Monthly Archives: March 2008

Tractor-assisted removal of 18 assorted posts; 10 of them being concrete and 7 of those reusable. The concrete running posts are at the limit of what I can lift; I have no chance with the concrete strainer posts; I prefer wooden posts but the boundary fence was made of concrete posts and I can reuse about 2/3 of the old posts in-situ so I’ll in-fill with concrete posts.

The view from the homestead to the west is actually improved by this fence removal; the eye used to be drawn south along the diagonal fenceline and the Canary Island pine and other trees in what was the Triangle paddock were fenced in. Now the visual sweep has these trees central to a broad expanse of pasture backed by apple trees.

A very little light rain this evening; rain sweeps up and down New Zealand but seems to miss us every time.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 16°C—21°C; 1.0mm rain [79.3]

A good day today. High cloud and the smell of rain, but no actual rain, which isn’t good. The good bit is some progress on the fencing front. I dismantled 80m of old fence between the Triangle and North (aka Wilderness) paddocks; 8 wires and totara battens hard as nails. The 8 wires were dragged individually across to the orchard drive where they will wire 80m of the 120m needed along the boundary with the neighbour, next to where the old Lombardy poplars used to be – and where, to my delight, the Lombardy regrowth is sprouting up. Each wire took about 30 mins to move; removing from battens and posts, dragging 100m across to the orchard drive. I still have the concrete posts to pull up and a gate to get off its rusty, tight gudgeons and then it’ll be finished.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 16°C—25°C; no rain [79.5]

Something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, today I poked a short piece of #8 (4.0mm) wire through the hole in the top of each gate’s bottom gudgeon and twisted the ends together. This is a way of stopping any passing villain from lifting the gate off its hinges – either for the scrap metal value or in order to drive your sheep / tractor / … through it and into the night. I secured 9 gates that way and also put on the gate fasteners and a bit of temporary netting fence in the corner where the Triangle, North and Front paddocks converge.

The 10 chicks have adult plumage already although they’re still small and cheep rather than cluck.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—25°C; no rain [79.4]

Ah, more progress today. 3 gates hung (one a rehang from last night, one a rehang from several months ago). I have finally figured out that the usual instructions for angling the gudgeons are not working for me. Several NZ fence-making articles say you angle the gudgeons (pin hinges with a big screw or bolt that goes into or through the post) at 45 degrees horizontally from gate shut position. By so angling the gudgeons it lets the gate swing back against the fence when wide open without binding on the 200mm fat gatepost. Well I find making that about 60 degrees does the trick, my earlier gate hangings tend to bind on the gatepost when fully opened but not any more. Of course the further round the post you go the more accurate the top and bottom hinges have to be aligned vertically. If you put the hinges in directly in line with the shut gate you wouldn’t be able to open it back against the fence but you could screw the gudgeons in or out to make the gate level after the holes have been bored. With the 60 degree angle this doesn’t work.

Put up electric fence across the lawn and let the ewes and lambs into the Triangle and under the big oak and down the drive to the Rhododendron tree; Karola’s Bella Donna flowers have just about finished so no harm will come to them. Moved the small but surprisingly dense pile of bamboo mulching off the paddock and over to the Chinese Photinia.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—24°C; no rain [80.1]

Bicka and I did shopping and housework in the morning, slept all afternoon, and tried to put up a gate in the early evening. Gate hanging wasn’t a success; we’ll try again tomorrow.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—23°C; no rain [80.6]

Computing till 2:30am and again 11:00am – 1:00pm today then a spell outside getting little piles of 5 battens laid out along the new totara batten fence. Took 25 of the 280 battens from the diagonal old fence between the North paddock and the Triangle paddock, the rest came from the bit of boundary fence I demolished to get the wire for the new fence.

I let the 52 ewes and lambs get into the bit of the North paddock between the new fence and the old boundary fence; I’m never quite sure whether their enthusiasm for pastures new is hunger or curiosity, I suspect the latter.

