Spring/Summer Garden

This year I got started very early with my gardening. Once the sun made it over the house and into the backyard- I hit the ground running! We only get about 6 1/2 to 7 months of sun in our backyard so have to make the most of it. I feel sorry for my chookies for the other 5 months but, we aren’t talking about them today.




Unfortunately, I can’t take a photo of everything I’m growing so, here’s the list:
carrots, lettuce, spring onions, bok choy, yellow zucchini (x2), cucumber (x2), more green onions, beets, romaine (cos) lettuce, more beets, red sail lettuce, silver beet (swiss chard) , little gem lettuce, cabbage (x5), broccoli (x7), spinach, chillies (x2), potato plants (x3) these will give us between 30 to 60 potatoes total, tomato plants (x10) I hope to jar most of these to use in Winter, and last but not least…. 4 celeriac bulbs. I’ve never grown these and am hoping they all turn out. They cost $20//kg at the produce store and are hard to come by in Autumn/Winter.

In the herb garden (pronounced “Hhhherb” here in the land of the kiwi):
parsley (x4), oregano (x2), mint (x2), sage, thyme (5), rosemary, lemon grass, cat grass, catnip and Thai basil.

Potted fruit trees (because they are coming with us to our next home):
Meyer lemon, lime, passion fruit, blueberry bush and tree tamarillo.

Between playing in the garden, then using my herbs and veggies in the kitchen and looking after the chickens my time is all used up till Winter.

Birthday Stuff (Part II)

I don’t believe a birthday should be celebrated all in one day. I like to spread the love for a few days, maybe a week or so. If it were my birthday, I would celebrate ALL month long....at least when I lived in San Francisco I did.

The last birthday activity on the list was a picnic on Rangitoto Island which is an old inactive volcanic crater that's a 25 minute ferry ride from the city. We happen to love this island and haven’t been to it in about 6 years. While planning where to have our picnic, we decided to take a day hike over to Motutapu Island. This island is attached to Rangitoto by causeway (I had to look that word up)- it’s a road or railway elevated on a sandbank across a broad body of water or wetland. You can’t see this attached island from Auckland but can see it from other surrounding areas and by boat.

I’ve attached a picture from the net.

So we set off on our big adventure. An hour into our very boring and hot walk we came across this lone weed.

Thirty minutes later we could finally see a peek of Motutapu. Yay! What a contrast to the rocky volcanic island we were walking on.


I wish we could have stayed for longer and would really like to come back again one day BUT, we were so bored by the walk on Rangitoto that we will probably wait another 6 years to come back. We did find later that evening that a ferry does go to Motutapu in the Summer so, this is an option.... but, we've have to volunteer.

I can tick birthday celebrations off the list and move on to Christmas. UGH!

Birthday Stuff

As most know, we love to eat good food and love to make good food. Because of this, every birthday we make each other a special meal. One would say, “you guys always make good meals” but, we try to out due ourselves every time. This year, I gave Holming a choice and he chose Feuilletés aux fruits de mer (Seafood in puff pastry) which is a combination of seafood in a creamy sauce served in a puff pastry. I won’t bore you with the 3 ½ hours of steps that it took to make this dish on a warm Summer day but I will share the ingredients.

12 ounces puff pastry
1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp water to glaze
4 tbsp dry white wine
2 shallots
1 pound mussels
1 tbsp butter
1 pound sea scallops
1 pound shrimp
1 pound lobster meat ( I used crayfish since we don’t get lobster here)

For the sauce
1 cup butter (I used ½)
2 shallots
1 cup fish stock
6 tbsp dry white wine
1-2 tbsp cream ( I used about 1/3 cup)
lemon juice
salt and white pepper



It’s times like these that I really wish his birthday were still in the Winter. He’s not complaining because now mine is in the dead middle of Winter so making food such as this is no problem.
I accompanied this dish with a light Romaine lettuce (cos), yellow tomato and parmesan salad. It’s his favourite and I’ve not made it for a while.

In addition to a very special meal, I had also purchased a Linksys E2000 wireless router (which is some fancy shmancy, high falutin’ router you can’t get here), a Wüsthof whetstone knife sharpener and a book on playing piano that he really wanted. Add the shipping from the US and YIKES!

Next on the agenda is a Friday afternoon facial with massage, then a lunch out to wherever he wants. I should add that we will both be getting the spa treatment. We always have one together for our birthday’s.

Happy Birthday Honey!

