Monthly Archives: February 2011

SwimGym.

Karola had arranged for some cleaners to come and dust and clean in preparation for her relations visiting in next 3-4 weeks; Julia Bruce nee Wilson in about ten days and Karola’s nephew Witek and his wife Ewa later in March. To our surprise they came in a rush in a van and rushed off again almost without stopping. Karola rang the firm and was told they couldn’t do the job – no reason, just “not their sort of thing” – whatever that means.

Later this morning I had quarterly Diabetes checkup and all is well.

After lunch Karola went to visit her elderly schoolteacher Hilary Jeffries. Later I took Bicka, who had been coughing and spitting since the early hours of the morning, to the vet. Diagnosis was not the dreaded “kennel cough” but just her ongoing condition perhaps made a bit worse by us trying to reduce her medication a little. She’s stopped coughing now. Either the vet visit made her pull up her socks or, more likely, her pill this morning ( she went without one yesterday) has thankfully kicked in. Never a dull moment.

Karola is thinner now than she’s been in years – the 1km swim three times a week plus diet is a help.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 11°C—26°C; no rain [80.8] 06:30

Slow start to the day. In the afternoon moved the old pile of logs next to the Back paddock fence facing the Homestead up to the bonfire. Lambs are on the 121 driveway eating weeds, grass, and acorns. Ewes are on the lawn along the top of the ha-ha.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 9°C—23°C; no rain [81.1] 06:30

Thistles for half an hour this morning and then Karola and I went out to lunch with Max Rashbrooke in Napier. Karola returned to more electric fence setup and suddenly it was evening. Peaches were bottled as the evening drew on.

I bought some portable sheep yards for Karola on TradeMe – just a small set so that we can pen up any ewe in trouble at lambing time – for $2000 from someone in Waipukuru. I can see this mucking about on TradeMe is likely to be an expense rather than income.

“Sheryl in Tauranga” has bid $1 for the coal range which is a bit strange – quite a long way to come to disassemble and remove the rusty stove. And expert traders don’t usually bid until the last few minutes of an auction which is 8:15pm on Tuesday. Maybe it was a mistake although the stove must be worth $20 or more as scrap so someone local who got it for less than $20 might have a bargain whether they wanted a stove or not. Time will tell.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 14°C—22°C; 0.2 mm rain [80.6] 06:30

SwimGym then quiet day. Lambs on the lawn. Ewes in a strip nearest the homestead in the Front paddock. Karola bottling peaches much of the day.

I now have three TradeMe auctions running. One is for the coal range in the cottage and the other two are for some spare gate latches; all are set to finish on Tuesday evening.

To our surprise and mystification Geoff Rashbrooke told me that the package of two Economists “stolen” from our mail box a couple of days ago had arrived. Also, Karola’s letter to Dr Waterworth got a response so it obviously arrived too. Sigh of relief – it was either a mixup by postie or a mailbox raider with a conscience.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 16°C—26°C; no rain [80.9] 06:30

I chopped thistles for 30 mins around 7:00 am. Plumber arrived at 8:00 am not 9:00 am but that turned out well as he had fixed the problem by 9:00 am. Mark Hendery arrived then and Karola set him to work on digging a big hole for future dead animals then weeding and mulching the young flax along the edge of the Back paddock facing the homestead.

Chloe and Harry came for brunch. Karola carried on bottling peaches after that. I did a little clearing of branches and timber, otherwise it was a quiet day. Just before 5:00 pm I went over to Greenleaf Nurseries and bought 5 little flax plants to fill the gaps in the line of 26 flax that Mark had been weeding.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 15°C—20°C; 0.2 mm rain [80.4] 06:30

SwimGym today.

Karola and I went into Hastings briefly this morning as she made a quick dentist visit relating to her 2nd replacement tooth. In the afternoon Karola went to a barbecue held by the Federation of Graduate Women and also picked up the Tuesday gluten-free bread and went to her favourite shoe menders shop. There she got Harry’s belt – our birthday present for him – shortened and got my iPhone holder repaired.

