Monthly Archives: February 2014

SwimGym

Steve of Hawkes Bay Tree Surgeons came this morning and Karola discussed with him what she wants his team to do. The plan is for the team to come and do this in a couple of weeks time.

Karola’s List

• Tidy oak tree with fallen branch lodged high up.
• Remove the smaller of two self sown oaks nearby.
• Check swamp cypress for dead branches.
• Island.
• Remove lower branches of turkey oak and nearby pin oak.
• Remove dead branches of claret ash.
• Remove field maple near copper beech.
• Is it a good idea to remove lower branches of catalpa?
• Stump grind tree stump near turkey oak and maple if necessary.
• Ditto Liquidamber stump near cottage.
• Drive.
• Remove large robinia stump near road
• Also smaller stumps if they can be accessed without damage to konano.
• Old trunk of holly.
• Remaining seedling oaks by fence/golden Himalayan spruce and their stumps.
• Remove all but largest of seedling oaks by office?

Meanwhile I did the weekend shopping and also got a handle for the window in the cottage sun porch extension and a couple of spare keys cut for the Landrover.

At Karola’s request I dropped in on the Indian greengrocer, Gagans, over near Flaxmere. They’ve had grudge damage to apple trees twice recently – 5500 destroyed the first time, over 7000 the second. They are depressed; they know well who it is but have no proof so are stymied.

Paper today let us know that the serious accident yesterday was an orchardist van towing a trailer that slammed into one of the Oak Avenue oak tree down at the Omahu Road end. Driver is not quite dead.

When finally it became cooler, around 5:00pm, I continued with the tractor mowing. I finished the fiddly and very dusty stuff under the trees in the goose paddock and began on the Middle paddock.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—29℃ no rain [83.8]

Busy day for Karola. First it was off to Stortford Lodge for a blood test first thing – us oldies seem to have zillions of these. Then back into Hastings for a haircut mid morning. And then a man came mid afternoon to put up more blinds in the cottage sun porch, covering the new windows made for the porch extension.

Bramble and I didn’t do a lot. It was cold last night, which was good for sleeping, and pretty hot by 3:00pm.

I gathered up some of the firewood I’d cut over the last week, pretty much filling the big trailer from windfalls plus the old rhododendron I pushed over earlier in the week. Then another hour of chain sawing of more windfalls into the foot-long pieces that will fit in our cottage wood burner.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—23℃ no rain [83.7]

SwimGym – then I slept for the rest of the morning, possibly because of the chain-sawing yesterday evening.

Karola went out for the evening, to the local branch meeting of the Federation Of Graduate Women – held at Jennifer’s place.

I mowed the goose enclosure to knock back the iris and hoping it’ll look good when Geoff & Edwina arrive on 23rd March.

The Goose Enclosure – Partially Mown

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—23℃ no rain [84.1]

Fond farewells to Roger and Anne Hughes who set off late morning for their one-night stay in Graytown with friends before returning to Days Bay.

Karola immediately got back into Tree Guard maintenance role, after a big wash and general tidy-up – though Roger and Anne leave everywhere they stay in excellent state.

I pushed over the long dead rhododendron in the Middle paddock with the tractor and then cut it for firewood with the chainsaw.

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—25℃ no rain [83.7]

SwimGym for me, but not for Karola who anticipated a swim in the spa pools in Napier with Anne.

Leisurely morning for me and Bramble. The rest went off to Napier for sightseeing and swimming. I joined them at The Mission where Roger and Anne took us for a most delicious lunch including exquisite puddings.

Venison-mince-based lasagne for supper. No wonder our weights are going up rather than down.

I took Bramble round the orchard; her abscess does seem to be subsiding a little. We saw a couple of pukeka by the pumpkins then Bramble raised a hen pheasant which, from her behaviour, I assume had a nest nearby. Over by the north-west railings into the One Acre, pictured below, we saw a pukeka that thought it as trapped in the gate netting. It was half way through and squawked indignantly as I went right up to it. However when Bramble saw what I was doing she rushed up too and we both faced the pukeka head on. So s/he suddenly decided she could back out and flew away at speed making an awful fuss.

Later, sitting at the dinner table, we were delighted to see a family of quail foraging along under the windows – a dozen half-grown chicks and their parents.

