Picnic tea eating the beautiful fish. Timo made the connection of the meal as being a form of fish and chips as we had the fish with potatoes etc, except this was much better he thought. We all agreed.

More fun on the swing.

Jeremy is smoking, actually it turned into flame grilling as the bottom of the smoker fell out, some fish.


meanwhile, the boys played in the sandpit

and Caoimhe discovered the first basics of refraction and magnification when she noticed "Garfield is bigger!".



Caoimhe on the new swing.

With lots of different visitors lately, we have had this bizarre spell of breakages. First it was the trampoline, then bowls, plates, the swing, even the bathroom sink! Fortunately it was none of the really important things like people's bodies, bones etc.

Timo's newspaper article as part of his whole morning playing about this solar powered power plant story with pipes going all around the world to power it etc,etc: He wrote it for Jeremy to read when he finished his job in the garden.

It reads:
NEWS.
At 1opm the worlds first power plant landed at Landcaster. The plant krasht. They sent the biggest crane there was to turn it over.


The apple never falls far from the tree... Lennox is actually under an apple tree:


Making a target for the re-vamped crossbow, and target practice. Practicing to go shooting when next in Hawea as Isla said she would take him.


chalk murals:


picking flowers:


both front teeth now gone:


more grins from the tub, except with all of their teeth:

Inspiring: Bunker Roy: Learning from a Barefoot Movement

An example of someone who has grown in a system that he found did not work for him, to inspire creation of something that works and is of benefit to the wider community in an inclusive way, and world accordingly. Very inspiring.

Here is Lennox dining with his friend Georgia, just a month apart in age. They have known each other since Lennox was about 3 days old. The two were like a little old married couple, happy and content enough eating their lunch but squabbling over who had whose spoon at one point and Georgie made a lovely gesture at another point of moving over to Lennox and offering to cut up his food for him which she did and he seemed very pleased about that.

From the concert yesterday:

A really wonderful, happy and successful afternoon. We even had two middle aged gate crashers. Jeremy made all the 50 or so falafel in lovely soft breads for everyone, I made origami pockets to hold them in and Caoimhe decorated them and Timo helped to stick the folds down, unfortunately no pics of the complete product, but lots of well received feedback about the whole event.







Lennox is not really a concert or large number of people at a gathering person, at the moment. He took himself off to a more quiet space and happily played by himself, I didn't realise he was actually playing with Rebecca's sourdough - sorry guys! It's salvagable however.

Jamming and practicing for the concert on Sunday

Timo and Caoimhe as audience.



Timo and Caoimhe as performers: Timo on harmonica, Rebecca on tambourine, Caoimhe on shaker, Kane on guitar. Sounded good!

An optimistic man on the same page of thinking and a positive spin on the inevitable (the end of economic growth etc) :

From L to R, Carolyn from Germany, Ronnie from Arizona, Alex from Germany and 'Frenchie' from France. The 4 girls who spontaneously turned up on our doorstep yesterday because they liked the look of the river and that our place looked like it could be a good place for them to ask for somewhere to stay for the night. Of course we said OK as they definitely did not give off any unclear motivations. So they all stayed and did our dishes and read Timo and Caoimhe bedtime stories in exchange. They left this morning. That was fun.

mucky!

Caoimhe covered in bubbles and general cleaning muck after helping Jeremy clean out more wwoofer digs.

honey bees

Timo has been spotting one or two honey bees about the place and studying how they gather pollen and nectar. He noticed this bee above and noticed the pollen sacks it carries around, the photo illustrates these sacks pretty well. It's great to revive the study of bees, fascinating. We're in the process of contacting an apiarist to keep a hive here.

busy!

Quite a busy busy busy time for us at the moment. Great busy of course as exciting things are happening in the garden and everywhere here. We are putting on a concert here next Sunday afternoon and are inviting around 50 people, we are also making falafel in pita breads for everyone to try out what it's like doing that with a view to it being a form of street food we could potentially do in the local town or with a mobile kitchen to work other places, or just keep making it for ourselves and friends who visit. The concert is featuring the acoustic duo 'Sparrow' who play bluegrass and Frantisek (Frank) who plays many different things but for the concert will be playing traditional Czech guitar music. Kane and Rebecca who form 'Sparrow' and Frank are all staying with us at the moment as wwoofers.
Here are examples of one of the many things the children have been up to in the lovely weather we have been having:

Timo doing a useful job in the garden, and also digging out dock:


Caoimhe carving limestone with Frank:


Lennox painting a chair...


... and leaves in nearby bush as I discovered, what a happy surprise that was.

The Trout Story by Timo Heath

It was sunny and the water was very cold. Me and Dad went fishing in the kayaks. We paddled under the bridge and a bit further, then I cast out my line and slowly started winding it in and then BAM! I had it, slap in the head a beauty brown trout, caught in our very own river! Then I had a couple more casts and saw a flick of silver whizzing through the water followed by a wave - beeeuuunng - it went. Then Dad said it was time to go home. We cooked the trout on the fire with a marinade of butter and parsley. We ate it and it was delicious. It tasted like the whole river itself.

THE END

A packets of seeds turned up in the post for Timo, Caoimhe and Lennox from Kings Seeds for the great NZ gardeners sunflower growing competition. Here they are planting out the seeds.

technology

Caoimhe's digital art



Timo typing his trout story.

yesterday:

Lennox returned from a great trip to the North Island and was happy to be home to play with his sister on the trampoline:


While they were jumping, Jeremy and Timo went fishing off the kayaks in the river and Timo caught a beautiful trout:



Lennox applauding the trout before we ate it:


Before eating:


After: