It’s 0330 and I’ve drunk the cup of tea I just made. After hours of restless sleep with odd and annoying dreams I’ve given up. Lovely quiet morning though. I can hear the sea if I listen carefully. Too early for birds…
Incredibly dumb, wasteful and offensive policy from the new government of Aotearoa — The uncertainty around how much it would cost to rebrand government departments :
the Government’s NZ First coalition agreement vowed to “ensure all public service departments have their primary name in English, except for those specifically related to Māori”.
I rarely buy books on paper, but the first couple of pages of Sylvia and the Birds: How The Bird Lady saved thousands of birds and how you can too by Johanna Emeney and Sarah Laing had me hooked. 📚
This gorgeous NZ book is:
Part graphic biography, part practical guide to protecting our bird wildlife
Another darn good read — Murder At Arrow Pass (An Elk Ridge Murder Mystery Book 2) by Anne Shillolo. 📚
A catastrophic pileup on the treacherous winter highway through Arrow Pass draws Inspector Casgrain and her team into a web of violence that threatens the nearby community of Elk Ridge.
Absolutely fascinating 20 minute interview — Does biology trump free will?:
If [testosterone hormones] were higher than average for you this morning and you're looking at a face with a neutral expression, you are now significantly more likely to decide that the face looks threatening, angry and unfriendly.
Poaka | Pied Stilt are very aggressive when it comes to defending a nest, and they seem to have a 100 metre radius for action. 🐦
Pied Stilts are streamlined rockets in flight. When they want to warn you off they fly straight at your head and swerve only at the last second.
Today Golden Turtle oolong tea is perfectly suiting my mood. Very delicious. Definitely smooth and velvety
. I only bought a sample pack; now ordering more.
Ecosia search engine now has an AI Chat feature. Gave it a whirl with this search: mac os terminal command disable Game Mode
and lookee here:
To disable Game Mode in macOS, you can use the following terminal command:
defaults write com.apple.GamingServices GameCenterEnabled -bool false
Game Mode
while doing jigsaws was driving me nuts! Then I found Use Game Mode on Mac.
From the Game Mode menu
in the menu bar, choose Turn Game Mode Off. It remains off for that game until you turn it on again — even if you quit and reopen the game.
Tonight the light was better and I got smarter with camera settings so the Glossy ibis photos actually worked out. 🐦
Last night's photos were disappointing.
Here's just one for the moment.
When I made Crusty French Bread Rolls today I think I should have put the dough in a bigger bowl to rise. 🤣
The finished rolls? Not bad …
Better photos from last evening were this Kuruwhengi | Australasian shoveler pair with chicks and Canada Goose with chicks. 🐦
Unfortunately Canada Geese are a bit of a pest species round here. They certainly make a racket. There are loads of them locally.
Close to sunset yesterday a neighbour invited me to the wetland on their property where a very rare visitor was feeding: a Glossy ibis. Bit disappointed with my photos … It was really windy, so the video is quite shaky. 🐦
Yesterday's seal that wasn't reminded me of this horse thrashing through a rough sea in June 2016.
Also just driftwood, but oh-so-realistic!
When I rounded the corner on the track to the beach and glimpsed this shape at a distance, I thought it was a seal on the move …
But no, it turned out to be driftwood.
Heyyyy, check out the ring!
Up in Smoke (Kansas Cozy Mysteries Book 6) by Charlene Weir just didn't really gel for me — I even skimmed several (rather irrelevant) chapters rather than reading them. A couple of characters with very dark back stories, endless political discussions and few appearances by the detectives. 📚
Waking a sleeping language – our plan to revive the speaking of ta rē Moriori:
Moriori's closest linguistic relative is te reo Māori, with many grammatical and lexical similarities. But there are also significant differences. For example, Moriori has 15 ways of saying "the", a pattern not seen in any other Polynesian language.
When it's a good summer it gets way too hot in the tunnelhouse. Today we installed shadecloth over the internal framing. The difference was immediately noticeable.
It's loosely hung and can be used like a curtain — pulled to one side if needed.
Yesterday, reading some of the things our new right-wing government plan to do, I felt angry. I didn't relish the prospect of feeling angry for the next 3 years.
However Stoicism reminds me I can't control what the government do. I can control how I feel and what I do.
I plan some email actions …