Summer arrives

Well the zeal did not last very long did it?
This is the first weekend since January that I have not needed to do any schoolwork at all. To make up for that, I have spent the last two weekends marking end of year exams and then writing reports.
The academic work for the year as far as the sudents go is nearly all done. Our seniors finished a few weeks ago. They went on exam leave to take their external exams. That left us with the juniors who are the Year 9 and 10's. Eric is year 9 and he was busy revising for and taking exams. They have a taste of what they will get in Year 11, 2 hours of joy in a hot hall trying to remember everything they have done all year. In the event Eric has done pretty well by all accounts. I was pleased with my two classes as well, as they had done lots of revision and took the exams seriously and reaped the rewwards of that.

So now we have got all that out of the way, we are into camp season. The weather has been scorching in the last few days. That bodes well for our varying school plans. I am off up north next week with the Year 10's on camp. It is quite an institution at our place and the kids talk about Y10 camp for years afterwards. I am helping with the kayaking activity. A replacement hatch (of the right size) finally arrived this week and we managed to find an hour yesterday to give the craft a go. It was quite windy so we just went to Unahi wharf and I took it for a paddle across the harbour. It was very cool being able to explore across the water from where we have stood for many hours. I beached the kayak in some mangroves and got out. I had always wondered what it was like where I was now standing. Very cool. Hopefully we will be able to borrow one for the summer.

Stuart and Paddy are both going on trips to Actionworld in Paihia for their end of year trips. Eric has a schol based activity week. He will try a range of craft and sporting and other activities. A nice way to end the year.

Chantelle has almost finished her course and is starting to imagine life without assignments. She has started to read books that are not about the Bible for the first time in over a year. It was our 15th wedding anniversary on Thursday! We went out for a meal at the Northern Indian last night. Very quiet in there but deliocious curries.

On her way back from her last block course down the line Chantelle bought me a scythe. It is an Austrian design and is very light compared to your average grim reaper design. That means that you can cut grass without being exhausted after 5 minutes. I have spent many a happy evening laying into the waist high grass that now coats our block. With the weather being dry I am basically making hay while the sun shines. I will use it for mulching and compost making. The garden is growing well. We are harvesting broad beans, strawberries and new potatoes. The peas will be ready to pick this week. In the past I have grown short rows of peas and very few have made it to the kitchen as Paddy is partial to them. This year I have grown a 10 foot row and have actually gone to the effort of giving them something to climb up. They are heavily laden. My polytunnel was getting so hot during the day that a lot of the seedlings were burnt, so I have taken off the plastic for now. The ground is very dry where it is not been regularly irrigated.

We got a present of a number of laying hens from Lyn recently. They were getting into her veggy patch. So we now have lots of eggs daily. Still not got a bantam to sit on them to make some chicks for us.

Camo the cat surprised us all yesterday by catching a stoat. We have been trying to trap it after Chentelle saw it run across the drive a few months ago. They are quite fierce little animals so Camo as done us proud.

Having a few troubles loading up pictures at the mo as we have lost the Adobe program off the computer that has the photos on it. I will try and get it sorted in the summer.