Monthly Archives: May 2006

I’ve stopped picking more Braeburn apples – there are now a dozen 40lb (bushell) boxes of apples on the cottage kitchen floor.

Well over half way through the easy part of removing about 340 Braeburns. Once I’ve cut all the branches and everything above shoulder height and stacked it in the middle of the space between alternate tree rows then that’s the easy part done. The trunks above shoulder height are saved in piles for firewood. Next the Green Machine will come and pull up the roots still attached to a 1-2 metre high stump. That’s why the rubbish is heaped in alternate rows – to give the Green Machine access to the stumps. Then I have to cut off the roots and save the trunks for firewood; the roots will join the other cuttings and Alan Ladbrooke will get this all made into large piles for burning once its dried out enough.

I noticed that 2-tooth #402 is looking a bit under the weather again.

Spoke to Kaz yesterday: he and Yvonne have bought a brand new house in 3 acres about 5 km down the road from Rola, their current farm. They are leaving Rola by the end of July so that doesn’t give much time for organising the handover and moving their domestic pet animals – dogs, pigs, chooks etc.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—12°C; southerly wind; no rain. [78.7]

I was surprised to find Nelson and his 21 ewes eating acorns in front of the garage this morning. I assumed they’d decided not to heed the electric fence, even though it was alive and working; usually the ewes won’t go through the fence even if it’s not actually live. I went to shut the front gate onto the Avenue and from there I saw that the old wooden gate into the New Grass paddock was half open. Johnny and his friend on a farm bike came through there yesterday – Johnny wanted to look at a video about welding – so either the gate was already open when they went through or they left it open. Johnny turned up again today asking for some chicken netting for a school project so I ‘told him off’ about the gate but let him have some netting.

More apple tree cutting – over half done now – and 2 more bushell boxes of apples picked.

Mike Croucher came and mowed the grass – looks splendid.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—14°C; southerly wind; no rain. [78.9]

Put up electric fence and let Nelson and his ewes into the Triangle and New Grass paddocks – spelling the Middle paddock for a few days so that when I go down to Wellington after Bridget has her 2nd child (due in next 2 weeks) they can be put safely behind permanent fence in the Middle paddock until I get back.

Picked another 5 bushells of apples and cut another 10% of the Braeburns. Nice morning but overcast afternoon. Alan Ladbrooke phoned in the evening – apple business is looking up a bit; we agreed he would book the Green Machine to pull up stumps sometime after mid-week next week – he’s got lots more stumps on his (Cedar Orchards) and the next door orchard (Vernon’s) as well as the 313 old Royal Galas and my 340 Braeburns.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—16°C; southerly wind; no rain. [78.3]

While it was bright and sunny in the morning I went through the fuses in the Landrover, seeking the one that controls the internal instrument lighting and some of the rear lights. Fuse #8 was ‘fused’ and when I replaced it the instruments etc lit up again.

I picked another 2 bushells of apples (2 boxes) off the doomed Braeburns and I’ve now given about 1/4 of them a severe trim. As we have lots of mulch from last year, and mulching is expensive, and this year we are removing about 340 Braeburns and 313 old Royal Gala trees – Alan Ladbrook, our orchardist, has already trimmed the Royal Galas – all except for the trunks will be burned; I will have the trunks for firewood. I’ve also chopped out 8 Royal Galas from a different block, the one adjacent to the Braeburns; the new title line actually goes down the middle of the first row of these Royal Galas and by removing these 8 trees I can install the permanent gateways while deferring removing the rest of the row (about 40 trees) until they come to end of life. We’ll just have a temporary fence 5 metres or so inside the Homestead boundary until then. The little light chainsaw is working very well so far – not too tiring to hold and munches through the soft apple wood most satisfactorily. Bicka meanwhile is playing games running up and down the rows chasing imaginary rabbits – why she doesn’t chase real rabbits like the one I saw at lunchtime yesterday near the green shed I do not know.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—17°C; no rain. [78.9]

In the afternoon attacked more apple trees – about 10% done. Fed hay to the ewes and ram who, despite having plenty of grass, appreciated the variety.