Quince Fruit Aplenty and Crab Apples Too

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—21℃ no rain [83.6]

Roger and I embarked on the project I’d been saving up for him. While he held the ladder I went up the power pole in the orchard next to the pump shed and retrieved the wireless repeater box. We took it back to the house and got it working again; I’d mucked it up when doing a firmware reload some weeks ago. Then, back up the ladder, tried it with a laptop connected to the ethernet plug inside the pump shed. All was well so I re-secured and resealed the box and descended, relieved. The wind was gusting quite fiercely while I was up there and replacing the box and its connections with one hand was decidedly awkward.

And then off to Clifton at 1:30pm, at the end of the road to Cape Kidnappers, for a delicious lunch at Clifton Cafe, outside under a shading tree with Bicka at our feet. The menu includes both pepper steak and fish & chips gluten free.

Afterwards, mid afternoon, we drove to Clive and the end of Old Ferry road then walked along the bridle path for a kilometre to where you could cross the wetlands to the wild gravel beach. Returned and went home for another cup of tea.

Karola made us a dinner of venison mince, beans and potato with gravy followed by beautifully presented panacota with home-grown raspberries and a plum.

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—27℃ no rain [83.4]

Leisurely breakfast as the temperature gradually rose – it had been a pleasantly cool night. Lunch at Pernels Fruit World and then on to the Waka Experience around Hawke Bay, part of the Napier Art Deco weekend.

There was a stiff breeze which cooled us in the hot sun. A local historian who just happened to be on this trip, Patrick Parsons, described to us some of the local Maori history of the bay. A very pleasant 90 minutes round the bay followed by a meal – not just afternoon tea – of traditional fish and starch food and the most revolting;y sweet “bush tea” made in the kettle with condensed milk. The fish and potatoes were fine.

After a soup and toast supper we watched another Midsomer Murders before tumbling into bed.

https://www.artdeconapier.com/pages/waka-experience

The Waka Experience is a collaboration between The Art Deco Trust,

The 2 hour WAKA EXPERIENCE takes you sailing on a traditional Maori Sailing Waka into the bay to hear stories of local Maori legend, place names and life for local Maori during the early 1900s. The sail is followed by a traditional Maori meal (either morning or afternoon tea) and local schools performing Kapa haka (Maori haka and songs). Sail time 11/2 hours, meal and kapa haka 30 minutes, tickets inclusive of meal.

The Twin-Hulled Million-Dollar Waka 

Built in 2007 as part of a fleet of seven identical boats built in Auckland and then sailed across the Pacific. At the stern above the rudder is an array of solar panels which create electricity for the engines. The engines also become generators when the boat needs to slow down.

Ready To Set Off

Underway

Musical Accompaniment To The Kai

—
“Teamwork over networks”
   https://brackenbury.nz

Oak Avenue Weather:19℃—33℃ no rain [83.2]

SwimGym

Much mowing of the main lawn and some clearing of wysteria around the front door of the homestead. Pretty warm.

Roger and Anne arrived calm and collected late afternoon.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—26℃ no rain [83.4]

Window cleaner came today and cleaned the cottage windows, inside and out.

Karola bathed Bramble, in particular the matted fur alongside her wound. This got rid of a nasty smell and pleased Bramble who doesn’t like having dirty fur.

Karola cleared away loads and loads of needles, weeds, and grass clippings using her Cyclone trailer pulled by her Subaru.

Karola at last weeded the short bed on the south-east end of the cottage garden, freeing several young trees. She then rearranged the cottage garden irrigation so that there was leaky pipe for her trees and for the bay trees without having any lengths of hose crossing the lawn.

I mowed some more of the main lawn and put electric fence on the logest greenest strip of it, next to the ha-ha, and let the sheep graze. They loved the fat hen and other weeds along the top of the ha-ha.

I chainsawed up a thick, old. partially rotten branch that fell off the old flowering prunus in the Totara paddock and, while I was at it, I cut up some recent windfalls into small logs for the fire.

Acorns Signal The End Of Summer

Karola’s Trees At The South-East End Of The Cottage Garden

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—24℃ no rain [83.2]

SwimGym

Excitement of the day for me was my annual-ish eye check. Six months after declining the various medications I’d been having for the previous year or more my eyes are as bad as they ever were, and no more. Whew.

Bramble looks a sight but her spirits are lifting after a pretty sleepless night. Her antibiotics course started this evening.

