Pictures at an exhibition

With today's post, I thought that I'd show you some of the art work that graces the outdoor corridors of Summerland School. To accompany the art, it's only fitting that you listen to a bit of this, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition  www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VeiELD3RIA&t=1s

Before we get to the art I should reintroduce you to the school with a picture of its new sign. And, since the sign, when I snapped the picture, was announcing the EOTC that's going on, I'll have to include yet another picture to explain what that stands for. 

EOTC means Education Outside the Classroom. Amiri is in year 6 (5th grade in the U.S.) so he's been taking part in all the activities.

The most challenging event was probably the climbing wall.

Look at the height of that tower! It even overhangs a bit at the top. Amiri made it 3/4 of the way before losing his grip. The winds that day were about 30 mph. 

Good on you, Amiri. 

But, let's take a look at some of the art around Summerland. All student produced of course. 

In this shot, we are looking at a corner of the 'court' where Arram plays soccer most days after school with whoever else is around. Amiri prefers to spend his time after school on the rings, overhead bars and flying fox of the playground.

Jeanne and Dianne are standing at the end of this covered walkway watching Arram.

Here are a few more pictures. These are on one area of wall surrounding the turf, seen below.

Finally, here are a few planters and a sculpture that lists Summerland's Values. 

That's it for today....           -djf

We get a call to conserve water; okay, but because there's too much of it?

A couple of days ago it began to rain, and hard. Amiri noticed and jumped to his feet from the couch, raced into the kitchen, selected two clear, straight-sided water glasses and disappeared out on to the deck. He was planning to measure the rainfall we got. (two glasses allowed him to duplicate his measurement at slightly different spots for accuracy's sake, and also to collect twice as much rainwater.) Because of his schedule and other interests, he was not able to monitor his experiment quite as efficiently as the National Weather Service did, but he did collect somewhere in excess of 5 inches of rain between then and this morning. 

According to the weather service we have received 7.55 inches of rain since last Wednesday with 3.35 of that happening just last night.

Today, Saturday morning, Jeanne and I walked down to the Opanuku Stream to see how high it was and were impressed. Not only is it higher than we've seen before, it is browner than we've seen if before. We had umbrellas with us but we stayed dry during our 1 hour hike. 

Here is the Opanuku on a sunny day some time ago, in the course of a normally dry summer. You can see through the water to the algae, etc. The stream here measures about 2 meters wide at most .

This picture was taken from about the same spot on the bridge. Less zoom. The water now stretches 12 meters from bank to bank. 

A pretty good sized branch comes down. 

The dusk to dawn lights are still on at 11:15 a.m.

We have been getting daily requests in the newspapers and the on-line news to conserve water. At first, that seemed crazy since we clearly have too much of the stuff right now. But then they explained. 

You saw the condition of the water in the Opanuku. Well, that sort of sediment-laden water has been flooding into the reservoirs and putting extra stress on the water-treatment plants that produce about 450 million liters of water a day for Auckland. They want the usage to drop to 400 million liters because of the extra work they must put into cleaning up the water to normal standards. If we don't decrease usage, and demand overrides the systems capabilities, they'll have to do the best they can but issue a boil alert. What a hassle that would be. The next thing we'd have would be brown-outs as 1.4 million people put pots of water on the stove. 

The rain, fortunately, seems to be slowing down. We had only two downpours today totalling about half an hour. Tomorrow is supposed to ease up a little more and by Tuesday, we might see some sun again. 

I read that several hundred homes have had some flooding.. New Lynn had a sink hole open up. Our area is so hilly and well-drained that we have had no issues whatsoever with flooding.  -djf

Update: I'm actually posting this several days after these photos were taken. The sun has returned. I read that usage has been reduced to about 409 million liters per day, but the treatment problem persists and so do the calls to conserve. We're doing our part.

"Few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks." P. G. Wodehouse

This post continues, as I promised, the subject of the bricks of New Lynn.

Today's quote comes from a writer who has given me many hours of pleasurable reading. More about him, and how he fits into my posts about bricks, at the end. 

 I'm sorry that the writing on this plaque doesn't show. It says that this is the actual gatepost of a brick works that sported a 45 meter chimney. 



I've been talking mainly about bricks in these posts, but mentioned that pipes were also made when I showed a picture of the memorial in the previous post. Obviously though, if you have clay available in an area, fine pottery must also develop as a product. This Crown Lynn museum is right next to the Ambrico Kiln and shows many examples of what was produced. 

It is difficult to find examples of Crown Lynn pottery, but Allie owns a teacup...   A new goal of mine is to keep my eyes open for any new pieces to add to her collection. 

 Some of the styles on display at the museum.

...And other products as well. 

 Ambrico place is very different today than it must have been generations ago, during the heyday of the brick-making industries. Then, coal-fired kilns ruled the landscape and coal-dust, brick-dust, dirty men, horses, waggons and road apples must have filled the landscape. 

