travel theme foliage

I travel and house sit, seeing new places and providing a service at the same time, living in beautiful homes for free but keeping them tidy, pull a few weeds and look after animals while the owners are away. I wrote a book last month! 50k word fiction. Now poems are popping out of me and I want to paint. I’m making preserves with the fruit fallen in the spring winds and learning to blog.

This is a 3-month stint in the Bay of Plenty New Zealand. I look after Ebony, a lovely standard poodle and take her for walks twice daily in the avocado orchard next door. It’s spring here and I have a magnificent view of the daily weather changes over the Kaimai Ranges nearby. In the orchard, seasonal things happen – right now the shelter belts are being trimmed so they can’t harbour bacteria etc.

The tractor has a 4-circular saw gadget attached on a long extended arm that can move sideways along the belt or across the top. The driver is protected by a cage over the roof but it’s a noisy skilled job.

The graceful blue-green needle-foliage of the casuarina trees and the prickly resinous yellow-green foliage of Cryptomeria screech in protest at their fate, and large and small branches fall with a thud over the machine to the ground. The air is perfumed with resin and the mess is piled thigh-high beside the shelter belts. soon it will be chipped to be returned to the land.

The Shelter Belt Trimmer — The lean mean machine that trims shelter belts. Those 4-circular saws are whirring dangerously close and the driver waves to me. I’d hate to be chased by it!

The shelter belt trees being trimmed — the shelter belts have several cuts – along and low down, along and up high, and then across the top. The trees scream and screech as they’re being trimmed. Stand clear! Large branches thud down and smaller ones follow. Ebony and I watch from safety the other side of a drainage ditch where the monster can’t reach us. We sniff the pine-tree resinous smell. Nice!

Bird's eggs — Under the avocado trees, no nest to be seen, I found two of these thrush’s (I think) eggs and the other last week by the gate. How do they get there? Is she caught short and has to lay them there and then? One still had the yolk in it. I put it in the pocket of my rain jacket hoping it would be safe. It broke!

5 thoughts on “travel theme foliage”

I enjoy reading your stories, blogs etc. You have a gift with words. Don’t know if you will get this, none of my other comments seem to reach you. You must be about ready to leave again. Good luck with your travel, finding a place to stay, having your knee op etcetc. And your novel. Keep me posted. I am having a massive clear out in our spare room….next time you should have a whole room to yourself. New electric blanket too……………. Luv and hugs……………Eunice

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kinsahays says:

October 4, 2012 at 8:43 am

Hi Eunice, Well I got it this time! When I come over to the Eastern Bay I’ll pop in and see you but will ring first. It’ll be the last week in Oct.

Hugs and thanks for your kind words

Kinsa

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