Monthly Archives: November 2007

Bicka and I visited Mary after lunch and she reminisced about our family emigration in 1951 from England; interesting stuff I hadn’t heard much of before.

I got back just in time to find Bridget had installed the replacement D-Link box; she had it up and working in under 10 minutes.

Karola went with Bridget, Chris, Natailie and Alex(andra) to a “little school” early evening concert that Natalie was in; we all enjoyed a roast dinner cooked by Karola afterwards; Karola, Bicka and I went back out to Pitoitoi for the night.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—23°C; no rain [?]

One more try at getting the D-Link box to work, with Bridget checking I was following the directions exactly. When that didn’t work I started the replacement process which turned out to be very easy and a new box was shipped from Christchurch in the evening.

In the afternoon combined a visit to dental specialist with returning the dud D-Link box to Ascent.co.nz’s posh office in Willis Street.

Karola set off from Karamu in the afternoon, arriving around 6:30 pm. It was nice to be reunited with her and Bicka. We had dinner with Bridget and then decamped to Days Bay and Pitoitoi.

Laurie McDermott agreed to look after the animals while we are away.

Hawkes Bay Weather:7°C—19°C; no rain [?]

More computing for Bridget’s web site.

Late afternoon the D-Link box arrived. For the next 5 hours I tried to make it work, looking up other people’s experiences on “Mrs Google” and downloading latest firmware and so on. Online comments were sharply divided; some said it worked very well and others said it was extremely difficult to set up and the documentation was hopeless.

Karola called and said that ewe #629 had had a beautiful little ewe lamb, #726; otherwise all was well in Hastings.

Hawkes Bay Weather:3°C—19°C; 0.1mm rain [?]

Alex and Natalie both crook so Bridget hasn’t much time for computing stuff but we snatch a few moments to discuss computer security for her revamped website and web applications.

I ordered a D-Link wireless repeater from Ascent.co.nz for Bridget for Christmas. No cables, just a power cord and it will carry their existing in-house computer wireless network signal into the north-western corners of the house – their office and equipment is in the south-eastern corner and the signal doesn’t get there today, too many thick walls and doors in the way.

Up till late doing more computing for Bridget’s web site.

Hawkes Bay Weather:11°C—24°C; no rain [?]

It’s Monday and I hitched a ride with Gill and Ben down to Wellington to stay with Bridget and family in Khandallah for the week; left about 11:00am and got to Bridget’s late afternoon; lunch snack at Norsewood (refurbished cafe, slightly improved menu, better surroundings) and a coffee break at Mount Bruce bird sanctuary. Karola stayed behind to mind the sheep in case any more lambs appeared.

Before I went, Karola and I docked the largest lambs, it is harder on them the older they get. We docked #701,#702, #703 and #712 (Duane, as in “Duane’s Depressed”). We gave them longer tails than custom, as is recommended these days, after all the de-tailing is simply a way of reducing significantly the likelihood of the hideous flystrike they can get when their rear ends get damp and daggy. The ram lambs were castrated; no more endless fighting and indiscriminate mounting behavior for them, and no in-breeding.

Hawkes Bay Weather:12°C—23°C; no rain [?]

Farmer’s Market at the Hawkes Bay Show Grounds in the morning. Lazy afternoon. Sheep all seem OK. Gill and Ben are good company.

Aide Memoire: ewe hogget #600 is actually ewe #629 (her large tags on left ear will show #600; the button tag in the other ear will show #629). Ewe hogget #627 died last May. #630 is a wether hogget. So our counts of ewe hoggets (6) is correct and once we located #613 who had jumped the fence to be with her mother #218, our counts of ewes with and without lambs all tallied.

Hawkes Bay Weather:12°C—24°C; no rain [81.2]

Mainly cloudy, warm day. Apart from a bit more marking out of options for the old Homestead road entrance it was a day of checking on the sheep and relaxing.

Late afternoon ewe #623 had ewe lamb #725, mother and daughter both well.

Karola cooked a birthday dinner for me and Ben, a big traditional lamb roast.

