It’s still summer here but much like summer in the UK this can mean very little. One day it’s raining, the next day it’s thirty degrees. This week we’ve had a real mixed bag of days with the heating on one night and then sweltering the next. But it keeps things interesting.

Unfortunately, it’s not so good for getting hay cut and baled, as you need a good spell of dry, warm weather. We are trying to get a second cut of hay off our paddock that we had baled earlier in the summer so we are anxiously watching the weather forecasts at the moment. Being able to get some more hay cut will be the difference between having enough feed for our cows all winter and having to buy hay in. Once you start buying hay in, the whole lifestyle block thing gets more expensive. So we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Apart from that, everything in our veggie garden is coming ready for eating.  This cuts down our grocery bill a bit but also reminds you how delicious homegrown, freshly picked stuff is compared to what you get in the supermarket. Right now we have stacks of lovely fresh peas, broad beans, courgettes, potatoes, lettuces, chard and beetroot.

And with all the plums and apricots ripening on our fruit trees, it’s a competition between us and the birds to get the fruit when it’s ready. It’s a competition that the dogs also like to enter. I’m always catching them out in the garden picking off the low hanging plums at the moment.

At this time of year the real kiwi domestic goddesses are busy preserving all this homegrown stuff for the lean winter months. But that’s not something I’ve really got into yet, it seems awfully time consuming. I’m sure I’ll regret this laziness when the winter is here and we’re back to buying overpriced second rate veg from the supermarket.

It’s a long weekend this week, as Monday is a national holiday for Waitangi Day. It’s a holiday to celebrate the signing of what is sometimes called New Zealand’s founding document – The Treaty of Waitangi. The treaty was signed in 1840 between Maori chiefs and the British Crown. It’s often referred to in New Zealand media and politics.

Waitangi Day is treated as a holiday by most people and they head off to the beach or attend some of the official celebration events. However, it’s also a time in which the debate about the relevance of the treaty to Maori rights today comes to the fore. This is a topic that provokes passionate debate in New Zealand and one that I feel most foreign expats are unqualified to comment on. I’ll just be enjoying the day off.

Pattie