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Monthly Archives: September 2009
Mulching, Mowing, Stapling, Testing
Mark arrived soon after 9:00 am but as Karola and I had decided to go into Hastings this morning we delayed the batten stapling and he dug a hole for the soon-to-be-deceased #409 – due to be dispatched on Saturday – and then prepared the large numbers of branches and twigs near the front gate for mulching; branches from a 15m high Blackwood I cut down a few months ago and from some large branches that crashed out of a big oak tree over between the garage and the road.
Just before lunch Karola and Mark got back to their stapling and I finished off minor adjustments to the gates Karola and I hung yesterday.
After lunch Karola and Mark went back to their stapling and I mulched up the pile near the Blackwood prepared by Mark earlier – made the mulching much easier. Mike Croucher came and mowed the lawns finishing just before it began to rain in ernest.
In the afternoon Karola got a sterile bottle from NZ Labs in Hastings and returned it with 500ml of our finest rainwater for testing; I’d been meaning to find out what I was drinking for ages; for $40 we shall soon know.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—19°C; 16.5 mm rain [73.4]
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New A3 Printer For Cottage Drawings Arrives
After breakfast my new Canon PIXMAR iX5000 printer arrived and within 30 minutes it was up and working. Meanwhile Karola has her trusty HP 700 PSC printer back, albeit with a non-fixable broken scanner, and her documents special characters now print as she’d hoped – I couldn’t get the networked HP 2510 PSC printer fonts to work properly.
In the morning I went in to Hastings for food, to buy some A3 printer paper, and to the bank.
Karola deconstructed her long electric fence round the lawn and then spent a couple of hours picking up branches and litter from the lawn ready for Mike Croucher to come and mow tomorrow.
We mulched the remaining small area of Casurina trimmings in the Middle paddock, and the smaller branches of the large branch that’d come down out of the Douglas Fir.
Late afternoon we rehung the 2nd heavy green gate in the orchard drive, raising it by a few inches so it doesn’t drag on the gravel. That was a success. Then we rehung Alan Ladbrook’s gate in the boundary fence with the Vernon’s, leaving only a few minor adjustments for tomorrow.
Robert Russell rang to say that wether #631 had been sold.
Karola fed the lambs of #677 and #678 in the morning but let them fend for themselves in the evening, it was a very mild night.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—19°C; 0.1 mm rain [73.3]
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New Curtain Rail in Dining Room
Mark came to help with batten stapling; I needed to take a rest from such bone-jarring activities for a while. Karola and Mark finished the 20 metres or so of the boundary fence with the Vernon’s – the piece I’d rewired and strained up a couple of days ago – and made a good start on the western fence of the orchard paddock.
I hung the third heavy 4.3 metre wide green gate across the orchard drive after practicing on a smaller, lighter one at the big shed end of the western fence of the orchard paddock.
In the evening Karola and I replaced some very old, very 1950s, brass curtain rail with its modern equivalent – less unsightly but even noisier and Bicka does not like it.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—18°C; 10.5 mm rain [74.3]
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Sprung Forward, No Fall Back
Ewe #406 (mother of #604) had twin rams last night: #925R and #926R; this is the first of the next wave of lambs I imagine. 14 of 15 of the first batch of ewes have lambed; 1 of 20 of the next (final) batch.
Frances (06-870-7104} and Gary Dooley came from Camberley, 5 mins away, for morning tea this morning – Mahia cousins of Karola’s via Rowena. They may be able to help us with some cleaning on the cottage and garage in a few weeks. Karola and I talked their legs off. Frances may be able to help me by being my “Trade-Me” agent – get rid of a lot of unneeded stuff lying round the place superseded by other similarly short-lived junk.
Last night I got TV to show up from the MySky HDi set top box onto my new 24″ computer screen via a Hauppauge box called an HD PVR and the Mac EyeTV 3.1. Some magic incantation known as setting the device preferences to: custom, edit, Constant Bit Rate, 13.5 seems to quell most of the jerks and spasms. Also the dreaded Macrovision spoiling artfully removed by set of spooks from Israel (their little mechanism, not personally).