Kaz called, he’s sold Rola, their farm, to nice neighbour for about $NZ 2.5M – but he doesn’t know what he will do instead; they have to be out by the end of July.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—18°C; northerly breeze; 1mm rain. [78.9]

Finally got outside late afternoon and began the felling of the 340 Braeburn apple trees – trimmed lower branches of 25 trees. Earlier in the day spent fair bit of time ensuring Karola’s submission and petition with signatures got to the Hastings District Council before the 4:00pm deadline. Karola’s submission and petition is in support of a move to change the speed limit from 100kph to 60kph down Oak Avenue.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—16°C; northerly breeze; no rain. [78.8]

Lambs and culls let out into the orchard after I’d walked the perimeter with Bicka and ensured there were no obvious escape holes. I tied the McNab Rd gates together more tightly and also shut the gate into the Vernon’s orchard and repositioned its hasp so that it would stay shut. Later I put electric fence round the newest young apple trees – after seeing that some lambs actually preferred apple leaves to grass.

Packed up the electric fence along the ha-ha and across to the Island paddock, replacing it with a single hot wire right up against the ha-ha. I did the “pull test” and the new grass growing on the ha-ha is strong enough to be grazed – tears rather than comes out by the roots when pulled.

Took the broody bantam hen’s 2 eggs away from her – it’s a bit pointless her hatching chicks in June and we have quite enough bantams for now anyway. Will see if she takes the hint and stops sitting.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—16°C; no rain. [79.2]

Not much outside work today – I began tacking netting to the inside of the fence along the orchard drive – to stop the sheep eating the native trees we plan soon to plant there. The drive is only 6 metres wide so I will be planting quite close to the fence and our experience with hungry sheep and wire fence or even ordinary netting is depressing. This netting is smaller than usual to stop even lambs getting their heads through.

I am pouring over books and websites, checking the latest info on soil types (“recent alluvial and slope”) and best natives to plant here. Also found a site showing what the pre-burnoff/farming vegetation was, when moas and other birds and reptiles were abundant.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—15°C; northerly wind; 3mm rain. [79.2]

I went and inspected the livestock, having arrived too late last night to see them. All present and correct, and to my delight, unexpected, #402 was up and about as if nothing had happened. When we left for Wellington she had been just sitting down, not eating, and looking weaker by the minute; I didn’t expect her to last more than a day or so. Barbara, who came by to feed the animals on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, heard from the Scotts’ who happened to be collecting firewood Karola sold them that there was a sick ewe in the Middle paddock. Barbara wrote me a note about this which I read on Monday night and it sounded as if #402 was fading fast. Fully expecting to need a shovel to bury #402 I could not find a corpse. I fed Nelson and his ewes some sheep nuts and counted carefully – all were there and eventually I located #402 – thinner but otherwise normal in gait and appetite. That was good news.

When Karola and I were drenching the lambs the day before leaving for Wellington I noticed that one of the parasites Leviben is supposed to kill is lungworm, so maybe I was too hasty in culling an otherwise fit young 2-tooth, #403, just for a persistent cough. So today I penned up the lambs and culls and gave #403 a drench, then united her with Nelson and her 2-tooth comrades. The lambs and culls then were put in the orchard driveway. I put up a short electric fence across the end where it decants into the orchard and locked the road gate. I hope they’ll clean out the grass and some of the leaves in preparation for our natives hedgerow planting in the next week or so. The strip we plan to plant this autumn and that we sprayed a few weeks ago is looking suitably weed-free though covered in leaves from the poplars. The strip is about 72 metres long and comes out 2.5 metres from the fence separating the drive from the new grass paddock.

Soil samples not ready yet.

Dead mynah in the lambs water trough so I emptied it and cleaned it a bit before refilling.

A brown bantam hen is sitting on 2 eggs – eggs that Bicka didn’t eat because of our trip to Wellington. Guess I’ll leave her to it though it isn’t really a good time of year for chicks.
While I was away the chooks emptied their automatic feeded – I think they just like pecking the release mechanism to watch the grain falling then other birds get it – I’ll have to try something different – there’s a feeder that operates by weight, opening when a chook stands up on a ledge and closing again when she gets off. Stops waste.

