Dog Tired

After a long day in the garden, it's nice to be able to relax:

Matauri Bay

It's mid-Winter, but Sunday seemed like a good day to go to the beach, so we went for a stroll on Matauri Bay. It's only half-an-hour from home and it's the best beach in the area. Despite there being a cool breeze elsewhere, it was pretty calm and sheltered on the beach and the sun was strong. Not many sun-bathers out, but there were a handful of people in the water seemingly collecting mussels.

Just beside the beach is a row of Norfolk Pines. We really should get some of these for our garden!

SPCA Kennels

This morning we went to the local SPCA kennels where we walk the dogs and where we found Ned. They've been doing some building work recently and today was the "opening ceremony" for the new block of kennels. Until now, dogs have been chained to trees next to wooden kennels, or kept in wire-fenced areas, so it will be nice for the lucky few to have some really good shelter during the worst of the weather.

The kennels are on privately owned land - effectively in someone's back garden, but surrounded by lemon orchards. It's sad to see so many lovely dogs without homes, but at least they are being cared for and they all seem so happy. If Ned is anything to go by, they'll all make wonderful pets for someone (hopefully soon).

Paihia

It was a really nice day yesterday so after lunch we decided to drive to Paihia and walk along the beach. We hadn’t checked the tide times and the tide was in so we couldn’t walk far along the beach but we could still walk along the path beside the beach.  

There were quite a few people on the beach and even some children building sand castles. It was 19 degrees and the sun was really warm. We still can’t get used to this being winter!

Pot of gold?

We've had some lovely weather in the last couple of days, but the sunshine is occasionally interrupted by some short, sharp showers. The positive side of this rather variable weather is nicely illustrated here:

Pruning

At this time of year, once the harvest has been taken, the vines need pruning. It's quite dramatic, with most of the plant ending up on the bonfire, but several people have reassured us that we can't kill the plants and that they grow like weeds!

Our neighbour, Bruce, from the Fat Pig Vineyard, helped with the first row, but has left us to it for the rest. We have 20 rows (of 21 plants each), but this year we're digging out 12 of those rows to replace them with Chardonnay - at the moment they're all Syrah (Chiraz). It takes around 2hrs to prune one row, so it's probably a good job that there are only 8 to do this first year!

Before

After

Chilling out...

It's winter now - can you tell?

At least we can relax indoors...