Heart Felt

Getting lost in sunflowers

Texture...

 

Follow the leader....

 

Colour....

 

And one to take home.....

Long lunch

We had a family gathering at Gladstone Vineyard in the weekend.  

Sadie wanted to to dress up as a fairy (of course)

Charlie amused himself with his cousin collecting cicada shells found on tree trunks.  Their collection was rather impressive.

Everyone cried out a big 'Awwwww' when Sadie and Oscar got up to dance to the live music.  

The ducks and chickens were happy to be fed bread from the cafe kitchen.

It was lovely to spend a long lunch with family.

Bubble boy

 

Have a great weekend. Jx

Bike ride

Cycling on the Greytown Woodside Trail ~ just Mama and Charlie.

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Outstanding beauty right outside our back door

Lots of trees to climb along the way

and hay sheds to explore.

Peaches

You can tell we had a great day by the bare feet, grubby faces and dirty finger nails!

xx

Pizza outside the Gingerbread House

Tonight was pizza night and we thought we had better make the most of the warm summer evening.  

So it was a picnic dinner outside the Gingerbread House.

Homemade pizza with Grandma's lemonade.

Greedy!

 

Homemade Pizza

Base

1 tablespoon of active yeast

half teaspoon sugar

1 cup tepid water

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups plain white flour

1 cup wholemeal flour

1 tablespoon oil

Put the yeast, sugar and tepid water into a bowl and leave aside until frothy.  In another bowl put in flour and salt.  Add the oil and yeast mixture into the flour.  Mix and kneed until smooth.  Put dough into a clean bowl covered with a tea towel and place in a warm spot until dough has doubled in size.  Punch down and kneed again.  I cut the dough in half and make two smaller pizzas.  Roll out and put onto a tray and top with your favourite flavours.  Ours is super basic ~ sauce, cheese and free range bacon.  Cook 220.C for 15 minutes.

A weekly meal in our house.

Fensham Reserve

Today we took the children around the loop track at Fensham Reserve.

 Fensham Reserve is located about 3 kms west of Carterton and is looked after by the Forest and Bird Society.  

This was our first visit here because although it's a loop track it still takes over an hour to get around with gentle inclines.  Charlie and Sadie walked right around with no troubles but Ian and I had to take turns to carry Oscar.

 

~ Oscar carried this piece of fern around the whole track

and then cried when he dropped it into the creek ~

Fensham Reserve is home to big beautiful Kereru (wood pigeon) (which we saw lots of), fantails (who follow you around), tui, kingfisher, morepork (owl) and others.

~ Kereru flying over head ~

This 48 hectare reserve contains a remnant kahikatea swamp forest, as well as important wetlands that are home to our nationally vulnerable mudfish.

Take a drink and something light to eat, camera is a must and good walking shoes.  (No dogs are permitted)  Your reward is stunning views of the valley, a great work out, lots of bird life and beautiful native forest.

~ View from the summit ~

Fossil hunter

Castlepoint was a great place to go fossil hunting.  The limestone rock has layers of fascinating fossilized shells.  

Some were quite beautiful.

Charlie bought along his tools to dig a few fossils out.

He worked hard

His precious treasures!

Castlepoint

We spent three glorious days at Castlepoint with Grandma and Granddad.  It was quite windy, but it didn't stop us from exploring this fascinating landscape.

The lighthouse is always interesting and the views are beautiful.

There's a native moth that only resides here at Castlepoint and also a rare yellow daisy that grows wild only in this area!   How special and amazing is that!

Charlie was in fossil heaven, I will share his findings tomorrow.

The kids made friends with the local seagulls by feeding them everyday.

Lots of sand castles, amazing sand art

and scavenger hunts.

(Sadie ticking off 'feather' on her scavenger list)

The sand dunes were fabulous

along with the big tractors that pull the fishing boats in and out.

Castlepoint is a special place, along with it's beauty, wild life and landscape it holds an amazing history.

(Castle Rock in the background)

The Maori name for Castlepoint is Rangiwhakaoma, which translates as 'where the sky runs'.

How beautiful is that?

Lavender

Lavender Abbey opened it's gates today to their beautiful lavender fields.

There were lots of bees and bumble bees.  Oscar got stung by a bee last week and his poor little foot was swollen along with a sleepless night and a fever; so it wasn't surprising that he was a little apprehensive at first.

But the colour and the scent just took you away and he soon forgot about them.

Charlie was contented to pick the flowers

while Oscar and Sadie had races.

Lavender Abbey is owned by Jan and Stuart Abernethy.  With the oil they produce hand cream and lotion, soap, lip balm and lavender rubbings.

Lavender Abbey

351 Dalefield Road, RD1

Carterton 5791

lavenderabbey@xtra.co.nz