Monthly Archives: May 2014

A late start – it was cold but sunny with not much wind – and then I took Karola in to the Westfield Mall in Lower Hutt, to meet up with Annemarie and Bridget and the grand-daughters for a present buying spree. Bramble and I had a quiet afternoon at the flat.

Later I left Bramble behind and went in to Khandallah to the Khandallah Trading Company, a pub where we all, Chris included, had a table booked for 5:30pm. It wasn’t too noisy and we all had delicious, filling meals.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—14℃ 1.2mm rain [?]

SwimGym – except that I went by myself as Karola wanted to avoid getting her hair wet until after the grand-daughters’ dinner on Saturday night.

Then we packed up and went on our way down to Wellington – via Waipukurau and the Gorge and down the west coast. We picked up my bread and a takeaway coffee at Taste/Cornucopia. We had another coffee at McDonalds in Dannevirke and I unfortunately had some fries which, in hindsight, were coated with a crispening that must have contained gluten. Karola had a small burger.

We got down to Wellington in good time and went directly to Karori to see Mary. Mary was thrilled to see us and Bramble. Afterwards we had dinner with Bridget and family before going out to the Days Bay flat. Soon a good fire was burning and we had a relaxed and warm evening in.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—11℃ 0.6mm rain [?]

Cold night but didn’t seem as cold as the previous night. The wood burner is proving invaluable. Also, restricting the hot water heating to just one radiator seems to work much better.

Bramble had an appointment with the vet at 9:00am for annual vaccinations and checkup. All A-OK.

Mike King (electrical inspector) came as planned at 10:00am and inspected the homestead. All A-OK there too.

Karola had a 10:00am hair cut and afterwards whirled round doing stuff in Hastings. Back home for lunch and then out again for 3:00pm flu jab and more shopping adventures.

Late afternoon I continued where Henare left off, pruning the northern side of the Casurina shelter belt up to head height. Half done. This is my response to the clear and present danger that the mechanical hedge trimmer tractor would probably damage Karola’s Kanuka if it tried to trim the northern side of the shelter belt.
Bramble pottered round near me and afterwards we went round the boundary locking the combination locks on the vehicle gates in preparation for our trip to Wellington tomorrow.

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—17℃ 0.6mm rain [84.0]

SwimGym – and a very cold morning.

Afterwards we bundled up the eight lambs and took them to the Stortford Lodge sale yards. By chance, when yarding up the lambs, Karola got all the ewes and the ram into the holding paddock and so we arranged with the sale yard to bring the ram in for sale today too. Back to Karamu and we loaded the ram and four ewes onto the trailer and ferried them to the sale yards, offloading the ram and returning with the four ewes. That way the ram was quite calm on his second and final trip in our trailer.

I liked the ram but as he’s fathered our lambs for three consecutive years he has to go. Later Karola put up new electric fence and let her ewes into part of the Totara paddock.

The lambs sold were: #301, #304, #309R, #315, #319, #324R, #325, #329 and ram #106.

We sent Harry his reading glasses by overnight courier; he left them here at the weekend.

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—15℃ 0.1mm rain [83.7]

As planned, Harry & Chloe came round late morning on their way back to Bulls. We chatted for a while and then we took them to Bay Expresso in Omahu Road for lunch.

Later Karola carried on with her clearing up under the fire tree and added more logs to her fenceline of firewood for the cottage.

I mulched up the trimmings from the Casurina windbreak that we’d done from yesterday and the day before. Then I sawed the larger logs into a size suitable for the small cottage wood burner. It was distinctly cold this morning and the water radiators are not good for more than taking the chill out of the air. Karola lit the fire which reminded us that the wood burner is terrific for making the cottage living room toasty warm.

Karola’s Firewood Fenceline

More Firewood From Trimming Back The Casurina Windbreak

Oak Avenue Weather:-4℃—13℃ no rain [83.4]

SwimGym

Karola continued with her long task of clearing under the fir tree at the northern end of what was the Goose enclosure. I went up a ladder again and cut the four remaining branches (pictured below) off the end of the Casurina windbreak along the southern Scott’s boundary.

Meticulous Maids came about 1:00pm and cleaned the cottage – there were three of them and they finished in double quick time.

