Monthly Archives: January 2006

Cat and Dog given anti-flea treatment. Sheep given a bale of hay and left to enjoy their strip of the new grass.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 19°C—32°C; no rain. [76.9]

Karola returned from Wellington this evening. Mike Croucher came and mowed the lawns. The geese flap their wings every now and then, showing us that they stay only voluntarily, while the maize holds out. While working with the sheep I saw a family of quail pass by in the Top paddock – half-grown now, and I counted at least 7 young ones.

Today was sheep pedicure day – two 3-hour stints: 9:00am – 12:00 noon and again from 5:00pm to 8:00pm. In the morning I did the 43 lambs and the 9 two-tooth ewes. The two-tooth ewes feet were all fine. Some lambs were dagged to reduce the risk of fly strike.

Lambs that needed treatment:

• 508 – footrot in back right foot, old and nearly healed
• 509 – no footrot but suspicion of possible fly strike – needs checking again
• 513 – footrot in front right foot
• 519 – footrot in front left foot, old and nearly healed
• 520 – footrot in front left foot
• 527 – quite bad fly strike (treated yesterday), bad footrot and maggots in front left foot
• 528 – footrot in left front foot, nearly healed

The 19 heavy old ewes were in a bit more trouble (19 now that 202 has died):

• 201 – footrot in front right foot and footrot in back right foot which is old and nearly healed
• 203 – footrot in back right foot
• 208 – footrot in back right foot
• 210 – bad footrot and maggots in back right foot
• 212 – limping on back right leg – no obvious sign why
• 213 – bad footrot and maggots in back left foot
• 214 – bad footrot and maggots in front right foot
• 220 – footrot in back left foot and footrot in back right foot

Hawkes Bay Weather: 19°C—27°C; northerly wind; no rain. [76.5]

After another morning glued to my Mac Mini I finished off the chook coop and set in residence the bantam hen and her 10 chicks.

The sheep had another couple of bales of hay and were later penned in the Island paddock for the night while I set up new temporary electric fence to give them a slice of the new grass tomorrow. I noticed one limping sorry-looking lamb had wool peeling off its rump. Closer inspection revealed it had quite bad fly-strike so I had an unpleasant 30 mins cutting the wool back to the edge of the maggot-infested area and spraying on some potent poison. Poor little thing, it certainly wasn’t showing any symptoms when we drenched the sheep just over a week ago, but the infected area is over 1/4 of it and the maggots eat the skin and into the flesh a bit. I’ve no idea if it’ll ever heal properly, but it is disgusting and obviously horribly painful for the beast.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 19°C—25°C; northerly wind; no rain. [77.0]

Late morning resumed work on the chook coop – tonight I have finished refurbishing the old cage – used to be a kennel for a large dog and still smells faintly doggish – and have made a traditional run – triangular cross-section – using fencing battens for the trusses and some old wire netting that’s been here for years. Bantam hen and 10 chicks still all OK.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—25°C; northerly wind; no rain. [77.5]

Spent rather longer than expected on renovating the old cage for the bantam hen and her 10 chicks. Spent rather more time exploring my Mac Mini computer. Hmmm.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—24°C; southerly wind; no rain. [77.1]

The rain stopped before daybreak. After trip to town (cut an additional key to the front door of our Wellington flat and went food shopping) I saw the two visitors on their way and then topped the Triangle paddock, mowed the geese enclosure, and put up electric fence to allow the sheep to graze in the Triangle and some of the lawn. The sheep were ecstatic.

My 2nd hand Mac Mini computer arrived today – correctly addressed but incorrectly delivered to 331 Ormond Road; lady phoned and suggested I collect it from their mail box.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—18°C; southerly wind; 10mm rain. [78.0]

Karola set off for Wellington to help Bridget again. Traffic was light and she got there in under 4 hours. The two visiting UK ladies amused themselves going to wineries and on a Gannet Safari trip to Cape Kidnappers – we had dinner at the fish restaurant in Westshore.

