Occasionally exchange rate fluctuations work in my favour. Siteground renewed automatically an account I wanted to cancel. Thanks to exchange rate fluctuations, the refund was greater than the original charge. Now, how to make the most of my $1.43 windfall?
4 Pied shags, kawau had attitude on the beach this morning. By lucky chance I managed some photos I just love.
Pied shags weigh 1 to 2 Kg, and are about 65 to 85 cm long.
At sunset tonight the Tararuas shone red below a pink-clouded sky. This photo straight out of the camera.
A friend caught several Snapper from his sea kayak this morning and gave us one. It was delicious cooked on the BBQ with lemon and butter, baked potatoes and steamed carrots and green beans. Freshest fish I’ve ever eaten.
The neighbours are having landscaping done on the area across our boundary. Now I need to try to clear a strip beside the fence on our side. There’s a lot to do.
Scientist finds link to ancient home of Māori
A Northland scientist has … pinpointed the origin of early Māori artefacts found in New Zealand to a precise location in eastern Polynesia.… the island of Mehetia, about 100km southeast of Tahiti in French Polynesia.
It’s been so long since I last lit the fire I’d forgotten how. Now, finally, it seems to have caught. It’s been a cool day today.
Video (11 minutes): Grass Roots: the women of Hikurangi Enterprises
Grass Roots looks at the wāhine behind Hikurangi Enterprises, a cannabis co-op looking to revitalise Ruatoria, a Ngāti Porou stronghold with a long and turbulent relationship to the plant.
If this forecast holds true (unlikely — we usually get less rain than forecast) it’ll add nearly 4,000 litres to our rainwater tank. At an average use of ~1300 litres per week that should give us about 3 weeks of water. Hooray! The tank’s getting low. Last full 14 January 2019.
I’m so relieved — Siteground renewed web hosting automatically for me 2 weeks before I expected it. NZ$350 at stake. I actually wanted to cancel the service. A Support Live Chat just sorted it out easily and my refund is on its way.
Oh, time to start paying attention to Apple Pay, as it is now available with Westpac in New Zealand. Will I be able to use it in small-town New Zealand though?
In 2.5 hours in Levin waiting for my car’s new windscreen to be installed I: had a flu shot, visited my dental hygienist, and discovered that to use the free WiFi at Te Takeretanga o Kura-hau-pō (the Library) a Mac user needs Firefox to be able to get online.
Our dog Sasha loves to chase a ball. This cool early morning on the beach she had a heap of energy. Her eyesight’s poor so I have to be sure she’s looking the right way then almost roll the ball so she can see and follow it. She was having a great time! No actual fetching…
Our barking dog got me outside at 0524, just in time to see a sliver of moon rise below Venus over the Tararuas into a clear sky filled with stars. The Milky Way was bright, splitting by Scorpius, where Jupiter also hung out. Thank you, barking dog.
This year I’m learning Te Reo Māori by distance from Te Wananga o Raukawa. I’m really enjoying hearing and reading fairy tales. So far: Kōuraraka, Hinarata and Ngā Poaka E Toru (Goldilocks, Cinderella, the 3 Pigs).
Ka hawhe! Ka pawhe! Ka pūhia tō whare!
Christchurch mosque attacks: Some Muslim women are still too scared to wear a hijab in public and school children fearing for their mothers' safety are needing counselling, says migrant women’s organisation Shakti.
Clair, 60, says the streets are her home. She eats at a bus stop, wanders the CBD, and sleeps on the ground by the railway line … She says NZ’s homeless women work hard to remain unseen because they feel vulnerable to being sexually assaulted, beaten, and intimidated.
Why Women’s Voices Are Getting Deeper
This video dives into why women’s voices are getting deeper, a phenomenon that spans research in 1950s Australia to the 2012 Election in the U.S.
A bit of gardening — hard yakka
A bit of our property beside our lane has always been a struggle. The rabbits dig numerous holes, it’s steep (75° according to my iPhone level) and uneven. I can’t use the mower on it and using the weedeater is very hard work.
Over the last while I laid down mulch, then realised I should do a better job so I laid down cardboard on top of the thin layer of mulch, then added a thick layer of mulch on top. Old tires form the edges. That was exhausting.
Also exhausting was planting 9 plants: Leptospermum Mahinepua, Leptospermum Nanum Kea, and Coprosma rugosa Lobster. The coprosma are in the back row. The leptospermum are a kind of mānuka.
To plant each one I dug through the mulch and cardboard then made as big a hole as I could. I added a fertiliser tablet, potting mix (our place is all sand) and filled the hole with water. Then the plant went in, the hole was filled and the mulch put back.
It’s only about 8 square metres but the slope made it perhaps the hardest gardening job I’ve done at our place.
We’re due some 35mm rain tomorrow. I only hope the wet mulch doesn’t just all slide down the bank!
A fan of space opera? I’m buying The 2019 Space Opera Bundle, curated by Dean Wesley Smith: “Space, the final frontier.”. I love the work of Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith, and the other stories sound great too.