SPRING IN OUR ORCHARD

The great thing about our current lifestyle is that we get two springs a year now. The NZ spring is magical as all the fruit and vines burst open with a sea of green. Sandra and I went on a "hunter gatherer" trip around the orchard today --A lovely Sunday here in Matakana Valley. I took these two shots to show what is popping up at Hawks Nest. Note the close up of our avocados. The season starts here in early spring. (read early October- which is now!!!!) We have a smaller crop this year so we are waiting to start selling them from the roadside until it is a bit warmer so we will have a stash to use all summer. Avos are neat as they do not ripen until you pick them so the block of trees are like a warehouse!!! We will be having fresh avos from now until March--if we don't sell them out too soon at our roadside honest stall. (for more on our honest stall go back over a year to one of my old blog postings) Last year Jeremy estimates that we sold 6 tons from our small stall--Holy Moley!!! That is a lot of quacamole for sure!!!!!!

The other orchard shot is of one of our persimmon blocks. Kiwi's call each separate fruit area a block and each open field a paddock. (Thus the etiology of the names of our wines--Orchard Block and Back Paddock, our new local NZ 06 release.) Anyway, this is a shot of one of blocks of persimmon trees just buding out the leaves. The white foil is to reflect the fall light at the end of the growth season so the low hanging fruit gets ripe. (lots of green leaves just before harvest obscure the sun from the lower persimmons--thus the use of this foil.

The final photo is a shot in our back yard that I just took when we got home with our gathered goodies today. (ok, true we don't grow strawberries BUT, our neighbour does and we paid $5 for those two big containers of fresh strawberries on the way home at their honest stall.) The wine, YES!!!!!, that is also from foraging in our red shed today. Those two bottles are the first bottles of our just released 06 Orchard Block Red that is off to Nashville by boat this next week. Jeremy had a few stashed in our shed and I found them today and "poached them" We are going to try it with our neighbours who raise bees on our property. ( Again, go back to an old blog to learn about our beekeeing experiences) We are keen to get a taste of our 06 export as we have not tasted it since the day it was bottled back in June.

Anyway, That is all for now. Next time I will talk about how we became experts on putting wax seals on magnum bottles. (yes we have 30 magnums of our 05 Hawks Nest aging away safely for "special events" in the future.) These will never be for sale but I will bring some home to Tenn for our upcoming Christmas use with friends.!!!

More soon;

Dr Jim