Monthly Archives: February 2009

Rained all night and all through the day. Mary’s rain gauge said 60 mm in all since the last reading on 20th January, about 2.4 inches. Now it’s wet even under the trees. In the middle of this gentle, steady rain Karola went out and cordoned off the main drive with electric fence and let the ewes and lambs in to eat the drive verges and the many acorns.

Mareike had meals with us and Karola let her use the cottage bathroom as it was no weather to be sitting or sleeping in a small car in the rain; I think Karola liked the company.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 16°C—18°C; 42.9 mm rain [81.8]

No problems with the ha-ha wall – as soon as it was pointed out it was corrected – a post either side of the drain exit. The concrete truck arrived around 9:30 am; a second load arrived after lunch and all posts were concreted in before dark. Then it began to rain.

Harry and Chloe came round in the morning and we had fresh crumbed Tarakihi and chips with salad for lunch; they left for Bulls shortly afterwards.

Karola went out shopping for a while for weekend provisions and also to pick up a very well made, New Zealand made toy cot for grand daughter Natalie.

Marieke finished her last day of apple picking, four apple boxes which is a box more than most pickers manage in one day – all for $30 a box which is very slim pickings.

Karola completed making wire sheep netting into tree guards for 7 of the Titoke trees along the back drive – they are a great improvement visually over the earlier ragged bamboo and shade netting guards.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 16°C—24°C; 11.9 mm rain [?]

Unexpected arrival of the Baywide Dingo team to begin work on the ha-ha wooden wall.

Dave Gordon is very obliging and cheerful but one has to keep an eye on their work because they do some unexpectedly daft things – like attempting to position the wall so that the culvert through the grass bridge was hidden behind the wall – not terrible effective for draining the ha-ha there. Quickly fixed, but made us a bit more vigilant.

Karola got me up in a hurry when she spotted the Baywide Dingo truck at the back door. After a quick chat I rushed off to Goldpine to confirm the order for the timber; they knocked the price down a few dollars and I paid on the spot. Posts are available now, planks will be available next week.

Baywide Dingo dug all the post holes, one every 1.5 metres for 95 metres, and went and picked up the posts and placed them all ready for concreting on Friday. Heavy rain is forecast for Saturday (very welcome) which would turn the holes into mud-filled quagmire so wew’re hoping the concrete truck does come tomorrow. Late evening I spotted that one post hole had been dug in front of the stormwater/rainwater tank overflow outlet, a 150mm (6 in) concrete pipe that has to pass through the new wall. It’s not just encroaching a bit but slap bang in front. Too late to do anything about it this evening, I’ll pont it out tomorrow. Vigilance is essential.

Mid morning I went to Mire-10 and picked up some towel rail ends for Karola and 15 metres of 110 mm diameter “punctured plastic pipe” to put along the bottom of the ha-ha where it’s going to be filled in, behind the wood retaining wall that Mary and I built to terminate the ha-ha. Also went to Saw Doctors and picked up sharpened pruning saw, secateurs, two mulcher blades and left another pruning saw, pair of secateurs, and a chain saw chain.

Harry and Chloe arrived a while before I returned from shopping. We got Harry onto the Internet for a while – he was viewing video clips from the TechnoSystems marketing videos being developed by his daughters, Tessa (director) and Laura (actor). Plenty of creative tension around apparently. Harry, CHloe, Karola and I went to Black Barn for lunch as planned. Delicious meal but I stupidly gobbled up the duck and the sauce – the sauce having lots of alcohol in it. I got progressively sicker as the day wore on and Karola and I decided not to join Harry and Chloe for dinner at the Elephant Hill restaurant and winery. A wise move it turned out as the alcohol poisoning didn’t pass until after 3:00 am. The TV in the early hours is excrable.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—23°C; no rain [81.9]

We checked on our new sheep, all seems well. They are intelligent looking and alert. It was quite comical seeing the nine Texel ewes gently trot after Bicka round the paddock; Bicka pretending not to be in retreat, acting all casual as she sloped off and the little flock, looking like small deer, trotting along inquisitively.

Harry and Chloe came round for lunch – they’re in Hawkes Bay for a few days and went to the Black Barn outside concert last night with Kiri Te Kanawa and Malvina Major, opera singers. It didn’t stop raining until the show started, 50 minutes late, at about 8:00 pm.

