Monthly Archives: November 2005

The day began with sunshine and a clear blue sky; it the became partly cloudy but returned to clear blue sky by mid afternoon.

Fed the orphan lambs and did a bit of fencing mid afternoon. Mike Croucher came to mow the lawn but a wheel fell off his aging Walker ride-on mower.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—20°C; sunny spells, southerly wind turned to northerly in the afternoon, no rain. [77.3]

Much less rain today and the ground beginning to dry out. One of the 2 chicks belonging to the oldest brown bantam hen died this morning – got wet and cold I think; the more robust white chick still seems pretty bouncy and chirpy.

White bantam hen is sitting on 7 eggs in the woodshed – but the eggs are dirty and the nest isn’t in a good place so I don’t expect any chicks from that. The young brown hen has stopped sitting on her 8 eggs in the green shed – she let them get cold a few times so not surprised that they’ve not hatched. The old black bantam hen has started sitting again – we’ve been eating her eggs for the last 10 days but now I guess we’ll let her brood.

Karola went to Wellington – taking Bridget’s mother-in-law Anna More back with her – Anna had been staying with us for the weekend. Anna More and Karola helped me measure out a line parallel to the front of the Homestead for the fence that is to go along the meander/depression, fencing in part of the new grass area.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—17°C; mainly cloudy, southerly wind turned to northerly in the afternoon, 1mm rain. [77.6]

Rained most of the time all day; in a couple of short breaks I investigated where the rainwater tank overflow went to – the 3 5000 gallon tanks are full so they were overflowing. The overflow goes in a relatively new pipe from the oldest tank north through the shrubbery and across the front drive. On the other side of the drive that pipe stops and the water is intended to flow around the edge of the circular lawn and across a large V-shaped cutting in the lawn, into the meander/depression between the lawn and the new grass. However the water was instead going into a much older pipe – a large, 400mm or more in diameter, tile drain that starts by the Homestead south-east corner and goes right across to the depression/meander. I opened the rainwater tank flushing valve and a torrent of water went down the overflow – eventually ending up in the meander/depression in a spot where I’d excavated the old 400mm pipe, down about 500mm in the ground. So there is a connection right across which we should be able to use, cutting out use of the newer pipe, which makes a hump in the drive, altogether. There was a sheep skeleton right on top of the old pipe at the point I dug it up in the meander/depression – I’ve no idea why.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—13°C; cloudy, southerly wind, 67mm rain. [76.6]

Rainy day – worked inside. But between showers I moved the sheep onto another 1/3rd of the new grass – they enjoy the long wet grass and weeds but may get foot infection related to footrot, called scald – which makes them limp.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—13°C;mainly cloudy, southerly wind, 13mm rain. [75.5]

Rained on and off all day. Did some measuring of the proposed new boundary split between the Homestead and Orchard titles; I think a line 210 metres from the back of the orchard is a good line. No other outside work today.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—14°C;mainly cloudy, southerly wind, 8mm rain. [75.7]

Using the old mulching mower, cut the edges of the new drive, mulched some fresh bamboo sprouts that had come up in the Triangle – some of them 2 – 3 metres tall in a couple of weeks – and did some more on the long grass and weeds alongside the depression/meander.

Karola arrived home from Wellington. We then took Bicka to the Vets for a follow-on check of her eye – it appears that she’s now blind in that eye. Got some continuation anti-inflammatory tablets for her and couple of antibiotic shots for two lambs with infectious arthritus.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—16°C;mainly cloudy, southerly wind mostly, no rain. [75.8]

Bicka and I walked up to the McNabb Road orchard entrance and put a padlock on the gate there.

Sheep allowed another 1/3rd of the new grass – they cleaned up the first 1/3rd well and were very hungry.

I used the Fergie to drag the two 2.5m long 225mm diameter concrete culverts out of the depression/meander so that I could clear the depression/meander of long grass and weeds. While doing this I disturbed a pheasant hen and her many chicks. Bicka chased a few, sniffing them out but not knowing what to do once she cornered them. I took one away and released it; the others she baled up just scuttled away of their own accord once Bicka lost interest.

