Monthly Archives: November 2010

Quiet day, hot and occasionally cloudy, spent catching up on odd jobs. Moved the goose watering bowls and trough over to the tap near the coral tree. Sheep enjoy a fresh swathe of grass in the Middle paddock. A guy called Sam Bradshaw called in offering his services as an insect pest controller (06-870-3441, 06-877-1183). He said he is a cousin of Julie Ladbrook’s.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 14°C—25°C; 0.1 mm rain [80.7] 06:30

SwimGym then Karola and I spent the day on netting fence and sheep movements. We’ve finished grazing the Front paddock for now and they are strip grazing the combined Totara and Middle paddocks. The new north-south netting fence (reused, not new netting) forms one side of the area being strip grazed hence Karola’s push to get it sheep proof today. The goose enclosure is more than twice the size and the Middle and Totara paddocks are combined. There’s still a section of netting running east-west to do, and some gates to be hung, but all in all very satisfactory progress, and a major contribution by Karola who seems to have boundless energy these days – could it be something to do with the kilometre swim she does on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 13°C—21°C; no rain [79.6] 06:30

Today a blitz on the netting fencing with Karola helping greatly by taking control of the standard ramming – 22 standards in all. An exhausting day except for Bicka who did a lot of lying about in the sun. Cool breezes and light cloud made this a perfect summer sunday.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 6°C—26°C; no rain [79.3] 06:30

Made a good start on putting up the netting fence to enclose the extended goose enclosure aka ram paddock. Most of the stay posts put in and some initial wires put up. Meanwhile Karola had a day of re-doing more tree guards, banging in standards and re-doing the skirts of wind protection fabric and adding a top storey of chicken netting to stop those ambitious goat-like hoggets.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 9°C—22°C; no rain [78.9] 06:30

SwimGym, and the Rashbrookes had left by the time we got back. The tractor mowing yesterday was rather overdoing it and so today was a very quiet day. Late morning we went into Hastings for lunch at Cornucopia and then on to Landy Heaven to pick up some Landrover parts.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 6°C—21°C; no rain [80.0] 06:30

Continued mowing the goose enclosure including its extension south to the Scott’s boundary and west beyond the coral tree and other ornamentals. Then mowed the grazed half of the front paddock, topping it so that it is back to around 100 mm. Karola fenced part of the lawn and let the sheep graze there for a couple of hours before going back to their half of the front paddock.

Late afternoon the Rashbrookes arrived from Wellington on their way to Kerikeri, 2½ hours north of Auckland. Karola made dinner for us all and they stayed overnight intending to leave early the next morning.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 11°C—23°C; no rain [78.9] 06:30

SwimGym. I then spent the morning experimenting with video software. I can record programmes from MySky HDi set-top box via Hauppauge HD PVR in either 720p or 576i format. All HD programs are captured only in digitized PAL interlaced 576i form; the national free-to-air channels carried by Sky are also in this format but magically programs on other channels are captured in 720p progressive, non-interlaced form. These latter videos play OK via the AppleTV that Bridget gave me but I am having trouble with the 576i programmes – not on my computer, but only when played via AppleTV.

In the afternoon I finished taking down two sides of the goose enclosure, a netting temporary fence put up by Karola, me., Campbell and Jane along the south and west side of the goose enclosure several years ago. This is in preparation for different fences accommodating the cottage in its new position. Later I mowed abput 2/3 of the goose enclosure with the tractor and orchard mower.

Karola shopped in the morning and dug up iris along the old netting fence lines of the goose enclosure. Late afternoon she went to the AGM and dinner of the Hawkes Bay branch of the Federation Of Graduate Women.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:5°C—19°C; no rain [78.9] 06:30

Karola spent the day weeding and clearing and some planting; I spent the day on fences. Sheep got bored with the eastern half of the Front paddock and invaded the western half.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:7°C—19°C; no rain [79.2] 06:30

SwimGym. Keith came and washed some more of the cottage walls. It’s the first day for a while that we haven’t spent hours on the sheep and their fences; they have half the Front paddock for now and will get the other half when they’ve made decent inroads where they are.

