July 1st 2020: It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.

I was never really a fan of opera music, but started to appreciate it a bit more during our holiday in northern Italy a few years ago. I've now got a decent collection. Recently discovered that the lounge label Cafe del Mar also had classical music, the Aria series. Very pleasing music. This is Metamorphosis by Paul Schwartz:

There are those kind of questions that are very hard to answer. Like how did Donald Trump become president or how does a mouse get trapped with it's head faced the way out, ... Well the second one is easier to explain I guess.

It scares me to see how many stupid people there are in the usa (the country does not deserve capital letters anymore). Marc Twain said: 'it's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled'. Especially all those so called christians who just don't want to see the dirty old fool Trump is, but adore him like he is the returned messiah himself. Disgusting.
Unfortunately the total lack of leadership in his own country by this idiot who undemocratically bought himself a presidency (as you do over there) impacts on daily life in other countries as well. The man who blames China for not having done anything to spread Covid19 is exactly doing that. And the chaos in this unbelievable polarised country has a huge influence on the rest of the world. One only hopes the virus will get him too one day, and his mate Pence who is not much better. Also a total egg.

Talking about eggs, our ladies are finally all producing, resulting in 10-12 eggs a day. Luckily we have neighbours and friends who want to buy our eggs or we would have to start selling them at work or roadside. The average survival rate of honesty boxes is even here in innocent New Zealand reducing.
Meet Boris. As said before one of our chicks turned out to be male. This man looks pretty good, but is for the rest pretty much useless (hence the name Boris as he resembles the British PM). He has subdued one of the hy-liners, but the other 5 don't want him near them. He does make heaps of noise, but as our bedroom is furthest away from his 'hen imperium' he does not wake us. When I walk over the property I tease him by whistling his own tune which frustrates him quite a bit, because the other chickens immediately run in my direction and leave him to defend the fort on his own. We then start a music contest which I easily win. I may keep him though, to start breeding a new generation of hy-line/bantam cross chickens in the near future.

I've sent many pictures like this to my fishing buddy Dick, showing him how calm the water was, implying he'd better get his boat out. Unfortunately he's been quite busy, but one day.....

This was the day we let our 2 new Hereforder steers in with the old ones. A bit of sniffing and pushing, but after 5 minutes they were cheerfully galloping around the paddock, clearly happy to form a herd. The oldest male will soon have to settle for the freezer instead of a lush paddock as winter has arrived and the grass does not grow that fast anymore.

Rabbits are still a big problem here. No idea why they decided to make a hole right under the chicken coop where I would obviously find it. Probably an american rabbit, not that many brain cells. A few days after I found this one I was cleaning out the coop and the ground underneath me opened like in an earthquake. Sank 15 cm in a hidden hole. I guess they like living dangerously. Recently bought a laser for my gun which turned out to be very helpful when I had to come to arms when our neighbour thought she heard something outside late at night. Nothing of course, but on the way back home I shot 3 rabbits.

Now we are back in Covid19 phase 1 we could finally have our FDC (friday night drinking club) meeting again. First meeting at our place. Great bunch of people. Super to see them all again.

I had prepared a few quiches. Did you guys know some baking paper actually has two different sides? One side stick, the other doesn't. No note about that anywhere on the box of course. There sure was some baking paper on the quiche. They loved it anyway.

I know, it looks like all we do is eat. The DBC (Dutch borrel club) was invited at the Dutch embassy for an traditional Indonesian 'rijsttafel'.

Really enjoyed the evening, perfectly organised, but I still think my own 'rijsttafel' trumps (!?) the one we got that night. Nevertheless we ate way too much and strolling back up hill to Rutger and Landa's place where we stayed the night was eh let's say a bit of a challenge.

Feeling guilty, heavy and fat we decided to climb up the mountains around Wellington the next day and walk the Wellington skyline.

About time we started working out again as fitness levels had dropped to an embarrassing level since leaving South America.

Made it to the first top where a nice young lady saw us struggling with a selfie and offered the real thing. She did manage to get herself in the picture as well. Those are gloves indeed. My hands are still getting stiff during the night and in the evening, but also in the cold. Haven't managed to play tennis yet.

This is a red hot poker, or kniphofia. We've got a few of them on our property and I really like them as they show happy bright colours. Haven't found a way yet top mimic the volume of orange dressed soccer supporters yet. Not sure if it is the salt sea air or the poor soil, but their progress is slow. Maybe they mimic the Dutch soccer successes, that would explain it.

