Monthly Archives: January 2009

Warmish sort of day, but not hot like Melbourne. Kept inside in the cool much of the day but Mary and I did go to Goldpine in the morning and buy some fence posts, long ones, for the combined wooden retaining wall and railings project. We also finished defronding the bamboo stakes and, with the usual horrendous noise, mulched up all the fronds.

Jim Cornes and his wife came in their little old pickup bearing a large apple box full of last year’s apples out of their coldstore. Many still nice to eat but some rotting so they have to discard the entire bin. The sheep love them; Mary gave them their first apple feed and they did find it hard to make the first bite, but as soon as there was something to bite into they were off – sweet, crisp, and moisture-laden.

Karola made an astonishingly excellent hot dinner for us, a lamb casserole, and it came as a complete surprise.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—31°C; no rain [81.6]

In the short space between a leisurely breakfast and it being rather too hot out in the direct sun we began work on the wooden retaining wall to terminate the Ha-Ha at the western end. As prelude to this Mary and I went to Winstones on Omahu Rd and purchased a cubic metre of grit – gravel smaller than pea-gravel at half the price. This will be used in part as a foundation layer for the bottom wooden planks.

A foot or so down at the bottom of the Ha-Ha the ground is still moist, despite the bone dry appearance at ground level.

Karola continued her weeding and I also chopped weeds for half an hour in the Island paddock – in the shade but hot nevertheless.

Jim Cornes confessed to putting his runaway sheep off the road into our place for safekeeping while he rushed up to Auckland on business – it really would have been a good idea to tell us, he admitted. We’re to get an apple box of reject apples for our sheep from Jim.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—25°C; no rain [81.6]

The cottage taps ran dry so I filled up the outside rusty tin tank with a garden hose and by mid morning all was well again.

More irrigation; more bamboo defronding.

Karola, Mary and Bicka went to town this morning and while shopping encountered a large “traditionally built” Maori woman loudly remonstrating with a tiny boy. The boy was screaming too and Bicka got quite put out; she has been a bit flighty all day since the incident.

Karola, Mary and I inspected all the sheep for fly strike this evening; we found two cases, #810 with the active beginnings of a serious strike and #825 with just a few dozen wrigglers who’d probably hatched this afternoon.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—26°C; no rain [81.6]

Yesterday’s irrigation blockage unblocked and water is once again flowing to the various leaky pipes and sprinklers.

Mary and Bicka and I went in to Hastings and shopped around all morning. Best part was visiting Apple Activities, a toyshop, a very good toyshop, but expensive.

In the afternoon the same team defronded a pile of bamboo but otherwise took it easy n the hot hot sun.
Somewhere in between I ordered a saw stand to complement the new Makita sliding copound mitre saw – also to be purchased from hector Jones when it arrives, I hope on Friday morning.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—24°C; no rain [?]

We packed and Bicka got her walk and set off just after 9:00 am. First stop was to baby sit Alex for Bridget while she went off on errands; Natalie was at “little school”. I picked up Mary at around 11:00 am and returned to Bridget’s so we set off for Karamu at about 11:30 am. Stopped at Greytown at the “Main Street” restaurant for a very filling meal of their special pie – today it was venison, delicious. We stopped for Bicka at the Masterton park and again at the Norsewood cafe just as it was closing, letting Bicka stretch her legs again and having a quick coffee/tea.

Karola took the longer but more interesting route 50 across the Takapau plains and we had a brief moment of excitement when we plunged into a very dense dust storm that cut visibility to a few metres; the dust raised by gale-force southerly winds and acres and acres of very dry, dusty vineyards.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—30°C; no rain [?]

I took Bicka on a longer walk today: up the 300 strides it takes to get to the top of the ridge behind us then the relatively gentle descent through the bush to the Duck Pond and Pavilion cafe; from there to the southern end of the beach nearest Eastbourne and back to the northern end, up Ferry Road and home.

I tracked down and cut and painted with “vigilant” the stems of some re-emerging banana passionfruit vine up in the bush behind us. I was delighted to find perhaps a dozen young Totara trees of various sizes flourishing in the bush, seedlings from the Totara tree 100m or so from our flat.

Karola and I had some hits on the local public tennis court just below us at Pitoitoi – the first for many years. Bicka thought it was fun, initially getting very excited but relaxing and contentedly sniffing the perimeter after a while.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—26°C; no rain [?]

Bridget and the granddaughters spent most of the day with us out at Days Bay – a swim at the Eastbourne pool, a play on the beach, late lunch at “Chocolate Days” cafe, and afternoon tea at the Pitoitoi flat.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—26°C; no rain [?]

