Our Cottage, Earthquakes, Mosaic

Only two Sundays ago at twelve at night we had a big earthquake again in the South Island of New Zealand. It was a 7.8 and our cottage shook and moved and we held onto the door post of the bedroom.

It is a very frightening experience and because we went through the Christchurch earthquakes six years ago a lot of memories flooded back.

In Kaikoura on the East coast of the South Island there is a lot of damage and big slips and rock falls and no way to get in or out of  town.

It will take months or longer to get this tourist town back to some normality and I feel for the people living through this disaster, I really knows what it is like.

                                                 

 For months I have been working on my mosaic around our fireplace, it resembles our fishpond and it took so long to finish, because I had many other jobs to do.
During the earthquake, the first thing that went through my head " O no, I hope my mosaic won't break, I just got it done".
Isn't it silly, like my mosaic is so important! Maybe that is how the brain works in a threatening event, thinking of something irrelevant as a way to cope.

 The next morning in daylight Henk checked the cottage and we only have a few cracks and no damage and when I walked around the garden I felt really blessed to live here.
We have no mansion and our cottage feels sometimes a bit small, but we have so much to be thankful for.

Fish pond

Our cottage

The cabin in the front

Garden beds

a new vegetable patch

Ollie and the view over the hopfields

I am part of Sunday Sketches

The honesty plant stall and spring in the garden.

I love growing plants and I love gardening, so instead of growing plants just for my garden, I started to sell my surplus plants at the beginning of our drive in my up-cycled plant stall.

The plant stall was an old book case from the recycle center and I painted and decoupaged the stall and transformed a Dutch clog into a honesty box so my customers can pay for the plants. 

I must say it is a slow process and up till now I haven't sold that much yet, but then I only started a few weeks ago.

                            

My plant stall

The honesty clog

Now with readers not familiar with a honesty stall, in New Zealand many roadside stalls have a system were the customers leave money behind in a honesty box and buy from the stall what they want without seeing the owner of the stall.

There are many roadside stalls selling fruit, veges, plants,flowers,eggs and often the stalls are in the country side.

Most people are honest and leave the correct money behind, but sometimes there is a little less, but that happens not that often.

I find it special that the honesty stalls are still part of the New Zealand culture and I hope they will be there for many more years to come.

My sign

Spring has arrived and the trees in the orchard are slowly coming into blossom. The almond tree was the first to blossom, a darker pink and now the cherry and the pear trees are a cloud of pale pink and white.

Our garden is taking shape, Henk has done a lot of pruning and cleaning up and  he nearly finished the chook house and the run.

This weekend our 4 new girls will arrive and they will have a great place to call home, the orchard and a doghouse  remodeled into a chicken coop.

New Zealand Kowhai flower

I will be selling the surplus eggs in my roadside stall as well.
This week I started visiting Jack Inglis, a local hospital and rest home in Motueka with my dog Ollie as part of the Canine friends therapy organisation in New Zealand.
Ollie is wearing a bright red scarf  printed with the Canine friends logo and looks the part with his black shiny coat and cute border collie face.

The cherry tree in front of the cottage

On the first visit, Lynn the activity coordinator showed us around and we greeted residents in the main lounge and Ollie and I went round the room saying hello to everyone. Ollie was a little hesitant at first, but then gentle touched hands with his nose.
One of the nice encounters was with a gentleman lying on the bed in his room staring at the ceiling.
We asked permission to enter his room and if he liked to meet Ollie.
After only 5 minutes he was giving Ollie treats and Ollie did his "high fives" and he was telling me about his own dogs.

Magnolia tree near the garage.

Today on my second visit in one of corridors a little lady walked past us with her walking frame and she went straight to Ollie and started talking to him. She bent over to pat him and Ollie went to her and to my horror gave her a lick on her nose. I apologized profusely to her for Ollie "kissing" her face. She looked up to me and with a big smile said: "Ollie can kiss me any day".

Two mosaic tiles inspired by my garden

I just love pansies

The nurses loved him too and Ollie got a lot of attention, but after a hour he got tired and started panting, so time to leave.
The rest of the afternoon Ollie slept and that is  unusual for my active dog.