In the morning I closed off an area behind the bamboo and let the sheep into that through the gate by the rhododendron tree. I also gave the sheep 2 bales of 2004 hay. Oh, and while I remember, Karola has put her 3 orphan lambs in the geese enclosure so they can have a bit more green feed.

I sought and chopped Scotch thistles along the drive and roadway, in the Back paddock including the geese enclosure, and in the Island and Triangle paddocks. It began as a sunny day and became very warm after lunch and I went inside until 4:00pm. By 5:00pm it had started to rain and kept on, some of it heavy, for the rest of the evening.

The 10 chicks are eating lots of chick crumbs.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—28°C; northerly wind; 9mm rain. [78.0]

Just as I finished feeding the animals it began to rain and continued with light drizzle most of the day – so no outside work today.
The sheep got 3 bales of hay today – fed out where we burned the apple stumps, hoping that the dung and any remaining hay and seeds will refertilize this piece of the Top paddock.

The ten chicks are still alive and cheeping. We’ll keep them under supervision for a few days at least.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—20°C; northerly wind in the afternoon; 8mm rain. [78.1]

Bantam chicks hatched today, distracting me from scheduled tasks. I did go into town and buy a 12 foot netting gate and couple of lock-through gudgeons for fencing, and 10 kg of “chick start” crumbs. Ten chicks are hatched and are still alive this evening. At Karola’s suggestion I rehoused the hen and chicks in Bicka’s old big plastic kennel – it’s really too small for her now and we let Bicka sit in the back or on top of our luggage instead. Karola and I also began quick repairs to an old wooden shelter, pretty rotten but with an iron roof, to be the coop for the hen and chicks for a few weeks.

A couple of English aquaintances of Karola’s, on a holiday in NZ, came today for two nights.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—25°C; northerly wind; no rain. [77.3]

In the morning we spent several hours rebuilding the temporary sheep yards – Karola had a new idea for a better arrangement which proved later to work well. The earlier yards were dismantled to allow some tree surgery in the American Oak overhanging the yards.

I then topped the grass in the Back paddock using the motorised mower pulled by the Fergie.

In the evening Karola and I drenched all the sheep – and yes, we still have 71 made up of 19 2002 ewes, 9 2004 2-tooths, and 43 2005 lambs.

As happens every year, the grass grub black beetles are flying tonight – 1000s of them, getting into everything. Not nearly as horrid as the cluster flies, but a nuisance never the less – 10mm long black beetles flying and crawling in your hair, in the bed, in the sink, everywhere.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—26°C; northerly wind in the afternoon; no rain. [78.9]

2 hours to top the Top paddock – a post haymaking trim. The sheep were meanwhile imprisoned in the Island paddock and given a couple of bales of 2004 hay – which they ate eagerly. I let them out again at 4:30pm – just before Karola and I went into Napier to see “The Constant Gardner”.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—24°C; northerly wind in the afternoon; no rain. [77.9]

In the morning: mail collected from Hastings sorting office; New World food shopping then 1 litre Leviben drench from Farmlands, motorised topper taken to be fixed, and Karola’s yellow mulching mower picked up – fixed at last.

Both brown bantam hens are sitting – I found the 2nd one’s nest today – also in the green shed amongst the hay bales. Karola saw a pair of quail with 10 chicks in the Back paddock – I saw them later, fleetingly – lots of bumblebee-sized chicks scurrying for cover.

During one of the recent gales while we were in Wellington one of Karola’s tree guards round a totara was blown away – weakened no doubt by sheep rubbing on it. Unfortunately when I let the sheep into the Triangle paddock last night I didn’t notice it and the sheep stripped that totora tree.

I retrieved the motorised topper at 5:00pm – it needed a new battery – and hooked it up to the Fergie and did a few laps of the Top paddock – it’s now working just fine.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—21°C; southerly wind turning to northerly in the afternoon; no rain. [77.9]

We left Wellington around 3:30pm and arrived back in Hastings at about 8:45 having had dinner at a pub on the outskirts of Dannevirke. Bicka was very pleased to be home again.