Another very nice day. Felicity and Geoff Rashbrooke for morning tea. Karola got in a little weeding in the afternoon. Felicity and Karola went in to see a Pinter play, Betrayal, at Circa; they both enjoyed it. We called Anna at around 10:30 pm to wish her happy 40th birthday.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 16°C—28°C; no rain [?]

Rushed into Wellington to catch someone getting on the 9:00 am ferry to Picton. Karola’s USA friend Sheila Alexander lives in Maine; her husband Bill is an enthusiast – Landrovers, Morgans, lighthouses, motorbikes. Anyway he had a bit of bike machinery fixed for him by Neville in Australia and as it happened Neville was about to come to New Zealand with his biking buddies so it was arranged that we’d give Neville NZ$ in return for Bill giving us some USA$.

So it was that after an 8:00am call today we rushed to find Neville before he got on the ferry. He sent us by mistake to the wrong ferry terminal but we figured that out and in fact were in plenty of time – minutes to spare – in handing over the loot.

The rest of the day was spent at Bridget’s place. We walked with Bicka through the bush late afternoon to Peter and Navina Clemerson’s place in Simla Crescent to pick up our camera that I’d left behind at the Wakefield’s in Moonshine Valley weeks ago. It turns out that Navina used to practice as a psychologist with Branko – Ronnie Chalmers husband – both working in “Corrections” as they call the prison service these days. An intertwined world. Navina is jewish and has just become editor of her local community’s bulletin/newsletter so she’s getting to grips with computer layout and fonts and so on. We returned by road in time to babysit for Bridget and Chris who went to the cinema, “Seven Pounds” – a Will Smith weepy apparently.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—27°C; no rain [?]

Relaxing day after a long night’s computing. We took Bicka on the beach before breakfast and I then took her over the hill back home, another 20 minutes of exercise.

Had a browse in the Katmandu shop in Petone; nice stuff but terribly expensive despite their “up to 70% off” signs.

This evening Bridget and Bicka and I walked up to the top of Mount Kaukau behind her place in Khandallah, a nice 45 minutes up and 30 minutes down. Bicka was livelier at the end than she had been at the start.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—27°C; no rain [?]

Karola went into town to be with the grand daughters and I had a sublime peaceful day out at Pitoitoi; dog, computer, and snacks. I took Bicka for a longer than usual walk along the beach and then up back over the hill behind us. Beautiful morning on the beach and in the bush.

Sent a message to scoop.co.nz – Karola and I are minor shareholders – about an annoying error that comes up if you use the popular Internet Explorer browser to get to their site. Not that I use IE, being a n Apple Mackintosh bigot, but it doesn’t look right that an error message should appear when, as one of their online clients, you’re trying to get real work done. Anyway, Alastair said they were also annoyed by it but couldn’t figure out how to fix it. So I did. Some days are better than others 🙂

Karola and I just took Bicka for a walk in the moonlight on the beach. A fisherman coming off the Days Bay warf said there were fish out there, snapper, gurnard, kingfish and tonight he saw a large stingray.

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

Pottered along all day getting ready for the trip down. We finally left around 6:00pm and had a swift trip on almost empty roads, arriving 4 hours later.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—25°C; no rain [81.9]

… with Laser vision – also makes breakfast and does the washing up. After ringing round half a dozen suppliers it turned out that the best deal was at Hector Jones in Hastings whom I’d always suspected of being rather high-priced.

Otherwise a day of moving irrigation hoses around and keeping the sheep happy. Kaz and Yvonne popped in after lunch and Kaz helped us pick the plums – almost all the plums – off the old old plum tree near the green shed. This year we beat the birds to it, the first year we’ve had most of the crop to ourselves.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—25°C; no rain [82.4]

Chopped the few thistles that appeared dark green in paddocks of dry, dusty yellow-brown. It’s a good time to get them.

Continued with watering the new grass in the ex-bamboo area. Also started watering some of the One-Acre paddock and the Front paddock in the hope of encouraging a little growth while we’re away in Wellington in a few days time.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—25°C; 0.7 mm rain [82.2]

Karola did more weeding under the Lime tree in the morning.

Karola’s plan today was to give the ewes and lambs a large part of the lawn to give them a few days good feeding before we go down to Wellngton for a week. Karola is also feeding all the sheep a little hay and some of them seem to enjoy it. I am putting the wethers and ram lamb in the goose enclosure during the day, letting the geese out so they can get a bit of fresh grass under the big oak.

Late afternoon we put up extra electric fencing round most of the lawn and a separate circle on the drip line of the Liriodendron so that the sheep don’t eat all the low-hanging leaves.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—26°C; no rain [81.6]

Karola painted undercoat on two gates and topcoat on one gate yesterday; today it was one undercoat and two topcoats. Gate latch chains fitted and netting fence re-erected incorporating the new three-gate system.