Henare had left his favourite loppers behind and came around about 4:00pm to collect them and have a chat. He brought apples, again.

In the evening we joined Harry & Chloe at the Crown Hotel in Ahuriri, just past the port in Napier, and walked round to the Three Doors Up restaurant where we had an excellent meal.

These photos show the end of the Casurina windbreak before and after the end was trimmed. Yesterday the branches now showing as bare had many side branches and leaves and extended leftwards to wihin a metre of the strainer post, shading out the young fir tree, several Kanuka, and a row of Griselinia.

Lateral Branches Trimmed But Still Attached

Windbreak Trimmed Back To The First Trunk

Oak Avenue Weather:-2℃—14℃ no rain [84.4]

A busy Sunday – the usual chores including mowing the cottage and homestead garage lawns while Karola embarks on a clearing/tidying project. Karola is moving the large pile of old and mostly rotten firewood under a fir tree in what was the Goose enclosure, sorting it into firewood for us (small dimensions), firewood for friends (the bigger stuff), and rotten stuff. Rotten stuff goes on the rubbish heap or “bund” along the roadside fence. Karola is also digging up the iris clumps around the edge of the old wood pile and hopes to put the entire pile area under grass.

Henre dropped in and so we decided to use his help to first of all fix a broken post in the roadside fence. The post was broken by the council when felling a large plane tree in the avenue. Meanwhile, probably only a few days ago, anther heavy branch had fallen off an oak near the fence and damaged it in a second place. Henare replaced the post; I chainsawed up the branch lying on the fence; we both (but mainly Henare) mended the fence wires.

Then we decided to cut some big branches off the end of the Casuarina windbreak – branches that extend laterally towards the avenue and are shading Griselinia and Kanuka planted underneath. Karola held the ladder (too loosely for my liking – she’ll be the death of me one of these days) and I clambered up onto the branches, about 3 meters off the ground,and cut the smaller branches off the main laterals. Meanwhile Henare began trimming the inside branches on the rest of the Casuarina. The plan is to make our side of the windbreak clean back to the trunks so that the hedge trimming by big machine need only trim the top and next door neighbours side, thereby avoiding hurting the Kanuka and Mountain Flax we’ve planted as an understory on the inside.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—20℃ no rain [84.9]

Quiet day. Karola went to a meeting of the local branch of Federation of Graduate Women, I continued with tidying up our digital photos – a long and thankless task.

Gale force winds battered the cottage mid afternoon but it was a warm and mainly sunny day.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—22℃ no rain [84.7]

SwimGym

Karola and I put little furniture bolts on the two cupboards hung on the wall of the cottage garage – one holds animal/vet stuff and the other Karola’s tools. These will stop the doors flying open in case of earthquake.

Friday shopping plus I got our three extra-lethal pruning saws sharpened and two chain saw chains.

I took down the (seemingly miles of) electric fence round the big oak and down the 121 driveway. I let the ewes into their next tranche of fresh grass.

Karola lost a pair of her bifocals when out assembling the portable yards yesterday and search as we might we could not find them. However while I was out this morning Karola found them where she’d put them, hanging on a fence.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—20℃ no rain [84.7]

Another day of grazing under the big oak for the ewes. The lambs that were treated in the last couple of days are now in the One Acre paddock; the other lambs are still in the Front paddock.

Karola began assembling the portable yards at the end of the Island paddock. And she mowed a large circle round the oak tree in the Totara paddock, a circle of nettles.

One of “JB”s men came and sowed grass seed over the bare, rotavated areas that used to be peaches.

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—16℃ no rain [84.5]

SwimGym then a very quiet day for me, reading inside mostly.

There was a buzzing noise up in the orchard – like a chainsaw but going on for hours and hours. Turned out to be some of “JB’s contractors cutting the long grass and weeds around the big shed with a “Weed Eater” or Strimmer.

Karola washed the bottoms of several lambs and clipped the dags off a few others – all in the group of 8 being held in the Island paddock for ease of observation and treatment. They are much better since being drenched. Karola also weighed them by using an old set of bathroom scales and picking up the lamb then weighing Karola+lamb. By subtracting Karola’s weight we got weights all in the range of 20 – 26 kg.

