Makariri...

(I tend to always write way too much in this blog, so this is a bit of a pictorial essay about the snow a couple of weeks ago...#shortandsweet)

On kaua'i island, Hawai'i... beautiful weather all around.

Just last month I was soaking it up in Hawaii, surfing (or trying to) and working on my tan in pretty balmy tropical temperatures.

So it was a bit of a shock to the system to come home to this a week after I returned.

The chookhouse is under that snow at the back there... as for the vege gardens, lucky we hadn't started planting yet!

 The chooks (I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know), were fine. Toasty and warm...

Nemo, on the other hand, went a bit primal on it...

Nemo gets back to his wolf roots...

No chance of hanging out the washing on this day...

Too cold even to trap the ratty that had been tunnelling under the chookhouse.

Morrison got a good coating in snow too...

Dead as a - chicken?...

I've been overseas in the United States for a month on a leadership program focusing on "Protecting Natural Resources". I traveled from DC to Maine, to Montana and on to Hawaii. I'm sure there'll be plenty to say about that later. But to catch up on the Ka Pai life...

The day before i left for the U.S. i looked out the window to see the bloke holding my favourite chicken upside down by the feet. She had just died, and was still warm.  I'm not sure why she died, she was in the best condition of all three chickens, but the bloke reckoned that for the few days leading up to her death, she'd gone down the pecking order a bit, and the other two old girls had been picking on her.

Now I know I've thrust myself into this 'good life' stuff with great enthusiasm, and the bloke and I had been very realistic and pragmatic about our little 'farm' in the backyard. We made cavalier references to 'nature' and joked that with all the fresh herbs the chooks had been eating, it might be good to put one in the pot.

Yet, when I saw my favourite chicken hanging upside down, and felt her still-warm skin beneath her feathers, I lost it. Choked, teared up and sobbed like a child. I even spluttered out something like "But she was (sniff) my favourite one."  Who knew? I have spent enough time on farms, and enough time killing pests for DOC to know that sometimes animals cark it. I guess it was just that getting the chooks really added a new dimension to our backyard, a new way of looking at food, and importantly, it gave us our first tiny step towards our dream - to own our own farm one day.  And to be honest, she was my favourite one. She laid consistently, she had the brightest of feathers, and she had this very endearing habit of jumping up on your lap if you sat down in the backyard. The other two old girls could care less if I was around or not - as long as they got fed. 

I guess the moral of the story is that it turns out I'm not as 'tough' as I thought I was when it comes to my 'livestock'. Although... the weirdest moment was when the bloke and I were inspecting said dead chook, we looked at each other and asked the question "Shall we eat her?". Decided since we didn't know why or how she died, it was best not to - but I'm certainly not against eating them if that's the best use for them... (just glad chickens can't read since we have one bird no longer laying that will certainly be of more value in the pot).

What's your experience? Does it make you sad when your domestic poultry/livestock dies? Perhaps it's something you just get used to over time? Is it a bad thing to be sad for an animal that has provided you with nourishment and certainly entertainment? Perhaps remembering their worth is noble after all?

On blogging torpor, freshwater for life and DOC job cuts...

It's been far too long between posts. Plenty of KapaiLife stuff to chat about... but life's been keeping me busy in the 'real world'

Just returned to the shaky city after a three day Forest & Bird conference in Wellington... it was a great weekend, we hosted a political panel on conservation issues, then the rest of the conference was themed "Freshwater for Life" - pretty timely in NZ right now as our water quality declines and our intensification of agriculture and urban developments increases.  It was my job to organise the conference program, so I invited Dr Mike Joy, Rod Oram, photographer & presenter Craig Potton,  Professor Ken Hughey, Alistair Bisley (chair of Land and Water Forum) and Morgan Williams (former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment), as well as speakers from Fish & Game and Fonterra. We finished with a screening of the excellent "River Dog". Make sure you see this film. The conference was a lively, inspiring affair.

Meanwhile, the Govt has decided to cut another 100 DOC jobs... now DOC's being run on a budget of a city council to manage a third of the country. i had a fair bit to say about that here. It's busy work trying to stick up for nature in NZ!!!

hmmm, this cartoon seems rather relevant for the current biodiversity crisis.

In honour of New Zealand music month...

And because of course I am such a nature nerd... please enjoy this surprisingly funky little gem from Fatcat and Fishface  who make music for kids, often based on our wonderful native wildife.  "Nightclub" is a catchy little hit about our nocturnal native birds, with some very cool animation. Have a listen!