Hawkes Bay Weather:10°C—26°C; no rain [80.2]

Got Landrover back from garage – broken spark plug replaced, rear light lens replaced with 2nd hand one (Garage said a new one was $200 so they found me a used one), no luck identifying what sets off fuse #8, and tape deck in car radio isn’t fixable.

Got a couple of new sun hats to replace the one I accidentally mulched yesterday, pity because I liked that hat but the new ones are OK too. Also ordered sheep ear tags to replace ones that have been lost and to give the surviving Romney ewes the same complement of tags as the rest.

Bottle fed the twin ram lambs #721 and #722 belonging to Romney purple tag who we think is short of milk. The bottle feeding is to complement what they get from their mum and in practice they haven’t swallowed much, I hope enough to take them through to another day. Ewe #406 and ram lamb #712 seem bright and active today so no more special attention for them.

I took down the netting and standards fence between the lawn and the Triangle paddock, improving the view from the house.

Late afternoon Gill and Ben arrived from Wellington for the weekend.

Hawkes Bay Weather:15°C—24°C; no rain [80.5]

Using Fergie and the recently purchased 2.7 metre wide mower I continued mowing. The idea is to stop the grass going to seed and getting totally stalky and unpalatable (for sheep).

So, having done the Middle paddock yesterday, today I did the geese enclosure, the Front paddock, the North paddock (new grass, ex wilderness), above the Island, and along the orchard drive.

I got slightly sunburned; it’s in the mid-high 20s and it’s “shorts weather” made slightly ridiculous with the addition of gloves, big boots, sun hat, safety goggles and ear muffs. However, the noise is tremendous and items such as branches hidden in the grass get hurled up past my head every now and then, so the safety gear is necessary.

I have nicked several trees and other immoveable objects; themower is a mixed blessing although it does tidy up the grass and undergrowth very effectively.

Ewe #404, who was first to lamb last year, at last had ram lamb #724. This may be the last lamb of 2007. Meanwhile Karola and I fuss with #406’s #712 and purple tag Romney and her twins because they don’t seem to be getting as much milk as they should. #712 is much much livelier than when I found him collapsed and twitching but Karola blames his mum for being a selfish, greedy ewe. The Romney doesn’t seem to have much milk, which may be a problem, so Karola has given her twins some supplementary milk.

Hawkes Bay Weather:9°C—30°C; no rain [81.2]

With 22 live lambs, mainly ram lambs, by the end of today we’re nearly finished lambing for 2007. #404 remains of the older ewes and we may still be surprised by some more of the 2006 ewe lambs and the raggle-taggle Romneys. Today’s big surprise was ewe #604 having a lamb without obviously being close to lambing, or in fact in lamb at all.

I spotted #712 having a fit – jerked itself right off its feet – and so we’ve been ministering to him throughout the day, His mum, #406, has plenty of milk and is strongly maternal but he may be a bit clueless re drinking. Karola gave him collostrum and some milk and asked me to give him a shot of penicillin and we both got him to drink from his mother. At lunchtime he was just lying down and twitching; by late afternoon he was up on his feet and following his mum around, a great improvement. We’ll see if he survives the night.

Landrover went in to get several things fixed today: cylinder mis-firing, fuse #8 blowing, tape deck not working, broken red tail light cover. Still not finished this evening.

Karola went to film in Napier in the afternoon, The Italian. I mowed the Middle paddock; it’d got up to 300mm high and was going to seed.

*** 2007 LAMBS to 21 Nov ***

3-Nov	#203	#701 R	
9-Nov	#403	#702 R, #703 E	
10-Nov	#219	#704 E, #705 E	
10-Nov	Rom	#706 E (ewe=yellow disc)	Died 24 hours after birth
10-Nov	#408	#707 E	
13-Nov	Rom	#708 R + stillborn E (ewe=yellow tag)	
14-Nov	Rom	#709 R, #710 E (ewe=red+yellow)	
14-Nov	#402	#711 R	
16-Nov	#406	#712 R	21Nov #712 sick, penicillin etc
18-Nov	#405	#713 R, #714 E	
18-Nov	#401	#715 R	
19-Nov	#206	#716 R, #717 E	
21-Nov	#218	#718 R, #719 E	
21-Nov	#604	#720 R	
21-Nov	Rom	#721 R, #722 R (ewe=no tags)	
21-Nov	#409	#723 R

Hawkes Bay Weather:9°C—25°C; no rain [?]