Harry and Chloe took me out to ClearView restaurant for a long lunch.

I used the Fergie and the old mulching flail mower to clear out the depression/meander from the roadside up to the Rimu on the edge of the front lawn.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—14°C;mainly cloudy, southerly wind , no rain. [75.3]

Chopped thistles all day, 1000s of them – hopefully not needed again for a few weeks. While doing the Top paddock, set aside for hay, I disturbed a pheasant hen with her brood of 1/2 dozen or so chicks – she cantered off and they froze invisibly in the long grass, as directed by mum no doubt.

Washed the dog – 15 minutes later she ponged just as bad again – must have made a bee-line for some manure {sigh}.

Fed the 3 orphan lambs – you can only feed 2 at a time and the one left out has to be restrained otherwise it fights the sucking ones. Thank goodness Karola is back on Friday 🙂

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—21°C;sunny spells, southerly wind in the morning, changed to northerly, no rain. [75.9]

A bit more fencing – just tidying up work on the reconstructed roadside fence and on the moved fence between the orchard and the Top paddock.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—16°C;cloudy, gusty southerly, cold, no rain. [75.5]

Karola went to Wellington to stay with Bridget at lunchtime so we had a hectic morning putting all 43 lambs through the foot trough once again – this time holding them individually for about 2 minutes in the solution. Much Zinc Sulphate on us again. Richard Rolls, our haymaker, came over and looked at the Top paddock today – he’ll be back mid December to mow it. While I remember, yesterday Colin and Maggie Nagel came over and Colin advised us that putting wool in the foot trough was the solution to jumpers and general reluctance to go into the trough – if the sheep can’t see liquid they’re much happier.

Later I moved all the sheep onto a strip of the new grass area, including the piece of the orchard drive that runs alongside the back of it, and set up a water trough for them over there. In Karola’s absence I fed the three orphan lambs – over a litre of milk each.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—24°C;fine with westerly wind, no rain. [75.5]

Karola and I remodelled the temporary sheep yards to incorporate the race with its footrot trough; then we rounded up all the sheep and sent them through – very reluctantly – in fact several of the 2-tooth ewes jumped clear over the trough. Four of the old ewes were treated for footrot – by paring down their hooves and spraying with antibiotic. The rest were bundled through the race and got some amount of Zinc Sulphate solution on their feet. I got a lot of Zinc Sulphate solution over me.

I also completed the stapling of the battens on the new fences. Also laid out a new temporary electric fence across 1/4 of the new grass area.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—25°C;fine with westerly wind in the morning, northerly wind in the afternoon, no rain. [75.6]

I constructed a 2nd hurdle using the same design as the one made yesterday. I went to 6 different hardware retailers in Napier and Hastings to get enough U-bolts.

Karola continued the Camelia tree shaping and weeding round the base.

Karola fed the 3 orphan lambs twice.

After lunch we tried to get the sheep to walk through their new trough containing anti-footrot Zinc Sulphate solution – with very limited success. They are now hungry and food is just a short walk through the trough – so we’ll see how many do go through the trough overnight.

Alan Ladbrooke came over at 2:00pm and we agreed the changes to the lease agreement for next year and beyond. It includes a slight reduction in rent, a change to the area being leased out, staggering of the rent payments, reduction of the number of big shed bays leased out from 2 to 1. Karola and I will take up the extra land for the Homestead block, swapping it for much of the current Top paddock – but this won’t make much difference until next autumn.

I grubbed up the remaining Scotch, Nodding, and Varigated thistles in the Middle paddock. Karola sprayed the Californian thistles in the Middle and Back paddocks. Because of her spraying programme for the Californian thistles last year there weren’t very many to spray this year.

