I never knew real sourdough was a very different thing from mass produced bread, but this excellent interview clarified things for me: Andrew Whitley: Flour to the People | Radio NZ.
Factoid: after searching, they found lost Scottish wheat strains in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The beach code: protect the native plants that hold dunes together by keeping to the tracks.
Europeans planted exotic marram grass because cattle could eat it as they were driven along the beach before there were roads. Marram doesn’t hold dunes. Spinifex and pīngao do.
Aha! We’re at Batwoman S02E05 and it’s really cranking. I’m coming to very much like Alice, and the other characters. Some very nice touches here. 🦇
Micro.Blog Feature request: while we wait for some kind of timeline position sync across devices, how about giving us some kind of widget to instantly scroll back in perhaps 1 or 2 hour increments? See my mockup of 12 hours back. Could be radio buttons or similar. too @help
Ah, today I have a chance to revisit one of my baby Japanese Quail. Here she is sitting on a plastic lid filled with water, and stones, so she can’t fall in and drown. This photo from a couple of years ago.
Yesterday we went for a little walk at Papaitonga Scenic Reserve, only 20 minutes drive from here.
The lake and the surrounding wetland and lush coastal forest [is] a refuge for birds that depend on wetlands or lowland forests for their survival.
Māori facial tattoos (tā moko) are very special with huge ancestral and spiritual significance. But the custom nearly disappeared after Europeans arrived. Older photographic techniques also made them invisible. The Puaki - Ta Moko Exhibition in Foxton was so interesting! 📷
Paradise!
We watched and enjoyed News of the World, with Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel. It’s an appropriately slow-moving, thoughtful story set in Texas in 1870.
While tough to see the incredibly hard and dangerous life of that time, the mass slaughter of bison, it was a really good movie.
Some people have a lot of trouble with how to spell my name. The z at the end drifts all over the place, and sometimes is even silent! Sometimes I even get called Shiraz! It’s OK. “Hey you” works as well. 🤣
In September 2018 we were holidaying in Niue, where I tried a little snorkelling (with a full-face mask). I love the colours / colors in this photo.
We enjoyed watching Finding ‘Ohana. No surprises, of course — it was a kind of junior Indiana Jones — but it did seem respectful of Hawai’ian culture. Interesting to see how much there is in common with Māori language and culture. ‘Ohana = Whānau.
Took out my laptop at a cafe to fill in an hour waiting for my bike’s gears to be fixed. Panicked when I saw it had only 40% charge. Then I remembered this is my new M1 MacBook Pro where one charge lasts almost 2 days. 40% was plenty. Amazing battery life on this new machine.
I’m feeding a friend’s chooks for a few days. From her place this morning I spotted this low cloud covering a sliver of blue sky above the Tararuas. The paddocks are brown because it’s very dry and technically summer.
In Aotearoa New Zealand it’s a challenge for our native fauna to stay alive under the onslaught from exotic pests such as stoats, cats, possums, rabbits, hedgehogs, humans and numerous other animals. This pair of native Pateke ducks are lucky to live in a sanctuary.
Here’s a picture from my recent Photo Workshop day at Pūkaha Mt Bruce. The battery on my Fuji X-T2 died about 6 hours in, but my iPhone still managed this Tieke (Saddleback) which was being fed mealworms very close to us.
For NZ$100 we bought this 1,000 litre plastic tank from the local licorice factory. It was used to ship vegetable derived glycerine for use in their factory. We’ll be using it to help keep our vegie gardens watered once we decide where to put it and how best to hook it up.
This is a perfect day to be at home. Blue sky and sunshine, a little birdsong and an occasional cicada, otherwise quiet, no wind. Paradise.
Out of nowhere this morning I started humming The Tornados - Telstar (1962) a hit from my youth. I was 7 years old when this came out and it was only 5 years since Sputnik had been launched. Investigating that led me to another childhood favourite: The Shadows - Apache (1964). 🎶