A selfie, I think the first one we both agreed on being acceptable. As travelling to Europe is not really an option yet (Europe has now opened it's borders to Kiwi's and as Dutch passport holders we were allowed to travel to the Netherlands anyway, but even today it would mean 14 days in quarantine on our way back home) we decided to book the Keppler track around December. A four day, 60 km walk in the fjordlands down south. You have to carry your own stuff, so a weight of approximately 15 kg on your back. Last weeks walk was a good start but we need to train a bit more. So we went out for a walk at Battle hill farm, so Nienke could observe the progress made on the Transmission gully, a new highway through the mountains connecting Kapiti with Wellington. The clouds had other ideas and obscured any progress totally. So we did a few short tracks in the actual battle area (no more than a 'stand of' between a few men) and decided to drive back to Kapiti to do some tracks there.

We left the rain (and rainbow) behind us and found a nice sunny track, the Mataihuka walkway, overlooking the Kapiti coast, sometimes called Kapiti's skyline walk.Amazing, having lived here for 13 years and did not know about it's existence.

For a moment we thought we were having vivid flashbacks. Almost at the top we suddenly saw lama's. Unfortunately no stall with hot empenada to be seen.

Amazing view, we could see Mana island on the left and past Otaki on the right. Raumati beach and Paraparaumu at our feet. The new highway through Kapiti clearly to see as well.

Yes, Dick found his boat again. Clear weather, a calm sea, just perfect. We managed to launch from Te Horo beach without the help of a tractor. Very promising for the future. Pretty cold though, but I did not plan a dip anyway and the wet-suits helped.

Only one other boat on the water. No activity in there. But yes, we caught many fish. The first 2 hours only sharks. No good. Maybe it was the presence of a whale. We saw it's spout about 500 meter from the boat, but it did not show itself anymore. We moved a bit further north (fishermen seem to believe fish are like people, if you don't like the neighbourhood you move to another) and suddenly started catching gurnard. Not very big ones, but the 10 of them were enough for 2 meals for 4 people.
I'm still not very fast in filleting them, so I had to fillet (a job you'd rather do outside) the last one in the dark. Still got all my fingers.

Went out to feed the animals one morning and saw a rat eating out of the rabbit bowl. Pretty cheeky thing. It just sat there looking at me. Walked back to the house to get my gun and when I returned it was still there. Fatal mistake. Bullet between the eyes.

During lock-down artists were having a difficult time. Enough time to produce, but hardly opportunity to sell. Someone came up with a facebook page New Zealand Made Products which turned out to be a huge success. So much that my page is still waiting to be published (update, it just got published, > 60 people like it already and 2 asked for prices). Hopeful that I might sell some spheres I plugged the iPod in the amplifier, turned the heater on and started having fun again. My fingers are getting better by the day. Only the left middle finger won't bend completely yet, but I blame Donald Trump for that.
We've finally started teaching friends how to play mahjong. We have to bribe them first with some snacks and bites, but in the end they do like it. The biggest problem is the etiquette. If they had played with Chinese players none of them would have fingers left! We also haven't told them yet the Chinese only play for money!

This weekend we explored some tracks we found online. The were supposed to be in Otaki's backyard. When we arrived at the spot where the track should start a big gate blocked the entrance to the Waitohu stone quarry. A nice family on a quadbike told us that they had heard of tracks there somewhere and the woman could remember having seen a DOC sign of the Tararua Forest park. We decided to climb the fence and started walking, encouraged by a small blue triangle nailed on a second fence. After 2 km we indeed saw the DOC sign, but no sign of tracks. With our printed A4 map we managed to find a track and it turned out to be a very pleasant walk to the skyline of Otaki.

So pleased with our efforts and discoveries we went straight to our local Hunting and Fishing store and both bought new walking shoes.
Workwise things are going well. Nienke is very very busy as people are leaving (lock down apparently appealed to them) and that means more work for her. So on Sunday night I saw her pretty down and Monday morning suddenly very happy again (when she saw that a capable colleague had applied for the vacant position). I am helping out in Otaki again. Saw a weird man who came for a sore knee, but kept talking about the Covid hoax, masks not working, people not really dying, governments lying, etc. He did not like that when I asked if he imagined his knee too. And so, we live on! Cheers.