Having almost completed the platform for the flying fox, instructions supplied with the kit, I find that the bolts are too short and too thin. We got bolts of a better size and fit and then I found that the platform, which is intended to be height adjustable, just goes from tall to much taller and so I’m not sure if it will work for us even on the lowest setting. And anyway the adjustment holes didn’t align with the various cross pieces so this was rather puzzling – but nothing that drilling a few more holes wouldn’t fix. I attached the painted MDF platform top and Karola and I took it out to the ha-ha – it’s very heavy – and there it will sit until Chris and Bridget next come up when they can help work out what to do next.

Karola planted five more trees and did some iris eradication. I dug half a post hole.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:4°C—16°C; 0.6 mm rain [79.6] 06:30

Showers so Karola spent the day with indoor tasks and I started the building of the flying fox platform. The instructions were not the best. One of the wood lengths was wrong so I had to backtrack and saw several pieces to a shorter length. No harm done beyond wasting my time. Also some holes necessary for bolting bits together were missing and the length and size of the bolts used for most of the assembly were wrong and I’ll have to get some longer, fatter ones.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:9°C—20°C; 2.2 rain [79.8] 06:30

Breakfast at Bay Expresso then Karola’s friend Rowena joined us for lunch – we had the last of the casserole Karola made from venison that Rowena gave us, wild venison from Rowena’s family up in Wairoa. The rest of the time we were mucking about with electric fence and the sheep. To stop the fence shorting out and therefore being so feeble that the sheep had begun to ignore it I took down all Karola’s miles of fence and mowed a strip where each of the fences was to go using the big, old, mean orchard mower. Then I put fence back up again and suddenly it was evening.

Highlight of my day was Karola finding a large and very dead rat on the verandah next to the breakfast table. I did wonder why the cat had been so insistent I follow her out there; I’d ignored her and now she’s in a huff.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:17°C—30°C; 1.2 mm rain [79.7] 06:30

SwimGym. Phillipa Wright’s man arrived and took away the wool. Mid morning Keith Miller (06-844-5048) came with his elderly sidekick and washed two more sides of the cottage and the homestead kitchen exterior wall, cleaning them and applying some anti-mould preparation. That took until lunchtime. Then Karola and I went into Hastings for lunch at Cornucopia and shopping for the weekend.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:15°C—27°C; no rain [79.7] 06:30

More measuring and a little fencing today. The trial layouts of cottage position and fences is proving fruitful as we see what can be improved.

Lunch was a $50 expensive lunch for two at Pernels Fruit World, a birthday lunch although it’s not my birthday. I rediscovered their BLAT with potato chips substituted for the bread, gluten free. Followed by an expensive banana split – something a diabetic can only enjoy very occasionally. All in all very satisfactory.

And Karola found my glasses. I have two pairs of expensive driving glasses and had mislaid one pair several months ago. Today Karola found the missing pair. Of course I have several pairs of $15 reading glasses strewn around the place but they never seem to get lost.

Karola spent much of the day with her sheep and their fences as well as carefully adding some guard wire to the small triangular railings enclosing Gill’s gift of a Damson tree, in case any sheep gert the idea of standing on their hind legs for a nibble.

I de-nailed about half the wood kept from demolishing the go-between. I sharpened a grubber, three shovels and two spades. Campbell Ewing’s introduction to the electric grinder has proven invaluable. A sharp shovel makes a big difference.

… and I got Piglet (#104) and his friend, wether #630 in the yards and applied Magnum (no withholding for meat) liberally, especially around the unmentionables. No flies on us.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:14°C—24°C; no rain [79.6] 06:30

SwimGym as usual. Then Karola spent several hours putting up electric fence for the sheep, dividing the Front paddock into manageable strips. Meanwhile there were breakouts and rebellions and there was much maaaing about the place.

Late morning Tim Bright, who had been visiting family in Haumoana, dropped by on his way back to Wellington so we had cool lemonade for “elevenses”.

Karola thought she saw one of the lambs itching as if it had flystrike so, late afternoon, we got all but piglet and #630 into the yards and dosed (external pour-on) them with Magnum to prevent flystrike. Meat withholding period. none. We didn’t find any actual flystrike, neither had Dave when shearing them, so despite a big increase in fly activity, we are probably in time. Twice some sheep escaped while we were dosing them so it all took a long time and we were exhausted by the end.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:10°C—28°C; no rain [79.4] 06:30

Karola called her wool merchant,

• Philippa Wright Ltd Wool Merchants
• Takapau Road
• Waipukurau
• Central Hawkes Bay
• Hawkes Bay 4200
• Tel: (06) 858 9434 or (025) 242 2033

and her driver picked up the wool half an hour later.

