Monthly Archives: July 2012

A new day. Bit overcast and mostly raining.  Chores in the morning plus a walk with Bramble then some solid work on writing my special shopping list – for the things I’ll need for my online course on simple electronics.

I found I already had most of the tools I need but I lacked the materials, the resistors and transistors and capacitors etc. So, in the afternoon Bramble and I went to the Vehicle testing place to get a new WOF holder for Karola’s little trailer, to B&H for the machine screws for the course, and to Mitre-10 for (a sensible suggestion) a small 600mmx600mm piece of thin MDF to do the soldering on, to prevent damaging the desktop. While there we also got a hand magnifying lens, a keyhole saw, and a small, cheap plastic box with many little drawers – for the resistors, transistors, capacitors etc.

The on to the main event, Jaycar for a couple of hours getting 8 of these and 4 of those – mostly under a dollar each. Now I’m equipped to begin my online course – oh except that it requires lemons. Luckily (see below) we have an abundance of lemons, even a couple on the new lemon tree Karola planted.

Bramble is not getting any worse at sitting and lying down. On the other hand …

Builder Paul Libby called to ask for the name of the preparation Karola used on her wood. I told him it was Haarlem, Danish Finish – from a tin in the cottage garage.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—10℃ 16.4mm rain [81.1]

SwimGym

Then, after the obligatory feeding of the animals etc, off to town, Napier this time. Napier because I went to Classic Kitchens, who designed and built our kitchen sink and cabinets and drawers, taking with me the left-most laundry cabinet door, the one under the tub. They have agreed to cut a 120mm slice off the end nearest the hinge and join the two pieces with another pair of hinges. This is so that Karola can use that cupboard by having most of the door fold right back, unimpeded by the radiator which today blocks that cupboard door at the hinge end.

I also dropped into Mitre-10 and bought a pair of parliamentary hinges – hinges that swing both ways. At some point, I hope before the prevailing gales rip the gates off their unparliamentary hinges, I’ll try fitting these on one gate. If that works I’ll do the other.

Went to the old Woolworths now aka Countdown in Napier for todays food.

Swept the cottage – the results can be seen below. Methinks the lady doth shed too much.

Yvonne and her son, Karola’s nephew, Francis dropped in on their way from Gisborne to Feilding. Francis to pick up his four alloy rims I’d picked up from a local shop for him; Yvonne to give me some family history photos – mainly black-and-white photos of Karola by the looks, grimacing in her equestrian clothes. Interesting thing is that Kaz, Yvonne’s deceased husband and Karola’s brother, has a Maori feather cloak that Kaz alleged was handed down from Nancy (presumably Wilson) who obtained it through her work with scouts and guides and a personal relationship with Bade-Powell. Nice story.

I washed Brambles bed blankets today and the dog hairs overflowed the clothes dryer filter – photo below. Click on a photo to see it enlarged, if you’ve the stomach for it.

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—13℃ 10.5mm rain [80.7]

Day began with a sharp frost. The sun came up and it was a beautiful day. Bramble training continues, emphasizing ‘sit’ and ‘lie down’.

Most of the day spent on my WiFi project and I did replicate the good result that Graham Harvey and I had a week ago. One box is in the pumpshed and one in the garage peering out of the window and I can browse and download onto my laptop in the pumpshed using this connection.

Lunch today consisted of the potato and carrot left from Jenny’s meal last night plus tarakihi fillet leftovers from a few days ago and cabbage from two days ago. Evening snack was two large pork chops with sprouts, baby carrots, and mash. I do not starve myself.

The geese decided to hop over their fence and go exploring. Bramble took exception so now the geese are across the ha-ha, safe from rowdy little dogs.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—13℃ 0.1mm rain [80.6]

Saturday morning, but Bramble won’t allow lying-in.

Bramble heard a new sound last evening, lambs bleating. There’s a couple of ewes with lambs across at The Stables and the sound carried on the cool evening air. Photo below.

Only two things to do today outside: put up some more electric fence for the ewes, and mow the cottage lawn. Then the rest of the day I can continue with my WiFi games until time to tidy the place up a bit and get ready for going to the new Roger Hall Play, “A Short Cut To Happiness”, at the Hawkes Bay Opera House in Hastings with Jenny and Noel Hendery.

The electric fencing took three hours but now there’s a set of weekly grazing cells all laid out until Karola comes home. Photo below. Alan Ladbrook came to the orchard to mend a broken irrigation pipe and we chatted aimably, briefly.

I noticed that a wether lamb – I should have taken its number I know, but I always seem to remember too late – had jumped the fence out of the orchard to be in with the ewes. Not because there were any fertile young ewes needing his (fruitless) intentions, but just cos he wanted to be with his mother! And he was determined; initial efforts to cut him off at a gateway meant he nearly bowled me over pushing his way through. So I yarded up all the ewes and drafted him out. Not as hard as I expected. Now the ewes have the Island paddock, a walkway across the top of the Totara and One Acre paddocks, and the walkway down the edge of the Orchard paddock.

I also noticed that the lambs had uprooted my electric fence around the disused gateway near the yards in the Totara paddock across to the big shed, and a couple of lambs were exploring the planting area – not doing any serious damage as yet. So I put up a more substantial barrier. Photo below.

Finally I got the cottage lawn mown, urgent because the forecast was for serious amounts of rain in next couple of days – but the forecast has since changed and we may not get any.

By 3:00pm I was able to sit down to an hour of my WiFi project before getting ready for a meal and the outing to see the play. Jenny brought dinner – fish and potato and carrots and finished cooking them on Karola’s new hob / oven. I was still trying to clean the sink and benches when they arrived, using the new micro-fibre cleaning materials recently purchased at Bridget’s insistence as being the greener way to go.

