Monthly Archives: October 2014

The School Chums Arrive

SwimGym

Immediately afterwards, aided crucially by Joan, we got the lambs from the One Acre into the Front paddock and the ewes from the Middle paddock into the One Acre.

After breakfast Joan & Karola did the weekend shopping – seems an awful lot of shopping for food going on just recently. Meanwhile I had my quarterly diabetics checkup – all’s well there.

Late morning I went to Goldpine and bought another gate to replace one in the sheep yards that had too many bars – six instead of five. Now I’ll be able to add five 4”x1” planks to this gate and it’ll match its twin securing the access from the opposite direction. When I got back, realising that the planks are not going to be fixed to the metal gates this weekend so tok various bits back to the yards, swapped the new and existing gate, and made sure the yards were fully functional.

After lunch I was back in electric fencing mode rolling up a couple of fences no longer needed and laying out a rotational scheme with three cells for the ewes in the One Acre.

Kirsty & Bruce arrived soon afterwards; Carol Jean McGibbon a while later.

We had a hearty fish pie dinner in the homestead dining room.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—22℃ no rain [80.6]

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Much Electric Fencing

Thistles in the Totara and Middle paddocks are mostly sprayed and dying and today I chopped them and we three, Karola, Joan, and I, picked them up leaving the paddocks scotch thistle free. Still plenty of ‘calis’ though.

I disassembled the electric fence round the back drive and began wiring up the Front paddock.

Lunch at Pernels Fruit World – under new management yet again. Chips have gluten but the hash browns don’t so I had BLAT without bread and substituting hash browns. The ladies had pizzas.

I spent the afternoon, until quite dark, putting up a five-cell arrangement of electric fence in the Front paddock. This included using the old yellow mulching mower to clear a path for the wires and avoid the bottom wire shorting out on the luxuriant grass.

The lambs, who had been allowed back in the One Acre while I put the fence up, would not return but led me a merry dance round and round the One Acre.

Pernels Aviary

Pernels Garden

Karola & Joan Phillips – Lunch At Pernels

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—20℃ no rain [80.1]

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Joan Phillips Arrived Today

SwimGym

Then we went into Hastings, laving Bramble behind as, in the warmer months, it’s too hot for a dog to be left in the car whilst we shop. Haircut for me while Karola got some last minute food for the next few days. Then a quick stop at Farmlands for some salt lick blocks for the sheep.

Later Karola took the car down to Stortford Lodge for a car wash, intending to attend to the inside herself when she came back.

Joan Phillips arrived early afternoon; she is one of Karola’s class mates and the first of them to arrive here for the Woodford House Old Girls reunion at the weekend. About five are staying here in the homestead.

I am still struggling with a humungous archiving of all my digital documents, emails, images, and programs, hoping it’ll fit in two thousand gigabytes. I “broke the code” today and got my elderly IBM PC to talk to the Macbook Pro.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—25℃ no rain [80.5]

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Ewes Clean Up The Back Drive

Slow start to the day but mid morning I set up electric fence along the back drive and let the sheep in. The fence weaves in and out to protect various trees so it takes a long time to set up.

Cynthia Chalmers dropped in for morning tea and left just before lunch. Much conversation about the impending Woodford House reunion and associated activities.

Karola was off on tree guard maintenance duty again most of the day.

In the afternoon I mowed the little lawns and the immediate area surrounding the octagon. Rain threatened but did not materialise.

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—19℃ no rain [79.7]

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Construction Of The Octagon Wall Completed

SwimGym for me but Karola had a lie in – it was a public holiday (Labour Day) after all.

I dismantled the electric fence round the big oak and moved the one in the Middle paddock so that the ewes, while deied the big oak, did have a small extra swathe of grass. They’ve cleaned up under the oak and the plum tree very well and as soon as it stops raining Karola will put up fence along the back drive (to the 121 entrance) and give them time on that.

