New Zealand Garden Diary: Growing Sunflower Seeds to Feed Birds
Growing your own bird seed (Click to see options for using the image)
When the weather gets colder, I will be buying seedy fat balls from the Lyttelton farmers market to hang out on the bird table I made. I also put out seeds, grains and water. But in the meantime I am happy to let the birds fatten up on the sunflower seeds from the heads I saved. I think next year I will grow a lot more sunflowers as I love the look of them and I love watching the birds.
Living in New Zealand: Pies are an Important Fast Food and Essential on Road Trips
Hope River Pies
Before I came to New Zealand, I very rarely ate pies, especially savoury pies. But savoury pies are some of the best fast food you can get here. We're really lucky in that we have an artisan pie shop in Lyttelton itself. Our friend Craig is the pie maker extraordinaire at Hope River Pies and sells them out of his commercial kitchen on Norwich Quay on Thursdays and Fridays (and some Sundays). He also sells at many of the farmers markets in Christchurch, including the Lyttelton farmers market. His pies are great, especially as he does a lot of vegetarian and vegan pies.
But when I am on the road, I sometimes cheat on Craig to stop for a pie elsewhere.
Pies are an important part of any New Zealand Road trip. Click to see options for using the image
Most of those pies just fill a hole, but I can recommend the pies at the cafe in Hampden, Otago and now at the pie shop in Sheffield, Canterbury. This is a traditional place for my friend Crispin to stop when he heads out to his family’s bach on the West Coast. That was where we were heading a couple of weeks ago to do some work on the bach. A pie is just the ticket when you are on a long road trip.
Truckies are some of New Zealand’s better drivers and often pull over to let people pass on the narrow roads. Click to see options for using the image
Arctic Circle Cartoon - Veganism and Plant-Based Replacements for Animal-Based Foods
It is interesting how there is a move towards a plant-based diet, rather than veganism, which is a very loaded term. It is certainly something I want to try out, though I tend towards a low meat diet when left to my own devices. I’m not keen on vegan substitutes that mimic animal-based products, as they can have a lot of additives and aren’t as healthy as simply eating more legumes and whole grains.
Arctic Circle Cartoons and the Environmental Cost of Cruise Ships in Lyttelton, New Zealand
Cruise ships are a filthy way to have a vacation. Lyttelton Harbour, near Christchurch New Zealand is expanding its port to accommodate bigger cruise liners which is bad news for residence and the water and air quality.
As I write this post, I can hear a pile driver banging steel posts into Lyttelton harbour. The port is building a new cruise ship terminal to accommodate bigger vessels. This may be good news for Lyttelton Port Company (majority owned by Christchurch City Council) but it isn't good news for the endangered dolphins disturbed by the noise and for the residents of Lyttelton, New Zealand.
Cruise ships are as polluting as half a million cars. And some.
Cruise ships burn a lot of fossil fuel and at the moment they are burning the toxic bottom-of-the-barrel heavy oil that cannot be used anywhere else because it is so polluting.
Should cruises be allowed to the Arctic?
When they are docked in port they have to have their engines running the whole time to keep the power on. An article on national radio revealed that when big cruise ships do this they release as much pollution as 700,000 diesel buses. And when the easterly is blowing we can smell that pollution at our house.
But the biggest the most detrimental effect of cruise ships happens when please leave port. Once they are 12 miles offshore (sometimes sooner if no one is watching and nobody ever is) the cruise ships can dump all their untreated sewage. This often isn't just organic matter unfortunately and is contributing to the plastic pollution at sea. What's more, a lot of cruise ships dump their rubbish at sea as well as there is rarely anyone out there to stop them from doing it. The few times this has been reported has been due to whistleblowers on board.
Is there such a thing as an environmentally friendly cruise ship?
I'm a big fan of travelling by surface rather than by air, but not when it is done with a disregard for the environmental consequences.
