Plantings

Plenty of trees to plant at the moment ,fortunately I have a strapping young Englishman here to help me ,he goes by the name of Richard and is building a house truck in Timaru. He's a good worker,which is fortunate as some of the holes are quite tough,more tomorrow .The picture is of him burning the last of the rubbish off the" rest area"in anticipation of lots of visitors over the summer ! good night .
PS if any of you come across this wild looking man [squinting into the sun] then look after him ,he's a top guy ,last seen heading for Chch in his van .

Population explosion

"Evening all".....How fickle can the weather be ,yesterday we were getting blown off the map ,and today there was hardly a breath of wind ,just enough to dry the washing. .Can you imagine yesterday ,the temp. was about 28degrees and the wind [at Becks] was at least 60kph,one certainly knew that one was alive ! However today has been just the reverse ,sunshine all day ,it seemed to pull the visitors out of the ether ,I was initially a little horrified to see a HUGE bus at my front gate and immediately hid away ,but on hearing my name called out by a neighbour I had to front up .It was a very pleasant group of school kids from Chch doing the railtrail [they obviously got a little lost to end up in Cambrian ],anyway we had a nice little chat about the village whilst the bus driver rearranged my front lawn .Go for it Kids !!!
A couple of ladies from Papakura popped in to discuss Antons attitude to the windfarms,and check the woods ,and then to top it off my Shepherds flat neighbours cycled by for a cuppa .So you can see I've had a pretty hard day !! but I DID do the washing ,baked some bread and planted a little Mirbeck oak ,talked as much as usual,and am now quite knackered !! " good night"

What a social whirl in Cambrian today .Neighbours for breakfast [pancakes of course]
Then 40 odd people had a bar-b-q lunch at the school ,The Rutherford family indulging in some glorious spring nostalgia ,great to see .Then I was visited by world famous in Alex photographer Donald Lamont [he with the rat under his nose] and we proceeded to put the world to right over a glass of stout [low alcohol of course].
Now following on the theme of "Feel good stories" or should that be "FELT good stories" to go with my felt hats ? anyway here's one that I heard today .

My friends elderly mother ,a lovely woman ,was in the early stages of dementia and was in the habit of ringing her daughter daily ,unfortunately she had the wrong number programmed, missing by one digit. The unknown woman who answered rapidly realized what was going on and held a conversation with her ,EACH TIME she rang,this went on for a few months . I thought that this was a very charitable thing to do for a failing old lady .

Good luck story.

"Evening all"...another pleasant day in Cambrian ,a couple of trees planted out and many cups of teas with neighbours ,here ! Off out now to socialize with the wild population of the valley ,well at least Don McKenzie ,but here's a little "good luck story " sent to me by a WWOOFer from a couple of years ago .

Okay, there is another thing which I wanted to tell you. You were asking for feel good stories and I'll have one for you.

When Sandra and I were hitchhiking north of auckland (almost 4 years ago) there was this guy, Keith, who gave us a ride. He was taking us to Auckland, we were talking about what we were doing, what we were going to do and as we came close to Auckland (he was living in Northshore) it had become quite late, so he asked us if we wanted to stay the night at his place. We happily agreed and half an hour later we had tea with him and his wife. During this period of our travels through NZ we were looking for jobs and as it turned out, Keith was the owner of a saw-mill (well, that was quite a long time before we met you) and he would offer us a job. It was Thursday evening, work would start Monday. Then he told us, he and his wife would go to their bach at the beach the next morning and return on Sunday evening. Sandra and I should stay at their house, visit Auckland and tell them on Sunday what we think about the jobs...So, they gave us the keys for their house and left it to us - two complete strangers from germany (taking germanys history into account probably not the nicest people on earth) - for three whole days! I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find a person in Germany who'd have done the same. Of course we took the jobs, when they came back on Sunday (and Keith told us later he wouldn't have thought that we'd take them, but still let us stay in his house...)

The people that make stories like yours and mine possible are the main reason why I fell in love with your country. You should remember that your blessed living in a country where people trust total strangers and get rewarded for it.

Cheers, Marc

Come-on anyone else got a story ?     cheers ...Bob

Spring blossom

" Evening all" ....I'm developing this theory that if you lie in bed too long in the morning listening to "Morning report " or "morning repeat"then you will rapidly become depressed ,and the only cure is to be strong and jump out of bed and run onto the front lawn and face the day .Then voila! life is beautiful ! I did that this morning, but I actually drove to Alexandra, and it was magical ,the weeping willows are unbelievable .In fact the new spring colours in the willows ,throw in a few blossom trees a clear blue sky and one could be in heaven .Cam did that trip for 5yrs might be therapeutic.
Anyone out there like to draw cartoons ? here's an original one done by Johnny Appleseed ,A famous WWOOFer,get back to me if you know anyone ......cheers

Bed time

No sun today ....but lots of action ...mind you the action doesn't start from hour one ! It takes me a good couple of hours to get revved up in the morning ,a slow walk around the woods first ,some reading with a coffee ,sweep the place clean with a glance ,clear the decks....and then out into it ,getting faster and faster until I collapse about 6,revive myself with a home-brew and then enjoy the evening .Lifes tough in the country !!
Anyway I've included a photo of a "bare-rooted "tree ,for those not familiar with them ,you have to buy them in lots of 10 and they are generally sold to nurseries,but they are a lot less expensive than potted ones ,the next shot is them all bedded down ,I went out to see that they were all ok ,on the way in I checked out that the chooks were happily bedded down in their tree and finally came inside to see" who was bedded down in my bed " alas like Goldilocks it was just bare !

smell the violets

Very occasionally ,when it's warm and still,you can smell the violets ..and I did today ,I am trying to get them established in the woods across by the lodge .The snowdrops are starting to wane,they're still there but don't hit you in the eye so much ,probably because the greenery of the bluebells is starting to take over ,in the meantime the daffodils will put on their show ,always something happening ,
A couple more photos from yesterday ,of the Ida Valley Hotel ,we had friends living here when Manu was about 18mts old !it's a massive mud-brick building .I remember coming home from a New Years party there and getting back to StBathans in the SNOW