s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Friday morning a sad thing happened. My lovely Husqvarna 252RX brushcutter started making horrible grinding noises! Oh no! I prompty shut it off and took it into the shop- fearing the worst (front gearbox shot). But after maintenance all seems to be well, and I get to go back and pick up my favorite toy again tomorrow.

The evening before (Thursday) Tam and I had been chain-sawing up more of the fallen Elm down at the front of the property. The chainsaw may yet become my favorite toy, it has an atavistic power of destruction that is hard to match. Clearing the fallen tree is complicated by the fact that we let it lie for 8 months, and vast quantities of tree-nettle has grown up among the fallen limbs. So Tam leads the way with loppers, clearing the limbs for me to whack-up with the chainsaw. Teamwork in its finest form!

Saturday morning I woke up “broken” (bad headache), thankfully a nap around lunchtime fixed that problem. The day was simply stunning, and when the conditions are still and warm the obvious choice is to head to a cold and windy place, right? Right! So we hopped in the car and drove down to Makara beach. Makara is in the hills due west of Wellington. While it is only 15 km or so from the city, it is quite isolated. The tiny winding roads play a big role there. The micro-climate also tends towards colder and wilder weather. We wandered down the beach trail for a bit, but had to head back early because we had guests coming over for dinner. Hopefully once we get a little used van we can bring Jim along and take our llama for walks on the beach. That would be cool.

Saturday evening we watched the final 7 episodes of RahXephon. Interesting. They did answer many of the questions. Some day I will have to watch it again and see if I pick up more clues, now that I know which factions people belong to.

Sunday we had warning of a big and nasty storm coming in. A cold and wet southerly, with the storm taking a track very similar to the nasty February storm. Before the storm started we moved the alpaca into the the front yard of the house, where they would have shelter. We moved the horses into the most sheltered paddock (gallop). We determined that Jim and the girls have much more sense than either Oak or Pointer, as they used the cover of the house to protect themselves from the wind and rain while the boys only had the cover from Tam’s car. Oh well, something about leading a horse to water there…

Monday night we watched another studio Ghibli film with Sharon, but not a Miyazaki one in this case- “Grave of the Fireflies.” A movie very few people have seen. A really good movie. Not a happy movie, but a good one. Probably in the top-5 best war movies ever made. All about the happy life in Tokyo, June through September 1945. A movie Americans should be forced to watch. Gave both Tam and I bad dreams, but that is the natural consequence of such a disturbing film. I think an English-dubbed version is now available, should you choose to watch it.