Last night ewe #206 had twins: ram lamb #716 and ewe lamb #717.

In the morning we went looking for someone to saw up Karola’s elm baulks. Yes, I know, they’re only 4″ x 8″ so technically not a baulk ref: from the original meaning, i.e . ” beam,” comes the use of the word for the cross or tie-beam of a roof, or for a large log of timber sawn’to a one or one and a half foot square section. [ http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/BAR_BEC/BAULK_or_BALK_a_word_common_to_.html ]

We touted round an example beam but Tumu wouldn’t do it, said their saw was too old and feeble. Waipawa Sawmill wouldn’t do it; stoppng their 40-man line to insert a few 3 metre lengths would be prohibitively expensive. Finally Smiths Timber said they’d give it a shot so we went back and loaded up the 27 reasonably straight and uncracked beams onto the trailer, the tyres were protesting, and after lunch took them down to Smiths. We await news of the sawing. One thing I should have remembered is to think hard about how you’ll get stuff off the trailer once you’ve put it on. With a bit of forethought we’d have saved ourselves some heavy lifting if a forklift could have just lifted the whole stack off the trailer at once. You live and hopefully learn.

In the evening we tagged the newer lambs and put anti-flystrike stuff on their rear ends and cleaned up a few stickybums.

Hawkes Bay Weather:7°C—20°C; no rain [80.7]

Dug 4 more of the 6 post holes needed for Bridget’s retaining wall; only 600mm deep but just rocks and roots so hard work. As luck would have it the position for the 6th post is crossed most inconveniently by their water main pipe so Chris will have to figure out what to do about that. Then, at 3:45 pm we set off for Karamu, stopping for dinner in Dannevirke and arriving home around 9:00 pm. According to Laurie McDermott, who I rang from Dannevirke, there’ve been 3 more lambs born, a single and twins.

Yesterday ewe #405 had twins: ram lamb #713 and ewe lamb #714. Ewe #401 had ram lamb #715.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—20°C; no rain [?]

Spent the morning with Bridget & Chris in Khandallah – collected a new dishwasher and later collected 6 posts for a little retaining wall they’re building, so the Landrover was useful this time. In the afternoon I visited Mary, returning to Khandallah to begin excavation for Bridget’s little retaining wall around the Pohutukawa tree and staying for dinner with Bridget’s family and Chris’ uncle Barry & Di and his mother Anna. I got the post positions measured and one hole dug – a tangle of large roots making progress slow – before dinner.

Hawkes Bay Weather:4°C—18°C; no rain [?]

Went mid-morning down to Wellington via the Wairarapa and Rimutaka Hill arriving in Days Bay at about 2:00 pm. As reported yesterday, another lamb had been born. It was ram lamb #712 born to ewe #406.

As planned, went to Frank and Marina’s 25th wedding anniversary party in a swish Chinese restaurant in Tory Street in Wellington. Marina’s family are Chinese, and it turned out to be a double anniversary party for Frank and Marina and also for Marina’s younger sister Leslie and her husband Kevin – they’d been to stay with us in Connecticut when working in New York many years ago. There must have been 40 or 50 people at the party and the food was endless and scrumptious – 9 chinese dishes ending with “Scott’s strawberries” from Hawkes Bay and meringues and cream. Frank is Karola’s cousin and, like Karola, is related to the Ormond family. Arthur and Nick Ormond also came down from the Hawkes Bay for the party; they’d brought the strawberries with them, as planned. Karola and I were the only people present who had also been at Frank and Marina’s civil and church weddings in Moscow 25 years ago.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—18°C; no rain [?]

Tagged the lambs #708 – #711 and unblocked a few lamb tails – it’s the rich milk from the rich grass – and as a precaution sprayed a few rear ends with anti-flystrike liquid.

