Monthly Archives: August 2011

Wintery day. Major effort to plant 31 willow sticks along the edge of the planting area directly in front of the big shed and orchard pump shed with the intent of blocking these from view from the cottage and the homestead, at least in the summer. The willow sticks are two metres long and 30-60 mm thick and had to be banged in about 500mm. even though the ground is soft it is hard work, made much easier by sharpening each stake as Karola suggested.

Weather:__°C—__°C; no rain [84.0] 05:48

SwimGym then visited Bridget Geenty in Hastings. Quiet afternoon; a bit of Ngaio weeding late afternoon. Karola did more tying of frost protection cloth on Ngaios and finished that for the existing Ngaios at risk.

Re Orchard keys: Two sets labelled “packing shed” have two keys, one for the door to the lockable bay of the shed, the other for the McNabb road gate. I’ve lent one of these sets to Alan Ladbrook, our orchardist. Two keys labelled “orchard gate” actually open only the padlock on the orchard drive entrance to Ormond Road.

Visited Bridget Geenty, 1005 Oliphant Road nr Stortford Lodge and looked at some of the design decisions she made on her house. we particularly like the vertical T&G boards up to chest height in the bathroom, instead of tiles. Cheaper than tiles and might be more in keeping for our cottage.

Weather:1°C—15°C; 0.2 mm rain [84.3] 05:48

Karola is fed up with sand coming into the house. I erred in covering the pathway to the back door with sand to make it smoother, the sand was too sharp and had no silt to bind it into a hard surface. Karola suggested wood mulch overlay and that has now been done.

The big excitement today was that Anna, Felix, and Barnaby were on the edge of some of the riots last night. They spent the evening and night with the lights all off and the doors locked upstairs in Anna’s bedroom- when Felix could be coaxed away from the window that is. Directly across the road the rioters trashed the Red Lion inn and a cookware shop next door, and set a small car alight on the road. Altogether too much excitement and totally unexpected. Anna had to go to work via South Ealing tube station because Ealing Broadway was shut due to being set on fire.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Roofers almost finished.

Karola and I went to see Sue (027-271-4728) or 06-857-8123 work) and Tom (027-264-5455 or 06-856-8138 home) Fargher’s house in Otane (#720, Hastings side of Otane cemetery) that has been refurbished and extended somewhat like the cottage. We particularly looked at kitchen (stainless steel sink bench; magic corner, drawers as cupboards, lighting), bathrooms (tiles, basins, shower, cupboards, bath – refurbished, very nicely done), ceilings (grooved plywood as recommended by Paul).

Weather:__°C—__°C; no rain [84.0] 05:48

SwimGym. Doctor’s appointment, regular quarterly diabetes check, then some food shopping.

A call from Matapou Orchard mid morning that they’d like to come and begin pruning the apple trees so Karola moved her lambs into the Orchard paddock and took down the kilometres of electric fence in the orchard. When I got back from town I helped and by lunchtime the lambs, the electric fence, and the water trough were all cleared away.

Late afternoon we continued weeding and frost protecting the 30 metres of small Ngaios along the orchard drive, hoping soon to be ready to plant the ones we bought last week . There was a frost last night and a more severe one forecast for tonight.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Roofers came today and there is roof on half the garage, the kitchen verandah, the kitchen and laundry, and half the walkway.

The newly milled weatherboard came today and now needs to be painted with primer on all four sides.

Weather:0°C—15°C; no rain [84.5] 05:48

Cold squalls and periods of weak sunshine today, not a good day for being outside.

Karola talked to Heather Gregory (orchard called Mahora Stud on Pakowhai Road) yesterday and discussed how we each had one goose that seemed to be a bit of a victim so maybe we should swap. So, this morning I caught the fiercest of our geese, the one that makes the exiled goose’s life so miserable, and bundled her into a sack and we took her down to Mahora Stud and let her go. We’ll see how that wrks out and maybe get a return swap at some point.

Later this morning Karola noticed that ewe #911 had a large abscess on her head – about the size of a golfball so I lanced it and we sprayed on antibiotic.

Rest of the day inside as each time I started to go out for some fresh air it started raining again – so I stayed inside and worked on the new web logs.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:-1°C—17°C; 5.2 mm rain [84.3] 05:48

Blustery but sunny day, mostly. I bought 30 “standards” for Karola’s netting fences that she’s planning to expand. Karola put up electric fence and let her ewes under the big oak and down the 121 drive. I collected up the tattered remains of the “prayer flags”, the frost protection cloth that was supposed to protect the Ngaios in the spot where year after year I plant and the frost kills. I am in the process of clearing the area, planting the eight new Ngaios I bought this week, surrounding with mulch, and binding in frost protection cloth. As part of that I removed the existing standards and wire for the front wire along the Ngaio strip; I think we’d have more success tying the cloth directly onto the trees.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:2°C—16°C; no rain [83.7] 05:48

SwimGym, breakfast. Later we had lunch in Hastings and then went to Greenleaf Nurseries and picked up 30 two metre willow poles to plant up by the big shed.

