The garden is between the house and the garage. It's protected from the wind, is north-facing and will be easier to fence off from deer. I'm not sure about keeping possums, rats, weka and kaka out but maybe they won't come so close to the house. I spent the morning turfing the area and will dig it over tomorrow - I went collecting seaweed this afternoon with Raylene at Horseshoe Bay and brought back 5 large bags of small seaweed (sea lettuce varieties) and half a trailer of rotting kelp. I'll spread it over the dug soil and then put a layer of flattened cardboard boxes to rot down with the help of lots of worms.
Another local keen on the worms was a young male miromiro (tomtit). He watched me closely and every time I moved away, he swooped in to grab another worm.
Usually they don't stay still for long enough to get a photo, but this one is obviously a poser!
The weather today was stunning; blue cloudless sky, no wind and a high of 18 degrees. I had to take a break from turfing to get some photos. There's so much birdlife here - wish I could record their song in the blog for you to listen to. Korimako (bellbirds) were calling each other from the rimu, riroriro (grey warblers) were adding their two pennyworth and tui, kereru and kakariki were flying overhead.
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| Looking northwest |
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| Looking south |
Lastly, a photo of Horseshoe Bay - a long sweeping bay about 3-4km from my place. The photo was taken about halfway along the beach. The recycling centre is at the end of the beach in the hills - it's pretty gripped up with a large green waste area for composting, plus a secondhand shop and other recyclable area up on top of the hill.