I’ve heard from several people in the Northern Hemisphere that winter just didn’t happen this year. I’m afraid I can say the same thing for our Southern summer… zippo. There are a good number of Kiwis throughout New Zealand moaning about the number of warm, sunshiny days that just didn’t turn up this summer, ruining trips to the beach and bar-b-ques all over the country. Luckily for Jim and me, we don’t often go to the beach other than just to drive by and check out the scenery every now and then; and we will b-b-q come rain, sleet, snow or hail – so a cool summer didn’t put us off the coals. I think, in all, we had about two weeks of heat… and when I say heat, I mean in the 80’s Fahrenheit, so not exactly scorching. However, I must say that since we moved into autumn in early March, we’ve had some lovely days. It’s been sort of nice to see the seasons change from a different perspective here at our rent house. In addition to the most obvious indicators of the change, the trees and their leaves, we also had a cornfield that was just visible on the horizon from the view out of our office window. In early summer we noticed the corn stalks starting to grow until they finally reached their full height, creating a dark green edge on the neighboring farmer’s pasture. They stayed that way throughout summer until just the other day when we saw a giant machine (I don’t know what it’s called) come in and chop it all down to be used for cattle silage. Now the horizon is back to the way it was when we first moved in.
Autumn Evening On Our Horizon
Even though I got a late start when we moved into the house in November, I did get a small herb and vegetable garden planted that yielded some good results. My zucchini and corn were great and we got several good eats from them, but the tomatoes weren’t so good. First of all, I think the plants I bought were mislabeled and I didn’t get the nice, big beefy tomatoes I thought I was buying. Second, it was just a bad season all around for tomatoes. All of my gardener friends had bad luck with their plants just like I did… from diseases, to misshapen tomatoes, to failure to launch. So, I didn’t feel so bad when I heard I wasn’t the only one. My herbs took off and continue to grow nicely, as did the passion fruit vine, lemons and limes that are residents here. The other thing I didn’t have any luck with this year was my watermelons. The vines grew beautifully, but the flowers and fruit just turned brown and died… not sure what happened there. Overall, I was happy with how it all turned out since I wasn’t sure I would get a chance to have any sort of garden while renting.
The remains of my summer garden.
I continue to be amazed at how well our pets have adjusted to “city life.” The dogs hardly pay attention to passers-by at our front gate, when at our old house they raised the roof at the mere whiff of anyone in the area. On trash pick-up day, nothing would do but they had to bark, bark, bark at the poor men picking up the garbage at the other place… but here, they’ve gotten so used to noise that they don’t even raise a lazy nose off the front porch. Amazing transformation. Leroy cat just thinks he owns not only our yard, but the ones on either side of us and probably more for all I know. He thinks the cat door is the greatest invention of all time and, I’m sure, whatever house we move into will require the installation of a similar device if it doesn’t have one already!
Relaxing In The Back Yard
Our search for a new place to live continues. We have thoroughly searched the area where we currently live, the Waikato, and have not found anything we really like. In the last month or so we have expanded our search to areas outside of the Waikato. While we hadn’t at first thought we’d move too far from our original location, it may be that to find what we are looking for we’ll have to look further afield. Shopping for a house now is certainly a different process compared to what it was the last time we did it 10 years ago. Back then you had to search through the Saturday newspaper, from one general area, and drive to each and every house you might be interested in; now you have the ability to look on the internet everyday for the latest listings of every house in the country (if you want to), or just certain areas, look at pictures of them to weed them out, and then pick a few you really are interested in. In a way it is better because there are certainly more to choose from, but at the same time it is almost sensory overload… some days you just have to take a break and not look at any houses at all!
One of the things that has remained the same for me during our recent transition is my little Pilates class. We started this class about 4 1/2 years ago at our 
community hall and have met pretty much once a week this whole time. There are people who have dropped in and out over time, but there is a core 5 or 6 of us that has been there from the beginning because we love getting together, not only for the exercise, but for the friendship too. As often as not we will have coffee after our session at someone’s house or at the cafe in the nearest village! One of our longtime attendees, Caroline, just this week packed up her family and headed off to Italy for a long-term adventure… we will miss her, but know they are going to have a great time and we all look forward to hearing from her while she is there. (There are some in the group suggesting a Pilates trip to Italy, but that might be stretching the budget!)
Leroy and I play with a wadded up napkin.
I wish there were more to write about, but it has been a fairly subdued three months. I can’t complain, though, quiet is good. We were really lucky to find a nice little rent house in a good neighborhood. If you look out one end of the house you see a few houses at the end of the street, but if you look out the other end, all you see is grass and cows! That’s fine… I’ll take quiet any day… maybe there will be more to write about in the next quarter.
A farmer down the road takes his cows to the milking shed.