In the afternoon we went into Hastings and I had my standard quarterly diabetes checkup. Doctor’s diagnosis on all fronts: Coeliac, Diabetes, Polymyalgia is that they are all under control and I am a “well man”. That’s nice to know. We celebrated with a wicked afternoon coffee at Cornucopia – coffee and an apple tatin, gluten free of course.

Late afternoon Karola and I started sorting through some of the wood from the walls of the old go-between; removing nails is a slow process, especially in old, hard kauri.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Brett Phillips came round as planned mid morning. He was guided round the cottage by Karola and given a short history of the building, as far as we know it. He also took photos and looked underneath to check on the sizes of the load-bearing timbers for his computer model.

I finally got round to moving the pegs to the proposed location for the cottage, 4 metres south and 2 metres west of its previous position.

Weather:9°C—30°C; no rain [79.2] 06:30

SwimGym as usual on Monday. Then shearing of all the ewes, including the hoggets, and piglet and friend. The daggy lambs were …. dagged too. All were given a combi-tape drench against a wide range of internal parasites. Next up it’ll be time to watch for flystrike. Restful afternoon for me; Karola put up electric fence in the Front paddock where the grass is now quite long. Piglet and #630 are in the Island paddock; #630 is quite fat and it’s obvious now he’s shorn, so the minimal feed in the Island paddock will be good for them. The rest of the flock are in the Front paddock, initially only along the bank of the ha-ha and under the trees near the road. This will be their off-peak place when Karola gives them strips of the lush main meadow.

Sheep drench: Strategik Combo Tape Mineralised Drench for Sheep. (Jurox NZ Ltd), withholding for meat of 10 days.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Brett emailed from Clapcott Consultancy. He’s coming round tomorrow to take a look at the cottage, as Karola requested. The design work is for the building consent is ready for Brett to begin entering it into a version of the model to go with the submission.

Weather:5°C—19°C; no rain [79.2] 06:30

Another day of spring-cleaning the study, sorting out which books can go to the store room and which stay.

Karola and I moved the sheep, including piglet and his friend #630, so that they wouldn’t have much food tonight, ready for shearing tomorrow morning. Main flock into the Island paddock; piglet and friend into a narrow strip across the top of the Totara paddock.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Our pegging out of plans for fences and gates and so on have bourne fruit as Karola has some excellent suggested changes.

Karola weeded furiously around the sides of the cottage, capitalising on the clearing done by the sheep last week. She’ll get Keith to come and wash down the cottage walls just like the back (south) wall; it looks a lot better and you can assess the state of repair more accurately.

Weather:11°C—28°C; 1.4 mm rain [80.1] 06:30

Spent much of the day in reorganising our upstairs study in the homestead.

Graham & Tracey Harvey came for lunch and to see Bicka.

Karola let her sheep graze the drive, from the 121 entrance to the garage block.

I, using the tractor, pulled up 8 fence posts from the diagonal fence that used to separate the Totara paddock and Middle paddock.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report.

Weather:15°C—28°C; no rain [80.3] 06:30

SwimGym, breakfast on verandah in dappled sunlight. Cool and magical. Later we went into town for shopping and lunch at Cornucopia; delicious. I relaxed all afternoon while Karola did the last three of her willow tree guards. All nine are now complete and are sturdy and tall. Karola has re-rammed the four standards per guard, made any necessary repairs to the wind protection netting, and added a high collar of 2-inch chicken netting so that even sheep on their hind legs cannot eat the tops off.

Late evening I did a little fencing.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report.

Weather:9°C—23°C; no rain [80.1] 06:30

Karola recreated six of her nine willow tree guards today, banging in the 1.8 metre long standards by herself.

I spent much of the day trying to cable up the two TVs downstairs so that they can both receive either the Sky TV or DVD or AppleTV. Modest success but it was fiddly and it is fragile, stops working for no good reason if you, for example, turn off one of the TVs. Later I dug a bit of a post hole and laifd out 120 metres of alkathene from the Orchard paddock to the nearest tap in the planting area by the big shed.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report.