Alan’s team are cutting down the oldest Royal Gala block – well they’re cutting off all the branches and leaving a pole for the Green Machine to pull out along with the roots. As we agreed, they’re buckraking the branches into a space between the Braeburns that I plan to fell quite soon, and there’s a pile burning slowly. My marker peg showing where the old boundary line intersected the new one between the Homestead and Orchard was casualty of the buckraking but I found the hole it was in so will still be able to line up the new boundary fence OK.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—15°C; northerly wind; 3mm rain. [?]

In the morning Karola, Bridget and I made a slatted base for the Chapman-Taylor child’s bed that’s been retrieved from one of Karola’s friends or relations (on loan while we were overseas for 30 years). The bed ends and iron rails are there but there’s no base. Some mucking about getting new bolts that would go through the iron rails and wooden rails for the slats – turned out that the bolts were Imperial thread. Bridget got the wood cut to about the right size; Karola smoothed off the sharp edges and helped me measure and screw everything into place. Then I took off back to Karamu – re-listening to several hours of audio-lectures on philosophy (Bicka isn’t all that excited about this), and having dinner in the usual pub on the outskirts of Dannevirk. We, that is Bicka and me, got home around 7:00pm Karola is staying on for a few days to see if the baby arrives early – she’ll probably come home at the weekend if there are no more alarms, false or otherwise.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—16°C; northerly wind; 3mm rain. [?]

Went with Bridget to buy a mattress for a child’s bed that Karola has lent her for Natalie – it just fitted in the Landrover without folding.

Karola did more looking after Natalie and cooking for Bridget and Chris.

Helped Chris reinstall a couple of bedroom doors – their redesign of half their house is almost complete – carpets went down the day before we arrived and the west wing with its 3 bedrooms and bathroom are much better proportions now. Borrowed a power drill so that Karola and I could put up a couple of wall-mounted racks at Pitoitoi.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—14°C; northerly wind in the afternoon; no rain. [?]

Today I took 20 bamboo stakes round to Gill’s place in Seatoun Heights road – all about 2 metres long and 20mm diameter – there was no-one home but Bicka had a good 15 minutes sunbathe in the back of the car with the boot open – a short sunny spell in an otherwise rather dreary grey and overcast few days in Wellington.

Karola did more looking after Natalie and cooking for Bridget and Chris.

In the evening Karola and I went with Anna More to Circa Theatre – a meal and then an amusing german play by Carl Sternheim, adapted from the original by USA comedian Steve Martin and inauspiciously called “Underpants”. Bicka slept in the back of the car as usual.

When down in Wellington staying at the Pitoitoi flat we take Bicka for a walk on the beach morning and night – she enjoys it and seems to understand it is ablutions time, and it’s a good stroll for us. Now Bicka is a bit older and more sedate I let her run free on the beach, just leash her for the walk back across the road and up to the flat 5 minutes away.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—13°C; no rain. [?]

We’re sleeping out at the flat in Days Bay but spending most of the day at Bridgets place in Khandallah – no sign of a birthing yet – but it’s not due for another 3 weeks anyway.

Karola looked after Natalie for much of the afternoon and evening – Natalie likes being cared for by her grandmother and doesn’t seem to mind being apart from Mum for a while now.

We’ve inspected the building works at Bridget’s place – almost ready for occupation by the forthcoming baby due in June.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—14°C; 1mm rain. [?]

We took two vehicles down to Wellington – I took Bicka in the Subaru and had breakfast at the Plum Duff cafe in Shannon on the way arriving around 11:30am. Karola followed in the Landrover after visiting a few people on the way and got down in time for dinner at Bridget’s. We took down a family heirloom bassinette and a Chapman-Taylor child’s chest of drawers for Bridget, and a re-covered chair for Pitoitoi – hence the two vehicles. Karola called in at Ade White’s farm in Waipukurau and Anna More’s house in Upper Hutt on the way. I also took down a box of old LPs belonging to Bridget so she can tell me which ones she’d like copied to CD – I have the technology all working now but it is a very time consuming business and the end result is still rather poor quality – well the LPs have been carted half way round the world and stacked in cupboards full of dust and damp for years, and we weren’t very careful with them when they were new anyway. There are just a few of the LPs that I’ve not seen on CD anywhere which are probably worth copying, but most of them can be bought on ‘digitally remastered CD’ whatever than means.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—16°C; southerly wind veering to northerly in the afternoon; no rain. [?]

