Monthly Archives: March 2015

Noel & Jenny For Dinner

Karola went shopping and for a scheduled visit to the doctor late morning after doing email and helping review Mary’s website.

I made additional small but time consuming improvements to Mary’s website today, sprucing up the captions on the photos and reducing their size to make them load more quickly.

An upgrade to the software for running my weblogs, and changes in Yosemite to the way the Mail program packages up emails, stopped my particular enhancements working and several hours were spent figuring out a way to accommodate the upgrade.

Late afternoon I spent an hour or so beginning the pruning of branches in the planting area along the orchard drive, the branches overhanging the Front paddock.

Noel & Jenny came for dinner and an enjoyable time was had by all. They left bearing gifts of quince and crab-apples.

Shelter Belt Before Pruning

Barnaby Florent, Out For Dinner With His Dad, In Fulham.

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

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Things Moving On Multiple Fronts

SwimGym

More on the web pages in remembrance of Mary – and I thought I’d finished but Karola & Bridget had a few suggestions for improvements.

The money confiscated by the Australian government has been retrieved and I was notified today.

The request for our consent to the neighbour making an extension on the roof of our garage down in Days bay rumbles on. I asked for clarification of the size of the gap between their new external wall and ours but in her reply Cathy didn’t address that. I then checked with Geoff Rashbrooke that it was a reasonable concern and after that checked with the Hutt City Council whether there were any rules regarding how close adjacent walls could be. Apparently because of the cross-licensed leased nature of the title the council treats it as one site with three structures on it rather than adjoining properties, and there are no rules regarding the maintainability of exterior walls.

I later called our Wellington builder, Willie Davis, and he said he very definitely would not agree to this situation where our external wall can not be accessed. He suggested we get more detailed plans before deciding.

Karola went shopping in the afternoon having spent several more hours on weeding near the homestead.

Bridget wanted a document signed and witnessed by a solicitor so Karola took me in to do that late this afternoon and we posted it back all signed before 5:00pm.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—24℃ 0.1mm rain [82.2]

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ICC World Cup Cricket Final Day

Well it all ended pretty much in tears. NZ captain out for a duck right at the start and it never really got going after that. Australians were fearsome and rather good and the Black Caps were just not on top of their game. Still, they had played exciting, winning, nail-biting cricket in their matches leading up to the final.

Chores all done and Mary’s web site all done too baring helpful criticisms. Tomorrow is another week.

Gwen & Bolke and their two daughters Mirriam and Sophie are coming to stay in the homestead at Easter. We are going down to see Bridget on 9th April and will participate in the burying of Mary’s ashes and celebrate Bridget’s birthday on the same trip. Not long before the Oamaru IDS annual get-together too.

George weathered the trip back and the night with snorting good spirits.

Ben Bell, recently back from a South Island bio-break, sent us this photo from the beach in Oban, Stewart Island.

Dusk at Half Moon Bay

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—25℃ 2.3mm rain [81.6]

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The Homecoming Ram.

Spent the afternoon expecting Karola at any moment as she was planning to pick up the ram at 9:30am in Halcombe near Feilding. However is wasn’t all that easy to find the farm. Karola returned triumphant around 5:00pm.

In preparation I had of course tidied the cottage, taken down electric fence round the big oak after giving the sheep a final 3 hours grazing there, unloaded her trailer, watered the swamp cyprus trees, picked and pealed a saucepan of mushrooms, and so on.

We let the ram out in the Long Acre with the four little wether lambs. I then rounded up the rest of the sheep, drafted out the dozen ewe lambs who were NOT to be introduced to the ram this year and spirited them away to the One Acre, as far away from his enticements as possible.

The New Ram, “George”

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—24℃ no rain [81.2]

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Karola Off To Pick Up The New Ram

SwimGym

I planned a busy morning: first I would give Bramble a short constitutional round the orchard, then I would finish cutting down the wilding apples in the planting area adjacent to the orchard, the I would have a relaxing shower and lunch.