Enjoyed the meal, enjoyed the play, All in all, not a bad day.

Grazing Cells In The Orchard Paddock

And, in the gallery, Lambs At The Stables, Grazing Lanes, Pugging In Gateway, and Road Closed

As usual, click to enlarge.

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—13℃ 0.1mm rain [80.7]

SwimGym

Then Dave came from Panache Design and just checked the curtain measurements so that they can begin the sewing next week – the fabric has arrived.

Later, shopping with Bramble – routine quarterly diabetes blood test too.

Now, with the fire blazing merrily and after a large beef schnitzel/onion/cabbage/mash dinner I’m ready for a quiet bit of TV.

During the day I continued working on my WiFi configuration. I did, fleetingly, get everything to work within the confines of the cottage but I cannot replicate the test Graham Harvey and I did last Saturday and get it going from the pumpshed to the cottage garage. More work needed.

Still very soft underfoot.

Rowena called and came round this afternoon. She had a faded and illegible few pages of family tree and wondered if we had some which were legible. I only had one page, the Wilsons, but I printed it out for her on A3 paper so the print is nice and large.

It’s a Dog’s Life

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—12℃ 0.8mm rain [80.8]

Crisp, clear morning but returning later to misty intermittent drizzle.

Sheep are pugging up the area I’ve allowed them. Best they be a bit hungry and I wait till the grass dries out a little before giving them fresh pasture. One ewe, #040, got her head through the netting sides of a weed enclosure inside the planting area and I had to cut her out. She was indignant and unharmed.

I spent the day fruitlessly wrestling with the settings on my new wireless modems. I’ve reset them to factory settings more than once but still it doesn’t quite work, sigh.

Got fed up with the back view of the homestead looking so dilapidated with a couple of weatherboards hanging at an angle where we’d taken off the “go-between” so today I nailed them up straight – just one nail, not banged home so easily removed. Oh the difference, it looks so much better.

… and as we went to bed last night Bramble was a little slow in coming. Oh yes, the toad was curled up on the master’s comfy chair and settling in for the night. Yeah, right!

Ewe #40 Ensnared By Greed or Inquisitiveness

Photos of the Ha-Ha Also Our Stormwater Drain

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—12℃ 0.1mm rain [80.8]

SwimGym then haircut at 9:30am followed by a quick food shop so I went a little earlier today. Raining again; ground sodden but the surface pools are actually shrinking. Very mild. No wind.

Late morning I decided to try and fix the problem of the clothes dryer leaking copiously. Before I tried to pull it out from under the laundry bench I could see that the power cord was stretched tight so I fixed that. Then as I pulled it out I saw that the drain pipe carrying the condensed water driven out of the clothes had become detached.

Meanwhile I couldn’t get at the power or pipe until I removed the cupboard door under the tub so I spent a long time trying unsuccessfully to take the door off. Exasperated I looked on the web and sure enough there was a YouTube video explaining how by releasing two simple little catches the door comes off – indeed it did but I’ll have fun readjusting all the screws I undid trying to get it off the wrong way.

Learning from this mistake I tried to find instructions as to how to refasten the drain pipe to the dryer and wasted half an hour or more – there are no installation instructions for that dryer “accessory” on the web, sigh. So I took a punt and pushed the hose back on the most likely looking connector and, yippee, it seems to work. I did a medium sized wash and the dried it and no water appeared.

It’s so sodden underfoot and still drizzling that the dog training was postponed tonight.

In the afternoon Bramble and I continued trying to set up the WiFi link between the cottage garage and the pump shed. We’re learning.

We also did a tour of all rooms of the homestead looking for leaks after the constant rain for several days, including an unusual few hours coming from the east. No new problems, just the downstairs bathroom, over the bath – how convenient. In the cottage I did notice some rust-coloured pools on the wood burner, presumably from rain coming down the chimney.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—13℃ 7.0mm rain [81.0]

Meeting with our solicitor this morning to discuss my involvement in Kaz’ will – I am joint executor with Kaz’ wife, Yvonne. Solicitor advised a quick exit as trustee of Kaz’ farm trust. Unless you’re quite involved with the running of the assets of a trust you’re really not helping them or yourself – but you are liable if things go wrong, so not a good idea. Re Kaz’ will he remarked that a) you can decline to be an executor, even if named in the will and b) the overriding practice in NZ today is for all personal effects of the deceased to be deemed joint property with a surviving spouse, so there really isn’t any point in making specific bequests from personal effects except as hints to the spouse. All very relieving.

Then on to the curtain maker, Frith, who is commissioned to make us the most beautiful curtains in a colour called ‘natural’ of a NZ-made fabric using only natural fibres and natural dyes. Of course it costs a bit more.

Rain still falling gently as it has all night and all day.

My two WiFi boxes arrived today – too big to go in mail box so Postie put them out of the rain on the homestead verandah – I found them when I went to feed the cat. I played with them until darkness fell – in between fairly unsatisfactory attempts to train Bramble.

Bramble has selective deafness. She ‘sits’ and ‘lies down’ like a shot when the verbal command is accompanied by hand motions and a tidbit. But just say ‘sit’ and she acts uncomprehending. It’s frustrating. As for the polite walking trained by giving her tidbits when she walks quietly alongside, not pulling. Firstly thats a very rare occurrence. Secondly, because I’m so high off the ground, comparatively, when I notice her good walking behaviour, by the time I have a tidbit moving in her direction she takes that as an invitation to leap up and grab it. We will persevere.

Karola is having a very ‘full on’ time with her grandsons in Ealing. Though I miss her a lot really I’m sad that it isn’t much fun being their minder – when it should be. Karola comes home on 10th September, just before the first lambs I hope.

