October 2019

This month we have been pretty internally focused. I've been working on getting seeds started for the veggie garden and we have been replacing the fencing around the chicken yard, from waratah and wire to proper posts and rails. Here is me with blondie, who is the feisty one that chases the dog.

The weather has had some late Fridays so I don't know how well our fruit trees will go this year. But all my flower gardens are doing really well, I guess they've had a few years to establish now.

At the start of the month a friend asked me to make a cake for a family birthday. It was for a guy, and he was into computer stuff, so I made a motherboard cake.

Unfortunately she had a naughty dog that somehow got up onto the table and ate a third of it. They salvaged the rest. Bit there was a lot of green vomit later!

Now that the weather has warmed up we've started to take weekend outings on the bike. Here we are at the coast that is right at the other end of wainui. We never usually go there because you can't take dogs, as there are endangered birds nesting there.

Today, being Halloween, included some costume hilarity from my team. Its been awhile since we have done silly things, but my colleague recently bought an inflatable Trex costume...

September 2019

This month has been a long one. It was the start of spring and in Wellington we have had a lot of ups and downs in terms of the weather. My plants are coming up well but it's lucky I didn't start to plant my seedlings out yet, because it turned cold again this week. The daffodils have come and gone, the fruit trees are starting to flower, and my lilies are starting to peek up.

The month started on a bit of a bad note. In the first week of September I was at work, in a team meeting, and my phone rang with a number I didn't know. My manager wasn't at the meeting that day so I popped out to answer it. It was one of the builders from next door, I didn't realise they had my number but I'm glad they do because he called to tell me that two roaming dogs had jumped our fence and attacked our chooks. The builders chased them away and called animal control, and helped the cat get down from a tree. One chook was injured - luckily the builders were there to intervene or maybe all my chooks and even the cat could have been killed. At first I thought I would stay at work but I couldn't knowing that there was an animal at home suffering so I came home and found the poor girl in her nest box, pretty still and quiet. I thought it was McQueen but I'm not so sure now, it might have been Goldilocks. I cleared away the feathers and saw a pretty big wound so I took her to the vet, who said the bone was fractured and her internal organs probably pierced. So I had her put down, otherwise I don't know how long she would have lasted and she was probably in shock and pain.

That was a bit of a rough day, and the cat didn't come back till quite late at night. We buried McQueen/Goldilocks in the chook yard and planted a shrub over her. At this rate the chook yard will be revegetated quite quickly! I contacted someone I work with who offered me baby chicks and she said when one of her hens hatches a clutch she'll give me the mother hen and the babies. That will be nice. For now, we just have three chooks left. We are getting much less eggs, but there are now so few of them that I can let them out to garden with me and still keep an eye on all of them.

There was a big plant sale in September too so we bought a bunch of native plants. We are slowly extending our little bit of native bush. I had to go to Auckland for work earlier this month - it was nothing great and two days of catering (and eating too much because it's hard not to try everything) left me very ready to come home. We then took a long weekend and had a little city escape for our anniversary - we got a room at the nicest hotel in the city and went out for window-shopping, food and drinks. We had a bit of a night on the town. It was nice, but the weather was crap. I got flowers - for the first time in six years.


We've been trying to take it easy for the rest of September. There is plenty to do out in the garden but the weather has often kept us in. I have been trying to get into a bit more sewing - I have a couple of projects on the go now. And I have been baking - I'm practising various frosting techniques any time there is a celebration at work that requires cake. Also, I have a sourdough starter and am trying to learn how to make sourdough. It is good, but not perfect yet. We've had some airbnb guests to bring in some money - I really want to get a fence built on our lower boundary soon.

In other pet news, the cat has started stealing the dog's bed every chance he gets, and when he gets pushed out of there he takes the dog's spot on the couch. Cher won't make him move, I have to coax her into bed and when the cat get a bit squashed and stood on, he finally moves. The cat has also been making himself at home in the chicken coop, I have caught him sleeping in the nest box when I went out for eggs, and he is often seen going in and out.