Today, Ambrico Place is filled with Art Deco style apartment buildings, cars and clean streets. See for yourselves.

In the center of Ambrico Place is Ambrico Reserve. (Park) 

 The playground here stands next to this brick labyrinth. (the grass needs mowing.)

Across a road from the area of apartments and park I've just shown you, St. Andrews Sunday School Hall stands abandoned.  It is the only structure in an area of about 50 or 60 acres. I learned just recently from the curator of the pottery museum that this undeveloped site is the clay pit that has been feeding the brick works of the area all this time. I don't know St. Andrews fate, but it doesn't appear that restoration is being considered.  

 'Jan. 19, 1929'

'Land donated by NZ Brick and Tile Co.' 

You know, I am lucky that I can remember many moments in my life when I experienced a "first." I remember my first anchovy pizza. (good story, that) I remember my first shot of scotch. And I remember the day I was in the Escanaba Public Library and browsing, saw a book entitled, No Nudes is Good Nudes. It was written by P. G. Wodehouse. What a great first-read from that author. His name has been significant to me ever since.

So, what does he have to do with bricks?  

Well, when I did my first post about New Lynn, I said that I could think of four songs off the top of my head that had something to do with bricks. What I didn't say then, was that I could also think of an author who talked a lot about bricks, or portions thereof, in many of his works. P. G. Wodehouse was that English author.  

What better way (in my opinion) to conclude this post, than to acquaint you with someone who clearly considered the brick to be indispensable as a tool for social and interpersonal comment.   

Here are a few quotes from his books...  (font changes reflect the source from which I copied)

In Summer Moonshine; "Whatever may be said in favour of the Victorians, it is pretty generally admitted that few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks."^[11]

(He was apparently commenting derisively here on Victorian Architecture)

In PSmith, Journalist;

 "We want a man of thews and sinews, a man who would rather be hit on the head with a half-brick than not."

In The Small Bachelor;

If you threw a brick from any of its windows, you would be certain to brain some rising young . . . Vorticist sculptor or a writer of revolutionary vers libre. 's And a very good thing too. (7)

In The Heart of a Goof;

"I would like to bean her with a brick, and bean her good. .."

In Very Good Jeeves;

"...which was that of a cat which has just been struck by a half-brick and is expecting another shortly..."

In Brinkley Manor;
" But honestly, old thing, you could fling bricks by the half-hour in England's most densely populated districts without hitting one girl willing to become Mrs. Fink-Nottle without a general anesthetic."

And one of his favorite insults;
"A dumb brick of the first water."

I know that there are many, many more action scenes in his books involving bricks. He's written more than 90 books after all. Plus short stories and plays. (I'm not aware that any of the characters in his plays ever found themselves, fortunately, at either end of a brick.)

My suggestion is that you find a P. G. Wodehouse book and give it a try. I'm the only one I know who finds his writing palatable. But I think I'm in good company nonetheless. I notice that the section of Wodehouse in the local library is practically always empty. And he has been described, "as arguably the greatest writer of comic prose, ever."  That's high praise. In fact, in my opinion the adverb used above should have been unarguably. 

And the guy knows his bricks. That much is obvious. I don't think he ever set foot in New Lynn during it's best brick-making days, but if he had I'm sure he would have bent over and filled his pockets with a few good chunks, just in case he came across a Vorticist sculptor, a revolutionary, a girl who deserved it*, or a cat*.

I hope the library in New Lynn is full of his stuff. I'll think I'll have a look, take out a book and sit on the 'brick' bench (from the last post) to read it. Fitting, don't you think?      -djf


* I find it interesting that Wodehouse wrote many of his stories, some of which include flinging bricks around, during a time when, in America, the Krazy Kat newspaper cartoon was running. In it, a mouse named Ignatz, who Krazy secretly loves, constantly hurls bricks at Krazy's head. Krazy, true to his name, misinterprets these actions as proof of Ignatz's love. Wodehouse greatly admired America and actually lived there for quite a bit of his later life. I wonder if this cartoon strip might have been his inspiration for adopting the brick as a 'literary device'? A possibility I think, especially since his character who wants to bean the girl with the brick actually loves her and I'm sure was speaking figuratively. 

New Lynn brick works

My brother-in-law Bob is a bit of an amateur historian. One of his areas of interest is a group of early 20th century charcoal kilns, located not far from his northern-Michigan home. The charcoal kiln operation was tied into a narrow-gauge railroad that ran all over the area. According to Bob, local folklore has it that a small 'donkey' steam-engine, that was used on this line, jumped the tracks at some point and disappeared into the depths of the cedar-swamp that surrounded the tracks. Bob has been interviewing some of the old-timers in the area in the hopes of getting to the 'bottom' of the story, but the old-timers are few and far between these days, so information is scanty. Still, like any good historian, Bob perseveres. 