No obvious dead sheep; the four geese and cat were well; the bantams less so. The little white chick has taken up with the sitting hen, which is fine by me. There were 3 eggs in the egg box and they were flecked with blood. I went to look at on the perch and found that the white bantam had become very crook – egg bound and worse – so I chopped off her head. The old brown hen was missing – maybe she’s decided to go broody – and the remaining 3 cockerels looked a bit bedraggled. Oh well.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—22°C; southerly wind; 12mm rain. [?]

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—29°C; north-westerly wind; no rain. [?]

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—29°C; northerly wind; no rain. [?]

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—24°C; southerly wind turned to northerly in the afternoon; no rain. [?]

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—29°C; south-westerly wind; no rain. [?]

Left Hastings at 6:04am, arriving in Khandallah at 9:40am. Bicka sat and lay on her jump seat all the way down; we stopped briefly for petrol and to change tapes – I listened to 6 half-hour lectures on the way down which passed the time quickly.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—24°C; southerly wind turned to northerly in the afternoon; no rain. [?]

Karola is still in Wellington with Bridget and family. I plan to go tomorrow for a few days. Hartley is looking after the animals.

This morning I fully intended to make some progress on the next piece of tree protection fencing, but it was not to be. Preparing for tomorrow’s trip I made arrangements for the mail and newspaper and set up the animal feeding arrangements.

Then I thought I’d attend to the feet of one very lame old ewe, #202. One front foot had footrot so I cut that back and applied spray. But there was no footrot in either hind leg but I found she’d an udder that’d gone hard and with about 1/3rd black and purple. Looking up in my Vet book I thought it looked like the symptoms of severe mastitis. I then rang Vet Services and confirmed – they call it black mastitis and basically it’s the end of the road for that ewe. So I asked the vet to come and kill #202, which she did. I used an old pair of hand shears to shear some of the dead ewe’s wool – we can use that on the floor of the footrot trough – and dug a hole and buried her.

Just to fill out the morning I refilled the sheep water troughs, emptied a trough near the green shed of brackish water and a dead mynah bird – and put the bird on Karola’s “bund”, and changed the washer on a tap that hasn’t been working for months – all it needed was a washer. Oh, and, as Karola suggested, I watered her soon-to-be-planted group of native trees in pots under the plum tree, watered a wysteria she’d moved to be under the chinese hawthorne, and watered the circle round the ginkgo outside the homestead front door. Most of the time I use watering tapes – flat green plastic several metres long with lots of small holes on the top, making a mist over about a 2 meter wide strip. For the ginkgo circle I tried out a garden irrigation tower – about a metre tall and it can water a circle or parts of a circle about 10 metres across. It works well.

I popped into town to pick up Karola’s mulching mower – they’d fixed part of the problem but it was still not done properly so I showed them again what the problem was and left it with them to fix for next week.

I finally did get back to fencing – strained up and stapled and fastened the netting to posts and wires. I surprised a tiny pheasant or quail chick in the grass; it was about 3-4 cm long and had bands of grey and brown feather markings – it didn’t seem frightened but eventually darted off into the undergrowth, hopefully to join up with the rest of its nest-siblings.

At one point the neighbour from the Karamu Stables directly across the road came and introduced himself and chatted. He’s been meaning to say hello for a month or more. He bought the 4 acres for $550,000 (including GST) from the previous owner, Andrew Parker – Andrew bought it from Craig Vernon 5-6 years ago for $280,000. The new neighbour intends to have a small self-contained building, converted from a garage (3.5m wide, 9m long), to use as a backpacker business – just 6 backpackers at a time.

A little later Luke and Hartley Curry turned up – Luke wondered if I’d sell him a bantam to put pheasant eggs under – I ended up giving him the old black hen and a young rooster – so at least our balance of sexes is maintained.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—24°C; northerly wind; no rain. [76.8]

Overcast day, cooling down in the evening with a few spots of rain but not enough to do anyone any good.

