Blue Fog, Feijoa, Swimming Pool & a Mail Boat Ride

We have had some strange blue fog effects this week... truly, that isn't sky you can see through those lower blue patches..

My entire feijoa crop fits in one hand.  Mustn't eat it all at once!  (Actually I did.)  It is a variety called Den's Choice.  Of 5 varieties I planted this year this is the only one to produce a fruit - which to be honest is good going for first season in the ground.

Last Tuesday we went to town to celebrate Mr B's birthday (not on his birthday but he had booked a dental appointment for Tuesday so ... 2 birds with one stone and all that).  The builder and the earthworks guys turned up at the ranch.  By the time we go home we could see in the truck headlights that there was a big hole in the ground and a big pile of top soil.

The next day the hole got even bigger and the soil got piled up by category - black or yellow.  We have been advised not to get rid of any of it before the build has been finished and we have done the landscaping...

Mr T would have thought several Christmases had come at once with all that loose dirt to dig in.  Before Jamie, the digger driver, arrived for day two Scully buried several bones (out of a beef and barley stew I had made the night before) in the hole and was no doubt dismayed to discover on her return the next day that the hole had been rearranged and was being filled in again with compacted hardfill (stones/gravel).

Rain is forecast again for Thursday.

In other news, we spent Friday out on the Pelorus mail boat. (Useless fact - a pelorus is an instrument used to navigate at sea.  It consists of a disc graduated in degrees and a diopter equipped with sighting vanes or a telescope both of which rotate independently on the same axis.)  Pelorus Sound was named after a ship (which was named after a navigation instrument).

Here is a photo dump for you - mail boat customers (as you will see) come in a variety of shapes.  Mail and dog biscuits are delivered for free.  Groceries cost $5 per box (I think a standard box is a 40lb/18kg banana box - give or take.)  Passengers are both tourists and locals.  We delivered the keepers of Maud Island and their family back to their isolated outpost.  (More on Maud Island.)

(Usual rubbish ...photos are backwards so start at the bottom and scroll up😵‍💫🙄😬🤪)

Miss Pig

Salmon farm

There is a house up there

View from Te Rawa Lodge

Te Rawa Lodge

Pigs and dogs show up for the mailboat arrival because they all know that the co-pilot hands out big crunchy dog biscuits.  Having been excluded from the jetty by means of a gate, one enterprising porker even made its way down the beach beside the jetty clearly aware that the boat was designed and built to be run up a beach and has a boarding ramp at the front.  Biscuits will always be delivered; (the mail always gets through) the pig is absolutely confident of that.

NB - Miss Pig is a Kunekune. The other porcine customer is a 'Captain Cook'er