Chloe gave me the electric fencing accessories I’d ordered – the means to turn 70 fence posts into 20 temporary electric fence posts with clips for three wires and a tread-in.

Karola spotted that little Romney wether lamb #802 had fly strike – we caught him and applied medicine, luckily it seems to be a very recent strike.

Karola went to her Federation of Graduate Women meeting at 4:30 pm and I began dismantling the 7-wire batten and standard fence along the foot of the ha-ha in the unlikely event that Baywide Dingo do appear to begin work on the wooden wall tomorrow. The deconstruction went smoothly until all that was left were the six strainer posts – whoever put them in made them very secure and they’re very hard to get out. Three done and three to go.

Karola discovered a picker (itinerant worker) sleeping in her car just inside the main gates. Marieke Theodarie from Holland is travelling round New Zealand in a little Peugeot car she’s bought, getting a little casual work where she can. Karola has befriended her and the car is now parked behind the garage – a bit safer and less likely to encourage others to try the same. Appaently she couldn’t find accommodation anywhere nearby, it’s all full.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—22°C; no rain [82.0]

Put up electric fence that will keep the new arrivals off the ha-ha and we, me, Karola and Bicka, set off around lunchtime for Feilding and Halcomb, the home of Fairview Texels and Mr Winder. Rendezvous with Kaz at 2:30 pm then we went in convoy to the Winder’s arriving as planned at 3:00 pm. Much chatting with the weatherbeaten Mr Winder.

We agreed to buy 9 of the 10 4-tooth (2 year old) ewes he’d selected for us, and the very active and alert 4-tooth ram. Ewes were $100 each and the ram $250, excluding GST.

Returned to Kaz’s place, Ngaio Glen, where we covered the trailer with a tarpauline to keep the worst of the wind off the sheep.

All back safely at 8:30pm in gentle and welcome rain the dark. Nine prime maiden ewes and one very stroppy ram. He went for us even when in a pen back at the Winder’s place – crashing into the rails as we hastily removed arm or hand or anything injurable. I have named him “piglet”. I put a collar on him and with a light chain tied him to the side of the stock pen while we let out the ewes. He has to go with the other boys till May. Just as we closed the door after the last ewe he broke loose – but that was all the drama really; we took him to his paddock and he immediately took control, the wethers and ram lamb obediently paying court.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—24°C; 6.5 mm rain [81.4]

In the morning, odds and ends including mending a leaking trough connection, moving the irrigators, emptying the trailer of leftover railings and so on. After lunch a short trip to town (Hastings) for food for tonight and bits for a towel rail Karola is making. It comprises a rod or rail. Today’s problem was the difference between the 15mm outside diameter of the rail and the 19mm inner diameter of the holder. It was perhaps solved by Mitre-10 by selling me a foot of clear plastic pipe, ID 16mm, OD 19mm to act as a shim – we shall see. Also visited Farmlands for sacks of wheat, maize, and sheep nuts, yet another pair of work gloves, and a fencing shovel. What I really went for was 12 metres of 6-inch diameter plastic pipe with quite big holes in to help drainage along the upper reaches of the ha-ha. Farmlands sells the right stuff; minimum length 45 metres at about $400 a roll. Rethink required.

Sheep deferred till tomorrow by the vendor – today has just vanished – my ceiling light cord – you know, the sort that toggles tween on and off – stuck at ‘on’ a couple nights ago so I bought a new one and spent ages trying to figure out how to install it. It had four little openings and associated screws to accommodate two wires and no markings or instructions of any kind. The screws were at right-angles to the plastic sides of the “ceiling rose” as it is called. So I unwisely unscrewed the mechanism from the casing – a spring fell out and the gap was too narrow for me to put the screws back. So, fiddling with all this while perched on penultimate step of a step ladder and neck bent to look upwards, neither a pretty sight nor feel.

I just hope the spring is back where it should be and that the two wires are tight enough. I found that one of the four orifices had a screw but wasn’t actually doing anything. Using my handy circuit continuity tester for the first time I established that in one switch position holes 1 & 2 were connected, in the other position holes 2 and 3. Anyway its all working now and I must go out while there’s still light and Karola and I will put the stock crate on the trailer and partition the front paddock so that the new arrivals don’t get tangled up with “Baywide Dingo” who are coming, they say, on Thursday to start the 97 metres of wooden wall facing the ha-ha – facing as in “cladding” not as in “looking at”.

