Remembering Alana Bowman. RIP.
Word's out about the railing! Today a Warou, Welcome Swallow, opted for the full photo shoot, even including the over-the-shoulder pose! 🐦
Vehicles on the beach is a hot topic where I live, so this is interesting: Vehicle access to popular Auckland beach to close over holidays
A permit system was introduced in 2015 to manage the volume of traffic and to ensure drivers were aware of their responsibilities and restrictions when traveling along the beach.
We seem to have our very own house Sparrow. This little cutie likes to sit on the railing outside the east door to our deck from the lounge and either keep an eye on us or just enjoy the view.
Noone tends the grass verges along our private lane but I hate when they get too overgrown, so today I tidied things a bit with the weedeater. An hour’s work. Before and After.
Today the farmer came and picked up the bales of hay. That was a two tractor job.
This is cool. 5.5 minute video. Folks who write detective fic with high tech elements would like this. Comes under Linguistics! Hidden background noise that can catch criminals:
Electrical Network Frequency analysis, ENF analysis, matches background hum against power grid logs.
A couple of days ago the farmer next door mowed the cow paddock. Later he came back with his tractor and spinner to flip the grass and rake it into piles to dry. Then the next day he baled it all up. I love living in the country.
Every single time I use Regular Expressions in BBEdit I just want to shout out my joy! Before and after screenshots.
Today I made Courgette frittatas for breakfast. They were pretty good. Fresh courgettes from the tunnel house and a very small stick of finely chopped celery. I used thyme rather than dill.
In the last 2 weeks we’ve had almost 200 mm rain (over 7 inches), and variously heat, high winds from several quarters, still days, cool grey days. Yesterday’s beach showed the effects: a lot of driftwood, and interestingly sculpted shore by the river mouth.
The Royal Spoonbill was also a little wind-ruffled, while at least one of the nearby ducks was keeping a close watch on me.
Annoying: I put my bike on its side stand so I could take photos of a Royal Spoonbill at the lake. A big gust of wind blew my bike over (it’s OK) and snapped off the stand!
Rats! Apple Watch Locking:
Other issues that can impact sensor performance include wrist tattoos.
Thanks to an inconvenient mosquito bite overnight I’m wearing my watch on my left wrist. The watch keeps asking me to unlock it. Must be the tat!
My friend Alana, and fellow Xena fan, gave me this fridge magnet many many years ago. Alana is very much in my thoughts at the moment.
That was a cool little 20 minute film: Little Miss Sumo. It’s worth a watch (Netflix) 🎬:
The premise revolves around the 20-year-old sumo wrestler Hiyori Kon, one of few women practising the sport.
I’m glad these girls get to expand horizons:
When I first came to New Zealand, I didn’t know what sport was …because I’m a girl and wasn’t allowed to play sport [in Pakistan] because I was a girl.
Source: ‘I didn’t know what sport was’ - female refugees discover sport in NZ
Uh oh:
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield has confirmed the country’s first case of the Omicron variant has been found at a MIQ facility in Christchurch.
Hooray for the NZ Invertebrate ID group on Facebook. I now know this insect is a Bush gadfly (Scaptia adrel). It was hanging out on the wall of our garage today. It’s roughly 3 cm long.
I have two Japanese quail. Today, less than 2 Km from our house, I spotted a not-very-often-seen-round-here California Quail. 🐦 Pretty different, eh!
