Monthly Archives: November 2013

The Bagenals drove up from Wellington arriving late afternoon.

Before that I mowed the cottage lawn, Karola gave her sheep a new tranche of grazing in the Front paddock, I moved and fixed them a water trough.

We also took one of the fridges from the cottage over to the homestead for the visitors.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—28℃ no rain [83.2]

SwimGym

Karola did the Friday shopping for me and late afternoon she began cooking a large forequarter of wild pork donated by Rowena and originating in the bush up at the Mahia – where Henare and his 17 brothers and sisters grew up.

I installed the latest version of the Apple operating system, Mavericks, on Karola’s Mac Mini – that all went smoothly.

In the evening we watched the first episode of the last four-part series of the TV programme “Poirot”

The Bagenals flew into Wellington from Sydney and will drive up to us tomorrow.

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—25℃ no rain [?]

Rain eases off. Karola went off to Hastings for haircuts etc and meanwhile I prepared for updating Karola’s computer – her Mac Mini not her iPad – by backing up the entire system onto external disks. In parallel I continued with the move of our web space in New Jersey from one server, called ‘Saturn’ to another called ‘Neptune’. The latter is a more up-to-date system which I’ve been wanting for some of my programming projects jointly with friend Geoff in the UK. The move happened overnight and apart from a couple of easily fixed problems it all seems to have gone very smoothly.

Late afternoon Henare TXTed me to say he’d been in a crash and his car was a write-off. Luckily Henare himself wasn’t, just “shaken, not stirred”. Karola went round pater to ferry Henare’s son Scott to badminton practice and apparently the car wasn’t really a write-off, it looked worse than it was.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—21℃ 6.2mm rain [83.5]

SwimGym

An extremely quiet day – raining most of the time. Karola went off mid afternoon to her annual Christmas meal with her “Federation of Graduate Women – Hawkes Bay Branch” group. Bramble and I just lounged around, she sleeping and me reading about programming.

… for tomorrow we will probably have a different New Jersey server. I’m being moved to a different AceWebHosting server with more up-to-date software so I can pursue more of my bizarre and time-wasting programming experiments.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—17℃ 37.6mm rain [83.2]

A few nice showers and quite a lot of gentle drizzle today – very welcome.

Henare came late afternoon and dug a short trench to bury some of the pipe carrying water from the well to the homestead. This is part of my hope to get the area once occupied by the cottage and ash house levelled and gravelled before Anna arrives. I began uncovering the underground water pipes that led to the cottage and wash house – tere are still two pipes that have running water despite there being no tank and no connection (any more) to the homestead water supply. Very strange.

Karola went to town for a spot of foot-rotting at the doctors – had a whale of a time I think, came back laden with shopping.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—20℃ 24.8 rain [83.2]

SwimGym

Brett’s painters arrived and he joined them mid-morning. By mid-afternoon they had finished the cottage sunporch extension.

Karola’s cleaners, Meticulous Maids, came for a couple of hours in the afternoon and cleaned the homestead – ready for Philip and Felicity Bagenal and entourage arriving Saturday.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—29℃ 0.4mm rain [82.6]

Scorching day.

Cottage lawn mown before it got too hot.

In the afternoon Karola took me to an ‘open garden’ at Mahora Stud – the home of Heather and Richard Gregory. But first we detoured via Havelock North to pick up a couple of steel-bending tools for Francis Wier – Karola’s nephew.

I’ve begun watering the lawn – it is so very dry.

Karola let her sheep in under the big oak for a few hours and they certainly enjoyed that.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—22℃ 0.1mm rain [82.8]

Another glorious day – peaceful because the workmen have all gone away for the weekend and for some reason there’s no orchard spraying today.

I completed filling in the trench across to the concrete water trough with tractor and shovel – doing some in the morning and the rest late evening to be in the cool.

Builder Paul had fastened down the top weather board on each side of the wash house (aka the summer house) – to strengthen it against the move we suppose. Anyway, we released the two boards today so that the painter can paint inside the overlap.

Karola has been mowing barley grass with one of her lawn mowers – catching the seed in the (vain) hope of stopping it spread.

The main ditch is dry again having been part-full of water for weeks. So my tracing it back to Willie Thow’s packing shed and letting him know has paid dividends – it was getting rather stagnant and smelly.

The Summer House

…With Ventilation Boards, As Originally Designed

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—24℃ no rain [82.3]

SwimGym

Paul finished work on the repositioned wash house.

Brett’s guys came and painted the underside of the cottage kitchen verandah and started on the sunporch extension (see below).

