Monthly Archives: December 2016

An outside day and started sunny and cool – ideal. After breakfast Karola decided to replace one of her Swamp Cyprus tree guards and weed and re-mulch the tree at the same time. I helped a little by loading the big trailer with mulch, using the tractor, and helping raise and lower the guard over the 3 metre high Swamp Cyprus tree.

Decided to do a bit of chainsawing and chipping today starting with the Ngaios that Karola wants down because they’re interfering with her two Mulberry trees. Then cut a few limbs off a Walnut tree crowding one of Karola’s Totara trees, and finally felled a tall Avocado tree crowding a couple of Lancewood trees.

I cut the larger pieces of these into firewood as I went. After dinner I chipped the foliage and smaller branches. All in all a most satisfying day.

Firewood From The Felled Ngaios

Half The Pile To Be Chipped & Shredded

Avocado Tree About To Fall

Avocado Felled And Hacked To Pieces

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—24℃ no rain [73.9]

SwimGym with Karola. Then off for Friday food shopping. Posted Gill one of my 300g packs of Konnyaku noodles but it wont get there till late next week of course. Absolutely heavenly day, not hot but sunny and slight cool breeze. Haircut this afternoon in Taradale, the village was pretty quiet, I guess everyone has gone off on holiday.

Friday is an ‘inside’ day so I swotted up on The Cornell Note-Taking Method just for fun. Created in 1950s it’s still rated as one of the best techniques.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—20℃ no rain [73.5]

Much cooler today and overcast. I did a few outside things – cut and poisoned a few thistles going to seed, picked up the fallen Canary Island pine pinecones, and moved the sheep to their third tranche of Front paddock pasture. I also mowed the lawn under the washing line and alongside the cottage kitchen windows.

Karola contoinued her heroic raking up of the long grass on the house lawn. There is an awful lot of it.

In the evening I mowed the Goose paddock using the highest mower setting of 400. But 400 what, I hear you cry – goodness knows, it doesn’t say. It was much easier than with the old Fergie and the orchard mower.

For dinner we had minced lamb with the strange noodles Dave Moss suggested trying – konnyaku flour. I also included some cauliflower rice and asparagus spears. Tasted OK but the noodles were texture, didn’t change the taste, and Karola agreed. As it said on the packet, out of the packet these noodles smelt horridly fishy but after running in water for a few minutes the smell went away.

Konnyaku

https://www.shakespeare-w.com/english/konnyaku/whatis.html

Konnyaku a.k.a Shirataki is a Japanese traditional food.
Konnyaku is a traditional Japanese jelly-like health food made from a kind of potato called “Konnyaku potato” and calcium hydroxide or oxide calcium extracted from eggshells. Noodle type of Konnyaku is called Shirataki. Shirataki is sometimes called as “Miracle Noodle”. The Konnyaku potato is native to Indonesia and is a kind of herbaceous perennial plant called “Amorphophallus Konjac”(K. Koch). Konnyaku potatoes are cultivated for food only in Japan, but wild forms grow naturally in Southeast Asia and China.

We Japanese have been eating it over 1500 years.
It was originally introduced to Japan as a medicine in the sixth century and has been eaten for almost 1500 years in Japan. It is a totally natural food. Ninety seven percent of Konnyaku is water and three percent is Glucomannan, or dietary fibre. It is also rich in minerals and very low in calories.

Full of dietary fibre
Glucomannan is a dietary fibre and it is extremely difficult for humans to digest. Therefore, Konnyaku usually just goes through your body and sweeps your intestines. That is why it has been regarded as a no calorie food for a long time in Japan. Konnyaku does have calories, however, the calories would be so few in the normal quantities that they are negligible in number.

Konnyaku is a marvellous health food
It does not have fat, it is rich in dietary fibre and is low in calories. Moreover, it has recently been found that it normalises the level of cholesterol, prevents high blood pressure and normalises the level of sugar in the blood. Because of these scientific findings, it has been perceived as a excellent health food in Japan.

Goose Paddock Topped Today

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—18℃ no rain [74.1]

SwimGym with Karola

It being a “Low Cal” day I’m working inside most of the day. “Low Cal” days being usually Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. These are our “fish main” days too.

