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Monthly Archives: October 2011
Kitchen Planning Day
SwimGym.
Karola had a very hard day weeding, the weeds grow at a phenomenal rate at this time of year. I rewrote my program to incorporate Bridget’s suggestions, well I began the rewrite.
Mid afternoon Larry Mckenna called round as planned and we spent couple of hours designing the kitchen and laundry cabinetry. We decided on a change to have a stainless top in the laundry – a wooden top would not allow us to get the tub near the wall – the wood between the tub hole and the wall would be very weak. We’ve decided on a lazy susan in the corner with a bifold door for access. Plans are due back from Larry in a couple of days.
Oak Avenue Weather:9ββ22β no rain [81.6] 06:18
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Accursed Cookies
Beautiful day, sunny with gentle breeze, but I was inside most of the day working on adminstrivia. Meanwhile Karola was bustling about cleaning in the cottage and the garage office – all this in preparation for Anna and Bridget visits at Christmas. Good news, Bridget has said that, as Natalie’s school breaks up on 16th of December that family will all probably descend on us late on 16th, same time as Anna arrives from UK with her brace.
Henare Ormond called in on his bicycle and spent a couple of hours chatting with Karola and helping sweep the cottage.
I am smug having last weekend got the forms filled in and off to UK for my “state pension” and this evening having finished the online forms for New Zealand Super.
Karola bought four bright red big caster wheels last week and today I screwed them ever so firmly onto the little wooden pallet that the Jotul wood burner came on. Hey presto, a trolley for Karola, that’s bound to come in handy. For the record I also soldered the probe wire back onto Karola’s electric fence meter and made up a little LED spotlight. The spotlight has been running for several hours now and so my bulb test only has about 14,990 hours to go. It runs warm but not hot; one of the reasons I really like LEDs is that, unlike Halogen bulbs, the chance of starting a fire are negligible. The test light is a 3 watt 100-240 volt 15000 hours long life 3000k LED, (GU10 Base). It cost NZ$35 and the holder, which had to have a halogen bulb fitting, was $14. Made in China, the LED.
The cookies referred to in the title are a web programing thing that has had me going in circles for over a day. Talked it through with Bridget and problem solved though I had to accept some searching questions about my arcane and obscure programming habits. π
Oak Avenue Weather:10ββ22β no rain [81.4] 06:18
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Showers
Karola had a busy day – Federation of Graduate Women meeting and visiting old relations. She also put up miles and miles of electric fence both before and after her visiting. The sheep enjoyed the variety and strolled from end to end of the electrified lanes. I meanwhile struggled pleasantly with my little program – a web-based form intended to update the water meter readings held by the Hawkes Bay Regional Council.
Oak Avenue Weather:10ββ20β 2.5mm rain [81.5] 06:18
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Glazing Underway – Plumbing and Electrician Really Motoring
SwimGym then mainly stuff to do with the cottage as noted on the cottage journal.
Steve of ChemWash came and sluiced down the two homestead verandahs and the balcony. Looks much improved if you ignored where the cat had decided to deposit the minute the washing had stopped. Grrr.
We went into Hastings in the afternoon, visiting stove shops, and Karola dropped in on the pre-view for the closing down auction of all items in the Hastings Club. She set up a small bid for an old map of Hawkes Bay.
Oak Avenue Weather:12ββ16β 0.2mm rain [81.1] 06:18
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Woodburner Strife – Otherwise Great Cottage Progress
Mostly stuff to do with the cottage as noted on the cottage journal.
It looks more and more certain that we will have to either get another woodburner or give up on having a fire altogether in the cottage because of the stringent Hawkes Bay regulations. Can’t really blame the shop I bought it from as they, in good faith, assured me it met national regulations, we being in a rural area and on a property larger than two hectares. They were not to know Hawkes Bay had taken stronger measures.
And it gets worse. In my attempt to get Karola a real small (12oz) hickory handled claw hammer to replace the one she lost I went via my account with myus.com. They, as I’ve mentioned before, act as a proxy for people not living in the USA wanting to obtain goods available in the USA. As I’ve also mentioned I had previously sent something to Anna and not changed the delivery address back to our place here and – according to the online account details – my package for Karola was about to be posted when I caught the address error and e-mailed and online-chat alerted myus.com of my mistake. Unfortunately it didn’t get processed for 24 hours and had been delivered to DHL before myus.com could catch up with it. They said they’d probably caught it in time and there’d likely be no charge for rerouting the package. Already the UK freight cost was $40.00.