Stock crate screwed onto trailer and bottom of trailer covered in mulch, though how much will be there still after drving to Feilding is anyone’s guess.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—26°C; no rain [81.9]

At Karola’s suggestion I’ve moved the hen coop made from an old dog kennel to a spot alongside the Mandarin Chook House and relocated the white hen and her two chicks there.

Also wound up the electric fences strewn around the lawn and moved the one allowing the wethers to traverse the Totora paddock on their way between the One Acre and the Island paddocks. Karola is not keen on the use of Harry’s electric fence posts with metal clips of spring steel; they are hard to get on and off so really best for permanent fencing, so I outfitted a dozen with the plastic temporary clips.

Turned on the paddock irrigation in the Front and One Acre paddocks; the irrigation makes a rather small patch of bright green in a sea, an ocean of yellow-brown.

Karola put up a bit of fence across the drive and let a small group of ewes and lambs onto the drive to eat the acorns and the grass verges – the other sheep were much put out by this favouritism. Karola then spent the hot afternoon weedng along the east side of the house, manly in the shade but still very warm.

Harry called to say he and Chloe will be in the area for most of next week.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—29°C; no rain [81.8]

A bit of temporary electric fencing, a bit more scraping with the tractor and blade, but spent the day mostly inside as it was quite hot. My fencing was not totally sheep proof and Karola spent a not so happy hour or so chasing them round the garden. I continue on our tax returns and dialogues with IBM’s accountants in three countries.

Karola wrote us a planning note about the use of electric fencing based on her frustrations with the current spaghetti of fences that impede travel by car or on foot..

Mark Hendery turned up after dark and shot a couple of rabbits, a couple of possums. He plucks the possums for their fur and feeds them to his two dogs for supper.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 17°C—31°C; no rain [81.3]

Woke to the sound of gentle rain – and a phone call from Texel breeder Hugh Winding in Feilding. He has sorted out ten maiden Texel ewes for me and a ram. Even better that there’s a bit of rain at last if we’re to have 11 more mouths to feed.

Worked happily inside till rain cleared and it was quite warm again late afternoon. Did a bit more tractor blade scraping along the line of the proposed new fence.

Mary’s rain gauge recorded 15 mm since 14th Feb – good though not nearly enough. By contrast Hugh Winding said they’d just had 100 mm in Feilding on the other coast, a tad too generous.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 16°C—24°C; 7.4 mm rain [81.9]

Computer work most of the time except for an enjoyable visit for morning tea by Tim and Gwyn Bright from Pukera Bay on their way to see one of Tim’s aged relations in Gisborne.

Late afternoon I used the tractor blade to widen the paths to Karola’s latest bund, to clear undergrowth next to the Mandarin Chook House for the ex dog kennel coop, so that the white hen and two black chicks can be moved there, and scraping clear the route of a new fence in the south eastern corner near the 121 entrance.

There’s something poetic about having three road entrances: 121, 133, and 145 – these are “rapid response” numbers not street numbers as we’re outside any town; they represent the distance from a main road and which side of the road we’re on – odd numbers on the left.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 17°C—24°C; 1.1 mm rain [82.0]

White bantam hen has hatched two black chicks – probably yesterday actually. Anyway the nest was in a corner of the Mandarin Chook House and I’ve fed and watered them there for now. A brown bantam seems to be incubating three eggs in one of the nest boxes today.

Quite hot again outside so after attending Shelley’s funeral in Hastings we stayed inside and worked on filing and moving furniture around. Craig and Shelley looked after the paddocks at Karamu for us for 20 years; Craig planted and tended our zero-profit 916 apple trees; he and Shelley kept their horse(s) here from time to time and Kylie, one of the three pleasant, helpful daughters, did quite a lot of gardening for Karola. We didn’t know Shelley at all well; they didn’t mix much with the locals in Oak Avenue. Sad event.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—25°C; no rain [82.1]

Rain overnight so the drought is perhaps over; paddocks greening up and soon we’ll be saying we’ve too much feed for the sheep. However, for another few days at least, the sheep nibble what they can from the lawn and goose enclosure and the Middle paddock.

Quiet day at the computer.

