Equine & Rabbit

My new minilop Cody checking out my Autumn petunias

Autumn Petunias and Marigolds

I simply cannot believe that it has been seven months since I did a last post on my Blog.  What to say….where to begin.

Well for a start my son Jesse finished school last year for good and went back briefly this year (for two weeks only) to resit Geometry to obtain the final two credits to achieve his Certificate in Steiner Education Level 1.  Which he now has achieved!  By the skin of his teeth!  But a pass is a pass and we now await his Cert to be sent to us.  Now he is at EIT and studying Level 2 Automotives & Fabrication and has made a few awesome welding projects, completed a big assignment, and after the Semester break coming up soon, is attempting to start the Automotive part (currently doing Engineering) and is also in the process of applying to do Level 3 Automotives & Engineering with a focus on one or the other.  Apparently in the Level 3 course you choose your life’s direction a bit more and decide you’ll fully study Automotives or fully study Engineering – but you don’t cover a bit of both as you do in the Level 2 course.  I am quietly hoping he’ll go down the path of Automotives over Engineering but both are absolutely fine….I just see him overall more mechanically minded since he has had a passion for anything with wheels on it since an early child.

For me, well….last year I went two whole months without having to take drugs for my neck related headaches thanks to a powerful health regime consisting of copious vitamins and 4.5 hours of sauna time each day for a month that I undertook in Auckland.  Since then, I have been good but not quite so good.  I have relented on occasion back to the pain relief supplied by drugs for my unstable hypermobile neck and resultant secondary cervicogenic daily headaches.  I don’t feel remorse, I get through the days in the best way I can and overall I am healthier I hope for having had that drug-break for a while.

Under my belt I now have my Animal Science Cert Level 2 via Southern Institute of Technology….and Vet Assistant Cert via Learning Cloud.  This year I have taken myself out of the study realm for a while with an intention to go back to it mind you.  I don’t know the reason, I guess I felt I needed a wee break and the benefit of distance study is you can apply for a new intake anytime you like.  There is no time limit so to speak, if you don’t get into one intake, you just wait some months and then another intake will start for the course you want to do regardless.  The benefit of distance learning for older introverts like me is awesome.  I could never sit in a classroom these days at the ripe old age of 47.
Real Estate work is going well, Shaun keeps me reasonably busy and I have some new stuff going on with his social media business page and so forth.  I am happy in my work, it flows well.

Another “big” thing is that we settled on a Gold Coast Apartment Unit in October of last year and this year the three of us will go over there for 10 days and have a nice time right on the beach in our very own Apartment Unit which also is being booked out by relatives at the moment!  After us, my inlaws will stay there and then my sister-in-law and her friend.  It is awesome to own a beachside apartment unit.  We will get very used to going over there to use it though I do need to find a closer chiropractor than the Tugun one I see currently on the Gold Coast.  He is awesome though, and the benefit of my ‘instability problem’ is that chiropractors are a dime a dozen in any country so I can still travel to Australia with the knowledge that I have chiropractors near me when I need them.

At home lately – well I have experimented in the garden and have planted a heap of cosmos as well as a few other new plants – nasturtiums etc as well as trialling new herbs in the vege garden – chamomile, thai basil to name a few).  As well as the old faithfuls in my flower garden of roses, petunias, marigolds, geraniums and impatiens (impatiens plants never like me though – I don’t understand why!).  I pulled out a lot of hollyhock which takes over everything else in the garden, over-shadowing other stuff so it can’t grow or see the sun which is annoying to me so out it comes.  I made the mistake of planting everything too close together as well and now must find some large garden stakes to hold the tall cosmos up and make it look somewhat presentable as with Autumn mild weather currently, the garden is flourishing but at the same time looks like a messy too-close-together-but-colourful wild old cottage garden.   For the vege garden I’ve discovered snail traps – you fill a container with beer and sugar and the snails climb in and drown.  Go figure it works!

I also had a terrible time with my rabbits recently and some passed away and I got new ones and some old faithfuls didn’t pass away; and then to cut a long story short I inadvertently contracted E.Cuniculi disease in my rabbits causing them all to now be on anti-parasitic and antibiotic medication.  I lost rabbits, I gained rabbits since my last post.  I suffered through copious vet visits and seizures and meds and so forth….and I’ve come out the other side.  There’s sadly a few more rabbit graves in the garden and my rabbit total is now old Brer Rabbit (nine) little Cody (10-11 weeks) and little Lucca (roughly 13 weeks old).  I lost Dandelion last year and Mrs Rabbit/Blackie to GI stasis and old age respectively; and then Gypsy to an unknown cause.  And I lost new bunnies Piper and Ben to E.Cuniculi this year in an attempt to bring in ‘friends’ for old Brer to keep him company when Mrs Rabbit and Dandelion and Gypsy died.  Wow….since last writing, I have lost five rabbits in total! Too many.  Rabbits are such vulnerable pets at times…and yet on the other hand I’ve had old Brer for nine years and I had Mrs Rabbit / Black Sambino for eight years.  Some just have better immunity than others, just like humans I guess.