All went much as planned but somewhat slower. I was still working on the apples when Peter Arthur arrived, as planned, to gather acorns for seeding in his gullies. I got to lunch around 4:30pm.

A dashed into town just after 5:00pm to pick up the bread, weekend groceries, and some more Vigilant woody weed killer.

Sometime during all this Karola and I bolted the crate onto the big trailer and got ready for Karola’s trip to Bulls for the new ram. Karola struggled but eventually got her special waterproof & windproof cover onto the crate and, after dinner, she drove off to Bulls in the Landrover pulling the big trailer. She had arranged to stay with her 90-year old cousin in Lethenty, Bulls for the night so that she could pick up the ram bright and early on Saturday.

One Of Five Trailer-Loads Of Wilding Apples

Apples From The “Granny Smith” Wilding Apples, Regrowth From Roots Left In The Ground

Wilding Apple Trees Ready For Mulching

Oak Avenue Weather:17℃—23℃ no rain [81.6]

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India Falls To Australia

Haircut in the morning followed by another session with the optometrist. Eyes amazingly good for someone of my advanced years, 20-20 vision in good light – so a pity I’m slowly going blind. Apart from increasing my concern that I really do need to do something about the glaucoma the good news was that my glasses are just fine as is and I don’t need them for driving. Afterwards I whipped down to the Vehicle Licensing place waving my certificate of eye-worthiness and asked for a reissue of my license without the need for glasses.

I plan to see the ophthalmologist again soon and also get a second opinion from a woman in Auckland who specialises in treatment of glaucoma.

Later I continued chopping out the feral apples in the planting area between the one-acre and the orchard, two trailer loads this evening and ⅔ done.

Karola & I watched the second semi-final this evening. Unfortunately the Australians beat the Indians and so it’s a local grudge match for the final on Sunday.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—25℃ no rain [82.3]

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Haze Over Hastings CBD

SwimGym. A mist lay over Hastings this morning but, unusually, not over us. After looking a bit like rain the rest of the day was cool but sunny.

In the morning Karola pottered about, having done her SwimGym 40 lengths, and I snoozed. Later I continued trying to trouble-shoot the web log software which has become most recalcitrant. A long chat with a woman from BNZ didn’t improve my mood – it’s just that discussing what banks can do you you is a bit depressing.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—24℃ no rain [82.3]

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Cricket Tuesday

Day dominated by cricket – New Zealand versus South Africa in the ICC World Cup Cricket semifinals.

Meticulous Maids came at lunchtime.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—22℃ 0.1mm rain [82.5]

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Karola – Mulch Spreader

SwimGym

The form needed to reclaim our money from the Australian government arrived in an email and we filled it in and returned it to Commonwealth Bank of Australia whom we hope will do the retrieving.

Pam Morrison rang from Barnes Mossman needing a couple more reports from my Australian investment. I rang the fund and the reports were generated, mailed back, and forwarded to Pam within the hour.

Aaron Duncan rang to say that my signature was needed by the lines company, Unison, on the form requesting “DG” – that is “distributed generation”. I popped down and completed that before lunch.

Karola unloaded the fully laden big trailer and put mulch on over ⅓ of the bay tree area inside the cottage railings.

I worked on the web site, relearning a lot of JavaScript, jQuery, and CSS that I hadn’t used for years.

Karola spoke to Ginny Horrocks in Days Bay about the possible lending of our flat to Ginny’s son and family for a couple of months while he found his feet in Wellington after living in Auckland for some time.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—22℃ no rain [82.3]

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Lots of Mushrooms – Must Be The Weather

Karola & Rowena went off to the Horse of the Year show for some show jumping this afternoon.

I spent the day lacadaisacally watering the cottage lawn and bay trees and doing some more with putting Mary’s funeral artefacts up on the web.

I did pick a medium sized basket full of mushrooms which we’ll be eating over the next day or so.

A “Gisborne cockroach” sat all day on the wall upstairs in the cottage – you can see the white skirt and dark red body.

