American in Auckland

Goodbye Love

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 09:59:00 +0000

My Rottweiler, Fargo, who came with us from San Diego, CA, was beaten by the cancer growing in his liver and adrenal gland. He was 12 years old, and was an excellent dog. I miss him terribly.

I had been asking myself when would be the time to euthanize him. No one could answer this or help with this question. Fargo's vet had told us some time ago that there was nothing that could be done for him. He was still eating, and able to conduct his day to day living, but his gut was just not functioning properly. That couldn't have been comfortable for him. He had been doing well for awhile, but seemed to decline fairly rapidly after we returned from Wellington in August.

We decided that we had to be strong for him, and decide what he could not- to end this mortal coil. I am ultimately happy that I could release him. We were there with him, when he went, and it felt like a relief. That sounds bad, but it is not- he had peace and comfort at the end.

I have Zeus and Ruby to keep watch over me. Zeus is quite a collector. He brings all sorts of stuff onto the front porch to play with. This includes logs, plant pots, plants, watering cans, and other assorted detrius. He especially loves LOGs and rocks. In the house, he likes to tear up stuffed toys, and after we stopped buying these, he moved on to pillows and his dog bed.

I found this amusing, but not so much when I had to pick up all the fluff.

I bought more fabric to make him a new bed, but I am fairly certain that this was a waste of money. We'll see. I haven't made it yet.

What better to soothe the soul than a walk in the woods? Or bush, as we call it in NZ. To contemplate the giant Kauri, hear the falling and running water, to touch the fuzzy moss- very nice. The poto is from Fairy Falls, a walk that's about 15 min from our house.

The Rugby World Cup is in New Zealand this year, and we're seeing lots of upgrades to Auckland. One is the new Wynard Quarter, formerly known as the Tank Farm. The highlight is the pedestrian bridge that draws up for passage of boats in/out of the marina. The bridge goes from the Viaduct area, which is full of restaurants, to this newly developed area, with more restaurants. I was amazed at the number of people there. This will likely drop off as the novelty wears off.

Happily, it gives greater access to the seafood market, which is the freshest shop in the city. But is this good? I recently watched the doco, The End Of The Line, the premise of which is that if the world population doesn't stop supporting the work of large industrial fisheries that rape the ocean of inhabitants, we will all rue the day. I'm thinking, it's too late, we're all doomed. Enjoy it while you can, everyone!

So it's September now, and that means Spring is here. I'm so OVER winter- sick and tired of wiping muddy dog paws, thank you very much.

What the hell happened in July/August 2011

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:45:00 +0000

July 2011 has been full of events. It featured the 5 year anniversary of my thyroidectomy, my birthday on the 17th, and the 43rd New Zealand International Film Festival. The birthday overlapped with the NZIFF, so I saw a film that day and had dinner with my sweetie at Dine, Peter Gordon's swanky restaurant downtown. I ordered the twice cooked free-range pork belly, and it was divine.

I commemorated the thyroidectomy by having another (unrelated) surgery. This also was during NZIFF and prevented me from attending a few films I had tickets to. I also missed 4 days of work. I had seriously underestimated the recovery time, and 3 weeks later, it is still giving me some niggling pain. I had convinced myself that it would be no big deal- outpatient surgery, nothing serious. I was wrong, I felt really wrecked and I hope I don't have to do that again. I did manage to see many films, despite this. I was a volunteer usher again this year, but only ushered a handful of films so that I wouldn't burn myself out. You can visit the NZIFF website link above to find out more information about the films if you want. The films I ushered were (category and comment in parenthesis):

Animation Now (my favorite was a mash-up of artists called Guard Dog. Others were hard to watch)
Supinfocom (also animation, some excellent work)
My Reincarnation (Framing Reality. I liked this better than I thought I would. A documentary about an Italian born son of a Tibetan Buddhist master)
Pina (Framing Reality. A 3D contemporary dance film that worked really well as 3D. Beautiful.)
The Last Circus (Incredibly Strange. Beautiful Spanish film about killer clowns. A death match on top of a giant cross. I would have paid to see this one)

The films I bought tickets to were:

Cold Fish (Incredibly Strange. Japanese dark comedy horror. Took awhile to get going but was awesome- shocking and creepy!)
The Innkeepers (in the Incredibly Strange category, but didn't fit definition IMO. A ghost story- really good, not cheesy.)
Snowtown (New Directions, for new directors. Disappointed in this Aussie feature depicting the true crimes of serial killer, but too much unexplained.
Sleeping Beauty (New Directions. So disappointed. So pointless, so, so, annoying that I sat in the horribly uncomfortable Sky City Theatre seat through the whole thing, expecting it to go somewhere. Another Aussie film)
Hobo With A Shotgun (Incredibly Strange. Brilliant!! Technicolor mayhem and gore with a great story and spot on acting. Loved it. Check out the trailer in the link for a preview. Ha, I just watched it again- still funny.)
The Future (New Directions. Miranda July's second feature. I loved her first: Me, You, and Everyone We Know, and this one was equally as endearing and thoughtful and funny, but more sad than the first.)
Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure (Inside Stories. Fun and interesting)
Sons of Perdition (Framing Reality. Documents the lives of boys exiled from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints cult. Sad and compelling.
Nosferatu (Big Nights. One of my favorite films of all time, the first vampire movie by FW Murnau. It is silent with dialogue in text between images, and the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra played the score. Shown in the Civic Theatre, it was quite something. Unfortunately, it gets quite warm in the upper seats where I was, and having seen this film many times before, I dosed off repeatedly.)

So that totals 15 films. It was a good fest.

Fast on the heels of the Film Fest was Beervana, a craft brew festival in Wellington. We got to see Mt Taranaki from the plane window, which is usually covered with cloud. It has a cap of snow at this time of year. I like how it rises off the flat land and is framed by the ocean.

Darin and I put the dogs in the kennel and flew down to attend the awards dinner on Thursday and the Beervana event on Friday. My sister and her husband were also there. The dinner was excellent, with many different kinds of NZ beers and ciders for drinking. I enjoyed it more than the Beervana event, because Beervana was crowded and the people pouring the beers couldn't answer some quesitons I had about what I was tasting.

Wellington has great food. I've eaten at the restaurant Sweet Mother's every time I've been to Wellington (3 times), it's become a tradition. We also found some great Mexican food, thanks to my sister. This place is tucked into the back of an alley off of Cuba St. No burritos here, only enchiladas and tacos. The guy said that burritos are not what people ate in Mexico City. His mole sauce was terrific.

I also did a bit of shopping (new hat, wallet, and tried on boots) and bummed around the hotel room, eating sushi and watching How To Train Your Dragon (twice). I like that the Night Fury dragon looks like a cat.

Happy Birthday, Fargo!

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 08:45:00 +0000

My Rottweiler Fargo had a birthday party today, and we were so pleased by all the people who came to see him! Seems like such a frivolous thing, to have a birthday party for a dog, but 12 is OLD for a Rottweiler. In the photo, I am holding the liver cake that I made for him (minced liver, apple, carrot, oatmeal, olive oil, and flour). I honestly didn't expect him to live this long. Just 5 months ago he had an ultrasound showning neoplasms on his liver and adrenal gland, with no reasonable treatment. He's gained back the weight that he lost, and his gut seems to be working normally, so YAY! He is a very cool dog- relaxed yet still playful. He went to Murawai beach a couple days before his birthday to celebrate.

This old boy used to get so angry when we helped him into the truck, but now he seems to understand it is necessary for him to go anywhere, and is more tolerant of our assistance. He doesn't get to go off property very often, as he has poor control over his rear legs, but he didn't fall down at the beach. Best of all, he wasn't sore afterwards.

Below is Zeus at Bethells beach. Bethells is just south of Murawai, but you can't drive directly from one to the other. You have to make an effort to drive to these west coast beaches, along twisty, narrow roads. Both beaches have areas that allow dogs off leash. I look foward to the day when he is as obedient and reliable as Fargo.

April, aka Autumn in Auckland 2011

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:42:00 +0000

The weather has finally turned wet and cool, which gives me an excuse to sit inside in front of my computer to update my blog. Obviously the weather was really nice, in the photo above, taken at Karekare beach west of Auckland a few weeks ago. It is probably my favorite beach because it is so beautiful and quiet. It's huge too. I took Zeus with me, and we explored the exapanding sand. He is now nearly 7 months old, and is the star of his puppy obedience class. We're continuing our effort, and making excellent progress. He has outgrown his collar and is bigger than his mum Ruby.

We have 3 feijoa trees in our yard, and have had a massive crop of fruit this year.

The fruit grew bigger than I have ever seen them before. When I picked them up off the ground, I would tear open any bruised fruit and squeeze out the tasty insides for Zeus to eat. It didn't take him long to determine that he could do this himself. I've been finding peeled feijoa skins all around the porch and yard.

There's more than enough to share. I've taken multiple bags of them to work to give away, made several batches of feijoa and ginger jam, and many batches of feijoa and date loaf. I'm not sure why they call it loaf, when it is more like cake. It's like banana bread- that too is like cake, and yet it's called bread.

