, with lots to see along the way.  We felt it is a very under utilized tourist attraction - the only other folk we met were a french couple (we swapped cameras to take friendly couple pics for each other!) and as we were departing, a tiny handful of tourists arrived.  Where were the hordes?  The busloads of Japanese and German tourists we always see closer to the heart of Rotorua?  This place rocks!  I mean, erupts!

The sign says it all!

The GreeNZ at the Hot Foot Spa.

An impressive carving of Ruamoko (God of Earthquakes) at the entrance 

Other impressive carvings

Lunar-like landscape with French couple's feet in the Foot Spa

The silky gritty mud is great for exfoliating whilst immersing feet in the sulphuric
water which is so hot at first but then one gets used to it - Bliss!
The waters and mud are said to be hugely healing, especially for ailments
 like rheumatism  and arthritis.

Heat-tolerant Algae in the boiling waters creates great swirling patterns

The pungent sulfuric smell of cooked eggs adds to the adventure

Boiling Kakahi Waterfalls  where Maori warriors used to bathe their wounds after battles.  It is the largest hot water waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere!

 The walk was an easy one, not too many uphill gradients and it was well-signposted.  Some signs of a wicked sense of humour too - one sign indicating the Inferno pool which reaches 100degC had a second sign saying that anyone found guilty of littering the pools would be asked to retrieve the litter at their own risk!  Hee hee!

Boiling point spots

Not much grows in this environment apart from some scrubby tea-tree bushes.

Steam everywhere.  Anyone for a cuppa tea?  This pool reaches 122degC!!

After a wonderful morning checking out all the steamy sultry sights, we headed to another coupon deal - the Polynesian Spa for a soak in a alkaline mineral water spa.  Beautiful little secluded area for bathing but once we were immersed, we started to see "floaties" in the water!  Eeek!  Even at a 2 for the price of 1 ($35) coupon deal, it was a bit of a grossing out rip-off experience.  We saw pubes and what looked like spermy guys floating in the water (definitely not ours!!).  Mike tried to joke feebly that the temperature of the water was hot enough to kill any foreign sperm and so there was little chance of me becoming pregnant from a visit to the Polynesian Spa.  We hopped out before our 20 minute time limit light came on and showered off the sexual advances of the previous spa couple.  Won't repeat that one again in a hurry!  Gross!

The lovely little Love Pool

Coming back home, we always feel pleased to get back to our little sanctuary. I have just added a Balinese touch to our fence.  There is a lovely little reasonably priced Bali Shop in Katikati.  My Buddha plaque creates a lovely feel to our enclosed entrance courtyard and a great place to have our Friday night French Henry's wood-fired pizzas from the market.

A touch of Bali

Henri's pizza night, with freshly squeezed apple juice, all from the Friday night market.  Caspian yoghurt, sauerkraut and homegrown salad.   (Ooops!  The toilet roll is for wiping hands!)

A week still to go of blissful holidays............. time to tuck in to some more books!

Home Holidays

Rosemary framing the sun plaque

There is just one thing that I enjoy next to Tropical Holidays - that's Home Holidays!!  Time out of a busy routine to get stuff done!  What kinda stuff?  Anything and everything!  There is a ticking clock inside of me - one that wants to make time stand still, and in the absence of these magical powers, to make the most of every minute of my waking hours.  The lack of routines, getting dressed, to work on time, deadlines, general weekday business seems to shift and change gears.  I vacillate between making, creating, reading, fixing, planting, tending, contemplating and drinking endless cups of tea, dandelion and coffee!  Pure bliss!  And it is made all the more exciting when you can cross off the lists (yes, I am a listy-kinda-gal) and view all that you have achieved at the end of a busy but productively relaxed kind of day! And being a geeky list gal, I even add things onto a list, that weren' on the list, but that I achieved anyway at the end of the day and feel smug with myself!   Bet I am not making much sense to the sane ones reading this............ it's just that I have an awful lot of things I wish to do and achieve before I die.  Holidays are good times to catch up on those things!

The first up:  a whack of hand and body balms.  I have been running skinny on this since I finished my last one a few weeks before the end of the school term - and no time to make any up till now.

Simple body balm ingredients:  about 2 TBspn beeswax, cup of cold-pressed sesame seed oil and olive oil and essential oils of choice.  Lip balm is also another option to make with the same ingredients, just use more beeswax to oils, and use "edible essential oils like peppermint.   Easy peasy, and I make enough to keep me going for a good few months, and some extras to give away.

Ingredients for hand and body balm

Finished tins of hand and body balms.  Great for tucking one in a handbag,
one next to the bed and one on the windowsill in front of the washing up sink!

