Monthly Archives: October 2009

Quiet day.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—17°C; no rain [78.5]

A Friday of mixed weather; Dave lodges one of his four kites in the very top of the Lyriodendron tree (34 metres tall) and cannot get it out; if the wind doesn’t blow it out before he leaves tomorrow we’ll need to watch for it and when it condescends to return to earth, post it back to him in the UK. The local winds are very unpredictable, swirling this way and that, so not a huge surprise.

We went to The Mission vineyard for lunch; Dave went into Napier and tried to get some more kite photos in the afternoon; in the evening we went to the Westshore Fish Cafe with Dave and Jenny and Noel Hendery and afterwards to Jenny’s place for coffee and a chat.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—15°C; 0.7 mm rain [78.4]

Bad news is that ewe lamb #907 has died, probably of pneumonia. She was a big strong lamb, daughter of #632 – at least not a daughter of one of the Texel nine, and #632 still has #906 to bring up.

Better news is that ewe #726 had two small twin ewes, #947E and #948E.

We went with Dave to ClearView for a swish lunch; otherwise the day has alternated rain showers, some hail, and sunshine but with a constant cold wind from the south.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—14°C; 2.2 mm rain [77.2]

Mike Croucher came and mowed the rest of the lawn, unfortunately mowing most of Karola’s Taupata hedge between the lawn and the Totara paddock as well. The grass had grown very long so it wasn’t really his fault; you had to search to find the shiny Taupata leaves. Karola says they may regrow.

We went into Napier in the afternoon and when we returned Dave Mitchell had arrived and already taken some photos of Karamu from his kite-camera.

We had a very pleasant meal and early night. Sometime in the night ewe #673 had a big, strong ewe lamb #946E, the last of the Texel nine to have a lamb.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—18°C; 4.1 mm rain [77.5]

Restful day; Karola decided to take over #937E from her mother and feed both #920R and #937E together; they live in the stock crate in the green shed unless it’s sunny when they have time on the grass outside – #920R nibbles away at it most industriously.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—13°C; 10.8 mm rain [77.5]

Bridget again led the charge and this morning she, Chris, and I finished the other six shelving units, to my delight. I really didn’t imagine we would finish the assembly during their visit this weekend. Karola, meanwhile, juggled sheep and grand-daughters all morning. At lunchtime Bridget et al went in to Napier for a repeat visit to a shop with a toy train room children could play with; they had lunch in Napier then returned here, packed, and set off for Wellington.

Karola laid out a new tranche of grass in the orchard paddock for her sheep.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—18°C; 6.7 mm rain [77.5]

Bridget lead the assembling of the store room bench units. Having, with Chris, finished the sawing up of the plywood into 1.2 metre by 0.6 metre shelves and the shortening of a dozen of the metal uprights from 2.4 metres to 2.0 metres yesterday, today was to be the assembling of the units with nuts and bolts. Unfortunately although the pre-punched holes in the metal framing were begun half an inch from the end, as requested, when bolting together a horizontal and vertical piece the holes didn’t quite match up – the bend forming the angle meant that the hole was too close to the fold in the metal. We tried various strategems, Bridget was brilliant at coming up with potential solutions, but we ended up just drilling out a little bit of each mis-matching hole – otherwise everything seemed to work as planned. Today we assembled three of the nine units and shortened the rest of the uprights to 2.0 metres.

Lunch with Bridget and family at Pernel Fruit World. Karola made another superb dinner with a lamb roast from Dynamic Meats.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—17°C; no rain [78.0]

Sunny cool day. While Grandma looked after the grand daughters, Bridget, Chris and I began the assembling of the store room benches. Today we made good progress, cutting all the plywood to size and attaching the pair of horizontal metal runners to each of the 27 shelves. In the afternoon they all went to one of the beaches at Hamoana, though that was too cold for more than a short run around. Mike Croucher came and mowed the lawns round the house. The grass has grown so luxuriantly that he’ll need to come again next week to finish the other half.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—16°C; no rain [77.4]

Karola spent most of the day in readying the house for the grandchildren, including clearing out her study and putting up two beds for Natalie and Alex. Ade White, who we met in New World in the morning, dropped round for afternoon tea after he’d watched the show jumping at the Hastings Show.

