ABOUT US
Patricia Howitt. Far North, New Zealand.
For about 20 years I practised law in Government in our capital city Wellington, a far cry from where I now live on a rural 10 acre property in the far North of NZ.
For ten years I was pretty much confined to home looking after my elderly mother, so the Internet became my lifeline. I freelance in graphics and webdesign.
The outdoors became very important to me when I was working in the city. One of my colleagues introduced me to walking the high country and I spent most of my weekends and holidays in the hills of central New Zealand, from the North Island plateau with its great volcanoes, which I love, through the "Lord of The Rings" forests in the Tararuas near Wellington, to the mountainous country of the South Island West Coast. One day I will return to these places, but meantime they form the subject of much of my art, which you can visit below::
My parents bought this property as a bare block over 30 years ago. It is really special, being adjacent to a reserve that was once a Maori burial ground, and it has a huge outcropping rock, pristine bush and a great presence about it. It has been a wonderful inspiration to me too. Now that I live here, it supports a horse, three dogs, five cats, three ducks, some kunekune pigs and some Boer goats - all of which take looking after, but I guess it's worth it. I could not bear to live cooped up in a city now.
I have to say that over recent months the bird side of things has grown with the addition of several breeding groups of Rare Breeds chickens. They are all individuals and as mad as hatters.
Life with my zoo is anything but boring. I sometimes wonder what on earth I'm doing, and if you want to follow some of the outrageous events of the past 18 months, don't go away without visiting
The Jungle Queen's Blog - it is
QUITE SOME TRIP!