Anne Lacey brought her 4-year old very shy corgi Bangle to see us today, along with Bangle’s puppy. We walked around the Front paddock and got to know each other a bit. Anne went to school with the Harris’ children and had visited Karamu to see them when a child. Anne offered that I could have Bangle on loan for a couple of weeks to see if we got on – Anne thinks she’ll come out of her shell once she gets to know me.

Later we went out to get vegetables etc for the next two days. It was very warm.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—24℃ no rain [74.0]

Slow start to the day which promised to be hot – and it was. Karola whacked by the drive home and now the heat and the wind. I dashed into town for the food shopping and then spent the hotter part of the afternoon on the farm shed. Once it got cooler I tractor-mowed the 121 driveway and the little lawn behind the house garage. After dinner I mowed the cottage lawn and the small lawn in front of the house garage. That still leaves under the washing line and the strip alongside the cottage east wall.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—29℃ no rain [73.8]

A relaxed start to the journey, leaving around mid-morning and stopping at the Rashbrooke’s in York Bay until noon. Max and Madeline were also there. Everything very green in their garden, and in fact all around Wellington, quite a contrast with the hills of Hawkes bay.

I drove as far as Featherston, Karola the rest of the way. We had a refuel and bio-break with coffees on the upper outskirts of Upper Hutt and stopped at Featherston to change drivers, stopping again in Masterton for a bio-break.

All seems OK here. The sheep were temporarily in the Middle and Long Acre paddocks and I put them back in the Front paddock where they resumed their onslaught on the 2nd swatch of pasture. I let the wether and ram and geese into the Long Acre and Holding paddocks for a bit of variety.

Checked the house to see if there were any signs of what triggered the alarm on Saturday afternoon. No sign but a rat has made a significant pile of wood chippings in trying to gnaw its way under the door into the under-stairs in the house. Probably trying to reach the remains of the delicious (to rats) lure left under there when I removed the automatic trap just before we left for Wellington. Darn nuisance as the door will have to be repaired, eventually.

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

Present giving round the Christmas tree late morning. The grand-daughters were very good about waiting so long but they’d had some pretty good stocking-filler presents already by then. Bridget and her girls had worked hard to get the decorations up and fairy lights festooning the place. AnneMarie arrived from Silverstream mid morning and stayed until supper time, bringing lots of food and presents in her wake.

After the Christmas meal – laden with sugary pudding and lashings of carbohydrate of course, Karol and I had a rest while the others went for a walk round the block to clear their heads. In the evening the others, including Karola, sat down and watched an animated film called The Polar Express.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—22℃ 0.1mm rain [?]

Saturday morning and after listening to most of The Country programme on National Radio and having breakfast we did a very modest pack and were almost ready to go. I checked that the external vehicle gates were combination locked. I moved the ram and wether back into the Goose paddock and moved the rest of the sheep into the Middle paddock, Holding paddock, and Long Acre – just for while we’re away. It was still rather early so I puddled around for an hour or so doing little bits and pieces on the farm shed and tidying up some of the irrigation piping in the cottage garden.

We set off along route 50 and most of the traffic was coming towards Hastings so it was a pleasant, rapid drive. Karola took over the driving a little way past Guavas and drove the rest of the way, down the west coast. No holdup and the usual pinch-points such as Otaki so we made good time. We arrived in Khandallah having coordinated with Gill & Ben who, arriving at Bridget’s shortly after us, brought Karola an orchid in a pot. We all had afternoon tea. Karola and I were pretty tired after the drive and so had an early night and slept like logs.

Well along route 50 I got a cellphone call and it was Havelock Hills Security saying one of our alarms had gone off so we asked for a guard to be dispatched to make sure it was a false alarm. Which it was.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—22℃ no rain [72.8]

SwimGym – went along at 7:00am but the usual ghastly music wasn’t playing, instead a much more ghastly radio station where three announcers were chatting – about eating an enormous number of somethings in a competition, and having their eyebrows shaved and shoved down their throats. So instead I went back home. Returned later after a second breakfast and sanity had been restored – we were back to atrocious thumping music as usual. So, I got my exercise done.

Turned off the irrigation because there had been a decent drop of rain in the night so further watering of the runner beans, manuka bushes, and bay tree border wasn’t necessary.

Using the tractor, moved the remains of a pile of “builders mix” gravel from beside the farm shed to where the water pools on the drive in front of the house garage, doing this while we could still see, because of the overnight rain, where the low spot was.

