Sian has been playing her Violin for two years now.
Tonight she was the staring act playing her violin with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra
Age 8
Playing.. Twinkle twinkle little star….
Her parents are so proud
Of course she brought the house down
We’re feeling a bit tired today. Last night we joined in with a Department of Conservation survey of long tailed bats in this area. The bat…both long and short tailed, are New Zealands only native mammal and are considered endangered, so it was fun to go out and discover how many are in this area.
Here he is. They are very small, and are easier to hear rather than see. To help us we had what are called bat boxes which is a kind of radio that picks us the bat’s um…sonar? anyway we can here a clicking sound on the radio thingy when the bats go past. We counted 6 in the area we surveyed.
Other groups were lucky enough to actually see some, just on dusk flying around the tree tops at the very start of their survey. We’ll join in with the next survey in Feb. It was a really nice night out.
Well officially summer today in this neck of the woods…may not be tomorrow so I’m ignoring all the work I should be doing and have headed out to the garden where the weeds know it is summer and have done for a while.
Merry the duck is growing…fast …and getting feathers, and now lives outside the house even at night (phew) but the kids still delight in bring him in to play with
I took him up to the garden today and taught him to eat slugs (yum) he also likes worms (not so good) and lettuce (darn)
A week ago, our poor cat was nearly put down.
Before school, Sian came upstairs to say that Pionjar wasn’t right. On investigation she seemed to have gone blind overnight.
I was busy that day, but rang the vet to tell her things weren’t so good with the cat. (She is 18 years old after all) we arranged a time for the next day.
The next day she looked a bit better and was coping with her blindness, so we decided to see how she went for a while. Since then she has steadily improved and even gained back some sight.
She is being very pampered of course, all the kids leap up to open the door for her. Special food from the supermarket and so on. but I don’t know if she’ll be with us much longer.
Living in this area….means that every so often, there are lost ducklings or canada geese babies that need to be taken care of.
This year we have a Paradise duckling chick.
He’ll grow up to look like this..
The one with the black head is the male…white head female.
We don’t know what Merry the duck will turn out to be, but he is very cute.
The weekend after the Fishing competition is the Glenorchy Flower show. Also a fun weekend, I really enjoy it because by this time of year I’ve adjusted to daylight saving and it is getting obvious that Spring is well and truly here, and Summer is fast approaching. The Flower show is a lovely day. There are cut flowers of course, and daffodils, and flower arrangements, and there is also a crafts section, a photography section, a children’s section, and this year for the first time a cooking section.
It doesn’t take long to work out how you should exhibit your precious blooms, and everyone is there to help. You can enter the night before, or in a frantic rush on the Saturday morning…
I admire the people who are able to arrange flowers (seemingly without effort) I just can’t. So I’ve never won a prize for a flower arrangement (sigh) something I shall aspire to in the future.
This is my daughter’s sand saucer It won first prize. She also got a prize for her arrangement with a favourite toy…her necklace, and her lego model, as well as a few daffodils that she
entered herself 
and She won a cup for most points in the junior section (her first cup, she is very proud)
So then we went and had a look at the local art…This is Amanda’s work, all embroidered with silk and so rich to look at, Lovely stuff.
Zak was pleased to win something in the kids art section,
We also looking forward to buying the homemade sweets and other produce that helps to raise funds for the community.
Actually the first snow that stayed on the ground all winter…
Today is the day of the Glenorchy Fishing contest. This means getting up at 5 o clock, in the dark, and getting out on the edge of the lake by 6 o clock. There are a lot of fish to catch and cool prizes to be won.
By 7 am the sky opened and out poured the snow. Right about the time Max caught our first and only fish. By 7:30 we were back home and Sian took this photo of the deck.
by 11am the snow had stopped and the rain started and mid afternoon the snow had all gone again. Max won a prize for his fish so he was happy.
I have an art class in Queenstown to go to next week, so I decided in a moment of madness that I probably needed an apron so I didn’t ruin my clothes. I found a cool pattern on the web that adapted old jeans into an apron, so I took that idea and blended it with another one and here is what it looks like so far.
It isn’t very big, so it may have to be Sian’s while I make myself another one. There are four pockets so far… the two at the front, one behind the waist band, and another big pocket behind the yolk bit.
The top part of the apron is made from unpicking the leg of the jeans, so the seam doesn’t quite go down the middle. It also had a hole/worn bit on the knee, so I’ve had to double the material for this part.
I’ll have a go at sewing it together tonight since I have a big day cleaning the motels tomorrow.
