It's the first day of spring, yahoo!

Okay, I have to start this post by apologizing for my title. It's not really the first day of Aotearoan spring that I'm going to show you today.  It's not the official first day, the one on the calendar.  But, it is the first day since the official start of spring here that feels to me like the first day of spring ought to feel.    

I have a favorite T-shirt that says on the front, "In my defense, I was left unsupervised."  I would therefore point out that since it's my blog you're reading, and my pictures you're looking at, you ought to cut me a little slack when viewing what I put before you and understand that I need to indulge in a little poetic license every now and then.  Good.  Enough said.  

Jeanne and I came over to Devonport today on a bus trip from Waitakere Gardens.  We went to the Naval Museum here, which was nice, but I've got to tell you, I enjoyed having lunch afterwards in an English pub in downtown Devonport and then sitting on a bench in the park at the beach even more.  The weather was glorious.  Check it out.  

This is the 'iconic' view that says 'Devonport' to me.  It's right across the street from where our bus let us off.  All 49 of us scurried off in different directions. Although you do understand I hope, that when I use the term scurried, I am referring to my almost 72 year-old perception of time and space.  Most of Devonport's residents, had they been watching us, would have termed our dissemination from the bus as leisurely, lethargic or sluggish, if they were nice people that is, and ponderous, snail-like or torpid, if they were not. (I love the thesaurus.)  

Or maybe they would just have said we were 'slow as,' if they weren't the thesaurus toting sort.  

My lady and I soon passed this amazing tree.

And not long afterwards, this astounding 153 year-old Moreton Bay Fig.  Notice that all those slim 'trees' toward the outside are not in fact separate trees. Those are air roots from some of the branches.  

Jeanne fueled us up the morning of our adventure with oatmeal, aka porridge, served over sliced bananas with raisins and pumpkin and sunflower seeds sprinkled over the top.  She enjoyed hers doused in yogurt, while I preferred mine lightly slathered in molasses.  I mention this because the meal we had in Devonport was less healthy, but definitely to my taste. 

Here's the front door of the Patriot.  

We each added a half-pint of Guinness to our order and found it perfect.  

We arrived before the bulk, or even the beginning of the lunch crowd, which suited us just fine. Our drinks and food arrived very quickly.  
 

We wandered beachward after lunch and passed this fountain.

When I got back home and loaded these photos onto my computer, I tried to make an 'artistic' sort of picture.  What do you think? Not very artistic, is it?  Oh, well.  

We are here at the beach.

Looking out across the bay toward the Pacific.

And these views clearly are toward the city.

You see a ferry crossing in the foreground. I've taken it a lot.  It's fast and smooth, and it's the way I usually get to Devonport. Further, amazingly, for folks over 65, with a gold card, it's free.  

The Sky Tower is 2.25 miles from us.  It looks like there are three people outside today. 

Well, I've shown you all a number of pictures and I think you probably noticed how blue the sky was in most of them.  What you couldn't experience though was the breeze.  I've come to love New Zealand's almost constant winds. Today's was particularly nice. 

Balmy is a word I once used in a post to describe the feeling of an soft and refreshing night breeze. I felt it as I took some pictures of Jupiter from the croquet court at the Gardens around 11 p.m. But  balmy also means, not surprisingly, aromatic and fragrant. (the dictionary is just one click away from the thesaurus.) 

Did you know that crushed seashells have a smell?  It's true.  The top layer of the beach we were on was composed entirely of finely pulverized bivalve shells and as I walked on them, the heat carried up their unique tang. This mixed with the scents of all sorts of trees, flowers, and at one point, the aroma that wafted from a young woman walking by who I think was wearing an excessive amount of coconut sunscreen.  The combination of it all, as I sat there, well fed, on a bench, in the sun, next to Jeanne, was definitely a balm to my body and soul.  

Do you blame me, now that I've shared all this with you, for getting carried away with my title? My first taste of spring has whetted my appetite for the summer to come. We're currently back to winterish conditions, but I'm confident that a change for the better is coming.   -djf 

     

The Road We took.

This is my 600th post. That's hard to believe. When I started this blog back in 2014, I gave no thought to its future, and yet here I am, pounding out yet another 'installment.'