New Chickie(s)

Literally the day after Dolores died, I purchased a new 8 week old Pekin Bantam chick (which is a small variety of chicken) off of trade me (a local ebay type web auction site). Since I wanted everything to go smoothly with introducing my new chick to the rest of the flock, I had purchased a medium-sized dog crate to keep inside the existing chicken run for the new chick to keep her safe. As I've been researching chicken behaviours, I've discovered how absolutely brutal chickens can be to each other. There is really a pecking order amongst chickens.



Call it an impulse buy as I went to pick up one and ended up with two. Ha! But really, it's easier to introduce 2 or more to the existing flock than just one. If you only have one, the rest of the hens will go nuts pecking the lone ranger...

Here's a quick clip of the first monitored introduction.

Friends for dinner

We had our friends over for dinner this weekend. I thought I would share the menu.

For starters, Holming made up a spicy salmon roll and a California roll. He has his own special (and secret) recipe for these that I'm not allowed to share. But, believe me they were yum.

Pancetta Wrapped Chicken Thighs
Marinate boneless/skinless chicken thighs in olive oil, fresh thyme, crushed garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper for 3 hours.
Lift from marinade. Place fresh sprig of thyme in the thigh then wrap the whole thigh with a strip of pancetta. Grill for 20 minutes or until cooked through.

Pear, Blue Cheese and Caramelized Walnut Salad
1 pear
Rocket lettuce
Puhoi Valley Matakana blue cheese
Caramelized walnuts- I used 1 Tbls balsamic vinaigrette with 1/4 cup sugar. melted into a syrup then added 1 cup of walnuts. Once coated bake for 10 minutes.

Dressing- whisk together:
walnut oil (you can use olive oil)
Lemon juice 3 parts oil to 1 part juice
dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Garlic, Thyme and Mascarpone Polenta
2 tsp fresh thyme
2 cloves of garlic
saute in 20 grams of butter for 2 minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups of chicken stalk and bring to a boil. Then add 1/2 cup of polenta and continue cooking for 3 minutes.
add 1/4 cup of mascarpone and serve.

I opted out of making desert because when we went to Japan Mart earlier that day, we ran across these yummy Mochi ice cream balls that our friend Zoltan really loves.

What a great night of food, wine and laughter. If anyone wants to come to dinner at our place, email me.

One Sick Chook

I’ve not had a very good start with keeping backyard chickens. Two weeks after receiving the ex-battery hens, Dolores fell ill in a bad way. I noticed one Friday that she was separating herself from the other girls, which isn’t normal for her, as she was the Mother Hen of the flock. I quickly went down to the chicken run to examine the situation and discovered that she also had very bad diarrhea. My first thought was to text my husband, and the second was “what the hell do I do with a sick chicken?” Not knowing much about chickens, I just left her in the run with the others and hoped she was just having a bad day. By Saturday morning, I was all over the internet searching for remedies on how to cure chicken diarrhea!

I tried everything from olive oil to epsom salt and when that didn’t work, I tried apple cider vinegar. I even examined her to check if she was egg bound (when an egg is stuck in the oviduct). The list goes on and on. Since this was my favourite bird in the flock, I broke down and took her to an avian vet. Fortunately, she poo’d right on the examination table so he did a gram stain of her poo and said Dolores had traces of Clostridia O. I couldn't find any information on that on the web. He gave me a 5 day supply of Clavulox tabs (250mg) and told me to keep her fed and hydrated as I had been doing so far.

On returning home from the vet, we finally decided to isolate her from the others. In hindsight, that’s the first thing we should have done, as whatever bug one chook gets the others can get too. After finishing all her antibiotics and all the hand feeding and hydrating (and all the time I took off from work), she finally died. What a long and sad process.

I did so much research to help cure Dolores. I feel like a walking chicken encyclopedia (or Google link). Unfortunately all the remedies I read and tried just couldn’t cure my girl. We ended up burying her next to the chicken coop. Good bye Dolores.

My favourite sounds from the girls

Just a quick post to introduce my favourite sounds that the girls make. They are a needy lot and start coo-coo-cooing once they hear my voice.

This clip shows how they all gather at the chicken run door when they see me coming.

The black hen with red comb (Roxy The Red Ruby Gem) is my screamer.
She starts making that noise the minute she hears my voice....even if I'm in the house.

Next is a 2 1/2 minute clip of feeding time. You might want to lower the volume on your computer before playing this one, as Suki (the black chook with flat red comb) gets very excited when food is involved.
Suki is the most timid one of the group and doesn't like to be handled- at all. She is also the loudest of them all.


This last video clip is of Suki, again. Usually she just goes on and on and on, but I couldn't get it all in one shot. I think she's camera shy.