Henare came at 10:30am and we continued with the octagon. Firstly Karola, Henare and I trimmed the tenon off the eight top planks using my bench saw and placed them as the final layer of the octagon. Then Henare put in the 16 short half-round posts to hold the planks in place. It began raining shortly before lunch, gentle warm rain, and continued that way until late afternoon. Luckily the palm tree acted as a large umbrella so the rain didn’t slow Henare down at all.

In the afternoon Karola went back to her tree guard maintenance and got pretty wet in the process.

The Octagon Wall Is Up

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—20℃ 9.1mm rain [79.7]

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Dinner Out With Peter & Charlotte

Henare came before lunch and we continued work on the octagon – that is, Henare dug the trench for the wooden wall, put in a base layer of gravel, and fitted the first layer of planks inside the trench. I nailed up the ends and we were both rather chuffed that the planks all fitted very well.

I, disconsolate with the lambs disrespect for electric fence, took down Karola’s fences in the Front paddock and erected a double fence separated by 200mm or so confining them to a smaller area than before. I also made sure the electricity was on and working well. Initially four lambs went bounding through the double fence but I patiently shooed them back and tonight there were no escapees and several lambs had had an unpleasant shock from the wires so maybe they’ll learn.

Karola’s ewes spent another day tidying up under the big oak.

Later Henare and I put on the second layer of planks; they also fitted without problems. henare then put the remaining gravel against the planks on the inside and I improved the 16 half-rounds by cutting the tops slantwise so that the rain drains off.

As arranged previously, Karola and I went out to dinner with Peter & Charlotte Offenberger, this time at Pippis in Havelock North. Charlotte had a birthday last week. Afterwards we went back to their place for strawberries and icecream/cream.

Henare Lays Out The Octagon Planks Bottom Layer

Henare Adds Gravel To The Inside Of The Octagon – Now Two Planks High

The Octagon In Perspective

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—21℃ no rain [79.8]

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More Work On The Octagon

In the morning Karola let the lambs into a third of the Front paddock enclosed with electric fence. Of course they ignored the fence and went exploring all over the Front paddock.

Karola and I, using the experience from yesterday with the model octagon, angled the ends of eight planks for the base layer of “the octagon”. We then continued with laying out the octagon with pegs and string.

Henare came at noon to help. Karola decided the octagon wasn’t quite as symmetrically placed with respect to the palm so Henare and I moved it and completed the pegging out. Then we chopped up the remaining planks for the upper two layers.

Meanwhile karola went back to her maintenance of tree guards.

Shane Hay (Garden Groom) came and mowed the main lawns (a couple of days earlier than expected) ready for Karola’s Woodford Old-Girls Visit.

The Octagon Design In Pegs And String

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—16℃ no rain [80.1]

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Hawkes Bay Regional Holiday

SwimGym

Karola and I spent the morning attempting to mark out the octagon until it started to rain. Rain contined and so Henare was postponed. We made a model of the octagon out of battens, cutting the angles to make sure we had it right – which we did on the second attempt.

It turned into a cold southerly wind. I gave karola’s ewes a bale of hay, let them into the Long Acre and gave them another couple of hours under the big oak as they seemed cold, having so recently been shorn. While taking the hay to the sheep yards, where its more sheltered and any waste is good mulch for the ground there, I accidentally drove over the water trough connector which came apart. I tried to reconnect it and got pretty wet in the process and then had to go back and forth, turning off the water, reconnecting, turning it back on, and checking – the tap is about 150 metres away from the trough.

I sawed the 8 half-round 1.8metre long posts in two so that we will be able to pin each side of the octagon with two 900mm posts.

We made a model octagon to make sure I could cut the boards on the right angle for the big one (6 metres across) round the big palm tree with the messy pigeons in it. We got the angle right on the second attempt. Henare was coming round again this afternoon to help with levelling foundations, cutting planks etc and shovelling gravel but that was rained off. I have a trailer load of gravel for foundations and for the base of the material inside which will then be topped up with mulch.

As you can see, Bramble was held firm by the magic of the “octagon of control” – well for 10 seconds at least.

