Tahi Bay

The walk down the valley was an easy one. The Old Road was subsiding in places, and the occasional tree made an appearance, gently muscling its way from the wooded roadside and through the broken rock into sunlight. On the way they were joined by others from their Herd, and the conversation was relaxed in the odd manner of men contemplating war. The Older Man smelled smoke from cooking fires near, and far in the distance the more sinister plumes of something larger burning, perhaps homes.

When the Old Road neared the bottom of the Tawa Valley, the trees parted enough to see the Herd camping in light woods near the stream that divided the valley.  He recognised the men and boys of Tawa, the hillmen from over in Hariyou, and a few from Eastern highlands. The Older Man waved to a group of Easterners sitting round a nearby fire, “What you eating men? Rabbits?”

“Cat.” Came the reply.

“Lucky!” He exclaimed with a smile.

“Not so much for him!” One man shouted to a round of laughter.

Smiling companionably, the Older Man continued to walk into the Herd, waving to some, speaking loudly to others, introducing the Younger Man to the most important. He stopped when he saw Parker talking to three other men in a small copse further ahead, and motioning to the Younger Man to stay put, he walked towards the trees. One of the three saw him and indicated to Parker, who turned. Grim, thought the Older Man, and he approached the four when beckoned.

Parker stood head shorter than most. He was a wiry, dark man with the habit of scratching his ears and beard when stressed or worried. His beard was a mess. “Welcome,” he stated blandly, “It’s good you came. You bring more men of Jonsville?”

“Some,” replied the Older Man, “your runner is over to Karori by now. More will have your message soon enough.”

“Good… good.” Parker picked at his ears and glanced at his three companions, “you traded with Ockers before the troubles started, yeah?”

“Yep.”

“Come see this.” Parker turned from the group and waved for the Older Man to follow, he walked into the trees a way, past a man standing with spear and shield, and there, bound hand and feet lay a prisoner. “Maybe you can talk to the Ocker, find out why he comes here?”

The Older Man stepped past Parker and squatted. The prisoner wriggled under his gaze, and slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. His eye was badly blackened and he looked to have been bleeding from the scalp, but he was otherwise unharmed.

“You doin’ reccie?” the Older Man asked.

“I bin doin’ nuttin… Out gatherin firewood for me mates when some fucker slugs me”

“Long way to here for a Brissie man.”

The prisoner glared at the Older Man, “Ain’t no Brissie Man!” he asserted before muttering, “Sinny-sider me… now stuck on a freezing shithole with herders…”

The Older Man stood and took a step back, and beckoned to Parker before speaking quietly, “This is a Sinny man. Which means at least two keelers. You know where they are?”

Parker nodded, “There’s one beached down by old Porry, and there’s one maybe two prowling around Tahi and Mana Islands.”

“Yeah, I seen smoke when walking down.” He scratched his own beard nervously before resting his hand on the machete at his belt, “they building down the beach?”

Parker nodded again. The Older Man winced before turning back to the prisoner.

“Hey, Sinny-sider man. Why keelers come here? Slaves?”

The prisoner dropped hi s head and said nothing.

“Hey Sinny-sider, I say why come here?” The Older Man looked at Parker briefly, waits as if thinking, then gestures to the spearman standing nearby, “Hey, Tawa man, strap this guy with your spear.”

The prisoner’s head whipped up and he screamed as the bamboo shaft landed on his back. He began shouting as the Older Man stepped towards him and crouched again. He spoke softly, “Yell all you needs to Sinny-Sider. There more Herdsmen out them trees. More you can count. Talk. No talk an you dragged out there. Maybe you lucky they just eats you.”

With eyes wide, the Prisoner stared towards the light through the trees. “No idea why we here…” he mutters, “but we be slavers all same…”

The Older Man stood and scratched his scalp before turning to Parker, “Slavers,” and to the guard, “Tawa man, strap him good and senseless, don’t kill him.”

 

Tahi Bay

Kevvo scratched his beard.

“Summin not right with this…” he muttered.

The big man to his right looked over, leaned forward on the long handle of an axe, tilted his helmet back to show a fringe of blonde hair, and said, “Aeh?”

“Arsehole up this coast explain it right?”

“Yep. Down coast, thru heads, an there be ruins. An there,” he indicated with his eyebrows, “be ruins.”

“Doesn’t look right.”

“Mate. You wanna head back Sinny, explain Mad Max why we got nothin’?”

“…Nah.”

The two stood in the breeze on the deck of a keeler looking south and watching their men working just beyond the low dunes. The palisade was progressing well, with a long, low earthen rampart forming. Armed men were coming back from bush on the nearby hill carrying poles and what looked like raw flax. The keeler was beached in a broad, shallow inlet. Around the inlet low parallel ranges ran to the south, the western side littered with the tell-tale teeth of shattered stone buildings climbing out of the cool green water, white and grey against the olive drab of the bush.