Karola went off at 6:00 pm with Graham Harvey and Tracey Craig to a wine tasting and they came back and had dinner with us.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—20°C; no rain [81.9]

Before 4:00 am this morning the phone rang; Karola answered and a woman’s voice spoke, a bit hoarse. Then a boy’s voice cut in abruptly saying mum had laryngitus and couldn’t talk; the line then went dead. It could have been Anna. Panic stations – was Anna all right. Karola rang Anna at home in Ealing and to our immense relief Anna was home and had not rung – it must have been a wrong number.

After breakfast I cleaned out the hen nest boxes and outfitted with this year’s clean hay.

Kerry of HB Tractor Dismantlers is very busy – tractors to fix for Watties for the tomato harvest etc so won’t get to my mower till next week at the earliest. So I attached the old old flail mower and spent several hours flattening the big blackberry patch down near the front gate in preparation for some fencing round the Grisilinias and a gate from the front drive directly into the Middle paddock. I hit a large old stump hidden in the middle of the patch and dazed a possum asleep in the stump. I stared at it for a while and then it recovered from the huge noise of the flail mower and its near death experience and scampered up the nearest Wellingtonian.

Karola came to view the mess and damage and observed that there were wasps coming out of the old stump. She then asked if the stump were rotten; I obliged by standing on the stump and falling through it as it was quite rotten – and I got three wasp stings for my pains.

Later I used the tractor blade to unseat the old tree stump and, in quite a decent fall of rain, carved two paths through Karola’s 1st bund so that she can get her car and trailer to her 2nd, 3rd, and 4th bunds.

Dale of Mowtec is getting a replacement for the broken mulcher blade.

Bicka coughed hardly at all today and wasn’t sick once as far as I know so trips to vet put on hold.

Maybe this evening’s rain will be the real end of the drought.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—26°C; 8.3 mm rain [82.5]

Woke to find we were several hours into a power cut. Using our petrol generator was able to provide tea and toast for breakfast as usual.

Later I went to garage and filled the Landrover with premium petrol, got 2 x 10 litre cans of diesel for the tractor and 5 litres of standard petrol for the generator and lawn mowers. Mighty expensive. Meanwhile charged up the tractor battery – takes about 6 hours.

At last got round to installing the new attachment pins on the old flail mower – the other ones sheared due to the excess vibration. Also added oil to both the orchard mower gearbox and the flail mower gearbox.

In the afternoon Karola and I went to a free classical style concert by a small string orchestra at the Hastings Opera House.

Bicka isn’t well; she’s been sort-of sick several times lately in the night and again several times today along with a wracking athsma-like shuddering cough. Bicka carries right on after one of these events quite bright-eyed although she doesn’t like it while it’s happening. A visit to the vet is indicated.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—21°C; no rain [81.4]

Pleasant warm morning though cloudy. I spent it in slowly erecting a byzantine wall of electric fence around the lawn, giving the ewes and ewe lambs as much of the grassed area as possible. They pigged out on the new grass last night making it level and as if mown. So now they’re shut out of that area and onto the lawn.

Meanwhile Karola got in some serious weeding around the back door. Later I tried to do a bit more bramble clearing with the orchard mower, succeeding only in zapping one of my alkathene hoses (not badly) and breaking the mower – belts broken inside the mower I think. Oh well.

Mary’s rain gauge showed 10 mm of rain since 8th January but there will have been quite a lot lost to evaporation.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—20°C; no rain [81.4]

Karola and Mark continued – completed – mulching. In the course of this we added oil to the tractor – it was right out of oil – and greased a few of its greasepoints. Mark also opened and cleaned the mulcher and removed the blades for sharpening.

Colin and Maggie Nagel called in and Colin chatted about the tractor, in particular how I could fix the problem with the recalcitrant PTO clutch.

After lunch Mark and I switched the mulcher for the orchard mower and mowed a large blackberry clump into submission for Karola.

More information re the ha-ha wall of wood has come in but we still await Anderson’s qote before making up our minds.

Ewes and ewe lambs were given the new grass where the bamboo used to be after a hungry night in the geese enclosure and Middle paddock where there’s hardly a blade of grass to be seen. The rain, although light, did at least make the ground look wet for longer than half an hour. The grass perked up within hours.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—21°C; 0.9 mm rain [81.2]

Bruce (Mobile Shearing) Richardson ended up coming this morning with only an hour’s notice so we ran around getting the ewe lambs and separately the wether lambs ready for crutching. All went very smoothly. We had 28 lambs plus $710 and #725 crutched in double-quick time. The ewes and ewe lambs are now in the goose enclosure and Middle paddock while the wethers are in the One Acre and the Island with a lane across the Totara paddock fenced with electric. There’s water and shelter in the Island paddock and where I’ve been watering for a few weeks there’s some grass in the One Acre paddock.