Cockroach, Cockroach On The Wall, Who Is The Fairest . . .

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—23℃ no rain [81.7]

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Horse of the Year Show

Julia & Christopher & Karola went in to Hastings for a spot of shopping, came back and finished packing and then Julia & Christopher were on their way.

I took Karola over to the show grounds just after 12:00pm where she met up with Joan again and they had a VIP lunch before settling down to watch the cross country.

Late afternoon I weeded the little patch in the cottage garden nearest the big oak where Karola has four lilac shrubs and two lancewood trees. I put root boosting pellets on all but 6 of the bay trees and began watering them in preparation for adding a thick layer of mulch in the next few days.

Joan, her sister Ruth and English friend Gill brought Karola back after the cross-country and Karola showed them around the homestead.

New Zealand “Black Caps” play West Indies “Windies” today in Wellington in the quarter finals of the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup. Bridget’s Chris took Natalie & Alex to the game while we recorded it and watched it later in the evening.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—20℃ 0.1mm rain [82.7]

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Julia Bruce & Christopher Van der Noot Arrive

SwimGym

Joan left for the day after breakfast; she and Karola will meet up again tomorrow to go to the Horse of the Year show for the cross-country.

Henare came round after lunch and dug another death pit in case we have more sheep fatalities.

Julia & Christopher arrived mid afternoon and Karola entertained them for the rest of the day. I went out and did the weekend shopping.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—19℃ no rain [83.2]

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Sheep Shorn & Magnum’d

Ah well, it was bound to happen. I went in to Hastings for my 7-weekly haircut at 9:30 and found I was a week early. Bother!

Karl & Wendy came at 10:00am and shore all the sheep. Wendy dispensed sheeply advice with conviction. Joan helped Karola with yarding etc.

Karola & I took the Subaru in the Bayswater Motors because Karola could hear a tapping sound from the engine that didn’t sound right. They found where a heat baffle was touching the drive shaft and also some gravel trapped by the baffles so we hope it’s fixed. On the same trip we asked the Hastings branch of the ASB bank to fax authentication details to their sister bank in Australia, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. This was part of the procedure that eventually got my online banking password with CBA reset.

Later Karola, Joan, and I put Magnum on all the sheep. (Withholding for meat of zero days). This will prevent fly strike for the rest of this season for sure.

As evening fell I finished weeding the Bay Tree border and the gravel square round the septic tank ready for inspection by Julia Bruce and Christopher Van der Noot.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—18℃ no rain [82.6]

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Joan Phillips Arrives

SwimGym

Mary Wilson called Karola and it seems that Mary’s daughter Hattie may want to come over with friends to stay and attend the “Horse of the Year” show.

Karola has bought a small carpet from the Brethren’s shop, “FloorMart” in Omahu Road and the boss came this morning to deliver it, to chat, and to look around the homestead. He installed the carpet while he was here – not a fitted carpet but needed hauling upstairs and placing under the bed and a heavy chest of drawers.

I read and slept most of the day but I did take the old weed mat up to the big shed and take the broken Mulberry tree to the pile for mulching. Late afternoon, after Joan had arrived, I weeded the bay trees in preparation for dosing them with RootBlast root accelerant and covering the bed with fresh mulch. I got ⅔ of the way round the border before dinner.

And I spent a very frustrating couple of hours trying to reinstate our bank account in Melbourne. It was closed and the money sent to the Australian government because we hadn’t used it for 12 months. Unlike last time this happened, now we have to have a new account rather than reinstate the old one and it cannot be joint without Karola showing up in the branch in Melbourne. And to get the money back I need a form from the Oz bank and someone to return it to once filled in. Needless to say I have had several mis-starts on this – the bank didn’t answer my email, nor my voicemail even those were both sent to address/number provided by the bank’s help line. I have a new account, details available via online banking – but our online banking access with that bank doesn’t work any more. More calls and now I have to fax – not email nor post but fax – photo of passport etc to the bank to get the password reset. And on, and on.

