More Holiday Haven, Jan,. 2020

What you're looking at here is a bay within a bay. It's actually Parua Bay, but the area the boats are in has been nicknamed The Nook. It even says so on the map.

It's a very sheltered location, ideal for over-night stays.  

These two own every nautical gizmo in the catalogue I think. 

Allie and boys are off to swim.

Jeanne and I heard shouts not long after they left.

Apparently, the water took some getting used to.  Here, Amiri seems to be relishing it, Arram seems to be finally taking the plunge, and Allie looks undecided about further immersion. 

It's dinner time....

The town of Parua Bay is very small. Fortunately, it has a top-notch fish 'n chips place.  

Island Style Raw Fish is not something I'm fond of. 
I did try it once at a buffet restaurant. Not my thing.

Somehow, my camera settings knob got switched over to the 'fisheye' setting for this shot. Dianne, we thanked you and your generouse Christmas gift while we waited for our food. It was all delicious. Jeanne and I ordered an extra garlic and cheese pizza to take home with us for breakfast. 

The harbour outside the Tavern. Love that 'mountain' in the background.

Okay, maybe it is just a big hill, but it's got character.

Also just outside the Tavern is a long dock. 
Allie and Arram are so full of good food and the joy of being at the end of a dock over the Pacific Ocean that they break into an impromtue dance. 

Coming back to land. (Amiri was down the steps at the water level during the dance.) 

We get home in time to savor the sunset. 

A couple of experimental pictures....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STkqLm7cvXQ

Good night all.       -djf

Jeanne's garden update

Here is a "Jeanne's Garden" update just one month after the first feature, published at the New Year.  Everything I've grown was started from seed and lovingly nutured.  Lots of credit and thanks go to Doug for digging up my garden beds for me.  Due to my knee injury in May, I am pretty dependent on him, and without his help this year's garden would not have happened!

 A ripe and luscious heirloom tomato, a Brandywine.  I have always wanted to grow this variety, but never did before this.  The growing season in Michigan was too short.  Here in Auckland, the long warm summers are ideal!    You can see clearly that I have, if not a Green Thumb, the Brown Fingers of a true gardener.

 Here is that Brandywine just before picking.  I believe this variety is the most delicious I have ever tasted.  It is susceptible to a variety of tomato diseases (note the browning leaves) but still well worth the effort of growing them.  I may not get a lengthy harvest, like the Romas give me, but the fruit I do get is huge.

 These  are Roma tomatoes; much smaller and not really choice for fresh eating.  They are dry and mealy and ideal for tomato sauce.  I'll be harvesting a huge crop of these from the six plants I have.

 These are cherry tomatoes, little enough to be grown in pots.  Not really that delicious, a bit too acidic for my taste. The blackbirds, at least, think they are delicious, so I had to cover them with netting.

 Green scallions, or spring onions.  Also called Welsh onions. These were started in pots from seed I saved from last summer's crop.  I must have 500 plants!  They will stay slender and green through the winter.  Those little weeds are shamrocks, which are annoying weeds.  Each shamrock sprouts from a tiny bulblet, and the only way to eliminate them is to dig up the bulblet and crush it to death.  Between rocks.  Gardeners have to be ruthless!

 Herbs and peppers in the bed around the deck.  The basil is in full bloom and attracting the interest of many bees.  The peppers are Spanish Padron, quite hot.  When I water the garden, the aroma of the basil fills the air.

More peppers and basil; this is an Italian pepper with milder heat (I hope).

 First planting of yellow beans, still producing well.  The green beans I planted with them are done blossoming, although if I keep watering them, I will get a second flush of blossoms and more beans.

 The second planting of beans, these are green fillet.  Come on, bees! Start pollinating these flowers, now that the basil has brought you in.

 A volunteer crown pumpkin, which will mature into a lovely blue-gray.  This is a volunteer plant growing in the compost heap.

An Italian parsley plant, a rock and some flowering coriander.  Just  thought it looked pretty.

 Another crown pumpkin, what we Americans would call a buttercup squash.  It is almost mature, as you can see the color is becoming blue-gray.

The second planting of cucumbers.  I just put them in yesterday; started them from seed about three weeks ago.  All the cucurbits suffer from a mildew decline and die prematurely.  I think the hot humid climate facilitates mold and mildew diseases.  It hurts the zucchini the most.  I got six nice zucchini's this year and then the plant's leaves were covered in gray mildew and died. - JF

Holiday Haven birds

I'm going to concentrate on just birds with this post. We were lucky to see some during our visit to this coast.  Well, truth be told, I'll also throw in some pictures of things related to birds. Trees, and berries, and who knows what else.  Better to say I suppose that this post was inspired by birds.

I noticed this in a window in the living room when we arrived. I had thrown open the drapes and there it was.  

The very next morning, as Jeanne and I sat sipping coffee at the table on the deck, a couple of real wood pigeons arrived on the branches of a nearby tree. One flew off almost immediately, but I was able to snap several pictures of the other before it too, continued its morning's rounds elsewhere.  

Wood pigeons are native to New Zealand.    

These are cabbage palms.  The land on this side of the house falls away very rapidly so the deck is close to the level of the tree tops...  

...or even above them in some places.  This is a view of the forests and bay off the front, right corner of the deck.  

And here are our friends.  The one on the bottom flew away right after I snapped this. I caught just its tail feathers in the follow-up shot. 

I think they are intelligent looking birds.

 A tall karaka tree is next to the deck. In the lower center you can see some orange colored fruit.  

Wood pigeons are large enough to swallow the fruit whole. 

I read that wood pigeons love overripe fruit and will often congregate when piles of of it ferment. They'll eat until they stumble. They've been known to have to sleep it off a bit before they can fly home...  

(The flesh of the karaka is edible by humans. In fact, I have found karaka jam recipes on-line. Today, as I walked home from shopping and passed a couple of trees, I picked three to try. They were somewhat past their prime, beginning to be a little dried out. They didn't have much flavor.  However, if I was hungry and this was available, I know I'd find them more acceptable. (They did not taste bad, just not good) The kernels are edible ONLY after boiling them for hours or soaking in changes of water for many days to remove the toxins they contain. They were an important food for the early Maori.) 

This is a picture of a karaka tree just outside the mall in Henderson. 

(We're back at Nook Road now.) 

I took this series of pictures the same day as I got the morning shots.

Also as seen from the deck, this black tree fern is about 30 feet high. 

This tui was eating something from it but I couldn't tell what. 

This one doesn't show all it's characteristics in this shot so I've included a small picture below from a Wikipedia article.

The ubiquitous chicken.  A couple of them belong to the house and have their pen and coop across the garden.  I took a closer look at this bird after taking his picture. Definitely Not an intelligent looking specimen.      -djf