Bicka continues to improve slowly.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—23°C;partly cloudy, northerly wind in the afternoon, no rain. [75.5]

We brought Bicka home from the Vet’s – her eye is less swollen but still a mess – but it’s a great relief to have her home again.

Karola spent the afternoon pruning one of the “paddock Camelia” trees – the one we topped yesterday. I constructed a hurdle for the sheep yards out of an old rusty and broken netting gate and two sheets of plywood and some U-bolts. We plan very soon to begin a programme of walking the sheep through a foot bath of Zinc Sulphate and this hurdle is part of it.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—19°C;partly cloudy, northerly wind in the afternoon, no rain. [75.9]

Bicka eye swelling has gone down a bit but there’s still bleeding behind the eye, says vet – and they still have no idea how she hurt it – they believe it’s an injury, not an infection and not much they can do. Poor Bicka. We hope to get her home for the weekend – and hoping very much that her eye heals itself. Gosh we’ve become dependent on having her around.

More battens today. Also Karola confirmed that many of the lambs are limping – it’s a disease called scald that they get from being in long wet grass – a mild but painful form of footrot. Karola insists that my usual practice of individual treatment is not good enough so I bought a sheep foot trough and some Zinc Sulphate and we hope to get all the sheep walking through the foot trough of Zinc Sulphate solution every day for a while.

Karola and I cut the top branches off the Camelia on the lawn to the West of the Homestead – to encourage it to sprout some new branches and become bushier, less straggly.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—23°C;partly cloudy, southerly wind in the afternoon, no rain. [75.3]

I took Bicka for a walk this morning – her eye still very bad – but she cheered up a bit in the sun – then I took her to the Vet’s as planned at 9:00am and she’s been there under sedation trying to get the swelling down – will stay there for a few days till they sort out what is wrong and what can be done. To think that little Bicka was lying somewhere thinking that we had punished her for something all day, only daring to come home late at night – and being in a lot of pain all night until they sedated her this morning. Karola and I visited her this afternoon and I think the swelling was down a little but still serious – the vet (different one from last night) thought it really not good.

After taking Bicka to the vet’s I picked up Karola from Napier airport – she looked remarkably fresh after her Boston-LA-Auckland-Napier flights. Good to have her back home.

Our 3 fostered lambs are weaned now and we collected them today; they have to integrate themselves back into the flock. All the sheep were moved to the Triangle from the Middle paddock – the Middle paddock is eaten down which makes it a good time to chop the remaining, numerous, thistles. Tomorrow, maybe.

I continued fastening battens to the fences.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—22°C;occasional cloud, no rain. [76.1]

Johnny hung the orchard entrance gate – 4.3m (14′) made of 25mm metal pipe – heavy – but painted karaka green by Karola over the shiny galvanised finish so it doesn’t look too new or garish.

I continued with putting on battens; 100s of battens.

Lawn was mowed today.

Worst thing was Bicka had an accident and hurt her eye – she vanished around 11:00am and didn’t reappear until about 8:45pm. She’d been with me running round the yard while I was parking the Landrover then she must have scented or heard the mower man emptying his mower and she rushed off barking in that direction. Johnny says he saw her later going into the Vernon’s orchard. Anyway I had been calling and whistling and searching around the Homestead for her since lunchtime and was outside in the dark calling when I saw a little figure silhouetted – she very hesitantly crawled to me and I was fairly cross at her being out so long until I saw her eye was all swollen and closed up. I called after hours vet and he saw her at the clinic around 9:45pm; it is quite serious and she has to go in again tomorrow for a more thorough check after the antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs have had the night to ease the swelling – she may lose the sight in that eye. Not sure if I am more upset or Bicka – she’s eating OK and sniffing around although understandably not wagging her tail.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—19°C;occasional cloud, northerly wind in the afternoon, no rain. [76.0]

Johnny arrived around 9:00am and completed the rails for Karola’s entrance off the orchard drive and the rails at the orchard entrance. Tomorrow he expects to return to hang the orchard entrance gate.