Karola also did several hours of weeding near the big Lime tree and her row of yew trees. I replaced two Elm rails at the front gate with somewhat less warped alternatives and rehung the “rapid response” numbers.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—24°C; no rain [82.0]

Highlight entertainment of the day was 38 of 40 ewes and lambs getting out onto the avenue. I was the culprit who left a gate open, Karola the heroine who just glimpsed the exodus and, using sheep nuts as bait, got them to come home before they’d gone 200m down the road. Ewe #405 and one of her twin lambs were the ones who stayed at home, I think it’s because #405 is missing her son who is banished to be with other wethers.

Post in, 1.07m above ground, 1.3 meters under ground. Third gate erected. In addition Karola has painted two of the gates with galvinised iron primer and one of them with top coat Karamu livery (karaka green).

We have made a decision today that the ha-ha will not extend further across the lawn to the west but will be terminated with a wooden retaining wall in line with the third gate erected today – that is, instead of sloping railings down from the gate to the bottom of the ha-ha we’ll end the ha-ha here and have railings that run at ground level across the ha-ha towards the homestead with a wooden retaining wall, like one side of a grass bridge, below it.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—24°C; no rain [81.7]

Before breakfast we got the rascal #820 out of the mothers-and-daughters flock and back with the wether-or-not flock.

A small railing triangle at the confluence of the three gates has been completed; in the autumn Karola plans to plant a deciduous tree there, possibly a plane tree.

Alan Ladbrook came over just before lunch and we had a satsfactory financial meeting – orchard rent all paid up for 2008 and the grassing of the area formerly covered in bamboo only cost us $500, and we got $250 as half the proceeds of Alan’s boys selling our apple firewood – 10 apple boxes full at $50 a box.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—23°C; no rain [81.9]

Karola’s GST and then a little more on the three-gates project.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—25°C; 2.5 mm rain [81.6]

Much of the morning taken up with spraying all the sheep with Magnum anti-flystrike spray. At the same time I attempted to assess the ewes’ ‘condition’ by seeing how easily I could feel their vertebrae transverse processes under layers of muscle and fat. It’s all explained here. Some of our ewes are skinny, most are in good condition.

We took this opportunity to separate the male lambs from the rest so we now have just two mobs, the boys and the girls – well except for wether lamb #830 who is a bit small to separate from his mother, and except for an unknown large wether lamb who presumably got through the fence back to his mum. Our fences keep in geese and old ewes but are porous when it comes to lambs wanting to be elsewhere, they even try jumping out of the yards occasionally.

I went to Goldpine and switched the three lock-through 235 mm gate gudgeons for ones with an extra prong to stop the gudgeon pin from rotating – these do hold heavy gates more rigidly.

Karola mowed the ex-bamboo grass and deadly nightshade and has begun watering it to encourage the grass.

Late afternoon we got back to the three-gate project and put in the 1st slam post.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—23°C; no rain [81.8]

Karola continued her serial watering of the paddock specimen totara and rimu trees in the Totara paddock. It drizzled on and off all day, not really soaking the ground but enough to make things damp and slippery.

Two of the three gates now up.

Ewes and lambs are in the Island paddock. The other ewes are in the Totara and One Acre paddocks. Wether #630 and ram lamb #806 remain in the goose enclosure. Ewe lamb #810 (with button tag in the wrong ear, tsk, tsk) is scouring and so Karola and I gave her a drench and a wash. Ewe #496 is barely limping any more.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—20°C; 1.0 mm rain [82.3]

… and then it rained – for about 10 minutes early evening. Karola and I have decided to improve the two-gate interchange between the One Acre, Front, and Totara paddocks and we were just beginnng the erection of the second gate of our three-gate plan when down came the rain.

In the morning I purchased a 10-foot gate to match the two heavy ten-foot gates we’ve had for ages so that we can have a three-way interchange between those paddocks. After that the three of us went to Stortford Lodge for: petrol, a paper, some cheese, a car-wash, and to post Anna’s 40th birthday present to the UK. Bicka was mildly bored by all this and at that time it was still very warm.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—27°C; 4.1 mm rain [82.5]

Hot hot day. Ewe #408 died and in the cool of the evening Karola and I buried her. No obvious reason – maybe sunstroke but more likely ate rather too much Ngaio or Portugese Laurel, both said to be poisonous to sheep. Pleased it didn’t happen while we were away.