Karola also did some mulching with Mark before Bruce arrived; Mark and I picked up three trailer loads of sticks for mulching tomorrow – from the Goose enclosure, the Island paddock and in the Middle paddock behind the goose enclosure.

Karola and I went round to Raupore road to spy on some piles of old fence posts as possible material for the ha-ha wall. It turned out they belonged to Brendan Addis of Brendan Addis Motors; he was friendly enough and bore no deep grudge that we didn’t buy our landrover from him, but he has plans for his horde of old posts and strainers. Karola then took me to Hohepa farm shop where we debated whether a particular hedge of coprosma with oval, shiny leaves was in fact a Karamu and Karola bought organic meat, cheese, and vegetables.

I spen the late afternoon wandering around in the gentle rain and moving electric fencing about. Rain, not a lot, but rain nevertheless.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—28°C; 7.6 mm rain [81.9]

Woke to sound of gentle rain which changed to occasional very light drizzle.

In the morning Mark and Karola cleaned up the weeds at the front entrance.

We fed the last of the donated apples to the sheep – they vanished within the hour. [No, no – the apples, not the sheep – what, you think we have magic apples here?]

Bruce “Mobile Shearing” Richardson was supposed to come tomorrow but has postponed till Monday.

Ewe #719 is becoming a pest by breaking through the electric fence – I’ve banished her to the goose enclosure for the night.

In the afternoon Karola and I “pruned” the Macrocarpa and adjacent Tetoke near the big Wellingtonian in the north-east corner so that Karola can drive round these trees – until today you had to back out if you went in behind the Wellingtonian.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 19°C—23°C; 1.2 mm rain [82.2]

Karola spent several hours in the heat picking up rubbish and bamboo roots and stumps from the new grass area. Not her favourite activity in this humid heat. During the day two contractors came round to see the ha-ha; they will quote on doing the facing and backfill professionally and we’ll compare that with doing it ourselves.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 17°C—30°C; 0.1 mm rain [82.3]

Mark and Karola mulched a lot of oak and eucalypt branches; I helped for an hour chain-sawing up the larger branches too big to mulch. Kept indoors out of the sun in the afternoon. meanwhile Karola continues with her new bund construction.

The offer two years ago of old vineyard posts for facing the ha-ha has expired – I found out today that the large pile of posts had been disposed of. I’ve calculated the quantities of new wood I’d need and am getting a couple of quotes – it’ll be more than ten times as much as I would have paid for the old posts, but it will have a much better finish – more regular with fewer gaps.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 19°C—34°C; 0.4 mm rain [82.7]

A mostly quiet day, too hot for much outside except giving the sheep apples and a bit of grass and hay. Karola found lamb #830 dead under the Chinese Photinia from unknown causes, probably through eating something that didn’t agree. #830 was the last lamb and had been left with his mother despite all the other wethers being weaned weeks ago. I buried him.

Mark Hendery came round and helped Karola for a couple of hours pick up fallen branches from along a stretch of the roadway ready for mulching tomorrow.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—29°C; no rain [82.4]

Picked up the saw stand to go with the new mitre saw. Karola and I unpacked and assembled it and each had a trial saw through a 2 x 4. No problems.

Karola continued work on some new ‘bunds’ behind the garage.

Cas and Mark Hendery turned up (with Wolfgang) and we had afternoon tea and discussed projects Mark could help us with – beginning tomorrow. Cas strikes while irons are hot, that’s for sure.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—30°C; no rain [82.1]

Up at 2:10 am – Bicka wanted to go outside. Then again at 5:00 am for Mary (who had actually herself woken at 4:00 am in anticipation). We left for the airport at 6:00 am, Mary, Karola, Bicka and me.

Mary flew down to Wellington, the rest of us went back home for a while and then off to Tracey Craig and Graham Harvey’s place at Touchwood Books, 45 mins up the Taihape road. Pastures were a little greener at that elevation, but there was almost no stock visible from the road. Tracey and Graham gave us lunch with guests Ross and Mary Allen – he designs and implements computer applications for local businesses.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—26°C; no rain [82.3]

Overcast warm day, ideal for working on the retaining wall / railings project – Mary and I finished it at 20:45.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—22°C; 1.3 mm rain [81.9]

Electric fence tidy up after Mike Croucher’s strimming. However during this there were determined ewe breaks-out.