Bramble Trapped In The Octagon Of Control

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—18℃ 2.9mm rain [79.7]

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New Project – Karola’s Octagon

My two huge capacity external disk drives arrived today as did our 500 small sticky address labels. The labels cost $25 not the almost $300 quoted by the Hastings label company.

Before Henare came I toddled off to Goldpine and bought the rest of the timber needed to complete Karola’s octagon round the big palm tree.

Karola’s day was devoted to tree guard maintenance, punctuated with periods of helping me and/or Henare.

Henare first shovelled half a cubic metre of topsoil and clay into the big trailer and then used the clay to fill in the many holes left from moving fences and removing the old sheep yards. Karola had marked the worst cases with bamboo sticks. He then spread the topsoil in the gateway to the Middle paddock next to the cottage; it’s a bit low-lying there.

I went out for my quarterly blood test, to pick up my bread (a day early – Friday is a holiday in Hawkes Bay), and get more food for the 4-day long weekend. I brought back fried fish for lunch.

After lunch Henare and I worked on the octagon – sawing up enough planks into 2.4 metre lengths for a layout of the first layer. I also popped out and bought a half cubic metre of AP40 gravel for the octagon foundations.

Later, when Henare had left, I sprayed a few more thistles lurking in the Middle paddock.

Thistles Sprayed With Roundup That Can Be Chopped & Removed Next Week

First Attempt At Laying Out The Octagon

The Octagon In Perspective

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—19℃ no rain [79.7]

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Hot Busy Day

SwimGym

While Karola was out shopping I put Roundup all the scotch thistles i could find in the Totara & Middle paddocks – 100s of them. I also sprayed a bit of marker paint on them so that any I found later would be identifiable as having been poisoned or not. We wait for a few days and then can chop the thistles and remove them, they should be completely dead by then.

My two 1-terrabyte external disk drives arrived today but meanwhile I’d decided that 2-terrabytes would be needed to hold all my archived computer data so I arranged to return the two that arrived today and ordered two of the larger size.

Karola has embarked on a weeding and maintenance project for her many tree guards and the trees within them.

I continued with minor improvements to the sheep yards. The little shelf is up (see below) and I am putting wooden boards on some of the metal gates to make them more sheep-friendly – in particular the gates used to push the sheep further into the pens.

Shelf For Tools & Materials In The Sheep Yards

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—18℃ no rain [79.8]

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Computers – Who Needs Them

The new releases of Apple software this month imply lots of re-learning and re-configuring as well as lots of huge downloads so I’m taking it gradually. This morning splashed out on a pair of 1000 gigabyte (ie VERY LARGE) disk drives so that I can copy a whole lot of old stuff onto them as a permanent archive and make room for the new stuff. I also re-negotiated my Internet connection fees with Airnet most favourably, given all the big downloads I’m doing, and I have Gill to thank for that as her tale of re-negotiation she told me last week made me decide to investigate this end.

A bit more minor work on the sheep yards today – including a small shelf for Karola to put stuff on out of the rain – like drench and raddle. And some fiddling about with pipes and connectors for the water troughs. Meanwhile Karola did ever more mowing. Her sheep enjoyed a couple of hours on lush grass under the old plum tree and partially under the big oak.

One Of Karola’s Willow Oaks – Beautiful Shape And Colour

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—16℃ no rain [79.6]

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Sheep Yard Improvements Underway

SwimGym

I went off and bought an extra gate for the sheep yards and four 4.8m lengths of 175x50mm tongue and groove retaining wall timber – the beginnings of the small wall around the old palm tree next to the Liriodendron – the palm which the pigeons live in.

Karola moved electric fence providing the ewes with a slice of the old goose enclosure today and grazing under the big oak tomorrow.

After lunch Karola, Bramble and I put up the new gate and moved one of the others in line with Karola’s suggestions for a better flow for the sheep.

Henare and Scott called round late afternoon for a cup of tea. Henare’s eye is healing well.

Moved Gate (Foreground), New Gate Behind It

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—20℃ no rain [80.1]

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Welcome Gentle rain

Rained most of the night and day – but we welcome it – all too soon we’ll be wondering when the next rain is coming as a hot, dry summer lingers.

