Monthly Archives: August 2005

Immobile, invisible, goodness only knows (where my cell phone is)

Around 8:00am it was very misty but this burned off in a couple of hours.

The day began with a few happy hours hunting for my mobile phone which, we suspect – was last placed on the mudguard of the trailer for safe-keeping when Karola and I were putting up the gate yesterday – I didn’t even notice it was missing until we went to bed last night. We tried to retrace the landrover tracks of yesterday afternoon, but found nothing. I tried ringing it – unfortunately in my angst I was ringing the Karamu landline number so it’s hardly surprising that the mobile didn’t answer. Later we tried the right mobile number but that call diverted immediately – a fair sign that the mobile wasn’t answering.

Fed up, We went into Hastings to investigate seed mixes for the regrassing, buy a large container of weedkiller etc. I bought a new SIM card to replace the missing one, $20.

Just as we were about to set off, Graham came over with the Fergie blade that I’d purchased. It actually looks pretty good, even if a bit rusty. It has a rubber wheel that can run along behind, keeping the blade at a predetermined distance off the ground – this is supposed to compensate for humps and hollows that otherwise tend to be accentuated when the tractor’s back wheels go into them. It has settings for what horizontal angle you want the blade on, and for how much tilt down to left or right you want. It has setting to allow the entire blade assembly to be offset from the tractor a couple of feet – good for grading near to building and other places where you can’t get the tractor very close. All I need now is practice.

After lunch Graham came back; this time I’d asked for a demo with the sprayer. Fitting it was straight forward, including attaching it to the splined PTO (power take off). Graham said he set the revs to 8000 for spraying; most PTO equipment would need to run at the PTO setting indicated on the rev. counter; and rotary hoeing needed even more power – the 20,000 rpm setting. After we’d set up the sprayer we added a bit of water to the tank and tried to use the hand-held wand. Aside: Karola said unkindly that with Graham’s gung-ho attitude to chemicals and machinery there would undoubtedly be enough poison still in the tank to do several tankloads of spraying. To judge by the colour and the foaming when we added water to the 3 inches of stuff still in the tank, I suspect she was right.

Anyway, the sprayer was fitted, the tank had mixture, and we were ready to do a test run, spraying the median strip of the new drive. But the spray wand wouldn’t spray. The next couple of hours were spent in isolating and fixing the problem. After undoing and doing up many connections and junctions we finally came to the (obvious) conclusion that the trouble lay with the valve in the wand itself. We blamed the level of poison in the tank – but the bypass (activated when the hand sprayer was turned off) was gushing out just fine. We blamed the pump – maybe it hadn’t enough air in the membrane pocket – but we proved that wasn’t the case – there was plenty of pressure in the bypass stream. We blamed the hoses – no, each of them turned out to be free of obstruction. We blamed the various filters – ditto. Finally it came down to a tiny o-ring (shades of Cape Canaveral – o-ring problems) and what looked like a worn metal shelf on one of the pins. That metal shelf turned out to be a deposit – like calcium deposits in water pipes on the chalk of Hampshire – so we scraped that off and all, finally, was well.

Karola went off to Napier for the evening. I borrowed her 2nd-best mobile phone (the one that has intermittent faults and sometimes goes flat in a couple of hours) and got my replacement SIM working in it. Assuming my mobile doesn’t turn up in the next day or so I’ll have to choose a new one – either a Blackberry (like Anna’s got in London) or one with a camera perhaps.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—18°C; sunny, cool; no rain.

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A score of plants planted

Graham Velvin brought over the bucket and mower attachments for the Fergie. I also want to buy his grader blade although it’ll cost $600. He says the valuation was $700 and I’ve seen a blade for sale locally for $1200 so maybe it’s not so bad.

Karola planted 20 Rangiora along the wings of the back drive.

We both made a new way into the orchard up by the big shed – previously we went across the Front paddock which is of course all ploughed up ready for regrassing. We put up a 3.6m gate and joined it up to a gap cut in the fence, just getting it done as darkness fell. I had to put in one post; the soil is moist and very easy digging – although digging a 400mm diameter hole a metre down is a bit tricky. I intended to put in a 1.8m post – 900mm underground – but was a bit too enthusiastic and so the 1.8m post disappeared – well it left about 700mm poking up – so I swapped it for a 2.4m post buried 1.2m.

I spent the morning talking to Bridget in Wellington – initially on the phone and then using Skype instant messaging – she convinced me that my database schema was pretty incompetent and drafted some SQL queries for me that’ll be a great help. This evening a spent more time on the phone with Bridget as she explained her online system for GST, tax etc, and what the IRD will need from Karola’s business next year. Back to the drawing board for my online GST application I’m afraid.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—16°C; sunny, cool; no rain.

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Spring Cleaning Fever

Nothing new on the small holding; we both had dental checkups this morning and I have just finished Karola’s June/July GST returns for posting tomorrow.

Karola has been having a big tidy-up; we’ve accumulated lots of packaging and stuff is pretty much strewn about in the cottage, her office, and the garage store room – so she’s sorting stuff out and intends to get rid of much rubbish. Bicka tries to help.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—16°C; mainly sunny, slight southerly breeze which switched to northerly in the afternoon; no rain.

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Goodness Grey-ness Me!

Paul Scott, fencer from Grey Skills, came for a chat this morning. (06) 870-0938 and 0274-223-9110. We’ve offered him to help with the boundary fence renewal north of the house along the roadway. Seems quite expensive so I offered a few dollars less per hour and he’s considering it. He’s a bit of a grumpy old man – reminds us of housekeeper Banks in an old lightweight UK comedy called “Never The Twain” that’s been on early in the evenings recently.

Anna rang us from London this morning – wanted us to give her a morning call at 1:30pm our time so she could wake up and get the grandsons ready for a trip to Ibetha, flying from Gatwick at 6:30am. As it happened she rang us around 1:00pm (2:00am her time).

Karola spent the day tidying up leaves and weeding and with a small bonfire in an old oil drum. I kept on with the Karamu online cashbook – glad I don’t have to do this for a living, I take far too long and get sidetracked constantly into trying out new things instead of getting on and finishing it. Bridget thinks it’s typical of geeky males.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—14°C; partly cloudy; no rain.