Put the ram and wether in the yards and took a look at the ram’s front feet. He is limping slightly on his passenger-side front foot but I couldn’t see anything wrong and it wasn’t hot. Took them from the yards back to the Goose paddock

We went out shopping, including getting strawberries and cherries to take to Wellington tomorrow. Meanwhile Henare arrived and began digging us another large death pit. He did a very tidy job, both deep and wide, and it only took him a couple of hours. I covered the hole with netting gates to minimise chance of anyone falling in.

Later I began shifting clay from around the goose bath. I hope to finish moving that and add a layer of topsoil round the rim plus a short post with a dripping tap to slowly replenish the slight leak in the bath.

Runner Beans Flowering Up

Henare’s Latest Pit

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—22℃ 0.2mm rain [72.9]

Got pretty hot today. As we’re bound for Wellington sometime this weekend I spent most of the day doing next Sunday’s chores – paying bills etc.

Karola has approved the rack for hanging up her electric fence posts on the back of the farm shed. I’ve hung all the posts that aren’t currently in use on the rack.

The sheep have been in tranche uno of the Front paddock for a week so I switched them to tranche duo – they were delighted. And the ram and wether have eaten all the nice grass in the Goose paddock so I popped them in the Holding paddock for a couple of days, just to get a bit of tasty tucker.

We went to John Bostock’s Organic Kitchen and had a solid lunch, lamb roast and vegetables, all organic and gluten free. The man himself was there, entertaining some business colleague, as were several of his managers whom we recognised. John was effusive in his greeting and solicitous re our orchard, which he has on lease for 17 years, and whether the rent review had gone ahead satisfactorily.

Mid afternoon Power Farming had sent someone up and put two new front wheels on the tractor.

In the evening we drove to Pukehou to the church there for a carol service. Karola likes to attend each year and has some long-time acquaintances she likes to see.

As I write it has started to rain, which is very good news, will also help cool us down.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—31℃ 9.7mm rain [72.8]

SwimGym

I then finished the new rack for Karola’s electric fence posts, behind the farm shed. Much tidier than having tangled heaps of the darmn things littering up the place. We’ll see how practical it is.

Then we went off to Haumoana to Lis a& Patrick who hosted a Christmas lunch for us and Margie & Max Maxwell. Always enjoyable and good food but once a year is quite enough. Lis commented several times on how thin Karola and I were – wondered if we had some ghastly illness or were instead in excessively good health. Odd really as Lis herself is pretty thin although Patrick is a mountain of a man.

Got a call while we were out. Power Farming called to say they needed to grab the other wheel of the tractor for forensic examination – to ensure it was indeed eligible for warranty replacement. In the meantime they’ll fit a different pair of wheels tomorrow to tide me over until the real new replacements arrive from Korea.

Lunch lasted until 5:00pm and included some work on Lis’ iPad, switching her from Yahoo mail to GMail using Apple Mail as the client program on her iPad. Got it looking surprisingly close to what she was used to with Yahoo, which she appreciated.

Karola and I got back and slept for a couple of hours, worn out by the heavy eating and conversations. We then went to Arrival, a sci-fi film billed as being a masterpiece, a thinking person’s film. Unfortunately we were obviously not in the mood, and the sounds and music drowned out quite a lot of the dialogue, so it wasn’t very satisfactory.

Rack For Storing The Unused Electric Fence Posts

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—24℃ no rain [72.3]

On computer inside almost all day – catching up with the chores and emails left over from Sunday. Did finally get outside for a while and finished loading a trailer with the top foot of soil where the goose bath now sits. Broken glass and china – I kept the china for Karola who has a whimsical notion that the broken china dates is from the 1931 Napier earthquake.

And today I found out what all the pukeko fuss was about under the big oak. The parents both flew at me in annoyance at being disturbed, squawking and flapping their wings but stopping just short of pecking me. A nest with two normal-sized eggs and one tiddler.

Meanwhile Karola was out for a haircut and engaging in unwarranted enthusiasm for buying things. Not to be encouraged.

China Found In Old Rubbish Heap Where Goose Bath Now Sits

Mrs Pukeko Very Cross Indeed

Mr Pukeko Planning His Next Assault

Not Going To Budge

Briefly Off The Nest But Soon To Return

Looking Across The Totara Paddock To Karola’s One Acre Of Lucerne & Plantain

Looking South Towards Karola’s Willow Oaks In The Long Acre

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—22℃ no rain [71.9]

SwimGym with Karola

Karola spent much of the day sweeping up the long cut grass on the house lawn, trailer load after trailer load. Finished about a quarter of it by late afternoon.