DOC have also decided to make the most of NZ Music Month by holding a contest for the best 'remix' of native bird calls, championed by their Spokesbird, Sirocco (who i've been subject to... errrr... some of his more intimate shenanigans, and for whom I used to handle all his many PR requests  - mostly as a result of said shenanigans. Glad DOC are continuing to use his profile in a positive way, quite proud really).

Sirocco the kakapo skaaarks it up for NZ Music Month. Photo: DOC

Farmers as kaitiaki...

While we're on the topic of freshwater.

It would be easy to lump all farming in the same boat, point the finger and say that all farming was causing the decline in our freshwater quality and quantity in New Zealand. 

That's simply not true, and not fair on the farming community. My family come from a farming background, and most New Zealanders have a connection to farming in some way.  I know there are many many farmers trying to make a living and do the right thing, and they are to be celebrated.

I met one this weekend, at the excellent Reel Earth Environmental Film Festival in Palmerston North.  His name is Grant, but he is known as River Dog.  Grant is the star of a film made by his son James, and James' film partner Oscar Daniel Hunter.

River Dog is the story of a farmer trying to do the right thing by planting his river banks with native trees and desperately trying to keep the neighbours' cattle off the river, since they (the cattle) are destroying the quality of the water and the native vegetation.  Despite having the rules on his side, the council take no action, so Grant and his farmdogs spend their days chasing the cattle off his 'patch' of the river.  River Dog went on to win three awards including best New Zealand film.

We know that fencing and planting our rivers can protect them from pollution. We should be supporting farmers like Grant, not ignoring them!

Farmers have a tangible connection to the land, they themselves consider themselves stewards or guardians. That is a hefty responsibility, and one that should be celebrated when such stewardship is undertaken, but they should be made responsible when the environment is ignored, or worse, exploited.

Grant Muir, Wairarapa farmer, and River Dog. Photo: James Muir.

Oh and if you haven't seen River Dog  yet - make sure you do, it's highly recommended viewing.

Freshwater, or is it?...

The past week has been one that keeps rearing the ugly head of freshwater in New Zealand and the shocking state it's in.

First, the BBC caught our Prime Minister out, when Hardtalk's Stephen Sackur asked him how we could market ourselves as 100% Pure, when 90% of our lowland rivers were too polluted to swim, drink or fish from;

To which our nation's leader replied that the science behind those shocking pollution statistics was just "one man's opinion." This casual dismissal of scientific fact of the state of our freshwater, the key to our nation's social, environmental and economic wellbeing (if you don't believe that, try thinking of life in NZ without it), gave me quite a fright.

Then Nick Smith, Minister for the Environment, released the long-awaited National Policy Statement of Freshwater. This is a big deal. Despite the RMA requiring National Policy Statements so that councils can make plans that protect the values outlined in an NPS, we've never had one on freshwater in NZ.  It took 18 months, and more than 50 representatives from groups as widely diverse as Forest & Bird and Dairy NZ to get it into shape. Good stuff all around for these parties to agree to some tough measures to protect water. Except... well the policy wonks at MFE must have decided it was all a bit risque, and what was released was a watered-down version of what all of those parties agreed to. It gives councils no national standards to stick to, and puts incredibly long time-frames in place. NZ economist, Rod Oram believes it lacks teeth.

The NPS also promises huge amounts of funding for irrigation projects in NZ, despite the fact that intensification of farming and agribusiness has contributed significantly to the destruction of our waterways.

The NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research) website says, “There is no doubt that our declining river water quality over the last 20 years is associated with intensification of pastoral farming and the conversion of drystock farmland to dairy farming, particularly in Waikato, Southland, and Canterbury."

So why are we paying people to pollute our freshwater?

Cattle damage (beef) in the iconic Mackenzie basin... and there's a big push to irrigate that golden 'Speight's' country, turning it forever a lurid green. Never mind what might happen to the relatively pristine lakes and rivers there...

Backyard chookies...

(NB:  I wrote this originally as a comment on an excellent post on Pundit, which was about the new proposed welfare standards for battery hens... but I've borrowed it here to introduce you to our girls... three ex-battery hens, brown shavers, good layers (mostly - more on that later...), and both our pride and the sometimes scourge of our garden.  I've had requests to write stories about the chooks - so this shall be your introduction to them, I have plenty more chooky tales to tell!)


