The First Snow Fall

From an amazing summer of temperatures between 25C to mid 30's the change has been sudden and dramatic. Snow fell yesterday and such that it closed the Rimutaka Hill Road and settled on the Tararua's. What a sight to wake up to, yes we might have winter. Fortunately today was fine but cold, the long Queens Birthday weekend is forecast to be fine and around 17 C so lets not complain.  Cold kills the bugs in our gardens, I have meant to have taken the top box of the beehive but kept putting it off and now they will loose heat if I try and reduce the hive.  Will have to pick a warm day and shut it down for winter asap and reduce the entry to cut the cold entering so easily. What a useless beekeeper I am - don't need reminding; I know it. Or I could quantify it by saying I am breeding hardy bees, of course we all know that is rubbish.

Tararua's in first fall of snow 2013.

We had such gale force winds earlier this week that my peach trees were still covered in leaf but an hour after the wind came up they were completely bare. That does make you think autumn has passed and winter is here, offiicially 1 June from memory.  Winter always seems such a long season and summer too short.

I have been lighting both fires since the temperatures plummeted, the library fire heats the water so I can justify lighting both.  It is not the best at throwing out the heat but probably alot of the energy goes into water heating, however, the lounge fire is a brilliant example of efficiency especially as it is such a large room to heat with very high ceiling. There is nothing nicer on a cold night than flames, sitting watching the flames lick the glass is mesmerising. With a power account of $160 I feel I can afford to burn fires instead of pulling on layers of additional clothes. And they are clean burning fires so impact on air quality is not an environmental issue.

I have had such a hectic week that I am so looking forward to a break with my lovely kids, family time. Ohhh roast dinners, desserts and a meal out, yum cha for lunch they tell me.  Cannot wait, blow the weight control, next week. I exercise and it seems to make no difference, age I keep telling myself.

Watching The Hairy Bikers programme on heritage apples and pears, 1500 varities of apples in England and perry pears which they turn into perry which is an alcoholic drink - never heard of it before. Seems to be the pear version of cider.Perry Pears

Enjoy the link, wish we could buy these, must talk to High St Gardens and see if they are available.