Monthly Archives: September 2013

SwimGym – and Jonathan, who owns the business with his wife Jude, told me a quite shocking story of road rage he endured at the weekend in Napier. All started with them walking their dogs along the Napier foreshore.

Karola immersed in old photo albums and the like, preparing for the Christmas reunion. Me, enjoying struggling with my programming project. Otherwise,for Bramble especially, rather an uneventful day.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—19℃ 13.5mm rain [82.5]

Another very nice day – the wind has subsided. Sheep under the big oak until they all got pretty full and started just lying around fulminating – or is that ruminating.

Karola went to a book launch at Maraekakaho Station – a book about the station of course. Enjoyed it. It was the book written by the builder turned historian, Alan Scarfe (related to Gerald Scarfe) we went to hear speak in Hastings Library week or so ago.

Karola and Alan Scarfe

The Historic Woolshed

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—20℃ no rain [82.3]

I dropped Karola off at the Hastings District Council building in Hastings well before 9:00am. She spent the day on a 200km bus tour of the Hastings Heritage Trail. This is a new trail that goes up to Keruru and includes the splendid potter Bruce Martin’s place, a John Scott house at Bridge Pa. I picked Karola up again around 4:00pm from Stonycroft – just the other side of the express-way.

Meanwhile Bramble dozed all day and I got on with my program.

Karola has brought a couple of rugs over from the homestead for the cottage and they certainly look at home here – we should have done it ages ago.

The Cottage Sitting Room

The Bedroom Be-Rugged

>Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—19℃ no rain [82.3]

SwimGym

Beautiful day. Bramble and I rushed into Hastings in the Landrover – it needs a decent run – and did the shopping – because of queues I decided to give the self-service checkout a go – took me longer than waiting in line but I can see that with practice it’ll be very quick.

Irene Bird rang me to see if she could get access to the Ormond family tree on the reunion website – well it was a decade ago but it’s still there and seems to be working. Not often one of Karola’s relations wants to talk to me – except Henare of course.

Karola put her ewes and lambs under the big oak and round the homestead back door – they do enjoy the weeds.

“JB”s men have set fire to the three big piles of uprooted apple trees in Karola’s orchard and despite the recent heavy rain they seemed to burn well. These are not our old peach trees but trees they’ve pulled up from about four rows – partly to make their access from McNab Road better I guess.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—22℃ no rain [82.9]

The end of the Americas Cup and not surprising really. It’s not like throwing a coin, there’s a reason for a string of wins – Oracle was not only lucky, they were faster, just enough. Very pleased that Team NZ ran a very solid last race with no silly mistakes. They were beaten fairly and squarely on a little extra speed. An honourable defeat. I was not looking forward to the endless legal wrangling that would have very likely ensued had Team NZ won – because of the 2-race penalty, without that Oracle won on number of wins some days ago.

Karola has found her glasses and recovered from a sleepless night anticipating the race and is making big strides on getting the homestead ready for visitors. On top of that, after months and months of neglect in the lea of the old wash house still in their original black plastic pots, Karola planted out four young Tetoke trees inside the planting area near the big shed.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—22℃ no rain [82.5]

SwimGym and back in good time to see two disappointing Americas Cup races. One has to be amazed at the stunning combination of luck, learning, and sjill that has Oracle forging ahead. It’s all over tomorrow – either Oracle wins or we get into legal wrangling. Without the 2 race penalty Oracle would have won by now.

As planned, Chris Day, now working for Forsyth-Barr (06-831-0141 – Crombie Lockwood Bldg, Vautier ST, Napier), is our financial handler for the “pension wedge” again. He left Guardian Trust a few months ago and GT then transferred our account to someone in Auckland so when Chris suggested we switch we were pleased to get back to having a local person.

Really rather an uneventful day – me programming from dawn till dusk and beyond,Karola getting involved in sorting her stuff – books and papers – in the homestead. Not so much fun for Bramble.

Was plenty of rain last night – puddles on the cottage lawn, the driveways and paddocks lasted all day.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—19℃ 4.4mm rain [81.9]

unny day descended into a dark and stormy night. All’s well though despite Bramble having a rather sedentary day.

Anna sent Mary two photos of Felix in a birthday email.