Last month, my sister received her New Zealand citizenship. You must be a permanent resident for 5 years, and be a citizen in good standing. I think they make you explain any driving or parking violations.

She's still able to keep her USA citizenship, but she did swear allegiance to the queen. The ceremony was not too exciting, but it was very impressive to hear that people from 29 different countries were receiving their citizenship that day. Mys sister was the only American there. People were encouraged to wear national dress. I wished there was a tea and biscuit afterward to have a chance to visit with the other new Kiwis, but apparently there was a planning oversight. Really- to not be offered tea and a biscuit (cookie) is very UN-Kiwi.

I had this cake made for her. It is the North Island of NZ (on it's side- the top is on the right) with various kiwiana symbols on top. Note the long white clouds, gumboots, jandals, Mt Taranaki, sheep, pig, dogs, kiwi, windsurfer and Sky Tower.

There were fern fronds decorating the sides. I surprised my sister with it at work, at the start of our weekly group meeting. Her husband and my husband were hiding in the next room with the cake, and wheeled it out on a cart, so we shared the joy with our coworkers.

Of course we went out to dinner afterwards, and had a really enjoyable meal at a new restaurant called the Foodstore. We liked that it sourced most of the ingredients from New Zealand, used free range chicken and line caught fish, and had a seasonal menu. For dessert, one of us ordered the pavlova, which is a very Kiwi. It was the best one I've ever had. Unfortunately, when I went back with my husband a week ago, we didn't enjoy it as much. The menu had changed and I just wasn't that impressed with my chicken. It was served with a mild applesauce, which I thought was boring. It should have been served with a nice chutney instead. My feijoa chutney, for instance. The other new restaurant I tried recently is KK Malaysian. This place has no decoration, crap interior, and a tiny kitchen crammed with people cooking and preparing the food, which is exceptional. People will line up outside to wait for one of the few tables. The KK Special chicken is amazing, and the chicken laksa was also great. I'll definitely go back.

Where in the world is Karamea?

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:26:00 +0000

Karamea is on the west coast of the south island of New Zealand, around the corner from the Abel Tasman park. To get there, you have to first get to Westport and then drive north for about an hour and a half, through twisty, winding mountains and along the Tasman Sea. I flew down to Nelson and rented a car from there. Why did I choose to go there? Because I'd seen photos of the area, and it appeared to be a wonderland. Also, Air New Zealand had a "grabaseat" fare for relatively cheap, and I could get the time off work. Drive time from Nelson was about 5 hours with stops. I picked up a couple of young women hitchiking, who were going to Karamea to hike the the Heaphy track. One was another American.

On arrival, I visited the information center for maps and directions to my lodging, the wonderful bed and breakfast, Kuaka Cottage.

It reminded me of some of the places Darin and I stayed when we travelled to Alaska. One of the owners, Mark, grew up in Homer, Alaska, so that figures. He and Hanne built this out of the local limestone. They were very helpful and welcoming to me, and served excellent breakfasts and dinner, much of it from their garden. Hanne recommended I drive to Kohaihai beach for a swim in the river after my long drive. It was absolutely gorgeous and with only a few other people around, I felt like it was my own private paradise.

This river empties into the ocean, which is just off the left side of the image. I walked the beginning of the Heaphy track, up the hillside in the picture above, to view Scott's beach on the other side of the hill. All of the walks I did in the Karamea area were extrememly well maintained, with excellent bridges, easy grades, and well marked paths.

The next day I drove into the Oparara Basin, which is about an hours drive from Karamea in the Kahurangi forest. The drive is primarily on a rough gravel road with unending curves and steep climbs, which was doubly adventuresome for me as the rental car I was driving was a manual (stick) shift. I used to drive a manual in the US, but using the opposite hand for shifting was a bit challenging at first. I had arranged a tour of the Honeycomb Caves, as this area is only accessable by tour. The reason for restriction is that it's full of moa bones, and already several tons of bones have been removed. It's also 13 kilometers long, so someone could easily get lost or hurt. There are 70 entrances, and only a few are easily accessable, meaning you could accidentally fall into a hole, as did the moa, and never get out alive.

Obviously, the bones in the next photo were reassembled into the shape of the moa, which was a flightless bird that was unique because it lacked vestigial wings (that is, evolutionarily, it never developed wings in its history). The other cool thing about moa is that there were eleven species at one time, and their only predator was the (also extinct) Haast eagle. In the Oparara basin, the cave guide said no native Maori people lived and hunted this area.There were 6 or 7 different species found in just the Honeycomb Hill Caves.

After the cave tour, we had a picnic lunch and I walked to the other amazing parts of the park. The Oparara Arch, the Moria Arch, and two other caves (much smaller, easily accessable) were all relatively close together. I spent the day going "WOW!" and taking photos.

There is so much old growth forest here, I could totally imagine moa and dinosaurs running around. Despite the perfect weather during my visit, this area gets 6 METERS of rain a year, so it is a rainforest. The other thing I love about the Oparara is that there are giant carniverous land snails here. Doesn't that sound primeval and frightening? It's a bit of a misnomer, the name "giant snails", as they fit in the palm of your hand. I like to imagine them as 7 feet tall, slowly, quietly, sneaking up on you in the still forest, sliming you as your screams are drowned by soft, cold flesh. Ah, I must write a screenplay! Then I can have an excuse to go back to Karamea to film there. In fact, though these snails are endangered, they can be found very near my home in Swanson, in the Waitakere hills west of Auckland. I have not seen one in the wild yet, as they are nocturnal.

I had time for one final walk on the way back to Nelson. The Charming Creek Railway walk follows an old private small railway, used to take coal (I think) out of the mountains, via a stunning gorge. This walk has tunnels and a high, narrow wire rope bridge to a gorgeous waterfall.

Again, it was all for my private enjoyment, as I passed only one person on the way in, and two on the way out.

I stopped in Westport to buy some of the excellent Blackball salami products. They are from the west coast of the south island, so hard to get in Auckland. The other thing I found in Westport was an apple variety called Smitten. I ate this apple on my walk to the Oparara arch, and it was an ecstatic experience. According to this blog article, it's been developed for export, and this explains why I've been unable to find it at any of the markets in Auckland. I certainly hope this changes, because I want more. If you're lucky enough, you might find it in North American markets soon.

To finish off a great trip, my flight from Wellington (where I had to switch planes) to Auckland was on the fancy new All Blacks plane.

Very nice plane inside and out. Too bad the woman behind me insisted on changing her kid's diaper on the seat. She did it as the plane was loading and didn't want to go back to the toilet area. Then when she tried to get the stewardess to take the dirty diaper when collecting trash, she was told to take it back to the toilets, which of course she didn't. I guess I should't be annoyed by this behavior, considering that I have seen parents holding their children to piss next to cars in a parking lot of a pet shop, and signs in some toilets that say "please do not stand on the toilet". I guess I should get over it, as I'm planning a trip to southeast Asia at the end of the year. There, I expect I'll tolerate all sorts of weird cultural norms.

Melbourne is crazy awesome.

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:59:00 +0000

One of the benefits of living in New Zealand is that Australia is relatively close to visit. I spent last weekend in Melbourne with my husband, for whom this was his first trip to Oz (I'd been once for a quick trip to Melb in 2009). We booked a glorified backpacker's hotel, (the Formula One) which was sparse but right downtown, quiet, and appeared to be secure. Melbourne has a mix of very old and new buildings, as the photos show.

Melbourne was "bought" from the native aboriginals and grew up due to it's port and the gold mines. There's a nice museum at the Treasury Building, where you can visit the thick rooms where they kept all the gold.

There are frequent trams that go all over downtown. We rode them to the St Kilda free music festival,

where we saw awesome motorcyle stunts and I bought a lovely green opal directly from the miners, to New Quay with it's modern and expensive looking new developments, where we ate good Greek food, and to Little Italy where we had massive piles of pasta with a bottle of chianti. We were walking distance to the river, the Flinders Street Station (1910), Federation Square, where the visitor center is, Hosier Lane, where there's great street art,

and shopping, including a vinyl record store.There's lanes and alleyways t hat have unique shops and cafes, and with the excellent public transportation system, everyone uses it and walks places. Unfortunately, I forgot my thyroid medication (Eltroxin), which I have to take every day, so we spent a good portion of Saturday trying to figure out how to get it. I only needed two days worth, so I asked at the pharmacy, where I was told that I had to have a prescription from a doctor in Australia and that I could only buy 200 pills. We managed to finally track down a clinic that was open on Saturday afternoon, but the asshole doctor said that he would have to charge me $96 for a visit. I explained that I only wanted the prescription, I can't get the cost of the visit reimbursed from the gov't since I'm visiting from NZ, and my travel insurance doesn't cover pre-existing conditions. He still said no, and I think he was a total A-hole for that. It's not like it's an addictive drug or anything. He could have charged me $30 or $40- I would have paid that. Instead I walked out.

Then this street art sort of described how I felt. But, as I mentioned, Melbourne is crazy awesome so we had a good time anyway. And that should be the last time that I ever forget to pack my medication.