As Karola was letting the ewes and lambs through from the Front paddock into the Totara paddock a gang of wether lambs rushed her, running headfirst into (and some jumping over) the netting fence alongside – the fence that mysteriously got undone while we were away. The netting caved under the combined weight of 5 – 6 charging large lambs. QED. In consequence we’ve rethought that particular double gate joining three paddocks and I suspect it’ll become three gates and some railings.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 18°C—31°C; no rain [82.3]

Another glorious, hot, slow day. A bit of leisurely sheep moving and Mike Croucher came and mowed the lawns. Mary’s rain gauge showed 10 mm of rain since 12th December.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—28°C; no rain [81.7]

A couple of hours this morning and the tree guards are all tight and firm against the inevitable rubbing from ewes and playful bunts from lambs. The ewes and lambs thoroughly enjoyed their first taste of green grass for some weeks – their regular pasture in the One Acre and Front paddocks is decidedly hay-like and stalky to boot.

Karola went off shopping for the afternoon and I continued quietly computing round in circles as is my wont. Nice and cool inside the house; hot outside in the sun but even then there’s a cool breeze – delicious Hawkes Bay summer.

Di Greasley rang from UK on Skype a few minutes ago – all’s well with them and their two undergraduate daughters.

Anna and boys are back from a skiing holiday on the continent, a mere 17-hour drive from Ealing; as you might expect, Anna now really does need a holiday.

Bridget called; the PS3 Karola couriered down to her overnight has arrived, and so has Bridget’s new TV with “freeview” encoder inside. Their new UHF aerial being installed this week will enable them to see the occasional HDTV programmes. The PS3 will be able to play BlueRay films on the TV too.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—29°C; no rain [81.9]

With a quick bit of temporary electric fencing the wether and ram lamb are now allowed to eat grass on the small lawn in front of the geese enclosure – the geese enjoy coming nearer the house too and watching what’s going on. Also Karola has fenced off the ex-bamboo area and 16 ewes without lambs are allowed a couple of hours grazing of that every day or so.

Meanwhile the main flock has to wait until we’ve strengthened the tree guards round the rimu and totara specimen trees around the Canary Island pine. We re-sited the metal standards for 4 of the guards this evening; the rest will wait till tomorrow.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—25°C; no rain [82.1]

Desultory sort of day, nice outside in parts. Karola let the 16 ewes without lambs onto the new grass where bamboo used to grow, just for a couple of hours. She says that the broadleaf plants overpowering the grass are in fact deadly nightshade, not fat hen, so the sheep are not terribly keen to eat it.

Ewe #406 has a bad limp; back right leg. Inspection indicated a poisoned foot so we opened it up to the air a bit and sprayed with antibiotic and anti-flystrike powder; we’ll see how she gets on.

Bridget called to say they, the Mores of Khandallah, have made a multi-media decision and bought a not-too-big modern TV to replace their several antiquated models. This one has freeview built in. Bridget wants the Sony PS3 that Chris and I bought last year, which is good news because although I had great ambitions to program the supercomputer inside the PS3, I am nowhere near getting round to it. Karola, also keen to see yet another useless and abandoned piece of electronics off the property, zipped down to the post office and got it couriered to Wellington overnight.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—23°C; no rain [?]

In the morning I did a search -and-destroy on two flourishing banana passionfruit vines; I thought I’d got the lot the last time but these were flowering vigorously. Cut and the stumps painted with Vigilant.

Then I cleaned leaves and other organic detritus from the open drains around the back door and across the apron lawn to the west. After that I cut back the vegetation from either side of the front path and steps – so that next time maybe we wont get wet from the weeds every time we take Bicka down to the beach. Then I cleared the gravel path along the front of the basement – some sort of thistle a metre high had flourished there. Finally outside I retrieved three sheets of corrugated iron that used to be part of the boundary fence to the west and put them under the house.

We drove back to Karamu via the Wairarapa and then route 50 across the Takapau plains.

Arriving home around 6:00 pm (Bicka’s dinner time) we stock-took and everyone seemed to be present; 5 geese, 28 sheep and 29 lambs,one cat, sundry bantams.

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

Bridget and Chris finished their decorating project; I stayed out at Pitoitoi and Karola went in again to entertain the granddaughters. They all came out to Day’s Bay for afternoon tea and we all went back to Khandallah while Bridget and Chris cleaned up.

Early evening Karola and I went over to Mary’s bringing her Christmas present of a box containing two 500-piece English jigsaw puzzles.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—27°C; 3.6 mm rain [?]

Another day of helping with the children while Bridget and Chris painted and changed light fittings.

Karola and Natalie planted the four tomato plants from Gill.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 20°C—31°C; no rain [?]

Bridget’s most of the day; Karola entertained the children while Bridget and Chris began their project to redecorate the dining/playroom. I went round to Gill & Ben’s house in Seatoun to pick up 4 small tomato plants Gill had spare from her crop of seedlings and propogations. These were to replace Bridget’s vigorous growing plant which, while it looked like a tomato (or potato, or cannibis) was not.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—29°C; no rain [?]