I also had a rat problem which overtook everything, I was out baiting and trapping and caught 11 rats overall!  Rats come frequently as are drawn to rabbit food and walnuts (thanks Autumn).   I am now rather a rat-catcher extraordinaaire and regularly bait and set traps.

Speaking of Autumn, we have walnuts falling and apples on our tree.  I love Autumn, I love the beautiful smell in the evening of people’s fires going, wood burning, mixed with the scent of my garden, lamb roasts cooking in the oven, apple and rhubarb crumbles, the light mornings and dark evenings, the prolific flow of walnuts and apples everywhere around our property and the neighbouring orchards, the cozy nights and warm sweaters and good food and hot chocolate and hot tea and coffee.  What is there not to love about Autumn except that it precedes winter of course.

My challenges currently are a new thing called the “40 day challenge”.  This consists of different things you can do for 40 days straight (the idea being that after 40 days of consecutively doing something, you’ll do it forever more anyway.).  So far I am into day 17 of a 40 day walking challenge; day 11 of a 40 day yoga challenge and day two(!) of a 40 day sauna challenge!  Add to that my rabbits challenge – a month of giving each rabbit medication for the E.Cuniculi disease outbreak I had here.  That in itself is a challenge!

I fell back recently, times got tough, headaches were bad, my rabbits got E.Cuniculi, Shaun was not getting listings after appraisals, I was feeling down and off, worried about random stuff and health issues.   These are still worries currently.

But I am not a quitter and with all these new challenges and a trip to Australia in June to look forward to, life will get better.

2018….you’ve been somewhat tough to me lately.  It is time for me to fight back and stand on my own and say “OK!  Bring it on….you can give me health issues, rabbit issues, issues at work…. but I am still no quitter.  Don’t think you have the better of me yet….you don’t”

I don’t know when my next update on my blog will be….hopefully in less time than it took between this post and the last one!  Roll on beautiful Autumn 2018….and please – lighten up a little on me.

Huckleberry Finn Ram was allowed in the grounds along with the other sheep to trim down the Spring grass growth

Spring has sprung in the beautiful Hawke’s Bay and so much has happened this year for me to update on.

Sheep enjoying being let into the grounds to munch down the spring grass

Firstly we have bought a beachside apartment on the Gold Coast….settlement is October and I am intensely excited.

Secondly I achieved some personal goals of mine to which I am also excited about – I successfully completed my Basic Animal Science Level 2 Certificate via Southern Institute of Technology and are now onto Veterinary Assistant Cert via a different organisation.

Thirdly this will be my son Jesse’s final year at school and he is sitting Steiner School Certificate (equivalent of NCEA Level 1) and has enrolled at EIT (Eastern Institute of Technology) for 2018 to do an Automotive & Engineering course next year to gain some foundation skills in that line of work.   Fourthly rural real estate will pick up for Shaun now that Spring has sprung and already new listings are coming on board and I have his business facebook page working successfully with changes also made to his website as well.

2017 is a year of many changes happening and/or on the brink of happening and this excites me (well on the inside it does…albeit I rarely show excitement on the outside! (introvert).  I love Spring….I love everything about it.  The fact I can plant new things and my vege gardens will now flourish, my outdoor pond fish are happy (with one fat one I suspect full of eggs and new fish to come!) and all have new names: Odysseus, Melanthius, Telemachus, Polyphemus and Archimedes (yes my son has been studying Greek Mythology!), my rabbits have a new cover in their outdoor area which keeps them so much more dryer and I am quietly working on their vege gardens so they may be flourishing for them over the coming weeks with copious new greens.  The sheep have lambed or are in lamb and the spring grass growth is plentiful.

There is a New Zealand General Election coming up which is probably the only unnerving thing this year (with buying a property in Australia we need the NZ – Aus Exchange rate to steady somewhat and this won’t happen with an Election).  And finally….I live to see another month.  I went almost two months without having to take pain relief for my unstable neck and headache problems and I know I can get back to that again now that I’ve done it once via a special holistic health centre in Auckland.  September and Spring is a time of promise, of looking forward and also of just ‘being in the moment’.  As I said, roll on warmer weather, daffodils, sunshine, nature walks, beach visits and all else that this time of the year will entail..

