Another take on beer bread

Watching America's Cup racing is hard on the nerves so, to preserve the rest of my fingernails, I decided to make vege soup and beer bread during yesterday's first race. I've been toying with the idea of making bread rolls and was hoping that if I dropped roll-size lumps of dough on the warmed pizza tray it wouldn't drip through the holes. I left the cheese off the top and only added a small teaspoon of mixed herbs and a sprinkle of Cajun seasoning. The recipe with 3C flour made 10 lovely bread rolls, next time I going to try pull-apart rolls by tipping all the dough on to a silicon mat and then make indents.

Halfway through cooking - about 30 minutes at 190°C

The finished product - just enough crust and perfect with soup

Wednesday last week started with a big frost and a beautiful sunny day. The ice on my mud puddles made interesting patterns and the plants sparkled like diamonds in the rising sunlight.

I was given a pottle of mealworms a few months ago to feed the robins at Dancing Star. They are easy to look after; add a bit of wheat bran and a slice of apple, then an occasional sift to remove debris. All good but then they started turning into pupae - eek, what do I do now?? Google gave me this link http://www.geckotime.com/how-to-breed-mealworms/ and although I'm not going to become a breeder, it's been fascinating to watch these critters as they turn into beetles.

Separating the mealworms from the pupae and beetles

Mealworm pupae

A couple of beetles have 'hatched' but they're camera-shy and scuttle under the bran before I focus!

The warmer weather is heating up the plants under plastic, look how big my seedlings have grown in the last month...

I've filled up several bags with compost and will transplant seedlings into them. Whilst sorting through the bags I came across this resident - possibly a Cambridgea spider.

The yacht racing has been abandoned for the day so no excuses for staying inside - I'm off to garden! Go Team New Zealand!!

Trip to Alexandra

My new team is based around the bottom of the South Island and our first team meeting was held last week in Alexandra. For most of them it was a day's outing but for me it meant 2 nights in Invercargill, 7 hours of travelling and 9½ hours overtime - all for a 4 hour meeting! On the plus side I used some time in lieu to get a haircut and fulfil my shopping list; but the 'memorable' flight off the island, coupled with feeling carsick most of the way to Alexandra has me questioning whether I really want to travel anywhere again!! I now know what it feels like to be a bucking bronco on a rollercoaster inside a washing machine but all credit to the skilled pilots of Stewart Island Flights for delivering us safe and shaken to t'other side :)

I was looking forward to the trip to Alexandra as it's been over 20 years since I last travelled in the area. Unfortunately my body was not ready to be mobile again and the 2½ hour drive wasn't enjoyable. Lovely to meet my new team-mates though and I was right as rain after sitting still for a couple of hours. Going through the new structure administration roles made me realise how different my role is from the others though; no doubt my role will become apparent as time goes on. I was dreading the drive back but sitting in the front in a different car made all the difference and views of the countryside were stunning.

Sunrise in Invercargill from my hotel room - the following morning was 2°C
with slushy snow on the roads and heaped up against the buildings

Gore

Specially for my lovely Sis-in-law

Teviot - Central Otago, last stop before Alexandra

The distinctive bridge at Alexandra

DOC office at Alexandra

The view from the office door

Great views of the lakes on the trip back to Invercargill

More great views

Apple orchard out of Alex

Thursday's flight back to Stewart Island, fresh snow on
Hananui/Mt Anglem (to the right)

Back to normality now in my wee cottage rather than an over-heated hotel room, listening to birdsong rather than traffic noise and a welcome return for my brain and stomach to walking pace. How I've changed in the last few years!!

Other residents at Back Road

I'm behind with blogging again but there's a good reason for it - 3 more garden areas finished, firewood cut and stacked and two nights off-island to meet my new administration team. With the America's Cup race 9 being abandoned I'll be able to put up a couple of new blogs this morning - go Emirates Team New Zealand tomorrow!!

The vege garden area is a step closer to completion, with the added bonus of having an area (see pics below) to plant the currant bushes - probably short term if they grow large but they had well outgrown the pots that they were 'struck' in.