Got a booking at the very classy restaurant, Taste in Khandallah for the Robinson Trip. Also the French gardener, Huguette Michel, has agreed to let us see her Blenheim garden. And I’ve booked flights from Blenheim to Wellington at the end of the trip. I can relax a bit now.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—27℃ no rain [83.0]

Bramble went into the Vets at 9:00am and we didn’t see her again till nearly 5:00pm. The walnut-sized abscess looked huge when her fur was shaved off and it was opened up to let the poison out. The vets should have spotted it two weeks ago when first we took her in. And they still haven’t found the actual cause – though highly likely it’s a barley grass seed. They can’t find the seed nor anything else that would cause it. So basically it’s back on the antibiotics and wait. Poor little dog looks a mess but she’s perked up since we got her home and maybe tomorrow her spirits will rise.

I did a spot of mowing but stopped when I couldn’t find the petrol cans or the Landrover keys – and Karola was out on the town. I did find the petrol eventually but Karola had the keys with her. There’s always (well, usually) tomorrow.

Janet Scott called in for a chat with Karola and a newspaper cutting describing the begging for petrol money scam that visited us a few weeks ago. Apparently she’s done it dozens of times, essentially begged for cash, but it’s not illegal.

Hot day; spent some time just basking in the sun on the kitchen verandah. Wonderful. Spent much of the day working on my itinery for the Robinson New Zealand Road Trip 2014. Most of it is booked. I was thrown temporarily because the agent in Marlborough who’s got us two excellent tours mis-labelled the days. Right dates but wrong day of the week.  So two or three emails and phone messages I left were confusingly quoting a date but calling it the day before.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—28℃ no rain [83.4]

SwimGym

Mowed the cottage lawn with the new mower. It starts easily; it cuts a wide swathe; it’s very loud and heavy and the “dead-mans switch” is hard to hold down for long periods. I mowed the cottage lawn in about 20 minutes in “mulch” mode – no picking up – and the results were acceptable.

Later I tried using the catcher on a piece of the main lawn. I filled 12 catcher loads in about 40 minutes. Tentatively I think that it’ll be possible to mow 1000 square metres an hour without fiddling with edges and obstacles. The lawns are 3 – 4 times that size.

The final itinery for the special part of Geoff and Edwina’s trip in Marlborough came through today. I forwarded a copy to Geoff. Karola & I also plan a meal with them and Gill (but not Ben who will be on Maude Island) and Bridget & Chris, and maybe Tony Fletcher if he can make it. Our first choice for the dinner, Elements in Kilburnie, no longer serves an evening meal so we’re trying to get reservations at Taste in Khandallah.

Meticulous Maids came and cleaned the homestead in preparation for Roger and Anne Hughes’ visit starting on Friday.

Swathe Of The Main Lawn

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—24℃ 0.1mm rain [83.0]

I am still pretty lethargic; it takes a few days to recover energy after the simplest of trips. However the day went by quite nicely with listening to the last couple of hours of one of the Anthony Price spy stories, “Tomorrow’s Ghost” Very convoluted, especially as the end drew nigh.

Roger rang from Days Bay. The elderly Internet modem has finally given up the ghost and so even though we fiddled with it for an hour or so it stubbornly refused to co-operate. Plan B went into force using a brand new modem kindly donated by NZ Telecom and Roger was soon back in business happily downloading his daily quota of World Wide Web entertainment.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—24℃ no rain [83.6]

Margery Cobb rang Karola to say that Jo and Rauf Rangooni were in Hawkes Bay and had a spare ticket for a concert at Black Barn this evening. After a certain amount of telephone tag, Karola got hold of Jo and they agreed where to meet.

Karola started a major task of cleaning up the nettles, thistles, fallen brances and so on in the Totarar paddock, and mowing the barley grass using a catcher to remove the deadly heads

Karola left early evening and wasn’t back till almost midnight. She reported that the concert, featuring NZ famous and elderly soprano Malvena Major and talented young Pacific Island vocal trio “E Sole Mio”, was excellent.

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

SwimGym

I did the weekend shopping, including gluten-free bread as usual, and stopping in at the Honda shop to make sure Karola’s new lawn mower was ready. They said they’d just fuel it up and give it a test and we could pick it up later in the day.

Karola penned up all her sheep – except the ram and wethers – and together we separated out the lambs. Karola then applied Magnum to those with moist dirty bottoms before putting the lambs in the One Acre and the ewes in the Front paddock.