At 5:00pm I drove with Bicka 42 km up the Napier-Taihape road to Touchwood Books where Graham Harvey and Tracey Craig live – they’d asked me up for dinner. We picked mushrooms which I’ll have for breakfast; they persuaded me not to try some large mushrooms with white gills that looked a bit like Horse mushrooms. I returned home after too much of a roast chicken dinner and convivial chat, arriving at 11:00pm. Bicka promptly went to sleep. Oh, and this morning I washed Bicka yet again so she was clean and fresh for this evenings outing.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—23°C; no rain [80.4]

Bantam hen and 10 chicks survived the night. Karola rang from the Isle of Wight last night and we spoke again this morning (my time) after they’d got back to Ealing.

Wires up and stapled to their posts on the new totara batten fence.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—22°C; no rain [79.4]

Good day outside today, hot but with a bit of a breeze. According to Mary’s min-max verandah thermometer it’s been 32 degrees C here sometime in the last week. Bicka and I took 8 wires off the northern boundary, just extending the deconstructed fence that I’ll have to replace one day soon – the first 100m of it was a casualty of cutting down the Lombardy poplars; this last 50m is so I can have some old wire to use for the new totora batten fence. So, 560 staples pulled out and I’m ready to put up the wire on said new totara batten fence. I have asked Mary and Gill to come and stay for a few days early in April so that we can together staple the battens on – but I’m sure I’ve said that already; plane tickets booked for 2nd – 7th with Karola returning on 9th.

Bantam hen with 10 rapidly growing chicks has gone AWOL tonight; be interestng to see if they survive a night of cats and rats – our cat killed and mostly ate a large rat sometime over the last 3-4 days, only head and giblets left for me to admire.

Bicka is so muddy that I gave her another shower today, she bounced around afterwards in the sun but by dinner time she was as muddy as ever; I suspect she’s digging for rabbits; they’re digging lots of short burrows in the North paddock and ruining the already bumpy pasture.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—22°C; no rain [79.7]

Computer drudge all day but it was cool and overcast so no great loss. Late afternoon I started on the job I’d anticipated beginning bright and early; starting at 4:00pm it took till 7:30pm to install the 13 posts in the 13 holes for the new totara batten fence. I have opened negotiations with Gill and Mary to see if they can come up here and hold a spade against the back of each iron-hard totara batten when I staple them to the wires, I hope to complete this before Karola returns on 9th April. I try each time I’m left to fend for myself to create some heart-stopping transformation of the landscape – for example the 100m long ha-ha – that does cause questioning of the wisdom of leaving Ian unsupervised.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—19°C; no rain [79.4]

A better organised day today. To my surprise and delight I managed to dig the 13 post holes for the new fence, each about 700mm deep. The ground was a little hard and dry near the surface but on the whole pretty much ideal for digging – and today was a lot cooler here than yesterday. More ‘working on the wiki’.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—25°C; no rain [80.0]

Clothes washing, dish washing and dog washing. Bicka is (briefly) a delight to stroke – that brief moment between being wet and smelling damp as only a dog can and being once again fully manured up.

At last got the stay posts in and a couple of wires strained up for the new totara batten fence along the southern edge of the North paddock.

Endless computing, but enjoyable and to a good end, though how grown men are supposed to admit they’ve been ‘working on the wiki’ all day is another matter.

Karola went to Geoff Kaye’s 2nd wife’s requiem (aka funeral) in Winchester today and saw several of our UK IBM friends there.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—23°C; 0.1mm rain [80.6]

By accident I discovered it is the day before Easter Friday when New Zealand shuts down. Pam Morrison from the accountant’s office wanted to know when I’d be in to do some signing and I said tomorrow. She said, quite politely “I don’t think so”. So I rushed off to shop and so on before the weekend break. Bicka came too but it was a bit too hot for her so she was glad to get home. She is snoring away now on her beanbag in my room.

This computing till 2:00am lark – entirely my own fault – but it means not getting up till morning tea time. Went to see the McDermotts in Flaxmere and was given some silverbeet.

Anyway, I went in and signed karola’s and my 2006/2007 tax returns so that’s over for another year, and another good result, credit where credit’s due etc.

