Wednesday 13th May

6.22pm and we have the most spectacular lightning and thunderstorm going on. I’m not going out to get pics, it means going through the trees here to the cliff edge, and the rain is coming in from that direction. Maybe in another year when the camera isn’t quite so new. The thunder sounds like a bowling ball rolling along the boards, then the crackle and flash of the lightning comes after a few seconds.

I know that isn’t the usual sequence, but it seems to happen that way a fair bit here, or else there is more lightning that I don’t see happening further over in the hills.

I’ve been hoping for a good storm out in the bay to get some good pics of, but the weather pattern seems to be holding South at the present. It’s been so humid and hot the last week, I’d almost trade some of the weather that hit NZ the last week, almost.

We’ve been given the go ahead to try for a 2 story building in the Nursery, Forestry are really pushing for us to be out, and if we can get a new building purpose built, it will suit us a lot better. Initial costing is way over our budget by about $500,000, but it had all the bells and whistles which we can do without. Instead of 4 toilets, we’ve cut it to 2, and a few walls we don’t need, so it’s going to look fairly basic, which is good. Office and classroom upstairs which the Japanese will love, anything that has an educational component is exactly what they like to see, and it ties in with my future plans for the Nursery.

I haven’t heard back from Keithie about cutting out the free work, Bruce called a couple of times today about the building proposal, and never mentioned it either. We’re still chasing as much contract work as possible, I’ll catch up with Les at Council tomorrow and twist his arm for the Council Plant Supply Contract for the Nursery. It’s not as spectacular money wise, well, not as quick that is, but selling 200 – 300 plants at a time at $40 - $70 each depending on species certainly fills the coffers.

We had a 15” Diamond Python call into the office today, David saw it outside the door, picked it up and put it in the shrubbery away from the office. The weather is definitely changing, a lot of different things are coming out for the dry season. Beetles, moths, snakes, a lot more green tree lizards around, and the bloody mosquitos are driving me crazy at work along the track. David is going to try to find the python that lives around the lily pond for me, so I can get a photo. It’s about 6’ long and he says it is about 4” thick. I’m guessing it lives quite well off the frogs there. I wish it would catch the cat that lives in the house there, it keeps killing the lizards and skinks around the lily pond, and moves to fast for me to get with a bush knife.

One more day of exams for the students, then a days break Friday, Graduation Ceremony Monday, barbque and food on the lawn area, pics for the paper etc. And hopefully they will all get a job in town with the hotels and other landscape people. They’ve all done well, considering I still use a lot of English, at least I can understand them when they ask anything in toktok pijin. Then it becomes a matter of thinking up a suitable example from here that I can use to demonstrate or explain with.

Family, genus, and species still confused a few, and cultivar/hybrid, so we went back to the Family = Melanesian, Genus = which province they are from, species = wantok, cultivar = themselves. I know it’s a bit of a rough and ready comparison, but it works for them.

The heavy rain has finally arrived, 30 minutes after the thunder started. Pounding down on the trees and roof here.

I’m on a roll tonight, I’ve got electricity, and water both at the same time, so the poor little washing machine is working overtime.

Hopefully I’ll have a quiet day Saturday, and manage to upload some pics to my Webshots albums finally. The connection here is so slow, I’m having to resize all the pics so I don’t spend all day uploading them one at a time.
Hi to Polly (Fionn) in Bantry, nice to see you again.

Pic is of one of the statues carved by Kennedy and Frank in the Museum Grounds