Bramble’s lump is much worse so we took her into the vet late afternoon. The vet, Neil Stuttle, agreed to operate on the abscess next week.

We also stopped in and picked up our new mower and left behind the similar Honda mower, bought in 1980s in England, so they could fix the drive cable and give it an overdue service.

The Beast

Sheep Briefly Grazing The Green Cottage Lawn

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—25℃ no rain [?]

Last minute cleaning and rearranging so that it’s almost as spic and span as when Anne left it. To be out of the way Bramble and I went shopping. There was a little banana passionfruit vine I saw I’d missed so I attacked that after shopping. I think there’s still more vine hidden in the undergrowth; it really needs the area clearing and for the vine roots to be poisoned.

We had brunch at the Pavillion and met Liz Meylan and friend on the walk down. Liz still lives in The Bays, just as she did when we were there and Anna and Bridget were toddlers.

Afterwards we drove in to see Mary, dropping off our rubbish at Bridget’s – very convenient.

Then it was on the road, stopping in Graytown for refreshments and taking SH50 across the Takapau plains.

It was still light when we got home; all seemed well and we eventually found the mail here Henare had hidden it, including the sheet-feed scanner I had injudiciously bought online only a few days before we left.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—26℃ no rain [?]

Local builder Willie Davis came at 3:00pm and we discussed the strengthening project and Karola’s retaining wall project. The meeting was primarily so that Karola and Bridget could meet Willie but in the end Bridget couldn’t make it. But Karola is keen to go ahead.

The strengthening project at 3/14 Days Bay includes:

• repiling or reinforcing the existing piles along the front, northern side of the flat
• making slatted covering for the ends of the basement, the west and east ends
• making good the floor of the basement which means adding a gravel floor to about a third of the area
• adding side beams alongside the existing bearers running north-south and treating and covering the exposed ends of the bearers

The builder will get drawings made and approach the council for planning permission.

The retaining wall project aims to have three wooden retaining walls put across the sloped garden between the west end of the house – well the new wooden steps that run up the side of the house to the west. First of all Willie will get the clearing of the area finished so we can see what we’re doing.

As we plan to return to Karamu tomorrow, Karola spent much of the day cleaning and tidying. My only notable activity was tackling the banana passionfruit vines (noxious weed) we could see out of the kitchen window. It transpired that there was a lot more vine than met the eye.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—23℃ 3.4mm rain [?]

Still at Days Bay. Karola continued her weeding on the back part of the section. I started down the front and most of the time seemed to be spent in cutting vines climbing up the shrubs and trees – very invasive indeed.

Parakeets At Days Bay

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—23℃ 3.4mm rain [?]

Much drier today so our other objective, to get some gardening done at the Days Bay flat, became possible. Karola did prodigious amounts of weeding and clearing behind the flat, up to the reserve bush, and across to the bush to the west, above the little flat area planted in flax. Karola also cleaned vegetation out of the open drains that channel water coming down from the bush safely off to the side.

Karola took me in to my 4:00pm lecture, room 350 in the Cotton building at Victoria University on Kelburn Parade. On the way we made a quick stop with Mary, retrieved the blown bulb in her chair reading lamp, zoomed down to New World in Karori, grabbed replacement bulbs, zoomed back, put in a bulb, and still got to the lecture in time.

There were about 20 students at the lecture and half a dozen staff. More than half were foreign-looking; the coordinator is Chinese, the lecturer was Chinese. I found the topic difficult and understanding the lecturer hard too, and I may have dozed off a few time – I hope I didn’t snore.

The lecture overran so I dipped out of the IEEE regional chapter meeting and dashed off down to Queens Wharf and the Eastbourne Ferry. I waved my pensioners Gold Card and had the trip for free.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—18℃ 1.8mm rain [?]

The weather was still intermittently raining and the ground too wet for gardening.

Karola went in to see Mary and do some shopping in the afternoon; I looked after Bramble.

Around 5:00pm Phillida arrived, as planned, for the night. Frank & Marina Wilson were at the party yesterday, as was Phillida and although Phillida had been staying with Frank & Marina they had their boys all coming to stay tonight so we’d been delighted to be asked to give Phillida a room for the night.

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—20℃ 0.7mm rain [?]

Bridget, Chris and the grand-daughters all came out for lunch at Chocolate Days in Days Bay.