Dinner was a delicious pork casserole then creme caramel with autumn raspberries (ours) and cream.

Bay Trees Neat & Weeded

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—19℃ no rain [82.5]

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Growing Weather

Mild but overcast day, cyclone Pam and the rain have long gone. Spent the day fiddling with web sites.

Karola preparing for Julia & Christopher visit on Friday, Joan Phillips maybe tomorrow, and the Horse Of the Year show at the Hastings showgrounds which began today. Karola’s VIP attendance is on Saturday for the cross-country. Karola also continued with trimming back the hysteria and roses along the homestead eastern verandah.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—18℃ no rain [82.8]

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Contract To Install Solar PV System

SwimGym

Rain most of the night and throughout the day but warm and not windy.

A bit of a nap after SwimGym and then simple tasks all day. I got supplies of diesel and standard petrol for lawn mowers, and filled up the Landrover. I re-fastened the lid of the mailbox (USA rural style) at the 121 entrance. People delivering flyers had opened it up to get their flyers in. I bought a new cap for the petrol tank on the new mower after the original one mysteriously disappeared.

Karola went shopping in the afternoon. Her sheep are all standing around dripping and looking a little depressed. Bramble has a new toy and is happy with that.

Late afternoon we accepted Freenergy’s (Aaron Duncan) quote to install solar panels producing electricity from the cottage garage north roof and the cottage kitchen verandah west-facing roof.

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—17℃ 11.2mm rain [?]

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Selma – A Film

Up in good time and, fearing the onset of heavy rain, I first weeded and raked the pathway from the south-eastern small wooden gate into the cottage garden and added a couple of barrow-loads of topsoil to make it level with the rest of the lawn. I then sowed grass seed on all of the cottage lawn. I used seed for shade tolerant lawn along the southern end, under the bedroom windows, and drought-tolerant mixture for the rest of the lawn.

Karola kindly rolled up the discarded weed mat neatly and we’ll stow it in the big shed in case it comes in handy.

I, who have no particular love for cricket, whiled away the day watching West Indies versus United Arab Emirates. Karola decided she’d like to go right away and see a film she’d hoped to catch for a while, Selma, the story of Martin Luther King. Karola booked online and we got over there 10 minutes before it started at 3:15pm. It was at the Globe Theatrette, a small cinema at the best of times, and we were joined by another handful of patrons.

Oak Avenue Weather:17℃—21℃ 20.9mm rain [82.3]

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Thai Meal In Aharuri With Gill, Ben , Charlotte, & Peter

A Lie-in while listening to the Country Programme, then took Bramble for a walk. Dumped yesterdays lawn clippings on the bund. Loaded trailer with fallen branches from the lawn, the orchard drive, and the goose enclosure and carted them over to the fallen oak branches in the Long Acre, ready for when next I mulch.

Karola mowed more of the paddock under the Canary Island pine but retired inside to watch cricket when it got too hot. Mid afternoon I cleared weeds from behind the cottage railings. Karola retired to the cool of the homestead to relax.

Later we went out with Peter & Charlotte, Gill & Ben. They are staying with Gill & Ben en route to Wellington after a week’s holiday in Coromandel. We swapped gifts; Karola got her hearing aids back, she’d left them in Days Bay and Bridget sent them up via Peter’s place because we have a rural address and couriers take longer to rural addresses. Gill & Charlotte got quinces I’d picked this morning off Karola’s heavily laden trees.

Irrigation Kit: Pipie, Connectors, Clips, & Drippers

Weeds Cleared From Back Of Railings

Little Trench Ready For New Irrigation Pipe

Lawn Mown Close Ready To Oversow

Weed Mat Begone

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—24℃ no rain [82.2]

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Visit To Micro-Inverter Solar Panel Installation

SwimGym

Rain has vanished although a cyclone called Pam is sweeping down upon us, allegedly.

