Another trip to Muriwai

We made another trip out to Muriwai recently and took some great pictures and a video. I have plenty of pictures for a couple of posts. 

Today, I think I'll start with the gannet colony we saw that's located toward the south end of this magnificent beach. 

This is the season that gannets turn up at their yearly colonies, lay eggs, and raise their chicks. Muriwai is one of those colonies. Take a look at some pictures...

As you look over the railing on the first of the viewing platforms, this is what you see. 

This is an adult.

And here, in the center, is a juvenile, still rather downy, but already very large.

Gannets can live for up to 35 years. They dive for fish from up to 100 feet high and hit the water going up to 60 mph. 

Looking south. The first viewing platform I mentioned in the first photo is at the upper left of this photo. (We're on the second platform.)

This is looking north, from the first viewing platform again, looking toward, you guessed it, the second viewing platform.  

This is the first time I've tried a video on this camera. I think it turned out pretty well. I'll probably start to take videos more often and upload them first to You Tube, and then here. 

My next post will show you what (who) else was in the skies above Muriwai the day we visited.                              -djf

A short look at the 'new' Summerland Primary.

Over the Christmas holiday (during summer vacation here), work started on pulling out the old playground and installing a new one. In addition to the playground, a stage and seating area was installed where grass had previously been. At long last, the fencing around the stage area has been removed and this morning, the kids swarmed all over it, imagining maybe the shows that will be presented there.  

Here is a short look at the 'new' Summerland Primary School.  

This new sign directs visitors to the various buildings around the campus. It sits in the middle (sort of) of the new putting green. The kids use plastic putters and ping pong balls on this particular green. 

The new playground has padding under this new turf. The old one had just wood chips and was somewhat rough on the skin of the kids who took falls.  

A before school (about 8:45 a.m.) view of the playground from another angle.

And yet another angle...

This is a view from the 2nd story balcony just outside Arram's classroom. It shows a white gravel walkway and benches set among the plants. 

Here we are down on one of the gravel pathways.

Again from Arram's classroom balcony. You see the shade/rain screen over this pod. In the background, you can see the in-progress stage area.

This is looking toward Amiri's classroom #5, showing the new artificial green. 

This is under the canopy over Amiri's pod. Those are sliding doors in the wall.

The kids seem to like the new area.I wonder what the first function held here will be? 

The stage backdrop (or whatever it's called) has wings that fold out when needed.

I'll get some additional close up photos when an event is held here.

 The view from the edge of the stage area.

Another view of the seating area.

The seating is very comfy.

This is the 'turf' that was installed about a year ago. It's where lots of sports are played. Arram enjoyes 'Playball' here in good weather. 

This is the 'Court' where lots of after-school basketball and soccer is played. It's also the main site for the yearly school gala...the fund raising carnival that I did a post on. 

A covered walkway that ends at the putting green with the sign I showed you in the first picture of this post. On the right in the foreground is a king sized sandbox. 

We just found out from Arram last night, 3-23, that his class has been practicing to do a dance on the new stage. It will be done, together with the 'big kids' from room 20, to the song Lean on Me by Bill Withers. It sounds like the stage will be getting plenty of use. Can't wait.              -djf

The mystery at Kaitarakihi is a mystery no more!

Kaitarakihi Beach is one of our favourites. Many times Allie will say, "Let's go to Huia!" Where she actually intends to go is to this beach. Huia Beach is just beyond here, but it's right in the town of Huia and has very little appeal, compared with this little hidden bit of wonder.   

It's got gentle surf. On the right end of the head land in the center of the picture stands the Manukau Lighthouse that I have done posts on in the past. You'll see the lighthouse better in the next picture.

You can just make it out up there. 

There is our little troup relaxing on the beach. My apologies to the lady who was caught in an embarrasing posture. 

We're looking to the right side of the beach here. Beyond the nearest headland is the bay where Huia is located. You can see Paratae Island on the far left of this picture. Beyond that and around the corner is Whatipu. (Fah' tea poo)

This is a closer look at the right side of the beach. The mystery that Jeanne discovered lies about half way out on the beach. 

Here's another, slightly closer look at where we're going. The tide is going out.

Isn't that beautiful?

 We're almost out to the surprise. It's visible only at low tide.

This is a large rock that broke off the cliff side. Look at the layering. 

This shot is reminiscent of the tidal pool photos I showed you from Army Bay Beach but this is at Kaitarakihi. I include it here because it demonstrates how the layers of rock are worn away. 

 And here it is. The tide is low enough now to reveal some sort of fossils. I've done a little research, trying to determine what these are, but I've had no luck yet. As the years pass, these fossils will no doubt change as the layers disapper.
Arram is fond of singing, "Do, re, me, fos, sil, la, ti, do!" (He's a big fan of the song from The Sound of Music.)

Jeanne's finger gives some reference to the size.