So, not much outside today. Sheep allowed along the back drive for a few hours.

Having cleaned the two leaking troughs we reassembled them and now wait to see if they still leak.

We cleaned the kitchen floor and Karola decided to clean under the fridge only to find a mouse mountain of Bramble’s biscuits stashed away in the back of the fridge. No more leaving out biscuits for Bramble overnight me-thinks.

Mouse Cache Inside The Back Of The Fridge

The Troughs Under Test

Ewes Enjoy The Lush Verges Of The Drive

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—16℃ 9.0mm rain [80.9]

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Improvements To The Sheep Yards

Slow day, back down to spring temperatures and a little rain threatening.

Karola went to Federation of Graduate Women meeting mid day and heard a fascinating talk by a retired lecturer at EIT on her walk of the pilgrim’s way in Spain, the Santiago de Compostela.

We reviewed the new sheep yard design and Karola made some suggestions to improve still further the sheep flow. These will take some time to implement. Meantime I added some triangular edging trim to the capping board along the inner wall of the crush and painted it. I also added a triangle of plywood about 500mm across to the wall at the beginning of the crush pen – both of these to provide places to put stuff while working with the sheep.

In the evening Karola took Rowena to a concert in Napier – Beethoven’s Ninth – which she very much enjoyed.

I mowed the cottage lawn in case it does rain, as forecast, tomorrow.

Minor Improvements To Sheep Yards

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—20℃ 10.4mm rain [79.9]

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Seems Like Summer

SwimGym

Karola went off to Napier for a hearing checkup – her “sound shells” are quite effective when Karola decides to use them and the checkup said her hearing is no better nor worse than before.

I picked up the bread and some weekend food in Hastings. Later I took in three of our Silky brand pruning saws and a set of hedge clippers to be sharpened ($100 for sharpening and one new blade).

In the afternoon a Copas Plumbing man came and re-anchored one of the pieces of the waste management system that had come adrift – as discussed during the annual maintenance check a few days ago.

Karola did a long stint of lawn mowing in the heat of the afternoon. Bramble accompanied her.

I went to Total Building Supplies on Omahu road and bought a few more bits of wood. Later I chain sawed up some minor branches of the fallen limb of the English Beech – just to get it well off the track along the top of the ha-ha.

Karola checked on the lambs and found one had got its head stuck through the netting fence. Also the water trough had come undone, we suppose through lambs playing with the pipe and connectors.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—23℃ no rain [80.1]

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Orchard Mown Today

Karola went off mid morning for a hair cut and other errands, not returning till 1:30pm. Meanwhile I mulch-mowed the nettles under the oak and Canary Island pine in the Totara paddock and weeded along the outside of the cottage railings – reaching in under the railings to cut off weeds growing against the fence on the inside.

Karola mowed some more of the main homestead lawn.

Another lamb got out and returned to the ewes late morning. I saw it get through a fence just by bashing its way between the wires. Our seven-wire post-and-batten fences are not necessarily lamb proof; for that you usually use eight wires.

Early evening we put Magnum pour-on anti-flystrike on all 35 ewes (withholding for meat of zero days) and re-caught the lamb and plonked it back with the others after a short ride in the Landrover.

One of “JB”s men mowed the orchard today – look quite smart. Also Karola told me that they’d added gravel to the main orchard track from the inner gate on the orchard drive right up to McNabb road.

Recent Extra Gravel On Orchard Track

Orchard Freshly Mown

Another View Of Orchard Track

New Access To Cope’s Next Door Over The Big Ditch At The Back Of Karola’s Orchard

Diggers Used By Cope’s To Clear Old Stumps And Make New Culvert Across Ditch

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—20℃ no rain [79.9]

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Weaning & Shearing

SwimGym

After breakfast we weaned the lambs taking them in two trailer loads to the One Acre paddock, as far from their mums as we could. Initially there wasn’t much fuss but as the evening drew on the incessant baaing became more obvious.

