I (Tink) have been meaning to post regularly here for ages. Ages. But I keep getting stuck writing an update, trying to summarise what we’ve been up to for the last few years. I don’t like having our life at Peka Peka shared solely on Instagram and Facebook (as convenient as it is) so I’ve decided to start again here, with a few words, and a few photos each day. And in the the meantime, what have we been up too? Well, we built a cottage (or more accurately our wonderful team of architects and builders did), moved into it while the big house was renovated, moved back into the big house, Adam’s Mum and Dad moved up from Blenheim and into the cottage and gradually, with the earthworks complete, we’ve been chipping away at the garden. We’ve also dipped our feet into the waters of running workshops here and at some stage in the next year or so, we’ll turn our attention to the 10 acres of paddock running across the hill.
DragonKnows. Twice a year, the sun sets just in front of the Dragon’s nose and we celebrate.Dog noses. Vege beds.After the renovation, so much light and space.AdamFirst test of the new, fat tyre, e bike in the paddocks. As my understanding of the importance of soil health grows, so does my appreciation of rocks. Essentially, I’m increasingly curious about ‘life’ beneath our feet. On this note, I have a favourite rock (about the size of a sheep) in our south facing paddock and as coincidence would have it, our neighbour Jeff is a geologist. He tells me that it’s “Wellington Greywacke (German for grey rock). This is a nonspecific terrane term for a mass of jumbled geology but this area is mostly what is called the Rakaia Terrane … late Triassic to early Jurassic 230 to 180 million years old. It was formed on the continental slope if Gondwanaland (the original southern Super continent) probably off the coast of what is now Australia. Greywacke is notoriously hard to date with any accuracy. Gondwana started breaking up about 85 million years Uplift along the NZ spine has elevated it and at some stage our rocks have tumbled down (maybe earthquake maybe flood) and left to us mere humans to trip over.” Cool huh? The boys.Planting out the little old fashioned yellow banksia grown from a cutting from the rose which clambered up a trellis at my old family home.Keto fudge – food is medicine here and we’re constantly exploring. 12 baby avocado trees, of 9 varieties, are growing.Brassicas doing their thing. This, this is – as Adam says – farkin delicious. Cherimoya. The texture is a somewhere between a melon, avocado and icecream. The flavour is complex, it begins with a kick of toffee, followed by guava, then something a little more tart, maybe strawberry. Just the right amount of funk. It reminds me of the Just Juice I used to drink as a kid which had – I think? – guava and passionfruit in it. But this is the wild crafted, grown up version. I spend a great deal of time trying to create deliciousness in the kitchen but right now, I’m hanging up my apron and bowing down to Nature. Fortunately, it would seem we can grow cherimoya here. We’ve already planted the seeds from last night’s fruit. Fingers crossed.A mighty cabbage. Full moon set.