Imagine today my delight when the myus.com person said that actually DHL had sent it on its way before they were contacted but that they had now rerouted it and charged me $230 for the pleasure – another $230 on top of the $40. I am pretty livid that they could, without any consultation, reroute at such a cost for an item labelled as having value of $20. I am still pretty cross. On top of a wasted $1500 for the wood burner I’m feeling a bit put-apon. I have sent rahter un-calm e-mail to myus.com and cancelled my credit card with them so I can’t get any similar extra charges applied – and I’ve threatened to refuse to accept the package, assuming DHL will try to return it and charge even more for that. Quite annoying.
Oak Avenue Weather:10ββ12β 12.3 rain [81.8] 06:18
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Programming Reprieve
SwimGym then mainly stuff to do with the cottage as noted on the cottage journal.
I’ve been going at this screen-scraping programming task for well over a week and have only just got through the first page, logging on programmatically. The future looked murky so I called up the Hawkes Bay Regional Council “water lady”, Jo Rodgers (06 833 8043) and asked if I could talk perhaps to the person who programmed their water use recording system. Karola had talked to Jo in the recent past about getting her meter readings into the HBRC system.
Jo put me through to a suspiciously named Mark Rodgers (06-835-6798). I told him what I’d been trying to do – to carve out a simplified gateway for Karola to be able to put her meter readings in via iPad or iPhone, and said that “his server logs to the contrary” the repeated attempts to access his system from my IP address were merely me trying to get the screen scraping to work, not someone trying to break in.
Mark asked if I’d any association with the Ministry of Works “Vogel Computer Centre”; I said only the guy who used to run it, Tony Fletcher. Mark knows Tony. He asked if perhaps I had known Steve Thompson. Ha, the Steve Thompson of NIWA with his special program called TiDeDa. Β Turns out that Mark used to work for Steve on that exact program. And yes, Jo is Mrs Mark Rodgers. Small world.
I now have username and password for a much simplified official entry to the water meter database and my (self-imposed) task of making a simple gateway for Karola suddenly looks achievable, simple, and fun.
Oak Avenue Weather:9ββ25β 9.1mm rain [82.3] 06:18
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Knee Deep In Fodder
Some of Karola’s sheep trying to get the lawn a little under control before “Garden Groom”, who I think hibernated for the winter, comes, after many weeks absence, to give it a good trim. Hawkes bay grass only grows on what the airlines choose to call the “shoulders” of the seasons, but when it grows, it certainly does grow.
I called Hugh Winder in Feilding today and ordered a ram for Christmas. (06-328-8710 Makino Road, RD9, Feilding 4779). He says he has a couple of 4-tooth rams held over from last year and one of them might suit us.
Nothing exciting today – me still fairly befuddled by my programming task, involving (probably vain) attempts to screen-scrape a local govt website, a site using horrifically complicated Microsoft “active server pages” programming. We did pop into Stortford Lodge for my regualr blood test and to visit the post office, sending off my precious claim for a UK State Pension, and Karola’s claim too. It all goes to the NZ Govt anyway as they have first dibs on any overseas pension entitlements up to the limit of their fairly generous “superannuation”.
Oak Avenue Weather:5ββ26β no rain [81.3] 06:18
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Sir Lancelot
SwimGym. Breakfast.
We got the sheep in the yards mid morning and I did some repairs:
- Lanced a large abscess in #940’s cheek – photo not for the squeamish
- Trimmed up the feet of #725 and #726 as Karola thinks one of them may be the big limper of a few days ago.
- Karola applied powder to the ears of a couple of ewes (#005 and #009) who had been shaking their heads a lot. Sometimes they get some sort of mite in their ears and it upsets them a lot
The sheep are now into the Front paddock and enjoying the lush pasture there.
Oak Avenue Weather:9ββ21β no rain [81.2] 06:18
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“R” Is For Rugby
Well, almost time and in a couple of hours it’ll be all over for another 4 – or maybe 24 years. Anna is up and, with Felix, in a pub with a good breakfast and a big screen.
Karola and I have been grappling with the paperwork of “being 65”. “Mustn’t grumble”, as they used to say on black-and-white gritty TV dramas, but can you account easily for every single day you were in one country or another over your whole working life? If so, then maybe you haven’t been out a lot, or you are immensely well organised. So we sit down to see what all that “Rugby World Cup” stuff is about with the self-satisfied knowledge that we’ve filled in one UK Pensions form and also done Karola’s GST for August/September. Apart from that rather a quiet day. Oh, and no programming at all today.