I completed fixing battens to the reconstructed roadside fence. So, apart from the culvert in the depression and the associated retaining wall, the roadside fence on the northern side of Karamu is complete. There’s still plenty to do however; Karola’s “grass bridge” over the depression, and my retaining wall and culvert underneath the roadside fence; the old main road entrance to the Homestead; a reconstruction of the entrance to the new driveway to match the style of the orchard entrance; and more.

Adam Ladbrooke came over with his dad’s SAME tractor and rotary hoed a strip along about 30 metres of the old fenceline between the Triangle paddock and the orchard; the same strip where I took out the concrete posts yesterday. I raked and sowed the strip using some of the seed kept back when we regrassed the Front paddock, and then watered it.

The sheep have been shut in the Island for a couple of days and have cleaned up the vegetation well, so I let them into the Middle paddock.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—19°C;a Overcast, south-westerly wind, 1mm rain. [75.8]

A solitary day:

• Chopped the worst thistles in the Triangle and Middle paddocks – the ones starting to flower.
• At last got round to nailing a batten to the gateposts of three gates where lambs have been slipping through
• Pulled out 13 concrete posts in the discontinued piece of the fenceline between the Homestead and Orchard, running diagonally along behind the big shed
• Two posts in part of the fence along the orchard drive are a little low and lean back quite sharply so I lifted them an inch or so with the Fergie and also straightened them up
• Yesterday, at Adam Ladbrooke’s request, I cut down an end Braeburn apple tree where it was impeding use of the orchard mower; today I repositioned the marker post at the end of that row.
• As it is the last rubbish collection tomorrow before Karola comes home I collected up as much as I could find, including a sweep along the roadside replacement fence, and put the rubbish bin out tonight.
• Tidied up some of the waste bits of fencing wire and put up 20 or so battens on the roadside replacement fence.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—23°C;a started as a sunny day, overcast later with a northerly wind in the morning changing to southerly in the afternoon, no rain. [75.7]

Johnny turned up around 9:00am and by lunchtime he’d got the rails up on one side of Karola’s new entrance. The other side is a bit longer – part of dealing with the fact that the Homestead faces the orchard drive obliquely and so getting the entrance to look right from the Homestead and from the orchard drive required some compromises. Johnny thought that some of the overlength 4.8m rails would just do for the longer side, and he started cutting them to fit – only to find that they were too short. Eventually, after much measuring and re-measuring, I fetched him five 6m rails and he began again using them. By now it was after 4:00pm and then his chainsaw broke. I lent him mine but it was too small and unfamiliar for Johnny to do the rail-shaping to make the ends nestle into the round posts so he stopped for the day. He’ll be back on Monday and is sure that he can get the rails up for Karola;s entrance and the orchard entrance and hang the new orchard entrance gate by Tuesday night. Karola will be here on Wednesday morning early.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—25°C;a beautiful sunny day, northwesterly wind in the afternoon, no rain. [76.2 again]

Well the day began warm and got hotter – 27 degrees on the verandah min/max thermometer by lunchtime.

Johnny Cranswick postponed till lunchtime and then for the day, but is expected to come for the day on Saturday so we can complete some of the fencing before Karola returns next Wednesday.

For me the day was more fencing and nothing but fencing. Mad Bicka and me – went out in the midday sun.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—25°C;a beautiful sunny day, northwesterly wind, no rain. [76.2]

Johnny had more spraying to do so won’t be coming here till tomorrow, Friday.

First task was to scout for more thistles – along the new drive, between the drive and the road, and in the parts of the Back paddock that I didn’t mow.

Then to mow 1/2 of the geese enclosure – for thistles but more to cut the weeds and let the grass grow. As I was doing this I unfortunately hit a quail’s nest with 6 eggs – I gave the eggs to Bicka as the nest was destroyed. Later I saw the two quail running about distractedly and felt guilty – if I was a Buddist I couldn’t do anything round here. When Campbell and I burned the apple stumps we ruined two thrush nests, one with eggs, the other with young. Anyway I consoled myself that a full clutch is more like 12 to 15 quail eggs so she just has to reset and re-lay the first 6, not such a terrible tragedy.