As someone who  names all of her cars, I have yet to name my chickens... they are 'the chooks', and I am at once fascinated by them and exasperated by them.

We got the chickens days before the September 4th earthquake last year. The quake must have shaken the eggs out of them, because they began laying the very next day! 

The bloke has had to be very creative to come up with ways to keep these chooks out of our vege patch. This girl is standing on what was a pallet for fruit and veg, and various trips to the beach to collect driftwood have helped with the fence behind - they are super 'breakers and enterers' though... constant vigilance is required!

Once we got around fencing off various bits of the garden to keep them out (we have re-engineered the classic 'taranaki gate', to a series of 'taranaki fences' in our suburban backyard), I find the chooks to be a daily source of interest and amusement.

The bloke reckons they are like the chickens in a Gary Larson cartoon, somewhat sinister, and always appearing to be planning something. The dog takes this suspicion one step further and simply refuses to set foot in the backyard if they are out of the chookhouse.  Somewhat embarrassed by Nemo's sookiness over chookiness (perhaps not helped by his wussy name!), i once left him out there as an experiment. To my astonishment, I watched all three chooks work in formation, to appear one from each side of him, and one (the smallest and gutsiest) in th front, fluffing up her feathers and stomping towards his face while kicking her claws up in front of him. Needless to say, I don't subject Nemo to this kind of trauma anymore!

This is Nemo's usual stance when he has to have anything to do with the chickens... he's also afraid of sheep.

Despite their vegetable snatching, dog-terrorising tactics, I do love our chooks. I love the simple pleasure of watching them scratch and peck their way around the garden, and I too am amazed by the sight of a hen turning herself almost inside out in a dust bowl she has spent the morning meticulously creating. 

I have only purchased freerange eggs for some years now (even as a broke student), and moving to having your own home-grown eggs is something that you can't put a price on. The taste is incredible, the deep orange yolks are divine just to look at.  That said, I reckon they've saved us quite a bit of dosh.

Happy eggs indeed. The richness and quality of our chooks' eggs, makes all the 'eggsasperation' worth it...

To my chookies, you drive me crazy, and the bloke too, but we love the energy you bring to our place.

Choice words from a choice man...

From the New Zealand Listener, April 23-29, 2005. Said by renowned conservationist Don Merton, who died today.

“They are our national monuments. They are our Tower of London, our Arc de Triomphe, our pyramids. We don’t have this ancient architecture that we can be proud of and swoon over in wonder, but what we do have is something that is far, far older than that. No one else has kiwi, no one else has kakapo. They have been around for millions of years, if not thousands of millions of years. And once they are gone, they are gone forever. And it’s up to us to make sure they never die out.”

Never a truer word was spoken.

Goodbye to a legend...

Renowned conservationist, Don Merton died today. As we tend to say in New Zealand, a mighty totara has fallen. 

Don and his old mate "Richard Henry" the kakapo

Someone recently described Don Merton as New Zealand conservation's answer to Sir Edmund Hillary.  Not a bad little comparison.  What Don was able to achieve for some of our native species was nothing short of staggering. 

I got to meet Don while traveling through the Subantarctic Islands in 2004. We had a great old time pointing out wildlife and going into raptures over sea lions, albatross and penguins.  Then, while filming "Meet the Locals" with TVNZ, we met with him and asked him to tell the story of the black robin.

If you don't know the story, it goes like this. The black robin, one of NZ's most endangered  birds, dropped to just 5 individuals when Don and the Wildlife Service team got to Little Mangere Island in the Chathams. In that 5 birds, was just one viable female, an older robin Don named "Old Blue". Thanks to some nifty nest-swapping and unlimited perserverance, the team got Old Blue breeding again, and saved the entire species.

After the black robin work, Don went on to lead the kakapo recovery programme, and again contributed to saving the species from certain extinction, due to nifty nest-minding techniques and total tenacity.  He has since gone on to advise on conservation projects around the world. 

In a strangely synchronous event, Don's kakapo-contemporary, the elderly kakapo Richard Henry (named for New Zealand's other legendary conservationist) died on Christmas Eve last year, after an enviable life-span of up to 100 years.  Richard Henry was the last remaining Fiordland kakapo, rediscovered by Don and his team in the 1970s. Shortly after Richard Henry and the Fiordland kakapo were discovered (all males), a remnant population of kakapo were found on Stewart Island (including the crucial females), and the opportunity to save the species began. Richard Henry's genes (because he came from a separate population) were very important for kakapo conservation, and he was certainly the 'elder statesman' of the kakapo clan.