Oak Avenue Weather:8ββ16β no rain [81.3] 06:18
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Programming Heaven
Another day of total immersion in my program and tiny forward movements. 50-50 my inattention and oddities and bugs in the tools I’m using that are so unexpected they take me hours to track down. Still it amuses me and time flies. Bit boring for Karola though. Another few days and I’ll either have it mostly working or I’ll admit defeat. In a phrase, my puzzle is how to screen-scrape a web application written with AJAX and Microsoft’s Active Server Pages – fiendish. With a little effort they could have made it impossible to do but tonight it’s looking just about crackable.
Sheep on the back drive and lawn again; the grass is growing like crazy.
Oak Avenue Weather:6ββ14β no rain [81.4] 06:18
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Runners-Up Night
SwimGym – it didn’t open til 7:00am this morning so was a little more crowded than usual.
A holiday in Hawkes Bay and the last day of the Hawkes Bay Show at the Hastings Showgrounds.
Karola put up miles of electric fence along the 121 driveway and lawn, fencing off various precious groups of trees and shrubs. This extended the lawn enclosure Karola gave the ewes and lambs earlier. I went round in circles, programming. Bridget dug me out of a couple of holes.
Oak Avenue Weather:12ββ25β 5.6mm rain [82.4] 06:18
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The New “Clean Desk” Policy Has A Way To Go
The homestead garage – about as tidy as it gets. No lack of visual stimulation here. You can’t see the two pairs of Welcome swallows who each year try to nest up in the rafters. This isn’t ideal as they end up getting shut in for many hours at a time so I assume they never hatch any eggs, pity we can’t communicate with them and point that out.
Karola Kiwi Ingenuity
Karola watering some of her Coprosma under the oaks by using a bust sprinkler turned upside down (see the hose going in from the top) on top of an old 44 gallon plastic drum.
More Karola Kiwi Ingenuity
Who needs $100s spent on candelabra when one can just string up a couple of ordinary lamps on an old kitchen pot-holder. This room, the old apple room in the homestead, has no light fittings but at last has plenty of light.
Karola woke to find one of her more muscular male(ish) lambs had escaped through the electric fence and now each time it, feeling excluded, tried to get back in it got a shock. Amused the workforce – but then what other purpose do we have – that and the remuneration.
Oh yes, Karola lost her favourite little claw hammer some weeks ago and she’s fretting so, there being no such thing available in local shops (Karola tried) or online in NZ (I tried) I secretly ordered a rather elegant hickory handled hammer from USA online. I bought it with a credit card and had it shipped to my “myus.com” physical address in the USA. I was duely notified that said item had been received in Saragosa
What is wrong with this picture …
Yes – the last time I used myus.com I sent a dainty floral parasole to Anna in Ealing from me and Karola for her birthday – Le Sportsac of course. Oops – but I think we’ve caught it in time and Anna will not be reading anything sinister in the arrival of a 12oz wooden handled claw hammer.
Another comedic act tonight. Karola had an old bottle lamp she wanted to rewire and, after seeing her lethal-looking attempts, I did that a couple of days ago. The shade is tall and cylindrical and we attached a piece of old lighting cable to the fitting and made up a 2-meter cord with a simple in-line switch about a foot away from the lamp. Today I hear that the light isn’t working – various bulbs and various power points have been tried. So I try again, rewiring with some fresh(er) cable. The plug and in-line rocker switch were brand new. As I completed the rewiring I casually said, “do you see the switch on the fitting – you don’t think that might have somehow been turned off and then hidden by the shade …..” Ah well, it does you good to do a bit of electrical wiring occasionally, even for people called Geoff.
Oak Avenue Weather:6ββ19β no rain [82.0] 07:35
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Lawn Mowing – Job Done
SwimGym. Then a robust discussion about aspects of the cottage which led to Karola being 15 mins late for her haircut appointment.
So, encouraged by a little prompting from Karola I mowed the goose paddock. It takes under three hours if you don’t count repairing the damage to fences, trees, water troughs and the like, and is very noisy, very dusty, and a bone-jolting ride. The end result is pretty good though and I’ll have stopped shaking (more than usual) in a couple of days.
To the (largely concealed) amusement of the workforce, the first thing I did when mowing was to mow over the alkethene pipe feeding a sheep trough – water pouring out and pipe flailing round and plastic connectors flying through the air. Ah well, at least no fences or tree guards or hidden metal posts mashed up this time.