Weather:10°C—20°C; no rain [79.9] 06:30

SwimGym and breakfast as usual three times a week. Glorious day. Inside I grappled with TVs and TV recorders and HDMI. I can at least record standard TV programmes and play them back from my computer onto our living-room 32″ TV.

It was sunny and tranquil and Karola did some weed spraying while this calm opportunity lasted.

I have at last got my proposal for fences and gates in the vicinity of the cottage marked out on the new site. I also took down and put up what seemed like miles of string.

The Cottage Refurbishment

I’ve banged in “standards” where major posts for the new fence are anticipated.

Weather:8°C—19°C; no rain [80.3] 05:30

Landrover to garage for WOF; then haircuts; then my blood tests (scheduled), then shopping. After lunch, pick up Landrover with WOF, then my eye test, then more measuring and fencing.

The Cottage Refurbishment

No more to report.

Weather:3°C—18°C; no rain [80.1] 06:20

SwimGym, breakfast, and then the rest of the day unplanned. More sheep and tree guards for Karola, as well as taking the recycling to the Transfer Station. More measuring and mulling for me.

Late afternoon Karola drove Bicka and me to Landy Heaven, the Landrover used parts man, for a rear light that had cracked and a list of other broken bits of WX2288 that he’ll watch out for. Landrover has a WOF check tomorrow. Landy Heaven man had just finished shearing his 60 or so sheep with a mobile shearing gang, which reminds us it’s time our flock were shorn too.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Les rang just to confirm that we need building permit but no other resource consent.

Weather:10°C—18°C; no rain [79.6] 06:20

Would you believe, more tree guard work and sheep movements for Karola. I did a little fencing, including putting up a netting fence for Karola. I also continued my measurements and deliberations about fences and gates and the cottage perimeter.

The Cottage Refurbishment

I sent an e-mail to Les, our designer/architect, that we’re OK with the plans and he should proceed to get planning permissions.

Weather:10°C—18°C; no rain [79.5] 06:20

Morning rain but sunny, cold afternoon. I took a car-load of old computer stuff (hardware) and fax machines to the free annual e-waste collection depot open just today from 9:00 am till 5:00 pm. Then I took four old CRT TVs (ie not flat panel) and two DVD players to the Transfer Station and accidentally got to dump them for free – I went onto the weigh bridge going in but saw no-one so thought it must be automatic and drove on. “That one’s on the council” said the guy on the way out.

Karola spent her day on sheep work and tree guards.

I hung a gate for Karola.

The Cottage Refurbishment

I forgot it was the weekend and rang a heating man for information. He was polite but probably not best pleased. I also continued measuring, using my laser level to get the right angles correct, trying to ensure the lines of the fences were accurately orthogonal to the sides of the homestead as Karola wants.

Weather:7°C—15°C; no rain [79.8] 06:20

SwimGym then breakfast as usual on a Friday. Karola spent much of the day with her sheep and doing more with tree guards to protect against the mischievous predations of those same sheep.

Mid morning I got an appointment for Bicka with the Vet; Bicka has been coughing more than usual lately and her week course of antibiotics didn’t shift it. Bicka was left at the Vets for an xray and we got the results mid afternoon. Bicka is seriously ill with multiple tumours on lungs and there is no cure. On the plus side Bicka, despite losing a lot of weight and coughing is mostly a pretty happy little dog not in any obvious pain. There is no way of knowing how much longer she’ll live, from weeks to months, there’s just no information. Bicka has some pills prescribed as palliative and we were a little taken aback to see that she’s now on a low dose of exactly the same medicine as I am having for polymyalgia, 5mg a day rather than 40mg.

Meanwhile I continued with my measuring and mulling over options for fences and gates and other consequences of moving the cottage.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Brett (architectural technician) finished the changes we discussed yesterday and sent me online pages of the plans. Bridget had a look and OK’d the plans; Karola and I also have reviewed them and are satisfied that the overall structure and organisation of the cottage is as we want it so we ready to tell Les (architect) to go ahead and prepare the submission for planning approval. We’ll probably send him an e-mail on Sunday night giving ourselves 48 hours to mull over what we’ve reviewed.