Midday Surface Flooding – Much Gone By Nightfall

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—14℃ 20.5mm rain [80.9]

SwimGym after a restless night – rain became continuous mid evening and has been going ever since. Ponding is rife but the cottage drive is reasonable dry thanks to the extra gravel applied recently.

Bought some printer ink and, much less costly, two WiFi routers for the pumpshed-garage WiFi link.

Also bought tickets for the new Roger Hall play on 28th July in Hastings at the Hawkes Bay Opera House. I’m going (dutch) with Jenny and Noel Hendery and we’ll have a meal here, brought by Jenny, first. And I’ve agreed that J&N can stay at Days Bay for a couple of days at the beginning of September.

A little light shopping in the rain. Walked Bramble in the mud and rain; grooming her afterwards was not fun.

Put a small bolt on the bathroom door so I can stop Bramble from licking my legs when I get out of the shower and generally being a pest when I’m in there.

Finished labelling the ethernet and telephone sockets.

Changed the combination lock code on the cottage back door.

Cleaning the cottage wasn’t really worth doing as Bramble and I have traipsed a far bit of mud inside – will wait till the rain stops and it dries out a bit. Didn’t even take out the rubbish last night because of the rain.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—14℃ 41.6mm rain [80.8]

Mild overcast day. Henere arrived at 9:00am and we worked together on repairing the boundary fence near the big shed all day. He did all the heavy lifting of course, including putting in the 2.4 metre strainer post to replace the one that misbehaved last week.

Some of the usual Sunday tasks have been deferred until tomorrow. This evening it’s raining and this is forecast to continue for several days so we finished the repairs just in time.

I cooked our lunch. We shared six rashers of bacon, three eggs, and two cups of mashed potato.

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—13℃ 8.6mm rain [80.9]

Graham Harvey came round as planned mid morning with his wireless stuff and we tested it between the cottage garage and the pumpshed. To my surprise it worked fine between the inside of the garage and the inside of the pumpshed, but of course there’s no leaves on the peach trees at present. However I think if I can get a line-of-sight above the peach trees it’ll work well.

Graham and I had fish & chips for lunch.

In the afternoon I put up a bit of electric fence and gave the ewes their first 25 metres of the Orchard paddock. After that I undid the wires and took out the stay and, with the tractor, lifted out the strainer post that Henere was so upset about – because it started rising out of the ground when he began straining up the wires. As suspected it had not got a ‘foot’ on it – the foot is what stops these big posts pulling out of the ground when taking the huge strain of a fully wired up fence. I tried to pull up the other strainer at that place but it didn’t budge under fairly strong, but gentle, pressure so it’s probably got a foot,

When I got back I couldn’t find Bramble – I thought I’d left her safely in the cottage garden. Not in the garden, not in the cottage, where is she. Eventually I found her waiting patiently by the door inside the cottage garage; she must have slipped in when I went out there earlier.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—14℃ no rain [81.1]

SwimGym

By the time I’d done the feeding and walking etc and the Friday shopping it was 2:00pm. Well, then there was the hour and a bit that Aiden from Airnet (I do hate their new name, NOW) came and tried out an ADSL modem – same as we had in the Days Bay flat – but despite trying intercepting the phone line at various places the result was very slow and randomly no access, much worse than I have using the wireless to TeMata Peak. But apparently Sam Deller, one of the founding brothers, remembers me as one of their very first domestic customers and so he tries to find ways to make my service even better.

The shopping spree was not just for food – in fact that bit went quickly. First I went to a little shop between Bunnings Warehouse and the railway line run by a very obliging and expert designer of curtains and the like, Frith. She had several patterns and fabrics which were just what I was hoping for and although she’s very expensive ($700 each window) I think Karola and I will like the choice. Even the backing material, to stop the heat loss, is made of cotton, not synthetic plasticy material.

After the hour with the designer studying curtain fabrics I high tailed it over to Havelock North, back to the shop where Gill bought Karola’s birthday present of a small sharp yellow kitchen knife. I bought the other two colours, red and green so we can have: red for meat, green for vegetables and yellow for cheese and fruit. They have sharp, hard wearing steel blades covered with a non-stick coating – they’re only about six inches long including the handle.

After 2:00pm I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening trying out various WiFi modems and seeing how far the signal would go – almost as far as the big shed in the orchard.

Henere and his son Scott popped round briefly late afternoon so I was able to tell him in person that Sunday would be better because Graham Harvey is coming round on Saturday lunchtime to help with the WiFi.

Today’s Preference For The Upstairs Windows

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—14℃ no rain [80.4]

Cold day began with low, menacing clouds as if it were going to snow. By mid afternoon it was still chilly but bathing us in sunshine.

Today I focussed on the home network – changing it back to reflect the permanent arrangement whereby Internet is distributed from the office in the Outbuildings, not the cottage garage. Did some labelling of sockets to avoid me having to connect a computer to work out what was going where.

Then I began wiring up for the WiFi connection over to the pump shed 150 metres away. If I get this to work and if I get the Arduino-based electronics to work in time (late September) then it’ll be our cheap and cheerful way to get water telemetry from Karola’s orchard to the council once every 15 minutes. Graham Harvey and Tracey are probably coming on Saturday to show that their particular brand of WiFi access point, Asus, can reach over 150 metres even though standard WiFi usually reaches only 50 – 100 metres.

I have dug out my old WiFi boxes from the store room in the hope that perhaps, given an unobstructed line of sight, these can be reused for the pump shed link. Bramble and I popped into Jaycar’s for a couple of connectors; I plan to put one WiFi access point at the highest point in the end wall of the garage and the other, possibly, high up on the power pole next to the pump shed.