It was a dreadful wet day in Wellington and we felt sorry for Cecilia as the party was to have been mostly in the garden. Happily as we got to the brow of Pukera Bay hill the rain stopped and the cloud thinned so we did indeed have most of the party outside in the garden.

The party was in celebration of Miranda Johnson’s marriage to Michael – Michael who? we don’t yet know although we must have been told at the time. Miranda and Michael live in Australia; Michael is an American.

Michael’s parents were there from their home in Detroit, USA. Also, sort-of as surrogates for Miranda’s long dead father, Louis Johnson the poet, the party was attended by Peter Bland, (well known NZ actor), and Jenny McLeod, (well known NZ composer). In all over 40 people attended.

Speeches ended with one from Miranda when she announced she was expecting a baby.

Oak Avenue Weather:18℃—22℃ 14.0mm rain [?]

SwimGym

We tried to pick up the weekly gluten-free bread order straight after SwimGym but were too early. However the adjoining restaurant was open and Karola bough cake to take to Mary.

We packed and left for Wellington mid afternoon. It rained most of the way and we went via the Manawatu Gorge and west coast. We listened to another couple of hours of the Anthony Price novel “Tomorrows Ghosts”.

We stopped in Petone and bought grilled fish (me) and rice with vegetables (Krola) takeaways for dinner.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—20℃ 11.0mm rain [?]

I had a day on computing; Karola finished her 17 willow oak tree refurbishment. No-one came, no-one left. Very peaceful.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—19℃ no rain [84.1]

SwimGym

Then a haircut for me while Karola continued her tending of the willow oaks.

Late afternoon we went in to the Honda shop on Omahu road and looked at the new lawn mower I expect to buy once we come back from Wellington next week.

Henare called round for a chat. I explained about the new lawn mower and he said he would like to mow our lawns. Perhaps sometimes; I’ll see how long it really takes to do the big lawns; the cottage lawn and the little lawn round the washing line will continue to be my task but the big one takes a couple of hours even on a ride-on mower.

Some of the 17 Willow Oaks In Their Magnificent Tree Guards

Karola – Plantsman At Work

Another One Released From Weeds

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—28℃ no rain [84.0]

Sunny day with gentle breezes.

Karola’s cousin Hil (Hiliary Haylock) came today – brought by a friend from Bulls and en route to other friends up the Taihape road. Karola gave her lunch, showed her the cottage and homestead, then ferried her to her next destination.

Henare dropped some apples round late afternoon.

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—24℃ no rain [83.0]

SwimGym

Later in the morning Karola and I went into Hastings to the bank, to set up some USA dollars for Karola’s trip in July/August. I spotted and thus narrowly avoided a $53 charge for giving us our own money in USA dollars from a USA dollar account – you really do have to keep your eyes peeled. The banks online system, used by all the advisors and tellers, is set up to default to the customer paying at every conceivable juncture. Grrrr.

Karola and I discussed lawn mowers and I found that there’s a Honda shop nearby on Omahu road so we dropped in there to see if they had something suitable. The 20-year old Honda we brought out from England still starts like a dream and is a good mower, if rather heavy, except that we cannot easily get the broken drive cable fixed – we’d have to import it and then the cable is buried so deep inside the machine that it’d be very expensive to have a local lawnmower shop fit it. So maybe we’ll get a new one and maybe see if we can entice Henare or Mark or someone similar to mow the main lawns for us. The professional lawn mower man, Shane Hay, is so expensive.

Karola cntinued her tree guard and tree weeding efforts in the afternoon, ably assisted by Bramble.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—22℃ no rain [83.6]

Mowed lawn, swept upstairs in cottage, usual Sunday chores – and suddenly it was time for bed.

Karola continued work on her willow oak trees and their guards and irrigation. Rowena came for afternoon tea and Henare dropped by with a gift of early peaches late afternoon.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—21℃ no rain [83.6]

Karola spent much of the day setting up pipes to water her Willow Oaks in the Long Acre paddock.

In the evening we went to a rather good film, Philomenia, with Peter & Charlotte Offenberger. Turned out we and they had independently decided to go to this film this evening so when I rang Peter it was a case of “snap”. They took us out for an Indian meal afterwards which I enjoyed and Karola really liked – makes a bit of a difference from the usual fare.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—21℃ 3.6mm rain [83.2]