Karola and I began the day by drenching the 43 lambs (and a couple of cull ewes, just to finish up the drench in the gun).

I mowed Bicka’s pen and 1/3 of the geese enclosure nearest the house.

I took five soil samples:

• 24 cores from along the northern road frontage – inside the strip fenced off for tree planting
• 22 cores from along the orchard drive between the road and the entranceway centres on the homestead
• 24 cores from among the oaks between the garage and the new drive entrance
• 22 cores from under the Casurina shelter belt on the northern side about 2 – 4 metres out from the tree trunks
• 20 cores from amongst the rows of Braeburn apple trees adjoining the new grass paddock

and delivered them to Analytic Research Labs in Napier.

On the same trip I went to Havelock North’s Animalz shop and picked up a new collar we’d ordered for Bicka.

In the evening Karola put the lambs and cull ewes into the Top paddock – earlier I’d parked the trailer up near the Top paddock with 6 bales of hay. Barbara will come round and feed out a bale a day as well as feeding the cat and geese.

A 2-tooth ewe #402 is sick – possible Oleander poisoning – and is off food and drink – can barely walk – unlikely to survive we think.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—15°C; southerly wind; no rain. [79.1]

The lambs and cull ewes have eaten out the new grass paddock already – certainly won’t last if I go to Wellington tomorrow and come back next Monday. Also about a dozen of the lambs have tell-tale scouring that means as Kaz said they need drenching. So I plan to do that tomorrow and maybe go down to Wellington a day later, on Thursday. With luck I can get the lambs and cull ewes into the orchard before I go – Alan Ladbrooke and team are picking the last of the Braeburns for juicing right now – may be finished tomorrow.

I helped Karola plant a Karaka that she bought last week, a nice Titoki that Peter Ormond gave her and two Rimu and two Miro trees that Gill and Ben gave her for her birthday. We put them in on the northern side of the new drive entrance.

Karola put frost protection on her 2 Pohutukawa trees she has growing alongside the garage.

I went to Analytical Research Laboratories and borrowed an auger and sample bags – I intend to get 5 soil samples analysed to see if there’s any special acidity or mineral deficiency that’d best be addressed before we plant our native trees hedgerows and shelter belts. They are next to Ravensdown Fertiliser plant on the coast road to Napier. $40 a sample.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—13°C; strong gusty southerly wind; no rain. [78.9]

We gave Gill and Felicity each a small apple tree from the block due for removal this winter – these were replacement trees 1-2 years old. Mid morning Gill, Ben and Mary left for Wellington closely followed by Felicity and Geoff.

Subaru went in for service and warrent today. Also the Landrover got its battery terminals cleaned and anti-corrosion pads put on each terminal – to avoid the repeat of recent flat battery caused by the white powdery corrosion shorting it out.

An overcast very chilly day; snow on the Kawekas.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—11°C; strong gusty southerly wind; no rain. [?]

Kaz and I checked out Nelson – no limping today. We joined up Nelson and his 20 ewes and put them in the Middle paddock. The rest of the flock were put into the New Grass.

Kaz actually thought we should drench the lambs before putting them into the New Grass so I called the vets and checked that the Leviben drench we had would eradicate Haemonchus contortus (barbers pole worm) and Trichostrongylus (Trich). Having confirmed that we were thwarted by the disappearance of the drench and drench gun – apparently Karola took a dim view of us embarking on a drench program 3 hours before her guests started arriving.

I counted 30 cars parked and more than 60 guests – Karola’s birthday lunch party was very successful. Bicka spent the 1st 4 hours in the back of the car and the next couple in her pen to avoid getting overexcited.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—16°C; westerly wind; no rain. [79.0]

Afternoon spent tidying up rolls of netting, piles of fence posts, bits of wire etc. Harry and Chloe dropped in briefly; Gill and Ben and Mary arrived mid afternoon. Kaz and Yvonne arrived around 4:30 and Kaz and I and Gill went out and tackled the ewes. Kaz and I checked and trimmed feet and decided which ewes to put on the cull list; Gill helped with spray-marking each ewe as it was finished. We marked 5 more ewes for the cull: #205, #207, #208, #212, #214.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—14°C; southerly wind turning northerly in the afternoon; no rain. [78.5]

Mike Croucher was able to mow the lawns today – it drizzled a little just after he’d finished.