Bridget called in the morning, was in Petone with the kids and wanted a phone number of a shop in Johnsonville. To my delight she said that she and the family had spent the night at our flat in Days Bay and been on the beach; fish and chips again; at least I think that’s what she said.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—24°C; 0.1mm rain [80.3]

Karola is safely asleep in Ealing or so Anna tells me. Another beautiful day here. I repositioned the gate catch on Karola’s old wooden farm gate as she requested and then recommenced the construction of the totara batten fence across the North paddock, beginning by checking the right angle with the existing totara batten fence once again and reinstalling the end strainer up by the Royal Gala apple trees. Still 10 chicks and they are growing up quickly.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—22°C; 0.2mm rain [80.3]

Beautiful day although much of it spent inside crouching over a computer. Mike Croucher came and mowed the lawns in the afternoon; I chopped thistles in the Front paddock. Karola’s earlier spraying of the thistles has meant there are hardly any this year.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—24°C; no rain [80.6]

Karola left for the UK this evening. I had eye specialist appointment and then we visited our tax accountant before returning home to a last afternoon pootling around. I did get out and mow the goose enclosure, the Triangle paddock and the North paddock on the basis that it’d be better if I didn’t mow, mulch, flail, or engage in other life-threatening heavy machinery jobs while unsupervised. Karola and Bicka had one last bicycle run up round the orchard. We set off for the airport at 6:30pm; Karola called from Auckland while waiting for her flight to HongKong that leaves around midnight. Bicka and I have settled in for 3 weeks of relative solitude.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—_22°C; no rain [81.3]

I took Tessa and Laura on a guided tour of the estate; then Harry, Chloe and Ray-Marie arrived and we all set off for lunch at the ClearView restaurant. New ownership, same ambience, outside in a vineyard, but even more expensive than before.

Late afternoon I spent some time with Laura and we worked on her programming questions as she becomes the KiwiTech chief web programmer.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—24°C; no rain [80.3]

Voicemail that I picked up this morning said that our house alarm at karamu had gone off at 8:30pm yesterday; patrol sent and “ntf” (no trouble found). Probably a very large cockroach or rat set off the motion sensors. Another $60 for peace of mind.

Charles Bagnall came round as planned just after 9:00am and we discussed the remaining things needing attention at Pitoitoi

• the carport re-roofing with polycarbonate transparent roofing sheets
• the underpinning of the north-east corner
• design for a path from the alleyway below the house up to the front door, without steps

Long hot drive, Karola drove all the way, with a lunch break in Masterton, arriving around 5:30pm back at Karamu. All ten chicks still alive and well, to my surprise. Geese, cat, bantams and sheep all present and correct.

Tessa and Laura Wier staying for the night, parents Harry and Chloe staying with a friend Ray-Marie in a hotel in Napier and they’d all been out for a meal together; the girls arrived at Karamu before 10:00pm.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—22°C; no rain [?]

Visited a Dymock’s bookshop for Karola to stock up on travel reading matter. Then visited Mary and we had lunch at a delicatessen in Karori. In the evening Geoff and Fellicity Rashbrooke came round for dinner at Pitoitoi.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—23°C; 0.1mm rain [?]

A day at Bridget’s place including a lamb rack dinner.

After dinner Karola took me ot a Roger Hall comedy “Who Wants To Be 100”, very dark, well acted, but not exactly uplifting – a bit too close to the bone re Old People’s Homes as we used to call them.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—18°C; 3.9mm rain [?]

Calm trip to Wellington via Manawatu Gorge after a quick lunch at Abbotslea Tearooms in Waipawa, arriviing at Bridget’s in Khandallah late afternoon. Bridget brought daughters Natalie and Alex out to Pitoitoi for dinner of fish and chips, joined by husband Chris More who came from work across on the ferry, his workplace is in sight of the ferry wharf.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—28°C; 6.2mm rain [79.8]

Landrover in for service and warrent-of-fitness; in by 9:00am, done by 5:0pm and they wash it too.

More mulching, 2.5 hours and we’d completed all that Karola had hoped we would before going to Wellington for a few days tomorrow. Wind getting up, from the south, ark clouds but no actual rain.