Karola did lots of mowing around the Canary Island pine to sweep up the carpet of needles torn off by winds a week or so ago. She now plans to fence off the pine and the Belladonnas before letting the sheep into the Totara paddock.

I did the weekend shopping which basically took out the morning. Later I mowed the cottage lawn in preparation for sowing with lawn grass seed in next day or so, hopefully before the rains of cyclone Pam.

Early evening we went over to Napier to see a family that have a solar panel system installed similar to the one we expect to get installed here. They could not praise Aaron Duncan enough; he’s the man who has produced a competitive quote for us with the best system design to meet our situation. Audrey & Andrew Mitchell have a 3kwp system with a dozen panels and in the three months they’ve had it it has exceeded their expectations.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—24℃ no rain [82.1]

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Good Rain At Last

Cloudy when I got up and smelling of rain, but no actual rain. I set the sprinkler on to the last piece of the cottage lawn – I plan to oversaw it all with grass seed once it’s been soaked.

An hour later and down came the rain, the best rain we’ve had in a long time. I see from the paper that the council was going to announce we were in drought if no rain came this week, with consequent restrictions on water use, so the rain came in the nick of time.

Karola went off to the dentist for checkup today, I went to a local optometrist, expecting them to check my glasses were still the best magnification etc. To my surprise I got a battery of eye tests and a long discussion about glaucoma. We didn’t even get to the details of my test results, let alone whether my glasses needed changing.

Afterwards I had gluten-free fried fish and mash and salad at the Mitre-10 cafe before buying more lawn grass seed, some more bits for the bay tree irrigation, and a tray I hope to hold my finicky electronics parts in – resistors, led and so on.

Rain showers continued throughout the day so I didn’t get any seed sown.

Anna sent a very nice photo of our eldest grandson, Felix Florent, caught at Wembley where his team, Tottenham Hotspurs, were defeated 2-0 against Chelsea in the final of the Capital One Cup.

Felix Florent At Wembley

photo

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—20℃ 22.5mm rain [82.3]

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Off With The Weed Mat

SwimGym


In the morning I removed all the weed mat from the Bay tree strip along the cottage fence. I have concluded that Karola was right, it helps a bit with the weeds well away from the trees but not the pesky ones next to the trunks, nor is it particularly healthy for the trees.

Karola did more cleaning up of her lambs and also went into town for a while after bottling some pears.

Oak Avenue Weather:17℃—26℃ 4.8mm rain [82.3]

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Bramble Groomed And Much Fur Removed

We slept late and I then took Bramble for her constitutional.

Karola yarded the sheep and I helped draft them looking for any extra daggy ones to join yesterday’s three. Older ewe #229 and ewe lamb #434 join the others after I’d given them both a drench (Scanda – withholding for meat 10 days).

Karola then spent a long time cleaning up the daggy lambs, not the most pleasant of tasks. Meanwhile I mended a pair of secateurs – they’d come apart and the nut was lost – and groomed Bramble after mending her wire brush. Bramble really liked that.

I put the files destined for archive in an archive box, labelled it and put it in the store room never, I hope, to be called upon.

I set things in train to get a market valuation for the Days Bay Flat on the assumption that if we started the homestead renovation soon we’d need the money in the next year or so.

We went to Purnel’s for lunch and then off to an orchardist at the other end of Pakowhai Road who grew and sold Ballarat cooking apples. Karola bought Ballarats, peaches, and pears. Afterwards we dropped in at Mitre-10 and I spent an hour selecting some 13mm alkathene pipe and the connectors and nozzles to go with it – to replace the Bay Tree leaky pipe with irrigation that drip fed each bush individually.

Late evening I began the removal of the weed mat from the Bay Tree area. It has been of limited benefit by making the weeds easier to remove but I have an intuition that the ground beneath goes sour.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—25℃ no rain [82.5]

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Monday Catchup

SwimGym

Mostly just catching up today for me although I did bury the dead lamb in the hole dug by Henare months ago and we did drench three lambs with Scanda (withholding for meat 10 days), #427, #433, #442.

