Po
Category Archives: Seen and Done
Castenuovo Bocca D’Adda
Castelnuovo Bocca D’adda
Winters morning just outside of Castelnuovo Bocca D’adda – I hope Dunedin is going to be more kind to us this winter.
Memories of an African Airport
Which of you can claim, as I can, to have landed on Matekane Airport in Lesotho. The runway is 400 meters long and the straight down drop at the end of the runway is 600 meters down a cliff. This was all made a bit more exiting as the pilot, who smelled very heavily of the local fermented maize drink when he arrived three hours late and the co pilot during this time was siphoning some fuel out of a 44 gallon drum with an old hosepipe to fill up the plane. The last straw, after two failed attempts to take off, was the pilot admitting to the only passenger – me – that he does not fully understand the Russian plane. Never the less, we took off from Maseru and landed “safely” at Matekane. Needless to say, I took a donkey taxi down the mountain back to Maseru – taking all of two days.
GROW FOOD AND ENJOY IT
Two years ago when I moved to this property in Dunedin, it had a tidy garden – clay soils covered in plastic sheeting and pebbles with the odd decorative plant sticking through. To the farmer this was unproductive and artificial and should the attached photograph of steps leading to the back garden where I keep all my animals and also have a healthy vegetable garden today, have been taken then, only a hazelnut and apple tree would have been edible plants in the photograph. Today I can harvest at least 20 edible plant species from the area covered by this photograph alone – Apples, Hazelnuts, Chamomile, Olives (two varieties), Parsley, Time (three varieties), Sage (two varieties), Oregano, Marjoram, Zucchini, Rhubarb, Sour Cherries (two varieties) Bay Leave, Black Current, Red Current, Raspberry, Strawberry, Rosemary, Basil (two varieties), Peas and Cape Gooseberries.
Back Yard Farmer 