Covid 3. Keeping in Contact

We were all warned that even though we were isolating we should keep in contact. So very quickly we got up to speed with zoom. Claudia had "lessons" with grandma.

All her  pictures and writing carefully colour co-ordinated! - and quite a bit of pink used.

Sometimes Alice Mod, Barbie and Ken had to be dragged out of the suitcase (they are Jill's old dolls) to take part too.

Once school holidays started Theo joined us for a lesson too. After lessons a lesson on pixels, he made a lego copy of this minecraft sword.

The "girls" all kept in touch, some on a  messenger group or on facebook. There was a flurry of texts to start with, but it soon dropped away as less and less happened in our lives. We tried a group messenger video session, and tried a zoom session, but some of their equipment made this very hard.

I tried to phone people who I knew might be alone and would like a natter, so haven't felt particularly isolated myself.
We had two "All family" Zooms, with Millie joining us from Carrington Hall where she did her lockdown, Alex with his specially crafted computer equipment, and Theo on a computer, and Simon and Claudia on the other. Lots of fun - but not like being there in the flesh!!

Covid 2. Keeping fit

Probably the biggest revelation has been the leaving the treadmill on the deck. There's always something to look at and sometimes I even go past my allotted 5 minutes time and do an extra minute!! I decided to do 5 mins on the treadmill and 5 mins on the exercycle, and half an hours gardening each day, and I meticulously ticked them off.  I feel if I had committed to more I could not have achieved this, because I can do 5 mins without changing clothes or shoes.

What a pleasure!

Up the road, toward Willa's

Our nearest block is 8km and has no footpath. The next nearest block is 14km and has about half footpathed. So it was an up the road and back walk for me several times a week, picking up a few of Willa's fine apples which have dropped on the footpath. She died in the first week of lockdown,from a massive heart attack on the footpath. She was 82.


Duncan did a bit of golf practice - probably stung by Colin's words at his 70th, that he had had to get another year older so there was at least a chance he might play a round in his age. He also played a couple of rounds on his own as allowed by the rules.

Chipping by the garden, driving on the unplanted block 4

I also walked the Beach Walkway, sometimes on my own and sometimes with Duncan. This morning we set out to investigate the new features put in place for Tuia 250, the 250th year since Cook landed.

Unfortunately we took a wrong turn and ended halfway up  Kaiti Hill

Every now and then I had to stop to take a picture (to get my breath back).

There are many logs, but the port is back in action again.

This is Maia, one of the navigators of Maori descent that made his way to Tairawhiti in a gourd boat.

AS you can imagine this would look stunning if it were not a cloudy day

The sculptures of the gourds are also new, and are placed next to the  Monument to Cook's Landing

Duncan has also done long hours on the treadmill and exercycle, so all in all we have managed to keep our fitness levels pretty good during Covid Lockdown.

Covid 1 - Working From Home

Duncan waters the trees while I drive the car and tow the trailer

Here begins a series of the activities which we did during Alert Level 4 (and 3) of the Covid Pandemic that started on March 25th and hopefully will all but finish today, 11th May 2020.
We felt we were luckier than most, having a range of  things to do on the Nut Farm which gave some purpose and structure to the day.

Getting ready to Mulch

The mulch not only holds the water around the roots, but gradually breaks down to provide a rich soil structure.

We've got plenty of hay, but sadly the wind and the birds - including the neighbours chooks move it around.

Time to build and start the new compost heap.

The nuts have come earlier than expected

 We had a pleasant outing to Kaiti Beach on Sunday to pick up the seaweed to make fertilizer tea. The seaweed has to be washed to clean it of sand and salt before put it in the buckets to stew. Hopefully this will give us about 100L of seaweed tea.

We have watered and put a light mix of Seasol on the trees to give them an extra burst before winter. The soil is very dry and cracked. We have had Jan, Feb and April as drought months.
Duncan has also had to mow twice. Its all a steady round of tasks to be completed.