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