On Wednesday we culled one 2-tooth, #403, the chronic cougher, and 2 old ewes, #201 and #210 – both in very poor condition.

I wandered round the ewes for a while today and have chosen 4 more ewes suitable to be culled plus another 3 possibles. The 4 probables are:

• #205 – in very poor condition, “skinny as a rake” – so she’ll get a bye this year and spend the winter in the orchard with her recent offspring
• #208 – in poor condition and with a dropped udder
• #214 – lopsided udder – one side has dropped
• @206 – poor condition – this is the mother of twins with very hairy legs 3 years in a row. She lambs early and the lambs are good except that they have rough wool and in particular they have hairy pantaloons at the back. I might save this ewe if on inspection there’s another one more in need of a break

The 3 possibles are:

• #207 – udder problems
• #212 – quite poor condition and bolshie with it – keeps hopping through the electric fence. On the other hand, if we put her with the lambs she might teach them to ignore electric fence and they might then eat the new apple and peach trees – so maybe we better keep her where we can see her.
• #213 – a slight limp and in average condition

Karola had people in all day, cleaning and disussing arrangements for the Sunday birthday party. I rolled up long alkathene hoses and moved fencing gear out of sight and got rid of various fallen branches. It’s good to have something to create a deadline for these things, otherwise they tend to get forgotten.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—15°C; southerly wind; no rain. [78.6]

Preparing for the Sunday birthday lunch, tidying up the garage, landrover etc. Got caught in a short but heavy shower so there was a bit of rain here, hopefully not enough to deter Mike Croucher due to mow the lawns tomorrow.

Changed a tyre on the trailer – looks like the puncture was self-healing, the tyre hasn’t gone down since it was inflated to 40 psi when I took it in to Beaurepaires a week ago.

Collected up the wire and posts on the ha-ha to leave it tidy for the lunch – that’s when I got wet in the sudden, brief downpour.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—17°C; north-westerly wind; no rain. [?]

What was forecast as cloudy and showers turned into a cold sunny day. We went into Napier for the morning and meanwhile the ground dried out a bit more. Bought a pair of old bathroom scales to help with weighing the lambs. Ordered Bicka a new collar – her current one is fraying along the seams.

I put Nelson and a few lambs in the yards – the lambs were just to make him go along with being penned up – and looked at his limp. No sign of anything wrong with his hoof but the leg joint was a bit warm so maybe it is arthritus – I hope not – or maybe he stood on a nail – but then I’d expect the foot to be heated up if it’s infected. Anyway Nelson appears to be limping less now he’s got a ewe fan club, even though they’re separated by a fence.

Karola and I spent the afternoon going through all the lambs and weighing them, trimming their feet, and getting off the worst of the dried dock and blackberry tangled in their wool. Lamb weights fell roughly into 5 groups: 15kg, 20kg, 25kg (the majority), 30kg (next most common), and a couple at over 35kg.

As is too often the case, sheep jumped over our makeshift fences and barged through gates a couple of times but we didn’t lose more than 30 minutes because of this. A set of proper solid yards would make it a lot easier. When the pen was full several old ewes got really aggressive, belting into each other and jumping around; it was quite hard to do a good manicure when you’re being trodden on and barged into continually. Luckily once the pen thinned out a bit they settled down although they did a fair bit of coming up and sniffing in my face and hair as I bent double over the current patient.

We’ve now drafted out the lambs from the ewes ready for their winter in the orchard and away from the attentions of Nelson. We added #403, a chronic cougher from the 9 2-tooths, #201 and #210 – 2 old ewes that have had repeated foot problems and still look skinny and poorly. I am mulling over how many more 2-tooth and old ewes to “cull” and put with the lambs before we unite Nelson with the rest.

To my delight almost all the lambs had good feet, a few had signs of old footrot but it’d completely cleared up – only 2 lambs and the 2 old ewes had a very minor touch of footrot. Perhaps running the flock through the zinc sulphate trough daily for a month or so did help.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—16°C; no rain. [78.1]

Cold night, heavy dew, sunny day.

