Meet our new friend, Feijoa

Before I get into the introduction, guess what? We finally mailed off our residence application on Friday! Only a couple weeks early but at least it's off our plate in a big way.

Now the waiting... I think I've heard between 6 to 9 months and between 9 to 12 months. I think we'll hear more specifically in about 2 weeks after they check that we have all the documents they need. Bringing back the patience!

So think we should rename late summer/early fall to Fruit Time. I forgot to rave about how many grapefruits we had when my parents were here! I had fresh squeezed juice with them each morning and that was about 9 grapefruits or so per day. Good thing they were here or I wouldn't have been able to get through them all! (Dustin's not a big juice guy.)

The timing was so funny, the week after they left the grapefruit nearly slowed to a halt even though I still see some big yellow fruits hanging up there! Might have to climb up for a picking instead of waiting for them to fall.

However, my parents didn't get to meet the endemic-to-NZ fruit, Feijoa. We had never heard of it before arriving here and our first samplings of it were in vodka form and then juice form. So not quite a real version of it. Then last June Rachel introduced them to me because her sister-in-law has plenty of trees. I liked them but we didn't get into them in a big way. But now that we have our own tree which has been coughing up heaps already (apparently it's early) I have been eating many more of them.

You can cut them in half and scoop them out or bake them into crumbles, muffins and anything else you want to create. I had found a bunch of them in the freezer (our friends had left some bits and pieces before they moved) so we did try a apple feijoa crumble last month as I tried to clear them out to make way for this year's harvest! Luckily we have some friends who like them and what also works is putting a box in front of our house that says "free fruit" and putting them in there. We had to do that yesterday as there must have been about 50 of them! They are somewhat like a banana in that some people like them soon off the tree and others wait until they are soft and much riper before digging in.

Meanwhile the mandarins keep teasing us in the tree - I think you are supposed to pick them and not wait until the drop but I haven't dragged the ladder out yet to harvest so keep finding them overripe on the ground.

And the lemons have finished their run I think because they aren't turning yellow anymore. (Lucky for us our neighbour's tree hangs over the fence and theirs was still producing little yellow beauties which has filled the gap for now.) We definitely have lots to learn about horticulture but certainly enjoy reaping the benefits of having the trees around.

We only wish it was a lime tree! But this is what lemons look like first.

We completely missed the women's pro surf comp this weekend because it was all done and dusted by about 10am Saturday morning. The conditions were obviously quite good the days prior. Well, I should get the day rolling. Dustin's off golfing on this sunny Sunday morning and I think I'm going to head to the cold craft room and make some of those things you sit along the bottom of a door to stop drafts. The chilly nights have started so we're going to get a real Kiwi experience this winter of not having insulation in the walls and no double glazed windows (which our last place didn't have either.) So we've got to be creative in keep the house warm with no central heating system. It's not even that cold yet and I am definitely thinking I will push for a new home when we're looking to purchase. Or at least one from the last few years when double glazing and insulation is a standard - still rare to find central heating though so maybe new will be the way to go.

And for anyone waiting to find out when we'll be visiting BC, we think we have decided on where else to go (Cabo San Lucas) so now Dustin has to ask for some time off and see how long we have to work with, THEN book some tickets. I know, we seem to be dragging our heels but there's been so much else taking up our attention these days.

We just turned the clocks back last night though so now weekday evenings will be more conducive to a couple hours on the computer booking flights rather than beach walks or surfing. However, Monday night is our 7th wedding anniversary so we won't be booking flights. Two out of seven anniversaries have seen us on planes so this year it'll be a nice dinner out without trying to plan itineraries! Haha.