Last night I was woken by a cockroach crawling on my pillow; took it into the hall and it had moved to another wall but was still there this morning so I sent it to inspect the septic tank. That’s 2nd cockroach night drama this month – last time it was crawling up my back. They’re Gisborne cockroaches about 2cm long, dark with a white fringe. It’s rumoured that while they can’t count, they are well versed in Latin verbs.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—28°C; 0.1mm rain [80.2]

Switched the sheep flocks so that the larger mob of 38 gets the greened-up Front and North paddocks, having eaten up the huge numbers of acorns in the Middle paddock and around the lawn and big oak. Everyone likes a change, especially our sheep. I have to report that Nelson is sniffing one of the Romney ewes and making that special lip-curling expression that means he’s awake, alive, and a ram. Could be lambs before we go to France in July at this rate.

Mulched for 2 hours and didn’t break or jam anything; small trailer full of mulch. Karola not only wound up all the 100s metres of electric fence this morning, she also worked with me on the mulching and spent an hour after that spreading the mulch under the Feijoa bushes. This time next week is going to be a bit quiet with just me and Bicka.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—20°C; no rain [80.8]

Karola went with Mary Wilson to HB Horse of the Year show, the last day, at the Hastings Showgrounds. Apparently it was a much higher octane affair this year, very very commercial but K&M enjoyed it especially as Mary had two horses she’d bred come in high for jumping and dressage. I stayed at home and minded Mary’s huge, strong and totally amiable Alsatian – goodness its teeth are each as big as Bicka. Bicka wasn’t impressed, just bored.

We let the sheep in for the day under the big oak and they cleaned up the grass, acorns and weeds in a very short time.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—27°C; 0.2mm rain [80.9]

Another 60th birthday. Well the day started briskly with Karola off to Napier to her “Graduate Women”s meeting about a hospital in Ethiopia and then at lunchtime we went an hour up the Taihape road to Touchwood Books for Graham’s birthday lunch. Peter and Diane (a card) Arthur, the Touchwood Books owners were there as were most of Graham’s family, his parents, two sisters, a brother and son John. Tracey Craig, Graham’s partner, threw the feast and it was under canvas on the lawn on a bright sunny afternoon with a gentle cooling breeze. Most enjoyable. Turns out the Arthurs know Roger and Helen Parsons (Auckland, booksellers) very well, and of course Helen is Gwyneth Bright nee Pugh’s older sister. Small world. Graham’s family are interesting and easy to talk to, making it an unexpectedly pleasant afternoon.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—25°C; no rain [79.8]

Despite a day of solid computering I did break out for a few hours and Karola and I did 1/5 hours of mulching until the mulcher jammed and we called it a day. Wonderful machine, easy to unjam and powerful though dusty and noisy of course.

Ten chicks still. No excitements on the stock front; the North paddock is greening up nicely but we could do with some more rain, unfortnately Napier/Hastings hit the TV again today as the warmest places in New Zealand and we’re looking forward to more sunshine and warm dry days for a while.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—26°C; no rain [80.3]

Sunny day mostly, but cool. Still 10 chicks alive and cheeping. Installed the new metalworking vice in the green shed enabling convenient sharpening of my favourite grubber. Grubbed out thistles in the North paddock, again. I have a nasty suspicion that some of the grubbed thistles return – or at least there are new thistles just waiting to spring up in the same place. Mended the split leaky pipe near the orchard road entrance. On the southeast corner the Griselinia hedge is still very dry an inch or so below the surface so I’ve left the irrigation on for them.

Bicka enjoyed her evening chase as Karola and I rode round the orchard.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—20°C; no rain [80.9]

Left at 7:30am, 200km later at 10:00am we arrived for the service at 11:00am. Karola went inside and was given a special welcome and heard many speeches for the 1st hour; just before 11:00am I joined her and the, by then, large crowd filling the hall. Mormon leader gave a speech including some ‘creationist’ patter about not looking like monkeys, a regular advertisement rather than the Aunty Gwen eulogy expected; he was one of her grandchildren I think. Roman Catholic priests (2) held a mass, a fairly informal affair with the two old codgers up the front vying with each other to do the sacraments etc. More speeches. Followed by an hour or so to get to the cemetery and back then a big feast of very plain but ample traditional NZ food. Battered fish, roast pork, salads, pavlova, jelly, chocolate buns and diced fruit. We left at 3:00pm and got home around 5:30pm.