Later afternoon Ray Deed from Action Aerials (021-252-0061) came round and tested for line of sight if the Sky dish were repositioned on the north side of the cottage garage. No go. It’s not the direction so much as the height of the Canary Island Pine blocking reception. The dish needs to be at least as far south as the southern end of the kitchen verandah where it seems to be pointing right at a large oak tree but actually is pointing way above it. So, bang go my plans for the RG-6 aerial cable running from the garage to the living room and I better stop the security alarm guy from stocking up on RG-6 etc.
Oak Avenue Weather:7ββ18β 5.0mm rain [82.2] 06:18
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The New Stairs Have Arrived
Another action-packed day.
First I went yet again to stand and stare at the evolving cottage but this time, having started in a fairly grumpy mood, as I looked at the south wall I felt something was wrong. I tracked it down to a difference in height of the visible weatherboard up the side of the bedroom window and the bathroom window. They are not level. I checked and checked; despite all our effort to get a matching and aligned 6/6 double-hung sash window in the bathroom, replacing the quite serviceable windows that were there just for this original effect, and they are not level.
Upshot is that builder Paul, when asked to take a look, agreed that the sill on the new window was about half an inch thinner than it should be. So, he offered to undo it all and take it back to the joiner, “PJ” to make it right. Later it transpired that “PJ” had known he’d got it a bit wrong but thought he’d see if we noticed and cared. Grrrrrr.
Next we sorted out the issue of who was or had put sealant on the new stairs. Upshot was that through large amounts of miscommunication painter Brett, in good faith, has sealed the stairs and rendered it impossible to do them with oils the way Karola wants the floors done. Decorator Phil (Freeman) says he can likely use the couple of litres of special oil he ordered last night somewhere else, in response to my offer to pay for them, as I said, wanting to be clear that we hadn’t chosen our decorator to do the floors yet and I’d be asking for quotes nearer the time.
I phoned TV aerial installer Ray and he confirmed that all I needed for going from dish to decoder was ordinary RG-6 cable. Ray will come round briefly in next couple of days to test whether we can site the dish on the side of the garage, missing the Canary Island Pine in our alignment for the satellite. He can come much later to actually move the dish and add Freeview to it.
Then security alarm installer Paul came and sort-of agreed that he had used the wrong cable but then said that he actually needed a cable with 8 wires and not 4 – the first I’d heard of it. Anyway I offered to pay for RG-6 cable if he removes the now unnecessary telephone cable he was supposed to use and lays the TV cable for me, including through the short underground conduit between the garage and the cottage. If that works out then I’m actually slightly better off in that I get the TV aerial cable which I completely forgot about threaded through the conduit and laid from garage to living room. We shall see.
Then mid afternoon the stairs arrived and were manhandled, with difficulty, through the nearest big window opening, into place. They are magnificent.
… and amidst the showers it is nice to see that everything is growing “flat tacks” as this nice display of Wysteria and Banksia rambling roses shows. We are lucky indeed.
Oak Avenue Weather:4ββ21β 2.5mm rain [82.2] 06:18
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Lurching From Crisis to Crisis
SwimGym. Β The fuzzy photo below is in part at least due not just to my incompetence but to the relatively primitive camera technology of my aged iPhone. Bridget and I are daring each other to get an iPhone 4S; we’re already enjoying the iMessage stuff from the latest system software, IOS5 which we installed on our iPads over the weekend. I might prefer the next generation of iPad though – it’s due sometime early next year. The better pictures are taken with the Sony DSC-W70 Cybershot Karola and I share – and the fuzziness of those photos Karola attributes 100% to my incompetence.
Karola asked Mark Hendery to come and help her today. They moved a trailer-load of saved timber on the east homestead verandah up to the big shed so that ChemWash can come and clean the outside of the homestead in preparation for Anna’s visit. Then they went off planting trees bought months ago and surprisingly still alive.
Meticulous Maids (Edith and Jenny) came this afternoon and cleaned the homestead.
These inquisitive youngsters are in essence teenagers: demanding, endlessly energetic, a real pain to their mums and extremely thoughtless with no regard to the wisdom of age. And on that note of wysteria, I found I was missing my dog quite badly last night when I went down for a late night snack and into the dining room and there was no friendly little tricolour muzzle to look up at me from her bed on the chaise longue.
As for todays mishaps:
Firstly the guy who put in the wires for the cottage security monitors used one of my Cat5E cables instead of a telephone cable – 8 wires instead of 4 but they do look very similar. I remember saying loudly, clearly, slowly and with emphasis that there were four cables, two were for my LAN and two were telephony cables and he could use one of theΒ telephonyΒ ones. He’s chopped it short now and Β I don’t really want to have a joined-up LAN cable. <sigh>.
