I decided not to post a page this morning. Then after the milking and after I had started a new cheese, my daughter called from hot, hot Melbourne and said ..
I am waiting. I have been checking and checking. Where is todays post? I want to read it before I go out.
What time is it, I said.
Midnight.
Midnight. Oh. Well, there is nothing to see. I took a few shots yesterday, I said, but they are all so deadly dull.
We want to see the dull too, she said. 
And how will all your people really know what it is like if you hide the dull from them? Chimed in Our John.
You are not supposed to be listening to other peoples phone calls. I said. He went back to his paper.
I thought men could not hear a thing when they were reading the paper, my daughter whispered in my ear.
Hmm, I said. 
So here you are. But you do see what I mean. 
The only change I have today is that it is windy as well.
My daughter told me a story about some people in Aussie who, to escape the bush fires, evacuated themselves down to a beach. There they discovered that they were sharing their beach with a large number of kangaroos who had also designated the shore as a meeting point in case of fire.
Have a lovely day. And welcome back to work New Zealand. I am off to check and see if the cheese has set.
celi
Aha; so even YOU have days like that, Celi. But I agree with John; in order for your readers to get a true picture of life on the farmy we have to see the blah side as well. It makes your upbeat attitude even more remarkable.
AND spring will be even more magnificent! c
I did not think it looked blah at all and it probably cooled your daughter off just seeing those snappies!
all the aussies want come and roll in my snow!!
I am sure that they do!!!! They wouldn’t know what to do with it!!!
Dull as dishwater…but that’s part of life, no matter where you are. And I’ll take dull over cranky any time…
VERY good point!! c
Morning Celi dear!
The pics are still beautiful!
Morning Missy.. c
thank you C I was started to wonder? where is she?
I know, i was late in getting motivated this morning.. but the cheese is looking good.. c
Besides I worry about what has happened to you when you don’t appear. Love the bench picture – how can that be dull? Stay inside and keep warm. Laura
I don’t think the photos are blah. I love the stark contrasts. The colors of winter are different from the colors of summer. I really like the photo with the bench. I think the photos are great.
Stark being the operative word!! That is called a glider in this area, and it does indeed glide every which way when you sit on it. c
the winter pics are some of my favorites! i love the beauty of winter. it is easy to fall into the romance of flowers and green.
This is true, we search for beauty in the winter.. even if it is peacocks and guineas strung out in the fields, feeding on who knows what.. c
I like the bench photo, too, although I was wondering what it was — the inside of a couch perhaps. I don’t have snow to look at out my window, although we had fierce rain last night.
I would like some of your rain, but I believe I have said that many times before.. That is a very old glider, a swing chair, in the summer it is surrounded in flowers.. Morning darling! c
Not dull at all. Nuff said.
morning klaus, you must be almost finished that book by now?.. you were rocking along last time I checked.. c
Uh oh – that must have been a long time ago.
No, I’ve been a bad boy and hardly worked on it since the end of November. I’m hoping to finish it ’til April, but that means I have to start again. There are currently other priorities.
Hi Celi! Gosh, it seems as though you’ve got some serious pressure going, as we all look so forward to hearing from you daily, just like your beautiful daughter. You just have to let us know when you are taking a day off or two, so we don’t worry.
Have a fabulous Sunday! xo
I like the dull chair in the snow
I’ve been hearing about the fires in Tasi, scary stuff, but sensible kangaroos. its grey here too …
Goodness, a man who can multi-task?!!! A rarity indeed!
Christine
So much for trying to have a day off! My friends and I talked just last night about blogging, my difficulties in getting off a post (I did finally manage to post a year in review on my blog after not posting since summer…) and about the many pleasures of visiting the blogs I subscribed to. These places do hold an important place in my reading life. I love them all, no matter how frequently they post, but yours is unusual in that most of us can’t manage to blog every day, or even once in awhile! How I admire your discipline. I likened my pleasure in the blogs to the old fashioned idea of a pen pal. My conclusion was that the life of mind is alive and well in the Universe, that ideas and intellect and sharing are still out there, just in a new form. We have come to depend on you in your dailiness, I’m afraid Celi. Daily blogging is a tremendous feat, and you’ve set up the expectation that your posts will show up in our mailboxes which you have, pretty much without fail every day for what, going on two years now? It has always amazed me how you and your camera always find something to share, and today’s post and comments so far prove that dullness is definitely in the eye of the beholder. (I, too, love the wintry landscapes and mostly, the bench…) I have to admit how much I am addicted to the small, daily pleasure of finding your photos, stories, recipes, observations and always thoughtful words in my mailbox. As I explained to my friends, aside from the commonalities we share in farming and sustainability which drew me in here in the first place, I have, in the process of reading your words, and seeing your photos, come to know you a little better. I care about you and your farmy, and count you among my many friends, even though we have never physically met, as much, if not more, than if you lived next door! Heck, I don’t even have this much of a relationship with the folks who really do live next door! For me, this little miracle that you humbly perform every day encapsulates the beauty, the draw, and much of the positive that the World Wide Web brings to the world. I would totally understand if you cut back, or even (God forbid) stopped doing this, but the world would be an emptier, much duller, place. Just saying’…
Agreed!! Very well said!
