Alex Hallatt 4/1/19 Alex Hallatt 4/1/19

Reasons to Be Cheerful - Dog Borrowing

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We are still missing Billie and we aren't ready to get another dog. But we are able to borrow a dog from up the road when the owners go away. He is a proper Jack Russell and chases everything. One time he stayed with us he escaped at 4 o'clock in the morning and we had to give up trying to get him back. He was chasing possums and the boyf was out on the street calling him back, wearing only a T-shirt, underpants and a pair of Blundstone boots. He saw Jack going in and out of people’s yards on the chase but felt he couldn't really follow him into our neighbours’ properties, in the middle of the night, dressed like that. I was up the road seeing if Jack would return to his home. He didn't.

We left the front door open and it was over an hour later that we heard the tic tic tic of his nails on the floorboards as he slunk back in.

Now he is ALWAYS on the lead with us.

Or on a very long rope.

Alex Hallatt 3/29/19 Alex Hallatt 3/29/19

Reasons to Be Cheerful - Visiting a Cheese Factory in Barry's Bay, Banks Peninsula

Barry’s Bay cheese is made with local milk and you can go to the factory and taste it. It’s a lot nicer than most of the mainstream cheese in New Zealand. That’s damning it with faint praise, I know, but for some reason (DESPITE ALL THE BLOODY COWS AND SHEEP), New Zealand doesn’t make cheese nearly as well as Britain or France. Or even Spain.

There is a big window from the tasting room/shop where you can watch the workers in the Barry’s Bay cheese factory. They are very friendly and wave back.

Alex Hallatt 3/29/19 Alex Hallatt 3/29/19

New Zealand Garden Diary: Tomato Harvest

Most of my tomatoes did ripen in the end and I have harvested the last of them and put the green ones in brown paper bags with bananas to ripen them). They haven't tasted as good as last year and I'm not sure why. We haven't had a lot of rain, but they taste a little watery. perhaps because I have had to use a hose and they have had too much at any one time. So to intensify the flavour I have roasted them in the oven with my home-grown garlic and thyme and a bit of olive oil and salt.

Roasting a tray of tomatoes with olive oil garlic and thyme

I then put the roasted tomato mixture in sterilised jars. I'll be testing some of it tonight with pasta.

Jar of roasted tomatoes, garlic and thyme

Alex Hallatt 3/27/19 Alex Hallatt 3/27/19

New Zealand Garden Diary: Mulching With a Truckload of Shredded Trees

The topsoil in our garden isn't very good (that which remains after we lost a lot of it in the landslip in 2017). It is heavy clay on top of loess, which is a glacial wind-blown silt that forms dense pans that plants find hard to get their roots into. So it's needs a lot of improving. As well as compost and bokashi, I am using thick layers of wood chip mulch, which will break down eventually to feed the soil (I was inspired by the woodchip-covered garden, if not the proselytising, in this YouTube video). In the meantime it works to regulate the moisture content of the soil and to keep weeds at bay.