Lamb #415R lost its tag while in the crate. Ewe lamb #408 jumped through the fence mid afternoon and tried to rejoin her mum who was being shorn. I shooed #408E into the yards and later we took her back in the Landrover, Karola holding her on her lap.

Karl and Mrs Karl spent the afternoon shearing; Karl also drenched #113 and #934 who were particularly in need. (Composite drench – withholding for meat of 10 days)

The Second Load Of 27 Mostly Heavy, Healthy Lambs

At First The Sweet New Grass Was More Important Than Finding Mum

First Time The New Yards Are Used For Shearing – Worked A Treat

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—22℃ no rain [79.7]

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Much Mowing

A very hot day in Hastings.

Karola did some more lawn mowing until to just got too hot for her (and it was lunchtime). After lunch she went to see her friend Rowena in Napier and to pick up tickets for a Beethoven choral concert next Saturday.

I, having been dissuaded by Karola from attacking the downed branch of the English beech tree, instead decided to trim the edges of the cottage lawn, along the edge of the concrete, alongside the cottage, round the strip containing the bay trees, and the gravel surrounding the septic tank (waste disposal system). I spent a lot of time weeding the gravel surrounding the septic tank and also weeded the mulch pathway from the little gate between the cottage garden and the driveway. Karola intends that this mulch path be put down to grass as the mulch all too quickly encouraged weeds and the path itself doesn’t get a lot of use.

Alan Copas of Copas Plumbing & Electrical sent a man to service the waste management system – an annual event – and he spent more than two hours on that.

Karola went to a Landmarks talk at the library, about the work of the Horticultural Research Institute in Havelock North. She saw Peter & Charlotte there – they too thought it sounded interesting. Meanwhile I mowed a large square on the main lawn measuring about 40 paces x 40 paces – it took 2½ hours. All in the name of having a tidy place when Karola’s Woodford House school friends (old girls) come to stay in November.

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—23℃ no rain [79.8]

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Karola Finishes Planting Her Five Golden Ash Trees

SwimGym

Henare is home now and healing well according to his doctor.

Meticulous Maids came and cleaned the homestead this afternoon, in preparation for some of Karola’s class mates who are attending the “Woodford Old Girls” reunion in November.

I hung the two little garden gates either side of the railings.

Little Gates On Either Side

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—18℃ no rain [80.1]

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Henare Is Recovering From Eye Accident

Henare sent me a text message saying he was going to be examined by the doctor at 10:00am. Later he said that the doctor concluded he would recover. He’s to stay in another night as the doctor needs to see him again tomorrow.

Karola arranged to take Denise, Henare’s wife, (who doesn’t drive) to see Henare and so this afternoon she did. First though we had to jump-start the car as it had a flat battery. Adds a new dimension to my Sunday chore of charging up the electronic devices.

In the morning I fed Karola’s sheep with a bale of pea straw and shut them in the big holding paddock so that I could drive round and pick up the two leaking water troughs and also make some adjustments to the gate leading from the cottage drive into the Middle paddock. The sheep are not hungry so much as bored and so they run to wherever we are baaing for a change of scenery and rushing through any open gate – hence the temporary imprisonment in the holding paddock.

Karola planted three of her five golden ash trees.

I tied the netting to the guide wires on the little new fence on the north-east corner using lacing wire. Construction of that fence is now I hope complete.

I completed the wooden construction of the two little gates to go either side of the railings covering the now-closed gateway from the Front paddock to the orchard drive. They still need to have hinges put on and to be hung.

A Vibrant Splash of Azalea Colour

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—16℃ no rain [80.4]

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Henare Has An Accident

At 12:18pm Henare rang. I could hardly hear him because of the background hubbub but I gathered he was in Hastings hospital casualty department with an injured eye and he was waiting for surgery. He had borrowed a nurse’s mobile to call out so the number was unfamiliar and we assumed he’d not got his own mobile so we called his wife Denise to get a more complete picture. Unfortunately Henare hadn’t got round to telling her.