Strimmed & Tidy Round The Orchard Shed

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—21℃ 8.8mm rain [84.7]

Very misty, cool start to the day – so heavy that everything outside, including boots and shoes on the verandah, were soaking wet. It all dried out by late morning.

I did a spot of shopping at lunchtime before Dean Sewell arrived at 3:00pm to discuss our insurance policies for the homestead and cottage. The cottage is much as it has been in the past but, as a consequence of the huge claims from the Christchurch earthquake, the annual premium for the homestead – only insuring for about a third of its approximate replacement value – could fund a trip to the UK. We have asked for a less expensive option. Apparently we are not alone in that several local owners of large old houses are finding the new premiums eye-wateringly expensive.

Later I had a call with our financial man, Chris Day of Forsyth-Barr. We now have invested a few thousand in each of the five major New Zealand power generation companies: meridian, Mighty River Power, Trust Power, Genesis and Contact. If National win the election we’ll probably make a bit of money; if Labour get in we’re likely lose a bit.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—20℃ no rain [84.4]

SwimGym

Ewes had another spell under the big oak.

Karola took the birthday Kauri tree up to the south-west corner and worked for much of the day in the planting area between the orchard and our block, thinning the flax and weeding in preparation fo planting the Kauri.

I made a copy of all our credit and other plastic cards using the printer/scanner – in case we should lose a wallet and needed reminding of what was inside.

Otherwise a quiet day, sunny and cool.

Grandson Felix in England Having A Polo Lesson

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—19℃ 0.2mm rain [83.8]

I put up electric fence round the big oak and down most of the 121 driveway and let the ewes in for a feast. Karola chased them out again after an hour.

I popped the 7-to-go lambs in the holding pen in the yards, added the 7-to-keep in the yard, drafted out the 5 of the 7-to-keep that were clean and bonnie and settled down to wait for Karola who had gone out “for ten minutes” about an hour ago. When she and Bramble returned we drenched the two daggy ones in the 7-to-keep (#304 and #325) and all except #322 of the 7-to-go.

7-to-keep: #304, #311, #325, #327, #328, #333, #337.
7-to-go: #301, #309R, #315, #319, #322, #324R, #329.

Drenched today: #301, #304, #309R, #315, #319, #324R, #325, #329 with Scandia (withholding for meat of 10 days).

Ewes Enjoying Grass & Weeds Under The Big Oak

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—18℃ 0.1mm rain [84.4]

Quiet, cold, sunny day and only Karola and Bramble ventured out much. Rowena popped in mid afternoon.

Some Tree Guards & Karola’s Weeping Willows

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—17℃ 0.1mm rain [84.1]

SwimGym

The rain stopped and most of the day was cool but sunny – warm in sheltered spots.

I did the Friday shopping, including getting our charged-up battery from the AA, then put up another electric fence and let the ewes in to another ⅓rd of the Middle paddock.

Ewes All Eating For Two (or Three, or Four)

Karola spent most of the day working on her tree guards – she has a dozen more trees to guard.

I marked the posts on the boundary fence between the Homestead title and the Orchard with bands of red and yellow marker spray paint so that when new trees are planted and the posts and wires go up they will avoid the ½ acre building plot we’ve reserved in the orchard. Not that we have immediate plans to build there, but it preserves our ability to build – or sell to someone who wants to build in the future.

Marked Posts Showing Edges Of The Building Plot

Joint Effort – Shark Pie

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—16℃ 0.1mm rain [84.1]

A wet and quite stormy night but eased off to showers during the day. Inside stuff today except for a mid-day shopping expedition by Karola and Bramble.

Karola checked her sheep in the paddock after breakfast and all were accounted for although they all looked a bit bedraggled after their stormy wet night.

I cut a couple of branches off Ngaios along the orchard drive – there were just a couple that had drooped out over the drive, quite high up but possibly a nuisance for tractor and truck drivers.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—13℃ 1.8mm rain [84.4]

SwimGym

It started raining on and off from 5:00am onwards so Karola decided not to take her 7 lambs to the sale today.

Later we went out to Puketapu Hotel for lunch with friends Jenny and Noel Hendery. Good food and good conversation. Afterwards, having forgotten our meeting with insurance broken Dean Sewell at 3:30pm, we set off for home. I didn’t turn left on the outskirts of Puketapu village and so ended up on Dartmoor road heading west. Karola had mentioned that a drive in the country would be nice so we didn’t retrace our steps immediately.