I've reminisced about my life in many of the posts I've written over the years. I've told those of you who read this blog regularly, by way of explanation, that I write it as much for myself as for anyone else, and that's true. This blog has filled uncounted hours for me with comfort and satisfaction. It has given me the opportunity not only to share our experiences here in Aotearoa, but to think about my own life as well. That's especially important to me now. 

So, this special post is going to be mostly reminiscing. I'm looking at life with hindsight. It feels good to be where I am, for the most part anyway, and I thought I'd put a few thoughts down.  

I'm almost 72. That's also hard to believe since I don't feel a day over 55 or so, except when I get up in the morning, bend over to pick up something up from the floor, try to run, and well, the list continues. It's better that I end the tally now I think, before it gets embarrassing.  Oddly, judging from my dreams, I sometimes think that my mental age is quite a bit younger than even that middle years figure I gave you. I find that perplexing. 

Mine is a strange time of life. Well, not strange really, although I would certainly describe it as 'not previously encountered', and 'unfamiliar' at times.  Maybe I should have called it unique. I do think it's an interesting time.  I'm looking backwards, remembering all the years, and work and people. And especially family.  But I'm looking forward too. Into eternity. I think that the time I'm living in my retirement would be wasted if I didn't contemplate my future. I love Robert Louis Stevenson's poem Requiem.  The last line of his first stanza is, And I laid me down with a will.  I agree with that. I want to be ready when it becomes my time to exit this life.  I don't want to cling to my old life, I want to embrace my future.    

You know, something occurred to me just after we had moved into Waitakere Gardens. Since our apartment here is of a modest size compared to our home in Michigan, I reasoned that my life in the village shares some of the aspects of my life when I lived in the Hunt Hall dormitory at Northern Michigan University, which I attended over 50 years ago. 

I had new freedoms then that I hadn't known previously. I have freedom here too.  Freedom from the pressures of earning a living.  

In both places, and in both times, I was/am able to follow my interests. I'm certainly doing that now. I'm marveling at the workings of our natural world. (And blogging about many of them.) 

I took a walk over to Tui Glen not long ago and found myself admiring the tree you see below. That is a living tree in the depths of winter. Mid-August here in Aotearoa.  I was reminiscing as I gazed at it, and imagined how I would have felt had I been confronted with a dead tree of that size in the woods around my home 45 years ago. We had had Dutch Elm Disease go through our area years before and the woods were dotted with trees that had succumbed. None however, that I saw were as massive as this one. This would have been a great prize.  

I stood and thought about how I would fell that tree.  I took down hundreds of them over the years when we lived in our first home and had only a wood-fired furnace in the basement. How I went about it was critical for my safety, especially when it was packed together with other trees in the forest.  Until you've had tons of tree come crashing to earth near you, you might not appreciate how puny we are in comparison.   

Then, I thought of cutting into manageable logs and hauling it back to our yard with my father-in-law's tractor and dray. Of cutting it to stove length with my chain saw, splitting a large portion of it, and throwing it down into the basement.

I talked once before in a post about working with a guy named David years ago, and how he scoffed at my description of hunting mushrooms in our woods.  I'm sure he would have been similarly disdainful if he had known that I lived in an old farmhouse and cut my own wood for winter heating. He proudly told me he spent all his free time in making money. (He was in sales)  

I've said it before, David knew only one kind of wealth. I know many.  

Just look.  

A bonanza of shaggy manes.  Jeanne and I harvested hundreds one day. We were on a day-trip to see some of the water falls in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  As we wandered near one, Jeanne came upon this sunny glade that was positively filled.  At home again, we fried them in butter, put them in jars and froze them.   

Morchella deliciosa. In my opinion, the gold standard of mushrooms. We collected many thousands of these over the years.  Thousands.  Fred and McKenzie told me that they once found a package of morels in a fancy up-scale market in St. Paul, MN., that contained four morels of this size. The price tag was $20.00.  (David, what do you think now?)  