New (deaf) bunny Dandelion rescued from Rabbit Rescue

View from our beachside apartment on the Gold Coast

Gosh its been so long since I’ve written a new blog post.  Let’s recap on the past year I guess.  I have now just one paper left to go before fully completing my SIT Basic Animal Science Level 2 Certificate and then will be onto further vet certification of a higher grading.  I am also completing a Veterinary Assistant Cert via Learning Cloud in Sept of this year, a different course via a different learning institution.

Work is busy and learning a new computer system and new ideas from Shaun keep me entertained / informed with my admin job at Property Brokers, always new things changing at work and new things to learn to keep the job interesting.

Jesse is now in his 5th form year at school (year 11) and completing his Steiner School Certificate Level 1.  Though not academic, he’ll try his best with this and also do an Automotive course in July.  Last year in July Shaun and I headed to the Gold Coast for Shaun’s 50th birthday of which we will be returning this July (next month) with Jesse as well.  We looked at property over there, beachside apartments appeal greatly (we stayed at one and we love the Gold Coast)….but its very costly to buy overseas.  We sold one rental and are considering selling the other back here in Hawke’s Bay to maybe finance buying on the Gold Coast but this remains a dream for now with nothing concrete in place yet.

My rabbits – I now have a deaf rabbit called Dandelion – a minilop and Gypsy (not sure of her breed), both adopted from Rabbit Rescue where I volunteered and after losing Peter Rabbit to the neighbours dog….and also my old faithfuls Brer Rabbit and Black Sambino Rabbit.

What else has happened…. I’ve completed a Purification Rundown programme to detoxify me from 20 years of daily painkiller usage due to my hypermobility.  And I remain interested in all things rural, my sheep, my free range rabbits, improving my vege gardens and normal garden… and immersing myself in nature blogs and soothing music when I can do so.  Having fallen off the exercise wagon once again, I’m slowly getting back on it.

Life is going well to be honest.  It’s busy, a real busy time both in rural real estate and in Jesse’s Steiner School Cert studies and also for me in my vet studies.  But I thrive on being busy.  I can’t complain….life is good right now

My Brer Rabbit checking on my SIT assignment

Me and hubby Christmas Day 2015 ♥

And so this is midway through 2016.  And I guess I am midway through my goals right now too.  I have passed two papers in my Animal Science Cert (yes I was accepted btw since my last post way back in January) and these were the rabbits/rodents and ruminant health papers.  I’ve done work experience at Vet Associates who were kind enough to take me on temporarily to give me practical experience for my studies.  I’m continuing on with working voluntarily at Rabbit Rescue Hawke’s Bay who seems to be turning into Rabbit/Dog/Kitten/Guinea Pig rescue these days.  I am now on Companion Cat Health and ID and also will undertake further papers via the Southern Institute of Technology over the coming months.  Also…I have signed up with Learning Cloud – another distance learning organization and will undertake a Veterinary Assistant course starting Dec 2016.  Things are definitely on the improve when it comes to getting the brain working and studying along the animal lines!

On the headache front….I made the (wise?) decision to purchase my own chiropractic activator.  You have to understand that for a person with extreme hypermobility and instability in the neck like I have, this wasn’t a hard decision in the end.  I haven’t mastered the skill of destroying a headache with the activator – yet.  Somestimes I almost know exactly where to point the activator on my neck to adjust a misaligned vertebrae but I am hesitant than I am not a trained chiropractor (even though I’ve gone to 17 different ones over the past 20 years) I still could do further damage with unskilled hands trying to adjust my own neck!  So it’s a trial and error process clicking here and there with the chiro activator on the lowest setting and holding my breath!

My fitness and times spent at the gym diminished over the early months of the year….and so I got into walking.  Walking up Te Mata Peak on a regular basis.  And from there I decided “OK fitness needs improving more than the odd hike up the mountain”…time to get back to the gym.  And so I did.  Once you fall off that gym wagon you got to get straight back up on it again – eventually!  I’m even back with the old personal trainer albeit once a fortnight only with regular gym inbetween.

I was sad to lose Peter Rabbit after six years – he was attacked presumably by a dog after burrowing for the umpteenth time into the neighbours orchard.  It was sad, unavoidable that one day he’d come to his demise if he kept doing that.  A tragedy to lose him, RIP Peter.