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Lost and Found – What A Spectacle

The sheep have been let into the Triangle paddock for the day. This tested the Totara tree guards as, just out of curiosity, the lambs nibbled and bumped the guards. The top of one Totara that must have brushed against the top edge of the guard got chewed, but the guards themselves stood firm. The sheep will go back to the Top paddock for the night; a way of trying to ensure they don’t eat all the food at once.

Karola lost her expensive glasses while we were arranging the sheep manouver and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth for a couple of hours while we searched for a pair of $600 minute green-framed glasses in the drizzle on ground covered with leaves and long grass. Eventually, thank goodness, the glasses were located inside on a bench next to the coffee percolator. Whew!

We went out to Havelock North for lunch to recover – and enquired about fencepost-hole diggers at Hire-Corp on the way home. They don’t have a tractor-mounted digger but do have a stand-alone digger and various augers that they’d let me try for a day for $50.

Brown bantam has become unbroody, leaving her black bantam hen team mate to sit on the lot. I wonder if the black one will stomp on any chicks that aren’t the right color – 19 days or so and we’ll see.

Karola bought another 25kg maize, wheat, and hen pellets (food, not droppings) yesterday. The geese are becoming less timid and now eat the maize I give them every morning.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—12°C; cloudy; 1mm rain.

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Oh To Program Computers Like Bridget

Quiet day at Karamu. Karola, uncharacteristically, spent most of the day on housekeeping chores. I strengthened the bamboo stakes holding the newly planted Totara round the Canary Island Pine and spent more time on our GST cashbook web application.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—14°C; cloudy ; southerly turned to northerly in the afternoon; no rain.

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Earth-shaking power – ripped to bits

Karola’s Subaru was serviced today. Her 50m roll of windbreak netting also arrived late this afternoon – we were told it would arrive on Tuesday afternoon – it was ordered on Monday. However when I rang up the saleswoman, Jane of Permathene Ltd, this morning she got things moving and it arrived at last.

Karola completed planting her Totaras – but she now has 20 additional Rangiora (arrived from Hamilton yesterday) and assorted other natives to plant.

With a growl the tractor and driver arrived this afternoon and rotary hoed the area to be grassed. It’s a green John Deere 6 tonne monster with 6 large tyres. After the first rotary hoe they then used hardpan-breaking tines to rip through the consolidated earth where tractors and trucks had run up and down for decades. Now it’s being left over the weekend to dry out a bit – it was moist, not wet, but will work up better – be easier to get smooth and fairly level – if it’s quite a bit dryer.

The two oldest bantam hens decided it’s time to go broody again – they really are not very clever mothers. They nest together and each lay many eggs. Then, in the squabbles and fuss they lose eggs out into the cold. These hens were laying in a cosy spot in the hay bales and we were collecting their eggs for a while – but when nearby bales were removed to feed the sheep they gave up that nest. Then, a couple of days ago, Karola saw where they’d moved to – a very uncomfortable spot in the woodshed. Today I counted 23 eggs, removed 5 of them that were stone cold and out of the nest, and relocated the rest to a nice clean, dry, sheltered pair of nests inside Bicka’s old and small plastic dog box. At dusk I checked and both hens were happily sitting on their share of the eggs. Of course I’m not actually that keen on having dozens more bantams so high mortality is probably somewhat of a blessing.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—16°C; sunny morning, cloudy later, southerly breezes; 1mm rain.

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Damp and Dismal Winter’s Day

A day for doing stuff indoors, though Karola did plant 4 more Totara in their splendid tree guards round the Canary Island Pine.

I concentrated on beginning an online web application for Karola’s GST record – an online “cash book”.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—14°C; cloud, drizzle, cold and damp; 2mm rain.

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Bucket and Spade Brigade

The Landrover refused to start this morning – well it started briefly, then stalled, and refused to start again. We tried jump-starting it with jump leads from the Subaru; we tried leaving it to dry out for a couple of hours in case it was flooded; nothing doing. Motor turned over and almost caught – but it just wouldn’t start. Finally Karola rang the AA (Automobile Assoc) and late morning an old geeser arrived – same one that had put a new battery in the Landrover two years ago. Anyway he soon had it sussed.

Apparently the electronics in modern vehicles commonly have this problem – leading to a surge in call-outs (calls-out?) on Monday mornings. It’s called “over-choking”. If you start one of these engines and turn it off a few minutes later, before it’s got thoroughly warm throughout the engine, then the electronic sensor thinks the engine is still stone cold and pours extra fuel into the cylinders – like trying to restart a lawn mower with the choke wide open after it’s been running for an hour. In the Landrover the cylinders warm up quickly, but the sensor takes its reading from the water in the radiator or some other part which takes a lot longer to warm up.

Once you have tried to start the engine and it’s been ‘over-choked’ then it’s really hard to start the next time, even if you leave it overnight. The trick was to detach the air filter so that as much air as possible was going into the engine and then unmercifully just hold the starter key on, making the engine turn over under battery power until finally the fuel overload was expelled and it roared into life. Touch and go whether the battery gives out or the engine starts first.

Also late morning I went and paid for the Fergie tractor, $3500 plus GST. Graham also gave me the manuals, lights, a sprayer tank / pump / boom, and various assorted metal levers and adapters. He also threw in an old flail rotary mower, and the bucket (but not the arms and hydraulics) of a bucket attachment. I also spied a pull-behind grader blade and may buy that from Graham as well, if it’s reasonably priced.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—18°C; sunny until late afternoon when a cool northerly breeze sprang up and cloud moved in; no rain.

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The Right Right Angle Angle

Karola and I, using two 30m tape measures and a dozen electric fence posts (as markers), plotted out lines parallel to the sides and front of the Homestead that foreshadow the avenue of native trees Karola intends will run more or less from the front of the Homestead up to the Vernon’s boundary. It will in fact begin about 50 metres from the verandah and end about 10 metres from the boundary, and we plan to plant three staggered rows of Rimu, Kauri, and Totara in two bands about 8m across with an 8m gap between them.

There’s nothing like measuring out large 3-4-5 triangles and banging in pegs to strain a relationship – especially when the peg is patently in the wrong place but we’re not sure which earlier measurement was from the wrong peg. Also, it is amazing that most of the measurements end up trying to go directly through a tree or flax bush or rose bush and terminate in impenetrable gravel or the middle of a precious plant. So there’s a certain amount of “2 metres off to the side” here and there that tends to introduce more imprecision.