I am experimenting with converting some old 33rpm vinyl LPs to CD-R. If successful I may be able to do one or two for Bridget from her old collection that we’re housing for her. I use a program called Amadeus II. It’s a very time consuming business:

• record a side of the LP on computer – 25 mins
• edit the recording to get rid of silence and crackle at the beginning and end – 3 mins
• process the recording to get rid of white noise – 10 mins
• process the record to filter out sounds that are very high or very low as these are probably artifacts – 5 mins
• process the record for low hum – 5 mins
• special crackle removal processing – up to 2 hours
• manually mark where each track begins and ends, and get rid of the gaps between tracks – 10 mins
• use program to cut the recording up into tracks then type in the track titles – 5 mins

That’s over 3 hours just to prepare one side of one LP for the next step – creating an audio CD-R – and an audio CD is expected to hold 80 minutes of recording which is 4 sides – 2 LPs per disk. The CD-R creation will be another 3 hours I expect, depending on how much time I spend on the artwork for the cover. The CD/DVD writer is able to print a cover directly onto the CD – you just “burn, flip, and print” is what the instructions say.

In between all this I’ve started drafting the sheep into those which will go into the orchard for fattening over the winter and those ewes which will join up with Nelson in a few days time and hopefully have lambs soon after Karola returns from the UK in late September – she goes in mid August to see our daughter Anna and grandsons Felix (6) and Barnaby(4) in London.

I got through a quarter of the lambs before darkness fell – trying to remove as many of the bits of blackberry and burrs from their wool as possible, trimming their hooves and generally noting their health.

Karola got a big cannon bone for Bicka – I suppose it’s a cattlebeast leg bone – and wanted it cut up. The butchers at the supermarket say they won’t do it because it blunts their saw; hmmm. So I cut it up slowly and noisily with my electric reciprocating saw using a blade for hacksawing metal.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—14°C; southerly wind turning northerly in the afternoon, no rain. [?]

Spent more time with Nelson trying to get him to let me examine his hoof – no joy. Finished putting electric hot wire around the top of the Ram paddock fence. Geese did another “look we can fly” demo – all four at once taking off, flying about 20 metres at 2 metres off the ground, then landing amid much honking and kerfuffle.

As evening fell Karola and I moved Nelson and his 2 wether friends into the Middle paddock where there’s more grass – Karola thinks I’m starving them because the geese have eaten all the good grass in the Ram paddock. I erected a hot wire along a piece of netting fence separating Nelson from his ewe admirers – it’ll be interesting to see if it keeps them apart. Nelson’s limp improved under the gaze of his wives-to-be, or was that my imagination.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—15°C; southerly wind, no rain. [78.2]

Cloudy day, very light drizzle in patches. Another 300+ thistles chopped, finishing my efforts on this in the new grass.

Nelson is particularly tame – eating sheep nuts while I lift up a foot and generally muck him about – however he does pull away when I pick up his sore leg or make any sudden movement and he did gently butt me a couple of times to show he wanted to get on with eating and not be messed about. His limp is worse, which is a worry.

The rest of the sheep got out into the garden yet again – making straight for the new drive and its delicious (apparently) crop of fallen acorns – what with the acorns and the attractions of a nearby Nelson it took quite a while to get them back where they belong. At one stage they were just running in a loop along the drive and back to the start through the oak trees and I wondered if we’d ever get them back.

Spent a couple of hours observing the sheep and making notes on the ewes – old and new. Only a couple are limping which may be because we had them all running through a trough containing bark mulch soaked in zinc sulphate solution for a week – maybe it has helped – this is the sort of weather – wet with longer grass growing fast – that makes limpers out of many of them each year.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—16°C; southerly wind, no rain. [78.2]

Cloudy with occasional drizzle; another 300+ thistles chopped in the new grass paddock; Nelson is limping a bit on his left front leg – scald probably, we hope it’s not arthritus which is in the soil here. Nelson permitted his ears to be pulled and nose and neck handled while gobbling down sheep nuts. Sheep had another day in the Triangle paddock, though they’ve mostly eaten it out now. I put electric fence tape round the Canary Island pine and its encircling 8 young Totara trees in their wire tree protectors after Karola saw one of the lambs up on its hind legs sampling the tips of a Totara yet again. As dusk fell the 4 geese each did a little flight – much flapping of wings and getting a metre or so off the ground – more for exercise than they actually wanted to go anywhere.

