Man,I love the spring

What a fantastic day in paradise today [well until 5 o'clock when the wind started to belt down off the snow], but up till then it was perfect , and very energizing so my day went something like this ....cup of tea dig some garden ...cup of tea ,feed some little trees and mulch ....cup of tea ,paint the sign and transplant daffodils ...cup of tea ,plant out more snowdrops
...BIG glass of home-brew and talked to my old mate Steve,and Jennie, from Kent. What more could one ask for in life ? [well OK]

No excuses [well only a couple]

Sorry folks ,it hasn't been a good week for blogging ,too many great visitors ,too much wind [both inside and out !],always with one ear out for the phone about my mother . However I had a full days work today down at Lauderdale ,David is grubbing out all the elm suckers ,clearing out the undergrowth and then we are going to plant snowdrops and bluebells and in a decades time visitors will come by the busload .The first photo is of Mt St Bathans in the early morning light ,the rest are self explanatory. Cheers .........These are the first daffodils of the season !! 5cm tall !

Manus work

"Evening" I'll try to get away from snowdrops tonight ,only two photos ,but they are truly amazing .
My sister Margaret rang this evening to say that my mother is VERY low ,so I may have to go Nth again very soon ,please don't give up on checking the blog from time to time .
The beauty of it is that the blogs don't go away so you can catch them at any time .
Manu has this brilliant studio that looks out onto the Wellington airport ,beach and headland ,and there is always something happening in the view .I'm waiting for a triptych.

Snowdrops forever

Back in Cambrian at last !! I've had a brilliant time away ,7 days in Wellington and 3 days in Auckland ,MOST things went well ,but we nearly left Manu in Wgtn by not getting him a boarding pass!! ,and in Auck. I gave Bob & Liz the wrong address [1 number out !!]so they missed the gathering ,sorry fellas. But anyway it was fantastic to get home
, I love this place ,particularly when the snowdrops resemble a recent snowfall ,they are just amazing ,so here's a couple of photos .I'll write a bit about Manus work tomorrow .

Spring migration

Well the snowdrops are half out and the birds are making their nests ,so just enough time to fly Nth and check out the family before the bluebells start ringing ,it would break my heart if I wasn't here to see them .So I will be off the blog for a couple of weeks ,I don't think that I could handle internet cafes ,maybe the coffee ,but not the computers ,they just become so personal don't they . Thank you for those who read this ,I have no clue ,maybe there is no-one ,but I will work on getting better when I get back

Little Bob Peep

"Evening all "....I lost my sheep a couple of days ago ,the whole flock ,all two of them !! all my black -tracking skills didn't help me to find them .Fortunately a neighbouring farmer [NOT next-door-neighbour ] asked me if I'd lost a couple of sheep....so they arrived back today, SHORN and DRENCHED ! how's that for neighbourliness ? I should've had a hundred !

Venus amongst the snowdrops

I listened to a commentator on the radio this morning talking about blogging ,well it seems to me that blogging is as wide a term as "art" or "sport", it's purely what the blogger wants it to be ,serious ,humorous ,informative ,or just a load of old bollocks .It's then up to the recipient to decide if they want to follow .I wonder what happens to you if you get 12 followers ,and your mothers name is Mary ? do you go straight to heaven without passing go !!.
We are well into spring now ,there wasn't even a frost this morning ,but it is a bit windy and cold .The last couple of days were perfect for bonfires and I've nearly got rid of all last summers debris .
Todays photos are of the two main harbingers of spring ,snowdrops and willow pussies or should that be pussy willows .The pussy that I have is of the red-barked variety so the silver pussies really stand out .Only about half of the snowdrops are out so far ,the second variety is much more shy .

Bountiful nature

"Evening" ...I'm always impressed with how generous mother nature is ,sometimes too much so if it's sycamore seedlings or broom bushes, but when it comes to bulbs she's just spot on ,put three in one year and in 5yrs you've got 200 !! now that's a good return for your effort . A few miles down the road at Becks is an estate called Lauderdale ,it had been neglected but my friends are turning it into a fantastic location .The main trees here are cork elms ,they are large trees but sucker prolifically ,so the big job was to remove the undergrowth ,and yesterday I spent on my knees planting a couple of thousand snowdrop bulbs ,so hopefully in a few years time it will be quite a display .
Today was a beautiful "central" day ,so I had another bonfire and pulled down the fence on the roadside of the "Merry-go-round" ,one day I will get rid of ALL the fences and then we will be truly COMMON. cheers

Eureka !!

I'm still learning . I've found a new setting that hopefully lets people comment without going through ANY identification process,so if you are looking in today how about just trying to make a comment [even just, Hi Bob ],I can understand peoples hesitancy to enter into complex moves ,so I am trying to make this as simple as possible [as simple as ME].
Isn't life strange , today was a wet old day so I was sitting inside by the fire reading when there was a knock on the door ,It was a group of photographers from Chch wanting to photograph
what I thought was a pile of old junk , dead cars and old trees but that they thought was a right little gold-mine of photographic subjects ,they stayed for a couple of hours and a cuppa and left very satisfied .With a bit of luck we'll see some of their work in a few days . Life is obviously something different for all of us [which is quite lucky really when you think about it !]

The top two photos are just a warm-up for things to come .The starling has started to make her nest in the letter-box and a couple of grey herons have returned to town ,so it must surely be spring !!
The late evening sun always gets to play on the Hawkdun mountains ,but only for about 5 minutes ! so you either have to be prepared or else sprint for your camera ,and each day it is dramatically different .
Imagine that you were in your supermarket and that customers were coming in at a greater rate than they were leaving ,and the" stackers"couldn't keep up ,I wonder what would result ? cheers

Matariki 2

"Evening all" ...... further to my blog about Matariki ,the letter to the editor duly got published and earned me a book prize for being "best letter of the week" [He couldn'tve
got much mail that week !] anyway subsequently the Govt has come out and said that they won't support it anyway ,spoilsports ! so let's just do it ourselves and stuff them all .
Just remember to buy your fireworks in Nov. and put them away somewhere safe until June ,I'll remind you again just before GF.

"Evening" not much forest work today ,all family day today ,Cam ,Manu,and Kim all came home last night [plus 6 others ],We had a pleasant leisurely morning then took off for Old Cromwell where Manu had an exhibition with his mother .Everyone then decamped to Bannockburn and celebrated Kims birthday with her family .All in all a magnificent day .