Graham Velvin drove over in the Fergie around 5:00pm to say the cliutch was fixed and we could take proper possession tomorrow.

I ordered a 50m x 1m high roll of “wind break plus” woven black/green netting from “Permathene Ltd” in Auckland for $120 including transport and GST – it should be here tomorrow afternoon – it’s for covering the outsides of Karola’s tree protecting netting rings.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—17°C; partly sunny day; northerly breeze in the afternoon; no rain.

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One every three minutes

I spent much of the day laboriously winding up the #8 fence wires – I banged in 3 “waratah” standards (steel posts) in a triangle and wound each wire round this makeshift “jenny” – cutting off the worst of the many wire knots – so ending up with about 30 rolls of various sizes.

Karola took the Front paddock water trough up to the Top paddock and she planted one of the Hall’s totaras up near her previous planting of five totaras.

Karola gave Bicka a bath and shower – so she’s now a (temporarily) clean little dog, not smelling quite so doggy. Karola also mowed Bicka’s pen – circumventing the several deep excavations Bicka has made, either as bone larders or perhaps just interesting sources of smells. We suspect that given a strong incentive Bicka could probably jump out of her pen now – the fence isn’t that high – but she likes the security and familiarity and shows no strong desire to get out except when it’s to join us and she thinks she’s missing out on an adventure.

I went next door and talked to Craig Vernon – had a tour of his 20,000 plant hydroponics operation, and he agreed to lend me his blade which I can put on the back of Fergie and use to scrape up some of the tougher areas of blackberry and weeds.

Once the fence wire was rolled up Karola and I pulled up the 20 posts using Fergie – Karola doing the dangerous bit of attaching and adjusting the snig chain while I just drove from post to post and operated the hydraulics. One post every three minutes – which was heaps easier than digging them out by hand – each post was in the ground at least 600mm and many of them were tapered with the bigger end underground.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—15°C; sunny day; northerly breeze in the afternoon; no rain.

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Mini-fork Fergie Heaven

Good start to the day – lots of battens de-stapled as I take down the fence between the Homestead and the Front paddock preparatory to the great regrassing project. I should finish tomorrow; have to wind up the 7 wires and extract the posts – I’m hoping that the Fergie will pull them up quickly without fuss.

Weather was warm and sunny – I saw my first Monarch butterfly since last summer – must think it’s spring I suppose.

Karola made 4 of the 9 tree guards yesterday; we crimped up the remaining 5 today. Karola measured out where the Hall’s Totara are to go – the eight points of the compass round the Canary Island Pine – 12 metre radius rough circle – oh and its “grid north” rather than magnetic north – in Hastings that’s about 22 degrees west of magnetic north, according to our surveyor.

The 9th Hall’s Totara will get added to the line of 5 Karola planted last year up near the big shed. Thanks to substantial tree guards the sheep didn’t feast on those original 5 but it looks like possums ate the leaders, they’ve all lost their main leader and are each growing several new leaders – darn those possums.

I collected up the half dozen heavy concrete strainers, stays and posts removed by the Green Machine, using the Fergie’s back mini forks. I also moved two 2m 225mm (9″) heavy concrete culverts we took out of the old road crossing down by the Scott’s boundary when we had the new back drive made in 2002. They’ve been lying in the grass near the front gate and I expect to use them in making a crossing of our “meander” – the only real ditch or winter creek on our property – where it decants into the roadside deep drain. I balanced one culvert on each fork – the Fergie seemed well up to it. I’ll need to use one of the 2m culverts with the 2.5m one I bought earlier in the week – it needs to protrude a bit beyond the retaining walls of the 4m wide crossing. The crossing fills in the meander on the boundary and is the width of the mixed-species tree planting area we expect will run along much of the roadside boundary north of the Homestead. It will carry the boundary fence along one edge and the inner sheep-repelling and Bicka-containment fence on the other edge.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—18°C; sunny day; westerly veering to northerly breeze in the afternoon; no rain.

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A Crimp in Time

Tim Averill (0274-426-806) called round and we discussed preparation and sowing of the Front paddock – he suggests rotary hoeing followed by a tine-rip of the compacted areas between the apple rows and along the fencelines, another pass with a rotary hoe, and a run with power harrows – apparently these operate horizontally unlike rotary hoes and they are excellent at producing a smooth surface and fine tilth. Then it’ll be rolled, sown, and rolled again. That’s the plan.

After a certain amount of agonising I went and bought another 9 rolls of netting for fencing out the sheep and fencing in Bicka. It was on special offer, $50 off each roll – one always wonders what the catch is. Anyway I’ve now got 500m, enough for protecting the planned native tree plantings in the Front paddock.

Karola is making guards for her nine totara trees using 4m lengths of sheep netting bent into a tube and covered in shade cloth. The netting is made of high tensile 2.00mm wire which is very awkward to bend and knot so instead of struggling to join ends we tried using crimping sleeves this time – easier, neater, faster.

I took possession of my Massey Ferguson 35 tractor and Bicka raced round it as it made its maiden trundle round the Front paddock.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—15°C; sunny day; northerly breeze in the afternoon; no rain.

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Dismantlers Give OK

In the morning we visited accountant Nick Chrystall; I then had a flu vaccination (we’ve both had them now; be interesting to see if they actually protect Karola against all that international airports can muster when she goes to UK in October).

Bought 50m netting on special – $128 a roll and it has the hole sizes I’ve been looking for to keep Bicka in and sheeps’ heads out.

Checked with “Tractor Dismantlers” guy and apart from a question about the clutch that we should get resolved early next week it looks OK to go ahead and buy it. I eagerly anticipate pulling out a few posts and carting around the massive concrete strainer posts that I cannot budge by hand.

Karola checked out the sheep – some of the ewes look as if they’re getting close to lambing but we’re not expecting that to begin until next month.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—14°C; Overcast, cold day; southerly breezes, 1mm rain.

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Messy Ferguson Attractor Tractor

Patrick Cooney called just before 8:00am suggesting we read an article in todays Dominion Post newspaper – page B4 by Joe Bennett. It was worth it – a sublime article about the masculine attraction for chainsaws – Karola and I thought it very funny (in context of my recent efforts in that direction).