The weather on the way up to the Mahia was intermittent showers; the morning up there, in fact all through the graveside ceremony too, was teeming rain; it cleared later in the afternoon but there were heavy rain squalls right down to Napier – but us, hardly a drop.

One of the ewes had tangled herself up in a piece of old haybale string, a loop of it went round her neck and then down to her left back hoof and round that several times, like a hobble. Did she really do that by herself I wonder.

Chicks still seem to be alive and cheeping.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—21°C; 0.1mm rain [80.9] PS Mary’s raingauge shows 50mm rain in last 3 days here at Karamu.

Rained all day. Dentist in the morning to replace a large filling that fell out; all done in 20 minutes. Meeting with Heather Hawkes, our financial adviser from Guardian Trust in the afternoon. Then I fenced off most of the lawn and we let the hungry and bored ewes and lambs in for a feast, leaving the Middle paddock, Island paddock and Geese Enclosure to recover and soak up the rain. Karola took Bicka up to the orchard in a lull in the rain.

The hen with 10 chicks continues to act strangely, staying out in the rain when she could be in shelter. Most of the chicks seem to be pecking and foraging despite being rather damp. I covered the coop entirely with a tarpaulin.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—17°C; 33mm rain [80.4]

Overcast and welcome showers. Computer work inside all day. Arthur Ormond rang to say that Auntie Gwen, probably the eldest of the Maori Ormonds, died at the weekend and we’ll probably go up to the Mahia on Wednesday to the funeral.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—17°C; 31.2mm rain [80.3]

Well last night was awfully muggy and my sleep was disturbed fairly convincingly by having a large cockroach crawl over my back early on. I thought it as a moth but it refused initially to be dislodged and when it did let go I was not terribly well disposed towards it. Gill saw a monster one on the loo seat earleir that evening she said; these Gisborne cockroaches that’d much rather be outside but wander in out of the heat.

Jean and I went on bikes up to the orchard to pick a few apples and I saw a small pheasant chick on the drive. While waiting for the photo-shoot and rigourous identification from Paul I was surprised to see a hare, big ears wide and swivelling, nose twitching, emerge out of the boundary hedge and lope slowly towards me. It was about 20 metres away and stopped no more than 3 metres from where I sat with my bike waiting for the photographer. After a few minutes it loped slowly off back into the hedge. Then I saw a familiar tan, white, and black figure and a waving stern; Bicka was trailing the hare and it was just keeping a little bit ahead and out of harms way.

Kate and Ross and their friend Chris came round for a hearty brunch then went off on their way back to Wellington. Gill and Ben and Jean and Paul left an hour or so later.

Late afternoon Karola reported 5 chicks alone in the goat house where a bantam hen had been nesting for the last few weeks. When I investigated I found the hen with a different 5 chicks off in the undergrowth. We waited till evening then caught them all and put all 10 and the hen in the ark coop with water and chick food. Hope they get a good night but 10 hatching is pretty much the record; not sure how the hen will cope as she’s already deserted half of them once.

Oh, and for no obvious reason a big chunk of a front tooth flaked off today; they did that several times while we were in the USA in 1999 but I thought that was the whole-grain bread. Ho hum.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—28°C; no rain [?]

Enjoyed company of the visitors today; Gill and Ben here most of the day and Gill and I staked up a leaning wattle tree under the eucalypts and cut off 1/3 of its height to give it a chance of re-establishing its wrenched roots. Paul and Jean went off to Napier to meet up with Kate and Ross and friend Steve; they all came back for afternoon tea and then we had a magnificent roast lamb dinner with Gill and Ben and Paul and Jean. Much fasting to follow.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 20°C—27°C; 0.4mm rain [80.2]