We also were impressed and very jealous of Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market, where sections of the market are devoted to seafood, meat, chicken, fruit and veg, dairy, candy, bread, deli, and cooked food. Auckland has a historic old Victoria Market, but it's full of mainly tourist crap.

Too bad this picture is a bit out of focus. That's Zeus (4.5 mo) on the left, Fargo (11.5 yrs) in the middle, and Ruby (3 yrs, Zeus' mum) on the right. I took it just before we left for Melbourne. Fargo had his belly shaved for an ultrasound a couple weeks ago, and this showed neoplasms on his liver and adrenal gland. He's still playful and has a good appetite, but has been losing weight. It feels like you can feel every bone when you pet him. I've been boiling chicken and rice for him for probably 5 weeks, and I could probably do it in my sleep now. I've switched him over to browned ground beef now, and will see if there's any Science Diet kibble that he will tolerate (he has GI issues). I don't know how much longer he will live. The vet wouldn't give us any estimate, because every dog is different. There is no treatment that is going to cure him. He's the only one that hasn't pissed me off by waking me up this morning.

This street art from Melbourne makes me think of cancer- spreading, poorly defined, scary. One of the books I've just taken from the library is called The Emporor of All Maladies, a history of cancer. I've read a few pages, but have put it aside until I finish Johnathan Frazen's The Corrections (which is so intimate and voyeristic, funny and sad, and familar- really enjoying his prose, so like a painting).

Big days out: Summer 2011

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 02:28:00 +0000

I'm continuing to work 3 days a week, which is awesome. I took a Friday off in January to attend the Auckland Big Day Out, a multi-stage music festival that travels around Australia (but starts in Auckland, NZ). This was my first BDO, and I went mainly to see Grinderman. (Grinderman is Nick Cave's most recent band.) I also would have liked to see Tool, but they were playing just before Grinderman on a different stage. Since there was no seating, and I had difficulty seeing over peoples heads and shoulders during Iggy and the Stooges, I got to the Grinderman stage about 2 hours early so I could be right in front, so I could see. It was totally worth standing for hours, getting harassed and shoved around by an obnoxious, big guy during Primal Scream, and enduring one of the most boring bands I think I've ever seen, Primal Scream. You would think a band with such a cool name would be fun, but none of them smiled and their music was lame! Being up front for Grinderman was awesome, because they are such talented, energetic, and engaging musicians. Oh yeah, it was raining too! I was pretty pleased with myself because I'd stuffed a light rainjacket in my backpack, so I didn't get as cold and wet as other people. I also saw the Deftones, who I love. I remember seeing them back in San Diego at the Van's Warped Tour in about 1999. Wolfmother played a cover of The Who's Teenage Wasteland, which is my favorite Who song ("I don't need to be forgiven!"). I like this band and have one of their albums, and they sound a bit like Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin (remember them!?)- retro hard rock- you can hear Wolfmother's song Woman on YouTube if you click here.

Darin's birthday was celebrated in early January with a flourless chocolate cake (with sprinkles!) and a glass of port- yummy!

We took the ferry to Waiheke Island and rented scooters the day before his b-day. We visted Obsidian winery, swam in the warm Pacific ocean at Onetangi beach,

and had a charming lunch at Casita Miro. Our visit was over much too quickly!

We also went snapper fishing recently. I was a bit concerned because the weather had been very windy, which can make the water quite rough in a boat. But it was fine- a bit choppy later in the afternoon, but calm all morning. We took a boat charter out in the Hauraki Gulf (Dr Hook) for a full day. Between us, we caught 16 snapper, of which I filleted one of them! I caught the biggest one on the boat that day, 8.5 pounds, and all the other fishermen were jealous- what a great feeling. That gave my arm a real workout.

Snapper are delicous!

Happy new year 2011

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 09:52:00 +0000

Happy New Year! Summer is in full swing in New Zealand, and I've enjoyed a few trips to the ocean. Christmas day I hiked a big hill with my husband, sister, and her husband to White's beach, which is north of Piha and south of Anawhata. The tide was up and the surf was big, so we just waded in the water and enjoyed the soft black sand massaging our feet. There were only a few other people there. We had some wine and a picnic lunch.

It was hard to see the pups go. The pups have all found homes except for one, Lime girl (now known as Valkyrie, "chooser of the slain" in old Norse). She is really cute, smart, and playful. I would really like to find a great home for her. In the meantime, she is getting a great puppyhood here with Ruby, Fargo, and her brother, Zeus.

Zeus, AKA Pink Boy, is shown below at 12 weeks.

Our Toyota Hilux Surf diesel wouldn't start after Dogsport training one night, and my mobile phone battery was dead. Another club member let me use his phone to call AA (Auto Assoc, not Alcoholics Anonymous), but they told me my membership expired- yesterday. They let me renew this with a credit card over the phone- whew!- and sent someone out to try to start it. He tried a variety of things but couldn't get it going, so called me a tow truck. AA covered part of the cost, so it was only about $40 for a flatbed truck tow from Mangere to Swanson (about a 45 min drive). The first garage we took it to had it for a couple days but couldn't fix it. We then had it towed to Western Diesel, where they took 1.5 weeks to figure out what was wrong and fix it. Basicallly they took the engine apart and put it back together. It cost us a whopping $1700- ouch!
My husband gave me a new smart phone before Xmas, and on New Year's Day, I lost it. I am GUTTED! I put it in an unsecured pocket in a new backpack, and it must have fallen out without my notice at the beach with Ruby. It was a spectacular location, with lots of people and dogs, so I suspect someone picked it up and kept it.
We saw some good movies over the holidays: Megamind, Four Lions, and Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. We saw the Social Network a few months ago, and that was really good.
I've also had some excellent hikes and walks, including to Waiheke, below.

Five week old Rottweiler puppies

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 08:27:00 +0000

Warning!

The following blog contains graphic pictures of puppies that are so cute, your knees will become weak and you may cry.

I have been really enjoying my new camera, a Nikon D5000. With the help of a friend, I took head shots of all 8 pups on their 5 week birthday.

Blue girl:

Green girl:

Lime girl:

Purple girl (aka Lady Gaga):

Pink/blue girl:

Blue/yellow boy:

Maroon boy:

Pink boy:

I intend to re-photograph the boys and the purple girl, because they were all sleepy and didn't have their ears up to properly frame their heads. The Maroon boy is much more handsome than his photo above. Look at Maroon boy below- he is the very definition of "cute":

All the pups moved outside to a spacious kennel at 4 weeks (which Darin built- good job and thanks to him!!) They go out into the yard to explore and play repeatedly every day. They are eating voraciously, and it is like a rugby scrum at mealtime. Everything was fine until last Thursday, when my husband called me at work to tell me Mr Pink had diarrhoea and wouldn't eat. He was also lethargic. He took him to the vet, and he was not dehydrated and didn't have a fever. He was sent home with antibiotics, but soon almost all the pups had diarrhoea. Immediately I worried about Parvovirus, because Rottweilers are particularly succeptible to this. However, there was no blood in the stool, so that was reassuring. Still, seeing the pups so lethargic, uncomfortable, and sad was very stressful. Green girl was just sitting alone on the concrete, shivering, so I wrapped her up and brought her inside for some TLC. Ruby's breeder said that it sounds like coccidia (coccidiosis). This parasite is very common in puppies and kittens, but fortunately is treatable. We had a fecal test done the following day, and got all pups on treatment by the end of that day. It sounds really funny and gross, but we are so happy to see the puppies having firm poos!

To be clear, although these pups are adorable and I want to keep them all, they are a lot of work and cost a lot of money! I have stopped keeping track of all the expenses- milk powder, ground beef, puppy chow, de-wormer, vet visits, the new kennel, the whelping box, etc.

At the moment, the Maroon boy is my pick, but Mr Pink is incredibly cute. I will have to get a better picture of him too. I am quite fond of Lime girl, above, in her new ad for Fiskars axes and Fisher and Paykel clothers dryer. Lime girl is also on the log here:

Purple girl (Lady Gaga- see her Bad Romance music video, and see the arm movements of the white beings at the beginning - the puppy did this when bottle fed) is also very beautiful (below).

Aren't they all gorgeous? I have no idea how to choose which one to keep. The plan is for the pups to go to the registered breeder of this litter, Rita Grenyer of Sahne kennel, at 8 weeks of age. She will be responsible for the disposition of the puppies to good homes. I'll be so sad to see them go, because I want to see how they develop into adults. I hold them and they look at my face, they come when I call them. Everything they do is adorable. If I kept them all, I would really be a crazy dog lady and would be their slave. Having 3 Rottweilers is going to be challenge enough for me.

Ruby, the dam, enjoys playing with them, but thinks all the toys should be hers and steals and hides them. She hasn't nursed them since they started biting her nipples with tiny sharp teeth about 2 weeks ago.