A plus-sized, perfect shaggy mane

Felled and limbed cedars in process (late December) 

Eight-foot cedar posts, all cut by hand with my Finn saw. (a type of bow saw)   

The real value of these posts to me was not the value of the peeled posts. It was the time I spent in the winter cedar swamp harvesting them. (I had set up a trail-cam in this clearing to record the deer that would come in to feast on the cedar tops I left behind. I decided to test it before leaving.)   

This is one of the deer that did come in.  Notice that the deer is standing directly behind where I was standing when the camera recorded me. You can see how much of the cedar brush has been eaten.  

I loved it out in the woods. Winter is, by far, the finest time in a cedar swamp. 

That's my 'limbing' Finn saw in the picture. The 'felling' saw is larger.  

Straining maple sap into the boiling caldron.  I made gallons of this. 

The finished product 

Over my lifetime, I have often thought of Robert Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken. It seems to me that it sums up the decisions Jeanne and I made.  

Just after Jeanne graduated from Northern Michigan University, (I had graduated the year before) I was hired by the United States Customs Service. During the period before I left for training, we thought long and hard about that decision.  I had serious misgivings about what sort of life my young wife would have. My first assignment was going to be in Detroit, of all places and I'd be working all three shifts. I couldn't imagine us living there.   

Ultimately, we turned the job down.  After bouncing around Marquette for a time while holding a couple of temporary jobs, we decided to buy a home and 20 acres from Jeanne's Uncle Albert. I went to work at a furniture factory.  We lived 8 miles out into the farmland from a town of 200 and 12 miles in the other direction from a town of 400.  

I worried a bit during those days about our lifestyle choice. Rural living was in our blood but I was not earning anywhere near what I could have been.  Had we made the right choice? 

Well, I can see clearly now from my vantage point of years that we had. While we didn't have all the money we wanted in those days, we somehow managed to have enough, and we learned about and accumulated many other sorts of riches.  And a wealth of memories that we still possess and can never be spent. I wrote a piece way back when that I entitled, Them Thar Hills, that detailed lots more treasures that were part of our world. And another one called, At the Chopping Block, which was a sort of simplified chronicle of our lives.   

Today, I can still appreciate the value of a firewood tree, remember the wonder of gathering wild mushrooms, recall the satisfaction of harvesting cedar posts from my own land, and the delight of producing maple syrup from the trees around my yard. 

In John Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday, Doc met a big, bearded stranger on a beach one day who later became a seer.  At one point, while sharing his dinner with Doc, he said, "Appetites are good things. The more appetites a man has, the richer he is."  

I still have many appetites. 

Here in New Zealand, I have collected pieces of Kauri Tree gum, gathered chestnuts along the sidewalks, harvested olives in public parks and processed them into oil and delighted in producing acorn flour from the fruit of giant English Oaks.  Jeanne and I have continued to grow richer.

I wonder if David reminisces in his old age about his years of sales figures? I think it's kind of sad if he does. He probably does have a ton of money.  

Jeanne and I began our life's journey together years ago, and did think at length (long I stood, And looked)* about which road to follow. Both opportunities offered certain advantages for us (And both that morning equally lay)*.  We chose and now, ages and ages hence*, know that the road we took has made all the difference.*   -djf

* Bold italics indicate passages from the 2nd linked poem. 

--  In case you're interested...

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/requiem/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken

The early show

The last two mornings have been clear, a rarity around here, since this past winter was even wetter than they usually are.  I haven't had many opportunities to get out and admire the sky and its many wonders.  

Therefore, since it was clear, I jumped at the chance to see what I could see and record it.   

I don't have a wide variety of celestial bodies to show you, but I enjoyed getting out there. I hope you enjoy them as well.  I wandered, while taking them, from our balcony, to the croquet court outside the café, and then finished off at 'Arthur's Corner.' That's at the end of the third floor of the Palms. I got an excellent sunrise there.  

This first picture shows Venus just above the tree and the Moon just starting its rise, just before 6 a.m. 

I zoomed in on Venus.  These two pictures were taken on September 12, 2023. (You might notice that Venus is against a black background here. I actually took this picture before the one just above.)