I went off and bought four 3 metre 1/2-round fence posts and a 3 metre concrete 225mm (9″) culvert for my boundary fence project. Also priced up various fence netting alternatives. Sheep netting we’ve used in the past has square holes that get bigger from top to bottom. However, as Kaz told us, the standard netting, despite the graduated hole size, tends to catch lambs rather like seine net fishing – they stick their heads through about 1/2 way up and then convince themselves they can’t get out. So, I am searching for something with smaller holes for fences to stop our lambs browsing on our precious native tree plantings.

After lunch we both did two more trailer loads of apple tree roots – whew, that’s all done and piled up ready for a nice big fire – Mary is hoping I’ll wait till she visits in November, that would give them time to dry out thoroughly, so I’m inclined to wait.

Willy Agnew said his tractor man would contact us tomorrow so we can discuss the ground preparation and reseeding of the de-treed area.

Around dusk we went across the road and took a look at the little old Massey Ferguson tractor that Graham Velvin has offered to sell me. Apart from calling the hydraulics the PTO a couple of times (senior moment, tsk, tsk) it was a success – I certainly like it and Karola warmed a little to it – though it’s not exactly an essential item. We’ll get the mechanic’s report tomorrow and make up our minds then – he wants $3500 for it and seems willing to throw in several attachments.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—18°C; Beautiful sunny day; westerly breezes, no rain.

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Survey The Bay

Andrew Taylor, surveyor from Survey The Bay, came this morning and we discussed changing the boundaries between the Homestead and the Orchard so that, in the event we sold the orchard, the Homestead privacy would be much increased over today, and the orcharding operation would be a bit more efficient (by increasing the length of some short rows of trees). Andrew suggests we not limit ourselves to the “10% of the smaller” boundary adjustment mentioned in the Council’s district plan but just aim for the division that optimises our intent, as above. It’ll end up costing us about $10,000 so we’ll not be in a rush to do it, but it can be staged over 8 years so we might start out later this year.

Matt Carney called and suggested we talk to Nick Chrystall of Barnes Mossman Ltd re our international tax situation – we’re trying to get our bits and bobs all in local hands with people we can actually talk to face-to-face.

Graham Velvin, our neighbour who sold Karola part of his orchard, which is now her Karamu Orchard property adjoining the Homestead, came over to say he’d got a serious offer for his house and the other ten acres of his orchard, across the road. So, he wanted to know if we’d like to buy his little old diesel Massey Ferguson tractor – I’d expressed interest earlier. So we’ll go and look at it tomorrow. At Graham’s suggestion I got the “thin tall guy” from “Tractor Dismantlers” to agree to take a look at it and give me a valuation.

Karola and I did another three trailer loads of roots – getting the mud off them and taking them to the pile for burning.

Hawkes Bay Weather: -2°C—14°C; Cold night, beautiful sunny day; no rain.

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Wellington Trip – Day 5

In the morning we prepared to leave for home; we spent much of the afternoon with Bridget and family, leaving Wellington around 3:30pm.

We called in at Talisman Nursery in Otaki and picked up the dozen Rangiora that Alistair Turnbull had propogated for us this year. Last year out of over 50 propogations he ended up with about a dozen weedy specimens; it’s been the same this year so we’ve cut our losses, given up on propogating the remaining 25 Rangiora and bought 9 healthy 1/2 metre tall Hall’s Totara in PB5’s instead.

We arrived home at 9:00pm after stopping for dinner at a hotel on the outskirts of Dannevirke. Bicka was very pleased to be home, but is already missing her pride of place on the sofa at Pitoitoi.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 0°C—12°C; Cold and no rain.

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Wellington Trip – Day 4

We visited Kirsty Faulkner for brunch in her new house in Khandallah – Peter (computer consultant & mature student – experimental psychology) and Nirvina (retired psychotherapist) Clemerson and Kirsty’s new geologist friend, Bruce were there too.

In the evening we entertained long-time local friends Geoff and Felicity Rashbrooke, their daughter Gwen, and old acquaintances Tim and Gwyneth Bright from Pukera Bay. Actually Bicka did much of the entertaining.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—17°C; Light westerly breezes veering to southerly by afternoon; no rain.

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Wellington Trip – Day 3

Karola went off to see Bridget and they went out to visit Bridget’s godmother, Jane Johnston, in Plimerton – to show off the granddaughter Natalie of course. Karola bought an electric blanket for Pitoitoi. I spent the day with Bicka and my computer, learning/relearning about design patterns in PHP.

Bicka and I went to a local restaurant, “Chocolate Dayz”, about ten minutes walk away. It encourages dog owners with their dogs and Bicka met 3-4 new dogs and got the usual many admiring pats and comments. My order of fish and chips took just on an hour to arrive – but was good when it finally came. Busy and understaffed restaurant – it was the tail end of lunchtime.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—15°C; light westerly breezes; no rain.

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Wellington Trip – Day 2

Natalie’s birthday today – she is one year old; 2 teeth and almost walking. Afternoon party for close family: great grandmother Mary Brackenbury, great aunt Gill Brackenbury, maternal grandmother Karola, me, great uncle Kaz Wier, his wife Yvonne and their daughter Amy. Kaz is Karola’s brother. Late afternoon we took Mary home to Karori. We had the evening meal with Kaz and Yvonne at Finc a restaurant opposite the town hall.

Karola took Bicka for her evening beach walk and settled Bicka in under the house around 9:00pm. Bicka began barking around 9:30pm – at 10:30pm one of the neighbours, obviously more sensitive to continuous barking than we are, whistled at Bicka and then roared at her to be quiet. I slunk down to the basement and brought Bicka inside. She spent the night on the sofa in stretched out comfort – looking for all the world as if she was in her rightful place. Bad move for us; not only is it an elevated place which makes her more nearly at our height (dog dominance thing), but we’ve also reinforced rewards for prolonged barking. We will have to recommence Bicka training in ernest soon.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—18°C; no rain.

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Wellington Trip – day 1

In the morning we went to a political meeting – the NZ general election is in September – held at the Havelock North community hall and organised by “Grey Power”, a national lobbying group for those aged 50 and over. Sue Kedgley, hon. member parliament and spokesman for Health for the Green party, was the external speaker invited to speak on health policy. Good messages re NZ needing to focus on causes of problems rather than spending more on coping with the consequences – for example, reducing use and waste of energy versus building more power plants – for example Sue echoed the “well man, well woman” concepts I recall hearing about in the UK in the 1980s. Local questions seemed rather parochial. Local Green candidate is Liz Earth.