Ewes are happily munching their new grass. If it lasts 3 – 4 days then I think the Orchard paddock will probably last 5 weeks.

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—11℃ no rain [80.5]

SwimGym – and brrr it was a heavy frost.

Once everyone was fed Bramble and I went into town for food to tide us over until Friday and to look at curtains.

Searching through Freedom Furniture’s big range of fabrics I finally alighted on this – very traditional, not shiny, maritime theme (see below). I can get it made up including curtain track for under $500 a curtain which I believe is very reasonable.

I do need these curtains, when it’s cold it is so darn cold and there’s a draught as the hot air escapes through these upstairs sash windows – round the edges and between the sashes, but I’ll need to get some feedback on my choice of design.

I borrowed a swatch and photographed it on the floor.  I’ll probably pop into Resene on Friday just to see if there’s a design and texture there that I prefer.

Dog class was on the grass at the Hastings race course at 6:45pm for 45 minutes – cold, dark, and misty. Eight or so dogs and owners. Lots of info imparted and some work with the dogs suggesting how to train to walk nicely by one’s side. I think it’ll improve as the group get to know each other and maybe the dogs show some aptitude for the tasks. Not a bad first lesson, but not good either. Trainer Jane did say we can get best quality mince from shop near Clive at fraction of the price in supermarkets – best cuts but dropped on floor or other imperfection that makes it not possible to sell for human consumption.

Dog Trainer is Lorraine Lennox: 06–844–9323 or 027–248–6161

Electric fenced a corridor from the Island paddock across to the Orchard paddock gate and let the ewes in – having drafted out the ram and Kaz’ old reject ewe into the Goose paddock.

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—14℃ 0.1mm rain [80.4]

Late start, very mild day.

Aiden a man from Airnet (now NOW) came and, after a look at the sightline to Lawson’s Hill said that there was no hope of getting line of sight with that transceiver – the line goes through the Island paddock trees and may even collide with some Flaxmere trees in Chatham park. So, the wiring to the cottage garage, the trimming of the Casurina hedge last winter – all in vain. Sigh. I continue with my line-of-sight from the homestead garage through the oaks and skimming the apple trees opposite with good winter reception but unreliable during summer, especially after rain when the leaves are wet.

Heather-Anne Tidey (021-239-9661) came at noon as planned and we chatted about Enjo cleaning cloths for an hour – using high-tech micro fibres to clean surfacers with water but no other chemicals. Certainly seems to work. I bought a starter kit and some extras for Bridget. Heather-Anne said that 40% of Australian households use Enjo products. Astounding to me, especially as I’ve not seen or heard anything about this technology ever – until Bridget told me of it last week.

All I got done before dark was to make the short underground pipe for the electric fence feeder wire where it crosses the cottage gate opposite the front door.

Bramble walked and groomed.

Oak Avenue Weather:-2℃—14℃ 0.1mm rain [80.9]

SwimGym. It’s the middle of winter and today was warm and overcast with very occasional showers.

There’s activity in the orchard; looks like they’re finishing the apple tree pruning and doing some mulching.

Am gearing up to give the ewes some fresh grass. Firstly I’ve tidied up the electric fence from the pump shed round the cottage railings to the post from which I think Karola intends there be a fence up to the big shed. Also, because I’m surrounded by temporary gates held up with binder twine and I’m bored with undoing and redoing the twine, I’ve hung the small old temporary gate directly opposite the cottage front door. So at least there’s a way for Bramble and me to go out on our daily walks without involving string. Getting the electric fence past the gate means either going overhead or underground and I’ve settled on a short run of alkathene pipe just underground as the easiest, simplest answer – I’ll run the ordinary electric wire inside that pipe.

The ewes are shut in the Island paddock while I’m doing this – I hope the rain currently falling clears tomorrow so I can continue with my plan. I expect to create a corridor across the Totara paddock and One Acre paddock and give the ewes sections of the Orchard paddock for the next few weeks.

Shopping in the afternoon – nothing is straight forward so it took about two hours instead of the one hour I was expecting. Have got the ingredients for another big batch of Bramble’s food.

I did an experiment for three days by putting Bramble’s food in three different containers: one with the special food cooked to Karola’s recipe; one of beef and rice dog sausage; and one of Nutrients dry dog food. Hands down winner every time was Karola’s delux beef, liver, and rice. Maybe that’s because Bramble has been having this since a few weeks old and maybe she’d get used to the lower quality but still nourishing dog sausage. Anyway, I’ve deferred any firm decision and made up another batch of the ‘haut cusine’.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—20℃ 0.2mm rain [81.2]

Mild with occasional showers and cloudy.

Henere arrived unexpectedly at 9:15am and luckily I was up and about and had finished breakfast etc. He went off to finish stapling up the moved fences. I started my Sunday chores after taking Bramble for a short walk. I showed Henere the next job, fixing the fence by the big shed, as part of the walk.

Peter and Charlotte Offenberger arrived around 12:30pm. Before that I’d rushed into town to get Henere his fish & chip lunch (and two tarakihi fillets, grilled, NO FLOUR – for my supper). I also stopped by Jaycar and looked at weatherproof enclosures for the pump shed water measuring.gubbins I hope to build.

Offenbergers and I went to Pernel’s for lunch and I then subjected them to cottage and orchard tour. They had been looking at a house they very much liked in Havelock North – it’d be nice for me if they came to live in the area. We chatted away and they finally left for Wellington around 3:30pm.

