blockhill - forest garden experience & education

North Canterbury

A little bit of wind

A little bit of wind

We had a very windy night with some impressive lightning and thunder. At one point it sounded like the thunder exploded directly above us.... an unfriendly way to be woken up.
Power went out for 36 hours and cellphone / internet for 48.
The tunnel house was somewhat damaged, mostly due to the door coming open or disintegrating.
September 13, 2013
  wind  storm  weather 
Old iron sides

Old iron sides

The weather boards on the exterior walls of the house were looking tired and required patching in a few places. Also, white was not our favourite colour.
Rather than continue to patch new problems and run on the painting treadmill we decided to go for a more serious and long term solution. After much consideration and deliberation we settled on colour coated corrugated steel. Long lasting, easy to install, made of recycled steel (or can be recycled) and available in a range of non-white colours.
The end result looks good and should last for some time.
July 20, 2013
Weather or Not

Weather or Not

Weather or Not is a little book about changeable weather, changing your mind, and changing your clothes!

This story covers terms and concepts of New Zealand weather.

It will appeal to preschool and primary school aged children, and is perfect for young readers with its simple rhyming text.
  • Paperback
  • 32 pages
  • Colour illustrations
  • Perfect bound
  • Width: 190mm
  • Height: 148mm
Click the pdf link below to see the first few pages.
$16.00
Visualising yearly rainfall distribution

Visualising yearly rainfall distribution

This chart shows annual rainfall by month for the years 1990 - 2014 (and partial 2015). While there is a definite tenancy for rain to occur in June and July there is also obvious bumps in October, March and April. Wider areas of colour represent times of high rainfall while narrow regions are dryer.
It becomes clear that rainfall can occur at any time throughout the year and that dry years follow periods high rainfall. With this in mind it makes a lot of sense to be approaching water catchment and management with a multi year view of charging up soil moisture during wet times to carry us through periods of below average rainfall.

Data obtained from NIWA Ferniherst dataset
September 20, 2015
  weather  rain  climate  chart