Finally before lunch I took another 6 Fergie bucket-loads of soil from behind the garage and put it in the swampy depression near the front gate – I’ve almost been stuck in there several times and it was getting deeper and deeper. Oh, and Barbara, Karola’s cleaning lady, took me to Dents to pick up Karola’s car with the dent removed – whole tailgate had been repainted and they had vacuum cleaned the carpets.

Then off to GoldenPine with Bicka to buy a mains-powered electric fence energizer and some more bits of 150mm x 40mm rail (on special at $2.90 per metre instead of $3.75 per metre). Bicka’s seat in the back of the Landrover was too hot to touch so I put a sack on it to avoid toasting her pads. The Gallagher energiser I enquired about has all sorts of programmed features and a battery backup, and it costs about $1200. I ended up buying a rather plain M600 for half that price.

Another trip – this time a quick trip to the supermarket in the Subaru; Bicka likes that because she gets to lie on a sheepskin in shade behind the back seat.

Then it was more fencing until dark – using the Fergie to raise 5 posts a couple of inches to make the orchard/new-grass fence as level as possible, and then reconnecting wires and beginning to strain it up.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—28°C;a beautiful sunny day, too hot to work outside at midday, no rain. [76.8]

Johnny was off doing other things today.

I was expecting Mike Croucher, the lawn mowing man, today – but he didn’t turn up and when I called him this evening I suggested deferring till next Monday so it’d look fresh for Karola’s return on Thursday.

The thistles are growing so quickly that they are in danger of flowering and showering us with seeds – so I spent a few hours chopping thistles (except for the Californian thistles which don’t die just because their head is chopped off) in the Island paddock, in about 1/3 of the Triangle, and in the Top paddock shut up for hay.

I emptied the remaining 1/3 cubic metre of gravel from the trailer into a pile by the back door – because there’s a large area of concrete there and it’ll be easier to pick up again. After that – in preparation for the lawn mowing – I used Karola’s mulching mower to mow some of the fringes such as under the large oak behind the green shed, and around the mulch pile near the bore. Bicka’s pen got another mow – it was a mess after the last time I mowed it because I’d let it get too long and rank. A few days ago I raked out the dead grass; today the grass was 50mm – 100mm high. I also retrieved and stowed about 150m of electric fencing, getting it out of the way of the mower man.

In the afternoon I began the levelling of the depression behind the low retaining wall beside the orchard entrance. It’s now filled in to the ground level of the drive from the road boundary fence and back about 2 metres, sloping down from there to the old level. Karola can decide whether she wants to preserve some of the low area – in which case we’ll reuse the rest of the clean spoil, probably about 4 cubic metres, somewhere else.

Finally I got on with the fencing. The fence from the orchard entrance up the orchard drive to Karola’s new entrance is now tied off. Only one of the 7 wires broke as I did the tying off; I strained it up just one notch too many. The strainer shot off towards the road and wire hurtled about but luckily this time I had not put myself in harms way. My shin is still very tender from my last encounter over a week ago – maybe I chipped the bone. Anyway, the wire knots are now all trimmed to minimise the potential for snagging clothes or wool, and holes round some of the posts are filled in. I moved one post forward about 50mm (2 inches) to bring it into line with the others.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—20°C;a beautiful sunny day, northerly breeze in the afternoon, no rain. [77.9]

Johnny Cranswick arrived around 8:30am. He completed the following:

