Steamin Along

 I’ve been having trouble opening & closing the toilet blade recently. That’s the part that connects the inside toilet to the holding cassette underneath. It’s been taking all my physical strength to open it, & even then it’s not opening enough for a clean getaway down under 😉 it also causes liquid leakage, which isn’t pleasant to deal with when emptying at the dump station. Time for maintenance! Trouble shooting these issues with only a manual to go by, can be extremely challenging. The first step is to see if I need to buy parts, a whole new cassette, or simply clean it. I decided to check the state of it first, so I watched a couple of Youtube vids to see how it connects all the parts.  It’s a complex piece of equipment, with all of the parts being plastic. There’s a float inside for indicator levels, an emptying spout, seals, a breather valve, a blade & handles. I dismantled what I could, without having to worry about difficulty in putting it back together. My...

 The last week or so has seen me drop off the grid. It’s been lovely getting messages from people who are wondering where I am & what’s happening right now. I’ve been helping my brother on his lifestyle block. There have been some exciting learning curves, & some extreme challenges, as I navigate what I’m able to do & what I’m not. A Beautiful sunrise after a lot of rain. Maize hates rain when it’s tiny I’ve learned. And cows mooing is a lovely sound, even magpies warbling is nice to wake up to, not so much at 5am tho Before I got overspray all over everything Me the mower rider 😂 These things can be used for an amazing variety of things, including spraying fences, ready to water blast & paint, with a shelf on the back, to attach things to. That’s my job for the next couple of weeks. Per carbonate of soda is a great natural chemical for cleaning & killing surface growth. The roof on my camper is now lichen free & the solar charging is working more efficient...

The miracle of eyesight. How we take it for granted, until something either happens to it, or in my case we try to capture something we see, & can’t do the object justice with photography or other mediums. Every day I see so much cool stuff, I can hardly get it back to the blog, before more cool stuff happens. Heck I don’t even know where I was yesterday 😂 well almost 😉 It’s not the first time I’ve noticed this, but I’ve finally gotten around to blogging about it.  So here’s an example: Kingfisher on a ponga stump I could see it perfectly, with the definition of the feathers, the darkening of the tail from mid section to the top & all the other little things about it, even its eye.  Admittedly I don’t have the latest iPhone or iPad, but my cameras aren’t too bad either.  But they can’t capture what the eye sees, although claims are made to that effect. And I’m talking about a pair of aging eyes here too! I just think it’s magic, that we can see all this cool stu...

Foraging is a passion I’ve long held. Finding out what the ancestors of this really cool couple of Islands I’m blessed to belong to, ate. Kawa kawa A Maori healing food & dressing, tea etc Identification page from Julia’s Edible Weeds Wild celery Puha Traditional greens From NZ that the Maori ate, cooked I’ve been doing it off & on for years now...BUT one of the things that concerns me, is identification of said weeds. No point reinventing the wheel, & finding out the hard way, what Not to eat, eh. So I’ve been out taking pics of potential food sources, in areas that I hope are weed spray free. In New Zealand we still use glyophosphate (Roundup) to kill weeds, which breaks my heart, when steam will do it just as well. I wish the council would understand just how harmful all these chemicals are to the human body & brain. I want to take good pics for identification, & have them identified by plant people, who know more than I do about this subject. I love the little b...

We are born, it is light We learn life’s basic skills, colour is added to our world In semi darkness we stumble Our horizon broadens as we discover there is a world around us Discipline becomes a part of our lives, as we learn how we fit into the world Wonder, learning & growing Splashes of colour are looked for, in the now familiar routines We marvel with excitement at new things We become enlightened as we learn, & see more colour in the world as we question The world becomes a magical place, full of new  experiences, people & in wonderment we feel a range of emotions Some emotions & experiences are painful Others burst with colour & joy Some days have just enough colour to keep us going Others have more Some experiences in life surprise us As we get older, life throws us curve balls, but we’ve learned response, resilience, patience, & wisdom The light is softer now. We stop to enjoy the roses...or the birds. Such as the case may be Life is calm, as we dea...

Washing the truck of course 😂  And I’m catching rain water 😂  I got enough water in the ice cream container & a big bowl to wash & rinse the whole thing!  Where I could reach standing on the ground that is 😂  Some heavy duty truck cleaner was used. It was much thicker & more soapy than I had anticipated, so the job took about an hour to complete 😂  The wet room is being well utilized today too. Very pleased with the results of waterproofing the jacket. Better do the hat part next tho 😂  An excellent product! Worked great 👍   Sorting out props to better utilize the space Catching water to do some hand washing And keeping warm in bed It’s great being vertically challenged at times Storm pics