Today Karola found a leak in the sewer pipe servicing the Homestead and so a plumber has been summoned for tomorrow. Nasty, smelly, and Karola was right about there being a blockage a couple of weeks ago.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 15°C—23°C; 1.4 mm rain [80.3] 06:30

In the morning Karola went to see her new doctor, Liz Wyte, while I had a routine blood test and then did some shopping. We zoomed back to Karamu to meet Harry and Chloe, over in Hawkes Bay for a couple of days R & R. They took us to Elephant Hill for a very expensive and delicious luncheon. Harry was 60 yesterday.

We returned to Karamu to find an e-mail from Bridget telling us of the big earthquake that had pretty much destroyed much of Christchurch. Bridget’s husband Chris was down there for the day on business but luckily he and his fellow Meridian colleagues got out unscathed.

Later in the afternoon Harry and Chloe left for their hotel in Napier and Karola discovered that I’d left her two bottles of wine at Elephant Hill so she and I and Bicka drove back and picked it up before going into Hastings for some food shopping.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 18°C—26°C; no rain [80.6] 06:30

SwimGym etc then Karola went into Hastings and Napier till early afternoon.

We were dismayed, on the way to SwimGym, to find that our mailbox had been raided and the outgoing mail had been stolen. The front door was wide open and the mail flag was still up. There were two letters stolen: a pair of the most recent Economists for Geoff Rashbrooke, and a letter karola was sending, chasing up paperwork with one of my doctors. A lot of pickers stroll along the road in the early hours in the picking season so maybe we’d better not leave mail to be collected overnight.

In the evening we picked peaches for Karola to bottle; she’d found out from Alan that he’d finished the commercial picking of peaches on Karola’s orchard.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 14°C—24°C; no rain [80.6] 06:30

Half an hour of thistle chopping in the West paddock. In the afternoon I set up the little electric pump to begin draining the rain water tanks out onto the Front paddock using 3 x 50 metre lengths of alkathene. Karola put her lambs on the grass round the big oak and where the green shed used to be.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 16°C—22°C; 2.6 mm rain [81.1] 06:30

An hour of chopping thistles in the morning. After breakfast I helped Karola move timber from the Back paddock (aka the Geese Enclosure or Ram paddock) to: the depot near the 121 entrance, the big shed, and the bonfire. Having finished in the Back paddock Karola continued to clear up the remains of the green shed contents.

Piglet and #630 are in the Island paddock and didn’t even make a break for it when a small corner fence post broke and the netting fence up near the sheep yards fell over.

I tried a couple of the large and luscious Tutara Star peaches in Karola’s orchard; they may be clingstone but they are delicious and dripping with juice. Picking is well underway for the peaches. I noticed that there are a lot of broken branches on the peach trees at the southern end of the block south of the big shed – due I think just to the huge weight of these large and plentiful fruit.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 13°C—23°C; no rain [80.6] 06:30

SwimGym. Lunch at Cornucopia Taste restaurant – and picked up the bread and more oranges. Dinner with Noel and Jenny Hendery in Napier.

Karola spent hours doing more electric fencing.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Brett e-mailed us the final drawings today, subject to Les’ review next week..

Weather: 12°C—23°C; no rain [81.8] 06:30

I chopped thistles for an hour (Orchard paddock and half the One Acre and the lawn) and buried a dead hedgehog this morning. Karola and I then sprayed all the sheep, including the ram, wether, and lambs, with Magnum against lice and flystrike. (Magnum no witholding period for meat).

Karola then spent several hours rearranging her electric fences.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 11°C—22°C; 0.7 mm rain [80.5] 06:30

SwimGym and then sleeping most of the day. Karola unloaded the big trailer making a new pile of used timber down in the depot by the 121 entrance; she decided it could be stored outside rather than in the big shed. Karola let the lambs into the Goose Enclosure so they could clean up the grass which was getting ahead of Piglet and #630’s grazing. Piglet and #630 have the run of the Island paddock for now.

I briefly continued some leveling under the big oak with the tractor and also put three bucket loads of soil on top of the grave of #001E.

As I slowly prepare for putting the cottage old rusty stove on TradeMe I took some photos of it.

Willie Thow has asked if he can hire or buy our ram and Karola has offered Piglet for sale for $100 after he’s ensured our flock have lambs. Piglet joins the ewes on 1st April and leaves again on 14th May or thereabouts.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Karola did some reorganising of the stuff in the cottage including taking a lot of old cardboard boxes to recycling.

