And as the years go by our friendship will never die (Randy Newman)

One of the hardest things in life is saying goodbye to an old friend. This post is dedicated to Bazil.

I had to make a hard call this week with Bazil. He was in a lot of pain and we couldn't allow him to continue to suffer.  

He had been on a cocktail of drugs for a while and his old body had been showing signs lately that while his mind was willing, his legs and body and hearing weren't. 

Dogs give love and loyalty unconditionally.

Bazil was an amazing pet and as Jade posted on her Facebook - a beautiful soul. 

When she was just about to enter teenagerhood, Samantha worked on me for two years - she would love a puppy. In the end I gave in. 

Bazil was a nightmare as a puppy! Noisy mainly but he quickly endeared himself to us via his insatiable appetite - anything was fine with him; and his playfulness (Samantha set up obstacle courses around the house and Bazil loved racing around trying to please her).

After a time Bazie just became part of our family (extended family too - when we went overseas on our adventures Sallie provided a new playground for him) and we thought he'd last forever.

Of course, that proved impossible and so we had to say goodbye. 

Now it's quite weird around Rochdene this week with no noisy Bazie presence (his breathing was a struggle). Whenever I have worked outside for the past 13 years he has always been within three metres of me. Now there's a large gap where he should be.

Old age catches up with all of us. Even that seedling in the styrofoam cup eventually dies. Doesn't make that moment any easier though, does it!

We love you. Rest in peace Bazie - you deserve it!

Love and peace - Wozza 

I have only one burning desire, let me stand next to your fire (Jimi Hendrix)

You know that post I did a couple back about autumn's non arrival and the burn pile? Well guess what, it did the trick.

It's been raining. It's colder. The skies are grey. It's darker earlier. Daylight saving has ended. The fire restrictions have been lifted! 

As you can see - we celebrated!

Satisfyingly, even though the pile was a bit damp after some recent rain, it went up quickly.

Given that we are now enjoying a late autumn I thought it apposite to include some other autumn flavours in the spirit of Keats.

Here are five things I love about autumn:

1 The picture on the left has me and Bazil enjoying the milder autumn weather while also enjoying the fire. 

Bazie is old now, pretty much deaf, not the best at following me into the Red Phoenix Farm paddocks any more, can't jump into cars any longer, a little night blind, has to take some daily medications, doesn't like the high heat of a Nu Zild summer or the numbing cold of our winter. 

So autumn is perfect for him.

2 Keeping with an animal theme -this Bruegel picture - The Return Of The Herd (Autumn) - captures a wonderful essence: the gathering dark clouds, the still brown hills gaining some green, the change of clothing and the trees shedding their leaves. Love this!

3 Best short read on the essence and lessons of autumn? Try this http://peterborten.com/all/the-essence-and-lessons-of-autumn/

4 Bob Dylan composed this terrific song about a relationship. Like summer, it's ended and the winds are starting to howl. Johnny Cash's voice is a perfect complement and the whole thing is made even more wistful by the wonderful visual of a brooding sunset. Genius. 

Watch the clouds go by. Go on - you won't regret it!

5 Ed Sheeran is touring Nu Zild at the moment - this charming young man - so here's an Ed moment to finish us off.


Love and peace - Wozza

You better watch out there may be dogs about (Pink Floyd)

I wrote in the previous post that we recently welcomed Coronation Street back into our lives and that theme has continued with the return of Dookie from Fanfa's care in Wellington. She's off to the city by the bay in a few weeks time and Jade did the mission of mercy trip to bring the Dookster back to the farm.

The menagerie is back to full strength. Time for a round up of the whole crew.

Bazie and Dookie

Waffles

Zen

 Max

 Meg

and the sheep 

x11

( plus the 2 rams who are cooling their heals in a different paddock as we await the lambs)

Speaking of expectant mothers...I think she's carrying a few.

Rest assured I will post pictures of the newbie lambs when they arrive (and survive - unfortunately I've had to bury a couple already).

Love and peace - Wozza

Oh you are such a pretty one (Leonard Cohen)

A couple of housekeeping matters to take care of in this post as I respond to some of your questions.

1. What does SWMBO mean? And for that matter LOML? I refer to Jacky (the person I celebrated 28 years of marriage with recently) in a variety of ways. She crops up in these posts from time to time as 'She Who Must Be Obeyed' (SWMBO), and/or 'Light Of My Life' (LOML). It's simple when you know right?

