Kia ora e te Whanau, Hello to all our family and friends,
Strong winds on the 1st of the month brought down part of one of our firewood trees. Peter’s chainsaw broke the drive spindle when he started attacking it so it had to go in for repair.
We called in our local arborist and decided to take out what was left of the tree and the large gum tree next to it.
Tom asked if we would like some firewood from a couple of trees that fell down on a farm he does some work at. This eventuated into a trailer load of firewood for Peter to split.
After the drama last month with the two birds falling down the woodburner chimney, Peter ordered a new bird proof sock to go over the chimney. As he’s now banned (by Ann) from climbing onto the roof he got a local handyman in to do it for us. 
To cope with the surge in firewood Peter made a new trestle for cutting up branches.
Ann bought a powered water sprayer which didn’t cost an arm and a leg from Mitre 10 (Kiwi version of B&Q). She managed to use it to fertilise about 30 bonsai before her back protested too much and Peter had to finish the job.
Before we could get the trees dropped, strong winds on the 13th blew the large gum tree over with it mostly in our neighbour’s garden.
Of course it had to be the only neighbour who absolutely hates us.
It wasn’t only us, one of our friends had a tree blow down as well.
On the 16th, John from Pirongia Tree Services came over and pulled the fallen tree out of next door’s garden and dropped the last of the firewood trees we’d planted about 12 years ago – just to be safe.
Peter now has several months work in mulching all the smaller branches and cutting up the rest for firewood – if he can find somewhere to put it as our wood shed is full and the covered storage is still half full.
On the 22nd of September a local garden club visited to look at the bonsai. The weather didn’t come to the party and it rained throughout their visit. However we did get some lovely compliments, including one lady who said she hadn’t really been that keen as she expected half a dozen trees on the shelf by the back door and was blown away by our collection!
The pump which brings water into the house started playing up at the end of the month requiring a visit from the plumbers to fit a temporary pump. Ours is now away for investigation to see if it can be repaired or we need a new one.
The girls are both fine and keep us busy.
On the 30th we went into Hamilton where Ann had a physio appointment. We combined this with a shopping trip to buy a new exercise bike and lunch.