I did some bills and stuff and while I was upstairs hear a lot of noise from plovers out in the Middle paddock, trying to mob a large hawk. I went to investigate and found that the hawk had attacked a plover nest and taken/broken eggs – eggs in July? Then I went out to see Henere and he’d added a stay post to a strainer and set up the wires ready to strain it up when I noticed that the strainer was actually rising out of the ground with every pull on the strainer. That did not please Henere – he didn’t put the strainer in – I can’t remember who did – and maybe it hasen’t got a “foot” to hold it down. Anyway it was nearly 5:00pm and Henere went home. He’ll probably re-appear next weekend.

Don’t feel like I got much done today – just dishwashing, washing, sweeping, rubbish out, that sort of thing, but having Peter and Charlotte visit was most enjoyable.

Thank Goodness Bramble Doesn’t Shed

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—18℃ 0.4mm rain [81.4]

On computer in the morning then Harry & Chloe picked me up and we went to “Elephant Hill” for a substantial, nicely presented, posh lunch. We came back via Havelock North where Chloe did a little light shopping. It was my first ride in their new Hyundi “hybrid” petrol/electric car.

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—17℃ 3.0mm rain [80.9]

SwimGym

Usual start to the day with breakfast, feeding the animals and taking Bramble for a walk.

On the walk I measured the distance from the cottage garage to the pump shed – 150 metres – in case I can get a wireless connection between them and maybe put a little computer in the pump shed and measure the pumping of water. We shall see.

I also paced out the 29 metres from the southern (Scott’s) boundary to the beginning of the Island paddock. It’s where a fence parallel with the homestead would begin if it were to end up at a big strainer post down near the gate from the 121 driveway into the Goose paddock.

Late morning I mowed much of the Goose Paddock – it took a while and I stopped at 1:45pm in time to shower and change fro the visit of Harry and Chloe for a chat – they’re over in Napier for a couple fo days R&R before going down to Wellington for Harry to visit a heart specialist. The mowing is to break up the large leaves and also knock back the vigorous growth of iris – to give the grass a chance. I plan to put the ram and, as escort, the ewe Kaz donated to us with the ram in the Goose paddock for the next few months.

Harry and Chloe looked round the cottage and we chatted. We’re going out for lunch tomorrow. Chloe clearly thinks I’m starving myself because she came with gifts of gluten-free and low-sugar treats.

A Cold Morning – Bramble Nudged Me Awake At 6:28am

Once . . .

Twice . . .

And . . .

“Over We Go”

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—16℃ no rain [81.2]

Bridget, Chris, Natalie and Alex all up and about in good time – having slept in the homestead they had breakfast in the cottage.

While Bridget and the girls went and collected bamboo for weta hotels back in Wellington, Chris and I went round the orchard and I explained what we’d done and I was planning to do in the near term.

At my request Bridget cleaned up my computer music collection – she has a flair for tidying things up.

We went to Bay Expresso on Omahu road for lunch and then off they went to “the mountain” for their skiing weekend.

Bramble seems a little put out by the extra people and didn’t eat her breakfast today – but still enjoyed her walk and being groomed.

I did the second stay post making the strainers at either end of the Taupata hedge fence vertical, suitable for the little gates they’ll support eventually.

Oak Avenue Weather:-2℃—14℃ 0.1mm rain [81.0]

SwimGym then a quick drive into town with Bramble after breakfast in particular to pick up some cat and dog flea and worms treatment. I couldn’t find the cache Karola has and did want to be sure that neither Bramble nor the homestead cat could be blamed for fleas when Bridget et al arrive later today. There’s no sign of fleas, this is just attempting to make my ‘not us’ claim unassailable. Of course, later in the day, when turning on the hot water and heaters for the incoming More family, I found Karola’s stash on a kitchen shelf. Mighty expensive stuff, over $90 for three treatments for the cat and dog.

Mowed the cottage lawn and took down the miles of electric fence from around the homestead lawn to make it look nicer for the Mores.

The West Shore Fish Cafe being closed for the week, Bridget went off to Hawkes Bay Seafoods to get us fish and chips for dinner. I asked for two tarakihi fillets grilled and half a scoop of chips. First they battered the fillets so Bridget said no, they need to be grilled. Then Bridget noticed that they dumped the fillets in a little flour before grilling them. Again, no says Bridget – they need to be gluten free. Grateful to Bridget for going through the hassle but even more for spotting that I’ve been poisoning myself a couple of times recently by having the grilled option and not realising they were using flour to stop the fillets drying out.

Combination of my newly arrived (yesterday) AppleTV generation 3 and my “developers preview” of the next version of Apple’s software system for the Mac (Mountain Lion, if you’re interested) means that I can download video and play it on my computer upstairs, having the sound and pictures displayed with quite good quality on either of the TVs downstairs. Certain friends in the UK provide me with computer files of new episodes of favourite TV programmes and now I can actually watch them on our TVs. Save’s making and posting DVDs so it’s cheaper and quicker to do this online.

THE MISERY OF WINTER IN HAWKES BAY

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—13℃ no rain [80.8]

Unlike the forecast it was quite mild this morning and a lovely sunny day with a very blue sky.

Bramble: walked (tick) and groomed (tick). Apart from the walk I spent much of the day on computer. Late afternoon I did replace one of the two stay posts on the Taupata fence (photo below) with a fatter, longer and deeper stay post and a much larger stay block – we’ll see if that stops the strainer post moving when the fence is re-strained up.

The new plans for Internet and phone services from Airnet arrived today. I’ve worked out that it will be a lot cheaper if we take up their offer and so I’ve sent off the paperwork and await their call.Could save as much as $100 a month. Includes using the phone line as a party line with 06-879-9065 being the normal ring and 06-879-9064 being a different ring, so we’d effectively have a party line with one ring for the cottage and one for the homestead.

This is MY breakfast

Oh It Is Delicious

Now For A Nap On The Kitchen Verandah

The Replaced Stay Post

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—13℃ no rain [81.0]

SwimGym – got there before 8:00am, just.

