Southerly: Things to be Grateful For: A Snowy Morning
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Star sky and huts...
As an old Antarctic explorer...
Depending on when you went down, you may've had to put up with my really crap illustrations in the reversible Field Manual/First Aid Manual - Did you ever have to get a skidoo out of a crevasse?
I originally laid it all out for NZAP and they said they didn't have the budget for getting a real illustrator, and embarassingly they were still using the illustrations when they became Antarctic New Zealand - by then they'd gone all corporate and were talking about having spot metallic inks on the cover, I talked them out of that, saying surely there were more important things to spend money on down there - though gawd knows what they are doing now days...
I even did a waterproof dive manual for them, and a recipe book, amongst other things, for about decade.
My most memorable project was stitching together a panorama of Cape Roberts to be given to the project manager when they finished the drill - the pictures I was using were taken on the very day I was born in 1957 - just at the start of the International Geophysical Year - spooky feeling... -
Islander, in reply to
That is truly fascinating Ian!
I am so enticed by the recipe book (and all the other works of course but -that is - evocative...local ingredients, she asks hopefully?)
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
I can corroborate that in Highbury, there was snow for, oh, less than 5 minutes, on and off. It was kind of pathetic, but not something you see in Wellington every day.
I seem to remember a visible amount of snow sometime in the early '90s, maybe 92/93. Nothing that stuck around for very long the next day, but there. Did this happen, or did I just get overly excited about a heavy frost?
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Alas, poor Ian, me is older than thee. I wintered in 1982. I hope you got more trips than once in that 10 years. The REAL Skidoos arrived literally as we was leaving. I had one zap on them. The previous ones were goats. As slow as and no fun.
Skiddoo out of a crevasse? No. Prussic? Yes. My picture of ID booting it vertically out of a crevasse is hard to eliminate....
Local ingredients??? Hmmm.... the dogs were still down there and we got to 'feast' on seal meat since a few seals were shot for winter dog food. If there was nothing else I could imagine I could get to 'like' it.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
'Tis pity she's a hoar...
Did this happen, or did I just get overly excited about a heavy frost?
Not sure, but seriously I think all the flakes fluttering
about Wellington are ACT MPs... -
Steve Barnes, in reply to
Love the Giant Penguin attacking the Japanese Whaler.
It's like "Let's get physical.. Geophysical" -
Rik,
So help me understand...your gorgeous looking property is in the red zone and as such you will have to vacate at some point in the future? Or are you allowed to make repairs and stay on - no doubt without any insurer wanting to touch you?
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A nice series of posters was put out for the IGY.
You will see numbers all over them. I got carried away and photoshopped the whole fracking (heh) lot of them a few years ago and got rid of the numbers.
If anyone wants a "clean set" let me know.
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David Haywood, in reply to
your gorgeous looking property is in the red zone and as such you will have to vacate at some point in the future? Or are you allowed to make repairs and stay on – no doubt without any insurer wanting to touch you?
That's about the size of it. Also, if we stay, CERA can kick us off the land whenever they want.
I'm trying to lobby CERA to give us the option of moving the house somewhere else -- but, if we do, we won't be able to afford to stay in CHCH (we'll have to go into mid-Canterbury or Bank's Peninsula somewhere).
If CERA aren't interested in letting homeowners move their houses then dozens of 100-year-old houses like this (which are comparatively undamaged by the earthquake) will be bulldozed. It'll be a huge chunk of NZ's architectural heritage needlessly destroyed.
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Islander, in reply to
If CERA aren’t interested in letting homeowners move their houses then dozens of 100-year-old houses like this (which are comparatively undamaged by the earthquake) will be bulldozed. It’ll be a huge chunk of NZ’s architectural heritage needlessly destroyed.
Which is, frankly, fucking criminal dereliction on the part of CERA.
It is OUR HISTORY - ChCh being quite early settled by Pakeha, and certain wood-framed building styles early established.My family has no trust whatsoever in their insurance companies (ALL of whom are now singing from the same script) and none in CERA.
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Just thinking, in reply to
Surely the need for housing will influence this decision. Relocation has to be a quicker.
