The Card House garden is full of cherry trees.
Some are well-established, and confidently streeetch! their muscular branches up and out into the surrounding air.
Others, like the self-seeders in the buxus hedge, are more restrained, and tentatively edge their leaves into whatever pockets of space they can find.
I’ve also lost count of the number of kererū I’ve seen in recent weeks. And these two things must surely be related. For the cherry trees are covered in hundreds of small red berries that any self-respecting kererū would be crazy to overlook.
I haven’t seen any drunk kererū falling off branches after over-indulging in berries, as happened in Westland once during a bumper summer crop. But last week, on one of the large cherry trees by the verandah, I watched a pair of kererū gingerly walk across two parallel outstretched branches to eat the fruit on their outermost tips. Made it!
Not all kererū come so close to the house. I often hear the distinctive beat of their wings overhead while I’m throwing the ball for Arki, or see a flash of green plumage high in a nearby tree. They’re mostly in pairs, (their main breeding season runs from September to April), although I’m yet to see any baby kereru. However, baby fantails are a fairly common sight.
I wonder if another reason for the large number of kererū around here is the nearby Pigeon Bush Reserve.
The reserve, which can be seen on the left as you start to climb the Remutaka Hill just out of Featherston, is owned and cared for by the Native Forest Restoration Trust. Native birds such as kererū, morepork and fantail are frequently seen there.
The beat of kereru wings always sounds like summer to me. But our dog, Arki, is mightily unimpressed with their visits to the Card House. It’s quite fun to watch him bark angrily at a tree in which an oblivious kereru or two perch far out of harm’s way. Back on the ground, he relentlessly patrols his domain, sending the sparrows, blackbirds and fantails packing. But as soon as he runs to another corner of the garden, they return.
Arki seems to despise all flying creatures, even the smallest variety. His dogged (sorry) pursuit of a fly in the lounge last week resulted in an insurance claim for a new TV. And I’m sad to say that has been the lesser of his recent misdemeanours.
As Barnard walked to the train station on Wednesday morning, a shaggy black-and-white streak hurtled past him, no doubt having just jumped the fence. After realising he couldn’t get into the nearby dog park without a chaperone, Arki proceeded to the train station and was having a merry time weaving around the legs of waiting passengers, just as the train arrived. He was eventually caught and brought home by his very angry father who, having missed the last train, was forced to work from home that day. Bad dog!
But back to more cheerful matters, like the garden. The abundant Choisya Ternatas (Mexican orange blossom) may have finished flowering, but there’s still plenty of goodness to enjoy outside.
The Red Robin shrubs and coprosmas are loving their homes in the concrete pots we rescued from the undergrowth, and we continue to uncover more hidden treasures in the garden.
The latest are two pale pink rose bushes, one of which is making a valiant attempt to grow up one side of the pergola (the other side already being covered by what seems to be a miniature purple rose).
The buxus hedge has also come out smiling with masses of small pink flowers, and as if that wasn’t enough pink, I picked up a ‘Black Velvet Pink’ pelargonium for $3 at a church fair in Otaki last weekend.
I’ve planted it in a sunny spot outside the dining room, although I have to say it’s not looking terribly happy so far. I mostly employ a tough love approach to gardening (“Just plonk it in the ground and see what happens”), so hopefully it will decide to stick around.
Next on the agenda is to plant some lettuces, once I’ve decided where to put my new vege garden.
We often feel like salad for dinner in this hot Wairarapa weather, and it’s a goddamn nuisance having to make the three-minute drive to the supermarket every time we run out of salad leaves.
Speaking of first-world problems, isn’t vacuuming a nuisance? Far better to waste your money (Barnard’s money) on a robotic vacuum cleaner, and then watch it take five times as long to vacuum a room as it would take to do it yourself.
There is something wonderfully meditative about watching a small round device go back and forth, back and forth across the carpet ("Look, it’s even gone under the bed!”) before you remind yourself that it’s a Friday night, and you are 51, and your idea of entertainment has apparently been reduced to watching a robot clean your dirty bedroom, and shouldn’t that depress you? And yet it doesn’t.
Happy weekend, everyone. :-)
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