In the afternoon I continued with the wiring up of the Ram paddock – strengthening the existing arrangement of fibreglass outriggers on the wooden posts pointing inwards and level with the top of the wire netting. I plan to just put in electric fence stakes along the part of the fence with steel posts, inside and about 400mm away from the netting.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—16°C; 1mm rain. [78.9]

Cloudy overcast day. Took Bicka for a short early morning walk round the orchard again.

Nelson not only shared hay with his wether comrades but today also started eating the sheep pellets. He’s not shy; I’ve started wiring up the inside of his fence with a single electic wire – even though it looks like the ewes might be more of a problem breaking in rather than Nelson breaking out – and he followed me around, curious. Karola’s cordless drill exhausted its battery so I was drilling holes in wooden posts using a power drill attached to a suitcase-sized petrol electric generator sitting in a wheel barrow – something Nelson may not have come across before.

Several undoubtedly expensive calls to solicitor and accountant about our almost-complete boundary alignment between the orchard and homestead titles. Apparently the Inland Revenue need to see this as a pair of land purchases with the complications of GST to pay and claim; in theory it all should come out in the wash – GST paid balanced by GST claimed – so the only people to profit from this superfluous paperwork are solicitors and accountants. [sigh].

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—14°C; 4mm rain. [?]

Sunny patches and mild. Put up electric fence for the Triangle paddock and let some grateful sheep out of the Island into this fresh grass. Picked up my 35 year old JVC turntable from Wayne at Ridge Electronics – apparently just needed some painstaking degunging and it’s working well again – so I can put off ripping some of Bridget’s LPs to CD-R no longer. It’s a lengthy business.

Bicka raided bantam’s nest and hared off with the egg right under my nose today – as Karola remarked, she’s probably copying what she’s seen me doing (not the ‘haring’ bit). I don’t know what she usually does with them but I accidentally trod on the one Bicka stole today and she enjoyed lapping up the contents – wonder if she can intentionally break them open herself.

Where the sheep have grazed the grass short it’s easy to find the thistles so I chopped over 300 out today – tip of the iceberg.

Nelson turned his magnificent nose up at hay and sheep nuts until today – today, following the enthusiastic example of his 2 wether lamb companions he tucked into hay, stalky bits and all. One of Nelson’s companions got his head stuck in the netting yet again this afternoon. Meanwhile Karola’s orphan lamb Florence keeps trying to escape to visit Nelson; hmmm.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—17°C; Southerly breeze; no rain. [78.3]

It rained hard most of the night and drizzled most of the day. Waterlogged underfoot but not too much surface flooding in the paddocks. Kept the sheep in the Island paddock overnight and today; not much point in having them churn up any of the other paddocks. Gave them a couple of bales of hay. Lamb #537 seems to have an infection down the right side of its face, otherwise, apart from quite a lot of coughing, the flock seems OK.

Bicka got a bit bored and ran out in the rain and chased (and caught) chooks. Not a good habit for her to establish and the chooks don’t like it either. When she comes in wet and muddy it’s a bit hard to welcome her running about the house too.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—14°C; Northerly breeze; 41mm rain. [?]

Brrr, a touch of winter at last – mist in the morning and sunny periods during the day. Took Bicka for a walk round the orchard boundary before breakfast – she scampered (fruitlessly) after the smell of rabbits. Another day mainly indoors, doing the value-added tax (GST). Silly wether got its head caught in the netting in the Ram paddock again – twice in a week, they do like the weeds growing the other side of the wire.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—16°C; southerly turning northerly in the afternoon; no rain. [78.5]

Monday 1st May – sunny spells and very pleasant after the rain, but still wet underfoot. Karola and I did a little repair work on 2 of her Totara tree guards and cut the broken branch off the Chinese Hawthorne; Karola also did weeding for several hours.

Mary and I continued yesterday’s wrestling with her computer and the installation of the Flash player. Unfortunately Macromedia, the developers of Flash, had comprehensively mucked up their latest version’s download and install procedures so it was significantly more painful than it should have been. Still, all ended well.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—16°C; no rain. [78.1]