Waiting is a testing

Waiting is a testing

We are frequently asked, ” When will the road open again?”, ” When is the council going to fix it?” as we wait for the hlllside to fall. Life goes on as normal really except we do a bit more walking to get to the car.( as I thought yesterday it’s no different from someone walking to the train to get to work). Hardship…. the isolation with only the ones who don’t take notice of signs likely to head into the Forks for a walk, kayak or cycle as we have noticed signs on the road or seen them passing by.

Patience, well learned in years gone by with the time between coming to live on the land and building the house and then 4 years ago with the months between the road closure and the slip falling and the reconstruction of the hillside… it sure comes as another test to make the most of the time.

The one thing I have found challenging is the weather, too wet and windy for bees to be out foraging much when the spring flowers are in great profusion like the kamahi, hinau and rewarewa so who knows how much polination of plants and nectar is happening with this spell…. a challenge to get out into the garden as well.

I have enjoyed the walks in the bush… there’s always something interesting like a fallen tree covered in small white fungi or flowers like the Oleria Rani that happens every 5 years so I see more trees than I had seen before or hearing the NZ Falcon/ karearea flying about. It’s good for my health I say as I plan to go to do pest control work on one of the tracks. A few DOC 200 traps have parts of duckling that have died from the latest batch to use as bait incase there is a stoat about.

Today I have the task of fixing a cracked firebrick in the Rayburn stove, great to have the backup underfloor heating until it’s repaired.

I am ready to send my application in to Kapiti Coast District Council for a Heritage fund grant. A good time to make a Management plan, make a budget for future spending as I have talley up the hours spent on the work on pest control over a year. It is good to keep the supplies of bait, lure and gas plus purchase new equipment and now things to help with monitoring the work that I have done. The applicaiton is for November and we get the grant applications processed by February to be spent by June.