Green Tomatoes on the Vine/Red Tomatoes on the Windowsill

The wild birds are eating anything that starts turning orange. Vegetables are disappearing that I so lovingly planted and cared for and so I had to get ruthless. I now pick the fruit the moment it begins to change colors.

We’re coming out of several days of rain in a row. Dark days of reduced vision and increased cold with plenty of wind were in store for us all week. My chickens look frazzled and to counteract the dismal days and worse nights, many of my recent little chicks pile up onto the bench where they used to sit to wait for morsels of food from me. Every time I try to snap a good enough shot of them doing this, some birds just hide their heads in their feathers that they’re preening. Afterwards I see what they’ve left me on the bench and the surrounding pavement. Quite an output of droppings to clean up. Now I know why I had to stop feeding them near the house. But what do they know about that? Nothing much it seems to me as I hose down the area after removing each horrifying blob. Then I briskly swept the pathways in all directions and felt satisfied for the first time in several days that the place was tidy again. I guess it was sort of restored to its former glory if you could call my disparate collection of gardening tools and gumboots and the like, glory.

It was Valentine’s Day on Tuesday and on that day here the cyclone hit the north island. Lives have been lost and properties have been demolished from slipping hillsides and fallen trees and flooding has cut off the power for the majority in certain places. The storm has gone around the top of the island and turned south and has demolished much in its wake in the town where my son in law works, Napier, an hour or so from the property where he lives with my daughter and grandson. Their place was not in danger. It is far from the sea but Napier and Hastings have been hit hard. So, these dark days have been filled with anguish along with rain.

I’d like to end this on a happier note but people are still missing and are feared dead. These last few years have been fraught with events that are very disheartening. I’m hoping that we will soon be onto better days and happier times. In the meantime, I watch the tomatoes turn red almost overnight on the window ledge in the kitchen. Right now, they’re just the smaller cherry tomatoes, but soon the larger varieties will be ripening and they will take pride of place on that ledge. I may have to move some of my cutesy knick-knacky things to facilitate that. But it will only be temporary and they will soon be back to look at when I wash the dishes and see the view beyond the windows of the gorgeous trees outside.