Karola let her sheep into the remainder of the Middle paddock and wound up the electric fence. She also continued with her robust pruning back of the wysteria around the verandahs of the homestead.

Meticulous Maids came this afternoon and cleaned the homestead.

Henare dropped in briefly but we were too much preoccupied to make much conversation.

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—23℃ 0.1mm rain [82.3]

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Return To Karamu – Lamb #422E Has Died

We slept late and I took Bramble up the hill for a walk before joining Karola in packing up the car to depart.

Then we talked to Cathy Rogers next door in #2 this morning. Cathy & Paul are planning on putting a 12 sq metre extra room on the back half of the deck over our garage and today she showed us the plans.

And then off we went, but first Karola went to visit Cilla Heymer in Eastbourne and I took the opportunity to get one more rice-flour battered fish and chips from Piranha, the F&C shop in Eastbourne village. We dropped off an Economist at Felicity & Geoff’s in York Bay and continued on our way, over the Rimutakas and up through the Wairarapa, listening to an Anthony Price spy novel, Gunner Kelly, as we went.

We arrived back home around 7:00pm. There’s still been no rain to speak of here and it’s quite warm.

When Mary died I cancelled her Sky subscription which I pay under my name with direct debit. The refund came today to the right address, a cheque for Mary Brackenbury Not Transferrable. Well done Sky.

Ewe lamb #422 is dead for no obvious reason. Maybe just too many acorns.

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—26℃ no rain [?]

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Amy’s Wedding – It Bucketed Down

Karola’s deceased brother Kaz’s daughter Amy, the beautiful wild mixed-up one, has been with her partner for four years now so obviously mellowed a bit since her tumultuous school/teen/twenties. It was their wedding down in Wellington today.

Over 50 people in a restaurant / function centre, the eponymous “Dockside”. The bridal party came up in a white catamaran to within couple of metres of the windows of the restaurant and disembarked. They were not fazed by the torrential rain that had us crawling along the motorway with vizibility down to 50 metres max. We were coming into town from Days Bay just as the catamaran was taking the bridal party on a scenic tour of the inner harbour. Because I was good friend of Kaz they asked me to do a reading (gulp) but in the end I read something non-soppy nor quirky from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and a silly “recipe of a good marriage” (the spouse is a chef) and it went down quite well. I was privileged as neither Amy’s brother nor her uncle Harry were asked to speak as part of the actual wedding, just me and an 80-year old lady who read rather a beautiful American Indian song, and the celebrant, Amy’s aunt Janine.

The feast was just that, the speeches mercifully short, and Karola & I slipped away soon after the loud music and dancing began.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—28℃ 0.9mm rain [?]

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Off To Wellington

SwimGym, finish packing then off to Wellington via Hastings to pick up the bread. Got down in good time for the meeting with Holly the lawyer to sign off Mary’s will. Gill & I are the trustees. We hope it will now get probate without further ado.

Gill & I took a taxi to Zealandia and met Karola & Ben there for afternoon tea.

At Days Bay we settled in. I had some terakihi battered in cornflower from Go Fish in Petone and later another terakahi fillet battered in rice flower from Piranha in Eastbourne. Karola had chicken chow mien from Piranha.

When we got down to Days Bay flat we found the mains power switched off (with not good results in fridge). Later as I was checking out the domain I noticed a bit of cardboard poking out from under a bush. Collecting it up as wind-blown rubbish I noticed it was from Wellington Electrical – a lines company. “We turned off your power” they said, “We suggest you turn it on again” they said. Grrrrr. You’d think they’d notify the account holders but obviously not.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—28℃ no rain [81.4]

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Chris More And Colleague Stay Overnight

A touch of rain in the night I think but the mist hanging low over the apple orchard is man-made, it’s from the very fine sprinklers that have been on all night.

After breakfast and a walk with Bramble round the orchard we were ready for our third and final Solar Power installer.