Bridget and Chris and the grandchildren drove up from Wellington this evening, leaving around 5:00 pm. Traffic was heavy and slow and they arrived around 10:30 pm having had a dinner of sorts in Paraparaumu.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—16°C; no rain [76.5]

Around lunch time we went to Onekawa and picked up our shelving supports, enough for ten shelving units (about $700):

• 40 x 2.4 metre uprights
• 60 x 1.2 metre horizontals
• 40 x 0.6 metre braces

We then went to Mitre-10 and bought lengths of wood to act as spacers between the units and the back wall, and between adjacent units (about $200):

• 15 x 2.4 metre 40 mm x 10 mm (pairs of back-wall spacers)
• 10 x 2.4 metre 40 mm x 18mm tween-unit spacers

Finally we went to B&H Engineering Supplies and got 300 bolts, washers, nuts, spring washers, and 100 coach bolts (about $250). Mitre-10 is allegedly much cheaper than specialist shops because of the economies and bargaining power of huge size, but this depends. Each washer was priced at $0.08 in Mitre-10; my 300 cost $0.033 each at B&H.

Karola continues with her healing programmes for #920R and #937E, which includes her twin $938E. Today it extended to buying goats milk from a Health Food shop in Hastings. This is not business motivated, for sure.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—21°C; 14.5 mm rain [76.1]

Cold night and cool but beautifully sunny day. No more lambs. Our metal shelf brackets for the store room shelves are ready to collect, and coincidentally I finally finished the prototype shelves today too.

Karola has been administering to her sheep and doing some mowing up in the tree planting area.

Rats and mice have eaten their way into the plastic feed bins for wheat, maize, and sheep nuts. I planned to build a strong wooden box with three compartments, possibly lined with light metal foil. Karola had a better idea; she will use the metal box we took off the front of the big trailer; the plastic bins just fit inside snugly and no rodent will get into that.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—16°C; no rain [76.5]

Weather variable today but Karola moved the electric fences in the orchard paddock to expose the next tranche of short-rotation ryegrass for the hoggets and ewes with lambs.

On our one expedition out for food and other items we picked up Karola’s little trailer from Newport Auto Electrical finding out in the process that the Landrover had a faulty UK trailer plug. So we got a replacement New Zealand one which gives me a wing mirror, a jump seat back, and a trailer plug to attach to the Landrover. Up until now we’ve used a UK-to-NZ converter cable so that we could plug in NZ trailers but that may have been causing us more problems than we knew.

Karola went out to a wine tasting with Graham and Tracey and they all came back for a fish-and-chip dinner.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—15°C; 3.5 mm rain [76.1]

After a good nights sleep (for both of us) it promised a bright Monday with cool, brisk winds.

Ewe #403 had ram twins but one was still born leaving the smaller, #945R well looked after.

In the morning Karola disposed of much recyclable rubbish and took her little trailer in to Newport Auto Electrical to have the tail lights re-affixed and rewired. While there they told her of a Landrover second-hand parts dealer in the Napier hills, “Landy Heaven”, 126 Poraiti Rd, RD2, Napier, 06-844-9242 or 0274-499-487 ali.coral@xtra.co.nz.

Meanwhile I at last got round to some small tasks including: re-siting the white-on-blue rapid-response “133” gate tag so that it looks level and nicely positioned on the top right rail of the front gate. I also removed the brass “133” numbers that are invisible, and also removed them from the “121” entrance. I plan to replace these with Australian reflective green-on-white numbers which actually show up very well, night or day. What with that and tightening up the railings on the left side of the front drive – I think a root has pushed the end post over a bit – and putting a metal vice on the old bench in the green shed for our store room bench activities planned for next weekend, then it was lunchtime.

