Nau Mai, Haere Mai,
It’s the end of winter here in New Zealand. This last week has been beautiful with warm sunny days and clear, frosty nights.
This years’ beginners bonsai classes have started with Peter leading two of the sessions. Ann has been going along to help out as usual.
Peter’s been busy digging up trees from the growing on beds for sale at some time in the future as starter material for bonsai.
There have been some severe storms this month which hit both Northland and the top of South Island but fortunately they missed us completely.
Peter took the bonsai club’s Torii Gate to the Wai Taiko Drummer’s 20th Anniversary Celebration (postponed for 2 years by Covid) and stayed to watch their fantastic performance.
Peter continues to work on his railway during the afternoons. His main focus recently has been on adding buildings to the village and adding details to the scenery such as a culvert by the wagon siding.
Walks continue around the village with the girls – Sox and Peter keeping up the 10-12kms a day whilst Honey and Ann complete a much more leisurely 2-3kms (on a good day!)
There were a few days of short walks during the heavy rains in the middle of the month – much to Sox’s disgust.
The pump on our water treatment unit failed (again) so for several days Peter had to use a bucket on a rope to keep the water level down in the outgoing chamber until it could be replaced. And of course the pump was out of warranty by 6 months – typical!
Work at the Hamilton Gardens Information Centre is steady with more visitors coming in with the better weather. Peter is swapping his fortnightly Wednesday shift to the following week to support one of the new volunteers.
We celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary on the last day of August. Peter had some rail track, a carriage, 4 buildings and some detailing kits for the railway.
Ann had another rabbit called Hina (Grey) join the clan and some books.
In the evening we went to Fahrenheit for a meal to celebrate.