Karola reported from her evening check of the ewes that there’s another lamb but details will have to wait till tomorrow.

As part of mending a couple of shovels I sharpened them and 3 spades; I have not regretted buying the small electric grinder that Campbell persuaded me would be useful. Sharp spades and shovels make a huge difference. We’re off to Wellington for the weekend tomorrow and one of the mended shovels is for Bridget who has some post holes to dig as part of a small retaining wall around their old Pohutukawa tree in the front garden.

Hawkes Bay Weather:10°C—18°C; 0.4mm rain [81.5]

Laurie McDermott came round at 9:00am and we reviewed the animal caretaking he’ll do for us at the weekend. We plan to go to Wellington on Saturday for Frank and Marina’s 50/60th birthday on Saturday night and then child-mind the grand-daughters on Sunday so that Bridget and Chris can do some painting renovation at Chris’ rental flat – they’re in the process of re-letting.

Maori lady Aunty Polly aka Neta came with Rowena for lunch and we talked about flax weaving and plants. Neta offered to bring an expert round to help us select varieties for our next planting that’d be useful to the local Maori weavers.

Karola gave #402 some Ketol though in fact she’s looking sprightlier today anyway; still a cold wind but more sun and at dusk there’s lambs gambolling madly around.

Hawkes Bay Weather:8°C—20°C; no rain [80.5]

Wild, windy and wet night as promised by the TV weather forecast and it continued nto the day with very violent wind gusts and a penetrating southerly wind that made it feel even colder than it was. Glimpses of sun increased throughout the day but the wind gusts kept up; Bicka really doesn’t like thngs blowing around, nor doesshe like the sudden appearance of branches where they hadn’t been yesterday.

Karola looked out of the window this morning and spied twin lambs plus another just-born lamb. The twins were #709, a ram lamb, and #710, a ewe lamb born to Romney with red and yellow tags. Ewe #402 had a singleton #711 ram lamb. Karola thought there might be another inside her but I examined and couldn’t find another one.

According to Mary’s rain gauge we’ve had just 7mm rain here in November so far.

Karola’s attempts to provide shelter for the ewes and lambs overnight were spurned by all; luckily the iris and other weeds in the Island paddock make plenty of places for a lamb to duck down out of the wind.

I spent the day indoors, mainly working on my JavaScript program du jour although I did take a break and go into Hastings for some shopping and a haircut late afternoon. Karola alternates between checking her sheep and more weeding and clearing.

Hawkes Bay Weather:3°C—15°C; no rain [79.9]

The grass is smothering some of the trees in our planting areas on the Homestead west boundary so Karola has tried careful spraying of the grass immediately around some of the trees and it seems to work. So, today I sprayed round about 50 trees and we’ll wait a few days to see what happens, whether the grass and weeds round the trees dies and whether the trees are themselves in any way harmed. I used a plastic bucket to cover each tree as I sprayed round it, hoping to avoid killing off the trees.

A Romney ewe (yellow tag, not a disc) had ram lamb #708 and a stillborn ewe lamb this afternoon.

I checked the Romney that lost her lamb #706, the Romney with a bad back left foot, and found that while it was a bit better she had a clean wound with maggots. I dealt with them and we’ll need to check again in a few days. Ewe #218 and ewe #404 (no tag) were both limping today so Karola and I caught them in the paddock and I trimmed their hooves but couldn’t see any infection – sprayed their feet with anti-footrot spray and let them go.

I put the final green coat of paint on Karola’s trailer K703N.

Karola and I did some measurements around the old main entrance to see where replacement railings and gateposts might go. I also brought a dozen of Karola’s large elm posts (150mm x 150mm x 2.6m) down from the big shed so that we can choose the gateposts and other posts for the replacement front entrance railings.

Karola began clearing the ground for a new “bund” (long, narrow compost heap) between the garage block and the old entrance, parallel and near to the boundary fence.

Five bantam eggs collected today; this is too much 🙂

This evening, hearing a dire TV weather forecast for the North Island overnight, Karola made some extra shelter for the ewes with new lambs using a big old corregated iron tank (topless, on its side) and a large blue tarpaulin.