After a couple of months of just looking at it I have finally switched over to using my large, glossy 24″ Apple cinema screen flat panel display; very very nice. Bridget has one (integral to her iMac); I have one, and Gill’s husband Ben is talking soon of getting one. Moving to a better computer is a real pain but I’m slowly getting there, trying to adopt a more minimalist approach and use more of the capability of a smaller number of applications. Of course Apple saw me and thousands of others coming – the latest brilliant big screen required a new display connector; these are only available on very recent new Mac computers and so far no adapter cables are available for backwards compatibility. Hence my solid body 13″ Macbook Pro to go with the screen. The Apple Time Capsule halved in price the week after I bought my copy; what’s in the pipeline for Apple TV I wonder just after I buy my copy – so I’m waiting and waiting.
With Karola’s encouragement we both put up the three little wooden gates that are intended to make it easy to visit strategic taps inside the planting areas; Karola did most of the work and made repeated corrections to my mistakes. Karola also emptied a very full small trailer of mulch, individually tending each Taupata tree along the front railings. Earlier I ran a hot wire from the pump shed on the edge of the lawn – where there’s our second energizer – to where the hogget ewes are revelling (NZ spelling) in deep new ryegrass in a strip of the orchard paddock.
Kylie Vernon, eldest daughter of Craig next door, dropped in for tea and a chat and to say that they’re moving to another part of Hastings soon. I think his business, factory and Hydroponic sheds, “Mr Bean”, will remain behind. Our orchardist also still tends a dozen acres of apples and peach trees there too.
Beginning in October 2009 I think Karola and I will embark on 2 – 3 years of intense discussion and design for the changes to the Karamu cottage; at the end we will have run out of patience, money, and common sense but we hope against hope that there will be a refurbished cottage not far away, very comfortable and, despite its small size, meeting some of Sarah Suzanka’s “Not Such A Big House” guidelines. During the next 2 -3 years many other things will be delayed or deferred although honoured and welcome guests will be received enthusiastically, partly as a break from the cottage.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—16°C; no rain [73.5]
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Sheepishness
Karola continued her tending of the ewe #677 and her twin ewe lambs #911E and #912E, one of which has a bad leg that she barely hobbles on; I hope it’s just a motherly kick that’ll recover soon. Also #687’s #920R is small and limping but seems to be growing a bit and getting some milk.
I rehung one of the three gates at the corner of the Front, One Acre, and Totara paddocks and that was a success – no more dragging on the ground.
Late morning I spent a couple of hours wiring up the short piece of boundary fence shared with the Vernon’s and now the wires are strained up and crimped, ready for battening which I hope Karola and Mark will do on Monday.
The hogget ewes and wether #630 were given a new strip of the orchard paddock to enjoy.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—16°C; no rain [73.8]
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Finally We Get Rid of #631
After an uncomfortable night of fasting I had a routine blood test at 8:00 am this morning in Stortford Lodge. Karola took me from there to a new cafe franchise called “Coffee Club” just round the corner from the medical centre where we had expensive, extravagant and rather large breakfasts.
At Karola’s suggestion I rang Mark Hendery and he came and helped with taking #631 (the gross wether that was lent to Crystall Ladbrook as a pet lamb) to the Stortford Lodge sale yards. Robert Russell, Karola’s Progressive Meats stock agent, is doing Karola a favour by ridding us of him. We first had to reinstall the stock crate on the back of the big trailer and then get all the hogget ewes and #630 and #631 in our yards and then push/cajole #631 up the little ramp and into the crate. Once there there was no more excitement; we dropped him off at the yards and returned home.
Karola then decided to tag and dock the rest of the lambs – except #920R who was spared docking on grounds he’s still very small and quite weak. We put these lambs with the older ones, only leaving behind #678 and #920R and the recalcitrant #677 and #911E, #912E.