Kevin Hunter of CellPower (kevin@cellpower.co.nz, 06-843-1640) arrived on time at 9:00am and we had a good discussion for a couple of hours. He, like Aaron Duncan, thinks that micro-inverters are the best solution for us due to the shade. Unlike Aaron, Kevin thinks a three-phase solution will be preferable to trying to shift the power-hungry devices onto a single phase. He says that the lines company, Unison in our case, will not allow a three-phase connection with a significant imbalance on one phase by design. When small numbers of houses are fed from one transformer, as is usual in rural areas, the load imbalance can disrupt the other household’s supply.

Three phase solutions using a “string inverter” are significantly more expensive than single phase. The price difference is only a percent or two for micro-inverters because the main difference is extra AC cabling, not more sophisticated electronics. With three-phase solutions the maximum load that can be supplied on any one phase is ⅓ which limits the ability to feed hungry appliances and the hot water cylinder.

We look forward to the quotes next week.

Today I mowed the cottage lawn, the homestead garage lawn, under the clothesline, and along the verge in front of the cottage. I then mulched three heaps of branches, up next to the hay shed, just inside the gate from the drive into the Long Acre, and in the Middle paddock under the big swamp cyprus. Later I locked all the farm gates providing vehicular access and I chopped a few dozen thistles, a handful of these were flowering.

Bridget’s Chris and a colleague, Dave Warner, came to stay overnight. They have been in Auckland and are doing some business locally tomorrow. I bored them rigid with talk of Solar Power.

The Quince Are Plentiful But Not Yet Ripe

Crab Apples, Less Plentiful And A Little Riper

Results Of The Afternoon’s Mulching

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—25℃ no rain [82.0]

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Second Best Marigold Hotel

SwimGym

Karola let her sheep into a new tranche of grass in the Middle paddock and wound up the wire between the old and new tranches.

Richard Phillips of Falcon Electrical Ltd (richard.phillips@falconltd.co.nz, 06-843-1640, 027-227-2108) came in the afternoon and we chatted about Solar Power and in particular the merits of a control box like the ImmerSun.

At 5:00pm Peter & Charlotte arrived and whisper us off to the Globe Theatrette in Arahuri to see the sequel to Best Marigold Hotel. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards we all went to the nearby hai restaurant and had excellent meals.

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—24℃ 0.3mm rain [82.0]

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Robinia Vanquished – For Now

Spent the morning on the filing – about half way there I think. Hot from mid day until after 4:00pm, 90℉ again in the shade of the cottage kitchen verandah – that’s three days in a row.

Late afternoon Karola ventured outside and continued vigorous pruning back of the wysteria on the homestead, By cutting it right back Karola expects to get “Chem Wash” to come and hose down the outside before Julia comes in two weeks time.

In talking to Julia recently, in England, Karola found that her husband Christopher had had a stroke which will restrict what they can do in New Zealand when they come later this month.

Hugh Winder, the “Texel Ram Man” called back and he and Karola came to an agreement that he would find her a ram shortly.

Another solar electricity installer called today and will come and measure up on Thursday. So we had Aaron Duncan yesterday, will have Richard Phillips tomorrow, and Kevin Hunter on Thursday. With a following wind we may have all the quotes we need sometime next week.

Late afternoon I donned long trousers, a long-sleeved shirt, strong gloves, and working boots and went off to cut down and poison the suckering Robinia along the 121 driveway. I gave the cuttings to the sheep who delightedly ate all the leaves despite the long, strong thrones on most of the branches. We’ll mulch what’s left in a few days time. I used Vigilant to paint the stems, hopefully discouraging regrowth, but I am not sanguine nor is the situation copacetic as the new vigorous shoots up to 2 metres tall often seem to be coming out of a previously sawn stump.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—26℃ no rain [82.2]

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Of Solar Power And Solar Power Installations

SwimGym

A pleasant cool start to a blisteringly hot day, 95℉ in the shade on the verandah.