• Replaced the broken stay post
• Permanently fixed the mocked-up rails for the orchard entrance rails on the Vernon’s boundary side using 5 rails with about 70mm gaps
• Cut the tops off 4 battens making them level with the rest of the battens done so far in the replacement roadside fence
• Cut the tops off 3 posts in the fence along the side of the orchard drive – to level them up with the rest
• Pulled up (tightened) the swinging foot on one of the strainers that I’de banged down after lifting – this should stop it just popping right up again
• Straightened the large gatepost/strainer post at the orchard entrance – it was leaning a smidgen towards the South, at right angles to the orchard drive fence and away from the gateway. Murray Cranswick pointed out the lean when he dropped by around 4:00pm and he and Johnny used the Fergie to nudge the post upright.
• Constructed the 2-high retaining wall from trimmed 1/2-round 2.4m posts
• Mocked up the two sides of Karola’s new entrance from the orchard drive towards the front of the Homestead – one side with 4 rails and gaps of about the same width as the rails; the other side with 5 rails and 70mm gaps.

Meanwhile I strained up the fence with the replaced stay-post and then went with the trailer and bought 1 cubic metre of 20-40 graded gravel from Winstone Aggregates, that is, rounded river gravel that had been seived so that all the stones were between 20mm and 40mm diameter. I created shallow channels from the low spots in the depression next to the orchard entranceway so that they’d drain into the culvert, and filled these channels with up to 100mm of gravel, covering these gravel drains with soil. The idea is to have the ground level be the same as the level of the driveway all along the roadside boundary, but to allow for lower areas further back from the boundary fence – these being drained by the channels filled with gravel.

I need to decide on which of the two designs – 5-rail or 4-rail I want by Thursday so Johnny can continue.

Crystal Ladbrooke brought back the black bantam hen – her 4 chicks are now independent.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—21°C; early mist then a beautiful sunny day, no rain. [77.5]

It rained last night and there were showers off and on most of the day, so I went with Bicka to town in the morning:

• Dropped in to the Vehicle Testing Station and picked up a form for registering the Fergie – a special registration for farm vehicles that allows them on the road but doesn’t require a warrent-of-fitness
• Bought 20L jerry can for petrol, a 2nd 10L fuel can for diesel, and a metal funnel with a long flexible spout: Bridget suggests we store some petrol to keep the little electricity generator going in case of protracted emergencies
• Shopped for food at New World as usual
• Took Karola’s car in for a spot of panel beating – neither of us know how the ding in the back happened
• Bought 5L tractor transmission oil for the Fergie – the dipstick is showing no oil but the hydraulics still work so it’s not out of oil yet
• Consulted with Tractor Dismantlers about the generator not working on the Fergie – a new one would cost about $100

After lunch I relaid out the electric fencing and moved the sheep into the Triangle paddock.

After that it was back to the fencing. I finally cobbled together the lengths of old wire and strained them up, finishing just as it became too dark to see. Johnny is waiting for this before beginning on hanging the gate and putting up the railings – these depend on the large strainer post at the orchard entrance, so the wires need to be strained up to allow the post to adjust. Unfortunately, just as I was packing up for the night I heard a soft crack – the stay-post at one end of the fence had broken. Oh well, one step forward, . . .

I meant to say a while ago that the little brown bantam, the daughter of the one with two chicks, has been missing for a couple of weeks – presumed sitting on eggs somewhere hidden.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—14°C; cloudy, 3mm rain. [76.8]

Fencing in the morning; a late lunch at the ClearView restaurant – I took Karola’s brother Kaz, his wife Yvonne, and son Francis – and then more fencing till after dark. Yvonne remarked that Bicka was looking plump – and she is!

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—17°C; mainly cloudy, just a touch of drizzle, no rain. [77.3]

Started the day by some grading with the Fergie – putting the fill into the depression next to the orchard entrance. Afterwards I got some fill from the pile beside the new garage and filled in the wet muddy patch by the front gate.

After lunch I completed the topping of the weeds in the new grass. As evening approached I topped the thistles in the Back paddock; then the sheep went back to the Middle paddock for the night and it was 8:30pm on Guy Fawkes night.