After lunch Mark helped me on a bit of finishing of fencing; he completed the railings up in the north west corner that I’d only got half done on the day that Karola arrived home from the UK. Meanwhile Karola did a couple of hours weeding of her Taupata along the inside of the front gate railings.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—16°C; no rain [73.5]
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Cold and Wet
Raining almost continuously all day, and cold with it. Apart from trip to get some copies of Les Clapcott’s cottage sketches we’ve only ventured outside for lamb feeding – and I mean Karola ventured out; I tried to keep warm and dry. We spent quite a lot of time discussing the cottage and must move on to writing down some of the things we need / want.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—13°C; 30.1 mm rain [73.3]
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Karamu Cottage
Hastings in the morning to see if my bump on the head was serious – we think not.
Bit of rain stopped much outside work but Karola and I had a very good discussion about Les Clapcott’s initial sketches for the cottage, including going and looking upstairs in the cottage and in the bathroom to check types of planking and so on.
Late afternoon, based on comments from Postie this morning, I finished the post box assembly of two yew posts bolted together and the old maroon mail box bolted firmly onto that and dug a new hole for it on the other side of the drive. We will wait for comment from Postie boss lady before concreting the mail box assembly into its hole.
Ewes and lambs, no changes.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—12°C; 1.2 mm rain [73.0]
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Karola Mulching Marathon
Ewe #673 is the only ewe of those born in 2006 that has yet to lamb. Today #629 had a big healthy ram lamb #924R.
Karola and I spent much of the day mulching and stacking oak logs near the green shed. The oak logs came from the felling of the misshapen oak under the drip line of the big oak near the green shed. The small branches of that were mulched of course along with a large trailer load of Casurina branches that Karola picked up after Brimar Trimmers cut the top of our shelterbelt from the Scott’s side of the boundary a few days ago. Karola worked very hard indeed and got through her piles of mulch by just after 2:00 pm.
Karola then put up a long electric fence round the lawn and let the expectant ewes have a welcome nibble of that grass. I let the hogget ewes out into their strip of the orchard paddock again for a couple of hours; they’re not making great headway so far; maybe we’ll need to enlist the ewes with lambs as well to eat the lush rye grass.
I finally put the stay post on the big strainer in the boundary fence with the Vernon’s – the post that will be the slam post for Alan Ladbrook’s gate between us and the Vernon’s and the gatepost for another 4.3 metre green heavy barred farm gate across the orchard drive. I overstrained the top wires after fitting the stay post and broke the wire, three times.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—21°C; 8.8 mm rain [73.3]
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First Triplets Of 2009
Cold night, sunny, cold day. All lambs survived the night.
We started early and finished the last 30 battens in the north-western boundary fence by 9:00 am. Hogget ewes were in the new grass in the orchard paddock – in a strip cordoned off yesterday – before 10:00 am.
I went into Hastings for food and a 10:45 am appointment; back at noon for lunch. After lunch Les Clapcott came to discuss the beginning of the Karamu Cottage project. We have his initial sketches and are due to respond some time next week. We agree tentatively that we’ll shoot for moving the cottage this summer, January perhaps.
Ewe #623 had triplets, #921, #922, and #923; they all seemed OK when Karola discovered them late afternoon but the mother was cast and Karola had to get her on her feet.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—15°C; no rain [74.5]
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Historic Places Trust Meeting
Usual routine – Karola organises her ewes and lambs and then we did quite a lot of battens (30 left to do on this fence), and Karola went off to a local chapter meeting of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. They have better food (sandwiches, catered) and better support services provided by HQ in Wellington but are even more boring than the Federation of Graduate Women local chapter – hard to believe it is possible. (Paraphrasing Karola who is more polite)
Just after breakfast I stapled up the remaining 16 posts on the parallel piece of fence along the orchard paddock so we now have 140 or so battens to staple up on that side when we get the urge.