Hawkes Bay Weather:8°C—22°C; 2.8mm rain [80.9]

Final hammering in of several hundred nails on the close-board fence today. This is not to withstand stock pressure but to stop the boards from achieving their natural warped shape once they dry out. What I particularly like about this fence is that it’s almost unnoticeable from the road being hidden by the shade and foliage under the trees.

I also put a first coat of Karamu’s Karaka green paint on Karola’s little 2nd-hand trailer, K703N.

Karola went to a local community meeting about security; she said it was fairly boring but she asked the first question of the police who were there explaining and listening in their “community policing” mode. Apparently the meeting concensus was to put security cameras at all (3 or 4) points of entry/exit to the Twyford/Oak Avenue area so that miscreants can more easily be identified. In Hastings, they were told, a major problem with security cameras is the speed with which they get vandalised or stolen. Apparently there’s even one camera that now sits high on a pole in Hastings, lowering itself to a good viewing point every so often, photographing the vicinity then bolting back up its pole out of harms way.

Hawkes Bay Weather:9°C—22°C; 0.1mm rain [81.0]

Bit sad today as the sweet little ewe lamb born to the Romney ewe has died. Not sure why; perhaps it got chilled by the hour of rain we got around midnight last night. The other six lambs are all feeding and running about with very attentive mothers – the Romney was very attentive and is pretty upset at losing her lamb, we think maybe it’s happened to her before but we’ll give her another chance next year to see if it was just unlucky. All six lambs are now tagged so we’ll be able to match them with their mothers even if they get mixed up.

Karola and I spent the morning tightening up the boards on the remaining five panels, they’re now nailed to the half-rounds and squeezed hard up against the one above. That only leaves me about 200 big nails to bang in to finish the job.

Another four bantam eggs today – too many for us really; and with the new nest boxes they are easy to find and clean.

Karola went on one of her rubbish collecting sorties along Oak Avenue and I spent another few hours wrestling with my JavaScript programming. It’s not easy to work out a small but complex program if you keep fallng asleep in the afternoon warmth.

Hawkes Bay Weather:7°C—21°C; 1.1mm rain [81.0]

More fencing. 12 half-round posts dug and rammed, 2 per panel so that the planks are supported every 1.5 metres approximately, otherwise they will warp when they dry out. Strainer posts chainsawed to equal height 100mm (4″) above the planks. One panel of the 6 fully completed, including skew-nailing to all posts with a pair of 125mm (5″) galvanised nails; pretty hard on the wrists, all that banging.

Three bantam eggs today, one of which was very very small, about the size of a blackbird’s egg, smaller even than a quail’s egg.

Around 9:30am the asbestos professionals came and wrapped and removed our toxic roofing sheets; all gone in 30 minutes.

… and the lambing continues. Ewe #219 had twin ewe lambs #704 and #705. Somewhat to our surprise the Romney ewe with the bad back foot had a delightful little ewe lamb, #706. And at about the same time #408 had a ewe lamb, #707. So far a marked change to the predominance of ram lambs last year which is good news. All lambs feeding and frolicking.

The 1st lamb appeared 126 days after we joined the ewes and the ram lamb “2nd eleven” back on June 30th so it’s possible that Nelson was the father after all. Kaz says to wait and see if the lambs look like Nelson, that should be especially true for the Romney lambs as they would be pure Romney. To put that in context, sheep gestation is usually given as 5 months or 21 weeks or 144-151 days with an average of 147 days. There was nothing premature-looking about our first 7 lambs this season.

Hawkes Bay Weather:12°C—20°C; 1.0mm rain [80.5]

This afternoon ewe #403 had ram lamb #702 followed a couple of hours later by ewe lamb #703. Karola ushered them into the Island paddock with the other ewe and lamb and the lemon-tagged Romney with a bad left hind foot (that seems to be getting a bit better).