Puppies almost 3 weeks old

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:57:00 +0000

Ruby's puppies are 3 weeks old tomorrow. They are incredibly cute! They have grown so much, we can't weigh them in my kitchen scale anymore because they don't fit in the pan and wriggle around too much. They all have their eyes open now, and are walking on all 4 legs. The female with the blue yarn was the first to open her eyes, and has the most coordination of them all. Their mobility has become a problem, because they are now able to climb out of their box using the rail on the inside of the box to lift themselves up to the door (see photo above). We found 5 of the pups out of the box this morning, sprawled across the floor of the room. I think they were hungry, and Ruby was lying on her bed just outside the door. She won't go in to nurse them unless the box is clean, and the pups had wet the papers in the night. We're not getting up in the night to feed them any longer, and this is why they are hungry. Darin has removed the inside rail and we will have to start closing the door at night.

The pups in these photos show them in "food coma" mode. They eat, sleep, and eliminate- that's about it. In the past few days, they've been vocalising more sounds and louder.

You can see that we have both newspaper and towels on the floor of the box. The towels or fabric are so that the pups have some grip when they get their feet under them. The newspapers are too slippery to walk on. Ruby and the pups move them around, so we regularly spread them out again.

The next step will be to wean them.

In acknowledgement of the fact that their adorableness is temporary, and that we will probably not breed Ruby again, I bought a fancy new DSLR camera- the Nikon 5000D. The above photos were taken with my Cannon PowerShot, which is a sweet little thing, but I wanted something with more guts. It is much bigger and heavier, but has so many more options. The option that got me to choose this camera over a Cannon EOS 550D is the monitor/viewing screen folds out and rotates. I also really like that a lot of photo editing can be done in the camera, before you ever download to your computer. Below is a link to a video of Ruby nursing her puppies.
Ruby's puppies
I've arranged with my employers to work only 3 days a week- Tue, Wed, and Thur. It's been 2 weeks so far, and I have to say I LOVE IT! Unfortunately, I'm not getting as much done as I thought I would (gardening, sewing, cleaning...). Maybe that will change as the pups get a bit older. Feeding the pups with the bottle takes about an hour, and we're on our 4th box of milk replacement powder (about $39 NZD a box!). We were feeding 3 hourly, but changed to 4 hourly and no getting up from sleep to feed. Indeed, it's time again for them to be fed.

Rottweiler puppies born 27 September 2010

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 11:15:00 +0000

Ruby gave birth to 10 puppies, all within the span of 2 hours. Unfortunately, the first one was blocking the way for the others, and due to the malpositioning of his body, Ruby was unable to deliver him. She started labor on Sunday night, and we stayed up all night with her, waiting for the contractions that never came. Monday morning and still no puppies, so Ruby's breeder Rita said to get her to the vet. I immediately thought the worst, and expected all of Ruby's pups to be dead, and/or requiring a C-section. Waiting in the parking lot, she started her first contraction since the previous night. When the vet arrived and got her into the exam room, he examined her and extracted the first pup, a boy, dead on arrival. This was very painful for Ruby- she really screamed about it. The vet thought he was going to need to give her an episiotomy, but managed to avoid it. The next puppy was delivered within 10 minutes, a girl, and we decided to take Ruby and her pup home to finish delivery there. She delivered the next puppy, a girl, next to me in the back seat of our car, on the short 12 minute drive. There were no other problems with the delivery, except that for an unknown reason, pup #4 (another male) was delivered dead. Ruby did't seem to notice, she was working too hard. Darin and I had to keep moving the pups into a basket for the delivery of the next pup, then returning them to her to get cleaned and warmed.

Ruby seemed to relax finally, and all 8 puppies (3 boys, 5 girls) seemed to be well. I called the vet's office to let them know, and made an appointment to have the tails docked (must be done within 3-4 days from birth). Here's what they looked like with their tails.

I didn't anticipate the tail docking to affect me the way that it did. I don't regret that I had it done, but it was difficult. The puppies cried, Ruby vomited, and the vet didn't put in a suture (apparently this is acceptable practice, I suppose to get them done quickly). All 8 pups were to the vet and home again within 30 minutes, but they cried another 20 minutes after our return home. I really hate crying, be it puppy, kitten, infant, child, or whatever. Fortunately, these puppies are well cared for by Ruby so there is very little crying.

Unfortunately, she is not producing enough milk for the puppies. This was only detected after I mentioned to Ruby's breeder that the pups appeared to be "sucking her dry". The pups seemed to be working very hard to get milk, and she looked uncomfortable and not swollen or engorged. Still, they appeared healthy and content, so with our lack of experience, the pups could have started to fade away before we realised the problem. The solution is to buy canine milk powder to mix up for supplemental feeding every 2 hours.

This can be quite challenging, when the pups prefer their mother to a plastic nipple. Some are easier to feed than others. You may notice in the photos that we have colored yarn on the puppies to identify them. We are weighing them daily, and they have been gaining since we started supplementing. There is a large difference between birth weights of the puppies, and this has continued. It is fun to hold the puppies and pet their soft fur. Ruby is cool with it now, but initially she was concerned about us taking her pups away.

Ruby has become noticibly calmer now (5 days since birth), as have we. I will continue to worry about her lying on one of them until they are weaned. She is very careful, but she's also tired, and they are tiny and there are 8 of them to keep track of. Though we had some anxiety and challenges, the outcome and experience certainly could have been worse. We are really enjoying watching the gorgeous pups grow.

I am going to work only 3 days a week until the pups go to their new homes, and it is spring, so there's much to appreciate.

Auckland election September 2010

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 06:12:00 +0000

Auckland is becoming a "Super City", meaning that we will no longer have separate councils for the different areas of the city. For example, I live in Waitakere, which has different rules about the sale of alcohol in markets than Auckland. Once we become part of the super city, maybe I'll be able to purchase a bottle of wine at the grocery store. Who knows- there will certainly be both good and bad changes. The new city needs a new mayor, so the election material came in the mail on Friday. My husband pointed out these two winning candidates:

This is just too funny to be fake! This guy:

Left school at age 14. Who wants a mayor with such a minimal education?
He has smoked pot for 30 years, leaving school because of pot. I can't imagine how he could avoid physical (and mental) damage from smoking unfiltered weed containing over 400 chemical entities.

Despite his admitted "criminal" behavior, I'd vote for him before I'd vote for the following guy:

Abortion is legal in NZ, and I don't see any reason why it won't stay that way. I had a look at the statistics, and there aren't any discernable differences in the number of abortions in NZ compared to other developed countries. This guy is obviously a religious lunatic who can't discern where religion ends and civic law begins. Acording to the Libertarian Party newsletter (Oct '04), the Christians Against Abortion only put canidates up for local office elections, where they could have ZERO impact on abortion if elected.

Apparently there are 23 candidates running for the position of Mayor. Personally, I want to vote for the person who will make it a priority to build rail transport to the airport and the north shore, but I have no idea who that is. I am not alone- "Rail to the airport has emerged as the most important transport priority in Auckland in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey on the Super City." (Herald DigiPoll)
For the most part, I avoid getting invoved in politics, because I get annoyed with idiots. But I will vote.

The bitch is pregnant!

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:35:00 +0000

My female Rottweiler, Ruby, (aka Sahne Cherry Tart, BH) is the pregnant bitch. She being of the canine persuasion, I can freely use the word "bitch" with accuracy. She is from Sahne Kennel in Auckland, NZ. I first introduced Ruby in my blog here, when we got her as a pup. We co-own her with her breeder, Rita Grenyer. Rita is shown in the photo below, with Lincoln, Ruby's puppy daddy.

His registered name is Star's Copyright at Von Sahne, call name "Lincoln". He was the only pup from a litter sired by American Champion Goldshields Feature Presentation, CD, CGC, BH (these are obedience and temperament titles), and this will be his first litter in NZ. I think that the pups will be beautiful, and Lincoln will give Ruby a bit more substance. Both dogs are very well put together and have lovely temperaments. Ruby's half brother is Ch Nighthawk's Born For Highwood. Ruby's other half brother is Ch Thunder Ranch's Quash of Nighthawk, who is showing great dogsport ability, besides being gorgeous.

These 3 dogs share the sire, Can Ch Crusade Encore Von Sahne. Rita owned this dog and he was exported to the USA. Here in NZ, his frozen semen sired a litter from a bitch with some Schutzhund (aka dogsport) titled dogs in the pedigree (Ruby's dam, NZ Ch Tart n Tights of Marqee).

Ruby's puppies are due at the end of September, and we don't know how many to expect. We're hoping for 6- that would be enough. Here's a picture of Ruby in the whelping box my husband and I built and lined with linoleum for easier cleaning.

This will be a new experience for all of us. We've owned 4 Rottweilers since about 1993, but never bred a litter because of the huge responsibility. I would have liked to have a puppy from Bacchus, the dog I titled to Schutzhund 3, but I never found anyone with a bitch that wanted to use him. Ruby is a very easy keeper, healthy, and a joy to have as part of the family, so I feel confident that she'll be a benefit to the breed.