Don and Richard Henry crossed paths many times over the following years, most recently when Don and his wife went to visit Richard Henry late last year. Don told me that he was very glad to have had that opportunity.  In correspondence I've had from Don this year, he seemed quite matter-of-fact about his illness, his one regret that he did not quite have enough time to finish all the conservation projects he was involved with.

I remember watching Don and his workmates on wildlife documentaries, when I was a kid, their work inspiring me to take up the career I have now. If Don has one lasting legacy among people, it was his unswerving dedication to the conservation of our most precious wildlife. I wish to help carry that torch, and I know I'm not the only one.

A little bit country...

We spent last Saturday visiting the Oxford A & P show.  There's been a rash of them lately in our area - but this is the first one I've been to this year. 

I love A&P shows. Always have. I love the unchanging nature of them. While almost every aspect of our day-to-day life changes constantly as technology increases, lives get busier and we fill every moment of our time with 'important' tasks, the A&P show is predictably the same. And that's extremely comforting.

The same rides (actually, this is no joke, they are exactly the same pieces of machinery I remember tentatively hopping onto twenty years ago), the same food caravans, and I'm sure, sometimes, the same people operating them.

I'm pretty sure that this is the same ferris wheel that I used to ride on at A&P shows when I was a kid...

Taking your family to the A&P show means you can amble along past shearing displays, the calf-judging, prize-winning poultry, and hand the kids a few bucks to go on a ride, or get a hot-dog, knowing they'll find you again soon. We left the father-in-law at the shearing (it's his favourite), and meandered over to the wood chopping contest, which was by far the most popular event.

This photo was taken about thirty years ago, but you can't really tell the difference between then and now in woodchopping competitions.

Sitting on hay-bales in the sun, we watched some of the fittest kiwi athletes I think I've ever seen power their way through logs in seconds, scale huge poles to cut the top of logs that stood twenty feet high, swinging axes with arms that would have put Popeye to shame.

Apart from the people-watching, and sneaking a pat from some of the livestock on display, my favourite part of the A&P show is actually inside. The arts and crafts and vegetable part, usually in a hall on the site.  Oxford's A&P show didn't disappoint. As a kid, I remember entering the flower-saucer competitions (usually involving some wilted looking pansies jammed in a saucer full of sand), but the vegetable-art one was probably always my favourite.  Bert and Ernie (below) were streets ahead of the usual potato-bunnies.

Bert and Ernie were definitely my favourite, looks like the judges thought so too.

The bloke and I wandered around the tables, exclaiming at the odd stand-out prize-winning vegetable, and muttering quietly to ourselves that our beans were better, my plum sauce was definitely competitive, and our kamo kamo were worth a shot at the top prize.  Next year, we'll enter our own fruits (well vegetables mostly) of our labour, and A&P shows will take on a whole new meaning.

And who knows, maybe one day soon, we'll be able to enter our own prize-winning poultry, lambs or cattle. I'm looking forward to that!

Mine's bigger than yours...

One of the veges that has been the most successful in our garden this year is the kamokamo.  I'd never eaten it before now, and upon trying it this summer, I have to say I really like it. It's kind of like a cross between a pumpkin and a zuchinni (tastes more like a zuchinni).  Some of you may know it as kumi kumi or Maori pumpkin.

Like many of the pumpkin and squash family, it starts in a fairly slow way, sitting quietly and non-descript in amongst the other plants. Then one morning, ZOOOM, you come out to see the garden, and this triffid has taken over your whole backyard!

Kamokamo is the plant that you can see everywhere here, running over gardens, along fences, and around the clothesline.  (chooks placed in picture to give correct scale!).

Our kamokamo this year have been extremely prolific, constantly growing the large striped green globes, with no signs of tiring yet.

Even now in April, we still have new kamokamo bursting forth.

Mostly it's best to eat kamokamo when they are relatively small, they can get tougher and less tasty as they grow bigger. The giveaway is when they start to turn orange. 

However, this year our kamokamo have grown like 'topsy' (as my Nanas would say), and have constantly produced large, tasty orbs of goodness like this one. 

Our most recent kamokamo, which I dubbed "Wilson" weighed 4.5 kilograms.

