good morning

Daylight savings is over for another summer. For a while that means bright mornings again, waking after dawn rather than before, which I had just about got used to.

The tree is a Cabbage Tree - it's in our front yard. Thye've long been a good luck charm for me. This from the Te Ara description of our native forests:

"The hardy Cordyline australis, found throughout New Zealand, was known to Maori as ti kouka. They used its leaves, stems and roots for food, clothing and medicine. Its common name, the cabbage tree, was coined by early European settlers who also saw it as a source of food, using the inner parts of its sword-like leaves and the stem as a cooked or raw vegetable. Contemporary estimates roughly match human and cabbage tree populations - there are some 4 million of each."