Mmmmm…… Cheese
Your boring is indeed beautiful. I have a technical question for you…when your emailed post arrives in my inbox, it’s in abbreviated form. I like that. Because then I click the “read more” and end up here. The two blogs that I am working on, when mailed, show up in people’s inboxes as entire posts. Do you know how I can change that? Does anybody know? I’d like to send out the shorter / “Read More” versions…
I like that kind of dull. The kangaroo story reminds me of when we were living in Seychelles. A flood arrived while we were having lunch in an art gallery-cum-restaurant. We tried walking on the road, up to our middles, but had to change tack to walking on the beach – we had about 20 miles to go to the airport. The beach was the driest place. We did get a lift in a Land Rover towards the end of the trek, so caught our plane back to the main island.
Enjoy what’s left of your day!
Truly not dull at all–a beauty in your writing and wonder in the photos. Just look at that snow pasted to one side of a tree…
It’s not dull at all. They’re lovely pictures. There’s a little oak in the garden here that I will take endless photographs of in every type of weather imaginable. It never loses its fascination for me. There is beauty in so many things.
If you have another “dull” day, you could also post a link to a previous post (a year ago?)
We do count on you!
Living in Minnesota, I truly understand the challenges you face in photographing the winter landscape. It takes effort to see the beauty. Check my post tomorrow on “prairie poetry” and perhaps you will be inspired.
Also, I thought men didn’t hear anything either when they were reading the paper. Guess I was wrong. I’ll have to test that theory on my husband.
Deadly dull is okay, but deadly cold and deadly wind not so much. I’m rather tired of the cold and the wind…I’ll take Now a beach line with kangaroo’s who really gets the beach?
NEVER a dull moment on the farmy, Cinders!! I agree with all the other readers…we have really come to depend on your daily posts to begin our days!! (We’re a sad group, arn’t we?)
And if we were unable to do that every morning…Now THAT would be dull!! 
Actually C I love the snow pictures..the one with snow all along the tree trunk and branches particularly..
We are expecting a snow storm here in the next few days and everything and everyone seems to be slowing down in anticipation
I love to come here and spend some time with you…you and the lovely characters on the farmy. It all looks lovely to me, not dull at all.
Dull and grey on your parts looks like a beautiful water colour. Dull and grey in our parts looks like wet mud in a dirty city. Have a great day.
Snow is never dull to me, but we need to hear from you anyway so we know that you’re okay!
Have a lovely day.
First of all, like your daughter The Good Husband’s first question when I sat down at the computer is “what is Celi doing today”. Dull post. Not at all. We are vicariously living life on the Farmy. Everything is interesting. Just as there are no stupid questions that are no blah photographs of The Farm. Have a splendid Sunday. V.
I’ll take your dull any day. Is that Kupa out in the snow? That tail is impressive!
We had a glider in our yard that we would put pads on every summer. Six plastic pads–aqua. I sure wish you’d been on that beach, Celi. You’d have your camera for sure, I would LOVE to see kangaroos congregating on a beach.
that would have been quite a shot, though under dreadful circumstances.. c
dull is beautiful, and wonderful images – Aussie and Kangeroos on the beach -sounds like a New Yorker cartoon, but how hard for the people the heat – sending compassioante thoughts
I love the change of seasons, even our bleak, wet winters, all gray and stark, such a contrast to the richness and heat of our summers. And your seasons are much more dramatic. There’s nothing dull about this post! Such stark beauty in a winter landscape. My favorite photo is the one with the old glider; beautiful!
May be dull and gray to you, Celi, but it probably looked like paradise to your friends Down Under, suffering through a heat wave. We’ve got sunshine today with temps on the rise. I hope st spreads south enough to reach you, too. Good luck with the cheese!