I never thought I would have chickens nor did I ever think I would enjoy it as much as I do. It has been fun getting to know each of their personalities.

Till the next post

Chooks

If someone would have told me that I would one day have chickens- I would have never believed them. Since living in New Zealand, I've surprised myself with all the new adventures I've encountered. I don’t believe it’s this country I’m living in that has changed me, I believe it’s the knowledge and resources that are available in the world that has definitely broadened my horizons.

Don’t ask me how I came up with the idea of having pet chickens. I can only tell you that it started a little something like this-

I said- “Honey, do you know what would be really cool?”

Holming says- “No thanks; I don’t want to know (also thinking- how much is this one going to cost us???)”

I still say- “Wouldn’t it be fun and cool to have our own chooks?!?!?”

Holming says- “Where did you learn that word from?”

I say- “That’s what they call chickens here in New Zealand. Oh, and- think of how much money we would save on groceries each month.

Even though he didn’t buy that last comment, he saw the excitement and enthusiasm in my face and couldn’t resist. Wink...Wink...

If you have seen the photos on my picasa album, they tell you the story of all the manual labour we have put in to building our own chicken run, and remodelling the chicken coop that I purchased, then hated, so Holming took it apart and made it bigger. I would like to share the story of how and why we decided to get ex-battery hens.

Once Holming agreed to the chicken situation, I realised that I didn’t have the first clue as to where one goes to get live chickens. I didn’t even know that there is a difference between meat chickens and layer hens (the ones we get our eggs from). While researching, I came across the Animal Sanctuary’s website. They had a section on adopting ex-battery hens. Just clicking on that link, opened my eyes to a whole new world of animal cruelty. I had absolutely no idea that the “non” free-ranged eggs I used to buy came from a place like this .
Hens are kept in cages (up to 7 in one small cage) in a dark building with no windows. They lay every day their first season, then get so traumatised by the conditions they are kept in that they lose their feather’s and stop laying. The hens will lay again at some point but they need recovery time to regrow their feathers. However, the egg farms don’t want to wait around for that to happen. So at this point the hens are killed or sold to pet food companies (and you know what happens there).
The whole process just seems so inhumane, and can’t be very healthy for us humans to eat these kind of eggs...from stressed-out, traumatised chickens. From that day on, I decided we would ONLY buy free-range eggs in the Lee house. So, I was on the hunt to rescue and adopt a couple of ex-battery hens.

Finding ex-battery hens was no easy task. Places like the Animal Sanctuary go in a rescue a hundred or so hens at a time then adopt them out. Unfortunately, because of all the bad press (for the egg farms) and great information sharing (by the public) such as blogging, you tube, and non-profit orgs, the egg farms in these parts would rather kill the hens instead of allowing the rescues to take place. I ended up joining the Chicken Rescue Network which found me 2 of the sweetest ex-battery hens a girl could ever ask for.

We have 4 hens in total. Two of which are ex-battery and two black silkie/araucana crosses. We got the 2 black ones because they were small and unique; and, they were supposed to lay blue-shelled eggs. As of yet we’ve not seen a blue-shelled egg so, the joke is on us. The 2 rescues are the social girls of the bunch. They are starved for attention and food. The minute we go out with their dinner they start clucking and calling to us. It’s the absolute cutest thing.

On to the eggs- Wow! Talk about a party in my mouth. I’ve never had fresh eggs before so had no expectations. Our first egg was from Roxy (the black chook with red comb). We cooked it up along with a store bought free-ranged egg to compare, and oh my, the difference in flavour was remarkable. We are damaged goods.....

Please help by buying free-ranged eggs.

A tiny bit of OCD?

I’m only posting this because I’m having a laugh about myself. As most know, I am a well organised and tidy individual.... to a fault, some might say. I hate clutter and am not a hoarder. If I don’t use it in a year’s time, it’s out of here. I always donate the items that are thrown out because there is always someone else who can benefit from my rubbish.

Sometimes I take a photo of a room that I’m cleaning /organising to see what it looks like from a different perspective. If it looks messy or unorganised in the photo then I need to fix it. So, while cleaning my kitchen this afternoon, I took a photo of my pantry.


Not only do I think it’s perfect, I think I have a problem. What do you think?

How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?

The first sunny day in August and we get ourselves knee deep in landscaping. Let me assure you that Winter is not over, but, if we waited until late Spring/early Summer to get through all the work that needs to get done in our backyard, we would never get it done. We have a check list of things to complete before the arrival of my sister in late November, and then my Mom soon after. The list goes as follows (in no particular order):

• Landscape the pond area
  
• Extend raised garden bed
• Stain lower deck
• Build chicken coop (and get chooks!)