Weather:8°C—20°C; 3.9 mm rain [79.7] 06:20

Electric fences for the sheep; more work on the fences in the vicinity of the new cottage site. This included clearing a path through some thick iris in the Island paddock, today’s substitute for the constitutional. In the morning Karola continued weeding the Taupata hedge and finished it. In the afternoon Karola and I went to Mick Ladbrook’s funeral in Havelock North.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Karola and I went to the architect’s establishment aftger the funeral and spent 90 minutes with Brett, the architectural technician. We reviewed the latest model and made a couple of corrections and several choices. I think the model may be in shape for the planning approval documents when today’s comments are factored in.

Weather:8°C—21°C; no rain [79.6] 06:20

After SwimGym and a very quick breakfast we visited L E (Lawrie) Cooke, Nurseryman. He is almost 80 and it turned out he was the nurseryman who leased Karola’s orchard way back and as rent planted some of the apples remaining today. We discussed whether we could get replacement trees for the Braeburns which are so very out of favour with orchardists because they make a loss. We need about 1000 Pacific Queen trees as replacements and Pacific Queens are in strong demand because, at present, they are making money. Lawrie can supply us 1000 for next winter planting if we’d be satisfied with M26 root stock rather than the more vigorous 793 or 116. With M26 root stock the ground would definitely need sterilising. The trees would cost about $10.50 – $11.00 each plus ENZA royalty which Lawrie thinks is about $2.20 per tree.

I wound up what seemed like miles of electric fence; Karola did some more moving of electric fence for her strips in the Totara paddock. Later we got the sheep in the yards and drafted out the daggy ones for a drench. Scanda (withholding 10 days for meat) drench which kills barbers pole and lung worm and tape worm amongst many others. We drenched: #203, #623, #629, #671, #674, #675, #676, #679, #725 plus most of the hogget ewes: #911, #915, #917, #922, #923, #928, #934, #935, #936, #938, #939, #946, #947 and lambs: #003, #004, #007, #008, #010, #011, #014, #016, #018, #025, #027, #030, #031, #035. Oh and #616 had a nasty boil on the side of her jaw so we lanced it and sprayed with antibiotic.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Les called and left a message saying we should go down and look at the updated ArchiCAD computer model and give him feedback on any changes needed. Les is out tomorrow but his draughtsman Brett will expect us.

Weather:7°C—18°C; no rain [79.4] 06:20

Up at 6:20 as usual and composed yet another e-mail to Les, re the cottage piles this time. After breakfast Karola went shopping and I decided to clean the gutters near the go-between as they have been overflowing and causing much dampness where once the go-between’s roof sheltered us. Gutters cleaned out and then a makeshift spout put on the downpipe connector of the cottage gutter – there is no actual down-pipe – and this directs the stormwater onto garden instead of into the space previously occupied by the go-between. At which point it stopped the gentle rain and became beautifully sunny for the rest of the day.

I got one of Karola’s oldest green gardening tarpaulins and fixed it on an angle between the homestead and cottage where the go-between had been; it deflects most of the rain from the area directly between the two dwellings.

Paul Libby came by and took away his scaffolding from the chimney job last week.

Karola, while out, saw a billboard advertising a Lions book sale. She called me with the contact number and as a result at last we got rid of several hundred books – mostly heavy, thick, out-of-date computing books but a sprinkling of thrillers etc by authors we don’t like.

Later Karola did more fencing for her sheep and I completed putting up the Flying Fox. That still leaves the platform to be built but the fox itself is operational.

Inside I copied two long episodes of Duggan from MySky HDi to computer; unfortunately these have been truncated about 15 minutes from the end due to a recording/scheduling problem not of my making. Still, I copied what I had recorded and put that on DVD for posterity; the Marlborough scenery is very beautiful and I can guess the end of the plot.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Getting rid of the unwanted books has made space in the store room for more stuff out of the cottage.

Weather:7°C—17°C; 0.8 mm rain [79.9] 06:20

SwimGym, breakfast, and then “cottage site plan” all day. Karola went out and banged in standards and moved her sheep and generally did things in the cold sunny daylight.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Finished the cottage the site plan.

Weather:9°C—17°C; 0.2 mm rain [79.0] 06:20