Sun, bikes, and...crickets!

 The last six weeks or so since we last posted have been summer in earnest! The highs most days have been above 28 C (~85 F) and lows around 15 C (60 F) with clear skies most days. It hasn't rained at all until just the past week, which meant the heat was drier than usual. But since the heavy rains we've had in the last week, it's gotten much more humid (80%). The nice weather has meant we've been able to enjoy doing a lot of fun things outside. Our latest adventures have included:

- Trips to the famous Hamilton Gardens on consecutive Saturdays. We can see now why they are one of the most-visited attractions in Hamilton! In addition to several large ponds, lots of walking trails, a big playground, a large rose garden, and a cafe, they also have a large assortment of enclosed gardens from a variety of styles (Japanese, Chinese, British, Medieval, Indian, Herb, etc.). We enjoyed it immensely and are looking forward to visiting again at different seasons. We also were amazed that it's all FREE!

- I (Stephen) got to adventure out again to scout out another geothermal field site for our work in NZ this summer; this site was just a large patch of bare, hot rock (70-90 C) with steam coming up, located in the middle of a sheep pasture, which is exactly what we were looking for! We're planning to come back in early March for our first test of our drilling equipment.

- Ralph has been loving splashing in his little pool in the heat of the day and eating corn, sometimes at the same time! He also turned 18 months old recently; when I asked him to smile for the camera to commemorate his 18 month birthday, this is the face he made. He doesn't quite get what "smiling" means :-)

- Ralph has also been very much enjoying his new tricycle that we got for him! It's bigger than his old one, which he is starting to outgrow, and also has the option to change into a two-wheeled balance bike once he's ready for it. He's been zooming around everywhere on it and loving it!

- Tamara and I recently enjoyed going out for a date to the Zealong Tea Estate, which is the only tea plantation in New Zealand, located just 5 minutes up the road from us. The tea (all organic) and food were all delicious and the setting was beautiful!

- Last weekend, since Monday was a public holiday, we went away to the Coromandel Peninsula (northeast part of NZ) and stayed at a holiday park just a 15 minute walk from Hot Water Beach, which is where a hot spring wells up underneath a beach. Within 2 hours either side of low tide, the hot water is accessible, as long as you dig down a little ways. The mixing of the hot water (60C) from underneath and the ocean water makes for a perfect little personal spa (in theory). Unfortunately, as seems to be a theme for our NZ vacations, we timed our trip to coincide with a large rain system. It rained almost non-stop during the 2 days we were there, which meant going to any beach wasn't much fun. We still enjoyed ourselves as best we could, including bouncing on the jumping pillow, digging in the sand in the rain (Ralph liked it, except for the ocean), several encounters with families of California quail, and several rides around the park in the pedal bikes you can rent from the camp (note that the pedals are in the back, so I'm pedaling for the whole family in this picture!).

- We went blueberry picking recently on the property of a family in Hamilton who bought some property that used to be a blueberry farm. They didn't want to keep up the blueberries, so they've opened it up to anyone who wants to come to pick blueberries for free! Ralph loved it, since blueberries are one of his favorite fruits currently.

- On the theme of food, we have been enjoying the produce from our garden. The green beans, lettuce, beets, and spinach are mostly finished (except for a few stragglers). Our cucumber plants are still too small to make cucumbers right now. The primary product of our garden currently is cherry tomatoes, yielding 10+ cherry tomatoes per day! We've used them in salads, curries, pizzas, as tomato sauce, pizza sauce, and just for snacking (Ralph's favorite way of eating them). But they just keep coming!

(a sample harvest from mid-January of tomatoes and green beans)

- As the title would suggest, we've also had a lot of encounters with crickets lately...not the cute little native New Zealand crickets, but black field crickets. They are invasive and large and have wings and are disgusting. They started invading our house a couple weeks ago; we think they have been especially invasive in our house because it was so dry for so long. One of our first encounters was when one flew in through our window while we were watching a movie and started hopping around on the floor! We were also woken up another night by one hopping around on our windowsill and headboard. After several experiences like this, we've started closing our house every evening and barricading the door to the garage to make sure they don't come in. We've noticed increasing numbers of them dead around the outside of our house, so we think maybe they're coming to the end of their adult lives soon, which would be fantastic!

-Stephen