Monthly Archives: June 2008

In the morning Karola went to the dentist and did a bit of shopping; I worked on bills and business stuff. At lunchtime I went to HB Tractor Dismantlers and Central Metals, both on Omahu Rd. From Central Metals I got a length of 12mm mild steel rod; at HB Tractor Dismantlers they turned the ends of the rod down so it would fit across the back of our stock crate. The stock crate is bolted to the rather thin metal of the edge of the trailer and much needed rigidity is provided normally by the back panel of the stock crate which includes a sliding door, for getting the sheep in and out. The back panel gets in the way when you want to use the trailer for other things. The back panel attaches via rods – a bit like a door hinge has a rod holding the two flanges together. Anyway this special rod I got today drops into the two top sockets usually used to hold the back panel on and it holds the sides rigid, stopping them tearing out the bolts fastening it to the trailer – that’s the idea anyway.

Later Karola and I picked up a couple of loads of big old trimmings from when the Casurina hedge was trimmed and put them on the apple tree bonfire heaps. Karola went on to plant 5 of her 8 rimu trees; these are going in as specimen trees in the West paddock each with its own Karola-constructed tree guard held in place with four metal standards. I set up a water trough in the North paddock and we moved the main flock into there for the next few days so Karola can complete her specimen tree planting without having to open/close gates keeping the sheep in. Because of the heavy rain some of the tree holes dug previously are full of water but I expect they’ll drain in the next few days. It is certainly too wet for more work on the railings.

I spoke to Bridget this evening; they are all safely in Australia staying with Chris’ brother Greg and his wife and new baby; they leave from there for the UK tomorrow.

Hawkes Bay Weather: -1°C—11°C; no rain [82.0]

Tessa and Peter here off and on. Peter spent most of the day at the local gokart competitions. Rained mostly but a fine period late afternoon. Tessa and I got the sheep out of the orchard and into the Island paddock. I took down the kilometre of electric wire (3-wire fence) and left the orchard free for the orchardist for the winter.

At Karola’s suggestion we’ve offered Alan Ladbrooke the two bays of the big shed as, having sold his orchard and sheds he’ll have a lot of stuff with no place to put it. The idea was much appreciated and taken up so we have to find somewhere else for our hay and firewood.

Julie Ladbrooke came round and told Karola they’d sold their orchard to the Heywoods at the back – the orchard owner directly behind them bought it for his doctor daughter and her construction industry partner – they live in Auckland but we suppose may one day come down and build a house on it – or more likely sell it when the prices go up.

Tessa and Peter left in the early evening after a cottage pie cooked for dinner by Karola. I showered Bicka who got soaking wet outside and smelt horrid.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—11°C; 14.3mm rain [81.6]

Blustery overcast day spent mostly inside. I did a bit on the railings. Highlight was niece Tessa and her partner Peter came over for the night – Peter has gokart race to attend tomorrow.

Mike Croucher came back – there was a patch of lawn that remained as darkness fell yesterday – it’s all done now.

Tessa, Peter and Karola watched Utu on DVD. Karola and I saw it long ago when it first came out – there was some connection with the filming and the homestead – Karola said it was better than she remembered it.

Hawkes Bay Weather: -1°C—13°C; 2.2mm rain [81.7]

Blustery day. Mike Croucher came and spent all afternoon mowing the lawn – lots of leaves and hadn’t been done for a month.

Karola put shade netting round 3 of her deer-netting tree guards and then crimped up another five of the netting circles, finishing the 100 metre roll. I went to Goldpine and bought 2 x 3-metre metal gates, 10Kg 5″ (125mm) galvanised flathead nails, couple more tins of ground marker, and 50 1.8 metre “standards” (metal posts) for the tree guards. I attached five light wooden planks to one of the gates and used it to replace a netting gate in the sheep yards – hoping to reduce the incidence of torn-out eartags which annoys the sheep and me.

Bridget et al will be in Melbourne Australia by now – they left on the 6:00 am flight out of Wellington.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—17°C; no rain [81.0]

Bridget and Chris with Natalie and Alexandra are off to Sydney and then the UK via Singapore tomorrow morning – at 4:00am.

Karola planted another dozen trees and we both worked on railings so that one 6-metre piece is now complete.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—15°C; 0.2mm rain [81.7]

Karola and I planted 65 Manuka and Karola 14 others. I make that 192 trees planted in the last few days. I dug another 44 holes for more of the trees – with the tractor. A good day.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—15°C; 0.7mm rain [82.7]

Karola planted another 40 trees today. I pottered on with railings.

Hawkes Bay Weather: -1°C—14°C; no rain [82.5]

Eye man in the morning followed by cooked breakfast for two at BJ’s. Karola planted another 26 trees and I mucked about a bit more with railings. Rain showers on and off all day.