Jesse fails to improve too much in his school work and the second half of the year will be spent making a conscious effort in all ways possible.  Even a dyslexia tutor I think would be ideal.  He spent this year involved in the MPowered Dyslexia Learning Caravan at school though and I think that did help him.  Now that that is over, however, I need to find a dyslexia tutor to help him further.  One on one type help as Steiner School Certificate will impact his life next year and we need to be prepared. Continue reading →

Speak to me of Serenity

The value of being quiet is under-estimated.  Sometimes people think if you are active on social media, then you are a lively person in real life.  For me, this is not the case.  Many of the most introverted people I know are active on social media.  I can type a random blog, I can tweet, I can update my facebook status.  I can talk about animals, farming, gardening, real estate, waffle on about my chronic daily cervicogenic headaches, Waldorf Education, horticulture, anything that takes my fancy….online.  In fact, give me a listening ear of a good friend like my soul sister Wendee and we will talk and laugh together for hours.

But when you meet me in person, I am incredibly quiet and would rather listen to what you have to say than talk about what I have to say.   To be an introvert is to be told you are “too shy” in public get-togethers.  It’s to be told you don’t “contribute” in class discussions as a kid at school and need to be more “outgoing”.  It’s to have to force out small talk with the chatty check out girl when you are at the check-out counter at the supermarket when you’d rather stare off into space, hand over your eftpos card and get out of there as quickly as damn well possible.

It’s when you go to the gym at 4am so you can purposely be there with just one or two other people and nobody has to actually talk to each other.  It’s when you go out for a walk in the countryside in the light rain and get a feeling of immense pleasure in the peacefulness of sheer solitude.  When you log into facebook and breathe a sigh of relief that you actually don’t have your “chat” function on by mistake and someone pops up to talk to you.

It’s when your greatest joy is looking forward to coming home to an empty house.  When you purposely head into work on a weekend because you know you can work alone and achieve a lot more than when you are working in a busy environment.  When the sound of silence is the most calming thing in the world to you.  It’s when you spend a day in the garden to invigorate yourself and hardly see another soul all day and that’s just perfect.  When having “no plans” is the best plan.  When you live, like I do, close to town but in the countryside…surrounded by the birdsong, sheep and cattle. Not cars, horns and traffic noise.

This is who I am.  I am quiet.  I am not ‘sad’.  I am not ‘shy’.  I am not ‘weird’.  I am not ignoring nor am I avoiding you and I am not a snob.  I am simply being quiet because well….  Perhaps I just have nothing relevant to say.

Get to know me.  I keep to myself – but I’m not too scary I promise:)

Don’t judge me.  I am an Introvert….respect me and I’ll respect you back in kind.

I love my Nutbrown Hare to the Moon and Back

And so this is Christmas….

As I look back over 2015 I have to wonder what went wrong with this year.  It started out well enough; fitness trainer, Flexaclinic cervicogenic headache injections, positivity, enthusiasm.  But somewhere along the line my good old hypermobility and neck problems continued to plague me and despite my best efforts I saw the end of the year on as many headache drugs as I started the year on.  Even a new one added to the mix – Topamax.

Despite this…its been a good year in other regards.  My son Jesse, now one year of Rudolf Steiner schooling under his belt, and properly diagnosed as dyslexic, will undergo a programme next year to help him with his dyslexia and integrate a new learning style into his schooling.  Jesse is very capable but continually lacks focus.  His brain thinks in pictures rather than words.  He can do extraordinary things like taking apart an entire van and giving a speech about every single mechanical part of it in class….yet his reading and writing is below his age (though not by much) because simply, his brain is wired to learn and think in a different way.   Steiner schooling recognises that not every child is wired to learn in the same way and takes action where action is needed when they discover dyslexia tendencies in a child.  This is why we have him in such a school.

I’m wondering what my goals will be for the New Year 2016.  I’ve become quite introverted this year; moreso than I already am.  I continue with my gardening, and have undertaken voluntary work in the new Hawke’s Bay Rabbit Shelter, the SPCA and if accepted, will also undertake in 2016 an Animal Science Certificate at Southern Institute of Technology via distance learning leading onto Vet Science after that.  Having already got the text books, I await to hear back from the Programme Manager if I will be accepted or not.  I am looking forward to beating my brain into some kind study mode again.    Headaches daily make my brain foggy…study wakes it up….if that makes sense.   Living with chronic pain now for near on 20 years has made me very tired in more ways than one.  If I don’t have things to focus on I fear I will fall into depression….hence my new study goal.  I’ll get there.  It’s a daily battle.

At work….well work is work.  Real estate work is busy over the Spring Summer period and I am very much behind in my administration job through too much time off this year.  This Christmas will see me at the office, while quiet, catching up basically.  I love working in the office while staff are on Christmas leave.  This is the introvert in me at my best.  The best thing about my job….is my husband is my boss.  When I am sick…he knows I am really sick.