I erected electric fence in the orchard paddock as a race down the eastern side and we’ll break feed pieces of it to the ewe hoggets over the next few weeks. As part of that I was parked on the orchard drive when our orchardist Alan came up pulling a laden trailer; I backed up out of the way and in the process totally demolished my driver side Landrover wing mirror – expensive day.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—15°C; no rain [73.5]
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No More Lambs Today
Rained all last night and on until lunch time. Cold and getting colder; Karola looked after the most recent lambs and mothers. All lambs had some milk and we hope that’ll get them through a chilly chilly night. At least the ran stopped before lunch and so they’ve dried out and have plenty of dry shelter.
I added another Apple Airport wireless access point in the attic at the western end which has improved considerably the reception in the main bedroom and the sun porch.
Karola and i did a couple of spans of battens late afternoon.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—12°C; 0.4 mm rain [73.8]
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Rural Mail
The day started with #616 showing off her twins, a tiny ram lamb #918R and a normal sized ewe lamb #919E. #616 seemed to be looking after them both alright and letting them drink but I am a bit concerned that the ram lamb is very small.
Later we saw that #219 appeared to have had a small ram lamb, #920R. However, closer inspection showed that this actually belonged to #678 who, once we had removed #219 from the scene took to her lamb very well. However #678 has little milk and seems to have no colostrum – does that mean she fed the lamb and gave it the colostrum before #219 muscled in, or does she actually not have any colostrum at all. To be on the safe side we milked #616 and got some colostrum inside #678’s lamb #920R and Karola also gave it a good bottle feed of milk as well. Another one we’ll hope gets through the night.
Before all this I took 140 battens up to the orchard paddock and laid them out in fives ready to be stapled to the new bit of fence along the western side.
Postie came at the usual time, soon after 9:00 am and asked me if I would move the mail box out onto the road, despite our last ten years of having the box on the drive close to our back door. This annoyed me and set me thinking as to our options, post box in Stortford Lodge and the like, but the rural delivery service is so handy and saves so much time and petrol that it’s hard to think of a good alternative. We get mail picked up and delivered, and mail order packages are delivered too – you can’t get mail order to a post box. So eventually I cooled down and we decided to try for a place just outside our front railings. I’ve mocked it up so Postie can see it tomorrow – but not concreted the post in nor fastened the box securely to its post.
In the afternoon Karola and I tagged the recent lambs, from #908R up to #920R and we docked all except the very recent arrivals, #916R, #917E, #918R, #919E, and #920R. These last few lambs and their mothers remain in the Island paddock for now; the rest have joined the first batch of lambs in the Front paddock.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—23°C; 1.8 mm rain [74.2]
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Next Stretch Of Orchard Paddock Fence Ready for Battens
Nice sight when we got up; #679 with twins, very small, #916R and #917E – but they do seem to be getting a feed so that’s good.
Most of the morning was spent with sheep stuff; #677 is still a problem although everyone else seems OK. Late morning we went into Hastings for haircut and shopping but we were back in time for lunch.
Unexpectedly yesterday as we were entertaining Karola’s guests the hedge trimmer trimmed the Casurina windbreak on the Scott’s side of the fence. When he ran the huge rotary blades along the top large quantities of small branches – last year’s growth – fell onto our pasture. Karola has spent most of the afternoon picking it up for mulching.
I worked on the wires for the orchard paddock western fence and it is complete now except for a few post staples and the dreaded 140-plus battens.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—17°C; no rain [74.5]
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Another Six Spans of Battens
No change re the sheep and lambs; I did give the main mob a section of the Totara paddock to eat as the Middle paddock is looking a bit threadbare – they were delighted.
Karola and I finished our 30 battens in time for her to go and see the doctor about her poisoned finger due to the mulcher bash; she has antibiotics which should make it clear up pronto.
Karola invited Gay and Murray Wilson and Enid and Laurie McDermott to afternoon tea, not totally fair on Enid and Laurie and I closed proceedings around 4:30 pm. As part of the visit I was trying to round up #677 in the Island paddock and fell over, a strangely unsettling thing to do, bruising both palms and hitting my head with a crunching sound – but it all came to just a biggish bruise and no real harm done; it pays to pick your feet up when running through undergrowth in gumboots.
