Kotare

...translates as Sacred Kingfisher.

A regular visitor to our garden and, thankfully, given the lack of flowing water (give or take storm water floods!), he/she seems fond of worms and other garden grubs!

Storm Damage

Kerikeri, being in the almost sub-tropical Northland region of New Zealand, has its fair share of sunny, warm weather. As we've recently discovered, though, when it rains, it sometimes really rains!

On the morning of Saturday June 18, we opened the front door to find our carport up to an inch deep in muddy silt. On further exploration, we discovered that the majority of our nice, apparently solid, metal-gravel driveway had been washed down towards our house. As the pictures show, it seems as though the stormwater drains that run alongside the road weren't able to cope with the volume of water that must have fallen overnight - certainly the two drains into one culvert situation can't have helped. Unfortunately, once the water came over the top, there was only one place for it to go - downhill, towards our house, carrying the driveway with it!

Mud in the car port - vine nets in their bags in the background next to toppled bicycles still in their packing

Centimetres from the car-port - how close the driveway/mudslide came

From the foot of the driveway

Source of the problem, two stormwater drains into one culvert under our driveway

Muddy watermarks on the walls show that the water must have been as high as four or five inches so we're really lucky that no water made it inside. In fact, apart from the driveway, no damage was done.

Not quite the Saturday morning we were expecting, it meant a quick trip to the local hardware store (Mitre 10) to buy shovels and a water-blaster - then a few hours cleaning out the mess, unblocking drains and putting in place some temporary measures in case the heavy rain falls again!

Now we just need to get the council out here to do something about the drains and hopefully help us avoid this sort of thing happening again!

After months at sea...

At last! After four months (mostly at sea), our UK belongings have been delivered! It's surprising the things we're most glad to receive. It's not the big things, but things like:

• Wellington boots (referred to as gum boots over here) which will make walking the dogs and tending the vines during these harsh Winter months a lot more bearable!
• Photos, pictures and even the occasional ornament, which really make this home feel like our home.

So, with supervision from Milly and Ned, we've been hard at work today, emptying around half of our 90+ boxes. The kitchen is now fully stocked, the wardrobes full of our clothes and our newly fitted-out office is now also kitted-out with all our gadgets and gizmos.

Tomorrow it's time for us to find homes for books, DVDs and maybe a few CDs and then we can finally put all our furniture in the rooms for which they were intended.

Budding footballers

Yesterday we bought Ned and Milly a cheap plastic football. They loved it –especially Milly – but burst it within minutes.

Today we bought them a more solid fake leather one thinking it would last longer – we were wrong! They both really love footballs but only when they’re deflated and they can both tug at part of it.

They spend ages trotting up and down the garden with it in their mouths – sharing it. Milly just wants to get it and shred it whereas Ned seems content to shake it a lot and torment Milly.

First job in the vineyard

Early this morning our new neighbour, Bruce, came over to show us how to take the nets off the vines. His neighbour, Murray, also came on his tractor with a trailer carrying his invention that made removing the nets easier.

Before

Bruce did the first net for us then James did the other four.  It only took about an hour and was made much easier with Murray’s invention.

James bagging the nets

The grapes are still on the vines as they hadn’t really been looked after by the previous owner and hadn’t ripened enough to make wine. They should have been thinned out so there were too many grapes. 

We have decided to swap some of the red vines for white. We have 420 vines – all Syrah (Shiraz). We are going to replace half of them with Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc so we have a mixture of red and white.

Bruce is going to look into grafting the white vine cuttings onto the roots of the red. The roots are well established and this should give us a good crop of white sooner.

The next thing we have to learn is how to prune the vines. Bruce is going to show us how to do that in a couple of weeks when all the leaves have dropped off.

After

Ned inspecting our work

Ned and Milly's first day together

Ned and Milly both slept through the night. I got up about 6.30 this morning to let them out. They still seem to like each other which is good.

I went to the market and to walk the dogs on my own this morning while James stayed at home looking after the dogs. We didn’t want to leave them on their first real day together.

We’ve told the SPCA that we are going to keep Ned so we have to go and sign the paperwork next week. Usually the SPCA ask for $250 to adopt a dog but Ned has been there so long that he’s been reduced to $1!  James keeps telling him he’s a bargain for 47p J We’re going to give them $250 for him anyway – he’s worth it!

After lunch we took Ned and Milly to the domain in the centre of Kerikeri – it’s a big park with play areas and trees all around the edge which the dogs found fascinating. We should be taking them to obedience lessons, there starting next week, so we thought we’d get them used to it first.

Ned’s a bit freaked out by most things because he’s been at the kennels for so long. We haven’t managed to get him out of the car anywhere until Milly arrived. 

On the way home we stopped and got a toy each for Ned and Milly. They both really like to play. Ned was very taken with his toy but he left it unguarded and Milly promptly ripped out all the stuffing! He‘s still happily carrying it around but it no longer squeaks.

Milly seems to be settling in really well so far. Ned is a bit jealous and won’t let her have any individual attention but I’m sure he’ll get used to it.

Milly

Today we drove to Auckland to pick up Cutie (now Milly). We left at 9am and took Ned with us. We had the option to take him back to the SPCA kennels but neither of us had the heart to take him back – even for the day.

He was fine – he sat on the back seats and snored most of the way! We stopped to let him out for a bit but he really likes being in the car so just wanted to get back in. 

We arrived at the kennels in Auckland at about midday. Ned didn’t really like the noise of the other dogs barking but he liked Milly straight away. She didn’t seem to mind one way or the other about Ned.

We put Milly in the back of the car and Ned back in the back seat.  As we drove home they occasionally sniffed each other approvingly. 

When we got home we let them both off in the back garden. They started to chase each other but Ned couldn’t keep up with Cutie. He became quite clever though, realising that if he ran smaller circles inside her larger ones he could sometimes catch her.

After they were both exhausted they came inside. They follow each other around the house at the moment and seem to really like each other which is good.

Milly ate all her dinner which is a good sign – most of the greyhounds we’ve fostered wouldn’t eat on their first day in their new home.

They’re both currently asleep on their beds J