Weather: 12°C—21°C; no rain [80.1] 06:30

Karola spent the morning helping Bruce Richardson (HB Mobile Shearing) shear the 43 lambs.

Karola spent the rest of the day moving and laying out electric fences, except for when she and I penned up Piglet and #630 and put fly-strike powder in their ears and Zenith on their backs and undercarriages. (withholding for meat of 7 days). I had observed them shaking their ears vigorously several times over the last few days and so we suspected they might have had a re-infestation of ear mites.

I spent some time on the tractor smoothing out the ground under the large oak tree, stopping when I uncovered a large wasps nest.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing new to report today.

Weather: 15°C—23°C; no rain [80.3] 06:30

SwimGym and then rather exhausted for the rest of the day. We did go into town and drop off an old electric water pump to be services at Harris Pumps and Filtration. We also picked up some Magnum and some lynch pins from Wrightsons opposite Farmlands.

Karla found ewe lamb #001 had died overnight and Karola buried her under the oaks along from the garage. Chris from Mercy Renovators came at 2:00 pm to assess the cost of replacing the green shed for the insurers.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Dropped off the heating plan with Brett today. Les is out until next week but Brett said the documents should be ready for submission to the council mid week next week.

Weather: 16°C—30°C; 1.8 mm rain [81.3] 06:30

Hot day so much of the time resting inside, including in my case a leisurely most of the day in the hammock on the balcony reading and dozing (and, surprisingly, listening to opera on the radio). Usual Sunday conversation with Harry. Late afternoon a couple of hours with karola mulching up some old bamboo after which I took the mulcher up to its new home in the big shed – seeing as the green shed isn’t around any more.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 17°C—26°C; 0.1 rain [80.9] 06:30

Karola went shopping in the morning and spent the afternoon bottling plums. I had a relaxed day but did take some stuff up to the big shed from the salvaged contents of the green shed. The afternoon was spent fruitlessly trying to get an old electric water pump to work – the electric motor seemed to work just fine but I could not get the badly corroded pump piece to work.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 14°C—25°C; no rain [80.1] 06:30

SwimGym and then Karola spent the morning and late afternoon putting up electric fences for her sheep. In the morning I loaded the trailer with a pile of planks Karola had stockpiled behind the green shed, salvaged any decent lengths not showing major signs of rot or borer, and took the rest up to the bonfire, and after that took another trailer load of branches from around the old oak and the green shed.

Late morning Anne and Graham Velvin – who used to own Karola’s orchard behind us and live across the road here, and who have retired to Taupo, dropped in for a quick “hello”.

Then we went in to Cornucopia/Taste for lunch – an excellent fish dish this time – and to pick up the bread and some oranges. Then we went along Karamu Road to Paraire Road where Karola bought several kilos of Black Doris plums for bottling. Top Stortford Lodge to post some letters and to pick up my prescription – the surgery fax or phone through the prescription so I don’t need to go right into town to pick it up myself. From there to HireEquip to enquire about hiring a pump to empty our (smelly) rainwater tanks onto the dry pasture. Based on their advice we went to Harris Pumps and Filtration who quickly convinced me to use our house water pump temporarily rigged to pump from the rainwater tanks to the paddock. We”ll try that over the weekend. And finally to B&H, almost next door to Harris, for a bolt to replace the bent one on the mulcher chimney, bent by the falling branch in December.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Grayson Allen, the heating expert, brought round the plans for the heat pump and radiators.

Weather: 18°C—23°C; no rain [80.4] 06:30

The man came and cleaned the septic tank at 9:30 am – from Allens in Stortford Lodge – $184.

Late morning we went to the dentist so that Karola could have the first phase of her new tooth done. I whiled away the interim with a blood test (normal monthly procedure) and shopping and getting a gluten-free BLAT for lunch, for my lunch as Karola was not in the mood for food. I swapped the GF BLAT bread for chips.

In the afternoon I took the big trailer of green shed wood up to the bonfire and made another trailer load of the remaining small pieces so that the site of the green shed is now clear of both metal and wood. I also took a couple of old apple bins on the tractor to the orchard paddock. These, now stood on their side, made a little bit of shelter from the sun for sheep. While I was driving into the Orchard paddock with the Landrover and trailer Karola’s ewes made a successful break for freedom and some snacking next door. It took us half an hour to retrieve them and this could have been prevented if only I’d not risked having two gates open at once.