I got a little more done on wiring up the far side of the orchard paddock before darkness fell.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—19°C; no rain [73.5]
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Battening Down The Hatches
A busy morning in Hastings while Karola tended the ewes and lambs. In the afternoon we began putting battens on the piece of boundary fence between the Homestead block and the Orchard at the north west corner. We did 6 and a bit spans and have 20 more to do. Ewe #677 and her twins are the only remaining sheep “at risk” we think; Karola forces #677 to stand (relatively) still so the lambs can drink 2 – 3 times a day.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—20°C; no rain [74.6]
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Much Mulching – Total Exhaustion
After a quick inspection of the sheep Karola and I re-afixed the orchardist’s hazard notices to the new short railings at the newly positioned orchard roadway entrance gate and also anchored the heavy chain for locking the gate with a big metal hasp deep into the slam post.
After that it was cut and mulch till after 2:00 pm; Karola did all the mulching, worked like a demon, and I exhausted myself trying to do the cutting back and keep ahead of her. Relaxing afternoon for me; Karola went back to her weeding of nettles under the Canary Island Pine where she can keep an eye on the recent lambs and their mums.
Only #677 seems to remain stubbornly against feeding her lambs so we hgave them a drink – held her so that they could drink, and drink they did. We also put in the twin ewe’s ear tags #911 and #912.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—20°C; no rain [74.2]
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Hogget Ewes Get Stuck Into Weeds
Day started with some assisted lamb feeding; so far it’s only #677 with twins and #671 with a single that are affected. As I got them into the yards there was a quiet muttering from behind the yard wall; nestled against the wall in the Island paddock was #676 with twin ram lambs #914R and #915E, both looking as if they’d had a bit of a feed.
Later in the day I used the Landrover to roll the gravel on the repaired culvert entrance to the orchard drive; Alan Ladbrook said he thought the finished repair looked very good. Even later on I put up the short railings alongside the moved orchard drive road gate, so that is complete too. No mulching today in case people want a quiet Sunday.
At last I electric fenced off the top of the ha-ha and let the hogget ewes in; they browsed the tall weeds enthusiastically.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—22°C; 0.1 mm rain [74.8]
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Culvert Sides Finished
After breakfast Bicka and i went to Winstones Aggregates on Omahu Rd and got a cubic metre of “AP40” – a mix of river shingle and silt with the biggest stones being around 40 mm in diameter. It weighed at least two tonnes and I drove back gingerly with the trailer tyres rather flattened out and the back tyres of the Landrover likewise. Using the new jockey wheel I was able to detach the heavy trailer; I couldn’t move the parked railer even an inch so re-attaching it meant some precision backing to get the hitches exactly aligned.
I completed the sides of the orchard drive culvert and then used all the gravel to build up the entrance so that it filled up to the top of the planks along the sides; it’s likely that the roadway itself was lower when the culvert was first put in. I was hoping for a little rain as forecast, to help bed down the gravel, but not a drop so far.
Karola and I continued cutting back the Ngaio along the orchard drive; we’ve done over half now, and mulched it all up as well.
The backdrop to this was continued lamb ministrations; no fatalities so far but the bad mums still seem not to feed their lambs without our help. By the way, #903, the rejected older ram twin of #672, is distinctly heavy and can fend for himself as far as I am concerned. Karola had the idea of using him to give the recalcitrant mums a bit of pressure relieve; #903R is a powerful sucker.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—20°C; no rain [74.2]
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More Lambing Hijinks
#671 had a ram lamb #913R overnight. These Texel ewes are a bit of a nightmare, seemingly being very bad mothers. This evening it seemed that #913R still hadn’t been allowed a drink by its mother so we did the usual party trick: hold the ewe and try to get the lamb(s) to drink naturally, not allowing the mother to bunt them away; sit the ewe on its bottom and see if the lamb(s) will latch onto a teat and get a feed that way; milk the ewe and use a pipette to get some milk into the lamb(s) before nightfall.