In fact our ride was longer than we’d anticipated. At the junction of Apley road and Wahaiu road I took the Wahaiu road up along the banks of the Tukituki river. Half an hour later with nothing but no-exit roads branching off Wahaiu road it became a gravel road. Another half hour with no sign of a road back to civilisation Dean rang to say he was at Karamu waiting for us – it was 3:45pm. Mortified at having forgotten all about this meeting we apologised and said it would be too late by the time we got back. Mrs Google told us it would take more than an hour to get back to the homestead.

And she was right. Our long circuitous route through farmlands and forest took us from Puketapu on Dartmoor Road, Wahaiu Road, Pukititiri Road, Apley Road and back to Dartmoor Road again. Back to Puketapu and this time I took the correct turn and we retraced our steps along Swamp road and through Fernhill, past the turnoff to Wellington on State Highway 50 and along Omahu road, Ormond road and home.

The rain fair pelted down as we went down Omahu road – really heavy rain that made driving very difficult – but it eased as we entered Ormond road. We arrived home and just as we were consoling Bramble for our long absence there was a flash followed almost immediately by an almighty crash of thunder – not just a loud growl but a massive crack. I jumped, Karola jumped, Bramble jumped and ended up shivering with fright for ten minutes or so. The storm carried on for half an hour but the thunder and lightening moved away so was more muted after this initial tremendous crash.

Karola had messages of goodwill from her daughters and grandchildren and others, including me and Bramble of course. A good time was had by all.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—15℃ 11.1mm rain [84.2]

Chris Ormond called round to pick up the wood he’d sawn up into firewood lengths and borrowed the big trailer to take it home.

I went off to Napier to get Karola’s birthday card and present plus some door catches and rope to replace the old rotten rope on the plum tree swing. Karola’s present is a pair of Muehlenbeckia astonii in pots and a Kauri tree (Agathis australis).

Karola, meanwhile, decided to rid herself of another nine lambs by cleaning them up and sending them to the sale yards tomorrow.

Just to summarise:
Keeper ewe lambs (7): #304, #311, #325, #327, #328, #333, #337
Already sold ewe lambs (9): #308, #317, #318, #320, #323, #326, #330, #334, #335
To be sold (2 wether, 5 ewe) lambs: #309, #324 and #301, #315, #319, #322, #329

I picked up the logs Chris Ormond had sawn for us and put them in Karola’s favourite little trailer ready for stacking with other cut firewood in the Middle paddock along the fence. I mowed the cottage lawn and the homestead garage lawn – pretty easy as the grass hasn’t grown very much since last time I cut it.

Another hedgehog has died in the Front paddock – in addition to the two Karola picked up earlier this week in about the same place. Seems to happen every year about this time.

Felix asked for some photos for a school project so we’re sending him these (below) which Karola took this afternoon.

Ian and Bramble on the Homestead Verandah

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—19℃ 1.7mm rain [84.4]

SwimGym and I think there was a slight frost. Sounds of a tractor cultivating in the orchard.

Subaru battery flat again this morning and no obvious cause. After SwimGym Karola called the AA. They came within the hour and jump started the ca, which i could have done quite easily but last time the AA came re a battery they actually checked and replaced the battery on the spot. No such luck today; we had to keep the engine running until we were able to go into Hastings to the AA depot where they swapped the flat battery for a temporary good one. They’ll charge the battery overnight and call us tomorrow to say whether the old battery is OK or if we need to get a new one. The battery is of a new sort they call a “calcium” battery – the modern trend apparently – and these do not respond well to a shallow recharge after being flattened.

Late afternoon I picked up the new lawn mower after its initial and free service. I then put up an electric fence for Karola, partitioning off a new swathe of the Middle paddock for her ewes to have tomorrow.

Just before dinner Henare and Scott called round for a chat bearing a fresh crayfish for Karola caught up at the Mahia today.

The Orchard Bare Patches Are Rotavated With Another Large Tractor

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—20℃ no rain [84.8]

So exhausted from the eight hours driving or being driven yesterday that I slept most of the day. Karola checked her livestock and all are present and correct.