We put up an old saddle holder on the garage inside wall so Karola has somewhere to hang her garden hoses.

Bart Mulder (arborist) came round and gave Karola an estimate for tidying up the big oak tree and the Liriodenron. Under $2000 for a days work for three of them, however he’s booked up for next couple of months so it wouldn’t be before the sap starts rising and buds forming so, in practice, not till the summer. Meanwhile Karola will get an estimate from Steve X, another arborist, and Jeremy Cameron (Tricky Trees) wil come in a couple of weeks to do some tidying up.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Paul gave us the address and phone number of the people in Otane who recently refurbished their cottage and we expect to go and see it next week.
Bridget Geenty expects to take us to see a kitchen she designed in Hastings early next week.

Weather:-2°C—12°C; 0.1 mm rain [83.6] 05:48

Sunny day. Couple of hours mulching branches (Ngaio, Macrocarpa, Ribinia) in the afternoon. Karola also put mulch on some of her newly planted Karamu’s under the oaks.

Sadly the last of the bantams disappeared overnight. They have been disappearing one at a time every now and then and finally a lone red rooster vanished without trace. Not sure if it is just the hawk or maybe cats as well.

The Cottage Refurbishment

After discussions with Paul it is decided to replace the ceilings in the private bathroom (was always going to be Gibbed over anyway), dining room, and kitchen. The rafters are rather bowed and in order to straighten them using a steel U-bar the current TGV boards have to come off anyway.

Weather:3°C—15°C; 0.1 mm rain [83.4] 05:48

SwimGym, then I had regular eye specialist visit then we went to Napier to meet with Guardian Trust advisor Chris Day re Karola’s old trust accounts.

After lunch Karola went shopping and I dozed; later I began weeding the strip where the new Ngaios are to go, infilling where four previous attempts to grow Ngaios had only partially succeeded.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:6°C—13°C; 2.0 mm rain [83.6] 05:48

Karola penned sheep and waited for Bruce Richardson to come and give the ewes their 5-in-1 vaccine; she then spent several hours changing electric fences. The sheep are now back on the lawn for another night.

We went to Pernel’s for lunch and then went to Greenleaves Nursery and picked up 8 Ngaios, 7 purple AkeAke and 8 flax. Later I dug holes for the eight Ngaios – in-fill along the stretch of orchard drive where we’ve lost most previous plantings due to frost.

My 20 metres of frost protection material arrived today.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Nothing to report today.

Weather:3°C—14°C; no rain [83.2] 05:48

SwimGym at 6:30 am. Very cold, below freezing.

Bruce Richardson due tomorrow at 9:30 am to give Karola’s ewes their annual pre-lambing 5-in-1 vaccination. Tricky Trees (Jeremy Cameron) engaged to come out and do some tree work for us in next few weeks. Special challenge is for him to remove Dave Mitchell’s kite from the Liriodendron – fat chance :-). Quarterly diabetes blood test and Karola went to see her doctor about her medication.

Ordered 8 Ngaio, 7 purple Akeake, and 8 flax from Greenleaf Nurseries in Clive – should be here before the end of the week. Ordered online 20 metres of frost protection cloth for my new trees.

In the afternoon Karola disassembled a few miles of her electric fence in the orchard; we will be asked to leave the orchard for our orchardists any day now.

The Cottage Refurbishment

Chased down a supplier for the small free-standing wood burner we want, a Norwegian Jotul F 602. It is small, it has a flat top which you can cook on (in an emergency) and it is the ideal emergency backup in a power cut – warmth, food, hot water. We’ve bought the only one in the country according to “4 Seasons” in Wellington. Someone ordered it several months ago but to their dismay, when it arrived, they found it wasn’t allowed to be installed in an urban area -not clean enough. But as we are on a sufficiently large site and rural, apparently we can. It’s only $1200 dollars too whereas many of the others we looked at were $2000 or more. We expect to pick it up when we go down for Natalie’s birthday party, weekend of 12th August.

Wrote up a short spec for the windows and external doors and door frames we need a joiner to make so that Paul can get us a couple of quotes.

Weather:0°C—13°C; no rain [83.4] 05:48