Up Close with Nature

Saturday Night Entertainment
Derek took me out last night - to the garden. We have been manually picking slugs and snails, getting hundreds every time we go out - no wonder they were slaughtering our garden. I think this is the only way.

yup - that's me

It actually is really lovely out though - we can hear frogs, bitterns booming and moreporks. The stars were fully out and the temperature was mild.
There was a morepork sitting in the dead cabbage branch just above us watching, so we tried to capture him (image only on Derek's new camera). It wasn't entirely successful, but here he is.

our garden morepork

For a bit of entertainment Derek makes a morepork call, which Munta the dog copies - lucky we have no close neighbours.
Munta and Derek are quite talented - had their own guest appearance at a music event with a song written for Munta because of his singing ability.

Mother of Invention
My 20 year old daughter lives in town - close enough that she can bring me her washing disasters - pretty clothes with a mark on them that she is too scared to touch in case she ruins them. This means that they come to me untreated, so I suggested a prewash treatment would help until she got them to me...but wait, don't buy one - here's one I invented.
Prewash Treatment Cloths
squares cut from a discarded white t-shirt into a plastic container, over which I poured:
 1/2 cup water                       }
 1 tsp of liquid castille soap    } mixed together
 1/2 tsp of eucalyptus oil        }
Then she just gives the stain a little rub and rolls the cloth up in it until it gets to me. Hopefully the eucalyptus will deter any mould in the container or the clothes, but I won't make too much at once. No colour runs either on my tests.

Tuis in the flax
The flax is flowering outside our kitchen window, so the tuis are back.

taken from our kitchen window

 They are a joy to watch and their song, which is like a language with chirrups, whistles and gutteral sounds, with a signature song for each bird, reminds me of how my daughter sounds when she becomes animated and laughs.

 Listen to Tui song recording.