Using recycled mint tins.

A quick jar refill of Gardeners hand and foot scrub: add 6 TBspn organic sugar to a jar, mix in 2 TBspn olive oil and some peppermint essential oil.  A teaspoon of this can be used to exfoliate hands or feet to produce the softest of skin - the key to romantic back massages from a gardener!

Hand and Foot Scrub

Last weekend, I pulled out some berries left over from my smoothie making expeditions, and combined gooseberries with strawberries to make a mixed berry jam.  Looks yum, haven't tried it yet but no reason why it shouldn't taste as good as it looks!  Jam is sooo easy to make - I use 1kg fruit to 750g sugar (organic golden).  Boil it up till it gives the setting test (actually, I don't bother too much about this - some of my jams don't set as well as domestic goddesses would have you strive for, but it still passes the taste test.  This is mostly due to the fact that I like to use less sugar than conventional jam-making would advise).  

Frozen berries

Gooseberry/Strawberry jam

And whilst the jam is bubbling like a witch's cauldron of spider legs and frog spawn, a spin of the blender produces some damn fine parsley pesto - I'm hooked!  The time has arrived in that gardening calender, when we can go into the garden and start picking our salad ingredients: small kale and silver beet leaves, nasturtium flowers and leaves, parsley, calendula flowers, lettuces are growing nicely....... add a few sun-dried tomatoes, olives and home-made pickles and pesto in the salad dressing............ yay!  Summer living is the way to go!  I know it's still spring, but knowing that summer is beginning to peek around the corner is thrilling!

Parsley pesto

Home-grown salad

The garden is definitely awakening, seedlings are popping up out of their soil substrate and flowers are brightening up the corners of the garden.  The last week and a half has brought the infamous spring equinox weather - evil spiteful winds and whipping rain showers.  But when the clouds part and the sun shines through, there is hope.  I am amazed that the garden has not been damaged ... seems everything has withstood the battering and ramming weather bomb and come out without too much bruising.  We did have to take our garden chimes down, as they were keeping us awake all night through the wind storms!  Clang, clang, clang - like living in a Buddhist monastery where they are constantly banging the lunch-time gong!

Beautiful baby sunflowers

The colour of these un-named flowers brings a smile to me!

Seed saving:  I have collected many seeds for spring/summer planting.  Pumpkins, kamo kamo, beans, coriander, dill, corn, nz perpetual spinach etc.  Many of my seeds are 5th or 6th generation GreeNZ seeds.  Meaning, I have been collecting them each year, from the same original parent seeds.  If you keep on doing this, the theory is that the plants become stronger for your growing conditions that they have been acclimatised to.

Saving seeds.  My daughter looking over my shoulder has insisted I
add that she cleaned and sorted these ones in such a lovely way!
(It was worth it for the kiss I just got as thanks!)

Holiday Gardening To Do List:

• Mulch blueberry bed with untreated cedar sawdust.  Check.   Done.  No weeds to pull for a few months.

Sawdust-mulched blueberry bed

• Pip fruits collared and pheromone-trapped.  Check.  Done 2 weekends ago.  Hopefully catch those buggery coddling moths!

Pear tree with cardboard collar to lure coddling moth ladies

Pheromone trap for coddling moth guys

Another cardboard collar to lure female coddling moths to lay their
eggs in here instead of the apple blossoms

• Set up tomato trellis for planting time.  Check.  Quite a good sturdy system even I say myself.

Trellised bed for tomatoes.

Seedlings hardening off outside.

• Plant out and protect salad garden.  Check.  All collared with anti-slug and snail deterrents and Quash bait.

Outdoor salad bed with lettuces, mibuna, rocket and brassicas.

Old catering size tins make great wind breaks, as well as snail deterrents.
The snail bait, Quash, is organic copper-based and non-toxic.

Lettuces in the hothouse.

• Mulch and suppress garlic bed.  Check.  Found some old wool fleece left over from building.  I think the garlic is cosy, warm and happy.

Snugly bedded garlic crop

Not sure why I added the frame, just like the sculptural effect.

• Sow seeds.  Check.  Have tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, beans, chillies and kale, cabbages and caulis all waiting to be planted out.  Next round coming up soon.  Just direct-planted my beetroot today.

• Get mike onto bamboo harvesting for stakes and support structures.  Check.  He did that with our German Helpxchange a little while back and they are ready to use.

Bamboo supply for garden structures

What now?  A good holiday read perhaps.  Lucky me!

Fatcat Shanti sun-bathing in the spring sunshine

Bliss!