20 years

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:37:00 +0000

Darin and I have been married 20 years! That's right, 20 years, wow. I proposed to him when we were living together in Fargo. Our second year of marriage, I was accepted to graduate school in Indiana, and he had to stay in North Dakota to finish his degree at NDSU. It was really hard living apart, but it got harder- despite his being my best friend. We worked it out, though. Marriage really is a process of working things out. No one stays the same forever, and that's a good thing. One thing that has stayed the same, and it is a very good thing, is that we agree that children are not what we want. This is a very important thing for a couple to agree on- no one should have parenthood forced upon them. Go ahead and call us DINKS (Double Income No Kids) or Selfish Heathens- we wear these like a badge of honor.

This isn't a post about our choices, this is about my fabulous new ring! Check out this flashy ice! The photo doesn't do justice to the colors flashed around when I move my hand. I have been happily distracted by my ring at my job this week. Like our first wedding bands of only gold, we found this at a pawn shop at a cost dramatically less than what a jewellrey shop would charge. Also, it is 18 karat gold, unlike most of the 9 karat crap sold in NZ.

As our anniversary was on a Monday, we celebrated with a dinner out. We went to Sails restaurant on Westhaven marina and ordered the grilled lobster for dinner. It was so delicious! I asked where the lobster was caught, and the waitress said the Chatham islands off the coast of NZ. We were equally happy with the fresh Clevedon oysters and tuna carpaccio. We also enjoyed a bottle of Nevis Bluff Pinot Gris.

When we returned from our trip to the US in July, we had a pre-planned trip on the Overlander train from Auckland to Wellington booked. We left Auckland the day after we returned from the US, early Saturday morning, and arrived in Wellington 12 hours later. It is a beautiful and leisurely trip with a stop at National Park (photo above taken there). I hope to do it again.

Wellington has great public transport, so we caught a bus to our hotel, the Museum Hotel, which is in a super location, just across the street from the national museum, Te Papa.

We'd been there before, but this time we saw a cool tapa cloth exhibit and the recently acquired giant squid. I love cephalopods! I also found a book on NZ spiders, and found the name of one I saw in our yard in Auckland, the two-spined spider. We had the most perfect weather for cruising around the farmer's and foodie market in the morning and walking along Oriental Bay and up Mt Victoria.

Wellington is such a nice city.

We flew back to Auckland on Jet Star, and the seats on the plane were really tightly packed. If you are tall, you definitely want to get an exit row seat on their planes. Also, I am not sure I would fly Jet Star for any travel more than a couple hours. But definitely I will take the train again.

Midwest visit, summer 2010

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 00:48:00 +0000

I don't understand why the Midwest is called the "Midwest". It would be more accurate to call North Dakota and Minnesota the "MidNorth" because are as far East as they are West. They are at about the center of the North America continent, so Midnorth sounds about right. My husband and I were back to ND and MN to visit for just 10 days in July. I've been back in New Zealand for two weeks, but the holiday feels like ages ago. We were totally spoiled by our families. Since I returned, I've been suffering from Attention Deficit. This affliction is due to the sudden withdrawal of attention. Due to the shortness of our trip, we had to make the most of our time. It was very "full on". Our friend Rob, who we visited in Minneapolis, called our visit "Mag- and Darin-fest", which I think was an apt description of our visit.

My niece Stephanie and I made salsa with my mom at her home in Fargo. Mom and I bought some of the ingredients at the Fargo farmer's market, only to discover that those big beautiful jalapeno peppers were mild instead of hot. The jalapenos in my dad's garden, however, were hot. Steph and I made 3 fresh salsas, and my mom made 4 canned salsas. The reason we made so many was that there was a salsa competition at the Red River Valley Fair I thought my favorite, Salsa del Norte, would do well, and it did take a 2nd place prize: $25 in coupons for Old Dutch snacks.

My mom's carrot pepper salsa won the big Salsa Champion prize: $100 gift certificate to a fancy restaurant. For an entry of 36, we did quite well, I think.

My dad's raspberry patch was in full fruit in mid-July, and he had more than he knew what to do with. The chest freezer was already packed with frozen fruit. Steph, Darin, and I were only too happy to help with this, and so we had a competition to see who could eat the most raspberries at once. Honestly, they taste even better when eaten in handfuls.

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing our old friend who lives in Tacoma at his parents' home on Lake Stalker, MN. The weather was absolutely perfect. I swam in the lake, Darin fished off the dock, we played cards, and Darin and I saw the best shooting star we've ever seen- long tail, very bright, and sparkling finish.

Darin and I also spent a weekend in Minneapolis, visiting more friends, seeing the Walker Art Center, and shopping at Big Brain Comics. My brother and his wife drove up from Rochester to have dinner with us on my birthday.

I wandered around the Fargo Downtown Street Fair with my sister and her two daughters, and later with my other niece Stephanie. Afterward, we went to see the Trollwood Performing Arts School production of Anything Goes, which was pretty good, but Trollwood is very different today than when I went there as a teen.

Besides the raspberries and salsa,we had plenty of other delicious food. Dad grilled some massive T-bone steaks. We ate at Famous Dave's BBQ, I got halibut and king crab at Red Lobster (which are hard to get in NZ), and Darin's mom made her delicious carmel rolls. I'm pretty sure that I put on a few pounds during the trip, but it was worth the enjoyment.

Too bad that we flew Delta Airlines, because their service is appalling. They were the cheapest, but I think we'll pay more next time to fly another carrier. Also, LAX still really sucks. If you ever have to travel internationally, you're better off to go via San Francisco if possible.

Got rope? bumper sticker- ugh.

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:58:00 +0000

I was back in America for 10 days recently to visit friends and family (and go shopping). It was a great visit, overall, and I intend to post a bunch of fun photos I took while there. But first, I have to get this out there:

As I was driving through Fargo one afternoon, I saw this bumper sticker on the back of a truck:

It's a bit hard to read, but it says "got rope? Hang a sex offender". Which is funny, considering that the term "sex offender" is used. This word is so much nicer than "rapist", "pedophile", or other less polite terms. "Sex offender" sounds like it was an accident... "sorry lady, I didn't mean to sex offend you." instead of a violent crime. But violent crime is in fact what the sticker is advocating- hang someone with rope. Why not drag him behind the truck with the rope while you're at it? Here's some more irony for you: If you look carefully at the car dealer decal above the S10 logo, it says or said Friendly, and on the North Dakota license plate it says "discover the spirit". Yes, the spirit of... hate?
OK I'm from North Dakota and don't mean to criticise or offend anyone who lives there, just this person with this truck. What a jerk. Even if you or someone you love had a "sex offense" done to her/him, how does promoting violence change that? Does this person feel more powerful by hoping that someone may actually follow the advice on a truck's bumper sticker? On the other hand, I guess I appreciate that this person is honest about his/her feelings- just so there's no confusion, in case you were wondering about their opinion of sex offenders.
It's easy enough to find pedophiles that are living in your neighborhood in the USA. In California, the Attorney General's office has a searchable database online, here. You can find out exactly where they lived. The website says over 63,000 sex offenders are required to register in CA as sex offenders. Many other states have searchable databases. Wikipedia cites a research review of recidivism rates, and sex offenders (9%) were less likely to re-offend than other felons were to commit any new felonies (and get caught, of course). Maybe the reason is that the sex offenders have been removed from society by hanging from a rope?
I have recently read the book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and the author portrays rape and violence in the story. It definitely made me squirm, watching the film, but in the context of the book, it's easier to handle. I have seen so many people reading this book lately, and it was given to me as a gift (thanks Dad!). The author's perspective is probably quite comfortable with the above bumper sticker.
I'm reading a book now called Caveman Logic, which is pretty good. The author really puts superstitious thinking into perspective. I think the author struggles quite a bit to provide evidence to support his conclusions. Which is ironic, since he obviously supports the scientific method.

NZ government is pissing me off!

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:03:00 +0000

Emissions Trading Scheme- more like a scam! Tell me, who benefits from this? Not the environment- none of the money is being devoted to conservation or reducing emissions. The deal is, we in NZ pay more for our energy and products that use energy to produce (everything), having no impact on global pollution, and the rest of the world goes on with business as usual. The common people of NZ get screwed out of their hard-earned money by every goods and services company raising prices to cover the additional costs. I propose that we throw out Prime Minister John Key, just like Aussies threw out their PM, overnight. As an American, it's a bit of a wake up call to see that changes CAN be made to the gov't after it's voted in. According to the ACT party, 85% of the trading NZ does is with non-ETS countries (lookin' at you, Asia). Half of NZ's emissions come from agriculture, according to the Ministry for the Environment report. But if you're going to "tax" animal farts, why not also include the human contribution to emissions? I want carbon credits for not having any children, and I know lots of people who feel the same way. This topic reminds me of the great, late Bill Hicks quote:

People pay lip service to saving the planet, but they don't – they fail to make the big leap that if you want to save the planet, kill your fucking self. The planet will be saved without you. And what a delightful place it'll be. Welcome. It's a new thing I'm working on, called "The Comedy of Hate". Join in.

I am available for children's parties, by the way.

Seriously, this ETS is just not going to matter. I'm in favor of saving the planet too, but how about reducing the rate of population growth? That's the elephant in the room, no one will talk about it (except Mother Jones).