Someone (and it wasn’t Holming) had the bright idea of going to a landscaping warehouse to buy a trailer load of wood chips to fill an old pond area. That certain someone didn’t take into account that the only way to get from the front of our house down to the backyard is through the garage and down about 15 steep stairs. Teehee.

So, we ended up using 2 rubbish bins (one was 20 gallon/80L and the other was half that size) to haul the chips down to the backyard. Let me tell you, a 20 gallon bin of woodchips is not light! After about 2 hours of this abuse we decided to go get more woodchips as the first load didn’t cover the entire area. While waiting for the trailer to be filled, Einstein (once again not Holming) saw a man bringing in a bunch of cut down trees to dispose of at this place. It turns out that this place takes green waste at a very cheap rate. Since the trailer was on loan to us from this place at no extra charge, Einstein had the best idea of all ideas!!! She says “honey, why don’t you chop down as many bushes and trees as you can while I unload the second trailer by myself?” It took a bit of convincing and some much needed lunch, but he caved in.

About 8 hours later and 100 trips up and down the stairs while unloading the trailer then re-loading the trailer with tree branches and bushes, we are done!

Here is a picture from when we first moved in.

This photo was taken from the same spot, 2 years later, minus all the trees that Holming cut down.

This is the finished product.

Of note, we are making room further back for the chickens that we will soon start building for. Here is the photo for that.

The next day after completing this work, we could hardly move. Holming was better off than me. He got up and still made it to the gym. I, however stayed in bed till 8am, which for those that know me, know that is unheard of. We still have so much more to do but that’s the beauty of being a home owner. Till the next project!

Happy Birthday/Merry Christmas - Part 2

July turned out to be a joyous birthday/Christmas month. We started bringing out some of my favourite Christmas decorations and some lights. It was such a treat to have the Christmas lights on during the cold, dark July nights. I look forward to this new tradition next year.

Since we weren’t able to take a mid-Winter holiday (vacation) this year, we decided to take the week of my birthday off anyway just to putz around and enjoy each other’s company (oh, and to spoil me rotten). For me, the week was about relaxing, chilling out and just not going to work. We started off with a spa treatment at Isis in Newmarket and I ended with a small cold the last few days. Not to worry, it didn’t ruin a thing. All in all, Holming made some amazing meals and we really enjoyed our week off.

I didn’t expect much more from my birthday, but was surprised by all the fuss I received. Because of the time difference, it felt as if I received birthday greeting and wishes the entire week. Every day I received phone calls, cards or gifts from my favourite family and friends. Some people, who I did not think would do anything for me at all, surprised me by doing something unexpected for my birthday. I am humbled and bless to have so much love.

The photo below is of some of the treasures I received on my special day. What’s not in this photo are the earlier gifts Holming gave me (see my picasa birthday album), the book voucher from my sister-in-law which has been spent and the beautiful lunch that was gifted to me from Holming’s Uncle.

Happy Birthday/Merry Christmas???

Christmas just isn't the same since I've been here in New Zealand. To start with, it's in the middle of Summer; and since it's in the middle of Summer, it’s too hot for a Christmas tree with lights; and since the sun goes down so late and we go to bed so early, I can’t enjoy my decorations. Secondly, the Christmas spirit doesn’t feel right with the locals just wanting to get out of town and heading to the beach. Never mind spending time with the family, decorating the tree, volunteering or donating to the less fortunate; it's all about the Bach (that's kiwi for Beach House) and the 2 weeks break that most people are entitled to due to official holidays on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, the day after Boxing Day (sometimes), New Years Day and the day after New Years. Well, something like that, but most businesses shut down for the 2 week period thus leading to everyone having the time off.

Christmas 2009 was the hottest Christmas I had ever experienced. Cooking a turkey and ham with no air-conditioning then sweating our way through the rest of the day was not enjoyable. I've decided I'm done. No tree and no decorating and no turkey. I will still give the obligatory 4 or 5 presents and have the family lunch (without turkey) but other than that, it’s not Christmas.

Moving on to my birthday month, I don’t mind so much that my birthday is now dead in the middle of Winter instead of dead in the middle of Summer. I can adjust. What I really miss about my birthday is all the love and support. My friends back in San Francisco know that the 1st of July used to start the celebration of my birthday month. Plenty of shopping, meeting for drinks, dinners and dancing - the works! Once upon a time I had amazing friends and family at my fingertips to celebrate with. Now, we do it over the phone or skype - which isn't as exciting. Moving forward and trying to get to a happier place in life and in New Zealand, Holming had a fantastic idea. He suggested that I bring out all my Christmas decorations (all 3 boxes of decorations) and have a Christmas Birthday! Are you following me? Uh-Huh! That means Christmas lights (in the house only of course), candle Santas and maybe even a tree! I also hope to receive the odd Christmas/Birthday card this year. And as usual, I already know that my fab-five will make it happen just to help lift my spirits. Thank you in advance and that's why I love you.