And so this is Christmas…..and maybe I’ll get through 2016.  And maybe I won’t.  To be honest, now I am middle aged in my mid 40′s, I don’t think too far ahead for the future any longer.  I know my time is limited and so 2016….I wonder what you hold in store for me.  You’ve given me a good family, a good life.  Not a life free of pain but then again….you can’t have everything.

Jesse started Taikura Rudolf Steiner High School this year….a school split into two parts – one being the Lower School (Kindergarten and Primary/Intermediate)….and then the other, on the other side of the somewhat surrounding nature (for this is a school in the middle of town yet purposely shrouded in native bush and trees) stands the Higher School (High School students)

Waldorf Education is a holistic type of schooling I have become very passionate about involving my son in and as such I waited six years on the waiting list to even get him into such a school.  It is based on the principals of Anthroposophy, a spiritual philosophy developed by Rudolf Steiner in the 19^th century and beyond.

The first Rudolf Steiner schools were started in Germany, Steiner being of Austrian origin…and Rudolf Steiner himself, was greatly influenced by the works of Goethe, a notable figure in German culture since the 19^th century.   As a result, Rudolf Steiner beliefs were favourably linked in history with German idealist philosophies.

Hawke’s Bay had the very first Rudolf Steiner school in New Zealand and continues to also house “Taruna” a Steiner based Adult Educational centre where people may go to study Applied Organics and Biodynamic farming, Holistic / Anthroposophical health, Rudolf Steiner Waldorf Education (with the aim to teaching in a Waldorf Steiner school) and other shorter courses covering details of the therapeutic classroom wherein flax weaving, crafts, drawing, healing plants are learned and practised for once again, applying into the Steiner classroom.  In Hawke’s Bay we also have Weleda, the Anthroposophical Healing Centre Headquarters of NZ…. so the Steiner focus is very much a part of my particular area of New Zealand.

The Kindergarten at Taikura Rudolf Steiner school is a sight to be seen – children in nature playing with wooden toys (plastic ones are banned here), the back to basics approach, the very noticeable and rather intriguing lack of parent/teacher PC worry (that would normally cover each child in an invisible type of cotton wool in case they might hurt themselves which is so prevalent in other mainstream schools and kindys)….in a Waldorf school you will find little of this worry – kids are playing freely and even up in trees without the worry that they, heaven forbid, might fall out and hurt themselves.  You’ll find children being children again, no technological influence, just good old outside play in nature, building dwarf houses, baking, painting, working with hammer and nails.  It might make you think you were going back in time but isn’t that so refreshing….the lack of IT influence in the Higher School, though it is a subject,  is not emphasised ….in Steiner schools the use of technology is limited in favour of old fashioned blackboards and basic handwriting in books.  As teens progress up the ladder towards the Steiner School Certificate (equivalent of NCEA), they do get a small chance to work on computers and a bit of IT focus as this is part of the world today….but it is a very small focus in a Steiner school for young minds must develop without always staring at a screen.

Art and Music is very much encouraged and emphasised and if children wish to play sport – so be it, there are plenty to be offered.  But the big difference in a Steiner school is that sport is not the be all and end all and if you don’t wish to play sport, then don’t play it.  From my personal viewpoint, it is somewhat of a shame other New Zealand mainstream state schools don’t have the casual attitude towards sport that a Steiner school has….then again we are such a sport focussed nation in this country it is hard for those of us to whom sport doesn’t come naturally.

If your child is struggling, there are speciality teachers available in a Steiner school for the dyslexic or autistic child.

Hawke’s Bay also has “Hohepa” – a Special Needs school and Organic Farming place which caters for those students of whom can’t be placed in a normal school and Hohepa itself is based also on Rudolf Steiner philosophies.

You can start to see Hawke’s Bay itself is very much influenced by Rudolf Steiner.

The Festivals are celebrated in a Steiner school – Autumn, Spring, Winter, Summer.  Eurythmy – a type of movement is also emphasised as an enhancement to the brain’s learning ability.

In short, this school is everything I could want for in the type of education I want my son to experience.  I look forward to five years of Jesse’s High Schooling in a Rudolf Steiner school….and I know that out of it, he will become a well-rounded individual capable of living in the world as it is today with his own ideas and expectations and not somehow moulded into a box of “sameness as everyone else”

After all, it was Rudolf Steiner himself that penned the quote: “The need for imagination, a sense of truth and a feeling of responsibility….these are the three forces in which are the very nerve of education”

….hiding in my Autumn petunias I am sure

When will I find

That land of Narnia

I’ve been searching for

for so long

at the back

of my

wardrobe…

Pity the poor

in spirit

for they know neither the

enchantment

nor the beauty

..of Language.