Secondly, I talked to Tony Page and he said he’s like to say that our stairs were finished β¦ but he actually still had a little bit to do. He said the same last week, odd that. Anyway, knowing that builder Paul had asked painter Brett to polyurethane the stairs while they were at the joinery, I told Tony that we were considering other finishes and I asked Β Tony for the name of someone he recommended as expert in the options available. He sent us to Phil Freeman of Freeman Decorators. Aside: I have the sense that this outfit is never knowingly underpriced – but their work is highly regarded by all sorts of people who are spending other people’s money – like the district council’s refurbishment of Stoneycroft, Lottery money for St Matthews church, and assorted “big houses” around the region.
So, we went and talked to Phil Freeman – very personable and knowledgeable and he could help with protecting the stairs, refurbishing the cottage floors, and putting hard wearing coats on the wooden benches to be made for the kitchen and laundry. Β He is a lot closer than the expert in Masterton, Paul Winstanley (“The English Craftsman”) and the “4th Generation” bench top makers also in Masterton, but may not be much cheaper. In any case we asked him to pop over and get our new Eucalypt saligna stairs sealed before they leave the joinery; he went off to order the brew, a brew he thinks would be good for the existing floors as well – maintains the patina of age you lose when you sand the floors.
And the less good news; even though builder Paul and joiner Tony knew of our plans it appears that painter Brett actually went to the joinery this morning -maybe Tony wasn’t there – and polyurethaned the stairs anyway. Ah well.
Also this morning we went to an electrical supplies wholesaler in Hastings, Corys, and, as recommended by architect Les, looked at the cavity recess cages for, eg, wll mounted TVs to stop the cable connector and power lead sticking out. The best they had, intended for twin power sockets, Β was $60 for a flimsy piece of plastic and tiny strip of galvanised plate. Ridiculous.
Oak Avenue Weather:12ββ19β 0.9mm rain [82.8] 06:18
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All Blacks Win Through
Another day mostly inside. Henere Ormond came yesterday, which I forgot to report, and karola and he had afternoon tea and spoke at length about family matters and Henere’s champion badminton playing son, Scott.
A pair of quail are scooting around the back door – pretty shy but it’s nice to see them back for another year. And there are several pairs of colourful pheasants too.
Oak Avenue Weather:3ββ19β no rain [81.9] 06:18
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Showers
Inside all day programming except for half an hour late afternoon when I expected to begin some more mowing but it was just too moist – and it started drizzling again while I was out. Karola went shopping in the morning and she too spent the afternoon inside. Bridget and I help each other when we get stuck with our programs but it’s pretty boring for Karola.
Oak Avenue Weather:6ββ20β 3.4mm rain [82.1] 06:18
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Batts Underneath It All
SwimGym and then a morning just finishing up the various plans – the plan for the positions of the radiators and the security keypad etc. Meanwhile Karola went next door and took down 60 metres of chicken netting that was the last part of her temporary fence – I’d forgotten about it when we took down the main section of sheep netting.
I called Copas re the plumbing quote – they’ve had the information since 6th October. It happened that I got David Hall, the electrical manager so I said I’d send him the specs and plans for Phase II. He said they were “keen as mustard” to quote. Β Also called Grayson Allen re the heating and he promises to get back to us over the weekend. Called Tony Page re the stairs several times but the line was engaged. Talked briefly to Les about the Phase II electrical plans and, as he promised, he got back with some comments by the end of the day.
Karola dropped off the old stove at The Stove Shop then we went on to lunch at Taste in Hastings. Afterwards we looked at light fittings in a couple of shops and picked up the (allegedly) fixed lawn mower and cruised past Tony Page’s Cedarville Joinery to see how our stairs were getting on – no-one home. I spent the afternoon on a spot of web programming; how quickly one forgets.
High Comedy: Just as we were about to return home I got a call from Christchurch to say that our security alarm had gone off. Well, was it burglars, or the Welcome Swallows trying fruitlessly to nest yet again in the garage, or had the cat snuck in and been shut in? Β On the off-chance I accosted the workforce on the building site and, to my surprise, got a confession. Builder Paul was most crestfallen. He’d been discussing the new garage door with a garage door rep. and they’d wanted to see what our existing door was like. Unfortunately (for him) one of the garage side doors had been left unlocked by mistake. Thinking he was in luck he escorted the visitor into the garage – then all hell broke loose. He didn’t have my cell phone number with him and so they just had to wait it out until the sirens gave up. Christchurch (Armourguard) had switched them off when I said I was on my way home. Paul’d imagined screaming police sirens, diving helicopters, and menacing SWAT teams – no such luck but the sirens are loud enough.
