Spring cleaning

I'd like to say that my house is sparkling clean but I'd be lying! The cleaning I've been trying to do in the last week is on a friend's laptop that is riddled with PUPs (potentially unwanted programs), a Trojan and a bunch of malware that seems interwoven around Internet Explorer and that's disabled the Trend Micro anti-virus/anti-malware. I've done what feels like a thousand scans and the last few have come through clean but it's an uneasy relief as there's still something going on. Maybe it's the services that I've disabled - or some corrupted system files.

Prevention is so much easier than trying to cure a malware/virus infection and so far it's worked well for me (touch wood!). I'm careful about installing software, always scan downloads and check security certificates and also pay an annual subscription for the premium version of my antimalware software. Staying clean means I'm nowhere near an expert when it comes to infected computers - and I would much rather be out in the bush than watching a Malwarebytes scan slowly progress!

School holidays and summer schedules for the ferry and plane mean higher visitor numbers - and, of course, the Spring storms that race through New Zealand. I think we've been a lot better off than further north with most of the wind and rain happening at night when I'm tucked up in bed with the noise muffled by double-glazed joinery.

Earlier in the month I spent an afternoon in the bush looking for weeds and interesting critters - I found these in some rotting wood...

...and the moth near my vege garden. The huge clump of Earina mucronata (Spring Orchid) will be in flower in a couple of weeks - I should be able to get some great close-up pics as the plant is at waist-height, unlike most that are halfway up a tall tree!

The horopito (Pseudowintera colorata) flowers are something I haven't noticed before; I was looking closely at the stems for caterpillars and then noticed the flowers which, unusually, face downwards.

I've seen a number of tui raids in the last two weeks and my walks to and from work are accompanied by almost constant birdsong. I saw this year's first clump of flowering native clematis on Monday and expect to see a lot more over the next month - it looks just like a white veil thrown over the tree tops.

Cobweb in the early morning sunshine

I hear thunder rolling round so time to shut the computer down. More on the orchids next blog!