We went round late afternoon to “Landy Heaven” and got a replacement for our thoroughly smashed driver’s wing mirror and for the seat-back for the jump seat that Bicka chewed to bits as a puppy – both reasonably priced. A quick trip to Napier’s Mitre-10 for bolts and washers and so on for the store room bench prototype project and that was it for the day.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—17°C; no rain [75.9]

Sunday mostly inside but with Karola doing the rounds of the sheep and writing up their current dispositions on a large chart on the office whiteboard. Late afternoon Karola dagged #801 and reported back that #822’s jaw seemed to be healing alright without further attention. Her patient #920R is as perky as anything but just not able to walk.

I installed the small flat panel Sharp TV we bought at Harvey Norman in Hastings yesterday, half price. It replaces a huge, heavy old TV in the dining room and will be good for the grandchildren to watch their “kidzone” programmes on TV6.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—21°C; 0.6 mm rain [76.5]

Ewe #704 and lamb #944R ushered into the Totara paddock. Two large bold rats seen in the goose enclosure.

Karola, with some help from me, laid out electric fence for the next tranche of grass for the ewes and lambs in the Orchard paddock.

In the Island paddock, ewe #623 with triplets is still limping quite badly; ewe hogget #822 is eating grass normally and the swelling on her lower jaw has gone down a lot – though it’s still quite sizeable. And daggy ewe hogget #801 needs more work.

Karola is still feeding and carting from lawn to trailer and back the ailing #920R who seems very cheerful but isn’t making any obvious progress towards using his back legs again. Meanwhile Karola is mowing the north-west section of planting area that she laboriously cut with garden shears last summer – to avoid it getting away on her again.

We both worked on the store bench prototype, this time with a second module that is supposed to lock together with its neighbour. We tried several approaches for this and still have more to do.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—24°C; no rain [76.0]

Ewe #704 had ram lamb #944R

Karola finished crimping the nine lengths of 1.5 metre tall deer netting into 1 metre diameter circles for tree guards; 11 wires to be joined per circle. She also spent much of the day weeding.

With occasional help from Karola I continued with the store room bench prototypes.

I ordered the metal parts for the full nine benches for the store room from Q C Engineering in Onekawa, hoping they will be finished before Bridget, Chris and family come up next weekend.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—23°C; no rain [76.5]

Ewe #719 and triplets shepherded into the Totara paddock; ewe #218 had a large ram lamb #943R today; they were also pushed gently into the Totara paddock.

The limping #623 and the abscessed #822 seemed both to have recovered a little today; Karola washed the daggy #801 and will attack the problem again tomorrow as long as rain holds off.

Karola and I, after much discussion on the stability of the prototype storage bench, finally screwed it to the wall and we were amazed and delighted how it suddenly became firm and strong, not needing any extra bracing. I think we can continue with the manufacture of the nine similar benches for the store room.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 11°C—23°C; no rain [76.6]

More clear, sunny skies and a warm afternoon. Karola found ewe #719 in a sheltered spot with three lambs, #940R, #941R, and #942E, all quite small but active.

Karola moved sheep hither and yon until she got #623 plus triplets, #822, and #801 in the yards by themselves. I looked at #623’s front right foot – she’s very lame on that leg – but could see no infection, nor was the hoof at all hot. Maybe she knocked the leg in which case it should come right of its own accord in a few days. Karola lanced the swollen abscess on #822’s lower chin and we got large amounts of poison out before spraying with antibiotic; observing #822 later she was eating grass quite normally, obviously we’d removed the pressure and the pain for now although it may need a repeat gory performance in a few days. We didn’t get round to cleaning up the very daggy #801 and left them all in the Island paddock for the night.