The we drove down to Wellington, calling in on Bridget before arriving at Pitoitoi around 9:00pm.

Bicka was supposed to sleep in her box outside our bedroom door downstairs but we were sloppy and didn’t shut her in her box, hoping she’d stay there. Next morning we found she’d spent the night sleeping on the sofa upstairs. Hmmmm.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—15°C; no rain.

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Pick Up Sticks

In the morning Karola went to see Matt Carney, our financial adviser, and I pottered around tidying up pending our trip to Wellington tomorrow. This included winding up a couple of 100 metres of temporary electric fence. Bicka trailed round with me and stayed close all morning – her favorite time for disappearing seems to be afternoon, especially late afternoon.

Willy Agnew’s tractor driver was supposed to call in today to discuss preparing the ground and regrassing the Front paddock combined with the deforested part of the apple orchard. He didn’t show.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of this tractor work beginning in the next day or so, Karola and I made haste to clear the apple tree stumps and uprooted fence posts from the area to be regrassed. We took five heaped trailer loads of stumps and roots up into the Top paddock where I plan to have a huge bonfire, possibly in November. That’s about half the stumps done; we took care to get as much earth off the stumps as possible before taking them away, having learned from our last experience of burning stumps that you can otherwise end up with a big mound of scorched earth after your bonfire – it doesn’t grow stuff and if you spread it around it smothers the grass. ABout 1/3rd of the stumps are too big to lift and some of their roots have to be cut off.
We also carted off two heaped trailer loads of posts – there’s 3-4 very heavy concrete posts remaining.

Hartley’s brother Luke arrived with his ‘worker’ (the man who is experienced in home butchery) at 5:00pm as expected; the poor lamb, sensing doom, was hyperactive and hard to catch, but eventually they caught it and took it away.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—15°C; Another gloriously sunny, clear afternoon, hottest place in New Zealand today; light westerly breezes; no rain.

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Sheep Work

Nice little puzzle – how to switch round the sheep so that we end up with all our ewes and lambs in one flock and Hartley’s 14 mixed ewe and wether lambs and 4 ram lambs in a separate flock – without allowing the 4 ram lambs time to impregnate any of our ewe lambs. Time will tell whether we were successful.

Ewes all given 10mm 5-in-1 vaccine injection (see 5th August post) and 10mm external strip of anti-lice stuff called “Wipe-Out”. One ewe was treated for footrot. All the lambs were drenched – 10mm Naviben. My injecting technique is pretty terrible – for a start the needle kept falling out of the nozzle – the vaccine is dispensed from a small plastic pack into a gun, like a drench gun, and delivered via a hypodermic needle screwed into the nozzle of the gun. And I lost a needle that unscrewed and flew out of the nozzle – however the improvement this time is that I didn’t innoculate myself or any of the human helpers.

We weighed some of the lambs using Karola’s old bathroom scales using the time-honoured technique, weigh Hartley then weigh Hartley holding a lamb, etc:

  • Hartley’s 4 ram lambs weighed: 45kg, 43kg, 40kg, 36kg.
  • Three of Hartley’s other lambs, chosen somewhat at random, weighed: 30kg, 43kg, and 38kg
  • A representative “average” lamb from our lot weighed 52kg – our lambs are 4-6 months older than Hartley’s

We did not weigh any of the ewes – which are huge solid brutes with most of them probably carrying twins – because I cannot lift them off the ground, let alone stand on scales cradling one of them in my arms.

Hartley’s lambs have the orchard to themselves for now; our sheep have the run of the Middle and Back paddocks, except for the geese enclosure. The plan is for Hartley’s lambs to be taken away next Saturday – all sheep must vacate the orchard by the end of August anyway. Our sheep will run as one mob for a while, and I expect to vaccinate (re-vaccinate) our lambs and ewes in about 5 weeks time. At that time we should also apply the anti-lice stuff to the lambs and attend to any sheep with bad feet.

One of our lambs has badly injured its eye and isn’t putting on weight – so we’ve given it to Hartley for “home kill” – his brother Luke can get it processed professionally later in the week. I am pretty upset that we didn’t spot this injured lamb earlier – I thought it just had mud on its face when I glimpsed it 10 days ago. I have no particular desire to eat our own sheep, although one of our English friends, Felicity Bagenall, insists that eating your own animals is imperative for a truely sincere smallholder.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—16°C; A gloriously sunny, clear day; no rain.

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A Mulchitude of Mulch

I hung a small gate into the geese enclosure, making it easier to let them in and out of the ewes paddock each day.

Mulching Man finally completed our job – about $2000 for around 20 hours for 2 men and a machine. We have about 10 small truckloads of mulch in three heaps; it’ll be valuable for our tree planting.

Karola spent much of the day moving crocuses from the lawn, where they tend to get mown down every year, to a flower bed round the Ginko tree in the centre of the circular drive in front of the Homestead.

Karola and I finished sawing up the stumps – now to pile up and burn the roots.

Tonight, using a cheap laser level I impulse bought on special last year, Karola and I established that the lowest spot on the drive, where water gathers after every rain, is about 100mm (4″) higher than the bottom of the roadside drain outside our gate – if the drain were cleaned out of 150mm of leaves and humus accumulated over several years. So, in principle, we could send our stormwater off the drive and into the drain. The laser level was a mistake – it has a range of 20 metres or so and it’s not much use for setting levels during the day because the lasers are too weak; that’s why we did our experiment with the drains at night.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—14°C; Overcast in the morning but a gloriously sunny, clear afternoon ; 2mm rain during the night.

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Sunday, drizzly Sunday

Quiet Sunday – we went to church at Ormond Chapel; had lunch with Jenny and Noel Hendery in Napier; and I spent couple of hours working on eponymous http://annevelvinflowers.co.nz for our neighbour.