After breakfast – a second breakfast of bacon and 1-egg omelette, Neville and his troupe arrived with digger and truck of gravel. They spent a couple of hours topping up the gravel on the low areas that pooled during the last two heavy rains last week. Pictures below.

When feeding the cat I noticed that the front door of the homestead was ajar. The back door was still locked and I hadn’t been inside for several days. It is just possible that, even though I recall checking carefully that the little inside bolt on the front door was firmly closed only last week, the wind rattling the front door eventually works the bolt loose. Anyway, curiouser and curiouser – the dining room lights were on, a packet of Whiskas food (a flavour from from the currently open carton I think) was by the downstairs bathroom hand basin, and there were crumbs as if someone had emptied the toaster in the kitchen sink. I couldn’t find any other signs of life so am puzzled as to what it was – nothing taken, nothing moved, no beds slept in as far as I could see.

I went back and watched some of the Wimbledon men’s final I’d recorded overnight – seeing it through to the second set.

Walked Bramble – she does look forward to that every day. Also, she thought it was getting a bit late for her grooming today so she brought me her brush!

My outside work for the day was to straighten up the strainer posts at either end of the Taupata hedge. Henere had moved that fence and it was all good except that the two end strainers leaned over a bit – well a lot – once the wires were tightened. As these two posts each form part of a small gateway they need to be pretty vertical. So I cut the wires in the middle of the fence, added an extra length to each wire, made wooden wedges and banged them in-between the ends of the stay posts and the stay block. All looked fine, then I strained up the wires and we were back where I started. Obviously the ground is so soft that the stay blocks themselves are just moving in the ground. I need to get new, longer stay posts, bigger stay blocks, and do it all again. Bramble watched all this from the passenger seat of of the Landrover.

No more lists of meals – listing the food was becoming almost as boring as the cooking and eating.

I am trying a slightly different regimen for Bramble’s food. In the morning I’m giving her 200gm dog sausage – a pure beef and rice sausage plus a small amount of the specially prepared mince/liver/rice stuff and a small handful of Nutrients pellets. In the evening it’s 100gm of the sausage but essentially the same mixture. No ill effects so far and she does eat it all up.

Quite mild this evening but forecast cold frost tomorrow.

Extra Gravel Laid This Morning

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—13℃ no rain [81.2]

Henere arrived around 9:00am and worked on the fence until 5:0pm. One more day should finish the main fence structure and slam posts for the gates – today he got all the running posts in and we tied off the wires. There’s just the stapling of wires to posts, the replacement of a few battens, and the two slam posts to do, then it’s up to me to reconstruct the railings at each end to compensate for the moved fence. Henere won’t be back for a couple of weeks but the main stretch of fence is sheep proof even without the work still to do.

Food: breakfast as usual, Henere and I had fish and chips for lunch, which I went and bought from the Hawkes Bay Seafood Supply in Omahu Road. I had just two lamb chops with mash and cabbage for the evening meal, followed by cereal, banana, and cream.

It being Sunday I swept the cottage, took out the rubbish, paid the bills and watched TV including the plucky Pole’s (Agnieszka Radwanska) almost overthrow of the amazonic Serina Williams at Wimbledon. This in addition to feeding the animals and walking and grooming Bramble of course. Had a lovely fire from mid afternoon as it was cold and grey outside.

The ground is drying out and I let the ewes into the Island paddock for some longer, fresher grass.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—12℃ no rain [81.8]

Drying out nicely – cool with gentle breeze and mainly sunny. Slight gout overnight banished with medication by lunchtime.

Don’t know where the day went – watched some Wimbledon highlights, chatted with Karola and separately Harry on the phone. Harry recommends I read Temple Grandin’s book for info on dogs and on autism. She’s major contributor to the design of humane and effective cattle yards in USA.

Animals fed. Bramble walked and, later, groomed.

Food: breakfast then dinner at midday of sausages and mash followed by cereal, banana and cream. Evening snack of ham and tomato on toast.

Spent a bit of time on the computer and suddenly the day’s gone.

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—12℃ no rain [81.1]

SwimGym albeit an hour later than usual – I slept in to enjoy the rain. Also, the longer Karola is away the more of her habits I pick up – so I’m waking an hour before the alarm goes off and waiting for it for the next 60 mins. I think I’ll try waking when I do without the alarm and see what happens.

Food: breakfast before and after SwimGym. Missed lunch. Sausages, sprouts, carrots, and mash for dinner. Hardly starvation diet.

Bramble’s identity disc was found this morning, under water on the gravel in front of the cottage garage. She seemed pleased to get it back.

I called Peak Plumbing re my unanswered e-mail of 21st June. They came round unannounced soon after 4:00pm, just before I arrived back from food shopping for the weekend in Hastings.

1. The warm draught from under the house that Karola found – yes it was some misplaced pipe lagging so that was fixed.
2. They told me how to make the hot water hotter. Apparently there’s a valve that mixes hot and cold water going to taps so that whatever the temperature of the HWC what comes out of the taps won’t scald children or pensioners. I’ve got it at 57 degrees now instead of 45 degrees.
3. The little leak in the bedroom radiator has been fixed.
4. Grayson admitted that if we had either a diesel boiler or a heat exchanger it would have a remote thermostat – just as I said we needed and he earlier denied there was any need. Karola and I will need to discuss this when she gets back.
5. Grayson is sure that with curtains over the windows I would be much warmer – I said it was OK in the evenings but too cool in the mornings. He also explained why some radiators feel hot and others less so. The hot radiators are nearest sources of cold – hence under windows or in the stairway – they’re working harder to try and get the surroundings warm.