According to the Global Footprint Network, a California think tank, we first overdrew our accounts in 1983, when our population of nearly 4.7 billion began to consume natural resources faster than they could be replenished—a phenomenon called "ecological overshoot." Last year, 6.8 billion of us consumed the renewable resources of 1.4 Earths. The United Nations projects that world population will stabilize at 9.1 billion in 2050. This prediction assumes a decline from the current average global fertility rate of 2.56 children per woman to 2.02 children per woman in the years between 2045 and 2050.

Fresh on the heels of the ETS injustice is this article in the NZ Herald about proposed pay rise and travel perks allowed MPs (Minister of Palaiment, I think). I am shocked to learn that the MP's partners and kids get 90% of their travel cost covered. I call BULLSHIT. According to the article, "The travel perk costs taxpayers about $600,000 a year." This review committee recommended doing away with this perk and replacing it with a 10% pay rise, which is going to save money by some bizarre logic by costing taxpayers 1.7 million dollars. WTF! I love this quote from the secretary of Unite Union: "It would make every New Zealander vomit in their Weet-Bix tomorrow morning. They put themselves out to be a cast of workers who are treated differently from others. Most New Zealanders are struggling. They don't enjoy any perks - they don't get any allowances or anything like that. It's not fair."

I don't suffer from the delusion that life is fair. But when I'm in Wellington at the end of the month, maybe I should pay a visit to the Beehive and visit my MP. Would they listen to me? Probably not. I am not yet a citizen anyway, but I do vote.

OK, ok, calm down. Here's the update.

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 10:45:00 +0000

The Pixies came to Auckland in March, and my sister, her husband, my husband, and I had tickets to attend. We are huge Pixies fans and were really looking forward to seeing them live again. Darin wasn’t able to see the concert, because he developed appendicitis and was having surgery that night. Bummer for him! On the plus side though, he got admitted into hospital right away, had his laproscopic surgery, then was released the next day. The cost of 2 visits to his GP, surgery, hospital stay, and discharge meds was only $56 NZD. We LOVE socialized medicine!

Darin had a big hunting trip (9 days on Stewart Island) which he’d already paid for coming up, and fortunately he was healed enough to go. He hunted white tail deer in the remote bush, where he camped in the rain with his NZ Deerstalkers * clubmembers. He managed to shoot one deer of the five in a party of nine. The shot was right through the chest and he said he’s never seen a deer drop dead so fast before. The deer are quite small down there. He had the hide tanned.

Darin was home from that hunting trip for about 4 days before his mom arrived from Fargo, ND for a 14 day visit. It was great to see her again. She was resisting coming because she didn’t want to travel alone, but she managed just fine. She had her 82nd birthday with us in NZ.

We took her to see our property in Maungaturoto and for a weekend getaway to Rotorua.

In Rotorua we did a bunch of activities: we rode the gondola up the hill and Darin and I rode the luge (repeatedly),

we visited Paradise Valley and saw the lions get fed and pet the baby lion,

fed the trout and ducks and wallabies, we went to a Maori cultural show and hangi, walked through Rainbow Springs at night and saw the kiwis roaming around their nocturnal enclosures, we sat in the hot mineral pool at the Malfroy Motor Lodge (great!), we saw the sheep show at the Agrodome and pet the sheep,

and I got to milk a cow for the first time. I was really pleased to see the kiwi birds running around- they can move a lot faster than I thought!

During Minnie’s visit, Ruby and I tried for her BH title in a Dogsport NZ competition. I made the mistake of doing the Long Down exercise first, and this was in an area with lots of fallen leaves. They were too interesting to resist for Ruby, and she got up and to sniff around. She then seemed to forget why she was there. Her on and off leash heeling was not close and attentive, and on the recall she didn’t sit straight in front of me. I was pretty disappointed, but was not alone in the Loser’s Club. Anyway, I had the opportunity to trial again in Hastings May 29th, and we earned the BH! It was a 6.5 hour drive, so I’m glad it wasn’t for nothing. I was worried about Ruby’s reaction to the gunshot, because we hadn’t trained for that. Ruby broke her off lead heel by going out in front of me, and I almost didn’t get her concentration back. She wasn’t afraid of the gunshots; she was excited by it- gunshot usually means there’s a dead turkey or rabbit to eat. There was a steady, heavy rain from about 11 am through to about 9 pm on the day, and we got pretty wet. There was so much rain that the roads in Hastings were flooded. Fortunately we didn’t have to drive back to Auckland that night. We were kindly taken in by another dogsport training couple who live in the area. Hastings is in the Hawke’s Bay area, and is full of orchards and vineyards. Sheep and cattle are everywhere in between. We didn’t have time for wine tasting this time, but we did stop at the Kaimai cheese company on the drive home.

A few weeks ago, I flew down to Nelson to visit friends Holly and Steve, whose wedding I blogged about in Feb. The house they are building is nearly complete. They took me to the Saturday market, which is really good, and to a couple places to go wine tasting. We had a bbq at their shed, and Holly took me on a 4 wheel tour of their property. I met another American living down there, Candy, who moved to NZ from California with her husband and two big dogs. They live on a really neat piece of land tucked in a gorge with a big stream and lots of trees. I was only there for the weekend. I'm so glad that 4 weeks of paid vacation time are standard in NZ; I don't know how I managed with only two weeks/year in the US. Our next trip is on the calendar: 10 days in North Dakota and Minnesota in July- oy vey. Weather is cold in NZ in July, so I'm excited to go back to shorts & t-shirts, Red River Valley Fair, and hopefully swimming in a lake.

Sadly, in April, we had to say goodbye to our dear friends, Adam and Roberta, who moved back to the USA. Before they left, their baby Octavia arrived, and we buried her placenta under an apple tree on our land in Maungaturoto. Forever after, Octavia can come to NZ and see her apple tree. (Assuming it doesn't die). Living here wouldn't have been the same without them, but they kindly left us with their XBox and board games (Puerto Rico, Tikkal, Dominion, Powergrid, and Settlers of Catan travel version).

Making Rabbit Stew

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 10:22:00 +0000

This post is about making rabbit stew, but it's also about hunting and not wasting food. Rabbits are pests in New Zealand, and every year there is an Easter Bunny Hunt on the South Island. In 2010, the highest number ever shot in 24 hours was recorded with over 24,000 rabbits, hares, and other pests shot. Boggles the mind, doesn't it? Rather than let these animals go to waste, they can be prepared in a stew and eaten. I have this lovely Meat cookbook by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall with a recipe for rabbit stew, and decided to give it a go.

Darin and I visited some rural dwelling friends and had dinner and drinks with them this past summer. Darin shot a couple rabbits, and I cleaned them and stuck them in the freezer. Here is the outline of the steps in pictures.

This looks really gross, doesn't it? It's the whole rabbit, skinned and gutted and wrapped in plastic. It's hard to imaging eating this, but just wait, it gets better.

I am aware that this looks very much like a cat. I assure you, it is not. My cat assures you, too. Here I am trimming off the fascia, that is, the tissue between the skin and muscles. It can trap dirt and fur, so I'm pretty careful about cleaning it as best as I can. Thos legs still have the fur on them. I pulled out my bitchin' meat cleaver and chopped those off- whack, whack. The dogs ate them up, yum.

I am never lonely in the kitchen. I have my fuzzy clean-up crew to help.

Here it is looking a lot less like an animal, and more like a piece of meat. I've cut the legs and arms off. Those two long muscles along the spine are the loin- that's the best part. I think I cleaved off the hips and ribs for pet food. The recipe calls for two rabbits, as you don't wind up with a whole lot of meat with only one.

You can use whatever sort of bacon you like, but I used pancetta. The recipe calls for a lot of it to be cubed and fried as the first step. Once it's browned, remove pancetta from the pan and brown the rabbit pieces. As these are browned, move them into your dutch oven.

In the next step, you add the other ingredients: carrots, onion, thyme, celery, water, and hard cider. Then you can cook it slow either on the stovetop or in the oven, covered, for several hours. I assume you could do this equally well in a slow cooker.

The final step is to remove the meat to a plate and keep warm in the oven, covered. The veggies are removed from the liquid, and the liquid is boiled down. Then you add cream. I think I added some porcini cream as well (something I found at Sabato).

The final result doesn't plate up beautifully, but it is sexy and delicious anyway. I serve it with boiled potatoes to mash into that luscious cream sauce. To be fair, I must say that wild rabbit can be tough. You might have to eat it off the bone with your hands, like chicken. The younger animals are more tender, and farmed rabbit probably the most tender. Either way, the flavor is really nice.

As far as finding rabbit in your grocery- good luck with that. The reason we went hunting for the varmits is they cost about $21 each at my local butchery. Don't ask me why so much- it's not like they're rare. Still, if you can find them in a butcher shop, it will save you the gore of gutting the dead animals. It doesn't bother me, because I know Thumper lived as as happy, natural, free range bunny until his quick death, and Darin and I appreciated the animal, instead of wasting it.

Steve and Holly's wedding!