“Might get some fires by nightfall.” Kevvo said thoughtfully. “Boys need to muster some locals, make sure this Wellton?”

“Mate, you wanna worry less? He said Wellton, an this be Wellton.  An somewhere here,” he indicated the ruins with the haft of this axe, “be that mile of gold.”

Kevvo looked back over his shoulder at the western horizon. Plumes of smoke rose lazily into the sky from beyond the harbour heads. “Looks like Jacko might be finished with that island. Could be mutton tonight.”

“Yep. Be good getting his crew finishing this work as well.”

“Why you believe that bloke he said this place had a mile of gold you reckon?”

The big man exhaled slowly, took off his iron helmet and set it on the rail of the boat. He paused and looked both ways up the beach before continuing, “You remember yarns about Canburra? Them stupid goat-rapers come over Blue mountains forever tryin tell Sinny-siders how to an what to?”

Kevvo nodded thoughtfully, “Yep.”

“Tell is them come over the Blues cause them was what be called Party Men. Has steel when Sinny-siders has ticks and rocks. Was a time when them Party Men tell every fucker from Sinny to Brissie how to an when to. An all of us, every last one, jumped when them arseholes clap.” He paused, yelled a direction at some men who looked to be stopping work, and leaned against the haft again, “Four counts of hands before them weak enough an get told to piss off.”

Kevvo nodded again, his brow knotted. “An?”

“An Wellton was the place of the Party Men here on Pig Island.”

Kevvo’s eyes widened a little in recognition, “Ahhh…”

“If nothing, we strip metal from this shithole, muster us some locals an have some fun.”

Kevvo grinned broadly.

 

Tahi Bay

“Grab that machete for me”

The younger man lifted the crook of his arm from his eyes, peeking past the bright sunlight to the older man standing near him.

“Aeh?”

“Grab the damn machete, and get yourself up. We gotta get down to the beach as soon as. Parker is calling the Herd out.”

“What? Why is Parker all fired up?”

The older man stepped over the younger man’s frame and took the machete out of the flax it rested in. The urgency in his voice increased.

“There’s Ockers coming ashore down Tahi Bay way. The Herd is assembling down the valley to push them back. So get your useless carcass up, grab your sling, and, rattle, your, dags boy.”

He glanced around, stepped over the stunned look, leaned into the shed and looked inside.

“Where’s my buckler?”

“Hanging up on the porch up at the house. Should I send the girls up to the Pa?”

“Do it when you get the buckler. Where’s that stone?”

The younger man stood quickly, scampered into the shed he’d been napping on, and with minimal clanking brought out a small whetstone. Handing it to the older man, he took off at a jog up the long, slight hill to a stone cottage.

The older man wet the stone in a rain barrel before propping it on a small table and sharpening the machete in long, quick strokes.  Lifting the blade to the sunlight the edge glimmered, flickering under the slight shaking of his hands.

“Been a long time since Ockers came here…” he muttered.

“What’s that?” the younger man asked. He carried a small wooden buckler, a sling, a bag for stones, a helmet.

“Nothing boy, just wondering how those boats came so far down the coast without those bastards up in the Naki eating them.”

The younger man guffawed as he passed over the buckler and helmet. He slung the shepherds bag over this chest and shoulders, “We can get river stones on the way.”

The older man stopped, glanced up to see the women sweeping up a couple of small children, “Let’s go” he said quietly, and waved.

Be careful the words wafted on the breeze as he and the younger man ran through the bush, Kill them, kill them all dear ones.

 

plus ca change

Well, there are a few Cooking Class posts banking up, but it’s been too busy to get them online. With any kind of luck I should find time away from the stuff that makes up our busy evenings sometime soon. Maybe. I’m not making any promises. The main problem is discovering Dowtown Abbey and Second Chef wanting to watch MOAR EPISODES.

Ah well.

Around here there have been some useful advances in suburban farming, with the garden giving up a pretty good supply of garlic this year, a kg of beetroots being turned into relish, the leeks coming along nicely, we have a few surprise self-seeding pumpkins coming along, and plenty of rhubarb, lettuce, bok choy, herbs and a HUGE crop of coriander seeds (the potatoes were woeful, the peach tree only produced one edible peach, the tomatoes failed, and the onions were put in too late). The coriander is really fragrant, so I’m very much looking forward to using them in cooking.

Also, a few weeks back I noticed that a friend on twitter was growing her own mushrooms in buckets. A bit of quick inquiry and a reference turned up these guys. Parkvale mushrooms will send you two buckets of pre-prepared mushroom mycelium for$NZ42.50. I followed the instructions, watered the compost, and put them in the sunroom under black polythene for a week or so, then parked them in the basement. Within another week I’m taking about 1.5kg of flat brown mushrooms off the buckets in the first flourish. Looking at the growth that still happening there I reckon we’d have at least that left to grow out. Based on an average price of about $NZ15kg for gourmet mushrooms I’d say we’d be pretty close to breaking even by next weekend, and they say that each bucket will flourish at least three times! And, they’re delicious.