Many hours sitting on the tractor – your backside goes numb.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 16°C—24°C; fine until mid afternoon, westerly breeze, no rain. [77.1]

Using the old flail mower behind the Fergie I did a few laps of the new grass, topping the weeds so that the grass has a chance to thrive. Noisy and slow work, it took all morning. The smell of the mowings in the hot sun was delicious.

Johnny Cranswick arrived mid morning and put in the gate-latch post at the orchard entranceway, then began putting up the railings on the northern / Vernon’s boundary side of the gate. He put up 4 rails, nestled in behind a batten attached to posts at either end and it looked quite neat from the road. However I didn’t like the stockproof graduated spacings – the gaps near the top are too big – so he tacked up a 5-rail version for me to consider over the weekend – I think the 5-rail version with equal gaps between the rails of about 90mm is much better.

Johnny and I also started on the rails and their posts on the other side of the gate, including a short culvert and low wooden retaining wall. I had my first play with the Fergie’s grader blade, shunting the 8 cubic metres of “clean spoil” out of the way of the fenceline and into the shallow depression.

Goldpine have a special this month on 150mm x 40mm H3.2 treated planks so I stockpiled some for the refurbishment of the old main Homestead entrance and the new road entrance down near the Scott’s boundary – some will be used to make up the 5th rail for the orchard entrance.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—22°C; fine,northerly wind in the afternoon, no rain. [77.2]

After visiting the dentist I dropped in to Awakiri Drainage and talked to a guy there about getting some clean spoil to fill up the holes and low ground right next to the Orchard entrance. He was most obliging and so this afternoon we received 8 cubic metres of soil which I’ll have to smooth out with the tractor tomorrow.

Johnny Cranswick spent the day here. He put the stay-post on the gatepost at the orchard entrance and also finished putting in the posts for Karola’s new entrance off the orchard drive towards the front of the Homestead. We spent over an hour adjusting the post positions so as to compensate for the difference between the line taken by the orchard drive (along the Vernon boundary) and that of the Homestead – the front of the Homestead is certainly not parallel with the orchard drive. We’ve struck a balance between making it look right from the house and from the perspective of someone coming along the orchard drive.

I had a frustrating day because Johnny really disapproves of my line of posts all banged in a little bit too far – so I’m slowly pulling them all up a bit so that the posts on the highest parts of the fenceline are 1.1 metres above ground, and the ones in the dips are of course a bit higher. Most frustrating that it’s taking me so long.

Yesterday Hamish Ladbrooke rode up on his farm bike and asked about the old car wreck that had suddenly appeared on the Vernon’s side of our joint boundary, in the most visible part of the boundary between the poplars and the apple trees. Apparently his father didn’t know who it belonged to. Today another wreck appeared on the back of a truck and was dumped in the same place. I spoke to the guy in charge – I think it was the same Raratongan gentleman who was growing taros without our knowledge in our top paddock a couple of years ago – he got a nasty, and unintended by us, shock when he found we’d ploughed the lot up and put the ground down to grass. Anyway, the person authorising the dumping of the cars was the same as gave permission for the taro growing (without telling us) – Malcolm, Craig Vernon’s brother. I went over to the Vernon brothers’ office at lunchtime and Craig agreed he’d get the car wrecks moved out of sight.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—21°C; mainly sunny, south-westerly with some strong gusts in the afternoon, no rain. [77.5]

Murray Cranswick came and had a chat first thing; Johnny also arrived and, with advice from Murray, reinstalled the strainer post and two stay posts at the northern (Vernon’s) end of the new fence between the orchard and the new grass.

Late morning, after a trip to town, I put the finishing touches to the fence we moved in the Top paddock – the one separating the Top paddock from the orchard which has given the orchard an extra 1/2 acre that has been planted in apple trees. I replaced a dozen battens, tidied up the wire knots, and filled in the holes made for the stay posts.

Meanwhile Johnny Cranswick put in a strainer and stay post for a small, untidy bit of fence running behind the orchard pump shed.

Mid afternoon the three of us finished off putting up the large strainer post on the left-hand side of the orchard entrance.