Called John Flynn – Flynn’s lived in the cottage here for almost a decade – and got name of a good agricultural contractor from him. He suggested Willy Agnew, Agmax Contracting Ltd, nearby in Twyford. 06-879-9915 and 0274-467-488 and 0274-429-332. e-mail:office@aghort.co.nz. They do plough/rip/hoe/roll/regrass which is what we need over the Front paddock and the adjoining area now denuded of apple trees.

Animals – fur and fowl – all behaved properly today.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—14°C; Overcast with bright patches but no sun; westerly breeze in the morning that picked up and swung to the north in the afternoon; 2mm rain.

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Mulch Ado

The day began with the aero-engine sound of the heavy duty chipper/mulcher devouring some more branches. Roger and his helper Tony worked through till about 2:00pm and called it a day. There’s still at least a days’s worth to do – Monday, we’re promised.

The lambs have had undisturbed access to the orchard and the Front paddock since the fence between them came down on Monday. They have had limited daytime access to a strip of the lawn, as reported two days ago.

The ewes, meanwhile, have been spending their nights in the Island paddock and their days in the lush pasture of 1/4 of the Middle paddock split east-west. Last night, as part of the Goose Saga, their night time paddock was the Back paddock. This morning I rejigged the electric fence to give them 1/3rd of the Middle paddock split north-south.

More firewood work; we’re half way through chainsawing up the apple tree stumps – however that included 7 trees with embedded metal – nails or staples, and, as a consequence, 3 ruined chainsaw chains – somewhat expensive.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—13°C; Partly sunny day; southerly breeze around midday swung round to northerly by mid afternoon; no rain.

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The Four Geeseketeers

Another beautiful winter’s day – feeling like spring. News, apart from Goose Exploits, is that we went to town and:

  • In Hastings, we stopped at the vet’s to get some biscuit treats for Bicka – Karola thinks Bicka needs some remedial obedience training and these are to help with that. We also got some “5-in-1” vaccine for our sheep to protect them and their lambs against clostridial diseases. 125 shots for $20.
  • I picked up a replacement chain for the chainsaw – $32 – the old one would have cost $16 to repair and Cutter’s Corner said it would only last a couple more sharpenings anyway – had 2 teeth missing and several bent, and was quite worn.
  • We both popped in to see our new financial advisor, Matt Carney of Esam-Cushing. New Zealand is just getting round to regulating Financial Advisors, so for now it’s very much ‘caveat emptor’ when you choose a Financial Advisor
  • lunch over in Napier at Garden Centre – and Karola bought a Brachiglottis Repanda, and ordered 20 more at $16 each.

The day ended with some more chainsawing for firewood – There’s another 15-20 hours at least of chainsawing to do.

Now, re Brachiglottis Repanda (not Greyii, not Repanda Purplii) – plain old, ordinary, tons-of-it-in-the-wild Repanda.
Otherwise known as Rangiora or “bushman’s friend” (for reasons I will not go into here, but involve personal hygiene).

Two years ago we ordered 50 Rangiora at $5 each from Talisman Nurseries – native plant specialists in Otaki – they’ve been doing this for 30-40 years. Last year the propogation was a disaster – 13 weedy specimens from 100 propagations, the proprietor said. This year’s attempt, according to a conversation I had with him today, was no better. Rangiora are, he said, notoriously difficult to propagate – well he’s said that consistently and looks like it’s true. You rarely if ever see Rangiora – the plain old wild roadside and hillside form – in Garden Centres or Nursery catalogues. Hence Karola snapped up the one she saw today and ordered a few more. We shall have Rangiora along the driveway yet.

And finally to the geese tragedy – or farce more likely.

This morning I checked, our three geese were still there, in a bit of a huddle in one corner of their 1/8 acre enclosure. I looked out where they were looking and, to my delight, saw, about 250 metres away, our missing goose walking a fenceline, apparently trying to get back to its mates. Karola and I plotted over breakfast – how to get the fourth and flighty goose back. Karola was not entirely convinced I’d seen a goose – as each time I tried to point it out it’d moved or was temporarily out of sight.

So we went up into the orchard in the Landrover – leaving it at the shed, with Bicka in the back, and walking around behind where the goose was (allegedly) last seen – keeping well back, so as to avoid a repeat of yesterday. Unfortunately for us, they began mulching the prunings in the orchard next door – that is, pulverising the branches with a fast-moving steel flail – not exactly quiet. And there was no sign of the goose. Karola did find some white pipes in the orchard, also a white boulder, a white plastic bottle – which I think she thought were what I’d seen.

Disconsolate I went back to the Landrover while she went off to let out the sheep. One more time, I drove the Landrover up to the back boundary and along it towards the neighbouring orchard. And I saw the goose. It was about 400 metres away and as I watched it ducked into the base of a windbreak of tall trees. I jumped out and ran over, opening the gate which happens to join our orchard with theirs (so that the council can clean out the big open agricultural stormwater drain that runs along our back boundary), and coming round behind where I’d last seen the goose. Three pheasants, 5-6 Pukeko, but no goose.

I tromped up and down a bit, but no sign of the goose. Finally, at the far side of the neighbour’s orchard, I ducked in behind the windbreak, into the metre or so gap between the trees and the fence, and walked up the fenceline back towards our orchard. I had maybe 20 metres to go when I almost trod on the goose, lying doggo (well, “goose-o”) in the long grass – cunning devil. That’s why we couldn’t find it yesterday, it knows to lie still until danger passes. So the goose sprang out of the grass, burst through the windbreak, turned back towards me and flapped its wings frantically. Oh bother (or words to that effect). The goose swept past me slowly gaining altitude. I didn’t say, but the windbreak was about 7-8 metres tall and was in an L shape, with the short leg of the L being along the back boundary, in front of the big agricultural drain, and the long leg going down the boundary separating the neighbour’s orchard from his neighbour’s orchard (it’s “orchards all the way down” in Oak Avenue). So, the goose is flying further away, flying towards a 7-8 metre tall windbreak. Getting close it put on a massive effort and swept upwards. I was mortified, I was so close to recapture, but not close enough. Then, to my delight, the goose clipped the top edge of the windbreak, scrabbled and overbalanced and fell beak over tailfeathers down the side of the windbreak. I rushed over and, while it was still a bit bemused, grabbed it. Temporarily back to four geese again. A series of improbable and lucky events.

So, a little later, with its left flight feathers clipped, this ringleader escape artist was reunited with his or her team – being New Zealand I’m inclined to think it’s a female. They all settled down – and that’s when we went off to town.

