It is Fall. Or as they say here, Autumn. This season has
always been one of my favorites and here is no exception. I have to get used to
the fact that very few trees change color with the dramatic intensity of New
England, or change at all for that matter. There are lots of ferns and palms
here.
But, Fall/Autumn usually signals the end of the summer
drought. Usually does not mean always. And in this case, we are still waiting.
We had the remnants of a cyclone over the weekend. High, high winds and some
rain but nowhere near enough. Smudge (my cat) and I huddled indoors and I
cheered myself with the mental image of a lush vegetable garden revitalized
with all that rain. Turned out there was little rain; it just sounded like a
lot when it was being hurled at my windows at 120km.
That’s too bad because I really needed cheering. We were
without power for more than a day. That means no water (the pump runs by
electricity), no computer, no computer games, no internet, no email, no tv, and
no cooking. I got pretty tired of peanut butter sandwiches. I also ran out of
bread but didn’t dare open the freezer to get another loaf. Why? No electricity
to run the freezer and I couldn’t risk letting what cold air there was out. I also couldn't read because there was no light. I did doze a lot.
I had plenty of time to prepare for this cyclone. The
weather alert system in New Zealand is very sophisticated. It would have to be
since this is still an agrarian society. So I moved the sheep to paddock #3
which has the gully and lots of willow trees to protect them. Luckily the
temperature didn’t drop because they had been shorn only a week before and so
didn’t have their usual protective wool.
The steers were already in the paddock in front of the
new barn, which is the perfect one for them since it too has a gully and a
protective ring of trees. I have to say, though, they didn’t seem to need it.
On the rare times when the winds died down enough for me to see out my windows,
I glimpsed those steers standing oblivious to the elements and eating.
The chickens were safe in their coop. When it was all over,
I noticed that my egg numbers were up. Puzzled I watched as several chickens
marched determinedly into the horse stalls. There, under my bemused eyes, they
took turns laying their eggs in a haystack. So now I check the hay every
morning as well as the coop.
One side benefit is that I finally found that can of
shellac I had lost 3 years ago when I fell off the hay stack while painting the
inside roof. We had finally used enough hay to get down to ground level. And
there it was not 2 feet from the new eggs. The worry had been that it had
spilled and tainted the hay. It hadn’t and it didn’t.
Until next time.