Evening meal with Jenny and Noel Hendery and the penultimate bishop of Napier John and wife Liz Bluck at Hendery rez in Napier.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—17°C; 0.1mm rain [82.1]

Checked the ewes in the orchard and found #409 was limping on front right foot. Warm and smelled terrible so we trimmed the hoof and let in the air and sprayed antibiotics. Otherwise everyone seemed in good health.

Karola gamely planted some of the trees in increasingly bad weather; she planted 44 today having laid out over 100. I mucked about with railings for a bit then retired still knackered from the previous day’s hole making.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—16°C; 3.4mm rain [81.4]

Good day; the 100m x 5m new planting area was marked out – one row of Manuka at 1.5m spacings and 3 rows of assorted other native trees at 3m spacngs; 1 metre between rows.
Then Karola and I – assisted by the Fergie and its post-hole digging auger – dug the about 200 holes. Afterwards we went to Tetoki Nurseries and picked up our large order of native trees, even so I have underestimated the Manuka by 40 trees somewhere along the line. Of course the forecast now is for rain, strong winds, and freezing temperatures.

This is the third day we’ve had no postal delivery. I suspect it is because the current postie – the postal run is a franchise that changes hands every so often – wants us to move the mailbox out onto the Avenue because she found our front gate shut last week. The Brethren orchardists over the road run sheep in their orchards every winter and move them up and down the road from yards to orchard. When they do this they shut the gates of everyone in their path and they leave them shut. Hence the problem for postie. The mail box is currently outside our back door which is mighty handy but more importantly is hidden from the many pedestrians on the avenue, some of whom have, in the past, savaged our roadside mail box. That, and a plea from the postie at the time to be allowed to come in off the road as it was a lot safer than stopping facing oncoming high-speed traffic, was what led us to move the mail box off the road. Anyway, the current posties are oblivious to danger and just want to shave off a few extra seconds by having the mailbox out on the road.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—13°C; 0.1mm rain [81.8]

Finished spraying. Karola marking out places for her 8 rimu trees around the Canary Island pine in a rough ring outside the ring of 8 Totora. Sunny but bitterly cold day.

Hawkes Bay Weather: -1°C—12°C; 0.1mm rain [81.6]

Karola planted her railed triangles and added the mulch we put into her trailer yesterday. Together we nailed up the final rails on each of the two triangles and added a latch for the adjoining gate.

It was dry enough by late afternoon and with a gentle northerly breeze so I have applied a second spray of Roundup to half of the new planting area; the first dose is now taking effect. It may not be very “green” but Karola’s cousin Peter Ormond recommends it (he’s a professional nurseryman/corporate landscaper) and it does help the native trees get a better start if they’re not competing with grass or weeds for a few months. Hope to do the rest tomorrow.

Hawkes Bay Weather: -1°C—13°C; 0.2mm rain [81.6]

Damp morning. In the afternoon Karola planted one of her specimen tree triangles – Liriodendrum plus 3 Karamu. She also spotted a dead possum in the big oak tree with its head stuck seemingly in a hole in a branch. We dislodged it and although looking very dead it suddenly started breathing. (“Tales of the unexpected” music here). Of course it was a just a 100mm long joey which I then had to dispatch, but it gave us the shivers for a few moments. I buried them out in the geese enclosure.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 0°C—12°C; no rain [81.1]

Rainy day – computing all day. Bridget wants somewhere to upload digital photos to when she goes to the UK with her family to see her sister and family at the end of this month so I am whipping up (over-engineering as Karola tirelessly points out) a little program to help.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—15°C; 7.6mm rain [81.0]

Light drizzle interspersed with cloudy cool damp spells. We mustered the sheep into the yards and I doctored #291’s front right foot. No obvious signs but a little bit warm quite a way down the side of the hoof. Exploratory pedicure showed that yes, there was infection down there so sprayed with antibiotic. As we had the sheep in the yards we decided to draft out the lambs to be sold and put them in our best paddock for the last few weeks; 16 ram and wether lambs, including Ben. We put #291 out with them to better keep an eye on her. The Middle paddock has plenty of grass and the main part hasn’t been grazed for some months. We’re hoping the lambs will put on lots of ‘condition’. and become ‘prime’.

Late afternoon, after Karola had finished crimping the wires of her next 5 tall tree guards to make the netting into a firm circle, we went to GreenLeaf Nurseries near Clive and Karola bought:

• 2 x Persimons
• 2 x Quinces
• 4 x Crabapples
• 2 x Golden Weeping Willows
• 2 x Liriodendrum tulipii
• 2 x Silky Oaks

Hawkes Bay Weather:8°C—16°C; 23.5mm rain [81.1]

Graham Harvey and partner Tracey Craig came to lunch along with Matt and Karen Saunders and their young daughters Ami and Rene who live across the road at The Stables, 140 Ormond Rd. Karola put on a super winter lunch – lamb casserole and trifle (not together, you understand).

