We have 9 days left of official summer and I am very disappointed that it has been so unbelievably crap. We have had the fire going almost nonstop and our paddocks are like swamps. This afternoon we are in for a thunderstorm (our third in 5 days) and our best weather is supposedly behind us now. Boo.
Luckily Christmas Day was a sunny, warm day but other than that it has been like mid- winter. I've been wearing polyprops most of the time and it's just not cool.
Between Christmas and New Year Marty accidentally killed Rex, the pheasant. He was just trying to scare him away from attacking Negrito Bembon (the rooster) and threw a tiny pine cone at him and accidentally hit him directly in the back of the head killing him instantly. He never would have got him if he'd been aiming for him, it was a complete fluke. So we all sat around and thought about what to do with him. Bury him? What a waste of such a beautiful creature. Eat him? No, he'll be tough and disgusting. Pluck him and keep the feathers? That seems so wrong. Jen (semi-jokingly): "Why don't you get him stuffed?" Fantastic idea! So we got on the internet to find a taxidermist in the area and googled how to preserve Rex until we got him to the taxidermists. Google suggested sliding him head first into a stocking to keep his feathers in good condition and then putting him in the freezer, making sure his tail didn't get damaged. So there I was holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder and trying to stuff a dead pheasant into the leg of my tights and almost crying with laughter. I accidentally dropped him and he plunged toward the ground inside the stocking at which case everyone in the room fell apart laughing as well. Luckily Rex was unharmed in the fall.
We arranged to meet the taxidermist later that day and what an exciting experience that was! Jen and I arrived to find a full grown Great White stuffed in this guy's garage among a zoo full of creatures in various stages of being mounted. Snakes, skunks, fish, deer, ducks, pheasants - you name it, he had stuffed it. We got a run down of what would happen to Rex and also how other animals were stuffed. At one point I commented on a fish eye that looked very realistic and he responded with, "Yes, girls make them, actually" as if he assumed that girls really were fairly useless at most things except making babies and cooking eggs.
So once we had confirmed a price, paid a deposit and made sure that he wasn't going to put Rex into some bizarre, unnatural position (flying? wings spread? mouth open? tail splayed? No. Just walking will be fine - he wasn't much into flying) Jen and I headed home to report back on our peculiar experience. I'm amazed we didn't crash the car we were laughing so hard.
That was just one event in what became an increasingly odd day but you can't expect much less from my family.
The rest of January and half of February have been spent organising a 'surprise' La Dolce Vita themed party for mum's 70th and sorting out the finer details of Dad's move into a rest home. I still haven't done all of that but it should be done very shortly. The party happened last weekend and was a huge success. Everyone looked amazing in their 50s/60s glam clothing (most of which was their own from the day rather than hired). I had a life-size cut out of mum in her Slim Anna days made which was hilarious. She hasn't aged a day....
Jen, Emma and I....
Things went almost too smoothly in the lead up to it though and I knew that something had to happen to add that element of drama that I am so used to. Sure enough, the day before the party Piwaka managed to get stuck badly in a fence and we had to get the vet out to cut her free. It was horrible. Luckily she didn't seem to have done too much damage but there is a serious risk of infection die to the fact that we can't get near her to bandage the wound. It looks pretty nasty though and we're just having to wait and see how she gets on. She's on her second round of antibiotics and painkillers so fingers crossed she'll be ok. It doesn't look great though....
The most recent weekend Marty went hunting with a friend and has finally shot a deer with his big rifle! Very exciting! We are now fully stocked with venison again. But the night he shot it I had gone to bed and when he got home at about midnight the dog went mental and barked and barked and barked so I got up to let him out only to find Marty covered in blood and looking very pleased with himself. I congratulated him and went back to bed. An hour later he came into our bedroom and said he needed a hand because the deer was too heavy for him to hoist into a tree on his own. So up I got, in my PJs, and hoisted a huge deer into a tree on the driveway - not what I had planned to be doing in the middle of the night! But we succeeded. When we finally got back to bed the dog was so wired from all the blood and smells that he wouldn't sleep on his own so started barking again and we decided to let him sleep in our bed that night just to shut him up. He then proceeded to toss and turn and push us around all night. Needless to say yesterday morning I was quite tired! But we got up and Marty set about butchering his deer....
He had a gig in Otane that afternoon in celebration of the Art Deco Steam train coming through. Our wwoofer, Amanda and I went along for the ride which was fun. We got to sit in the locomotive and watch a sooty old man shoveling coal into the roaring inferno....
We were also 'chatted up' by a VERY drunk local who we then avoided like the plague for the rest of the evening. Amanda has been hit on by a large number of odd locals. I hope it hasn't smudged her view of NZ. I think she has had a good time thus far....
About a week ago we were inundated with Porina moths - thousands and thousands of them swarming around on the deck.....
In the morning all that is left is eggs crunching underfoot. It is quite disturbing. But last night was even worse. More moths and this time there were too many for the moreporks to manage on their own so we have woken up to a minefield of dead and semi-dead moths surrounded by mounds of black eggs. They are in everything. The eggs are all through our gloves and shoes and there are dead moths piled up in buckets and gumboots. Now that the chickens are out of the coop they think all their Christmas' have come at once and are absolutely stuffing themselves with the bodies. Even the ducks are joining the party. It is truly gross though. Here are the eggs covering the table. Bleugh....
Anyway, we're going to bake something today seeing as the freezing temperatures of the outside world are not particularly enticing.
Ciao
K :)
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