Karola fed her sheep some pea straw and she picked up some of the many hickory nuts on the ground for possible planting inside the planting areas. Karola also spread grass seed on some of the balder patches in the Middle paddock.

I left the door of the car ajar overnight so we had to jump-start it from the landrover. Then, mid afternoon, it was time to pick up Bramble. The barking noise at the kennels was tremendous – I think – I hope – this only happens when we and others come to pick up or drop our dogs – otherwise I pity the neighbours.

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—20℃ no rain [84.7]

After breakfast we set off from Eastwoodhill Arboretum with Ben (Benedict Lyte- the curator) into Gisborne to catch the charter bus out to Puketoro Station, Ingleby Farms Ltd. Most of the about 80 attendees went on the tour; we were in the larger of the two buses.

The trip out took about 2½ hours; the first half an hour on sealed highway and the rest on a winding narrow gravel road often along precipitous cliffs with 100s metre drops on the outside. On these parts of the raod it was quite exciting as, when rounding one of the many sharp corners, the ends of the bus swung way out over the chasm. Occasionally the dips in the road were so steep that the front of the bus graunched on the gravel.

Views Out Across Puketoto Station

Jeremy Williams gave a commentary as we crawled along the road to and across Puketoto Station which comprises a few lush river flats, countless rivers and creeks, and much mountainous rugged terrain with lots of slips and fierce gullies and ravines. This is typical of the East coast inland of Tokomaru Bay. Our main destination was a large gully in mudstone country with massive slips where the hillsides were sloughing off into the ravine. We saw plantings of 1000s of manuka seedlings and willow stakes and it was fascinating to see what they called “beaver dams” blocking the downward rush of mud and detritus.

The Ingleby Farms philosophy includes emphasis on sustainability and family values. That drives their enthusiasm for reducing erosion and minimising the visual pollution of large pine forest monocultures. The existing forests on the farms are being reduced and in some cases replaced but new plantings avoid the ridges and are usually masked by amenity plantings of other species.

Trees for bees is a significant project on Puketoto. Bees have a forage limit of 2 – 4 kilometers and the plan is to have “bee hubs” down in sheltered areas on the flats with good sight lines up the gullies where the plantings of manuka, willow, and native regereration will provide pollen for the bees most of the year round.

A large helicopter had transported several mature large felled willows, dropping them into the throat of the gully to form the beaver dam. All branches suitable for becoming willow posts – stakes that would root and become new trees – were sawn off the embedded willows and planted further up the gully.

The Gully With Erosion Prevention & Trees for Bees Plantings

Lunch was “marae style” in the Puketoto woolshed, made for us by the local primary school. I supplemented my “gluten free” paper bag with lots of roast mutton – scrumptious.

Laying Out The Feast – Puketoto Woolshed

The bus arrived back in Gisborne, near the Portside Hotel, at about 5:30pm and we immediately took off for Hastings. It was dark and we took the usual SH2 route via Nuhaka, Wairoa and on down to Hastings. It took me just under three hours.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—17℃ no rain [?]

Registration at 8:30am and the lectures began at 9:00am sharp-ish. Rodney Faulkner, brother of Karola’s school friend Kirsty (Kirsty of Kirsty & Bruce), had organised this conference and the first one last year, both at Eastwoodhill Arboretum. He herded speakers and audience with the aid of a particularly loud air horn – most effective.

Rodney ran the conference; Sarah, his wife, masterminded the food. About half a dozen of us had “special dietary requirements” and so got our own paper bags while the rest dug in at communal tables.

After registration we were welcomed by Rodney and then the mayor of Gisborne, Meng Foon, a very bouncy, articulate, and enthusiastic advocate for Gisborne city.

Various speakers then set the scene – of the bee keeping industry world wide and of the rest of the conference. Bees are imperilled in most countries – beset by habitat loss, monoculture agriculture, disease, predators and pesticides – but are in fact increasing in New Zealand because of the phenomenon of health-promoting Manuka honey. The Varoa mite and Colony Collapse Disorder are wrecking havoc with hives everywhere and the role of honey bees as crop pollinators is under threat. More so than simple honey creation, the honey bee is essential for pollination of major crops like almonds, apples, clover and many more.

