The good life in paradise (part 3, father christmas in thongs....)
Hi my lovely blog readers!
Yes, summer is definitely here, even when it is officially beginning later..... We barely had any drop of rain the last three weeks and our garden starts to dry up. Tom already has his area watering regime in place. He splits our huge garden in different areas and waters regularly. So some kind of water control is going on during the dry summers up north here.
I unfortunately hadn't had a lot of time to help him in our garden in the last month..... Why is that you will ask yourself.
Well, well, it was all about ceramics last month. First my friend Wendy and I made some art pieces for the Kohukohu Village Art Gallery up north in Kohukohu for a Country and Western exhibition. Kohukohu always reminds me anyhow in some way about a "wild West Village". Sleepy and rough!
My interpretation of Wild West resulted in my "bling" bull head:
Then I had to finish a piece for the Open Ceramic Award/Exhibition.
The exhibition is still on until 18th of December at the Art Quarry Whangarei.
Shortly after, the quirky "Art in the Garden" event was on. With lots of smaller things to sell at the market and art sculptures for the garden.
What a productive creative month! I think I need a break now!
Good that x-mas is coming on.
But wait, there is more happening in Paradise....
How exciting is that: we got to know lovely Connie, a hobby beekeeper. So we are totally thrilled to let you know that we got our first bee hive in Paradise. The bees seemed to have settled down quickly in their new home and we might have to enlarge the hive with an additional house on top soon. They might have felt the welcoming vibe here in Paradise.... My task is very minimal: each day I have to destroy a spider net that is in the flight direction of our new friends..... and bugger I can't get this spider to come out and show herself to eliminate it. D'oh.
A few interesting facts about bees and honey:
Honeybees do not exactly make honey. Instead, they concentrate and thus improve the nectar produced by flowers. The honey we love to eat is nectar that bees have swallowed and condensed for us (and for themselves) to enjoy.
Honey never spoils when sealed in an airtight container, honey is one of the few foods known to have an eternal shelf life. There are even reports of edible honey being found in several-thousand-year-old Egyptian tombs. Honey’s longevity can be explained by its chemical makeup: The substance is naturally acidic and low in moisture, making it an inhospitable environment for bacteria.
A bee produces about a teaspoon e.g. 5 grams honey in her lifetime and can fly as fast as 32 km/h.
In a single foraging trip, a worker bee will visit between 50 and 100 flowers, then return to the hive carrying more than half her body weight in pollen and nectar.
A Queen Bee can produce 2,000 eggs a day.
Makes me tired only writing what those amazing bees are performing!
I stumbled over a wonderful book "Source New Zealand" from Gerhard and Henrietta Egger. Its all about producer and natural products from New Zealand.
They have a cool Manuka Honey Cinnamon Smoothie Recipe in it:
1 Banana
1/2 cup unsweetend Almond milk
1 tsp Manuka Honey
1 tsp ground Cinnamon
Super power for your breakfast!!!
Another highlight over winter was that I discovered that I can buy seeds of a type of salad, which is very common in Switzerland but not here: lambs ear salad or corn salad in Swiss "Nüsslersalat". It was growing really good and we could harvest quite a bit. Always good with eggs!
Voilà! A NZ grown "Nüsslersalat". Yumm.
At last I have a riddle for you: What event could Tom and I celebrate this month? To help you guess I post a photo here..... Let me know your answers. Winners will be announced in the next blog!
Kia kaha, take care and "choose happy".
Gabriela