Matthew obviously drew a very short straw today. He spent hours putting Batts insulation underfloor, as you can see in the photo. Meanwhile his Dad, Paul, put the finishing touches on his refurbishment of the retained 6/6 double hung sash windows.
Selection of Light Shades
Unique Lighting Ltd
408 Warren Street North, Hastings
06-878-3604
They do bespoke lighting fixtures and shades, restore old lights, and repair lights. Not all their lights are esthetically repugnant, not all β¦
I found much more variety, a much larger stock, but less to like in The Lighting Shop, one of Karola’s haunts in the city of Hastings.
From the Unique Lighting shop …
Oak Avenue Weather:5ββ21β no rain [82.4] 06:18
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Free Stove Actually Works
Karola was given this stove because her old second hand one rusted through and the oven just plain stopped working. This one was given (relatively) clean bill of health by John Burnard, electrician, this morning.Β This morning I wrote the text to accompany theCottage Electrics Phase IIΒ diagrams, gave John a copy to quote on, and sent one to Les too for comment.
The trusty DSC W70 Sony Cybershot is playing up – the pictures are fuzzy and overexposed – I’m hoping it has just been joggled and if I find a way to reset it to factory settings it may return to giving those very clean, clear, and true to life colour images we’ve had in the past.
Ecomist man called while Karola was out at a Federation of Graduate Women meeting – no, not the Economist, but Ecomist – the automatic spray system that keeps ants, cockroaches, and flies more or less under control using pyrethrum, not DDT.
The grass and everything else is growing very fast now. I spent a couple of hours mowing nettles and Iris in the Middle and Island paddocks in the hope that some ordinary grass might choose to flourish instead.
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Bridget talks to me every now and then as she programs a serious makeover of her web based project tracking tool. It's beginning to look very professional.
Oak Avenue Weather:7ββ22β 3.6mm rain [82.8] 06:18
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Electrics Plan Complete
SwimGym then I finished the electrics plan for the cottage, Karola reviewed it (again), I made the requested changes, we went over to the cottage and, with builder Paul, just checked that things were as they should be. Had to move a wall light that didn’t have a wall to light from, so updated the plan again. Finally I shot a copy off to Les and immediately found that I’d missed off the heated mirror in the bathroom.
Builder Paul came over to talk about the vent we wanted in the bathroom, from above the shower right across to the kitchen verandah and out under the eaves. He was sure that it would only work with a small fan – so we added that to the electrical plan. This is going to run and run, I can tell. Anyway I’ve made tables of the numbers of lights, switches, and power points per room.
John Burnard, our usual electrician, is coming tomorrow morning to change Karola’s stove which is broken, only three elements work and the oven is rusted through. Karola was given an old, rusty oven and she thinks it’ll be worth wiring in as a replacement. John needs to have the electrics plans so he can submit a quote for doing it. All very “just in time” if not “just too late”.
Karola and I took down the netting fence in the neighbours – 120m of netting, standards and a temporary gateway. We have finished with neighbourly grazing for now.
LAMBS PLAY ON THE EARTH LEFT OVER FROM BURYING THE NEW SEPTIC TANK
RATHER NICE NEW BACK DOOR AND KITCHEN VERANDAH DOORS WITH TRANSOM WINDOWS ABOVE
Oak Avenue Weather:14ββ19β 0.3mm rain [82.4] 06:18
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Tuesday Already
Another day of working on electrics plan for the cottage and also following up on the options for our central heating. Karola looked after her sheep and mainly gardened with a shopping expedition mid day. Steve of ChemWash came and gave a quote for washing down the homestead – something we want to do before Anna arrives in December and something made more difficult as the Wysteria foliage increases.
Oak Avenue Weather:14ββ19β 4.8mm rain [82.6] 06:18
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Sheep Shorn
Robin is an old codger that Bruce Richardson has hired for a bit of relief shearing; he spent the afternoon shearing Karola’s 35 woolly ewes and vaccinating the lambs.
Yes, yes. I watched all the quarter final rugby games, wasting the evening two nights running. Won’t it be great when it’s over, this Rugby World Cup.
Oak Avenue Weather:11ββ17β 3.3mm rain [83.4] 06:18
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Plug Wiring 101
Rather desultory day, me inside and Karola out weeding etc. Highlight of the day was fixing some light fittings so Karola could festoon the ceiling in the Apple Room with lights and see what she’s doing. Her huge piles of papers and books etc are not so easily navigated in the semi-dark – the Apple Room has no lights, just a couple of power points.