I have been going a wee bit stir-crazy working from home, and had almost started calling the enormous kamokamo "Wilson" in reference to my Castaway work situation.  Having got to that point, it was probably a good thing that friends from up North arrived here for a cup of tea the other day, and in exchange for a crayfish and some perch, I passed "Wilson" onto them for their culinary enjoyment. Kind of serependitous really, since they hail from the same area that the seeds of our kamokamo came from. Wilson has gone full circle. (aside: Reuben's Mum put it on the plane as her cabin-baggage, much to the amusement of the aviation security guys when they x-rayed her bag). 

Do any of you grow kamokamo? What's your favourite way to eat it?

Not quite loving ALL nature...

I quite often describe myself as a 'nature nerd'. I have in the past claimed to love all nature and embraced all manner of not-so-cute-and-cuddly creatures including eels, giant weta and tuatara.  It's time to confess. I really don't love all creatures great and small. In fact, it's some of the small ones that drive me the craziest.

Flies. I am really annoyed by flies. All kinds of flies, the little, moronic ones that just zzzzz around in circles in the middle of the room, the flies that have some kind of mad penchant for anything electrical, so they repeatedly land on my laptop or the corner of the television.  No matter how many times I shoo them away, they just fly in a lazy figure eight, and return to their favourite spot.  Which they then throw up on. Those 'fly spots' that you see on your walls, roof and lightbulbs, are not poo, they are in fact where the fly has regurgitated some spit in order to liquefy more solid food items, which it then mops up with its tongue, like a sponge. Blegh.

The problem with flies is if you don't like them, how do you get rid of them? you can swat them, but that's energetically demanding (I'm nothing if not consistently lazy!). Swatting also leaves gross fly remains on your walls, coffee tables etc. Some genius inventor has come up with an electric fly swat, that looks like a cross between a tazer and a tennis racket.  You can spray them, but it's not nice to pack your house full of chemicals, because you're annoyed at a couple of flies dithering around the lounge.  My Nana always had some of that sticky paper hanging in the kitchen... which I found rather macabre, with it's trail of sticky black corpses, trapped forever in glue. 

I have another solution. A venus fly trap. I've got one on our kitchen windowsill, and lo and behold it has been doing it's job.

Two in one go!

 Venus fly traps, are carnivorous plants. That in itself is pretty cool. They work by the tiny hairs found on the inside of the 'trap' part. When an insect walks over these trigger-hairs, the leaves swing shut, trapping the insect inside. The insect struggles away, the leaves seal around it, creating a kind of 'stomach' where digestion occurs, and then after the juice has all been sucked out, they open again, with just the exoskeleton of the insect remaining. amazing! 

I hope my venus fly-trap doesn't get as big as Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors!

So, what nature do YOU not like? got any pet peeves, or animals that just gross you out? Why?

Looking on the bright side...

I have to admit, as a Canterbury resident... the last month hasn't been easy. And it's actually not that easy for me to admit that, since I live twenty kilometres from the CBD and we were not directly affected by the quake. Not really. Sure, we lost our office (see below) and close relatives have been affected, some far more affected than you should expect to be in your life, and people I love dearly have had damaged houses or lost their homes. But nobody we know, thankfully, was injured or killed. and that's the main thing. 

Kenton Chambers, once home of my first and only office in my career (2nd floor above the door). Sadly we won't be returning, not even to get our stuff. My favourite hut slippers my Dad bought me for my trip to Antarctica (it was cold in that office!) will have to remain there too. But in the end, it's just stuff. thank goodness.

Except, after a month or so, if you're one of those people who have lost your house, or lost stuff, or had to drastically alter how you go about your daily business, as a human, that can be quite hard to cope with. 

Someone asked me what it was like in the middle of all the quake madness last month. I said that I swung between feeling extremely lucky that we weren't directly affected, to feeling extremely guilty that we weren't directly affected, to feeling terrified that we would be next.  The terror is slipping away now. Just like last time (September 4th 2011), after a while, you just have to get on with living, and the fear of the next 'big one', gets put in amongst all those other things you have to remember, like hanging out the towels, getting a new rego for the car, and freezing the last of the apples we picked. 

While we are (like most Cantabrians) affected by this quake in a variety of ways, which are not worth going into, my greatest trial is that I get to work from home... which, given my chosen lifestyle, isn't that stressful at all.  But my heart is still breaking for people who've had their lives disrupted, altered, or turned upside down.  And then, that in itself can be quite stressful. Worrying about others you know and love, worrying about people you vaguely are aware of, and worrying about people you've never even met. Then of course (because I'm completely neurotic), I worry that I personally have nothing to worry about, and shouldn't be worrying at all. All in all, it's exhausting. 