Mosaic shoe and shabby chic table

On Easter Sunday the Mapua primary school always organizes a big Easter fair as a major fundraising for the school.
Visitors from all over the South Island visit and suddenly our little village is overwhelmed with traffic and people.
The atmosphere is festive, the rugby field is full of stalls, there is music, food stalls and a little cafe in the rugby rooms.
Two years ago I had a stall and my daughter Rachel helped on the day, so I decided to book a stall again for this coming Easter.
I will share my stall with my friend Roger, he restores furniture and makes fire boxes out of gas cylinders.
So I started to do some mosaic pieces and I found these old shoes at the sallies and mosaic one of the shoes with small pieces of china.
The table also came from the sallies and I painted the table with three layers of different coloured home made chalk paints and sanded the layers back.
The transfers are prints of www graphics fairy an amazing website with free images to use, worth a visit!
Also I bought some scrap booking papers from Spotlight in Nelson and got those copied mirror imaged in black and white.
Now I am transferring the images onto the table.
The mediums I am trying are transfer medium  'picture this' for fabrics and mod podge.
I think mod podge gives a more translucent finish.
The table is still a work in progress, so I keep you posted.

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Another lovely mosaic sunday

view over the estuary

tulip in my garden

Karin and I had another great Sunday enjoying our mosaic time, because of the nice spring weather we went for a walk first with my old dog phoebe.
Mapua has beautiful areas to enjoy the view over the estuary and not far from my house is this great spot to sit and look out over the water.
Its a  peaceful place and I will go back and do some sketching there.
Karin had a lot of grouting to do today, but she finished her two tiles and cup and saucer.
I worked on a little wind chime and garden stone, hope to grout those pieces tomorrow.

Karins grouted tiles

The big teacup

Spring in Mapua

Spring has come to Mapua, slowly blossom is appearing and when I am working in the garden I can hear the lambs calling out to their mums!
I think living in a village surrounded by paddocks and orchards is especially great in spring time.
Karin and I had another wonderful afternoon of making mosaic for the garden.
Karin's bird on a tile is taking shape and a stepping stone for the garden club raffle is coming along.
For afternoon tea we had a citrus slice and because Karin and a few of my friends can't eat gluten, this slice is made with gluten free flour. My lemon tree provided the spray free lemons.

                                                    Lemon slice
100 grams butter                                                    
half a cup of sugar                                                  
2 eggs                                                                    
2 cups of gluten free flour                          
2 teaspoons of baking powder                                
zest of two lemons
juice of two lemons

In a bowl beat the softened butter, flour and sugar.
In a different bowl mix the lemon juice/zest and sugar together
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients
Beat together for 2 minutes
Pour into a greased baking tin and bake for 25 minutes on 170 Celsius
Don't over bake,otherwise the slice becomes dry.

Icing:
Beat together lemon juice/ zest of 1 lemon and 1 cup of icing sugar and when slice is cooled use a spatula to spread the icing evenly.

This slice is nice served with yoghurt on the side, very refreshing.








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A lovely sunday

                                                                                         

                    

A lovely day of mosaicking with my friend Karin. I have finished the "lamp stand" vase and waiting for the adhesive to dry and then I will grout the vase.
Tomorrow I will buy some more tiles for the next project; a gecko on a riverbed stone.
Karin and I enjoyed a lovely lemon cake for afternoon tea from the lemons of my lemon tree.

The cake is easy to make:

• 2 cups of self raising flour
• 1 cup of yoghurt
• 100 grams of butter or 4 table spoons of vegetable oil
• half a cup of sugar
• 2 eggs
• the zest of two lemons finely grated
• half a cup of milk if needed.

Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius.
Cream the butter and sugar or if using oil instead of butter, stir the oil and sugar.
Add the eggs and lemon zest and stir well.
I like to use my hand mixer.
Add the flour/ yoghurt and mix again.
Add milk if the mix is to thick.
Pour the mixture into a greased tin and bake for about 40 minutes on 180 Celsius.

Topping:

• juice of one lemon
• half a cup of sugar

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a cup.
When taking cake out of the oven, prick holes in the top and pour the lemon/sugar mixture over the warm cake.
The lemon juice will soak into the cake and gives the cake a great flavour.
Cool completely and turn out carefully.
This cake can also made with gluten free flour and  2 teaspoons of gluten free baking powder, the yoghurt and lemon juice makes the cake moist.

Mosaic tiles for the garden

I used broken tiles for the mosaics. The tile with the red heart is already a few years old and even survived the earthquakes and liquefaction in Christchurch.
The centre image is of projects on the go, one is an old lamp stand found at the sallies shop, the angel on top is a Christmas decoration.
The tiles on the steps up to the vegetable garden are parts of a broken bigger tile, but still great for mosaic.