Oak Avenue Weather:8ββ14β no rain [83.4] 06:18
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More Diagramming For Cottage Electrics
Computing most of the day for me; Karola continued weeding outside and transplanting Foxgloves from waste area to her patch of Karamus under the oaks. In the afternoon she went shopping. Meanwhile Steve of Hawkes Bay Tree Surgeons and a mate came round to see the effects of their pruning of the trees now that the leaves were coming out.
Oak Avenue Weather:5ββ18β 0.7mm rain [82.6] 06:18
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Lighting And Power Points (real PowerPoints)
SwimGym. Then spent rest of the day continuing with Sketchup to create the plans for the positions of lights and power points in the cottage. Good progress, I have the next round of the plans complete and we’ll be able to mull them over tomorrow.
Meanwhile Karola put her sheep next door for a few days grazing and went shopping. Peter Cousins, who went to School with Harry & Kas at Lindisfarne in Hastings, dropped by with his partner, by arrangement, to talk about the history of the Avenue and the homestead.
Oak Avenue Weather:4ββ15β 3.1mm rain [82.8] 06:18
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Last Of The Undocked
Too damp to shear today but as Karola had the sheep and lambs in the area we put them in the yards and I docked three lambs. One, #158R is the last lamb to be born this year, son of #673. The other two were somehow missed when we did the docking, #111E and #112R. They’re older than we usually like to dock but so far no bad consequences.
Rest of the day Karola spent out in the garden and I spent on my plans for the cottage security, plumbing, telephony, and electrics. I’ve finished the plan drawings for the first three and sent off e-mails; I’ve started on reconciling the plan Karola and I made last week on lighting and power sockets with Les’ comments made when Les reviewed our proposals in situ.
Oak Avenue Weather:7ββ18β no rain [82.3] 06:18
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Crooked Chimney
SwimGym – which is really good for morale, getting going so early (compared to my natural “night owl” timing) and having a smidgen of healthy exercise. I must admit that while I am pretty much marking time, Karola has lost weight and is looking good – she swims 30 – 40 lengths in the hour while I do my mild workout on various instruments of torture. In fact the most tortuous thing is the blasted TV and radio programme – two TV programs on three TVs and a separate local radio chat show.
This morning we took an elm baulk down to “PJ” at Stead’s workshop to see if he’d make the doorstep for the garage door out of it. Unfortunately Karola thought of doing this after the doorsteps for the double verandah doors and the main back door were finished. Thanks to builder Paul we do have a really old, weathered doorstep for the front door; it came from the cottage back door. We’ll have the pine doorsteps painted but leave the old Kauri doorstep and the new garage elm doorstep unpainted.
We continued on to Tony Page’s Cedarville Joinery workshop and admired our stairs – they’re almost complete and the wood looks very fine despite the top step having a small thin crack in it. We dropped off a couple of elm baulks there to remind Tony he’s to make our wooden benches for the kitchen and laundry. We’ve decided to try and use the elm for both the kitchen bench tops and the laundry bench top.
Today we decided to have the woodburner’s chimney go out through the living room wall into the front verandah and from there up through the verandah roof. This requires a hole through the inner and outer wall cladding but seems much less damaging than making a hole in the living room ceiling, the otherwise fine Kauri floor upstairs, the ceiling upstairs, the batts and the under-roof paper and out through the brand new roof. Brett, the architect technician, wouldn’t hear of it when Karola first suggested it as the flu comes out next to the sliding door into the sun porch. But, as it will emerge on the outside wall above our heads I don’t think we need to worry.
Karola got her six ewes and thirteen lambs back from next door in preparation for shearing the ewes and dosing the lambs tomorrow. It was all supposed to happen today but showers overnight made the wool too wet. Lambs will get 5-in-1 vaccine for Tetanus, Pulpy kidney and three other pestillences, and combiTape drench for tapeworms and other internal parasites.
Oak Avenue Weather:11ββ17β 0.3mm rain [82.7] 06:18
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Apple Trees In Leaf
Thank goodness the Kiwi dollar is finally weakening compared to the USA dollar as we have some big bills coming in for the cottage this month. I spoke to Kyle White in BNZ (04-474-6053) who has arrange the liberation of some funds later this month.
Gary Paton arrived with the refurbished bath (photos on Cottage journal) and it looks splendid.
Roofing man returned and exchanged the temporary downpipes for the real thing. One downpipe, next to the walkway, needed a knee join to align with its pipe into the stormwater drain. Apparently builder Paul pointed out to the drain-layers that it wasn’t lined up at the time so I am curious as to why it needed to be offset from the gutter opening. I spent the morning on more plans, this time for the non-electrical cabling, for the telephone, security alarms, and LAN.