Here's one last shot.
Since I wrote the text under the first fossil picture just above, I have discovered the 'Fossil Record Electronic Database' or FRED for short,which is an on-line listing and description of fossils all over New Zealand. I applied for admission and am now registered to use it. If I find a fossil site not already listed, I can even add it to the database and attach my name. (or Jeanne's)  

FRED informed me that the fossils we're looking at here include a Notocyathus worm, Crassostrea mangrove oysters (bivalves), Maoricolpus and Zeacolpus sea snails (gastropods) and the most exciting one of all, a Isurus hastalis, an extinct mako shark from the Eocene Epoch.
There are three more fossil sites listed for this beach and their approximate location shown on an inteactive map. I'm going to try to look them up. Two are on land and the other is farther out in the water than this site is and will only be visible at very low tide. That's the one I most want to find. What a kick that would be.  I hope to be able to show you more pictures on some future post. 

After our adventure with the fossils, I took a walk down to the far left side of the beach. This was the scene where I turned around. Look at all the layering in the cliff. 

Lots of fishing going on down here. I didn't see any catches though. They're after kahawai or snapper. 

Home again after another wonderful day at the beach.  This adventure took place in December of 2015.  -djf

More suburban foraging...

It's getting to be that time of year here when foraging is easiest and most productive. 

Today we are going to start by collecting some chestnuts. This tree is on public property and there are many people who pick up the nuts. Fortunately for all of us, the tree drops just so many at a time so there are always at least a few waiting for whoever walks by and doesn't mind bending over. I got three really nice ones today. All together, I have harvested 24 nuts. 

Before you look at the pictures, let me tell you a little story about the first time I noticed these nuts. 

I was walking home from grocery shopping and noticed these spiny things lying all over the corner. My first inclination was to pick one up but I discovered that they are extremely sharp and picking them up bare handed was a bad idea, unless you were extremely careful. I found a few bare nuts and pocketed them. 

I then walked a few more paces and saw an old guy (older than myself) sweeping his home's section of sidewalk clear of the nuts. I said hi and asked him what they were. "Horse chestnuts," he said.  He then explained that the tree, while not actually on his property, dropped about half it's yearly crop on his side of the fence. He said that those nuts that fell beyond his property were fair game for anyone passing by, but those that fell on the land he paid taxes on were his. I agreed that made sense. 

He told me he had once been awakened at 6 a.m. and found a small group of people in his yard collecting the nuts. He went out and told them he was calling the cops if they didn't leave the nuts and leave his yard immediately. They did. 

He asked me if I liked them and when I said I had never tried horse chestnuts before, he gave me a big double handful of them he had just picked. 

When I got home, I looked them up and found that they were actually chestnuts, not horse chestnuts. A real find. 

Here are the shots I took the other day.

These are scones made from the 'flour' of 20 chestnuts. Rather than pulverising the nutmeats by hand and drying them to a flour-like consistency, it is much easier to simply add the pieces to whatever milk the recipe calls for, and blending them for a bit.  The result was mixed with white flour and it worked nicely. 

I suppose that strictly speaking, buying peaches from a self-serve sidewalk cart is not really foraging, but it feels sort of like it. The lady who lives here on Sturges Road sells a variety of fruits as they ripen in her backyard and her prices are such that she's almost giving them away. We got 5 peaches per bag. For a buck. At today's rate of exchange, that's about 66 cents American. No wonder it feels like foraging. 

Here is our take from our walk on March 5th. 

This next picture is of some of the results of foraging we have done in the past.

From left to right we have:
Blackberry syrup made from berries discovered by Allie in a field next to the train platform at Sunnyvale.
Guava syrup from fruit we bought from the lady who also sells the peaches on Sturges Road.
Feijoa jam from the tree in our backyard.
Plum jelly from fruit given to Allie by her friend Kathy at ABI.

Here is an update on my acorn experiment. I can now report it to be a success. 

These are halves that I boiled in three separate pans of water and then soaked for nearly a month, changing the water daily. The tannins are finally gone and no bitterness remains. I'm guessing that if you treated pecans the same way, you might end up with something similar. 

I have another jar of finely chopped pieces of acorns that I have not boiled. I simply change the water daily. Although I have read that white oak acorns do not contain as high a level of tannins as red oak acorns do, it still takes quite a while, apparently, to leach out whatever level they do have. I tasted a piece today and it has quite a ways to go. 

I cooked these in a little butter and oil and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on them as they sizzled. They're not as good as the nuts you can buy at the U.P. State Fair, but they are passable. I should have cooked the sugar longer so that it coated the acorns better. The main thing is, they are edible AND if this is all that you had, you'd find them very edible indeed. 

These are scones that were made using the acorns pictured above. The black things in the scones are raisins. We blended these nuts just like the chestnuts. Jeanne made this dough a little moister so they have a more rounded, cookie-like appearance than the chestnut scones shown above. Both were delicious.

For reasons of it's own, the tree decided to drop a lot of acorns while they were still green. I have been experimenting with those. I notice now that the acorns left on the tree are starting to turn brown finally and I wonder if the tannin content of them might be different (less, I hope). I am going to pick the brown ones as they fall and taste the difference.  

-to be continued...   -djf