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 06:12:00 +0000

I love weddings: the guests from out-of-town (and, in this case, -country), everyone dressed up nice, beautiful flowers, cake, and the expressions of love in front of the assembled family and friends. The first wedding I have attended in New Zealand occurred the first weekend of February. Our fellow American expatriates, Holly and Steve, got married in Nelson, where they have recently moved. In fact, they are actually building a home on a large piece of land in Upper Moutere (map here).

Their wedding was wonderful; the weather was perfect, the food divine, lovely wine, smart, fun, and interesting guests. The wedding, entertainment, dinner, and dancing was followed the next day by a bus trip to Holly and Steve's property in Moutere for a terrific BBQ and walk around the developing land. The entertainment was the Twisty Twins, who are in fact twin sisters who perform outstanding feats of acrobatics.

Two days still wasn't enough, so I'm intending to return for another visit in a few months. There is so much to do in the area, and it's just beautiful.

Here's a photo of me, Darin (spouse), Eric (brother-in-law), and Barb (sister) at the wedding.

Darin and I stayed a couple of extra days so that we could do an overnight sailboat trip to the Abel Tasman park. We went with Nelson Sailing Adventures, and had a great time. There were two bean bag chairs at the front of the boat, and the fresh ocean air is just wonderful.

Again, we had terrific weather. The trip from Nelson to Abel Tasman was about 3.5 hours. We stopped at a few islands, hiked, swam, snorkeled, star gazed, relaxed, and drank numerous bottles of wine. Holly and Steve joined us on this trip, and they enjoyed the opportunity to relax. Holly got to drive the sailboat. Darin took me on a ride in the dingy around one of the small islands we visited.

Below is a shot from one of the islands we hiked on. I was impressed to see two kinds of birds that I have never seen before, the south island Robin and the Bellbird (check out their song here, amazing!) I believe this is Adele island, where pests are controlled so that the birds are protected.

The sailboat was a catamaran, and had 4 berths (bedrooms) and 2 bathrooms for the captain, two couples, and another woman, a young German woman who works at the Anchor Bar in Nelson harbor. Below is a photo of our boat at anchor at one of the small islands.

The captain set up a BBQ grill at the back of the boat and cooked us steak and chicken for dinner, served with a beautiful salad and baby potatoes.

I think seeing the Abel Tasman Park this way gave us a unique perspective, because we went to the nearby islands without having to kayak or water taxi. We got lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking, in a real bed (not a tent), next to the island with all the birds, and in the morning wake up to their dawn chorus. The stars- or I should say galaxy, were the most impressive I have ever seen. We had two days on the boat; we left at 9 am on Monday and returned to dock about 5 pm on Tuesday.

I am really looking forward to going back, spending more time exploring and visiting. It's a great getaway from Auckland, and only about 70 min on the plane.

I am a bad blogger.

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:29:00 +0000

I haven't updated the blog in at least a month, and I think this is the sort of thing that I should do twice a month. Part of the problem is that I work at a computer for my job all day, so I really don't want to spend more time at it in my free time. The other part is that I've been busy and sometimes lazy. We're all aware of how much I like watching movies and spending time with my adorable pets, so that takes time too. And my husband needs looking after as well, so there's not much effort in the blog. It's summer, and so there's a multitude of reasons to not be inside.

I have tons of cherry tomatoes ripe now. I'm eating them with everything; they are delicious and sweet, and the skin is not too tough like they sometimes can be.

My sister has a lovely Ridgeback pup, Titus, and he has a super temperament. Here his is on their land in Kaiwaka, NZ. Sitting on his arse with his tongue hanging out- cute as!

Below is a picture of my 2 year old Rottie, Ruby, roaming our land. There is not yet a fence separating our land from our neighbor's land, and unknown to us, there were some calves at the far end of this section. Ruby ran off chasing one of the calves, and wouldn't come when called. That was a shocking sight and very frightening. I thought for sure there would be an injured calf or my dog would be kicked in the head or break her back from an angry cow, but she made it back to me alive. I couldn't go get her because angry cows kill people (and dogs). There was no evidence of blood on Ruby's lips, and the cows were consoling each other in a fence corner, apparently uninjured. Of course we wanted to kick her ass when she came back to us, but we couldn't, or she would have been punished for returning to us, which is what we wanted. I really hope

that fence gets done soon!

Ruby is at that age where she is mature physically and feels like Master of the Universe. She has become quite independent and unruly, having today stolen an avocado off the kitchen counter, peeled it on the carpet, and eaten most of it, including the pit. A few days ago, she killed one of our laying hens that had bedded down in the yard for the night, having escaped from a hole in the fence of the chicken's yard. Earlier that same day, Ruby left the chickens alone while they roamed the yard and I was in the garden picking cherry tomatoes. But that night, she took the easy opportunity of a sleeping chicken without me around, and I'm very sad we didn't find the hole in the fence sooner. For my part, I am working on her obedience at my club, Dogsport NZ, and hope to be ready for the BH test in April. Dogsport NZ is a member of Australian United Sportdog Clubs. The BH is an obedience and temperament test, and I've done a BH with two of my other Rottweilers (Fargo and Bacchus). The rules can be found here. What they call Dogsport here is the same as Schutzhund.

My friend Roberta just had a healthy baby girl on Feb. 9th. On Feb 1st, my friend Ammie and I hosted a baby shower for Roberta. It was pretty chill and we ate some awesome food. My contribution was cheesecake, below. I mixed pink food color into the topping, but forgot that it gets all covered with crust crumbs, so you can't really see the pink. Oh well. The yellow kewpie doll was cute.

Also in February, we went to Nelson for a wedding and sailing. I'll put the photos in my next post, which I promise will be done in LESS than a month!

Welcome 2010

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:31:00 +0000

Happy new year, dear readers. I hope that this year, 2010, will be better than the last, but honestly, do you think it will? I suspect more of the same bullshit. Ok, that's totally pessimistic of me, I know. For the record, my new year resolution is to "be a better person" and this probably includes having a more positive attitude. Really, what do I have to complain about that is so bad? I have a job that I like, a husband who loves me, 2 dogs and 2 cats who need me and are nice and cuddly, and I live in an absolutely gorgeous country that's not overpopulated (yet), New Zealand. I also lucky to have good friends here, many of whom I saw over the xmas/new-year holiday.

We certainly have enjoyed gorgeous weather lately, and it coincided neatly with my holiday time off. Darin and I headed up to our land in Maungaturoto on Boxing Day and camped for 4 nights. The first day we went scuba diving with Poor Knights Divers. We have dived with them before, and they are really great. They took us to Tye Dye Arch and Blue Mao Mao Arch, both places we hadn't been before and are infrequently dived due to conditions.

We were lucky to hit a calm day. There were tons of fish, stingrays, eels, and nudibranchs.

The colors on the rocks were amazing. It was an excellent way to spend a day off work. When we returned to our garage on our land, we filled up a plastic tub with fresh water, from our tank that collects rainwater from the roof, to rinse our dive gear. Then we hung our gear on our trailer to dry. We had a hot shower using our propane water heater, which is hung in a private location in the trees behind the

garage. The dogs obviously couldn't come, so we left them in the orchard. They seemed to handle this just fine, so we did it again the next day when we visited Bayley's Beach and Kai Iwi lakes. Both places are so beautiful, just look at these photos.

Trout are stocked in the sand dune lakes of Kai Iwi, and I waded out into the soft sandy warm water to cast into the deep part of the lake. We didn't get any nibbles, but it was still a great afternoon. Afterwards we drove to the west coast beach, Bayley's, which remided us a lot of the Torrey Pines beach reserve in San Diego, only bigger, and you can drive on Bayley's (and no Torrey Pines).

We spent the remainder of our time up north on our land getting work done, playing with the dogs, and reading.

I recently read Night Watch, a Russian novel about "others", made into two movies which are really fun, Night Watch and Day Watch. Thus I followed up with the Swedish vampire novel, Let Me In, made into a movie also, Let the Right One In. The book was excellent, better than the movie!

We celebrated New Year's Eve with friends and MEAT. Here's Darin, Master of the Grill:

I got some great specials at the butcher shop on the 31st, because they were to be closed for the following two days. I used the leftover beef rib meat (yummy!) in a home-made chili with whole, dried New Mexico and chipotle chilis, which I've brought from the US and keep in either the freezer or

refridgerator, ground up in a coffee grinder.

We've borrowed my sister's wood chipper (visions of Fargo, the movie!) to do some yard work. Our yard has been seriously neglected, and the previous owners planted a lot of plants, so this quickly grew into a huge job. It's great to have all the wood chips to put into the compost, under the plants, and on the path around the garden.

The garden is looking pretty sad, unfortunately. I had one good cucumber, but the ones on the vines now are turning yellow and the leaves have the powdery mildew. The zucchini has the blossom end rot and is getting the mildew as well. The cabbage (my first) looks pretty good, despite all the green catepillars eating the leaves. The lettuce I pulled out and fed to the chickens because it was stunted and started to bolt before really growing at all. The silverbeet (aka chard) looks really good though, and the tomatoes are setting fruit. I have two tiny jalapeno peppers. I guess I'm a lazy gardener; I don't weed, feed, or water as often as needed.