The morning began with a phone call from GoldPine saying that my planks were ready – 27 straight ones picked from a factory bundle of 50 at their depot. I picked them up along with a 20mm auger for a power drill – it makes holes the right size for what they call “lock-through gudgeons”, gate hinges that bolt right through the strainer. Later in the afternoon I tested it using an old Black & Decker power drill bought in the 1970s (attached to the Honda generator) and it went through the post as if through butter. That’ll make hanging the outstanding 8 or so gates easier and the holes will be much more accurate.

The planks had been made into a neat package with plastic ties and this bundle was fork-lifted onto the trailer. Usually this involves a lot of manoeuvering trying to avoid damaging the trailer but this time the procedure was very straightforward; two posts were placed across the trailer and the forklift lowered the secured bundle onto them. Then the forklift forks just slipped out without damaging the sides of the trailer. By forklifting the overhang at each end in turn the posts could be removed and bundle gently lowered onto the trailer.

After picking up the planks I went into Hastings and consulted with Mitre-10 on whether a 40-tooth circular saw blade would cut through the planks OK; basically the answer was that yes it wold cut them but it’d take a bit longer than with a 20-tooth or 25-tooth blade. As I had a replacement 40-tooth blade already I didn’t buy a replacement for the 25-tooth blade that was very blunt by the end of yesterday’s plank sawing; instead I bought a small Black & Decker router for the next project, Elm post-and-rails for the old front entrance at Karamu.

Karola and I completed the tacking up of the close-board fence using 25 of the planks bought this morning. The other 2 of 27 were in case of mishaps. Most of these planks were very heavy, probably over 25 kilograms, and Karola helped lugging these around all day; we finished around 5:00pm. Our plan to work from the longest panel down to the shortest did provide some protection against accidentally cutting off too much and we took advantage of that a couple of times. The posts are not the same size from top to bottom so we did quite a lot of extra cuts as we homed in on the right size for a particular plank. Anyway, the end result just merges into the shrubbery and you don’t even notice it when driving past, which is excellent.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—21°C; no rain [80.4]

Bought 17 fairly straight 4.8m 150mm x 40mm planks from GoldPine in Omhau Rd this morning. Spent quite a while putting on the battens, two per strainer post, that the planks are nailed to. The idea is to have the planks look as if they are mortised into the posts and have them appear to be in a nice straight line. Karola noticed some out-of-alignment battens but eventually we got it close enough – these are just farm fence posts and battens and rails after all, it’s not interior joinery :-). By night fall we had sawn and tacked up 3 of the 6 panels, bar one plank. We expect to get and erect the rest tomorrow; it’d take probably 3 times as long without Karola holding things as needed. The sawing is to make the ends of each plank more closely fit the rounded contours of the strainer posts, and last time we put up one of these fences it took a lot of hand sawing and became very tiring. This time I made good use of our Honda delux emergency electricity generator and an old circular saw we bought in England in the 1970s. Despite being turned over only once or twice a year it started first time and purred away all afternoon, it is remarkably quiet. The circular saw is less so. I am grudgingly grateful to Bridget’s husband Chris for persuading me to buy the generator a couple of years ago in case the New Zealand hydroelectric reservoirs dried up and so that he could get a better special deal for buying two at once. Oh, and as for the fence, I think we’re over half way there although there’s still 3 panels to go and then the 2 short half-round posts per panel to counter warping tendencies of the individual boards, and the final nailing of all the planks with large 125mm galvanised nails.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—18°C; no rain [80.4]

Subaru went in and had its WOF done this morning.

Soon-to-lamb ewes allowed a couple of hours only in the longer feed.

The day started quite well, I rammed the remaining 3 strainers for the close-board fence and used the laser level to get a constant height marked on each post. Then, stretching a guidewire along where the top of the fence will be, it was obvious that 2 of the posts were a couple of inches out of line. The mistake came from my earlier guide wire rubbing against the underside of a branch; I thought I’d compensated for that but obviously not. So much of the afternoon was spent redigging and re-ramming the delinquent posts.

