pasturesnew

Kia ora and welcome to the website for pasturesnew.
These pages have been created for our family and friends to keep in touch with our adventures in our wonderful new home which is located in an area of great scenic beauty on the South Island of New Zealand. Although we do indeed have pasture and woolly lawn-mowers, our ten acre property is mainly regenerating kanuka with an abundance of native birds including the bellbird/korimako, wood pigeon/kererü, silvereye/tauhou, grey warbler/riroriro and the fantail/pïwakawaka.

In July 2002, after nearly 28 years living in England, we decided to move to New Zealand. It was as much a shock to us as it was to our friends and relatives. In one of those mad moments, one of us made the suggestion and another looked on the internet to see what house prices looked like on the Banks Peninsula.

We fell in love with the description of the second property that came up. There were some vague photographs but the description was enough for us: "4 ha scenic paradise, streams, native bush, native birds - sea, hill and bush views". From that point, we managed to do almost everything over the internet from the shipping agent to the arrangements for our pets and eventually for setting up the various services for the house.

The About pages record our experiences as we get to know the property and work out how we are going to manage it. This will include the history of the property, what we are doing to conserve the native species in our woodland and what we are doing to make the property self-sufficient.

We inherited the sheep with the property and it seemed like a good idea to have some lawn-mowers. However, keeping them fed and healthy does seem to take up a lot of our lives - so the Sheep have their own page.

Keeping the garden under control is also likely to take over our lives. There have been flowers all winter and through the spring something new came into flower every day - so the Garden too has its own page.

Pippa's Diary gives a unique insight into life here from the perspective of the real boss of the family - the most recent entries are at the top of the page so start at the bottom if you want to follow the whole story.

Never in a million years did we imagine that we would be out in the front paddock with torches at one o'clock in the morning checking on new-born lambs or needing the equipment described on the Big Boys Toys page.

Look out for other pages that are not in the navigator but are links on home-page images. Naustalgia records Ann's return to South Australia after 24 years away and we have even made a page for Jess, a very special plate. The monthly summaries at the bottom of the home-page are stored in the Archive.

The Links page records the various services that we made use of to get here and those we have called upon to help us since arriving. We have already had to make use of electrician, phone engineer, plumber, shepherd, tree surgeon, roofer and a drain layer. The gutters and downpipes have been replaced but the roof still leaks - most other things are now working.

• Our first tenants move into the flat created in the basement - they are visiting ecologists and we have high hopes for a detailed bird list before they leave.
• Darren reads his first novel - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and starts a second one.
• The herb and vegetable gardens are created with the help of a digger and tip-truck.