That said we did get a new CERA fire put in today. -
Islander, in reply to
Glad to hear that, Just Thinking…a “log burner” (havent heard what it really is)
was installed in a family house last week. Orange zone, and teetering on the brink of red….
but - need for housing? That's paramount, surely. And relocating houses that ARE salvagable is also surely foremost. Why wreck what is good because the land underneath is unsalvageable? (Well, according to CERA....) -
Log burners are the way to go. An off grid form of heating is a must. More than that though, snow on the ground and a roaring fire in the lounge warms your very soul.
Here's a though for those in the Red Zone. Off Grid living, is it feasible?
A reason for the Red Zone is the cost of replacing services, if these services are localised to one or a dozen homes will the Council act as banker (as they did for Hendo) and use it as Green Credintials for the disaster recovery story? -
Sacha, in reply to
is it feasible?
No. CERA will legally force the land to be vacated so they can sell it to private developers unencumbered.
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. . . use it as Green Credintials for the disaster recovery story?
Only if Gerry gets a makeover.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Log burners are the way to go.
Didn't the ChCh City Council make those illegal under the clean air rules or somesuch?
I noticed the other day on the "News" that some folks had their "Heat Pumps" cranked up to 11 crying "Oh Thermodynamics, why hast thou forsaken me?". Heat Pumps in sub zero conditions? whoever sold them that idea? -
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Chchch re-cindered...
Didn’t the ChCh City Council make those illegal under the clean air rules or somesuch?
I believe they kinda rescinded that for the duration, saying that people could use fireplaces and existing log burners with impunity to keep warm as needed, it seemed a bit of a hollow offering when there seem to be hardly any viable chimneys around, though I do smell coal being burnt out there... though they have said people creating excessive smoke would get warnings...
So the flue season is upon us... -
Alice Ronald, in reply to
Hey, I used to walk past that house every day to get to AGHS! I've been sneakily wondering if I'd recognise your place when I realised what part of town you were in.
I love how snow turns everything kind of wonderful - leafless trees get new adornment, a small slope becomes a sledding hill.
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Just thinking, in reply to
I've got the new "clean air" approved burner.
I haven't been able to get it going today - so it's very clean tonight :p -
Islander, in reply to
There is a certain kind of firelighters that work very well in logburners- to wit, Budget Fire Starters obtained from New World shops (well, I havent encountered them in other shops.)
The other thing is - how's your flue? And dampers?
All best for being warm- cheers!
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Rik, in reply to
Well that must be heartbreaking - until I saw your pictures it seemed more like a dollars and cents exercise, when you see the mature fruit trees, hedging, tree house, proximity to the river, character bungalow, etc you realise what a loss it is - you had found a lovely environment for Bob to grow up in, I hope you can salvage some of it by relocating the house.
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Just thinking, in reply to
The bricks were about to come down at any time, so a new flue and dampers are in place now & picking up firestarters soon.
Keep warm. -
HI David! All the best dads are "sled dogs!" I remember a certain pink baby's bath tub we used to shoot down the back lawn in, although snow would have been cooler than grass...no pun intended..the igloo is fairly impressive too....I think the snowman's fate was probably already sealed?
No snow here in Blenheim on Monday (well, mountains only) although parts of Nelson got it at home (over Mapua way), but my inlaws just had snow they could visit easily...the best kind.
Lots of ice at Waikawa marina in the mornings though!
St Arnaud would have been nice...somewhere I have piks of us having a picnic by Lake Rotoiti with snow down to the shoreline from a couple of years ago. Quite magical. Unless it hangs around too long......
Hope you are all keeping warm... : )
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David Haywood, in reply to
HI David! All the best dads are “sled dogs!”… somewhere I have piks of us having a picnic by Lake Rotoiti with snow down to the shoreline from a couple of years ago. Quite magical. Unless it hangs around too long…
Ha! Now we’ve had three Dr Haywoods on this thread – only a couple more to get the full set!
The snow has hung around a bit too long here. We didn’t have the plow down our road until Wednesday – so couldn’t get the car out until then. Even now we still have about 20 cm of snow on the south side of our house, but most of it’s gone from the north side.
Other parts of the city seem miraculously clear. Apparently snow, like earthquakes, prefers Avonside to elsewhere in Christchurch.
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