We’ve connected up the red metal tank to the old concrete water trough and put a tap on a post nearby the tank. We filled it up with a hose and the overflow works just as planned. I’ve filled in half the trench.

Tank With Tap On A Post

Sun Porch Extension

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—24℃ no rain [82.5]

Karola had morning coffee with her old school friend Cynthia Chalmers from up the Taihape road this morning.

Today Jeff Rencontre (06-879-7463 or 021-174-6608) called round at Paul’s behest to give us a quote on painting the summer house (wash house that was). Jeff, a colourful character – part french, part italian, does the work himself. His quote was more than $1000 less than Brett Newton’s so I accepted and we’ll see what sort of job he makes of it.

Anna set me a card – she consistently comes up with brilliant cards but then I guess the choice in London is a little wider than in Napier.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—24℃ no rain [82.8]

SwimGym

Then it was off to market having loaded up the 14 wether lambs – two were too small and remain here. Apart from one escapee, whom we eventually recaptured and popped him in the trailer with his mates – it was uneventful and we were back just in time to receive the valuer from Logan Stone (Jay Sorensen (06-870-9850) at 10:00am. The quote for valuing the homestead, cottage, and outbuildings for insurance purposes was $850. One consequence of the Christchurch earthquake is that house insurance premiums are not only higher but must be based on more rigorous, less open-ended “replacement value” estimates.

Paul put the gutter round the base of the newly positioned water tank up at the big shed and continued with his reconditioning of the wash house.

This evening Brett Newton (painter) came and gave us estimates for painting the sunporch extension, the new ceiling of the kitchen verandah, and the repositioned washhouse.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—22℃ no rain [84.0]

Having bashed my foot against something solid in last 48 hours I had an uncomfortable night and day, but it all seems to be back to normal this evening.

Karola and I put the stock crate on the trailer ready for taking the wether lambs to market tomorrow.

Late afternoon Karola took Rowena to a film “Gardening With Soul” about a Wellington nun’s life – Sister Ignatious Loyola.

But the main event was the arrival of the crane and taking the wash house to its now position.

Plucked From Its Roots

Piles Await

New Resting Place

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—21℃ 6.9mm rain [83.2]

SwimGym after which we immediately went to the post office and couriered the extension cord with switch for Mary overnight to Bridget.

Paul was concreting in the new wash house piles when we got back and finished by mid morning. Meanwhile I sawed off the pipes going into the was house so it is free to be moved. Paul then got on with sawing off the rotten 12 inches (300mm) and putting in a new strong base plate all round.

Karola spent much of the day in the cool of the homestead, it was very warm. I mowed the cottage and garage lawns and retired inside for the rest of the day. Oh, and I set the leaky pipe going on the bay trees because it really is getting quite dry.

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—23℃ no rain [83.1]

A busy Sunday.

In addition to the usual chores we got on with clearing out the old wash house. Karola has already emptied it of most of the clobber. Today we removed the remains of the tank stand and undid some of the pipes that used to carry hot and cold water to the concrete double sink. We just managed to lift out the double sink and cart it off on a trolley.

Wether lambs and the ram are now enclosed in the Long Acre and can stay there until we take the lambs to market on Wednesday.

Henare’s son Scott called mid afternoon and asked that I book him a bus ticket from Hamilton down to Hastings tomorrow. Henare himself came round later and presented Karola with a skinned small rabbit which she baked and had for her dinner.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—24℃ no rain [83.0]

This weekend we need to prepare as much as possible for Paul getting on with the wash house move.

We decided first to tackle cutting back the Camelias on the east side of the new wash house location.

At Karola’s request I rushed into town and bought another of those expensive and very very sharp pruning saws. On the same trip I got a dozen little irrigation spouts – we’re going to try a new technique for the Bay trees around the cottage fence, a thin alkathene pipe with these little spouts placed next to each tree – much more efficient than leaky pipe, especially because the weed mat stops waste water from leaky pipe going into the ground and it just makes a mess. I also got 8 small salt lick blocks for the sheep and an extension cord for Mary’s new TV.

The extension lead has an on/off light switch midway along it and our plan is to just plug the TV into this cord and this cord into the wall socket, then place the on/off switch at a convenient height near the TV so Mary can easily turn the TV on and off herself.

I swung by Mitre-10 on the return leg and bought Karola two more green plastic outside chairs and a couple of matching green stools to act as tables for rinks and sandwiches.

Back to the Camelias – as directed I cut the limbs, letting in light and removing some fairly dead limbs. I connected up the mulcher and set the tractor going and Karola did all the mulching herself while I rested out of the strong summer sun.

