One reason I'm awake at 1 a.m.: 28.66 mm rain fell since midnight. For the metric impaired that's 1.13 inches. In one hour …

OK, that's a bit of fun: Your Name in Landsat 🛰️:

Thanks to @chadkoh for the link.

We visited friends in Paekakariki for brunch today. Their dog Gracie, an 8 year old Vizsla, was permanently optimistic that food may fall from the table, however, none did. 🐶

It's been a few months since my last burst of activity on the Lego build, but the Lego Technic Surface Space Loader is now complete. Whew.

I have a friend whose grandkids would probably enjoy pulling this apart and putting it back together, so that'll be its future home.

I'm really enjoying bingeing Rutherford Falls 📺 :

The show uses humor, jokes, and irony to highlight the biases that are present in today's society surrounding Native Americans. … While hard-hitting topics are presented throughout the show an overarching sense of comedy, irony, and light-heartedness is evident from the beginning.

The Wild is a great podcast. In Ben Goldfarb: How America’s roads alter our ecology there's a fascinating part about animal crossings where the speaker points out that wildlife needs more than just some narrow 'bridge', but instead a whole habitat that also blocks road noise and so on. Transcript.

Well, thunder and lightning! And as I typed that a huge crack of thunder overhead sounded like a massive explosion! That got the heart rate up! 💗

A different view from last time of the fast flowing river carving off chunks of sand from the edge.

It's only a small chunk, but that splosh is satisfying.

Our little peach tree is convinced it's spring.

Those earbuds were specially delivered after I queried the Fliway helpdesk. Their website hadn't told me the parcel had been passed on to Courierpost, with its own tracking number. Apparently Courierpost claimed it had tried to deliver them several times, but I don't believe that at all.

Our normally sluggish river is quite swift today thanks to loads of rain up in the Tararua ranges.

That means it's carved a deep channel through the sand and the bank regularly crumbles. Fun to watch for a minute or two on my walk.

Peeved. I ordered Sony earbuds on 17 August. Here we are 10 days later on 27 August 2024 and they've struggled down from Auckland to Palmerston North (an hour's drive away) where they're having a nice long rest (5 days so far).

Can't wait for the vendor's customer satisfaction survey!

A friend gave me this muesli recipe. It gives me an enjoyable and healthy breakfast every day. I add stewed apple, milk, and a couple of other things too.

Muesli

Ingredients

• 2 cups of whole oats
• 2 cups of quick cook oats
• 1/2 cup honey (can add maple syrup)
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 cup sultanas
• 1/2 cup cranberries
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1 cup chopped apricots
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Make

Lightly toast sesame seeds.

1. Add oil and honey to oats in baking tray.

2. Toast in oven at 160C for 10 mins or until light brown. Stir every few minutes.

Put into large mixing bowl while still hot.

3. Sprinkle cinnamon on toasted oats.

4. Then add remaining ingredients.

5. Mix thoroughly and allow to cool.

Whew, stewed apples, made juice and made muesli all at the same time. Forgot the crucial step of tipping the still hot oats into the big bowl and mixing with the other ingredients before cooling, but, oh well.

The juice was delicious, the breakfasts to come will be too.

Occasionally, like yesterday, I sit for a few minutes at the picnic table by the south track to the beach and watch the world go by.

(We inherited the picnic table when we bought our property, but it was surplus to our needs so a neighbour with a tractor helped us place it by the beach.)