We exchanged TXT messages later and confirmed he’d had the surgery, the eye was probably alright, and he was being kept in over night.

Later, much less exciting, we cut a few branches of the Camelias along the eastern side of the homestead and Karola mulched them up.

Karola did some more lawn mowing and also “released” some of her holly trees along the roadside boundary, surrounding them with the mulch she made in the last couple of days.

I added stay posts at each end of the newly constructed fence under the Macrocarpa in the north-eastern corner of the Front paddock (photo below).

A day early, in case it rains tomorrow, I mowed the cottage and the homestead garage lawns.

The Recently Completed Fence Enlarging The North-East Planting Area

Karola’s Prolific And Quite Old Lemon Tree

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—16℃ no rain [80.9]

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Mulching About

SwimGym

Last bottle feed for “Boy” and “Fawn” – the milk powder has run out and they’re old enough to be weaned now.

Karola and I mulched piles of small branches from the big fallen branches and the Karamu we cut back on the road verge. Hot, noisy, tiring work.

Bramble Pokes Her Nose In – Again

After The Mulching – A Rest

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—18℃ no rain [80.6]

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Pottering, Pottering

Shopping in the morning, including ordering some more address stickers. Karola was hoping to buy a replacement weed bag – canvas bag with handles, 4 times the size of a shopping bag – but instead found she had been mislead by the labelling and instead bought a second hand wool fag, She has several of those already.

We took two chainsaw chains in to the Saw Doctor to be sharpened – I picked them up ($15 each) late afternoon.

In the afternoon I moved sawn-up logs from where the branches fell to the stump dump at the road end of the Long Acre. I also completed the moving of two large heavy hardwood beams to make a safety edging to the gravel hard stand at the back of the homestead – in case an unwary visitor should try to park too close to the edge and drop down a few inches onto the lawn.

The tractor ran out of oil and it took me a while to find out what sort of oil would be suitable – luckily I had a couple of litres that seemed to fill the bill.

Karola continued her mowing round the homestead, especially the places where we didn’t let the sheep graze.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—21℃ no rain [80.4]

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Warm But Windy

SwimGym

Very blustery in the morning so we stayed out from under the trees. Better in the afternoon. Karola found more downed branches and I chainsawed away – got most of them now I think.

Karola spent much of the morning writing emails; I spent it trying to clean up our computers after the most recent Apple updates. My iPad seemed to die last night – totally black, nothing responded. However this morning I remembered a secret incantation and to my relief after doing what’s called a “cold boot” it sprang back to life apparently none the worse.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—24℃ 1.6mm rain [80.5]

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Storm Damage

Winds abated and warm day though cool beginnings.

While collecting the mail I noticed that a branch of a rhododendron had snapped off, dropping across a track. Karola reported a substantial branch had fallen from high high up the Wellingtonian by the 121 entrance. Photos below.

We posted a piece of electronics off to Bridget & Natalie today so that Natalie can record herself playing her video game, Minecraft, and then put the result up on YouTube. Natalie is only ten.

I chainsawed up the fallen rhododendron and put three empty apple boxes under the Macrocarpa in the Front paddock, alongside the new fence we’ve just finished. These will shelter sheep from the fierce winds that we had felt when working on the fence. Karola put the rhododendron firewood in one of these.

Rhodo Branch Blocks Track To Front Paddock

Heavy Wellingtonian Branch From Up On High

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—18℃ no rain [79.9]

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Terrible Gales

SwimGym

Overnight we had succcess with the new New Zealand designed and manufactured “Nooski” mouse traps. Two traps set in the kitchen with cheese bait. Two corpses in the morning. Karola also caught one in a conventional trap on Friday so we’re oping that three mice completes the resident set.

The wind was just so strong – coming in fearsome gusts of well over 100kph – that we decided to stay indoors today.

Little lamb #451E – that was not being fed by her mother, #906, and was sickly in any case, had been bottle fed by Karola but today gave up and died. She probably had metabolic problems anyway so may have been for the best.