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—24℃ no rain [83.0]

SwimGym

Brian McKinnel – (0275 975810) came from PGG-Wrightson’s to advise Karola on how to market her 16 wether lambs at the Stortford Lodge sale next week. He rcommedned sending all but the two smallest to the Wednesday sale.

We discussed the moving and renovation of the old wash house; Paul thought the what Karola wanted to do – making it face the morning sun like the homestead, up on new piles and with a new floor, was quite feasible.

Paul marked out the new spot and had the foundations dug and the wooden piles ready by the end of the day. Meanwhile I had fetched a trailer load of builders mix (gravel) and another bag of cement so he can begin putting the piles in on Monday. He has to brace the building carefully so it can withstand being hoist up by a crane and transported the 50 metres to its new site.

I rang the Australian help desk for Mary’s new TV as soon as they opened and the woman. though very pleasant, just quoted back to me what was in the TV users guide – which I’d read the night before. No way to stop the nasty swimming logo onscreen when you turn off the Sky set-top box.

Later I went into Hastings for the Friday shopping and also called in at JayCar, Harvey Norman, and Dick Smith. They all agreed, there’s no way to stop the nasty swimming logo – it’s a way to encourage people to turn the TV power right off and save electricity and all the new TVs do it, they said. Nor did any of them have a nice simple remote that would turn off the TV and apparently Sky’s remote actually works on a different frequency so even the so-called universal remotes won’t control both the Sky box and a TV.

Karola put up miles and miles of electric fence, creating a narrow perimeter strip along the north side of the Front paddock and enclosing the trees at the east (roadside) end. Tonight the ewes are in there and we’re hoping the freshly weaned wether lambs will stop bawling their heads off befoe long – their mothers seem quite glad to be shot of them.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—19℃ no rain [82.1]

Cooler and cloudy.

Glass is in on the cottage sunporch extension. And the aspect of the cottage is really very much enhanced by the full-width sun porch, compared to the half-porch we had before.

Ricky McGee (Copas Plumbing) came briefly and did his annual maintenance call for the waste disposal system (aka septic tank). All’s well.

Paul finished bird-discouraging placement of extra battens in the roof space of the go-between the cottage and its garage. He also finished putting the spouting from the big shed gutters down to the tank.

Karola and I began clearing stuff from within and around the wash house so Paul can begin his next project, moving and renovating the 1870’s wash house.

Henare dropped by – he’d had $50 and three memory sticks stolen – containing hundreds of his family photos and he was dejected.

The big excitement however was when I looked out of the cottage kitchen window into the face of a young hereford heifer. She and her friend wandered in off the Avenue and made a beeline for Karola’s salad greens. I shooed them into a paddock and shut the gate. They’ve come from over the road so will be returned home tomorrow.

Heifer Sans Friend

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—18℃ no rain [82.6]

SwimGym

For a variety of reasons, some of them my fault, the TV replacement for Mary which was to have been so simple has escalated a bit – although with Bridget’s help I think we’re on path to have it all working soon.

Two books arrived from Amazon UK. A cable I forgot to get earlier for my iPad Air arrived, and two 8GB USB flash memory sticks.

The council cut down a tall and healthy Plane tree outside our gate – ostensibly because there were too many tall trees close together. Not a tragedy but I’m not sure that chopping down a 40 metre tall healthy tree is positive.

No sign of the truck-crane by late afternoon.

Karola and Bramble went off for the morning to Napier. Before that however, as part of the multiparty discussion about Sky boxes and cables and connectors I picked up one of Karola’s standard lamps and the bottom fell out – the lump of very soft and crumbly concrete that weighed down the base so it wouldn’t tip over.

Things looked up by evening. The crane truck came just before closing time and put the tank safely on its new stand.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—16℃ 0.1mm rain [83.0]

A frustrating day, but some progress.

Paul came and began the fitting of the new windows in the porch extension – that is going well.

The crane didn’t arrive even though we were assured it’d come late afternoon.

Contacted Unison, our local electricity lines company, for a quote on the replacement value of our three power poles in Karola’s orchard. Also Bridget kindly agreed to go out to Days Bay and measure the outside dimensions of the flat – again for insurance purposes. And I engaged a valuer in Logan-Stone to come and do a valuation for insurance of the homestead, cottage, and garages – all triggered by rule changes set by insurance companies throughout New Zealand because of the Christchurch earthquake.

Mary’s new TV, bought and delivered by Bridget on Friday, is up and working today.

I had my usual eye checkup today – not as bad as I’d feared.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—17℃ 1.1mm rain [82.7]

SwimGym

Took chainsaw in again because it definitely was not fixed last time.

Have to be careful with having Bramble in the car because even with windows open it’s getting very hot very quickly in the sun.