Henere called in briefly to say he was working some of tomorrow, Saturday, so might not make it to continue on the fencing until Sunday. After Henere left I cut up another 4 -5 bags of old apple logs for the cottage fire.

Rain overnight didn’t go away so promptly today – I guess the ground is saturated because surface flooding stayed round all day. The deepest (30mm) puddle on the cottage lawn is depicted below.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—15℃ 1.0mm rain [80.9]

No rain, mild and sunny in the morning. The surface flooding disappeared overnight.

Neville and sidekick arrived around 8:30am and marked where the water had come to on the new drive. They’ll be back when it dries out to add some gravel and compact it – no more than a mornings work at most. They are only increasing the height of the driveway, not the pooling areas under the big oak. I said that’ll be for Karola to manage when she returns.

I called Anna last night and she affirmed that Karola is OK – had taken the boys out to see a school play.

Rang Mary – Gill was there too as expected and she helped me untangle the issues with Mary’s sending of e-mail. It all finally seemed to be a matter of Telecom silently changing some rules for e-mail addressing which stopped Mary’s stuff working. Today when we tried to send an e-mail we got an error message and an e-mail from Telecom explaining what had changed. Well, everything was working – sending and receiving emails – when Gill left this afternoon.

Finally finished Karola’s GST for April and May – and they owe us a nice fat refund.

I’ve offered Gill and Ben my current (generation 1) AppleTV and Gill thinks it could be useful – it plays music, sound, and videos on your TV – which usually has a bigger screen than your computer. The things to play via AppleTV must be known to iTunes which can be a nuisance. I am upgrading to generation 3 in order to be able to mirror my computer screen on the TV downstairs, hence the spare generation 1 AppleTV.

I’ve run out of suitably sized firewood so today cut up 8 bags of apple wood. Our well-seasoned apple wood burns well, cleanly and brightly, if a little too quickly, and smells nice too.

After I groomed Bramble she decided there was an interloper in with the sheep and we went to investigate without me replacing her collar. When I called her to come and have it put on – she’s usually very good about that – she rushed over and pulled the collar out of my habd, thinking to have a game. So, for now, we’ve lost the little identity disc from her collar; I hope daylight will help us discover it again.

Food: (I will stop this when Karola agrees I am not starving myself, despite her much regretted absence) – breakfast then breakfast again. Cold roast pork and tomato on toast for lunch; more beef schnitzel with fried onion and carrot and potato mash for dinner.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—15℃ 9.7mm rain [80.3]

SwimGym and lots of rain.

Managed to take Bramble round the orchard in about the only short break in the rain today. And she does so love being groomed – sees the brush and comes and lies down to be brushed. I’m trying a new dog sausage today – for Bramble, not me – which says it is pure NZ beef plus rice. It might be a cheaper way of providing the basic beef/rice meals that she’s used to.

I’ve asked the digger guy, NJ’s Contracting, to come and look and see if there’s any improvement he can make to the drive to reduce the puddles. They’re not serious but it’d be nice not to get wet feet when walking across to the homestead.

Bought ($35) a stapler and staples for fixing the wind break and weed mat netting.

Ordered a new clock/instrument panel for Karola’s Subaru. Nice young red-haired mechanic said it needs replacing (clock not keeping time, intermittent display black-out). He knew who Mrs Brackenbury was and seemed pleased to be able to help.

Shopping for food, as usual on Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Watched a DVD borrowed from Bridget, “Inception” – nice concept, flawed execution, boring.

Food: breakfast as usual, ham and tomato on toast for lunch, beef schnitzel, frozen peas, and mash for dinner.

Saw some drinking chocolate from the same people that make the instant coffee I like – Avalanche – so bought some to try. Nice packaging, see below.

Water On The Cottage Driveway<

Avalanche Drinking Chocolate

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—11℃ 20.1mm rain [80.9]

A Bit cold and damp – turning to heavy rain later. What felt to me like a small earthquake at 22:32 shook the windows and upset Bramble.

Food today: breakfast as usual, 2 eggs in a mash pancake and bacon for lunch, 2 pork chops with mash, sprouts, and carrots for dinner – followed by cereal, bananas and cream.

I let the ewes into the Totara paddock which pleased them greatly even though most of them are now resting under the shelter of the Canary Island pine. Rolled up the electric fence.

Courier delivered 50m of weed mat and 200 wire hoops to hold it down with – for the Bay trees.

Started on Karola’s GST – due in a week ago.

Finally got frustrated at not being able to get Mary’s e-mail working so I called Telecom and extracted Mary’s user name and a new password. We got the receipt of e-mails working. An odd thing was, Mary hadn’t had any e-mails since 15th June and that’s when it looks like Mary’s user name was changed from ‘nicekiwi’ to ‘mary.brackenbury’. Of course Telecom deny making the change and say we must have done it by logging into Yahoo mail and changing it. I don’t think so. Also, Gill still uses mary@nicekiwi.com rather than mary@brackenbury.nz so she was interested to know if, when I’d changed my e-mail forwarder on Google from nicekiwi to mary.brackenbury, e-mails sent to mary@nicekiwi.com would get there. Yes they do; nicekiwi.com e-mail addresses are just synonyms for brackenbury.nz e-mail addresses.

Lastly, Mary and I had a little triumph; we got a small image of Bramble’s head as the login picture on Mary’s computer this evening.

It was a dark and cool/rainy night …

Bi-monthly GST tax preparation

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—10℃ 27.9mm rain [80.7]

SwimGym albeit more than 30 minutes later than usual because of last night, more below.

Before I digress re last evening, today was mainly bits and pieces. Phone calls, e-mails etc. I did feed the animals and take Bramble for her walk, and groom her. I also put up electric fence dividing the Totara paddock from the Middle paddock with a view to popping the ewes back in there in the next day or so.