The Cottage Refurbishment

I called Grayson Allen, the heating expert, and chivvied him along – he says he’ll deliver the plans tomorrow.

Weather:16°C—24°C; 0.2 mm rain [80.1] 06:30

SwimGym and then rather a quiet day. Karola took the small trailer of broken wood from the Green Shed up to the bonfire and did some more sheep work. Early evening we went out to Peter and Liz Ormond’s on the banks of the Tukutuki river the other side of Havelock North to have dinner with them and their guests Hugh McBain and fiance Diana xx, and John and Jane xx. A plain but enjoyable meal and Peter was his usual provocative and outrageous self.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather: 16°C—24°C; 0.8 mm rain [80.2] 06:30

The day began with a trip on the tractor taking the green mower down to Norwood Machinery’s yard in Omahu Road.

Whew, it may be cooler than yesterday but I am hotter – at last Karola and I have taken all the old roofing iron and netting and other metal stuff we don’t want to the Scrap Metal Merchant – four trailer loads and we got $160 for it. Good to have that dumping ground behind the “shed that isn’t” cleared of all the rubbishy netting and netting fence offcuts – the possibly useful stuff was also moved today – taken to the depot for fence posts and firewood etc by the 121 entrance.

In the early evening Karola took me to Cinema Gold in Havelock North to see “The King’s Speech” which I thoroughly enjoyed.

The Cottage Refurbishment

I called Grayson Allen, the heating expert, and chivvied him along – he says he’ll get stuck in to the planning tomorrow.

Weather: 17°C—31°C; no rain [80.6] 06:30

SwimGym and then, it being quite warm (about 35℃), most of the day spent dozing. We took the Landrover in for a service and late afternoon collected it and also the chainsaw which was in for an intermittent stalling fault.

Karola rounded up the lambs and we drenched three more that had become daggy: #001, #023, #044 with Cydectin (10 days meat withholding).
The limper, #024, was fully recovered. #008, the one with flystrike, also seemed fully recovered.

Same muggy hot weather as yesterday.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today

Weather: 16°C—33°C; no rain [80.6] 06:30

A very restless night, partly because of the heat and humidity I suspect. Anyway despite an early night I woke at 12:30 am realising I’d let Piglet and friend into the garden while I was doing the logs and hadn’t put them back. So I toddled off into the night in dressing gown, boots, and torch. They had gone back to their paddock and were quietly asleep so I shut the gate and went back to the house. Now wide awake I watched a film until 3:00 am.

Late morning I called the hay seller and we went over to Clive at 11:30am and picked up 21 bales of reasonable quality meadow hay – though I did wonder if it was last years and he was somewhat evasive. It cost $8.50 a (conventional ie small) bale plus GST. We drove it home and stacked it carefully in the big shed – all done before lunch. Best to get it done at the weekend while there’s no pickers and trucks to be avoided.

I spent the afternoon creating an itinerary proposal for the North Island leg of Witek and Ewa Lesniewski’s NZ/Oz trip from Poland. Witek is Karola’s half-sister’s son.

Late afternoon I did three more tractor loads and finished carting off the remains of the 2nd large branch to fall from the big oak.

After dinner Karola and I went up to the orchard and hitched up the old green mower and brought it back to the Homestead so we could take it to the dealers without interfering with the peach picking.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today

Weather: 16°C—33°C; no rain [80.6] 06:30

Karola found an advertisement for meadow hay so we hope to go and get 20 bales or so tomorrow morning – $8.50 a bale. Mark (027-485-2563) and his hay barn is on School Road in Clive.

Karola mowed the lawn outside the garage. The recent rain has made the grass just shoot up.

I did ten loads with the tractor, two hours, taking the large logs sawn up into approx. 2 metre lengths down to the depot by the 121 entrance. I have another couple of trips to do.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today

Weather: 19°C—30°C; no rain [80.3] 06:30

SwimGym, it being Friday. I drenched the 9 lambs we’d drafted out yesterday and then Karola spent a couple of brave hours dealing with their dagginess. These were lambs: #003, #008, #009, #030, #032, #036, #039, #041, #045 who all had Cydectin drench (meat withholding, 10 days). To make it slightly worse, #008 (“boy”) had quite bad fly-strike which Karola also dealt with. In the process of this sheep work Karola sprained her thumb rather badly – to add to her damaged toe from when she fell into the fireplace in the dark in the cottage a couple of weeks ago.