Frames for the cottage sun porch extension arrived today. Still no sign of the crane for placing the tank on its stand.

Activity in the Avenue – the council are here again pruning and felling. I spoke to the supervisor who said they were going to fell some trees as well as complete the pruning at the other end of the avenue they’d not had time to do last time.

Having been badgered by Lynn, pushy partner of Steve the over-qualified boss of Hawkes Bay Tree Surgeons, to complain to the council that they were pruning and felling without the best advice, I hatched a cunning plan. I talked to Jenny and Noel’s son Simon who is a senior reporter for the Hawkes Bay Today newspaper and suggested there might be a public interest story in it. I then called the mayor’s office and spoke to one of Lawrence Yule’s assistants, suggesting that as there might be a story on the council felling part of Hastings historic Oak Avenue in the newspaper and I’d hate for him to be blindsided by this.

Whether or not the underlings were being a bit aggressive with their plans and acting on their own initiative, the council now has its story straight; Simon emailed me the official line this evening. Well, at least it’s not, as Lynn intimated, a cowboy adventure by the tree maintenance team, well not any more. What fun.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—23℃ no rain [82.7]

I took Karola into Hastings where she joined a day trip with the Historic Places local branch members, collecting her 8 hours later – she enjoyed the sites and the company.

It being Sunday I mowed the cottage lawn and did the usual weekly paperwork but otherwise it was an uneventful day. I fixed the gate gudgeon that I bent with the orchard mower last week.

Karola washed and groomed Bramble which they both seemed to enjoy. Lovely evening.

Cottage Lawn Half Cut

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—21℃ no rain [82.5]

More relaxed day today – I spent most of it just programming away upstairs. Karola continues with her room-by-room rearrangement and cleaning of the homestead. The Bagenals arrive in two weeks.

Supervised closely by Karola we put up new curtain rods in the homestead Bee Room. Initially Karola had bought light-coloured wooden rods that were way too long so, after a frantic search for the receipt, she took them back and got two of precisely the right length and a much nicer dark wood.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—21℃ no rain [82.3]

SwimGym then I had quarterly doctors appointment. My new iPad Air arrived with the morning mail.

Meanwhile a large tractor arrived in the orchard and ploughed up the ex-peach block on one side of the big shed and the old orchard paddock on the other side. Karola heard it start up and had to rush over and take down her electric fence – no more free grazing in the orchard for a while I guess.

Karola spread the 1/2 metre of “builders mix” remaining after making the concrete for the legs of the tank stand – spread it in a few potholes and around the cottage garage. Builders mix is like the “top course” used for most driveway surfacing but it has round pebbles instead of sharp cornered stones so is much more pleasant for bare feet.

After lunch the huge tractor came back with an array of power harrows, discs, and rollers. It did a swathe of the ploughed paddocks as wide as the tar-seal on the Avenue and had the ploughed paddock turned into a seed bed in no time.

Later I got a cubic metre of 20mm – 70mm stones for the soak-away from Winstone’s up Omahu Road and shovelled that into the soak-away.

Look at this massive machine. To get some idea of the size, see that number plate on the back, it’s at my eye-level.

In this picture you can see:

– some of Gran’s apple trees grafted for new varieties – they’ve been cut to about a metre high and had two little sticks of the new variety poked under the bark. They’re doiing very well.

– What used to be our ‘orchard paddock’, now being cultivated for maize or squash or even onions perhaps – the new orchardist will plant it into organic apples next winter, they couldn’t get enough young trees this year.

– in foreground the ditch for the overflow pipe and the alkathene pipe feeding an old (antique) concrete trough just ten metres away to the right. You can see the alkathene pipe and the huge mound of earth that Karola’s cousin, Henare, made when he dug the ‘soak-away’ for the water tank overflow. The hole was about 1.5 metres deep and wide and long. As I said above, I’ve put a cubic metre of rocks in it and it’s still half empty.

The Large Tractor

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—22℃ no rain [82.8]

Accompanied Karola to Tommy Ormond’s funeral, aged 95, in St Luke’s in Havelock North. Karola used to visit her now and then, and have her round to tea, before and after she went into “Mary Doyle” in Havelock North. Tommy was married to Wal Ormond; she was Philida Russell, Arthur Ormond, Peter Ormond, and Miranda’s mum.

My replacement speakerphone arrived today. All went well until I phoned Gill & Ben – then I found out why it was only $15. The speaker is nice and loud, as I’d hoped, but it distorts so that it’s quite hard to hear what the caller is saying. But it otherwise works and is just the right sort of design – compact but not small, decent sized buttons and a minimum of fussy extra buttons. Pity it hasn’t been made for years.