In preparation for assemblng the first panel of the close-board fence, vertical battens were fixed to the strainers; the planks will be nailed to/through these on a slant so that they go into the strainer post as well. Karola did a check of the trees that will overhang the fence and, using the Fergie bucket as a platform I went up and cut some large dead branches. Then, to avoid trouble later, I chainsawed down a couple of very rotten branches of an ancient cherry tree. Tomorrow we hope to begin on the planks – cutting their ends on a slant to better fit against the strainer posts and figuring out a way to force them to fit tightly against one another.

The asbestos saga continues. Peter Cullum from the Transfer Station in Richmond Rd (off Omahu Rd) called back (06-879-4296) and confirmed that the roofing sheets were asbestos and that special disposal procedures were necessary. Following Peter’s suggestion I called Morry Blumenthal [sp?] (06-877-7918) and he said that we’d need the material wrapped in something to contain the tiny toxic fibres ($100-$150 dollars or thereabouts) and then a contractor with council-approved resource consent would need to transport it to the landfill ($200-$250 usually). He said he’d ring back with an idea of when they could do the wrapping.

Karola, when not advising on the fencing project, despite her cold which we think came from Kaz when he visited 2 weeks ago, weeded all 60 yew trees on the northern side of the old drive.

Hawkes Bay Weather:11°C—18°C; no rain [80.5]

Karola noticed one of the soon-to-lamb Romney ewes limping and holding her back left leg off the ground so we quietly penned up those ewes and grabbed her and gave her feet a trim. She had some sort of infection under the front of her hoof, not ordinary footrot, so I trimmed it back and applied antiboitic spray. Karola meanwhile yelling “stop, stop, don’t cut any more” as I nicked the cuticle and some blood appeared. What a softie :-). We put that ewe, in the absence of a number tag Karola calls her the “Romney with a lemon-coloured disc”, in the Island paddock with #203 and her lamb. Meanwhile I gave the soon-to-lamb ewes an extended area of lush grass along between the Island paddock and the peaches in the orchard – the last lush grass they’ll get before lambing and I hope not so rich it makes them over-fat, potentially leading to lambing problems.

Murray Cranswick said that in his opinion there was still enough grass in the Triangle for the soon-to-lamb ewes, despite being very heavily manured and much shorter than the other paddocks. He also said to be careful when moving a newly lambed ewe onto longer grass; if the food intake is too much too quickly then the ewe will produce far more milk than the lamb can use up and, sensing a surplus, the ewe will start to dry off; not exactly what one intends. We live and learn.

In the afternoon Karola continued with thistles and mowing, this time in the Front paddock near the road. She startled the same hen pheasant I did on its nest of 6 olive green eggs right up against the netting fence inside the planting area. We’re already seeing birds taking advantage of the longer grass and many weeds and ground cover afforded by the plantng areas; we have close to 2000 square metres of land inside our planting areas now.

I continued with the close-board fence, going to GoldPine on Omahu Rd in the morning to buy a nice big strainer post for the end post nearest the old drive and 6 of the 4.8m planks so that we can put a trial rail up on each of the 6 sections. Karola mapped the placement of the strainers; there’s 4.6 metres between each.

Three bantam eggs today, and all in the Mandarin Chook House nesting boxes. The bantams are totally free range, I don’t even shut them in at night, so laying in the nesting boxes means they really do appreciate their new dwelling.

Hawkes Bay Weather:10°C—18°C; 0.2mm rain [80.6]

Karola, despite her cold, has been out again with trailer and bottle of Roundup and a sharp knife putting paid to thistles, this time on part of the Middle paddock.

I dug a hole for the initial strainer for the close-board fence, but I spent most of the day (again) fiddling with programming language JavaScript (It isn’t Java, and there’s not much of a script – for my programming). Bridget rang up and, in passing, (no skites in our family), let us know that the programming she’d been doing for husband Chris, a specialised web application in PHP using MySQL, had got a lot of praise from one of his clients. One day I hope to write a program that someone (other than me) cares about.

The pair of bantams nesting in the green shed have finally given up. They started with 20 eggs; somehow that got whittled down to a dozen without any trace of broken shell, possibly due to a large rat; and one of the dozen eggs tried unsuccessfully to hatch; and now they’ve given up. I put them in the Mandarin Chook House with the others after dark last night, having found them roosting on a hay bale in the green shed and by midnight when I checked they’d found their way up onto the perches, apparently reintegrated with the flock.