It’s well into spring here as the in-leaf apple trees affirm. Β Karola was offered some grazing next door before they plough it up for a crop in a month’s time. The O’Kane’s are doing the cropping and Frank Haywood (father-in-law of the owners) suggested Karola’s sheep might usefully reduce the top cover before it was ploughed. Apparently long grass clogs up the implements.
Β Oak Avenue Weather:10ββ21β 3.4mm rain [82.8] 06:18
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Lighting Challenges
SwimGym as usual. There is no apparent pattern to when the gym and pool are busy or almost empty; they certainly aren’t coordinated. More often than not the pool is emptier before 7:00am and the gym often empties after 7:00am.
I called Grayson Allen and reminded him he owes us a quote for the heat pump and radiators for the cottage. I sent an e-mail to Larry McKenna, “Classic Kitchens” and “Residential Joinery Ltd”, confirming that we would like him to help design our kitchen and provide the cabinetry for the kitchen, laundry, and bathroom. I sent him my Sketchup plans. We know he’s fully booked up for the next couple of weeks so will have to work round that.
Bridget forwarded an e-mail today from Chris. It points out how hazardous the new low-energy compact fluorescent lamps are if broken. Unfortunately LEDs are still very expensive for use in domestic lighting.
Karola did several hours weeding and went shopping including quite a lot of time in lighting shops, trying to find a least worst light fitting and finding that even the most heavily promoted New Zealand lighting suppliers are actually just merchants hawking Asian goods. We have 40 light fittings and 36 double plugs on our current electrical plan for the cottage.
Gary Patton called to say he’d finished refurbishing the bath and will bring it round tomorrow.
Karola and I finished replacing the temporary netting fence round the front of the cottage; Karola banged the standards in; I provided expert advice and encouragement on placement, ramming style, depth of standards etc – and incidentally held the netting off to one side while she rammed.
Oak Avenue Weather:11ββ18β 6.1mm rain [82.7] 06:18
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So Many Choices, So Many Decisions, But It WIll Be So Well Worth It
Very mild day but overcast. Karola went to the Hastings Farmers Market, bringing back various delicious fresh vegetables and I know not what else. Karola put her sheep on the lawn for the afternoon but as there’s plenty of grass everywhere only a few took up the invitation. Β Now that the drains and waste management system have been dug in we put back the temporary netting fence round the back of the cottage.
Being the first Sunday in the month it’s “backup day” so I copied Karola and my Mac to external disk.
Karola vacuum cleaned the cottage which she tries to do each weekend. We discussed cottage matters and measured this and that; it is shaping up to be a most delightful place.
This photo probably gives the best one-shot view of our new, but untested, modern-day septic tank.
The “Your Windows Computer Needs Our Help” Scam
Gill, Mary, and I have all received telephone calls from foreign persons suggesting they have heard our Windows computer is in trouble and offering to help.
Yesterday I heard from a friend in Wellington, an ordinary straight-forward user of a PC for e-mail and writing documents, not a computer geek by any means. They had been taken in by the technical jargon and authoritative tone of the caller and had ended up paying and making some changes to their computer as directed by the voice on the phone. The scammers came “back to the well”, saying the money had not arrived, at which point suspicion was aroused and a quick trip to the bank got cards cancelled etc.
However their computer is still probably compromised, even though they only turn it on for maybe half an hour a day. Thankfully they do not engage in online banking or buying things online so the worst is probably averted. Identity theft from the accumulated e-mails is still a possibility. They are going to buy an Apple computer as their children advise these have fewer such problems.
I remarked to my last scam caller that she had not chosen the best household to ring to assert I had trouble with my Windows computer and would she please be patient as I was having the police trace her call. For some strange reason she rang off.
Oak Avenue Weather:14ββ22β no rain [84.0] 06:18
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Drains & Mains, The CoverUp
After yesterday’s excitement, a day now to relax a bit and update our electricity plan for the cottage. Elms brought a small truckload of gravel this morning, as requested, and covered the spots dug up for drains and mains. Karola gardened and I worked on my (limited) Sketchup skills.
Bridget and family went to the France-Samoa rugby match, her first actual attendance. Anna got to a local pub with a big screen in time for the second half of the Scotland-England game. Karola and I saw most of both matches while having dinner and doing gentle Sudokus.
Oak Avenue Weather:8ββ16β no rain [83.6] 06:18
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