 

I took all of the following shot on the morning of the 13th. It's about 5:30 a.m. in this one.  That's Venus again of course, to the left of center stage.  That's a jet just to the right of the tip of the Sky Tower, and if you look to the left, at about the same height above the bottom of the frame, you'll see a helicopter. (Btw, the Sky Tower is 7.5 miles away)  

You'll notice in this next one that both the jet and the helicopter have moved to the right, although the jet is moving faster of course. 

I'm up at Arthur's Corner now, and the sky is beginning to show some color. 

Venus is at the very top of the picture now while the thin, crescent of the Moon is barely visible in the lower center of the shot. It's so dim that you may have to scroll down to see it in subsequent photos and them come back up to this one to find it.  

See, there it is.

Going closer...note the bird in the distance to the left 

And closer...the bird is below the Moon now.  

And very close now.  

The morning is progressing, and the sun will be up soon.  I got a chair from inside the Atrium and made myself comfortable to wait.  There are a few minutes to go but it's already brilliant out here. 

While we're waiting, let's look at our circle drive and the front of the Atrium.  

Okay, here we go. Sunrise, zooming in. There is the first glint of the sun. The day has started.  

Here's another with lots of zoom, and with a bird.  I love birds in sunrise pictures.  I wasn't going to use this picture, but then I spotted the bird and enlarged it.  

And, seconds later, I got this. Oh, I like the effect on this one.   

But, let's make it bigger yet so we can fully appreciate it. 

I was warned by the guy that sold me this camera to use caution when shooting into the Sun.

I never allow the sun to get too big and only shoot toward it while it's on a horizon.  Even so, the camera, which was dialed for this picture to auto, set its shutter speed to 1/2000, which is its fastest.    

I really like that.  Sometimes the clouds are useful, aren't they? 

I liked it so much in fact, that I sent this shot over to Harvey Norman and bought an 8" by 12" printed photo of it.  I put it up on our apartment door for anyone who passes by.  

Okay, one more close up. But this might be a little too close.  I don't know.  See what you think. (I do like to be able to look into the full intensity of the sun without hurting my eyes.)  

I enjoyed getting up to watch 'the early show,' and take these pictures. The village was mostly deserted, but I did meet Stan, the night porter, who was out delivering the morning newspaper to those folks who get it. I smelled the sweet alyssum when I went down to the croquet court and it was slightly chilly, but not windy.  A good way to begin the day.

I hope that you've enjoyed seeing these pictures. I took a walk up the hill from Newmarket, as far as the entrance to Mt. Hobson in Remuera today. (9/16/23), snapping pictures as I went, and on my return, discovered a morning market going on at the French Cultural Center. That generated a whole new set of photos and a video of a four-person band entertaining the crowd. I don't know which I'll show you first, but there are two posts worth of photos in my pipeline now so you ought to plan to check in again next week.   

Of course, since this post you've just read is my 599th, I may do something different next week to mark the next one.    -djf

BTW, I thought I'd give you an update on our plan to make our own Limoncello.  We were successful!  Here is a picture of a small bottle of it. 

We started with 40% vodka and ended with 26% Limoncello, the same strength as some 'real' Italian Limoncello on the market. We found that it was quite easy to make. We brought a bottle to our village Cabaret Night and shared it until the bottle was empty. That was fun.

We have already started another batch.  In three weeks, we'll add the syrup and then put the bottles away for several months before trying them.  It's supposed to get even better with age.  -djf

The Wintergarden

Today Jeanne and I went to the Wintergarden in Auckland Domain.  It's near the museum.  Join us in admiring some interesting flowers and plants.  

It may be spring here in New Zealand, but it sure looks winter-dreary, doesn't it?  

Now, that's different.  

This is a new one to me. It's a 'fingered citron,' or 'Buddha's fingers.'  I did a little reading and found that this fruit is ripe when it turns yellow.  It is edible and apparently is used like lemon peel, shaving off the zest.  The whole thing can also be candied.    

Here and there throughout the building were artichokes.  

We didn't stay long.  A cup of coffee on the terrace fueled us for the return walk to the Grafton Train Station.

A blue sky and sun would transform this picture.  

As we relaxed over our coffee, these two came by, briefly.  

I hope you enjoyed seeing a few colorful shots.  -djf