So, when I came across information recently about the Ambrico Kiln, located in New Lynn, my first thoughts were of "Bob's Kilns" and I knew that I had to, like him, do a bit of research. Bob's research site has been abandoned for the better part of a century, and the kilns are slowly falling to pieces, while the trees surrounding them are growing, demonstrating in a very real way how research becomes ever more difficult with the passage of time. 

I have it much easier. The history of the local brick kiln is very well established and has been brought back to life in many commemorative pieces of brick art and brick buildings, themselves major pieces of art. 

Today's post then, and the next one, are the result of three picture taking expeditions in New Lynn. This was one of dozens of brick works all over the Auckland area. You will see in the series of pictures that follow, that the brick is celebrated all over town. 

I've had some positive comments recently in support of the music I've added to my post at times. And, since I can think of at least four songs that have to do with bricks. I have therefore added this link so that you may start the music and then come back to read about the bricks of New Lynn, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnLo01m8y04 if you should care to.

Here we are at the Ambrico Kiln. 

Coal was shovelled into the top port where it fell on to grates and burned. The openings below were to clean out the clinkers. There are seven more on the other side. 

The wooden roof over the kiln is obviously a more modern addition designed to preserve the site. 

The temperature inside this kiln rose to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat entered from the top and was pulled down over the bricks stacked inside. The floor is perforated with holes, the openings leading to an underground passage that ran to the base of a 100 foot chimney. This chimney is what provided the draft or 'pull' for the high velocity fire storm produced by 14 coal fires which provided the temperatures needed. They produced 30,000 bricks about every two weeks. 

Today, bricks are still all over town. All I had to do was to stroll around the city center and I came across all sorts of 'homages to the brick.'  Take a look...

I like the humor in this one. 

You might remember this photo from the post I did entitled New Lynn on the 6th Day of Christmas. I didn't know the significance of the brick art at the time. 

No, relax, I'm not doing another 'benches' post. It just so happens that this is to one side of the Brick and Pipe Workers Memorial. 

Bricks from all the different brick works around Auckland went into building this memorial.

It's somewhat difficult to see behind the Plexiglas but those are other clay products (like pipes) that were produced. 

And there were lots of buildings too, made from brick. The police station below was built in 1930 and look how well it has been maintained all these years.  

The architectural style is known as 'Stripped Art Deco.'

And here is another building not far away.

It's in good shape too. The sign above the door say, 'The Potter's Post.' The small round sign in the background on the right is the pizza place I featured several posts ago. 

And here is another very important building.

I was glad to happen upon this particular building after wandering around town for two hours.

This is a shot of the War Memorial area opposite the New Lynn Mall. 

The brick theme also extends to local restaurants...

To close today, I'll give you another of the songs about bricks. I first heard this one ages ago... I hope none of the brick workers in New Lynn had this guy's problems. 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxaCfJfw6AY

(the other two songs I thought of are by Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. )    

I have additional photos now that expand on this post. I'll show them to you next time....

Bethell and O'Neill Beaches in motion

My post today is composed of mainly videos. I start on Bethell Beach with the first four and then cross the dune to O'Neill Bay. Finally, on our way back to the carpark at the end of the day, I take a quick 'spelunk' into a cave on Bethell.  (In the cave video, you'll notice that my camera lens is speckled, no doubt with salt from the surf earlier.) 

Dianne, Jeanne and I arrived at Bethell about 1 1/2 hours after high tide. The waves were still pretty intense at that point and it shows on my first video. Later, the surf quieted down and I was able to get some good shots along the edges of a rock outcropping. (starfish and kelp)

Bethell/O'Neill has absolutely everything anyone could ask for from a beach. The scale of the place is immense. The sun, sand and surf are beautiful. There are all manner of caves, cracks, cliffs, rocks, pools, shells, seaweed, creatures, and plants. People swim, sunbathe, beach comb, explore and fish here. 

I wish all of you could experience it in person. This is my attempt to share it with you. Enjoy. Do you have a heat-lamp or can you sit by a sunny window? Put a fan near you to simulate the wind. The only music on these videos today are the wind and waves. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aRrrRAM6tE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-3a8Fph09c&t=5s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQj28_orqt8&t=10s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNDhBRFftvU

These next three show O'Neill Bay and beach. The first one is taken from the dune separating Bethell and O'Neill. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRIpK6mRqWU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQPRHsQJWio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuXZnNLh0aw

The cave I go into in this last video is just right of center in this picture.  (This photo was not taken on our last trip. It dates from sunset on December 31, 2013)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evo8dH5OwxY

I also plan to show you lots of pictures that I took on this trip in a later post or posts.  Jeanne and I had real fun when we climbed down into a crack that extends clear through a headland at Bethell.  Take a look back at this earlier post about Bethell.

http://fostersoe.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/high-tide-at-bethells-beach-for-header.html

The first two pictures in it show a rectangular hole (narrow cave) about 50 or 60 feet long that allows waves from the other side of the headland to crash through to Bethell most of the time. At very low tide however, it is possible to climb down and walk almost to the waves on the other side, as we did. I got some interesting pictures. Be watching...             -djf