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—17°C; no rain [80.6]

Sunny day, cold start, no wind. Yesterday Napier was hottest place in New Zealand at 20 degrees, according to TV1.

Shopping with Karola in the morning; more work on the railings etc in the afternoon – couple of netting gates hung.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—18°C; 0.1mm rain [80.5]

Another nice winter’s day. Karola and I worked on the two tree-guard triangles; each triangle extends from a gatepost to the fence about 3 metres away. The back side of the triangle is the fence and the two other sides fan out from the gatepost. We cut the railings to length and one side has been nailed up in each triangle; now Karola is planting and mulching the inside before I nail up the final side.

Around lunchtime I cobbled together various lengths of alkathene and took a trough up to the back of the orchard – the sheep now have clean water in addition to the large puddfles still hanging round from the rain last week. One ewe, with an old red tag, a Romney #291, is limping badly – front right leg.

Excitement tonight was a very lucky escape from burning the homestead down. Through a series of mistakes a wooden knife tray was left on top of a coffee pot warmer for a couple of days and the coffee warmer was on. There’s been a slight warm burning smell for the last 2 days but we thought it was the oil heater that made a very similar smell when it was new. Tonight we were so lucky we were in the dining room and I was about a metre away from the incident when it happened. There was a sudden whooshing sound and a small cloud of dense white smoke on the sideboard followed by flames almost a metre high out of the knife tray. I turned round and picked up the tray – the fire was coming from the end nearest the wall – and held it away from anything I thought would catch light. Karola opened the French doors so I decided not to upend the tray on the floor but carried it like a flaming pudding out into the dark and onto the lawn. Smoke alarms went off with a shriek; ADT called to see what was happening, and the fire on the lawn went out. Bicka was mighty upset because of us being so frightened I suppose but burned her nose when she tried to attack the burning knife tray on the lawn – I don’t think it’s too bad. An hour either way and we would be standing well back as our house and memories went up in a big bonfire – I think we would have got Bicka out OK but she might have been a bit singed. Enough excitement for today.

Hawkes Bay Weather:3°C—19°C; no rain [81.6]

Another beautiful sunny winter’s day. Karola and I had our flu jabs this morning; at lunchtime Karola took Laura to the bus in Hastings – she’s had a couple of days heavy reading of computer web design books and is returning to Burleigh and her herd of goats today.

A bit more done on the railing tree guards.

Hawkes Bay Weather:0°C—17°C; no rain [81.5]

Another beautiful sunny winter’s day.

A bit more done on the railing tree guards and twenty 6-metre planks (150x40mm) bought from Tumu – five of them ripped down the middle to provide ten 75×40 thin rails.

Hawkes Bay Weather:-1°C—14°C; no rain [81.3]

Cold but beautifully sunny day. Laura Wier, my niece, arrived by bus from Burleigh, Bulls at lunchtme – to read some computer books.

Landrover picked up from the auto electricians – fusing lights at least temporarily solved and spark plugs cleaned making it run much more smoothly.

I began work on some railings to go round small triangles for specimen trees where the totara fences meet their boundary fence in a T junction.

Hawkes Bay Weather:0°C—13°C; no rain [?]

FInished off the orchard electric fence by making a 3m wide lane down the south boundary connecting the back of the orchard with the Island paddock. Also ran a hot wire from the pump shed where the energiser lives to the south boundary and energised the electric fence. Karola led the flock to their new pasture.

Landrover in at Newport Auto Electrical to fix electrical fault in lights but all they’ve been able to do is turn the definite permanent fault back into an intermittent one – somewhere in the wiring but the wiring harness in Discovery Landrovers is allegedly via panels in the roof and expensive to open up and check. So we’ll see how long before the lights fuse again, sigh. Good news is that the auto electrician Chris said they can check the spark plugs etc and get the Landrover running on all of its eight petrol cylinders again. It’ll be ready tomorrow lunchtime.

Hawkes Bay Weather:3°C—17°C; no rain [?]

Up bright and early; cold but sunny day with occasional bitter wind gusts.

Electric fence erected from one side of the orchard to the other – north to south. Laurie McDermott came over in the afternoon and helped examine the sheep to see if any of the Romney ewes were likely to have lambs soon – one, #297, may be due in next 3-4 weeks but the others are later than that. Nelson and one of the wether lambs have been limping but not due to footrot so maybe a twinge of arthritus. Anyway I trimmed Nelson’s front feet and left it at that. We weighed a few of the wether lambs, very roughly. They were all about 30kg but the measurement wasn’t very accurate – I stood on some old bathroom scales with and then without a lamb and we recorded the difference. However 30kg or more of woolly wether is more than I can easily hold and the scales tended to wobble wildly.

