" Evening all"....anybody out there want to employ Cam over the holidays ,reliability guaranteed,
My neighbours arrived this afternoon in this amazing car .

Sculpture in the woods

It takes me most of the morning to get moving and get outside ,but once I get there I can't stop ,and what with daylight saving I don't get back in till about 7,but I'm not complaining .Only spoke to myself today ,luckilly I talk enough for both of us !!
The changeover from daffodils to bluebells is slowly taking place ,the snow slowed things down ,but the red tulips are a picture ,I only have red ones to balance out the greens and blues .
The last two photos are taken from the same spot,one looking Nth ,the other Sth ,so you can see that the pine forest on top of the hill is taking shape ,there are a lot of larch trees amongst the evergreen pines and now I will add some deciduous,this area serves as a giant windbreak for the young trees further down .

The sting in the tail of winter !

Woke up to a snow free vista ,I was very relieved ,it wasn't very far away ,50m higher ,but all my flowers were standing tall like old bearded hippies !
Crap conditions so I shot off to Alex to renew my gun licence,talk about bureaucratic,
well after much haggling and passing over $150, plus two photos as well ,they'll think about it ! all just to shoot the odd possum and /or ferrett . Life"s tough in the" slow lane"
Shot these photos from on top of the Becks hill on the way home ,more snow about than in the winter ,it looks beautiful,but it means hard frosts . cheers

In the bottom photo Cambrian is tucked in under the mountains a quarter across from the right ,just under the snowline.

Spring-winter-summer -autumn

It was so dry here this morning ,as it has been for the last month ,that I went out to water some of my little trees ,when I came in for lunch it began to rain ...typical...so I got into some domestic chores and by 4pm it was snowing !! not too heavy but heavy enough to be forming on the ground.Now I love the snow ,it creates a fantasy world ,but NOT when it lands on my tulips and nearly to flower bluebells .I have to wait till the morning now to see what it has done .
Too wet for photos today so I will just post a couple from the "files"

Task for the day was to get my two "ram pumps" going ,ready for the summer ,one needed a new rubber gasket,and the other some more bike tubing to stem the leaks ,but now they are functioning beautifully .The main one from the wheatfield to the top of the hill was pumping out more than a gallon a minute this evening ,over twentyfour hours that's one hell of a lot of water ,particularly if it's a warm day and you can bathe in it !!!

First serious outing for the lawnmower today ,and I'm feeling it now ! I'm a bit worried about how the area of lawn increases each year ,but I'm justifying it by saying that it is a great form of exercise ,just as I'm saying that the plant broom is my friend, it provides shelter ,nitrogen and firewood ,both could be a case of putting a good spin on something that could be a fag .Hows this for a cloud formation ?

The first bluebells

Today we got our first bluebells ,so expect to get bashed with bluebell photos over the next fortnight !! I planted clumps of red tulips in amongst them for contrast and they have just come out also ,the w/e after next would be the time to come .A shot also of the apple tree at the front gate ,it is always a great display .I cannot describe the feeling of going outside on a day like today ,it's a bit like living in a florists shop,but warm ,I feel for all those motorists on the Taupo ,Napier highway ,it must be hell living in the Nth Is.