Felix at Goodwood Festival of Speed

Barnaby with his half-siblings, the little twins

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—16℃ 48.1mm rain [81.3]

SwimGym

Karola got the sheep all sorted out ready for shearing due to begin at noon. Carl and his missus arrived soon after noon and sheared all the ewe mothers and the ram, and crutched the hoggets to keep them clean for the summer. Carl thinks that the hoggets will be worth shearing next March. Carl shears for Bruce Richardson’s Mobile Shearing business and his missus keeps him company and clears away the wool off the platform into the waiting wool pack.

The noise from the time Karola penned them up until mid afternoon was tremendous- lambs bawling their lungs out and disgruntled ewes bellowing. Add to that some psychotic leaping and barking from Bramble nearby safely kept inside the Landrover and it was noisy. But by evening it had settled down to the same intermittent outbursts we’re used to by now day and night.

Highlights of the shearing were that Bramble locked herself in the Landrover – with both sets of keys. A small gap in the driver’s window allowed of eventual key retrieval. In the excitement Karola wound the window up on my fingers and – as I howled in anguish – burst into laughter. Up there with tipping me out of the tractor bucket by pulling the wrong lever couple of years ago. Fingers seem to have made a full recovery.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—23℃ no rain [81.5]

Sunday is the day of simple chores. The day began with another drawn-out Americas Cup fiasco, “not enough wind” or “the wrong sort of wind” or something like that.

Cottage and Homestead garage lawns mown once they’d dried out after early morning showers. Warm and sunny. Rubbish bin out on the road. Cottage upstairs swept. Is there no end to this domestic bliss.

Karola put her sheep under the big oak to let them enjoy the weeds – about half came with their lambs, the other half were so happy with their grazing in the orchard they didn’t bother to move.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—23℃ no rain [82.0]

Oh that darned boat race. Karola was worn out by mid-morning.

Otherwise a calm day while the remnants of a storm blew its way through fitfully.

Karola spent much of the day over at the homestead, rearranging the deck-chairs so-to-speak.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—22℃ 4.8mm rain [82.0]

SwimGym

Karola had a regular doctor’s appointment in the morning; Henare arrived just before lunch as expected and after lunch he and Karola gathered together a load of old, unwanted, rusty bits of metal – including a dozen twisted fencing standards – and took it to the scrap metal merchant. Then they moved the brass bed out of the homestead ‘bee room’ into the ‘room at the top of the stairs’ in preparation for putting a ceiling light in the room below.

More programming for me.

More sheep work, as usual, and then it was dinner time – how time flies …

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—24℃ no rain [81.5]

Cold day but gentle breezes. Karola mostly outside with Bramble going round sheep and doing more tree and garden work. Meanwhile I enjoy warmth inside upstairs in the cottage rewriting my program for the umpteenth time.

Karola went into town for dentist and food mid morning. Henare called round for a chat at lunchtime.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—18℃ 0.4mm rain [81.0]

SwimGym

Moved four apple bins with the tractor at Karola’s behest – more of her programme to tidy up before Anna et al descend for Christmas. Gill’s birthday (63) past and almost time for Mary’s (89) – then my UK friend Geoff (68) and me (67) and finally Bramble (2) – the birthdays come thick and fast as we near the end of the year. Then in the new year it’s Anna (45) and Bridget (44) and Karola (68) – and on it goes.

The Americas Cup races today in San Francisco were postponed due to strong winds. Karola seems to have finished the two tree guards she had embarked upon, they look very professional.

Off to Dog Training for this terms final test. Two of us passed with flying colours,one had made the biggest improvements but was still a ways off passing all the manoeuvres. Grllled Tarakihi and chips again tonight – the shop is on the way home from the Hastings Racecourse where the dog training takes place.

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—14℃ no rain [82.0]

More exercises for Bramble but otherwise just pottering about.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—14℃ 0.6mm rain [81.9]

SwimGym then another beautiful spring morning. Bramble and I did a few training exercises – and again later afternoon. Karola tended her sheep, worked on some additional tree guards for the trees she bought recently, and went off to Napier in the afternoon. I indulged myself on computer.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—16℃ 0.1mm rain [81.0]

Sunday and we’re off away from the trailing tip of the storms across New Zealand, some rain showers and much cooler, over to Bulls and spring sunshine to see Tessa’s new son, “Jimmy” (provisional).