I tackled the tightening of the new netting fence protecting Karola’s native trees. As suggested by Kaz I made a clamp out of two boards bolted together to hold the end of the netting and attempted to use the tractor to strain up the netting. However, before doing that I, having seen Bicka’s trick of squeezing under the bottom wire of ordinary sheep-proof fences, lowered the netting and its support wires so that it almost touches the ground. I added a 4th wire 120mm above the top of the netting. Fading light stopped play and so I expect to finish the straining up tomorrow.

Another bantam egg collected today – I think it’s a white bantam that’s laying almost every day. The old brown hen is sitting on 10 eggs – has been doing so since before we returned from Wellington after Christmas. I am trying to get the old black hen and her adopted white chick to perch with the others, not sit all night in the nest box.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—26°C; southerly wind; no rain. [77.0]

Karola is in Wellington. The weather here was glorious – a slight breeze and clear blue sky. Most of the day spent relaxing but I did spend an hour or so with the Fergie filling in some holes under the diagonal fence running behind the big shed and some holes from when we pulled out some posts and Karola transplanted a few Lelandii. I used about 6 bucket loads of soil from the heap behind the garage.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—27°C; northerly wind; no rain. [77.3]

Karola saw a quail family on the lawn a couple of days ago; this morning I saw them too – 3 little chicks. Went into town shopping for food and also brought back Karola’s mulching mower, mended, and the straightened gate hinge strap.

Greg Cornes finally set fire to his large bonfire of uprooted apple trees – very near the oaks in the Avenue. Karola passed it on her way to Wellington for a week – helping Bridget – and I went down to investigate. Greg was there, watching – though the heat was so intense and the flames so high that watching was all that was possible. He said he’d been waiting for 9 weeks for the right wind – to blow parallel to the Avenue so that neither the Avenue oaks nor his nearby apple trees would get too singed. The heat was pronounced even from inside the car on the Avenue so the leaves of nearby oaks probably will have been killed – we shall see.

Mike Croucher came and mowed the lawns today. Bicka seems frightened of the noise the mower makes; wonder if that had anything to do with her being blinded – the mower was operating that day.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—24°C; northerly wind; no rain. [77.4]

I finished stapling the battens in the morning. In the evening I fixed a problem with the new fence between the orchard and the new grass paddock; about 15 metres of the fence was too high off the ground, leaving a gap a lamb could get through below the bottom wire. The simple solution was to excavate the three posts involved and reseat them a few inches lower.

Karola did a massive weed clearance on the east side of the Homestead; I completed her GST returns.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—25°C; southerly wind in the morning turned to northerly in the afternoon; no rain. [76.7]

The highest temperature on our verandah while we were in Wellington was 35 degrees C. Today was a mere 29 degrees.

Karola and I spent the day repairing her big old gate. To complete it we just need one of the hinges; it’s being straightened by HB Lawn Mowers – we took it in when taking in Karola’s little yellow mulching mower on Saturday morning; the height setting mechanism on the mower had snapped due, says Karola, to my rough handling of said mower. The gate is tall – meant for horses and cattle I suppose – it’s 1.3m high. Two of its five rails have been replaced and the uprights at both ends. It still looks old with plenty of grey lichen on the remaining rails and uprights and diagonals. It used to be a gate in the old drive but a truck delivering concrete paving for Karola broke it off at the hinge end in 2002; it’s been waiting for repair ever since.

Shelly from next door called and asked if the 3 sheep on the road were perhaps ours. Karola went to look but couldn’t see any sheep on the road. I tried to count our sheep and got 75 – there are only supposed to be 72.