Yeah but snow is something novel for some of us folks. I hope those humans and kangaroos were safe at the beach and had a lovely barbecue and frisbee day.
We take the good with the bad Celi, that’s what it’s all about; so glad your daughter reminded you.
That is sweet and funny at the same time that she was waiting for the post. I love the old rusted bench photo.
I didn’t know you have a daughter in Melbourne and yes, it’s so hot down there at the moment. Such a contrast to your images. xx
yes she works there, and popped over to see me in wellington.. c
I just posted on Claire’s blog. She and I live quite near each other, and we’re sharing the same misery-grey weather right now. It’s that time of year when we force ourselves into smiles and red shoes to cheer us up. Stay warm. Stay happy.
red shoes! and lipstick for the smiles.. perfick.. c
Dull works for me!
I couldn’t help but notice the snow covering the length of the tree trunk on that one side. It’s still a lovely view, even if you consider it “dull.”
that was cool wasn’t it, it never lasts for long but I love the effect.. c
Well I absolutely love the almost black/white daily view and the photo above that: superbly composed both! Just had a read from the Met Office: I have set it for my home township in the country – for tomorrow – temperatures 43-44 C, hot wind averaging 60-80 km/hr, bushfire conditions ‘catastrophic’: their wording! Tasmania yesterday, NSW tomorrow? One pretty funny Tassie story ere I go: the capital Hobart, which received most of the evacuees, is a pretty, but small town. So the Town Hall was opened as a processing centre. Well, the island did not have enough spare beds etc to cope, so – picture a line of homeless lining up to have their details taken and then receive a big bright red or yellow or blue beanbag for ‘personal furniture’
! There must have been a factory on the island!! The Hall looked quite festive!!! What can one do but . . . . !
That is so sweet, all in there in their beanbags lolling about.. and what a fantastic factory to donate all of those too.. it might be a good while that those people need them.. morning eha.. c
Even dull is beautiful. Rather nice to rest the eye and cool down a bit. NZ hasn’t quite gone back to work; I was about to get a good colour copy of my book cover to send to the printers in Hong Kong, but the copy shop is taking another week. As am I.
NZ makes the best of her Christmas holidays.. and how exciting to have printers in HongKong.. don’t let me fall out of the loop, I particularly want to buy one of those books when they come out.. marvellous.. c
Never dull!
I find the photos really incredible. Your landscape changes so dramatically. I’m really glad you share with us even what feels like “nothing to see here” is really accurate. It’s a eerie winter beauty!
Dull for you is a fresh view for us:)xx
Someone elses “Dull” is always more interesting than out own Dull. I’m glad those people were greeted by kangroos on the beach. Imagine if snakes or Tasmanian Devils had booked the beach as their meeting place. I like your daughters persistence in forcing you to blog your dullness.
yes, there are scarier animals than kangaroos, though I hear it is not wise to get them in a corner!! morning ellen.. and welcome to the comments lounge! c
That tree with the snow down it’s side is interesting! There is no dull…
Love the shot of the settee – so well seen:)
Nothing about you or your life is ever remotely dull!
See how dependent we are all on you! Cheers, Donna
I know what you mean about the dull winter colors. Although, since moving to NH we’ve had way more sun than we ever get in Washington in the winters.
I had laugh when I read John’s comment. On Christmas morning I made gorgeous cinnamon rolls that I took a picture of and posted. I also made eggs that I overcooked and that tasted like mussels and shrimp from the meal I cooked in the same pan the night before. I told Tony I wasn’t going to take a picture of the entire breakfast and he said he thought I shouldn’t just always post the “perfect” pictures or meals that turned out great. The eggs still didn’t make it onto my blog, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty more failures or “gray days” in the future for us to both post about! Ha!
those fellows!! c
Looks like a pretty normal winter day to me….we were driving back home through that. The grays tend to give me headaches when driving. I much prefer a bit of sun. And how fun to see a bunch of kangaroos on the beach!!!
Some people use your blog to start (or end) their day!
Sometimes dull is glorious and calming. Like this post.
I LOVE the picture of the snow on the old yellow glider swing…nothing is ever really QUITE altogether dull really, is it?
No it never is.. not really, tho i think that sometimes our eyes get dull..morning sweetie.. c
Oh sometimes one picture would be enough. (and you’d get a rest)
Love that one with the snow covered lawn glider swing. What a story there.
Speaking of story – chuckled over the kangaroos and people sharing the beach…strange friendships in the face of danger?
(catching up on reading…so moving on as advised)