Oh no, when we returned, no sign of ANY geese. They’d all escaped. A short search located them, in with the ewes in the Middle paddock and enjoying the long grass in the sun. Even though they probably couldn’t fly – though we hadn’t put that to the test – they might be able to get through some of the fences – well they’d got through two fences and an electric fence to get where they were – it was only the good food that kept them I’m sure.

As evening fell, we followed Karola’s plan to recapture the geese. She opened up the fence into their enclosure – this is a netting fence across about 1/3 of the Back paddock – and opened the gate between the Middle and Back paddocks. Karola enticed the sheep with maize from in front; I herded the sheep and geese from behind; and ewes and geese all went into the Back paddock together. I then herded the geese back into their enclosure and our prisoners were safe again.

It maybe that the geese went under the netting fence to escape – so I lowered the netting closer to the ground. It may be that they just sprang over it – so I ran an additional #8 wire about 150mm above the netting. Tomorrow we’ll see if they can still get out. What a lot of commotion about four $10 geese. They do look rather picturesque though, and they are so very soft (think of goose down for pillows), and they really aren’t aggressive and don’t nip very hard – so Karola has somewhat melted her harsh judgement of them as nasty, noisy, smelly, messy birds.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—14°C; Beautiful sunny, clear, crisp day; south-westerly breeze around midday swung round to northerly by mid afternoon; no rain.

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Loose Goose Not About the House

Not a good day today. The fourth goose is still missing despite a sighting this morning in neighbour’s orchard. Karola and I tried to carefully edge the bird back towards a gate into our orchard, and, at Karola’s request, I’d brought over one of the other geese and tethered it to the fence nearby to try and attract our missing goose. All that happened was the goose got edgy then flew off back across our orchard and landed, it seemed, in the neighbours orchard on the other side. We spent a few hours searching for it but it was, as they say, a “wild goose chase”; how depressing, I’d managed to lose this bird three times and it all could have been avoided if I’d remembered to clip its flight feathers before releasing it.

The three geese still in our enclosure had their wings clipped and have not escaped so far – they seem to have cheered up now they all three are untethered and able to roam the enclosure.

Mike Croucher, our lawnmower man, came today and, although he did forget to bring any petrol which delayed things a bit, he cut the lawn – it was still very damp from the rain days ago, but he didn’t make too much mess.

Fisher and Paykel servce agents called – they would be out with a replacement hose for the washing machine between 10:00am and 12:00pm. They rang again ten minutes later – sorry but the service rep. would have to pick up the part so would between 1:00pm and 3:00pm be OK. Half an hour later, a voicemail, the part couldn’t be picked up after all, so how about next Tuesday.

The next excitement – more depressing news – is that Karola wanted the lambs to chew out a strip of long grass behind the Feijoa bushes. So I strung up some electric fence and let the lambs in. Unfortunately, the two large thistles that I included inside the fence were not (thistles, that is) – I thought that they were thistle offspring from Karola’s folly, some huge varigated thistles that she accidentally let flower in the summer – I also thought they’d be avoided by the sheep. Bad idea. Turns out that the sheep found them super nice to eat and they were carefully nurtured Cardoons. Black mark to Ian and his *** sheep.

Increasing the splendor of the day, I started to chainsaw the firewood off the apple tree stumps – and after doing about a dozen I hit a nail or staple embedded in a trunk and wrecked the chainsaw chain – couple of teeth missing and many buckled. Sighs all round.

To end on a positive note: as our geese are probably mixed Embden and Pilgrim breeds – they are almost completely white but the flock they came from has a whole range of colours and mixtures of white and brown and grey – they tend to mate in small permanent groups of one gander to one or two geese – so perhaps losing one of the four will actually produce a better balanced family unit.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—14°C; Beautiful sunny, clear, crisp day; westerly breeze around midday swung round to northerly by mid afternoon; no rain.

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One of our Geese is Missing

Took in Landrover for service etc – filled it up with petrol first. Tank of petrol, $115. Service, $300. Well that’s a lot better than the major service I had a year ago which cost over $3000. What a gas-guzzling extravagant monster.

Then the security guy came and successfully reprogrammed our remote alarm buttons.

After lunch we went and picked up my 4 geese – one per yellow plastic feed sack – they quietened down quickly. Mrs Google said that geese only needed a 2-3 foot high fence to contain them – several sources said the same thing. Heather, the goose vendor, said that her geese could fly but only ever flew a few feet off the ground.

On the way back we dropped into a garden centre and purchased some trees/shrubs:
1 x Kaka Beak
1 x Tecomanthe (native climber)
1 x yellow Pohutukawa
3 x Manuka – a variety with dark foliage
3 x Rewarewa

This was partly in compensation for my goose purchase, which Karola wasn’t really convinced was a good idea at all, even if they’re only $10 each.

We released the geese into their enclosure as soon as we got back. Stupidly I forgot that I’d planned to clip one wing of each bird, after all they cant’ fly far and even a low fence will keep them in NOT!. As soon as they were released 3 of them jumped/flew over the fence into the next paddock; one of them actually went over the next fence into the neighbour’s orchard. I got round behind that one and herded it about 300m up the boundary until there was a gate – it ducked under and then I herded it the 300m back down our side of the boundary. When we got close to the enclosure it tried a few more flying stunts but was obviously all tuckered out from its first escape and we were able to catch it quite easily. We tethered it inside the enclosure in the hope that the others would come and stick around it.

Meanwhile the two other escapees had wandered into an adjoining paddock and were chasing the sheep around and grabbing the odd beakful of long, lush grass. Bicka and I herded them back the way they came, and they too decided to take flight just as they were getting close to the enclosure. One crashed into a fence – and I caught it and dropped it over the fence into the enclosure. The other was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile Karola had caught the fourth goose, the one that hadn’t escaped in the first place, and we tethered that one too. Shortly afterwards the goose I’d tethered got loose again, but the plan seemed to be working, one tethered goose and two untethered geese remained in the enclosure.

I searched for the missing goose – worrying that it might have got onto the road or perhaps into the orchard across the road, or hurt itself crashing into something. Based on the idea that “they only fly low and not far” I combed the nearby ground – nothing found – so eventually I gave up, somewhat disheartened.