We’ve cut nine lengths of deer netting so that Karola can begin making nine tree guards for her willows; we’re already too late for a couple of the willows which with their previous short tree guards let sheep in to nibble off the tops

Karola has convinced me to recast the design for the storage benches as half-size, that is only 1.2 metres long, so we disassembled the 2.4 metre long prototype and now have a completed 1.2 metre long one to be fixed to the wall tomorrow – they get a lot of their strength from being screwed firmly into the wall studs.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 13°C—21°C; no rain [76.4]

Not much doing today. Got some bigger bolts from B&H in Omahu Rd for the prototype storage bench but it’s slow progress to assemble the bench.

Karola is still feeding and tending to the little #920 lamb with the (hopefully temporarily) paralysed back legs. He started out with one, then both, front legs going wonky and now they’re OK but it’s his back legs that aren’t working; we gave him a shot of penicillin and hope that will fix the problem.

Karola took a look at the main flock of ewes with older lambs plus the ewe hoggets. She found that hogget #822 had a swollen lower jaw and that the ewe #623 with triplets is very lame on her front right leg; we’ll have to attend to these tomorrow.

And the good news is that ewe #717 has had twin ewe lambs, #938E and #939E.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—21°C; no rain [76.4]

Cold nights but beautiful sunny days once it warms up.

Lamb stuff and storage bench prototyping; a slow day. Karola had the expectant ewes grazing on the main drive for a few hours; gets the weeds down around the titoki trees.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—19°C; 0.1 mm rain [76.7]

From a cool, cloudy start it turned into a beautiful sunny spring day.

Karola and I tagged and docked eleven lambs which brings us right up to date.

We also made progress on the prototype store room bench; one more day should see it assembled.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—20°C; 0.1 mm rain [?]

Nasty weather but mainly in showers.

I began assembling the prototype storage bench and also took a stroll round the ewes and lambs – no problems that I could see.

Another 80 mm of rain in Mary’s rain gauge since 1st October.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—13°C; 0.7 mm rain [76.3]

The day began without rain; I took a quick look round and found a dead lamb in the Middle paddock – dead for 2 -3 days I’d say, but not at all sure whose lamb it was. Anyway, that lamb, the rabbit, and the dead lamb from the Front paddock all buried now.

Bridget and I went and picked up the metalwork for the first store room bench and on the same trip got some wall hooks for timber and our long ladder from Mitre-10 in Onekawa. Weather began to worsen after lunch and Bridget and the grand-daughters left for Wellington.

Ewe #714 has had two ewe lambs, #936E and #937E, and they seem in good shape. I herded them into the Totara paddock with the families of #725 and #402.

Karola is still struggling to get #920R on its feet – she feeds it and we’ve given it penicillin but it still can’t use its hind legs.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—15°C; 20 mm rain [?]

A cold, overcast day that unfolded into a sunny, mild day but with constant forecast threats of very bad weather tomorrow. Huge amounts of snow on the Kawekas and the foothills. Ewe #402 had a healthy, big lamb, #935E.

Bridget helped me with a trip to Tumu Builders merchants where we got nine 2400 x 1200 sheets of 12 mm plywood “seconds” – cheaper than MDF, cheaper than chipboard. We together cut the sheets up into the sizes needed for the benches in the store room. Just as well to get all the sheets home and under cover if it’s going to rain for the next few days, and Bridget’s help with the sawing was invaluable.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—19°C; no rain [76.4]

The last of #206’s quads died today but the other new lambs seemed just about OK although #920R may yet succumb to the cold. Ewe #725 has had a lamb, #934E..

I opened up the mulcher and switched the blades before storing it in the green shed. I also removed the iron bar from the road side of the posts holding up the mail box and added it to the back – it looks better from the road with just the number and no shiny iron bar.

Bridget, with some help from me, moved all the red-topped pegs showing where the cottage might be moved to about 20 metres north-eastwards, where the south end of the cottage would be in line with the back of the garage.