American products in New Zealand!!!!

OMG..... Look what we found in New Zealand. Let me start off by saying that I wouldn't normally buy BBQ sauce, chocolate fudge mix and pumpkin pie filling because I make my own from scratch. This is one of the characteristics of being Leslie in New Zealand; however, if I were in America, I would still be buying this stuff.

About the pumpkin pie filling (for $8.00 NZ), I just can't seem to master my pumpkin pie here because our pumpkins just aren't the same. I am very excited to have this and can't wait to make a real pumpkin pie with real graham cracker pie crust from the supply I brought from the US last November.

The El Pato is the biggest can I have ever seen in my life (I could bathe in it). It's 27 ounces/765 grams and cost $5.00 which is actually not too bad of a price. This is a product I can also find at a Mexican Restaurant here in NZ except she sells small cans at $4.00 each. Now that is a rip if I ever saw one.

This store also had Captain Crunch (reeces flavour), Cheetos, Fritos, Oreo COOKIES, Graham crackers, Skor bars, Dr Pepper soda, Lipton teas, Red Vines, and more. The best thing of all is that they had Tide Laundry Detergent, which I didn't buy because I didn't want to spend $15.00 for a small bottle. But oh, how I would love to use the good stuff again.

Stay tuned for my next trip to this store. I'm leaving Holming at home and taking my credit card with me. Teeheehee

Mountain biking at Woodhill Forest

Upon waking up this morning, I had the bright idea of going mountain biking, even though the weather forecast was for showers. I am a road biker, and enjoy being on the road, but had never tried riding a bike out on a trail. I guess it’s a big thing over here, being surrounded by forest and all. The unusual thing about the area we live in is that bikes aren’t allowed on regular walking trails. We have 154 trails in the Waitakere Ranges and we had to drive 45 minutes away to a place called Woodhill Forest. Holming goes to this place with his friend about once a month so I wanted to check it out for myself. It was a beautiful drive and a fun park to ride through.

We decided to do the 10km/6mi track for beginners. Being a beginner track it did not have very steep climbs but did have small jumps, ramps and cliffs to jump over. I was too chicken for the first half of the ride but LOOK WHAT I CAN DO.....



I must say, I don’t know if I will be able to sit tomorrow as I am already a bit sore in the "seat area". It was all worth it though, I had a blast and can’t wait to do it again. Even though I was walking my bike at the end. A beginner can only ride up so many hills.

Who’s laughing now?

All in a day’s work

I should say, all in a morning’s work but that doesn’t sound right. I don’t know where I get it from or when it started but I really enjoy being a morning person. I love to wake up before the birds start to sing (and the birds start really early over here!) and the sunrise so that I can enjoy hearing the birds sing and viewing the sunrise. Weird- I know. One of the things that motivates me to get up early (especially on my weekends) to start my day, is the amount of things I can accomplish in the morning hours.

Here’s my Saturday morning- Started the morning off with a swim at 6am then home for a quick shower and bite to eat. Once it reached a civilised hour (8am) I headed outside to the back yard to chop firewood. Let me back up and note that we had a big tree cut down a few months ago and opted out of having the guy chop it up for us for an extra $200. Instead we’ve been doing it ourselves at a very slow pace. Since Winter is quickly approaching, I decide that today was the day that we would finish the job. I went out to get a head start and while innocently minding my own business, I was stung by a bee. Not just stung but violated. The damn thing flew into my shirt and stung me on my shoulder. What the hell???? That was so uncalled for. After that, Holming came out to protect me from other violations and to help me finish off the job. It turns out that there is a beehive that came down with the tree so we didn’t get to finish the job today because we need to find a way to clear the bees away....quickly!

Still outside, we harvested the rest of my garden treasures and turned over the garden patch so that it can rejuvenate over the Winter.

I forgot to mention that before heading outside to chop firewood, I prepared dough for a loaf of bread so it could rise while I was outside. Once in from the garden, I popped the bread in the oven and, voila!, we have a beautiful fresh loaf of bread for lunch.

All this was done by midday. Now that I’ve posted a long overdue blog, it’s still early, what other trouble can I get myself into today?