Morning Tea At Eastwoodhill Arboretum

We learnt that bees are complex little insects – both inside their bodies and in how they function as social insects. We also heard a brief summary of the work of scientist Linda Newstrom-Lloyd who has just completed three years at Eastwoodhill Arboretum cataloguing the flowering times, pollen and nectar quantities and quality of myriad tree species, mainly exotic. Of course Eastwoodhill Arboretum was created in 1910 as an ark for northern hemisphere trees by a philanthropist, William Cook, who, at the time of the first World War feared that the northern hemisphere would destroy for ever many tree species. It contains the largest range of northern hemisphere tree species in the southern hemisphere.

After lunch we were introduced by Jeremy Williams to Ingleby Farms NZ – a multinational farming business owned by the very wealthy Rausing family (Tetra Pak billionaires), specifically Lisbet Rausing. Jeremy Williams, a member of the Williams family that owned large tracts of land on the East Cape and who sold his farm to Ingleby, is the general manager of Ingleby Farms NZ which has large farms in the King Country and East Cape. More of that tomorrow.

Peter Hair and Paul Badger described experiments in bee keeping on Peter’s farm – and we visited the farm late afternoon. To most efficiently measure the performance of hives in different location on the farm small groups of hives were placed on permanent scales that sent a current hive weight back to a recording station every few minutes. Through this telemetry they were able to contrast the weight of bees and their hive stores year round.

Hawkes Bay Regional Council has quite large amenity and erosion control plantings at Lake Tutira and we heard how these are doing – plenty of trees for bees amid the ravages of hares, goats, and other vermin.

Mid afternoon there was an inspiring talk by Wiremu Raa and Rangi Raroa of “Nati Beez”, a cooperative for training locals as bee keepers and organising a bee keeping business for their Maori community. The interest in this by Nati Beez (and conference attendee Koro Te Whaiti 021-217-3835 korotewhaiti@nowmail.co.nz – Te Haaro Maori Trust), is the potential for revenue and work for their communities by selling Manuka honey with the antibiotic ingredient, a methylglyoxal compound. The amount of this natural antibiotic in honey is measured by the level of methylglyoxal activity, MGA, (and the similar trademarked test, “unique manuka factor”, UMF). To illustrate, ordinary honey may fetch $0.33 per kilo whereas UMF honey fetches $33.00 per kilo ex hive.

On quite a different tack, we heard from Paul Millen, evangelising the use of untreated eucalypt grown in New Zealand as an alternative to the ubiquitious CCR-treated pine (chrome-copper-arsenic) or imported hardwoods. He believes that by choosing the best eucalypt species for forests in New Zealand’s dryer areas we could create untreated alternatives for the use of treated pine in vineyards and orchards.

Late afternoon Karola and I car-pooled with Wiremu Raa and Rangi Raroa down to Peter Hair’s farm for an on-site look at his trees-for-bees plantings.

We had dinner with Rodney and Sarah Faulkner in their magnificent house set in an acre of grounds on Riverside Road in Gisborne. Rodney & Sarah designed the house themselves and Rodney milled timber standing on the section or from his farm. In particular a nice stand of Eucalypt saligna grown by his grandfather has gone into the flooring for the new house.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—19℃ no rain [?]

Karola took Bramble over to the kennels, “Pets-2-Us” for the next few days. She’s been left twice recently with her surrogate family Graham & Tracey up the Taihape Road so we thought it wasn’t fair to ask for a third time so soon.

I checked the combination locks on all the vehicle-sized gates; Karola had locked most of them yesterday. We figure that if we at least make it difficult to drive a truck into our paddocks then the sheep and trailers and tractor are less likely to go missing but Henare or whomever is keeping an eye on the place can get through the small gates without hindrance.

I went into Hastings and asked that tomorrow’s order of GF bread be kept in the fridge until I get back next week; I bought some more GF buns to take with us up to Gisborne. Later we put the new lawnmower onto Karola’s best trailer and I took it in to have its first free service.

Then we finished packing and set off for Gisborne. At Wairoa, instead of taking SH2, we turned left and went along the very winding Tiniroto Road, past the turnoff to Hackfalls Arboretum – according to Mrs Google it’s fractionally shorter that way to Eastwoodhill Arboretum which is some way out of Gisborne city.