After months of sluggish response from a local firm who were intending to come and quote for a solar electric panel system I got totally fed up and took advantage of a web site that offered three quotes within five working days from local installers. A day later two suppliers have rung and one, Aaron Duncan of Freenergy Solar Solutions, (aaron@freenergy.co.nz, 06-870-1088 & 021-375-013) came today, spent a couple of hours with us and it was a revelation – he really did seem to know his stuff. The other, Richard Phillips, has agreed to come on Wednesday at 3:30pm. This is more like it.

Solar “photo-voltaic” panels are 1m x 1.6m and can be installed portrait or landscape. Aaron says there’s room for a double row of panels on the north-facing cottage garage roof, because the steep pitch means from ridge to gutter is over 3.2 metres and the roof is 6.4 metres long. So up to 12 panels there. And on the cottage kitchen verandah which is a bit over 11.0 metres long but has a ridge-gutter of a mere 2.4 metres, a row of 11 panels is possible.

The bombshell. the first bombshell from Aaron was that there are two common types of solar power installation for residential properties, one using string inverters which connects to all the panels in series, one using micro-inverters which converts the direct current from each panel to household 230v A/C at each panel. The latter is a lot more expensive than the string design but has the modest advantage of working. Why do the string inverters not work well in situations like ours? Because the creation of energy for these is reduced to the lowest output of any of the attached panels. So, if one panel goes into shade, as will most certainly happen for us because of the travel of the sun in winter and the 20m+ Canary Island pine directly north-west of the cottage, all the panels will be affected. A quick “google” says that this is correct.

The next surprise was that, contradicting our electricians own memory of a year or so ago, we actually have three-phase power to the cottage and also to the homestead. The phases are spread over different groups of electricity-using outlets and so this can be re-jigged to best suit a single-phase solar power generation system, not ideal but, Aaron says, if we can keep to under 4kwp in total and a single phase solution it’s a lot cheaper. He recommends 18 panels as the largest number of panels that keep under the 4kwp limit imposed by the local lines company, Unison. And, contradicting what our first supplier said, any power generated by solar panels on the cottage roof can be used by the homestead too, in fact by any equipment on the customer side of the mains fuse box. So, again, it’s a matter of perhaps moving some of the phase connections so that the best combination of electricity consuming things are on the one phase that will be driven by the solar panels (during daylight). Full marks to Aaron for being credibly expert and thereby giving us a lot of confidence.

It’s a new industry, installing solar power, so I asked Aaron how many he’d installed in last couple of years. Over a hundred he said. His business, Freenergy, just installs solar power, they’re the highest volume installer in Hawkes Bay and they’re local. In case it isn’t clear, we were quite pleased with the morning’s conversation. He measured, he opened the fuse boxes. His approximate prices are lower than the ones quoted by Bruce Emerson from Harrisons, but a few thousand dollars.

It was so warm that Karola, Bramble, and I had long mid-day siestas until almost 5:00pm. However before it got hot we’d moved a tall cabinet of small metal trays from the cottage upstairs studio to the cottage garage and we continued sorting trough the 18 months of back filing. Of course I found the copies of the 2012/2013 tax returns today, three days too late. And I’ve typed up a list of the many categories.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—27℃ no rain [82.3]

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Spring Cleaning The Filing System

Today I decided would be the day I moved the main physical filing system from the office on the end of the homestead garage block up to my side of the studio upstairs in the cottage. Although a good idea in principle we didn’t find it convenient to go to the office to access files or do the mail and so on. I found myself always bringing the GST files back from the office to the cottage and trudging back with them afterwards.


So, six filing cabinets were brought from the office to upstairs in the cottage. By lunchtime I had this all done moving a cabinet at a time in the back of Karola’s car. Then began the integration of the last 18 months filing into the existing records.


By using the filing cabinets instead of trestles to support an old rimu door as a table we ended up with more room than before. And by placing the printers on filing cabinets we made do without two small tables. More room and it doesn’t look any worse than before.


Some Of The Neglected Filing From The Last 18 Months




Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—29℃ no rain [82.4]

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