Karola spent a few hours moving electric fences after we came back.

The Mown Paddock After A Night Of Gentle Rain

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—19℃ no rain [83.0]

SwimGym – for some reason quite tough today.

Very good sleep because of the rough and tumble yesterday and the gentle rain and cooler temperatures last night.

Karola out and about buying and ordering Peonies today – she and Bramble have such great adventures. Also the sheep spent another day on the fallow ground in the orchard – they love the variety of the weeds they find.

Some bits of my new iPad ensemble arrived today – main machine due next Tuesday. Gill’s husband Ben has also bought one – as a field notebook for his biological trips – and it too is due in a few days.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—18℃ 9.4mm rain [82.5]

One minute past midnight on Tuesday 5th November I was online, logged in to the NZ Apple Store and ordering my new “iPad Air”. By 8 minutes past I had a confirmed order and delivery date of early next week.

Henare dropped his son Scott off at 8:00am and Karola set him to work chopping thistles. They then moved the piano in the homestead from one wall in the dining room to the adjacent wall.

This morning the focus on dentistry. I’d forgotten but I had a root canal job several months ago and today was the day for getting a crown fitted. Only mildly interesting thing was that, here in rural Hastings, the process involved taking pictures with a small mouth camera, using a CAD program to create the shape and then sending that off to a 3-D printer in the next room. The printer sculpts the crown out of some fancy plastic-like material which, when cooked for a while at 600 degrees Celsius, becomes harder than tooth.

In the afternoon, hearing that a little rain was forecast, I hopped on the tractor and mowed the Middle paddock and old Goose paddock. More than two hours, Noisy, dusty, and a lot of vibration so now I’m worn out. One irrigation pipe damaged, one gate gudgeon bent and useless, one branch of a Camellia torn off – about par for the course. I’m always highly relieved that Im in one piece after one of these efforts.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—22℃ 4.3mm rain [82.1]

SwimGym

Karola and I went into town, leaving Bramble behind as it’s already too warm to leave a dog in a car while shopping. We called in at Harris Pumps etc an bought some 100mm (4″) pipe for the tank overflow and a fitting that will attach a 20mm alkathene pipe to the concrete trough. I had a (scheduled) blood test. We had lunch at Pernel’s Fruit World – seems to be under new management yet again. Afterwards we discovered why there was an air of urgency, they were expecting the arrival of three tourist buses with visitors from a cruise liner docked at Napier.

In the afternoon Karola worked in the homestead – more clearing and cleaning – Philip & Felicity Bagenal (UK) and their daughter and family (Sydney) are due to stay here in a couple of weeks.

Henare Finishes Digging The Trench

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—21℃ no rain [82.1]

As planned, Henare came and began the digging of the soak-away and drain for the tank up at the big shed. While he was digging the 1.5 metre cub for the soak-away I hitched up our orchard mower and cut a swathe along the path of the drain-to-be. After lunch Henare began on the drain itself which will be a 100mm (4 inch) perforated black plastic drainage pipe to take the overflow and a 20mm (3/4 inch) alkathene pipe to take water to the concrete trough. Meanwhile I dug from the other end, next to the concrete trough.

Karola and I re-erected a blind in the ‘tween room’ bedroom upstairs in the homestead, to straighten it and take it further off the window and let in more light. I was amazed at the difference Karola has made – turning our several messy store rooms with beds in into quite delightful bedrooms.

Karola sprayed more thistles and patches of weeds inaccessible to the mowers then relaxed by doing a spot more tree-guard maintenance.

The Hole For The Soakaway

The Drain

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—21℃ no rain [82.3]

Karola invited two of Rewa’s kids and their grandmother round. The grandmother, Aira, looked after her mokopuna while ‘Tira helped Karola pull up nettles from around the Canary Island pine for a couple of hours.

Karola also moved her sheep around including taking the ram from the Long Acre to the Island paddock. She carrying the tin of sheep nuts, he, snorting and stamping his front feet, following along.

Meanwhile I shovelled and raked a layer of “builders mix” gravel on top of the rough “AP40” and it now looks quite respectable. Notice the four raspberry canes Karola is growing to the left of the waste management unit.

The Icing On The Cake

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—23℃ 2.6mm rain [82.5]

SwimGym and the end of the week.

Karola had a man from Bay Beds come round and consult on some mattress / bed alterations for the homestead.

Karola put the ewes and lambs under the big oak – they’ve done a good job of shortening the grass in the big swathes of the Middle paddock that they’ve tackled recently.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—23℃ 2.6mm rain [82.9]