The staff went home at 5:00pm so, as arranged, we arrived around 6:30pm and settled in their “studio accommodation” – spartan but quite adequate – and Karola cooked our dinner in the common room surrounded, as expected, by tables of botanic specimens and three WelTech students and their tutor writing up their week’s exploration of the arboretum.

The Conference Agenda

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—21℃ 0.9mm rain [?]

SwimGym

I had a doctors appointment – my annual diabetes checkup – all A-OK although the surgery had long backlog of patients and it took ages.

When I got home I heard activity in the orchard and went up and took a photo of the rather large tractor discing the areas so recently covered in pumpkins. According to the driver, who admitted that our little plots were really too small for the tractor, the next thing will be that the plots (which used to be peach trees) will be rotavated and put down to grass. Later a narrow track will be rotary-hoed along the line of each new row of trees – guided by GPS – and young saplings will be planted.

Karola caught another mouse – we’re having a bit of a plague of them at present.

Karola also spent the day cleaning out cupboards and discarding old jars of fruit and cakes etc that were well past their sell-buy dates or rotting because air had got in, or nibbled by rodents.

I mowed lawn for an hour with the new mower. Maybe we’ll take it in for its complimentary first service tomorrow.

After The Pumpkins – Massive 350hp Tractor Discing The Paddock

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—22℃ no rain [83.7]

Karola has decided to tackle the weeds in the planting area in the north eastern corner of the Front paddock and has had a day of surprises – trees that have flourished, trees that have died, and little saplings of unexpected self-sown trees.

I put up 150 metres of electric fence and did an hour or so of lawn mowing.

Otherwise I was inside trying to comprehend the Stanford University online video course on Programming for the iPhone (18 lessons, 20+ hours of video plus homework). I am on lesson three, Bridget is up to lesson eight already.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—25℃ no rain [83.7]

SwimGym

A little rain. Quiet day. Karola was out and about from mid morning until early afternoon. Before that Kirsty Faulkner and Bruce Utting called in for morning tea on their way back to Wellington from Gisborne where they’d attended a birthday party.

Karola put electric fence around the 121 driveway and expects to let the sheep in there to do a bit of cleaning up tomorrow.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—20℃ 0.1mm rain [83.8]

A pleasant autumn Sunday but with rain forecast tomorrow.

The usual Sunday tasks – mowing the cottage lawn when it’s not too wet, doing the bills and so on.

Henare came at 9:00am hoping to use the new mower to mow (some of) the main lawn, but it was too wet from the dew until lunchtime. Henare came back at noon and in 3½ hours he had done most of it.

Rowena came round in the afternoon to see Karola as planned.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—21℃ 0.5mm rain [84.5]

I have spent several hours on the web log – specifically the entries for the recent brilliant holiday in the South Island with Geoff & Edwina Robinson.

Karola switched the sheep round so that the ewes are now in the Long Acre and the lambs – all 8 ewe replacements and the 6 left-overs – are in the Front paddock.

Karola’s bite seems to be healing OK. I cooked tonight – lamb chops, brussel sprouts, baked potato and butternut. Passable.

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—20℃ 0.1mm rain [84.3]

SwimGym

Another Friday – cool and sunny. I spent the morning in Hastings, Karola and Bramble went to Napier to visit the Maggie and Colin Nagel in Taradale and drop off crab-apple bounty at Jenny Hendery’s place.

I meanwhile had a quarterly blood test and picked up the week end food.

Quiet, restful afternoon. But in the evening there was a small excitement. Karola caught the mouse that has been running round the cottage kitchen for several days (a good thing). And Karola woke up Bramble with a start and touched her near her tail-that-was and got bitten. Accidentally I’m sure as I picked her up and grabbed her feet and so on without any fuss once she was fully awake.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—18℃ no rain [84.5]

The lambs are gone, the leaves are fluttering down from the trees and it’s nearing the end of autumn. I had a quiet day, partly reading in the sun on the verandah, partly writing up our web log for the wonderful holiday we had in the South island with the Robinsons.

Karola meanwhile stacked a trailer load of firewood then planted six more of her White Pines before joining me in an afternoon of quiet reading.

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—18℃ no rain [84.2]