We are getting a couple of bantam eggs every couple of days, and, oh joy, one of them is actually using the Mandarin Chook House nesting boxes.

Hawkes Bay Weather:7°C—25°C; no rain [80.6]

Ewe #203 was expected to have twins, by the size of her and her even balance left and right. So, after a good search of the paddock in case a twin had been born, I did an internal investigation, received with fortitude and long-suffering sighs by ewe #203, but to no avail. After telephone consultancy with Kaz in Fielding and after Karola prodding her (ewe #203’s) tummy for possible feel of a leg or head we were no further forward. So, at Karola’s insistence, we neither of us want her to be carrying a dead lamb or die, I rang Murray Cranswick and he and Kirsty came round about 8:00pm and he did his own examination. Prognosis was that lamb #701 was a big lamb anyway and there wasn’t another one inside. Ewe #203 was a bit fat anyway and would be a lot less perky if she were in trouble. So, reassured, we enjoyed the rest of the evening.

After lunch I dismantled the broken bamboo cradle that’s been an eyesore visible from the road and the back of the house since an oak branch dropped on it, pushing it askew and breaking one end about a year ago. Our experiments with bamboo have not been a success. It takes a lot of work to trim the poles and we have piles of bamboo here and there, but mainly on the cradle, that have split and gone soft and are no longer attactive or useful for much. So, Karola will use the bamboo from the cradle as part of her next new bund aka “long narrow compost heap” and I will mulch the rest.

In the afternoon Karola and I continued mapping out the location of the new close-board fence; Karola also cut away some of the shrubbery, clearing the fence line, and I rounded up the 6 small round strainer posts, 12 1/2-round intermediate posts, and 12 1.2m long battens needed for the 28.8 meter fence. We’ll also need 48 4.8m planks, 150mm x 40mm rough sawn, but experience says that we get them from the timber yard at the last moment so they don’t have time to dry out and twist and warp before we nail them up.

Hawkes Bay Weather:_15°C—28°C; 0.1mm rain [81.6]

Ewe #203 had quite large ram lamb #701 around lunchtime and appeared to be drinking OK. It must be one of Nelson’s offspring after all, it’s only been 127 days since the ram lambs joined their mothers and sheep gestation is usually 140 – 150 days.

Karola and I did some measuring and angles to position the new close-boarded fence she wants along some of the roadside front garden between the old entrance and the old wooden gate under the lime tree. Karola also spent several hours cutting and spraying thistles in the Triangle paddock – it was while doing that that she saw our first 2007 Karamu-bred lamb.

Chooks seem to know the way to their new roost now; thank goodness.

Hawkes Bay Weather:10°C—21°C; no rain [80.8]

Quiet day with computer.

Bantams again went to their new roost in the Mandarin Chook House.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—19°C; no rain [81.8]

Using the new 2nd-hand paddock mower I mowed the rest of the geese enclosure, getting closer to the fences and under trees than with the self-powered pull-behind topper. We’ll try to sell the topper now.

Then, mid morning, Kate (niece of Ben Bell) and partner Ross and two friends who got married earlier this week at the Church Road Vineyard came for brunch on their way back to Wellington.

In the afternoon I mowed the new grass in the North paddock with the paddock mower while Karola cut and sprayed thistles in the Front Paddock. I also mowed the edges of the orchard drive, up to, and narrowly avoiding, the Ngaios.

To my delight this evening we found that the bantams had gone to roost in their new house unaided, for the first time. I did put a trail of wheat up their duckplank, and put more hay on the netting floor, and added a small perch stool so that they could jump up to their perches more easily. The perch stool is just two triangles of plywood forming the ends and joined by a short perch at the apex and one either side half way down. I’m hoping this wasn’t a “flash in the pan” and that they go there to roost again tomorrow night unaided.

Mary’s rain gauge showed 10mm rain here in October.

Hawkes Bay Weather:8°C—23°C; no rain [81.6]