Child of the Planet

I packed some firewood away before the winter wet set in. Enlarged a hole that will get some plum trees planted in it eventually. Need to fill it with some decent dirt. Even though I don’t have much goodness in the sandy soil, I’d rather have sand then stones or clay.        G’nite folks

As a sequel to an earlier posting ( click here ) I’ve pretty much finished ‘the chair’. Got everything in the front screwed down and in the back. Building some storage into the chair.

First day of L3 lock-down and it’s turned out to be a beauty. Lots of sunshine everywhere and not a lot of wind. I drove into work to do some more cleaning this morning round nine, and there was a lot more traffic out on the roads. Some businesses are starting back up. I can now get back into the rubbish tip but there is a cold war style Berlin wall checkpoint at the gates. I think I can hold on for a little longer. A lot of the local cafes have started to open up, but is it worth all the hassle just to pull a few coffees under these onerous conditions for the next couple of weeks? L3 isn’t that much different to L4. There is a new pizza place that tried to open just before the lock-down was called. They are now doing ‘pick up’ where you order and pay, then pick up via the restaurant's back door. It’s all very ‘blackmarkety’.

Only sound filtering into my room is the wind, because no one is outside. Usually I can hear the sounds of lawn mowers, or circular saws, or hammering. Everyone on the street seems to have some sort of a construction project that they aren’t doing today. I spent a bit of time walking around the garden, checking up on stuff. Found some lemons with splits in the skins. Not sure if this is from the hot wind that forced me to build the wind break ( click here to read about it ), or maybe they are getting too much water???? In the foreground of the photo below is a golden passionfruit plant. I planted during the summer, at the base of a dead tree. I've read that they are a bit more sensitive to the cold than the purple variety, one of which you can see slowly enveloping the tree stump in the background of the photo. That purple passionfruit plant has had a couple of years to get to this point. During the winter I'm going to let all the weeds grow up around that golden passionfruit, ...

I’m saving my rants up for this Sunday post. Come back tomorrow for more outdoors goodness. I’m seeing a lot of anti vaxxers who swear that the covid numbers are being inflated. They reckon some doctors are being forced to record deaths as by the virus, rather than by whatever else killed them. Indications seem to be that the opposite might be the case. There are reports that some governments are not publishing all the covid case numbers. Deaths in old age care facilities for instance. I was chatting to a mate in the supermarket this week and she works in a hospital here in Aotearoa.. They are seeing much less people the usual being admitted to intensive care, mainly as there are less car accidents. And the special teams set up to treat covid cases also have plenty of time on their hands. This ‘shut-down’ is saving lives left, right, and center. One of the hillbillies on FB reckon gun crimes in the U.S. are also down??? No ones driving, so the oil price has tanked, so all the trouble m...

Worked on the chair again today. Using sash clamps to hold it all together so I can work out any problems before screwing it all together. One of the armrests is longer than the other (the joys of irregularities in pallet construction). I was going to make them flush at the front, but tying everything together at the back was going to be very dodgy. Decided to make the back flush and the front ‘offset’. Doesn't look so bad and it makes the back much easier to do a decent job with bracing everything. Had just packed away the tools when I noticed that the arm rests are also a different height. Going to have to come up with a fix for that. A ‘cleansing’ westerly was scrubbing the beach this afternoon.

Did nothing but hang out at the beach today and take photos.

I’ve started a new pallet project. Mapped out the plan with chalk. I’m making a taller chair. This is a dry run to see how pieces go together. I’ve been harvesting mustard seed and found this little fellow riding the seed pods. Sweden has regularly popped up in the news with its lack of lock-down procedures. It’s an export economy that is trying to stay open for business, but unfortunately it’s customers are all battling Covid 19. Wouldn’t it be better to take the hard knocks while everyone else is also down? Good night.

It’s the end of another week! Woot! The Govt has made moves to bring the country out of lock-down. Baby steps though mos def! Today there was a bit of cooking, and a bit of gardening. I had a few granny smiths off the tree this year. I cooked some muffins and boiled up the cores and skins to extract the pectin. I’m planning on using the pectin to thicken up some grape juice I’ve got in the freezer.       The cabbage tree in the front yard has started to get a bit big  So I pruned a few trunks. This spot in the back fence cops the Southerly when it blows. It roars straight through the five apple trees I have there. I’m throwing the prunings here in the hope they ‘take’ and I’ll get a plant growing that will break up the wind a bit.

Fantastic day for working outside. Got straight into the table and chair this morning. Bloody tool caught and flipped out a huge sliver of wood. Decided to live with it. The whole piece is a bit irregular. Removed so much material from the legs (which started off as cubes) that they became a bit wobbly. Cut some holes and bolted the legs down with some salvaged roofing bolts.      b  The table is done but for the ‘finish’. Finished the sculpting and construction on the chair. Next step is the ‘finish’ which I’ll leave for a bit. End of the day was pretty sublime.

Level 4 lock-down is going to be over in a week's time, so I need to get at least one of my pallet projects finished. Finished the detail carvings on the table. Decided to add the same detail to the chair. Looks like a string of fine days ahead which will be helpful.  I’m hoping that the hardware stores are open at Level 3.

Sunday's blog is reserved for a bit of a rant so if you’re here for the gardening, maybe pop back tomorrow ;-) The news is full of ‘economic depression’ predictions. What bugs me about these ‘calls to reopen economies’ is that we are all going to be operating in isolation. There is no point opening your economy if there is no one to buy your goods/services. If Aotearoa came out of lock-down tomorrow, we still need export markets functioning. We don’t have a large enough population to be self sustaining in anything other than electricity and food. Travel is going to have to be local. there isn't going to be any international tourism for months, possibly years. Eventually there is probably going to be a coalition of ‘destination’ countries such as Singapore, Australia, and anybody else has managed to get the virus under control. Here is the weekly Johns Hopkins map. It’s been updated to a new format with more detail. I'm thinking that this will be the last time I post the map...

Weather started out thundery with rain. Finished off fine and windy. Did some more carving on the vertical pallet planter. Also fooled around with the rotary tool carving. I never really used one of these things before so I'm so much of it is learning what each bit does and how it works

The rain that the Met office has been promising for several days has finally arrived. Plenty of seaweed down on the beach recently Cut some curves into the table  Did some detail carving I’ve seen the meme below posted by both Left and Right wingers on FB. The spread of covid 19 depends on two factors... How dense the population is how dense the population is. The Left think the pop is dense because they refuse to appreciate what Covid 19 is. The Right think that it’s a media ‘beat up’, and that the pop is dense for listening. Perspective is a beautiful thang.