I have booked myself onto a Dog Training course at the Hastings racecourse. Eight weeks starting Wednesday 18th July at 5:45pm – not continuously, just an hour a week. All for just $60.

I have let Geoff Baker (06-323-4034) know my plan re Kaz’ will etc – which is to see if Yvonne will coordinate a day in the next few weeks when I can a) see Geoff Baker and discuss my executor role and have him witness the signatures they need from me and b) have a group meeting with Yvonne, Amy, and Francis. If I take it slowly I should be able to drive over there in the morning and get back again in the evening, and I’ll have Bramble for company on the trip. Bramble has a short chain that lets her sit in the passenger seat without being able to change gears or press buttons that open and shut windows etc.

Food today: breakfast before SwimGym. Two eggs scrambled, with parsley, on toast for lunch. Crackers with cheese and tomato for afternoon tea. Two reheated sausages with mash and freshly cooked savoy cabbage for dinner – followed by cereal, banana, and cream.

Watched the final of the four episodes of series six of Lewis this evening. Same problem as I had with episode’s 1 and 3, quite a number of places where the DVD is damaged and can’t play back. Tonight there were only 4 – 5 such gaps, sadly including the last few exchanges between Lewis and Hathaway right at the end, last night there were a dozen or more making it quite hard to follow the plot(s).

Now to yesterday’s little dramas.

When I was helping Henere re-erect the totara batten fence we had to extend each wire by a few metres in order to re-tie them to the strainer. In order that the batten spacing and running post positions were in the right places we needed to pull the fence northwards by a few metres so that the second panel of five battens became the first and we could use the wires of the first panel to re-attach the wires to the strainer at that end. At the other, southern end we needed to add an extension to each wire to allow it to be re-attached.  All seemed to go well. We pulled the entire wires and battens over using the tractor. But, when I added the extension wires I made them all much too short so we, that is Henere, had to cut new ones.

I also, having run short of clothes and having worn my SwimGym outfits for 3-4 days each, needed to do a wash. I read the manuals and started the wash – three loads I thought would do it.  Using the standard programme each load would take about two hours. I put the first load in. An hour later I remembered I hadn’t put any detergent in at all. I restarted after adding detergent. The load finished and then I found that I’d put the detergent in the rinsing additive dispenser, not the detergent dispenser. I tried again having spooned what I could of the detergent out of the rinsing dispenser.

Then I tried to dry the first load while washing the second. The washing part went OK but the drying did not.  Firstly I couldn’t get any action out of the Dryer at all. The Start button is solid – has no tactile feedback – doesn’t press in – so I wasn’t at all sure if what I was pressing was indeed the Start button. Could it be the little graphic above the round button-like thing – maybe that was only a light supposed to glow red when the machine actually started.  Well after a long while I found that an extension lead going to the plug under the tub was unplugged. So, now I could start the dryer but, despite taking over an hour, it didn’t seem to make any difference to the clothes. I tried I think 4 different settings and then gave up. I’ve read the “installation and user manual” cover to cover several times – it’s short and remarkably uninformative.  Aside: As suggested by Karola by phone, I got the clothes dry by taking them to the old dryer in the homestead garage. No fuss, bundle them in, press one button, come back in couple of hours and they’re dry.

Relaxing after my nice dinner I looked forward to seeing episode 3 of series six of Lewis. All went well for the first 40 minutes and then the picture juddered and froze for a while, returning for a few minutes after having skipped several minutes of apparently unreadable video.This went on and on. I restarted the DVD player three or four times to see if that would help – it sort-of did and sort-of didn’t; I did see some pieces that had been skipped before but it quickly degenerated into lots of frozen frames and skipped minutes. So I took the DVD upstairs and tried to play it on my computer. Fast forwarding to where the trouble seemed to start I saw some stuff I hadn’t seen before but then the DVD player started howling and jittering and a message came up “skipping damaged area”. To cut the story short, my computer DVD player skipped some different pieces of the video but in general was able to play even less than the DVD player downstairs. I returned downstairs and struggled through the last hour of the DVD – by which time it was 12:45am.

Meanwhile came the trouble with Bramble’s house training. There were suspicious dribbles of liquid beginning with a large puddle in the kitchen and going through to the living room. My heart sank – why couldn’t she have asked to go out. Did she ask and I didn’t notice. Etc, etc. Later, when it became time for bed I found that the hot water bottle had been leaking, not badly but enough to have caused the puddle and dribbles, and enough to make me sleep on the other side to avoid the substantial damp patch. I got to sleep well after 1:00am.

That’s why I chose to sleep in a little today and go to SwimGym late.

Oh, and the paradise ducks (geese) are still here.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—11℃ 1.7mm rain [80.6]

Henere arrived around 9:15am and worked through till 5:15pm making extraordinary progress on moving the totara batten fence (see below).

Otherwise it was a rather jumbled day; Bramble refused her breakfast and ate it for lunch instead. We didn’t go for our walk round the orchard until after 4:00pm, nor did she get groomed until after dark. But now the fire is burning brightly, I’ve done the washing and broomed all the floors and taken out the rubbish bin so am anticipating a pleasant evening watching the third in the current series of Lewis.

Food: breakfast as usual, lunch was a potato, bacon and egg pancake comprising six rashers of bacon and four eggs, half each for me and Henere. Dinner of lamb chops, mash, carrots, and sprouts with pudding of cereal, banana, and cream.

The photo shows the fence made to run in line with the back of the cottage. The two large strainer posts in and wire and battens re-affixed. The running posts and gates are still to come.

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—11℃ 0.1mm rain [80.3]