Karola took the children shopping for food but before that she, Bridget, and the girls cleaned and reorganised the garage – the three bays holding cars and tools that is.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 0°C—15°C; no rain [77.0]

Despite the cold wind and overcast skies, ewe #705 had twins #929R and #930R; ewe #401 had a big strong ram lamb #931R and #219 had twins #932R and #933E. Bridget and I shepherded them into the main mob of ewes with lambs, accompanied by the ewe #705 who is “helping” #219 with her twins.

Bridget and I went out and talked to a small engineering shop in Onekawa; it looks as if they can make the metal framing for my two-shelf benches for the store room; we’re to ring back on Friday to see how they’re getting on with the framing for one bench before I purchase enough for all ten; five 2.4 metre ones and five 1.2 metre ones.

Otherwise we kept warm inside most of the day. Grandmother Karola took the grandchildren out to Napier in the afternoon and amused them for most of the day, which gave Bridget a good break.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—14°C; no rain [?]

Another cold, damp, windy day. Ewe #206 lost another of her quads so she’s now only one left. We took her and her lamb over and put her with the other ewes and lambs. Ewe #703 (I think) had a lamb but it died due to the cold and wet – it was a big, strong looking lamb so just a matter of being in the wrong place on the wrong night.

An indoors day and some shopping.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—8°C; 7.9 mm rain [74.5]

From glorious sunshine to steady rain all night and day. Ewe #203 lost one of her triplets; ewe #206 had quadruplets today and has lost two so far; Karola has put the ewe and her remaining rather fragile looking lambs in the stock crate in the green shed for shelter from wind and rain. Ewe #203 and the remaining two lambs, #927R and #928E, were put with the rest where they have lots of shelter and food.

Bridget and Natalie and Alex arrived for dinner after an eventful drive up from Wellington – “armed offender” squad was engaged in an incident north of Norsewood and so I used google maps to find a back road to route her round the blocked piece of state highway 2.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—9°C; 53.9 mm rain [74.9]

Rounded up the expectant ewes and odd additions and put them in the yards after taking #203 and her triplets over to a sheltered spot in the Totara paddock. Then Karola and I gingerly sorted out “piglet” and the wether #630 and shooed them over into the geese enclosure. Kept the doomed #409 back in the yards and let the rest return to the Middle and Island paddocks.

Frances and Gary arrived shortly after 9:00 am and Frances helped Karola with house cleaning while Gary made an excellent job of the outside of the garage. I did the mulching of oak branches between the garage and the road.

Before they left around 1:30 pm Gary dispatched #409 who was normal except for a huge liver due no doubt to the Oleander poisoning of a couple of years ago. He took all the parts away with him, a very neat, clean job.

Turned out to be a hot, sunny day

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—23°C; 5.7 mm rain [74.5]

Ewe #203 had triplets and, as one of our originals (and triplets successfully last year too), we left her to it. A delightful sight. Otherwise just routine stuff outside and most of the day inside or in Hastings.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—20°C; no rain [73.7]

After eating continuously all yesterday – pie for morning tea and so on – I am actually lighter than I’ve been in last year, 73 Kg. Very odd.

Today Karola fed her lambs and then got them into the yards where we docked and tagged. All ewes with lambs are now in the Front paddock and I anticipate a flood of new lambs next week.

Karola and I made a new strip of the long fresh ryegrass in the orchard paddock and, after removing wether #630 and putting him with the expectant ewes and “piglet”, let the ewe hoggets in for the day.

As I arranged, Les Clapcott dropped by after he returned from Wellington this afternoon and we spent a couple of hours going over Karola and my first draft of ideas for the cottage refurbishment. He will try and get updated drawings back to us mid week next week so we can show them to Bridget – who, cold permitting, will come up here with the bairns on Sunday.

Mary’s rain gauge had 70 mm of rain in it when I emptied it today – this since 20th August.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—19°C; no rain [73.0]