Hi honeys, well January was a fairly eventful month what with one thing and another. We had no rain to speak of, everywhere is parched and we have been declared to be in early drought in our district (Tasman). This could turn into full blown drought next week so they are saying. Our pond is drying up fairly quickly and our domestic ducks don't go into what water is left so I have a feeling it may be rather ''skanky''. We have water in a duck ''swimming pool'' up near the house instead. There's also plenty of shade for them too.
Yesterday we went down there to organise some water for a farmer's sheep in the back paddock (another story there!) and afterwards we went down onto where the water would normally be. It's pretty sad if I'm honest and also very worrying as this is our ''fire'' reservoir water too. Here are a couple of photos to give you the idea. All of the mud you can see is normally covered in water.
There is extreme fire danger at the moment and I'm trying very hard not to think about it. It is keeping me awake in the middle of the night occasionally because fire petrifies me. I mustn't dwell on it - after all what will be, will be and there's nothing I can do about it except do my best not to cause one! We aren't mowing at the moment and the council has told everyone not to mow until the evenings - I don't think it should be done even then. There isn't much to mow anyway!
We experienced a brief heatwave here in NZ last week. We got to 40 and 41 on our property on Monday and Tuesday, much to my horror. It was also windy which was really horrible and worrying. The rest of the week cooled off a little but other parts of the country baked. I was so thankful on Wednesday and Thursday because we had quite a lot of cloud cover which kept the temperature down to the mid 20's. A cool front swept up the country on Friday night (no we didn't get any rain at all even though it was predicted briefly overnight) and yesterday morning it was 12 degrees C and 10 degrees C first thing this morning - sheer bliss! The temperatures are going to rise over the next few days back up to around 30 degrees.
I have to admit I am struggling to remain cheerful in this weather. I honestly want the sun to disappear for a week or more and to feel rain on my skin would be heaven-on-a-stick! It will come, I just have to be P A T I E N T.. aaaggghhh! A farmer told me yesterday we're not predicted to have significant rain until MID-MARCH!! Aaaggghhh again!
On a brighter note, I've been asked to write some columns for the ''Regional'' section of the NZ Gardener magazine. I'm so thrilled and have written my first one for the March issue. I was going to approach them this year but I hadn't made the time to do it yet! My life often has weirdly wonderful things like this happen - it's how I fell into garden writing and garden radio shows in the first place!
I didn't send any plants out last week (except one box to Wellington because I knew it would get there quickly) because of the heat and this coming week we have Nelson Anniversary Day (Monday) and Waitangi Day (National holiday) on Wednesday. I'm scheduled to send 9 banana boxes of plants to a landscaper in Hawkes Bay on 11 Feb but if the weather is still hot I may have to delay that one too. I'm thinking about not shipping any plants in January and February from now on because they are generally the hottest months if we do get a ''real'' summer like this one.
Well I think that's enough waffling. Thank you Ruth (my sister-in-law) in the UK for spurring me on to post something today! I DO love having this blog and I miss writing my posts. My busy website etc just gets in the way! Smiles..
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