Around 4:00pm Ted from “Grey Skills” turned up and we took a look at the boundary fence; it looks like he’ll be able to help me do that next month – $30/hr. Oh, and around 11:00am Roger the Mulcher came and got stuck into the remaining mulching work – he said he’d be there till 4:00pm and come again on Saturday to finish it off. It was no real surprise to find him gone when we returned with the geese – a voicemail later told the story, yet another part of the mulcher engine had failed and it’d be out of action till Friday. Hmmm, as Roger said, our mulching job seems to be jinxed.

After Ted had gone I took another look round for the missing goose – including looking in the orchards across the road and in the road ditches – nothing. Then my cell-phone rang; Karola had spotted the missing goose sitting under a tree on our front lawn – which means the goose had flown higher and further than I’d expected. Directed by Karola from her upstairs bedroom I crept round the house and engaged the goose from behind – herding it back towards the others in the enclosure – hoping that the sight of the others would attract the goose to the enclosure – even if it stayed outside but nearby for the night, that’d be OK.. It was getting dark by now, I could see the goose because it was a white blob on the grey lawn – but not for much longer. I’d halved the distance to the enclosure when the goose decided to take evasive action. It flapped and flapped and flew almost directly at me, sailed up above the orchards and crossed our orchard and the neighbouring orchard, round in a wide arc, dropping down out of sight maybe half a kilometer away. At its highest it was at least twice the height of the orchard trees. “they only fly low and not far”, “Yeah, Right!”.

Karola persuaded me to come on a night-time search of the area behind our orchard – we came in on a back road and I swept several orchards with a searchlight, but there’s no sign of the goose. Sadly, right now, One of our Geese is Missing.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—11°C; Cloudy; southerly wind; no rain.

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When is a pen without quills

It rained gently but consistently for several hours last night. The ground is sodden today and there are many large puddles. This makes pulling up weeds and banging in “standards” easy, but the Landrover makes a terrible mess everywhere it goes off-road.

Karola and I partitioned off about 1/3rd of the Back paddock with sheep netting as an acclimatisation pen for the geese; we also set them up a shelter made from a disused round 1.5m diameter corrigated iron water tank laid on its side and facing North-East. I didn’t pick up the geese today but expect to view them tomorrow afternoon.

Later Snowy’s team (two teenage boys) turned up and moved the remaining pruned logs from the orchard – another 2 trailer loads so we’ve got a mountain of wood to cut into fireplace-sized lengths and stack in our big shed. In addition there’s the stumps of the uprooted apple trees to saw up and store – is there no end to the saga of the 189 ex-Apple trees! (probably not).

Ted, a man registered with “Grey Skills” called today in answer to Karola’s enquiry for someone to help me put up fences. He’s a fencer by trade so will know his stuff – is coming round tomorrow afternoon to discuss what we want and how he could help. The roadside boundary fence north of the Homestead is the first fence for us to tackle now. It is a little trickier than the others due to several large and small trees actually growing on and through the boundary, and a large, 2m deep roadside drainage ditch along about half the length, which makes access to build the new fence difficult.

One of our remote security arming buttons went on the blink – I got new batteries – those round lithium ones used in hearing aids and the like – but, although the button now does send a signal it’s not recognised by the control unit – so a man is coming out tomorrow morning to provide and install a new remote – for $100.

Landrover is booked in for warrent-of-fitness and service tomorrow. Karola and I have somewhat different views of the role of the Landrover – she likes her expensive RV clean and free of manure, spiders, dog hairs, toolboxes, bits of wire etc while I don’t feel comfortable until I see a few spiderwebs, lumps of what might be mud, Bicka pawmarks, and lots of stuff cluttering up the Landrover. Jack Spratt would eat no fat …. Life would be a bit humdrum if we agreed about everything. Bicka has her own “jump seat” in the very back; despite liberal applications of mustard she’s still inclined to nibble the leather. Bicka prefers being up at the front and when I’m not paying attention and she’s shut in the Landrover she’ll jump into the driver’s seat and look out of the window – great style, but muddy paw-marked seats.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—12°C; Cloudy with only occasional sunny patch; southerly wind; 5mm rain overnight.

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Woolly Balance of Payments

The Green Machine and its owner/driver turned up around 7:15am and were destumping by 7:30am and had finished by 9:30am. Our trees were shallow rooted and the soil wasn’t sticky so the stumps came up easily and most of the soil came off with a couple of shakes.

While the machine destumped, Karola and I took more fence down ready to have the posts pulled out – but this time we didn’t remove the battens and that way the Green Machine was able to extract about 40 posts, 15 more than I had ready the night before. Several concrete posts and strainers crumbled under the pressure of the Green Machine’s claw, but they’d already cracked and begun to break down anyway, being about 40 years old.

For the rest of the morning Karola and I patched up the fence with iron posts called “standards” or “Waratahs” so that the lambs could not get into Karola’s natives corner where flax, toitoi, manuka, cabbage tree, karo and karamu have been growing for the last 2 years. We were somewhat hampered by the breaking of a post that was intended to be the new temporary end-post for the fencing along the native corner – I just had it strained up, not aggressively, but enough to get the kinks out of the wire, and the post just sighed and leaned over, fractured at ground level – the section of fence of course fell to the ground with a clunk. I too sighed.

In the afternoon I began constructing a temporary enclosure for the geese – I expect to buy all 4 that await my inspection at Heather Gregory’s place about 1km away. I am using 50m of an old fence I constructed of ‘docking netting’ back in the 1980s; docking netting is like chicken netting but with 100mm holes. The idea is to let the geese get used to a piece of our Back paddock and to their new living quarters (an old round iron water tank on its side) for a couple of weeks before giving them the keys to the estate. We hope they’ll set up camp in the Back paddock where there’s shelter, a water trough (an old bath actually), and some grass. The new drive runs along the Back paddock fence line so I’m hoping that my ‘guard geese’ will alert us to anyone coming up the drive, day or night.

Karola went into town in the afternoon, including a trip to the wool merchant to pick up our wool cheque. This year we got more for the wool than it cost to shear them. Shearing 72 sheep cost $225.80 (plus GST); the wool fetched $292.36 (plus GST).

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—17°C; Cloudy start but sunny patches later; light westerly breeze turning northerly; no rain.

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