Haere mai and Welcome to our June news,
Work continues on Peter’s model railway. The rock face between the main track loop and the marshalling yard has been painted and Peter has started putting in grass and shrubs.
Rain at the start of the month meant a couple of walks were cut short. In the middle of the month we had a few stormy days with lots of thunder. The river level rose and there was a build up of driftwood against the bridge piers.
Peter had a tax rebate and bought himself a new computer (his old one was almost 8 years old and will now be running the railway). Ann’s rebate was much smaller – $6.99. She can’t think what to spend it on!
The bonsai club held its AGM and Peter stepped down as President and from the committee, Ann has stayed on for the moment. We had a Bring and Buy sale after the AGM and we managed to sell a number of our trees.
The battery on the mower died after 17 years – Peter went to mow the grass and it wouldn’t turn the engine over. Despite getting a replacement battery we still had to call the mower repair guys out to our place to fix a few connections. All fixed in 15 minutes ready for Peter to mow. However two days later the drive belt snapped necessitating another trip to Te Awamutu for a new belt.
Peter had another road trip, this time to Palmerston North (370 kms) to deliver 5 bonsai trees and have a look at Cwmglyn and pick up some landscaping materials for the railway.
On the way down he passed the Whakapapa Ski Fields which are just over two hours south of us. Neither of us have ever felt the need to go skiing there though.
Towards the end of the month the weather became more settled with beautiful sunny days and freezing cold nights. The wood burner has been running all day keeping Ann and the girls toasty warm.
With the calmer weather the water levels in the river are returning to normal as you can see.
You can see by comparing the two photos how much flooding occurred.
It was just as well that Peter bought a new computer. The hard drive on the old one fried itself when he was setting it up to run part of his railway. Fortunately he had a spare hard drive but it still took him a few hours to get everything up and running again.
As well as our usual shifts at the Information Centre at Hamilton Gardens we had an afternoon training session which included an update on the plans to enlarge the Information Centre and shop area over the next 18 months.
The end of the month saw the whole of Aotearoa New Zealand celebrate Matariki as a public holiday for the first time. Matariki is the beginning of the Maori new year – a time to celebrate new beginnings and to remember lost loved ones. The Seven Sisters are also known as Pleiades.