Ewe #672 – the one which disowned its first born – had a good reason; the interfering aunties licked the lamb clean and kept the mother out of it just when she should have been bonding. Anyway in this case it looks as if #903R will survive now whether or not I ensure he has a good feed every night.
#674 is a good mother to its #908R lamb; #675 doesn’t desert her lambs but seems not to let them drink – so they went through the procedure tonight. #677 also is quite interested in her twins but doesn’t let them feed, so she and the twins went through the procedure as well. Not sure whether #671 let #913R drink or not, but it again seemed solicitous but didn’t want to let the lamb drink – so, like the others, we took them through the process as darkness fell.
That was not all that happened today. The Landrover went in for a service and, at Karola’s suggestion we got a jockey wheel put on the big tandem axle trailer at the same time; this was triggered by me wanting to get a load of gravel in the trailer but then probably having no way to unhitch it in time for the Landrover service.
Alan Ladbrook borrowed our wire jenny today to help lay out some wires on another apple orchard he’s managing. Adam, his son, also kindly put the belt back on the orchard mower so that’s fixed again. The chain-saw shop said that the piece I needed to replace was not in stock anywhere in New Zealand but for $14 they made up an alternative screw to tighten the chain bar so that was a pretty good outcome.
Karola has pulled out lots and lots of nettles; I finished excavating the side of the orchard drive culvert – we need the chain-saw to sculpt a large post to support one end of the new culvert edging so it was a relief that we had the chain-saw back and working by 5:00 pm on Friday. I also pruned back a section of the Ngaios along the orchard drive – Karola suggests we mulch as we go so we’ll probably do that before I cut any more. And I dug the hole for a 2.1 metre large post that forms the inner end of the short railings from the orchard gate slam post to the fence.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—20°C; no rain [74.3]
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Ewe Twins – But Will They Make It
To my surprise and delight we had no new corpses this morning, in fact #677 had a pair of ewe lambs over night, #911E and #912E.
We’re still concerned by #675’s poor mothering skills; she does some of this bunting away of the older twin and we haven’t seen either of the twins drinking – so we milked #675 and gave the twins a bit of a top-up in case that helps them persevere and take advantage of mum’s copious rich milk supplies. #677 isn’t any better; her twin ewe lambs are hollowed out as if they’ve never had a drink but they follow mum about and make a lot of noise and try to drink but get rebuffed in a confused sort of way. More milking and pipette to help them through the night.
Karola did several hours of nettle pulling in the Totara paddock and we both tackled the orchard driveway culvert edging project; it’s nearly finished now.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—18°C; no rain [74.4]
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More Sudoku Lambs
Karola looked out of the bedroom window and saw #674 with a lamb; we’re being a bit cautious with the #67x nine Texels because we don’t know if they get spooked to give up their lambs easily or not.
A bit later I went out to investigate and it turns out that #674 had twin ram lambs but one was dead on or shortly after arrival. (I buried it late afternoon by the yew hedge). So, #674 has #908R.
And across the paddock under an oak tree #675 had twins, both rams again, and they’re still alive tonight although #675 was bunting one of her twins away and not letting it drink (like #672). Maybe that’s why these nine Texels were culled from Mr Winder’s Texel stud.
Late afternoon Karola and I got #675 in the yards and milked her and fed #910R with a pipette – thick with colostrum so very good for it. We left #675 and her twins #909R and #910R in the yards overnight and cross our fingers for signs of life in the morning.
Karola has approved of the railings across the front of the goose enclosure; “well they’re better than the netting”, so I hammered the nails home today. I also laid out the battens for the boundary fence from the north west corner of the Homestead title down to the big shed; 5 battens per span.
As I was mowing the goose paddock yesterday I broke or somehow lost traction in one of the drive belts and hence one of the three revolving blades. Today I took the top off and the belt isn’t broken but it has come off the pulleys so I’ve asked Alan the orchardist to help show me how to get it back together.
Did a little bit more on the culvert edges of the orchard drive road entrance.