Hawkes Bay Weather:-2°C—10°C; no rain [81.4]

With cold wet southerly weather forecast we ploughed on with our plans for planting trees. First the sheep were amalgamated into a single mob in the West paddock – they’d made good work of eating the piece of the orchard the ewes and Nelson had while we were in Wellington. Nelson is limping as he does in cold damp periods – arthritic I think. Then we sprayed the 100m x 5m new tree planting area with 25 litres of Roundup diluted 100:1. After that we took down the electric fence – all 400m of it – ready to put it up enclosing the back half of the orchard as the next place for the sheep to clean up. While up in the orchard we picked the last of the Granny Smith apples on a tree that strangely sported a couple of branches of Granny’s amongst the Pacific Rose.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—18°C; 3.9mm rain [81.2]

Late morning we left Burleigh after a tour of Laura’s 30+ goats eating blackberry and other weeds at the bottom of the cliffs – the Burleigh farm is split between the upper terrace and homestead and the river flats some 50 metres or so below.

We called in at Kaz and Yvonne’s place, Ngaio Glen, and admired their tree plantings and the extra 3 acre paddock they’ve bought next door. Ngaio Glen really looks like Kaz’ place now with a large double garage and lots of rusty farm equipment and tractors and fencing materials lying about – hmmm, just like home. Kaz was out but Yvonne sped us on our way with a cup of tea. Stopped for petrol in Ashurst – 79.2 litres so must have been quite empty – and went via route 50 across the Takapau plains.

Called in at Newport Auto Electrical on Omahu Rd and got a new rear right tail light bulb and booked the Landrover in for Monday for them to try and find the elusive fault that blows a fuse whereapon the trailer (if attached) and the front and rear tail lights – and the instrument panel lights – all go out. Over the last two years this intermittent fault has progressed from only happenng occasionally in wet weather when the trailer is attached to happening every couple of weeks even without the trailer to happening the moment you turn the lights on. Now it is happening as soon as you turn the lights on it is going to be much easier to find.

The sun was shining as soon as we got through the Manawatu Gorge and we had sunshine for the rest of the day. Bicka glad to be home; we moved the Romneys and wethers back into the West paddock and did a stock-take. Cat, chooks, geese, sheep all present and correct.

Hawkes Bay Weather:6°C—17°C; no rain [?]

Smooth exit from Pitoitoi after breakfast at the “Chocolate Days” cafe on the waterfront; arriving at Burleigh mid afternoon where I was allowed to see some of Harry’s latest inventions and working prototypes. I do like his skill with hydraulics using plastic and steel.

Chloe cooked us a big beef dinner and Laura and Tessa were there; Tessa with her boyfriend Peter; it’s the first time we’ve met him.

Hawkes Bay Weather:-1°C—14°C; 0.1mm rain [?]

Alexandra’s (Alex’s) birthday – now she is two. We had a quiet morning in Pitoitoi while she had a party with other toddlers at Bridget’s. We went in mid afternoon and met up with Anna_Marie More, the other grandmother, to help prepare for an evening meal – the grandparents and family only. Went off without a hitch and no crying.

Hawkes Bay Weather:-2°C—12°C; no rain [?]

Charles and his son Anton arrived and worked on the carport at Pitoitoi all day. By evening the replacement rafters were up.

Late morning we went in and spent the day with Bridget – Chris being away till late at a business function.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—14°C; 0.1mm rain [?]

Charles Bagnall popped round in the morning and we discussed the work remaining – the carport is being rebuilt using the current much more stringent building regulations for the area – so will be standing long after the house has blown away or fallen down. Also it’s a bit higher and has a better roof slope so all in all will be a big – if expensive – improvement. Underpinning on the noerth-east corner still to do and Karola has asked Charles to design us a plan for access from below replacing the rotting wooden steps with a low-maintenance garden and an inclined zig-zag path.

Karola went to Eastbourne and chose the toughened glass she’s getting put into the Pitoitoi bathroom to replace the existing two panes. The current glass is patterned and one pane is chipped, cracked and beginning to fall apart. Modern bathroom regulations stipulate toughened glass so there was no possibility for just replacing the broken glass with a matching new pane.

Another call from ArmourGuard – this time an alarm in the garage but they found no sign of entry – another mouse I suppose.

Hawkes Bay Weather:6°C—15°C; 4.8mm rain [?]

Lunch with the Rashbrookes and David Greig – I knew David a little from university days; he had a career in Treasury and now has a management consulting consultancy in Melbourne, Australia – constantly flitting about the world. After lunch went in to Bridget’s and Bridget made us all a roast lamb dinner.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—16°C; no rain [?]