After they’d gone I started straining up the wires on the fence between the orchard and the new grass – I got three wires at the bottom and the top wire done before it was dark.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—18°C; mainly cloudy, southerly changing to northerly wind in the afternoon, no rain. [77.8]

Both the strainers on the fence between orchard and new grass have lifted. Johnny Cranswick came today and basically suggested it was the soft soil and the unfortunate heavy rain so soon after putting the strainers in. Also the last three posts at the Vernon’s boundary end were not offset to compensate for the rake of the strainer at right angles. Until the wires are put on and strained up, strainer posts lean backwards in line with the direction of the fence. In this case the strainer not only leaned back in line with the orchard/new grass fence but also at right angles to that fence, for the continuation of the fence down the side of the orchard drive. Furthermore, in trying to avoid the wires hitting the edge of the stay post I’d belted it over an few inches and this apparently exacerbated the strainer post movement.

Anyway, I measured that both strainers moved forward by at least 50mm (2 inches); the Vernon end strainer also lifted by 120mm and the other end by 80mm. It is usual for the posts to come forwards and leave a gap at ground level of 20mm or so, but not 50mm. It is also quite common for the strainer to lift 20mm or so when the wires are all strained up, but not 80mm or more. The solution was for Johnny to dig out and re-install the Vernon’s end strainer while I just repositioned the height of the wires on the strainer at the other end. Johnny got the strainer post out quickly enough but couldn’t put it in again because the bottom of the hole filled with water – that high water table got us again. He’ll come and check if the water’s gone tomorrow. Meanwhile I reserve judgement on whether this cures the problem until I have the three fences up – one between the orchard and new grass, one down part of the side of the orchard drive, and one (old fence) diagonally up past the big shed.

In addition, the strainer that Johnny put in at the end of the diagonal fence running along the back of the big shed was much too short – he just miscalculated – the fence runs along the top of a small scarp that is 100mm – 150mm high – and he put the strainer in as if the fence were running along the bottom of the scarp. So I asked him to fix it and he had a good idea – just replaced the 2.1m strainer with a 2.4m strainer in the same hole and it’d be the right height. He did that and it looks OK.

Meanwhile the wires I laboriously assembled out of outer old wires and got nice and straight for the orchard/new-grass fence had to be cut and so the sheep couldn’t be on the new grass. So I spent an hour or so putting up a long electric fence alongside the orchard/new-grass fence and alos running parallel to the house on the edge of the lawn, behind the Feijoas, along the meander and down to the lemon tree and beyond. I used Karola’s mulching mower to make a track through 500mm high grass and weeds for the electric fence – otherwise it’d have just shorted out on the greenery. Then I was able to let the sheep out into the new grass – all of it, not just a section at a time as I’d hoped, but they are at least being fed.

I raked Bicka’s pen – the grass in there got too long before I mowed it and the cut grass was rotting.

The brown bantam hen takes her two chicks out every day and so far neither Bicka nor the cat have shown any interest.

There was some progress on the fencing; Johnny put in a strainer one one side of the grande entrance off the orchard drive towards the front of the Homestead – to match the one on the other side he’d done earlier. Johnny also dug out the two very substantial concrete strainers by the entrance to the orchard drive, and I lifted them out with the Fergie. I also dismantled the railings on the Vernon side of the gate and pulled out the large wooden post there so we’re all clear for erecting the new wider gate and railings.

A couple of days ago I retrieved the long eucalypt trunk that I cut down into the big roadside drain some weeks back – the trunk was swept through the orchard entrance culvert and down the ditch for another 100m or so. By retrieving I mean I nailed some wire to it and, while there was still water flowing in the drain, pulled it back to the orchard entrance with the Land Rover and tied the wire to our fence. Today I used the Fergie hydraulics to raise it out of the drain and drag it onto the orchard drive – safely home again.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—21°C; mainly sunny, northerly wind in the afternoon, no rain. [78.7]