• Overnight one ewe had sensed that the electric fence was turned off and had got through onto the new grass (ex-bamboo)
• As I watched four ewes jumped up the ha-ha to see if Mike’s strimmings were worth eating – and they would not go back
• To avoid more escapees I got some apples in a wheelbarrow and planned to dump them in the paddock far away from the escape point. I pinned down the electric fence in order to wheel the barrow across …
• Twenty determined ewes rushed past me onto the new grass – and they would not go back
• I dumped apples in the paddock – eventually a few ewes returned to sample them
• Ewes chomped up the new grass and then started spreading out – into the green shed, down the drive
• I ran and shut the front gate and the main entrance gates to avoid the ewes setting off for Hastings
• Sheep inside the back door, in the garage, everywhere
• A couple of hours later, curiosity and hunger satisfied, all except one lamb obediently followed Karola with a bucket of sheep nuts back into the Totara paddock and peace returned
• 20 minutes of me running about and even the last lamb was back where it belonged

Mary and I did some inspection of irrigation leaky pipes, these were all working as desired. We then filled our 40 gallon watering can and watered the five Grisilinia and six Akeake on the boundary fenceline of the orchard drive – one minute of watering each.

In the afternoon, it being a more comfortable mid 20s by then, I continued with the retaining wall and railings project. I added two anchors that attached the two posts in the deepest part of the ha-ha to 600mm lengths of wooden half-round post buried 400mm in the ground about two metres away from the retaining wall, using a loop of #8 (4.0mm) fencing wire to attach post and anchor. I strained these loops up before fastening the ends with a standard 4.0 mm wire crimps and then twitching the loop until moderately tight. Twitching involves putting a short stick through the loop and twisting – the wire stays twisted. The anchors are needed to counteract the weight of a metre-high wall of waterlogged soil in winter.

Unfortunately installing the anchor for the 2.7 metre heavy round end-post pulled it out of alignment and so the railings no longer met the post. In addition, the other anchored post, a 2.7 metre half-round post, was warped and twisted so that its flat surface, while perfect for the top rail, was at an increasingly sharp angle to rails further down the fence, pushing them out of alignment in exactly the opposite direction to the leaning end post. Work stopped to consider our options; we hope that inspiration will occur during the night.

The Fletchers arrived around 5:00 pm and we all went out for a meal again, this time to the Corn Market in Stortford Lodge. Just before we left for the meal Tony Fletcher helped me catch ewe #632 – a monstrous heavy ewe limping on her front left foot. Her hooves seemed OK but there was a swelling between her toes so I sparayed with antibiotic and we’ll see whether that helps in a day or so.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 15°C—27°C; 0.8 mm rain [82.2]

Spread the fine gravel on several spots on the drive, emptying the trailer so I could go to Napier and pick up the hen coop and two bantam mother hens from Mark Hendery’s place.

Mike Croucher came and finished his stint of strimming along the ha-ha and around the circle.

The Fletchers returned, as expected, early afternoon and Tony and I went and collected the bantam hens. Later, when a bit cooler, we put up another couple of the rails on the wooden retaining wall project. We finished just in time for a meal at the Westshore Fish Restaurant in Napier, all seven of us including Mary, the Fletchers and their two daughters..

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—27°C; no rain [82.0]

Tony and Anne Fletcher arrived for the day late morning accompanied by daughters Julia and Helen. Tony helped with the wooden retaining wall and we got the retaining bit finished including a culvert pipe and the top rail of the 5-bar railings planned to go across the top of the retaining wall. Karola produced excellent lunch and dinner for us all.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 14°C—20°C; 1.8 mm rain [81.6]

Quite warm today – TV reported it as 37 degrees in Hastings.

Worked on the wooden retaining wall until the heat drove me away around 11:00 am; nothing more outside till almost 5:00 pm by which time it was much cooler.

More apples for the sheep – they do like them.

Matt Saunders from the Stables opposite returned the little black hen, mother of the five chicks we gave the Saunders before we went to the UK last year.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 16°C—37°C; no rain [82.3]