After dinner I stapled up another couple of dozen battens – only 30 to go. Karola trimmed the Wysteria on the verandah and balcony, and, unlike some, she cleaned up the clippings.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—28°C; no rain. [77.1]

Karola and I went to a house dismantler’s yard this morning – to see if we could find some recycled Totara or similar wood to repair the old gate. Totara 94mm x 32mm (4″x 1.5″ dressed) was available priced at about $8 a metre. Matai 94mm x 20mm price was $6.50 a metre. Karola decided to look again at what we had already lying around the place.

Karola spent most of the day – which was warm and sultry – hot in the direct sun – weeding.

Late evening I spent a couple of hours stapling battens onto some of the new fencing – I’d already fastened the battens with 2 – 3 staples; this was adding the remaining staples, one per fence wire.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—24°C; no rain. [76.7]

At lunchtime Karola and I had lunch at Parnel Fruit World and then went into Napier – she to buy groceries, me to get bolts for the reconstruction of an old wooden gate. I spent the afternoon working on Karola’s GST.

Late afternoon Karola was still collecting sticks from the gales up here over Christmas and weeding. I did some heavy duty topping with the flail mower on the Fergie. The nasty flail mulching mower is the most effective bamboo control weapon we have – apart from spray poisons which would unfortunately kill the good trees and shrubs that the bamboo has invaded. Anyway I flailed away under the big oak and along the fenceline bordering the bamboo grove, then flailed a pathway from the drive to Karola’s long thin compost heap – which she calls her bund

bund

• A linear structure, usually of earth or gravel, shaped as to
  extend above the natural ground surface.

We then set up some electric fence and let the sheep into the Triangle – they were hungry.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—22°C; south-westerly wind changing to northerly in the evening; no rain. [76.7]

First day back. Four geese and 9 bantams and cat OK. Oldest brown hen is sitting yet again. Old black hen who adopted old brown hen’s only remaining chick, a white one, is still sleeping in the nesting box with her adopted chick underneath. The chick has lost all head and neck feathers and I’m hoping that a liberal dose of mite powder will cure it – I’ve dosed the whole lot.

Paddocks are dry but there’s still some green grass – very glad of the rain that fell this evening.

While doing the rounds I scared off two quail from their nests – one with 12 eggs, in amongst the eucalypt trees, one with 10 eggs in rough grass near the big shed.

Sheep are still in quite good condition although there’s still several limpers – old ewes and lambs. I shut them all in the Island paddock which was looking exceptionally luxuriant; tomorrow they can go into the Triangle for a few days to let the Back, Middle, and Top paddocks have a breather.

Karola and I began our reconditioning of an old Totara 3.5m gate that Karola wants hung under the Lime tree near the front northern road boundary. I started the hole for its 2.4m #1 (large) strainer post.

The pull-behind self-powered topper/mower wouldn’t start when I tried the day before we went to Wellington; the engine didn’t even turn over although I checked and topped up the charge in the battery. So, today I went to “Mr Fix-It” to see if he’d take a look. He’s closed up shop. I then went to our local garage – they’re overstretched with work and a skeleton crew. Norton Auto Electrics was my next stop – no, too much to do and almost all engineers on holiday, so suggest I wait a couple of weeks.

My lower back is still aching from me falling off the tractor a couple of weeks before Christmas. I’d just finished filling the Fergie with diesel – standing on the front left tyre to do so – when I turned and slipped then fell onto my back. Not at all far and I didn’t feel any untoward pains at the time, but it’s been aching off and on ever since and gives nasty twinges when I bend or stand up. I expect it’ll gradually go away in a week or so.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—23°C; south-westerly wind; 6mm rain. [77.6]

We arrived back in Hastings around 11:15pm – Karola drove all the way and we listened to a series of lectures from The Teaching Company, a series called “Questions of Value” by Prof. Patrick Grim; it certainly passed the time more quickly.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—25°C; south-westerly wind; no rain. [?]

Hawkes Bay Weather: 16°C—27°C; south-westerly wind veering to northerly in the afternoon; no rain. [?]

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—30°C; southerly wind in the afternoon; no rain. [?]

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—25°C; no rain. [?]