Meanwhile picking the peaches began in the orchard – lots of noise and voices and vehicles rushing about.

Late afternoon Karola put up more electric fence for her ewes; she’s rationing out the Front paddock in strips to ease us through the summer.

The Cottage Refurbishment

I dropped Brett a note and he replied with the latest plans including the missing cross-section. I then contacted Grayson Allen, the heating expert and Karola and I went out to his place in Havelock North – out at 147 Wake Road – and dropped them off so he could get started over the weekend.

Weather: __°C—__°C; no rain [81.3] 06:30

Despite an early night, Karola and I had broken nights; Bicka again woke me to go outside at 1:30am though when she’d summoned me downstairs she didn’t really seem to want to venture out. Odd.

I unloaded one trailer load of logs from the fallen branch then did another load and a half. That’s my exercise for the day and it leaves maybe ten trips with the tractor to move the big, heavy logs.

Karola, to my surprise, offered to top the West paddock and so I set the tractor going and off she went; about two hours up and down in the sun. Before she started we lowered the mower skids to avoid cutting green edible grass and concentrate on the dry stalks. We rigged up a rope and pulley system in the plum tree to secure the mower while it was raised waist height so that I could get under it safely. It turned out that my model of how it worked was back to front; Karola was right again; it only takes about 5 minutes and I could do it by myself safely with just one large spanner and without the rope and pulleys.

Later in the day we yarded the lambs which Karola had chased into the island paddock this morning. We sorted out nine daggy devils for Karola’s attention and a drench tomorrow and we treated #024 who has a wound on its right front foot. Antibiotic spray and a bit of air into the wound and we’ll see if it stops limping – it’s been limping for several days now so that was overdue.

Rowena called in and collected some fruit Karola had procured to send to Rowena’s family up in Wairoa tonight.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today

Weather: 20°C—26°C; no rain [80.9] 06:30

SwimGym and then the plan was to mow the Front paddock at Karola’s request. To do that I had to move the piles of logs from the downed ranch to get to the mower with the tractor. So, I filled the trailer to overflowing with logs both from the area of the mower and other small, untidy piles around the garage. Then I mowed the Front paddock and Karola dispatched the thistles and put up an electric fence alleyway from the Orchard paddock down to the Macrocarpa so that her ewes could choose to rest in the shade should it prove very warm again.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today

Weather: 18°C—30°C; no rain [80.1] 06:30

Karola took down her miles and miles of electric fence from Craig’s place. The peach picking begins tomorrow and so the overhead wire taking electricity to next door had to go and it’d be hard to find a time when shepherding the ewes across the orchard drive would not be in the way.

Jeff Drinkwater is moving all the boxes of firewood and assorted stuff from along Craig’s boundary with us to a new depot in the area Alan Ladbrook has peaches and a lease across the road, in the ten acres Graham Velvin had across the road. Alan Ladbrook’s lease with Craig ends on March 20th and no-one knows whether the new owner, Frank Haywood, will want to continue it – unlikely as he is an ochardist himself. Malcolm, Craig’s brother and partner in “Mr Bean: hydroponics, says that the sale still awaits resolution of the water resource consent due this month.

Took four tractor bucket loads of broken bricks up to the big shed to fill a large pothole in front of the 3rd bay. Later I saw that Jeff Drinkwater, working for Alan Ladbrook, had removed some of this and put some strong broken, but flat, pieces of concrete down, making it level. An improvement.

I called Kerry of HB Tractor Dismantlers about the green mower, said to cost over $1000 in parts to fix. Kerry put me onto Monty Jones (027-285-5186) of Norwood Farm Machinery who may be interested. Monty came and had a look and has offered to take it back to their yard to see if anyone shows interest. That’s better than just taking it to the scrap metal merchant. Monty used to be an orchardist and packhouse owner, packing Graham Velvin’s, Fran Haywood’s, the Webb’s apples 15 years ago but sold up (fortuitously) before the lean years began.

Jenny and Noel Hendery came for dinner.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today

Weather: 13°C—24°C; no rain [80.6] 06:30