Karola collected up all the unused lengths of leaky pipe so that she can find bits the right length for her hedges at the front gate and across the edge of the lawn to the pump shed. She also put up an electric fence channelling ewes and lambs (as they arrive) from the Middle paddock across to join the others with lots of grass in the Front paddock.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—19°C; no rain [74.2]
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Settling Back In
A bit of electric fence moving and the morning somehow vanished. In the afternoon I started to tackle the problem of the wooden edges of the orchard drive roadside culvert. However the planks I had, while strong enough and oozing with 50-year preservative, were just not long enough.
So, around 5:00 pm Karola, Bickka and I went to Goldpine and bought 4 x 3-metre retaining wall planks, 140 battens for the new 7-wire fences, a 100-metre roll of 1.5 metre high netting for tree guards (30% off, on special, still very expensive) and 200 wire crimps for Karola’s tree guard activity.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—15°C; no rain [74.9]
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Spring Monday
Cold last night and cold again tonight but the day was cool, sunny, and bright.
Karola, fighting through her jet-lag, planted 28 trees she’d been hording, as replacements for some of the trees succumbed to frost.
I moved the seven lambs and their four mothers into the Front paddock; let the 31 expectant (mainly) ewes and Piglet into the rest of the Middle paddock; and the eleven ewe hoggets and two wethers into the Totara paddock. Everyone pretty happy, except for the plovers.
I attached the orchard mower to the tractor and cleaned up the goose paddock; mainly iris and nettles; and did the same to the wilder part of the Middle paddock, including the recent addition to the Middle paddock right down to the Grisolinia planting on the south-east corner. The geese were confined, for now, to their goose enclosure.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—15°C; 0.1 mm rain [74.5]
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Winter Sunday
A very wintery day but Karola spent the day resettling in and walking round the grounds; apart from getting #903 fed I stayed inside in the warm, as did Bicka.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—15°C; no rain [75.0]
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The Quail Has Landed
Bicka well washed last night decided to come calling at 3:05 am but when I sprang up and shuffled downstairs to let her out she was uninterested. My suspicion is that she came to tell me after she’d been unable/disinclined to “hang on” any longer. Not a big problem soon fixed this morning with mop and disinfectant, but be really nice if she told me beforehand, not afterwards. Still, it’s a big day and she senses something is up.
That sense was heightened when I wouldn’t let her out of my sight or shut in the house or Land Rover all morning; no mud for her until after the greeting ceremony.
Early breakfast and I’ve fed the chooks and the geese and the duck and even the lamb #903. Alan Ladbrook was about already so I borrowed his chain saw and lopped off the heads of six strainer posts, disguising the fact that they were bought a foot longer than necessary and with a pointed end, at a special price. After the beheading came the other half of the railings. I got the five railings up but not the two intermediate support posts; still it looks the part now.
Dressed in Sunday best etc I sailed off to the airport with Bicka, arriving 15 minutes early at 1:00 pm. The plane arrived one cup of tea later at 1:15 pm and Karola was the first person into the terminal building off this tiny plane from Auckland. Much joy and we soon were loaded up and off, via the new New World at Green Meadons, Taradale back to the Homestead. A very quiet, leisurely afternoon and evening and “The Quail Has Landed”, or something like that.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—13°C; no rain [74.1]
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Irregular But Frequent Heavy, Brief Showers
Woken by rain squalls several times during the night and hoped that by morning it would have blown over. The day started cold but sunny and then, mid morning, wham, more wintery blasts with sharp showers every now and then.
Mark and I concentrated on moving the orchard drive gateway in by 15 metres – he dug the main hole yesterday and I bought a very solid 2.4 metre post as the gatepost. Today we concreted the post in and hung the gate and Mark put in a 2.1 metre post as the slam post, between showers. We had to buy more quick-set concrete for our main gatepost so it will not move in a hurry and the gate swings very well. Alan Ladbrook, the orchardist, knows I moved the gate for his convenience and said it was well done and thanked me, which was appreciated.