Although, anyone with recommendations for mushroom recipes? They’ll be gladly accepted.

The further news is that the spent mushroom compost is excellent for the garden. With that and the chicken straw-poo the neighbour dropped around we should be well on the way to a big improvement in the former-packed-clay-garden next year. So all in all, pretty good.

 

How to make light, fluffy, moreish waffles

Well, this was another of the recipes I was pretty sure I’d absolutely have to make before any steam on this project ran out, and it was a good choice (we are still taking photos, but bloggage has been slow due to a multitude of other need-to-dos). The photo in the book is particularly awesome – but we just had ours with maple and/or golden syrup.

Americans like waffles for breakfast with honey or maple syrup – perhaps an acquired taste early in the day [ed: perhaps the author here was your typical late colonial marmalade on dry toast eater...]. We serve them for a delicious desert, topped with ice cream and caramel sauce, bought or home made. And it is such an easy recipe – everyone can make their own waffles

The ingredients for this one are pretty simple. It’s essentially a batter. You mix it up, then put onto the waffle iron. And therein lies the rub. If you don’t have a waffle iron you’re going to be looking at crepes instead. In this case TradeMe was my friend.

• 2 eggs, separated
• 1.5 cups milk
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 60g butter
• 2 tbsp cold water

We made the recipe this way initially, but have since swapped out the dry ingredients for a gluten-free cake or bread mix. It’s a bit easier on Dad’s stomach.

 

Why I spend so much time stacking, chopping, and sourcing wood

I worry this title will attract all kinds of unlikeable traffic, but there you go.

Something we seem to do an endless amount of here at Newlands Manor is sourcing cheap firewood. The main reason for this is the obvious, fireplace-related one. It’s also because the fireplace is hands-down the most efficient way to heat this old house. We and insulation put in to bring it up to code, we put some heavier curtains in the bedrooms, and we took out the old gas central heating (natural gas is simply too expensive).

All in all we’re unlikely to see most of the money back in savings on the heating bill, but we are substantially more comfortable than the first winter we were here.  And man, that first winter with only a 3.5kW heat pump and some heaters in the bedrooms? FREEZING. In total we had about 8kW of power and the bills were really starting to ramp up. Then the worst happened, a power cut in the evening, July, wind blowing sleet sideways from the South. Thank goodness for the welcoming neighbours and their fire.

Second Chef had been suggesting very strongly that we needed to change the heating to a toasty, heartening fireplace, and that night I agreed. And not only am I glad I agreed, we haven’t looked back.

Of course, now I seem to spend all summer getting wood together to see us through the winter. But this fireplace puts out 17kW, so we are extremely warm indeed. Last year during the epic snowstorms when it was -1C outside and people were tweeting non-stop about their heat pumps stopping the coldest part of our house was 16C. Now that is what they call in the business ‘sweet as’.

But as I say, I’m not sure that we’re saving all that much money. A cord of wood bought in the city cost at leas $480, and you need at least two to make it through our long winters. I’ve been sourcing free/cheap firewood whenever I can, but… it’s still an annual bill of at least $1,000. Now, 1k will buy you a heck of a lot of electricity, and more than likely enough to buy you 17kWh of heating when you need it. When it’s working that is.

And because I’m a glutton for punishment, I sat down and worked out exactly how much power we’ve saved. So here’s a nice graph using three-month rolling average and a smoothed line.

The blue line is the first year when we only had the heat pump, and it pummets when we get in the fireplace. Looks like a reasonable saving in electricity right? Well, that’s actually only around $200 saved. A reasonable amount, sure, but the firewood cost is far and above it. And as the next graph shows, 2010 wasn’t particularly different to 2011 (data from Cliflo).

The years vary, but overall there is less than 0.1C difference in the minimum and maximum average temperatures (2011 was warmer).

The question this begs is, if you’re not making big savings, why not just stick with the heat pump? The answer is: solely because the fireplace provides a far more comfortable heat, is more reliable, doesn’t put a constant flaming draft in the house, and you can spend your winter heating money when you have spare cash instead of when the power company demands it (we can put away up to 4 cords if we find any great deals).

Before we got the fireplace we did our reading, and most sources said that the cost was around the same unless you have your own source of firewood (I’m dreaming of having enough land to put in a coppice). Of course… that didn’t take into account the amount power bills are likely to increase in the near future.

 

How to make Waffles

Of all the pictures in the Cooking Class there were two that stayed with me. The first was the brandy snaps. I still have a soft spot for them despite knowing they’re basically just cream wrapped in sugar (what’s not to like, right?). The other was the waffles. The shot is a waffle being smothered in what looks like a caramel sauce.

So, after a little hunting about on TradeMe I snaffled a waffle iron, and set to!