2. Where on earth are you both? We now live on a 12 acre lifestyle block of land near a tiny little place called Otane (has a general store, a cafe, a few houses, a primary school,  a pub, a memorial to those who died in the First and Second World Wars and a great garden centre called Tree Guys). This is about 40 mins southwest of Napier on New Zealand's east coast of the North Island. We are also close to a slightly larger town called Waipawa (which somehow appears on the map below for some bizarre reason).

3. So how is it being back then? Well it's definitely different. The trees are all starting to change colour around us and that's a real treat again. The food on the supermarket shelves is now recognisable and the idea of having alcohol available in the foodmarket is just surreal. I'm struggling with watching Arsenal play at 1.45 in the morning and having little spare time to write blogs, read, or practice the guitar is also annoying. But balancing that are all the green hills, autumn weathers, blue skies with clouds, and other familiar things I've grown up with.

4. Samantha read my last posting and said - yeah good but what about Waffles??

Waffles (a.k.a. Wafi, Mr Waffles, and sometimes even Waffle) is our new cat.

Jacky wanted to wait until I got back to Nu Zild before going 'cat shopping' as she called it. I think it was about three days before we (Jade and Samantha tagged along as well) duly went to the SPCA in Waipukarau (a town a little further south from Waipawa - I hope you're keeping up!). They had about 100 cats from tiny kittens to full grown cats.

I'm a firm believer in cats choosing you (rather than the other way around) and a very sweet ginger cat immediately made a bee line for me and Jade. It helped a lot that he was not a young kitten so he was toilet trained and he thinks dogs are great fun.

I've named him Waffles (or Wafi for short after the Wafi Mall in Dubai) and he's turned into a very smoochy cat. He follows me around the farm all day and is pretty fearless, he took a swipe at Jacky's horse when the horse wanted to see what the ball of fluff at his feet was doing.

Waffles joins a growing menagerie. We currently have SWMBO's horses - Zen and two horses that are kindly being lent to her - Meg (for Jade to ride apparently) and Max (from whanau member Margie in Hastings); Samantha's dogs - Bazil and Dookie (although he is currently in Wellington for a few months with Jesse and Sam); and 13 sheep.



Dookie, Jade, Bazil and Fanfa



Jade, Zen, Mabelle and Max



Love and peace - Wozza



I'm just a soul whose intentions are good (The Animals)

This one is about our animals. Sometimes it's tough to keep track of them all but here we go.


The before restoration Jimi front

 Starting with Jimi, or as Adam calls him - the dumpster cat!

The before restoration Jimi back

The story so far - you will recall that Jacky rescued Jimi from a miserable fate a month ago. He was lying in our garage looking next to death's door. His tail had been shredded, he was malnourished and dehydrated and was maybe a day away from systems failure and a painful demise. He looked miserable!

He spent a week at the vets, had his tail amputated and then we've spent the last three weeks restoring his health (on NZ beef, cooked of course).

Our aim has been to find Jimi a good home here with a western family. An aussie lady called Peta has been working on that and she's found an animal mad South African couple who have adopted wee Jimi.
He now looks fatter and healthier and we can feel good that we gave him a second chance at life. We said farewell to the lad today and wished him our best.

Here are the latest images of him. As you see he has come a long way.

The animals we left behind in Nu Zild with friends and family while we took off on our crazy adventure in the sandpit are still on our minds.

Our cavoodle called Dookie is being looked after by some of Samantha's friends in Wellington until she returns from San Francisco in a few months time.

Bazil, our border collie with a dab of springer cross, is back at his second home with Sallie after a brief stay with Jade. Baz loves walks through Sallie's farm, lounging in the Hawke's Bay sunshine and rain. He especially loves the dead things found on the farm from time to time. Here he is visiting my Buddha shrine which Sallie is also kindly minding for us.

And that's it for the NZ contingent. Sadly Soda (my cat) has been a casualty of our overseas adventure. Entrusted to in-laws, Soda unfortunately ran away to freedom. I hope he found his own Jacky like Jimi did!

But wait...there's more. The latest addition to this menagerie has joined this weekend.

Jacky has bought a horse back in NZ. His name is Strike Irish and we are busy thinking of a new paddock name for him.

Love and peace - Wozza