First the dramatics of todays Americas Cup race – wasn’t that ‘almost capsize’ edge-of-chair’ stuff – though it was over almost before we realised it.

We’d hoped to see the newborn for lunch and then carry on down to Otaki for Kirsty and Bruce’s house warming but the lunch turned out to be one of Chloe’s specials and Yvonne and Mary Wilson were also there so we made the most of our Burleigh visit and then went straight home. It’s still a much longer drive than simply driving down to Wellington. While there Tessa showed me the results of her six month’s work on building an online shop for KiwiTech International and it’s a very thoughtful, professional job.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—12℃ no rain [81.9]

No races today. Karola went to a tree sale at the Hawkes Bay Forest & Bird “re-afforestation” project and came back with the car full of trees.

Apart from mowing the two little lawns, usually a Sunday job but we’re going on adventures tomorrow, I had a splendid day of quiet programming upstairs in the cottage.

Oak Avenue Weather5℃—17℃ no rain [82.0]

SwimGym

Breakfast with Max Rashbrooke. The night was broken by a 3:30am half hour trying to settle Bramble down – she was most interested in going upstairs to see Max asleep.

More America Cup races today. The New Zealanders are doing quite well despite the dirty tricks – but I expect more of those before long. After all it is Larry Ellison’s project.

Max took off towards Gisborne mid morning. he has another talk to give tonight.

Karola moved the remains of the expensive compost that’s been sitting near the raised beds for months, all as part of her plan to make the place a bit tidier for Anna’s team coming for Christmas.

Wall-to-Wall Lambs

Ewe #113 I Presume

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—20℃ 4.1mm rain [82.3]

We just bumbled peacefully through the day and then went into Napier to hear Max Rashbrooke talk about his new book “Inequality, A New Zealand Crisis”. I’d suggested to Peter and Charlotte they come too and we five went out to dinner afterwards at a turkish restaurant called “Kilim”. Karola then invited us all back to the cottage for coffee. Max’s talk was well attended and a success.

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—22℃ no rain [82.7]

SwimGym

More America’s Cup racing – the boats are spellbinding as they dance across the water. Second race today was postponed by the Oracle team.

Peter Fitzpatrick called round to get the name of our irrigation metering installer – they may integrate our pumpshed measurement with their own and Karola observes that “JB” Bostock can move his water consents around between orchards to where they’re needed most. Peter also said that they couldn’t get enough young trees to plant in the areas left by the peaches so Karola can continue to graze those areas for a few months more. However the area is due to start being under organic rules in February and it’s possible that one of “JB”s maize or onion or squash ventures may want to plant here if thy hav a bit of spare time.

Dog training class this evening. Next week is the last one for this term.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—23℃ 1.4mm rain [83.0]

A good day of programming for me. Karola’s day tending her sheep.

Shane Hay came and mowed a small piece of the lawn. Karola is saving most of it for her hungry lambs and their mothers.

Karola and I went to this evening’s Hastings Historical Society Lecture about Donald McLean and Maraekakaho station. Average age in the audience, 100+ I’d say. Not nearly as tedious as I had been dreading.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—19℃ no rain [82.7]

SwimGym

Ewe #152 had lamb #337E today – surely the last arrival this spring. We have 21 ewe lambs and 16 ram lambs, 150% lambing surviving through to docking.

The docking was a slow process as we did them family group by family group to try and ensure we associated the right lambs with each ewe. We were pleasantly surprised that the total number of lambs tallied with our records although we did find that earlier recording had mistakenly shown two ewe lambs as ram lambs. I really do think I got all the tags in the correct ear – right for ewes and left for ram lambs – and I only put one tag in upside down, ram lamb #313R.

Bramble’s homework training continued in two short bursts around lunch time and before dinner, as usual.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—19℃ no rain [82.8]

Busy day. The usual Sunday chores including mowing the luxuriant grass of the cottage lawn and the little lawn in front of the homestead garage. Couple of short sessions with Bramble, preparing for Wednesday’s official training. Warm sunny day, again.

Went for a sedate spin in Rafe’s 2003 E320 Mercedes estate car ($24K from an Auckland dealer last year – Japanese import). Rather comfortable.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—19℃ no rain [82.7]

Ewe #116 had lamb #336R today.

