Hiho Hiho, it's back to the bay we go - Whanarua Bay Nov/Dec 202

 

Beautiful pohutukawa in the bay

We were delighted to be invited back to Whanarua Bay for a month to take care of Stanley, who we have looked after before, and his duck brothers and sisters. 

Indian Runners

The really cool thing about the timing of this sit was that there was seven new hatchling ducks that had been incubated.  They were between a week and two days old when we arrived. During the month we cared for them, they grew from this ....

to this ....

Tentatively venturing into the wide open space
the day we opened their enclosure

With a little help from their friend and enthusiastic babysitter, Stan

We provided shallow water baths so they 
could get used to playing in the water

One of the female ducks was also sitting on a clutch of eggs.  Ducks are notoriously bad mothers and we never expected her brooding to come to anything.  Nekminit, after coming home from a walk at the beach

We discovered mother duck had brought her six ducklings off the nest to greet us!

She was so proud of them and proved to be a very good mother indeed.  Over the month of this sit, a lot of research was done regarding the best care for all the ducklings and a lot of time was spent constructing safe spaces and safe paddling areas for them.  Stanley, of course, supervised all.

Oh, and one of the beauties of ducks = duck egg sponge and strawberries out of the garden .... made by James!

Stanley also enjoyed his first surfcasting experience.

But mostly, he just enjoyed chasing the seagulls.

Stanley loves eating fish and was delighted when we were able to catch him a feed.

James also went for a dive in the bay and whilst the water was colder than expected he certainly made it worthwhile.

Which meant we were able to enjoy one of our favourite crayfish dishes .... crayfish and wild spinnach with beurre noisette (burnt butter) sauce!  Nom nom.

Clare spent some time with some of the local women, demonstrating how to weave a flower out of flax - which is there is a plentiful supply of locally.  She also weaved her first wee bag from a Youtube video

We had a sad event too.  Attending a wee burial ceremony for Ina, whom we cared for last time we were in Whanarua.

RIP Ina, we loved you very much :-(

And on a brighter note, we had a playdate with this special little girl, Kuskus.  As Clare was busy knitting her a winter coat as she had lost hers somewhere along the way, she was able to have a fitting during the design phase.

Once we left Stanley and his bird brothers and sisters we moved just down the road for a few days to hang with Kuskus whilst her mum took advantage of our availability to take a short break.  The jacket got finished ....

Wild Food Utopia, Maungataniwha - Nov 2021

 Disclaimer ... if you are squeamish about hunting, please move on to the next post!

Feeding the home deer. They are free to roam but
come every evening for their grain.  There is no
shooting within a kilometre of the whares

We sometimes talk about how much we enjoy harvesting our own food.  Sometimes these opportunities present in the form of picking mushrooms (which we enjoy around the world), picking wild plants like NZ spinach, fishing (another activity which we enjoy worldwide) or hunting wild game.  We are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to indulge this passion in New Zealand.  As animal lovers, we still believe it is kinder and more environmentally sustainable to hunt our own food that purchase meat from the supermarket.  That doesn't mean we enjoy the killing process and we both feel a little sad at the moment of our 'success', but celebrate the fact that our food was living it's best life to this point.

Having a week to spare before our next housesit, and being in the vacinity of our favourite native block, we headed into Maungataniwha to do some pest control for Pete.  It was tough going with the rabbit and hare hunting as the weather really didn't play ball but we still managed to reduce the population and harvest the meat of approx 30 bunnies and 13 hares.

The huntmobile aka Polarus

We also had a pig jump out on the road in front of us and James was quick enough to get it

Nose to tail harvesting

This fella came across our path too .......

We were also lucky to come across a deer on the same road very early one morning. 

And it was back to Whakatane with a chilly bin of meat and fish!

In the freezer we now had: Tuna, Albacore, Kingfish, Kahawai, Venison, Wild Pork, Goat, Turkey, Pheasant, Rabbit & Hare

Tres amigos, Nuhaka - Oct 2020

 

Whakaki Beach

Mahia Peninsula and surrounds is an area of New Zealand we had not yet explored, apart from driving through to somewhere else.  So we were delighted to be offered a cat only sit in Nuhaka.

Pumbaa and Mia, the Ragdolls

Nairobi, the Burmese cross

All three cats were 'rescues' from a pedigree cat breeder.  I say rescues, as the Ragdolls had been rehomed having past their best-by date for breeding and Nairobi was a 'mistake' litter of kittens after some random moggy bred with one of the Burmese.  The Ragdolls really did lack life skills, having been kept in cages most of their lives.  Very sad indeed.  At least they are in a better place now.  Nairobi, on the other hand, had an exhuberance for life that only eight months old kitten can have!

The kitties gave us plenty of time for fishing and exploring the Mahia Peninsula.  We managed to catch a few fish for sharing with Nairobi (the Ragdolls weren't impressed or interested).

Wow Dad, that's cool!

Trying to get fish scraps out of the bucket

We fished night and day ....

Whakaki Beach

Blacks Beach

But there was always plenty of time to sit and enjoy the view

With a little bit of 'extreme' knitting thrown in

Those of you familiar with our story will already know our passion for wild food.  Nuhaka did not disappoint.  We were lucky enough to be able to harvest a goat and a couple of turkeys (thanks to a neighbour) for the freezer and our bellies.

The cats certainly enjoyed the down times of hanging out on the deck in the sun

Morning snuggles

With a little bit of night-time telly thrown in ...

These three amigos were such easy company.