Two more small garden beds were finished, one adjacent to the compost bin and the other between the path and the house. I transplanted parsley seedlings into one and they looked great for a couple of days, then the Phantom Parsley Picker struck and I'm left with nibbled stalks. I've put some makeshift fencing up so it will deter weka and deer but if it's a flying phantom like kaka then I might need to drape bird netting over. Just another challenge to successful vege gardening here.

Whilst barrowing compost and firewood I came across several critters that I share my living space with.

?Grass grub and unidentified eggs

Close up of caterpillar

A terrestrial version of sand hoppers??

A spider's nest perhaps?

A mass of critters on rotting wood

A baby worm??

This fungi on rotting wood doesn't have legs so is easier to photograph...

The critters aren't just out during the day, here's a couple of night ones...

Golden orb spider repairing its web

New beginnings

Winter is not the only thing ending shortly; today heralds the end of my 'service ranger' job and a start on Monday as an 'administration officer'. Major restructures on this scale are stressful but I hope the dust settles soon and strong leadership makes it all worthwhile.

I've decided that cloning myself would solve a lot of problems and help me work through my 'to do' list at lightning speed. Fine weather means firewood time and it's been satisfying to work my way through the woodpiles.

Two woodpiles sorted out - now to get the chainsaw out!!!

There's a thousand other fine weather jobs waiting for me: Darwin's barberry is starting to flower so that needs to be searched out and destroyed, along with gorse, blackberry and lupin. I need to get seeds and seed potatoes planted and my poor blackcurrants still haven't been pruned and transplanted from two years ago. I did manage to install my 3 vertical KaMate rat traps though...

The new KaMate trap on the left along with 2 Victor traps on the right

Lifting the lid on the KaMate trap - the trap's not set yet and putting
some baits around will hopefully get the right 'smells'

Signs of Spring are increasing daily and the birds are getting frisky. The native fuchsia, Fuchsia excorticata, or kotukutuku, is bursting into leaf and flower and I spent 30 minutes trying to get a good photo of the birds feeding on it before giving up and swapping to a flowering brush wattle.

A camera-shy tui who kept hiding in the branches

This waxeye (silvereye) was more co-operative

Despite not getting a good 'bird on the fuchsia' pic, I had fun photographing the new leaves and flowers - the New Zealand fuchsias are apparently the only fuchsias in the world with blue pollen and early NZ pollen fossils have been dated as being over 30 million years old.

How's this for a weird visitor - it was on my jacket after a morning sorting wood.

Is it a bird, is it a plane???

Nah, it's a Bag Moth caterpillar

The end of a Bic biro for scale

T-shirt and shorts weather

What a gorgeous hot sunny day today! And not just a bit of sunshine between showers, or a glimpse of blue sky through the clouds either - the day dawned bright and clear and it stayed that way all day. Just perfect!! Wet weather does have its compensations though - how about this for a stunning rainbow on 8 August?

 

Yesterday I transplanted some vege seedlings that were sown at Easter. Getting tipped off the greenhouse shelves and landing upside down didn't help their growth and some of them didn't have much of a root system so not sure how they'll go. A tv gardening programme said that in the olden days the farmer dropped his britches and sat on the ground; if the soil felt cold then it was too early to plant seeds! I didn't need to drop my britches as the soil was cold and clammy on my hands; hopefully this plastic enclosure will help them get established and grow into big strong vegetables. 



The finished shade house Mark II

 I made another trip to Bragg Bay today to clear more gum tree branches - there's just the big stuff now that needs a chainsaw. I have a number of woodpiles around the house - there's at least three lots of kindling, a couple for branches that can be cut with a bow-saw, and a larger pile that will need chainsawing. It would be easier to have two woodsheds but that's a bit over the top for a one-person household.

Gum-leaf pyramid by my woodshed

I've had a wee rest from beer bread making this week. Last weekend I experimented with ginger beer and although it was edible, it wasn't half as nice as beer bread and it stuck to the non-stick loaf tins. My favourite so far is adding Moroccan spice, half a teaspoon of mixed spice and 8-10 chopped olives.

Ginger beer bread - a coarser texture and pretty bland

Olive, mixed spice and Moroccan spice loaves