So today, I took the time to get away from the kitchen table (current 'office'), and make the most of the fine autumnal (because I'm not sure if it's technically Autumn yet!) day, and went for a great little sojourn. 

The green racer

This beauty of a bike once rusted quietly next to our back doorstep, but thanks to the loving and dedicated bloke, got a makeover just in time for my birthday last year. Now let me start by saying (I know he won't mind), I hate cycling. I hate roadbikes, I hate mountain bikes, I hate stressing out everytime I try to pass a bike on the road... (but I do like swearing like a sailor when I have to pass a palleton of about twenty of the buggers!).  In fact, my hatred of all things cycling traversed into my total inability to ride a bike properly, which reached crisis point when my then-producer of Meet the Locals simply banned me from doing any more bike-riding on camera, because she said I 'looked like a gumby'.  I'll leave you with this episode to judge for yourselves.  


Anyway, I digress. Despite my hatred of bikes, and the fact that I turned into someone from the "Ministry of Silly Rides" whenever I got on one, I do love my birthday bike.  It has no gears, but it rides really smoothly, and I can sit on it with good posture while I'm pedalling along. And, since we live in a semi-rural area, I can ride past the few houses at the end of our road, and then cycle past paddocks, hedges, horses, sheep, and eventually to the big shelter-belt where we gather our pine cones. It was a relatively warm day, and even though my dog is a total idiot when it comes to road-sense, I took the chance that it was quiet, and he gambolled along next to me, for the first time in his life, sticking to common-sense rules, like staying off the road.  We pedalled and padded along the road taking in all the sights and smells... the warm, musty smell of long grass and the end of summer made me think about my childhood. All in all it was a lovely trip down a country and memory lane. It also only took about half an hour. On the home run, I was smug, because Nemo had finally run out of puff, and was trotting lightly behind me with his great pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. I had the wind behind me, and coasted home. Life is beautiful. 

Journey to the Good Life...

(Just for nostalgia's sake, I thought I'd open with this great little clip - who remembers these titles?)

Kia ora and welcome to The ka pai life.  I've been meaning to delve back into the world of online writing over the past year - but just never found the time, and got way too distracted with the online madness of Facebook and Twitter to properly contemplate writing more than 140 characters.  Sadly, this has transferred into my 'real' life, and I now find it difficult to hold a conversation with more than two 'status updates'. I consider myself a writer, and it's important for me to keep a discipline of writing if I'm going to continue seriously with a career in this vein, hence the blog.  The discipline will be keeping it going as I've already written and discarded one blog in my online writing lifetime.

To introduce myself, I guess you would say that in the past year I've had a bit of a sea-change. Chucked in a high-profile, pretty well-paying public service role, to follow my heart and soul back to the South Island, and to a job that I can say with pride I believe in, and am passionate about. Also, after a decade of chasing my career, to the detriment of all other things, I've followed a life that is about lifestyle, love, family and dare I say, balance.

I've been back in my beloved Te Wai Pounamu for a year now, and during that time have learned more about the 'real stuff' than ever before. Cooking, preserving, foraging for, and growing food are skills that I am slowly gaining - but rapidly in my terms since last year I could just about manage a spaghetti bolognese (the bloke had to teach me how to scramble eggs)!  I can now cook and bottle plum sauce, snorkel for paua, collect sacks of pine cones for winter, feed my chooks and collect their eggs (more on those ladies later), and live in a way that feels right.  It's not always easy... and we are by no means self-sufficient, but living simply has done a lot for my body and mind, not just my ecological conscience.

Friends and parents often give me a hard time, since I once would have eaten takeaways five nights a week, I now skite about eating meals that consist almost entirely of veges from the garden. They call me "Barbara Good" and the bloke and I get a good-natured ribbing about how we've taken on "The Good Life".  I'm quite happy about that. It was one of my favourite shows as a kid, and I'm happier now than I ever have been.  The Ka Pai Life gives a kiwi slant on what we are trying to do, and I hope to be able to share with you some of the experiences, good, bad and otherwise that we encounter - if you're interested.

Looking forward to hearing from you and sharing ideas, trials and tribulations. Let me know what you'd like to hear more about - happy to oblige.