For the past week or so I’ve been attacked by the plovers in the Totara paddock; they’re getting more and more aggressive, I’m sure I felt the wind from its wings as it dive-bombed me today – they fly down to within a metre or so before banking sharply and screeching in your ear, almost always coming in from behind, quite unnerving.
Frost forecast for tonight so Alan was out turning on the sprinklers on the peaches, they are in full bloom; the apple trees haven’t really started yet.
Little lamb #903 ducked through the electric fence in his continuing quest for a mother to love him and I couldn’t catch the little pest for ages – finally I bored him into being a bit slow and grabbed him so he could be reunited with his sister twin and given his 3rd and final feed from #672 for the day.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—12°C; 3.5 mm rain [74.5]
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Cold Southerly Blast
Progress today. Mark and I put up one of the two sets of railings on the bend where the orchard drive cuts left towards the big shed. We are waiting for me to wire up the fence along that orchard drive towards the big shed before putting up the second set of railings; the end post will straighten up once the wires are on.
I got a nice fat 2.4 metre strainer post and a pair of 2.1 metre posts to rebuild the orchard drive entrance 15 metres further in, so that you can open and shut the gate without having your vehicle stuck out into the traffic. It also makes the turn much easier for large apple trucks, especially the ones with the cab cantilevered out 2.5 metres in front of the front wheels. Mark dug the hole for the strainer; I removed the gate and its gudgeons from its current position.
Mike Croucher came and mowed the lawn, letting us know that he was only just beating a southerly change with rain – and he was right.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—16°C; 4.6 mm rain [74.9]
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Intermediate Posts All In
Up a little earlier today to change a bit of fence that had beeen irritating me all night. The boundary (with Vernon’s) gatepost went from leaning several inches to the east to roughly the same to the west when I strained up the post back into its fence line again. The solution was to redo the stay post with a big concrete block and I’d done that and restrained the fence before Mark arrived at 9:00 am. By 11:00 am I’d actually crimped the wires and filled in the holes, cleared away the rubbish, and declared victory.
Meanwhile Mark completed the 26 intermediate posts ready for me to string up the seven wires.
Also, it was a busy morning, I finished the second top coat of Karaka Green on the new gate, nicely coinciding with the remains of the puddle of paint on the cottage kitchen floor.
Another 20 metre HDMI cable and wall plate arrived, as did the very swish “remote extender” which is supposed to make it extremely simple to change the MySky HDi channel from anywhere in the house – no magic eyes to plug in, just a very smart little transmitter that actually goes inside the MySky HDi remote itself.
Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—18°C; no rain [74.4]
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Talk About Green
At last a glimmer of humour in this morass of boring farming minutia.
This morning I’d decided to pop quickly into Hastings to get a litre of galvanised iron primer, having mis-identified some ordinary wood primer in a very similar tin yesterday. I knew we had several litres of Karaka Green exterior paint and so I planned to paint the new gate across the orchard drive with a coat of primer and maybe a couple of coats of the Karaka Green,
I wanted to make sure the Karaka Green tin actually had some paint in it, that it wasn’t an empty tin masquerading as several litres of green. Sure enough, swishing it around I could hear a satisfying slurp of paint; the 4-litre tin was probably half full. As one does, I then upended it and gave it a vigourous shake to prepare for its use later today. There I was, all dressed up for town, and oops, the lid came off. A miracle escaped bathing me in the paint – on my shoes, yes, huge amounts on the cottage floor and bench top, yes.
So, I made the shopping trip after ungreening the shoes and changed into more suitable attire before painting the gate with primer and then, using the puddles on the floor and bench top (and things like my drench gun which was drowned in green paint) painted the gate with its top coat. There’s still a lot more paint left so another coat may be possible tomorrow; how I will get the bench top, sink, floor and sundry bits of equipment clean again is anyone’s guess.
Weatherwise it was a beautiful start to the day, cool, bright, sunny, with a gentle breeze. Mark has now put in 16 of the 26 intermediate posts and I am still fiddling round with restraining up the bits of boundary fence with the Vernon’s
Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—21°C; no rain [74.5]
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