I buried #451 before lunch. On the way back from Henare’s “pit of death” I found a young rabbit dead on the driveway – hit by a falling branch perhaps.

Karola went out shopping, I stayed in with Bramble and listened to the wind whipping the trees. Got some computer admin done and also, at Karola’s request, painted over the worst of Bramble’s teeth marks on the cottage window sills. A lick of paint means they don’t draw attention to themselves half as much.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—22℃ 0.5mm rain [80.1]

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Lines Of Sight

Sunday is my day of chores – the once a week charging of batteries, putting out out of rubbish, paying bills, catching up on emails, and of course mowing the lawns.

The main extra project today was to cut back a Karamu shrub – well it’d grown into a 4 metre high tree actually – that was growing in the roadside verge and Karola found it was blocking the view of oncoming traffic from the orchard driveway. I chainsawed the bigger branches into firewood and Karola carted them and the rest off on the big trailer – all but the firewood to be mulched at a later date.

Karola planted the remaining pair of flax bushes.

At Karola’s suggestion I moved two very large and heavy square beams of Australian hardwood from their long-time home near the big shed in the orchard to the top of the Totara paddock via the newly opened gateway. Karola intends these heavy beams be set along the edge of the gravel area at the back of the homestead, where it slopes steeply for a foot or so, to stop visitors driving off the edge. Karola’s brainwave, seeing as how these beams are too heavy for us to carry and wider than a gateway, was to suggest a way to get them through the gateway. I can lift each beam on the tractor forks but of course the load is then as wide as the beam is long. At Karola’s suggestion I just lined up the beams pointing through the gateway and then pushed them through with the tractor bucket. Simple really and the ground was just dry enough to avoid making a huge muddy mess.

Karola is still feeding three sheep.

Lawns Freshly Mown

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—18℃ no rain [79.9]

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Gate Building Begins

Cold day, very strong winds and sunny until showers after lunch.

Apart from feeding the lambs Karola spent the day reorganising and tidying in the cottage and homestead.

Meanwhile I started making the small gates to sit either side of the railings fronting the closed entranceway to the orchard drive. Several false starts and much sawing and re-sawing to get things to fit but today I finished making one of the pair of gates to hang either side of the railings.

Between showers I did manage to get the cottage lawn mown.

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—14℃ 1.6mm rain [80.5]

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Netting Fence Strained Up

SwimGym for Karola, I pleaded a lurgy as I’d had a pretty sleepless night with a nasty cold.

Despite strong gusty winds and cold temperatures Karola carried on planting trees and I strained up and stapled the netting on the new fence protecting her trees.

Karola did the shopping.

We had an early dinner – pork stir-fry – and watched a new New Zealand crime thriller series on TV, “The Brokenwood Mysteries”. First episode was entertaining and compared quite well with much UK crime series fare.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—19℃ 0.3mm rain [?]

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Polished Off Creating The New Fence For Karola

Henare came again as planned and we worked on Karola’s fence until late afternoon. Henare finished putting in the posts; I hung two gates and clothed the posts in wire and netting. Karola continued planting her trees.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—19℃ no rain [79.5]

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Enlarging Planting Area For Karola

SwimGym.

Henare came at 10:00am which gave us a bit of time to prepare. We’re all working on enlarging the planting area in the north-eastern corner, behind the Macorcarpa the sheep so love and near the very tall Wellingtonian.

We’ve taken down a short section of the planting area netting along the roadside and Henare has moved the big strainer post to compensate. The next step – continuing tomorrow – is to cut the corner and give Karola maybe 50 square metres extra where she can plant the majority of her new Mexican evergreen oak trees.

I bought fish & chips for us all for lunch. Karola planted four of the evergreen oaks. Henare dug furiously to first dig out the strainer posts and then dig them back in at their new positions. He was careful and lucky in finding a way to avoid any major roots although being close to several very large trees.

The Mexican Evergreen Oaks From Appletons

Update Of The Last Set Of Railings

The View We Hope To Hide – Plastic Hydroponics Sheds

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—16℃ 0.3mm rain [79.9]

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