Driveway Drinks! — Warblers Retreat

The first official day of complete isolation

Day 1, Thursday 26 March 2020

The first day of Isolation NZ! It was such a beautiful day here, a bit cooler with autumn just around the corner, but a day of feeling, wow we are so lucky to be alive, so lucky to be here at Warblers Retreat and so lucky to be living in New Zealand with a Prime Minister who is not afraid to make the hard calls, and she does it with such empathy.

After a late breakfast of our normal, home grown eggs and a new batch of homemade pesto from the basil that is currently growing prolifically, we headed out to our roles for the day. There’s never any slacking here, even when we think we are on holiday, there’s so much to do!

There is so much to do, but we can now do it at a pace that is pleasurable. This covid-19 is giving us the chance to slow down a bit; to not feel pressured.

I was stuck on the computer for quite some time during the morning doing the necessary catch up emails and sorting out finances, etc, as we have no income for the next four weeks, at least.

Firewood time

Dave was out with the Ttonka truck and the chainsaw, for this is the perfect time to cut and collect any dry standing manuka around the property for firewood. This year there is a lot as we have experienced the driest summer in over 80 years.

Time in the Vegetable Garden

I got the opportunity to finally get outside in the garden after lunch. This is my happy place, this is the place I always love to be, but there always seems to be so many other things to do first. The priority at the moment is veges, planting seedlings and sowing seeds. Before I can do that, I need to raid the bottom of the chook run for compost. We have a brilliant composting system where our hens do all the hard work for us!

So, there were cabbage, kale, spring onion, bok choi, coriander, celery, beetroot seedlings that went into the ground, while seeds of dwarf beans, broad beans and carrots were sown. The local, very confident, fat thrush that lives in this neck of the garden was hovering the whole time throughout the planting process, as I was clearly in her territory! She is always the biggest opportunist; new compost, dug over dirt, there must be something yummy there! Well she was pretty out of luck as the compost from the hen run had not one single worm in it, funny that!

Dave and the Ttonka truck removing dead standing kanuka.

Dry standing Kanuka

On to Dave, he had a tricky manoeuvre to do with the crane truck as there was a large dead standing kanuka tree that was very dry and was very close to the power lines. He stropped it, as he normally does in removing these trees, and revved the crane up to manoeuvre it out. Not as easy as all that, but with a bit of skill and expertise, he made it look like a walk in the path. It wasn’t long before he was cutting up the kanuka trunk and it was added to the stack of firewood in our newly built wood shed.

Driveway Drinks

But most definitely, the highlight of the day was the meeting of the neighbours. How were we to do this with restrictions in place? They were as keen as mustard to meet up, especially as they have recently moved from the town to the country, and there’s no way that we wanted them to feel isolated! Earlier in the day, we had done the right thing; closed the gate as if to say, ‘goodbye world, go away, we’re in isolation’, however the temptation to catch up with them was pretty strong as we enjoy their company. Both Dave and I struggle with shutting that gate, as we have never wanted to feel as though we are ‘exclusive!’

So, you’ve got it, the gate was opened, we planted our chairs 3 metres in on either side of where the gate runs, and we brought out the celebratory drinks – good on you Jacinda, go New Zealand, let’s do this, we can find a really good way to keep ourselves safe, stay at home and still have some fun, one way or another! We were joined by kereru, tui and our lovely little piwakawaka (fantail), as well as a few mozzies, much to our neighbours disgust as they bore the brunt of the bites!

And, it was nice to be able to leave our neighbours some home grown eggs and spinach out of our backyard supermarket.

Day one, Pare-dise, how lucky are we!