One more day of vacation, then back to work. I'll be opening two trials for recruitment in January that I helped set up: One is a radiotherapy trial for prostate cancer, the other is a medical oncology trial for Wyeth's HER-2 + breast cancer drug, neratinib. Should be exciting!

Fiordland is gorgeous

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:33:00 +0000

In November, I took a week off work to fly to the South Island of New Zealand. We flew to Queenstown and did a driving tour around the Fiordlands. Darin and I rented a camper-van from Jucy rentals, and drove to Manapouri, to Te Anau, to Milford Sound, and back to Queenstown. We camped every night except in Queenstown, where we enjoyed a hot shower and soft bed.

The campgrounds were great, all have shared toilet and kitchen facilities, for no extra fee. November was early in the spring season, so the cost was reasonable for the camper rental. The camper had a stove, sink, water, small refridgerator, and bed (assembly required), with sheets supplied. There were curtains on the windows and storage space beneath the benches. Nothing bad happened with the rental, but next time I will pay a bit more for a bigger camper. The one we had, called a "campa", had an uncomfortably sloping passenger seat and a crap stereo that wouldn't play the CDs we'd brought.

We splurged on an overnight boat trip on Doubtful Sound with Real Journeys, and were not disappointed. It was just great; the staff was talented, the food was delcious and plentiful, and the scenery was stunning- we'd do it again and recommend it to others. It was cold, but we were dressed warmly. I had my down

jacket along but didn't need it after Doubtful Sound.

The next stop was Milford Sound, where we camped 3 nights. This was also worthwhile, because we got to see a lot of the attractions of the area. This included the Kea, the NZ mountain parrot, which is very cool. We had great weather, but when it rained on the day we departed, this was beautiful too, because all the mountainsides were covered in waterfalls.

We enjoyed kayaking on Milford Sound, and the hikes were also grand. Here's Darin pointing at the Darren Mountains (misspelled, obviously).

Sometimes you get disappointed, but sometimes you get happy.

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:15:00 +0000

My husband emailed me while visiting the US, "I just bought you the greatest thing. You will love it." He didn't reveal what it was, but said it was taking up most of his luggage. I was advised by a friend to not get my hopes up, since this was a GUY buying a gift. I was impressed when he unpacked it back in Auckland, and extremely happy when I got to use it the first time. What is it you ask? Check out the photo below:

That's me giving my dog Fargo a bath, with Ruby behind me. The gift is a portable, propane water heater.

You connect the hose from the faucet, the propane tube into the heater, and the white tubing in the center pumps out hot water to a shower head. The temperature and water flow rate is adjustable. The beauty part about it is the not freezing water! Much more comfortable for me and the dogs, and the soap seems to work better as well. Usually doggie bath time is when we are all tired and sore, so to have the warm water takes away a bit of the discomfort. Also, Darin and I can take it up to our land in Maungaturoto and use it up there. I really do love this little water heater! Isn't it adorable? It's so practical. Never underestimate the power of hot water!

This past week Guy Faukes day was celebrated. As Nov 5 fell during the week, the fireworks were scheduled for the weekend. We went to Kumeu to see the fireworks show on Friday night. We saw many fireworks going off from people's yards on the drive home. As we turned onto Scenic Drive, we saw a dog running downhill as fast as he could go, down the middle of the street. Darin stopped the car and I got out and tried to get him to come to me. He was so scared, and I was so worried about him in the middle of the street. People drive pretty fast coming down this hill, and sure enough, one was coming. I flailed my hands and yelled, Darin flashed his lights, but the jerk didn't even slow down. I saw the dog go on the opposite side of our car, into the oncoming car's lane, and fully expected to see a dog's body go flying through the air. When he reappeared behind our car, I called to him again and he came to me. Whew! He was a sweet red Staffordshire Terrier, and had his tail tucked firmly between his legs. I got him into the car, and we drove up the hill. We put him in a dog crate on our front porch and called the Waitakere City Council phone number on his registration tag. Amazingly, someone answered the phone at 10 pm. They called the owner and connected us. His wife showed up to pick up Simba a few minutes later; they live about 200 meters uphill from us. How great is that? What a happy ending! But it gets better:

The neighbor showed up with her daughter to deliver this sweet thank you.

The disappointment I refer to in the title was the recipe for Rogan Josh I prepared from a slick new cookbook I borrowed from the library, Curry, Classic and Contemporary by Vivek Singh. I had some goat meat from the freezer which I used in place of lamb, but the recipe called for leg and I had loin and shoulder, still on the bone.

You would think that Rogan Josh made from scratch would be pretty awesome, right? I made a special trip to the market for whole cinnamon stick and black cardamom pods and ghee. I cried my way through two large onions to make this, even doing the beetroot-in-a-soaking-bag trick to make the sauce red (didn't work so hot). The result was edible, but not worth the effort it took. I did have fun trying it though, and I recommend you listen to Metallica's S & M while preparing all the ingredients in advance. I also recommend reading the recipe in full repeatedly before following it. I didn't have any problems with the recipe but in the past I have had the unpleasant experience of burning the onions- that sucks.

Anyway, I have photocopied some of the other recipies and will try them. I bought some yellow splilt peas awhile ago and will have to try that some time.

Much less disappointing was the book Watchmen, the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Recommended!

Incredibly Strange 24 hour Movie Marathon 2009: the 10th anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (NewKiwi) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:27:00 +0000

I nearly missed out on the 10th annual Incredibly Strange Movie Marathon. I wasn't paying attention to when it was going to happen this year, but I found out a few days in advance that it was going to be on Halloween. I was sad to find out that it was sold out. No tickets were being sold on the NZ eBay, TradeMe. The day of the event, I joined the Facebook fan page, and found that some members had tickets available. I managed to get a ticket and attend for my second year in a row. I blogged about this event last year, but it was stuffed in with lots of other interesting stuff, and I left out some important details.

For example, one of the cool things about this movie marathon is that the Hollywood Cinema has a balcony. This is where I sit. Also, they are sponsored by V energy drink, so they give you free cans of it. The seats are moved from the central floor of the theatre, and people are allowed to bring in bean bag chairs. I brought in a pillow. In addition, you are allowed to bring in food. This is useful because the breaks are usually short, and there's mainly just carbs and caffeine in the lobby.

The following is the list of movies shown, in order, and my comments.

1. The Secret Four 1952

Film noir. Good crime drama.

2. Zombieland 2009

A clear highlight of the marathon. Like it was made just for me. They managed to make a film that was both familiar and novel. Loved Bill Murray in it.

3. Roadhouse 1989

There are some hysterical scenes in this movie! An homage to the recently deceased Patrick Swayze.

4. Forbidden World 1982

This was an able attempt to repeat the success of Alien (1979). Amusing and rediculous, taking itself far to seriously. Good stuff.

5. Vice Squad 1982

Another, and not the last, 80's film. This was a good film, despite the repeated scenes showing us was a "heart of gold" the prostitute has, and the evil pimp played fabulously by Wings Hauser.

6. Paranormal Activity 2007

What a disappointment this one was, but it has gotten pretty good ratings. The film begins rather slowly, and after watching night after night of some little thing happening in their bedroom, I began to hope that the couple would die soon.
7. Maidens of Fetish Street 1966

I groaned when this film was introduced as being similar to Moonshine Woman, from last year, but this was surprisingly watchable.

8. Mill of the Stone Women 1960
I napped during the end of this one. Reminded me of the old Vincent Price House of Wax.
9. Night Train to Terror 1985

This was amusing and gruesome. 3 separate stories tied together by God and Satan debating the afterlife of different people, involved in some crazy shit. Some mind-bending mid-80's pop and breakdancing that is extremely incongruous.

10. The Visitor 1979

I also napped during this one. Normally I'm a big fan of movies about evil children, but this was too complicated, with the whole alien visitor aspect.

11. The Informant! 2009
Really good story and capable acting. Amusing as well. Incredibly Strange- not so much.

12. Creature from Black Lake 1976

Bigfoot movie! Pretty fun to watch. Sadly I fell asleep for the final fight/escape scene, but awoke to the final thrill of the film- I won't give it away.

13. Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf 1985

The best part about this movie is that at the end, we see the scene where the evil werewolf master bitch tears off her top repeated about 20 times. Boobies.

14. Commando 1985

Arnold! Totally gratuitous violence, but set in a lovely garden, so that was nice. I hated the kid in the movie, totally spoiled brat. She is superficial to the story anyway.

I've previously posted on the Mt Eden Prison, which immediately next to the Boston Road train station. It's an awesome old building, so I'm really sad to see that some chucklehead spraypainted, badly, some illegible shit. Generally I am a fan of grafitti, but this crap is just pointless, ugly, vandalism.

So now, instead of noticing the cool little plants that are growing betwen the rocks in the wall, I get mad about the ugliness. Supposedly, there are CCTV cameras operating 24 hrs, so with any luck, they caught the offender. I have no idea how the paint is going to be removed, with the surface being so uneven.