We went to a big party held for Margery & Brian Cobbe’s 60th wedding anniversary – they have 15 grandchildren. The party, from 5:00pm to 8:30pm, was at a spacious house on the hills behind Havelock North, designed by Andy Colthart for the family of one of Brian & Margery’s four children, Josey who is married to Simon Beamish. There were a large number of very old couples there.

Henare came after lunch and by 3:30pm we’d finished the front railings repair/recreation – including a gooseneck fastener and wooden blocks for the gate to sit on when fully opened or closed.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—19℃ no rain [82.6]

SwimGym

Very successful computing day for me. And outside I keep finding things Karola has tidied up or cleared away, to my delight.

We went into Hastings and completed the Friday shopping quite quickly – always a good thing in my mind.

Little lamb that I found stuck between logs yesterday has died.

On the plus side, ewe #007 has twins #334E and #335E. Only three more possible to lamb: #915, #116, and #152.

In the early evening the paddocks are full of gambolling lambs – quite a sight.

Henare dropped in after work for a chat – he’ll probably come and continue on the entrance railings tomorrow afternoon.

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—15℃ no rain [82.4]

Winter’s day. We mistakenly thought that Max was coming up to Napier this Thursday but it’s next Thursday so we didn’t need to rush to lear the cottage studio upstairs for him today.

More sheep antics. I rejoined a little lost ewe lamb with a black spot with her mum #911. This little lamb had been rejected by numerous mums as she ranged across the paddocks looking for her mum, and she’d shivvered in a forelorn heap by the fence for several hours. We think that she got through the wire fence into the wrong paddock and then couldn’t get back. Anyway, her mum was about as far away from her as she could be but the reunion was most amicable.

Later I heard a plaintive bleating while exercising Bramble, quite a way from any ewe. I investigated and found a lamb jammed in between two large tree trunks, upright and with its chin wedged into the fork. I took it to the nearest mum and it seems that this mum, #919, who we though had just a singleton this morning was in fact a mother of twins.

Ewe #043 had twins #331R and #332R in the early hours. Ewe #919 had what we now know to be twins this morning but by tomorrow lunchtime the one I’d rescued was dead leaving $333E as the single survivor..

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—12℃ 0.6mm rain [82.2]

SwimGym

Good start to the day and got lots computer stuff done. Karola haircut in the morning. Several short dog training exercises throughout the day for Bramble followed by the official Wednesday class in the evening. It is and was raining so class was in a small area of concrete under the Hastings Racecourse grandstand.

Karola finished putting electric fence round the old orchard paddock yesterday. Today we electrified it and let the hoggets and the ewes with lambs in.

Ewe #928 had twins #327E and #328R. Ewe #906 had twins #329E and #330E.

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—16℃ 15.6mm rain [83.0]

A rather nice winter’s day.

Karola noticed that the ram had got his head stuck in a short piece of netting fence and I had to disentangle him. He was remarkably placid throughout but snorted and stamped once freed as if to say it was all my fault.

Jenny and Noel came round for afternoon tea. Karola got permission to graze some of the orchard as they’re still not quite ready to plough and plant in what was our Orchard paddock.

Meanwhile, after several pleasant hours computing, I separated the ewes still to lamb from those that had lambed, and the ewe hoggets from them. It was pretty much dark by then as the hoggets were full of life and ran round me time and again. As I had them, finally, in the yards I put in their big ear tags – so they’re grown-ups now like their mothers.

Ewe #946 had triplets today, #322E, #323E, and #324R. Ewe #923 had twins, #325E and #326E.

The Flax, The Swing, And That Spring Plum Blossom

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—15℃ 0.1mm rain [82.9]

SwimGym

Karola spent the afternoon in Napier. Bramble and I had some training sessions and generally lounged about.

Ewe #911 had twins #320E and #321R today.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—14℃ 0.2mm rain [82.8]

Quite a busy day – Karola, Bramble and I walked together round the orchard, inspecting the grafting and the mud. It’s clear that “JB” is going to run the two adjacent orchards together – Karola’s and the one directly behind on the left of McNabb Road.

Worked on “admin” and chatting in circles on technical things with my friend in UK, Geoff. My messy desk is cleared and the mail done, bills paid.

Karola went out with Rowena to look at sale items in The Wool Shop in Napier.

No change re the sheep numbers.

First Day Of Spring – Officially

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—15℃ 1.1mm rain [82.5]