I went to Power Farming with the flat front tyre and wheel and most fortunately happened to arrive when the Kioti tractor rep. was there from Auckland. I explained my two stories of flat tyres and he immediately said “oh yes, there was a batch of faulty front tyres received in New Zealand from Korea recently”. So the wheels will be replaced under warranty. That’s good. Not sure how long it will take though. That plus a bit of shopping and there’s the morning gone.

I put up the three new fire extinguishers we bought last week. They are multi-use in that they can be used with wood and paper fires, liquid fuel fires, and electrical fires.

Also put up four more pegboards, brightly coloured of course.

Late afternoon I remembered that Karola had said she’d like to go to a film this week but there didn’t seem to be any good ones on right now. I found a film, Arrival, playing today, Wednesday, at the Globe Theatrette in Ahuriri, the other side of Napier, at 8:30pm. So I booked it and after dinner we got dressed up and drove over to Ahuriri. We were surprised to find the cinema closed and no sign of life at all. Karola said, well it says it’s shut on Mondays. Oops, slight miscalculation, it being Monday and not Wednesday, both SwimGym days and fish dinner days which is why I get them confused I suppose.Still, something to look forward to on Wednesday now.

The Cottage Fire Extinguisher

The Farm Shed Fire Extinguisher

The House Kitchen Fire Extinguisher

Karola Says It Looks Like A Childrens’ Playcentre

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—25℃ 0.9mm rain [71.6]

Decided to carry on mowing the house lawn despite the flat front tyre and I mowed until lunchtime when it was already over 30℃. Henare had come at 10:30am for a chat, cup of coffee, and to mow the circle in front of the house (with the Honda self-propelling, but not ride-on, mower). Henare finished the mowing around 1:00pm, had lunch with us, as is his wont, and left. The Pukeko families I disturbed yesterday are still around and it seems there’s a single-parent one-chick family and a two-parents family with twin chicks. I put water for them in the old disused bird bath lying nearby.

In the heat of the day I continued preparing four more pegboards for the farm shed. Tonight they’re ready to put up, two vivid yellow, one fire engine red and one forest green.

Geese still haven’t adopted the goose bath but a pukeko has claimed it.

Janet Scott called round for a chat with Karola and found me contemplating the tractor’s flat tyre. I’ve now taken the wheel off and will try to get it fixed this week.

After dinner, in the cool of the evening, Karola raked up some of the abundant piles of grass from this morning’s mowing and I, using the Honda mower, finished off various small areas of house lawn in corners or under trees that I cannot get to with the tractor. At the end of this I emptied ten groundsheets full of grass onto Karola’s bund.

A Quartet Of Ringed Doves Have Been Round For Over A Year – I like Them

One Acre: Thorn Apple, Fat Hen, Californian Thistle – And A Little Lucerne & Plantain

https://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/eafrinet/weeds/key/weeds/Media/Html/Datura_stramonium_(Common_Thorn_Apple).htm

Many Hours Of Mowing Later …

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—29℃ no rain [72.4]

Quite a busy day, and hot too. Took Landrover and big trailer in to Tamatea Motors (Heath Goldfinch) for WOFs – even though it’s Saturday. Karola drove over in Subaru and picked me up, it’ll be done soon after lunch today. On the way back from tamatea to Karamu we dropped in at Ruby Glen orchard in Meeanee and bought two delicious-looking punnets of raspberries.

Mowed the cottage lawn in the morning before it got too hot. Worked on additional pegboards for the farm shed, making each a frame and painting them.

Removed the rat traps from inside the house – no catches and we don’t want to check them every day nor have a dead rat festering. Possum trap showing one kill, but no sign of the corpse.

We picked up the Landrover and trailer around 2:00pm and on the way back Karola did some food shopping, including cream to go with the raspberries, and I dropped in at Napier’s Mitre-10 for some pegboard hooks.

Kept out of the heat until late afternoon – pegboards and the like – and I started mowing the house lawn. Difficult work where the tree branches interfere or close to the edge of the ha-ha, and the first mowing left a lot of unsightly tufts. I broke a low-hanging branch off the Liriodendron by mistake, almost mowed over a nest and creche of Pukeko chicks, and eventually flattened the front right-hand tyre yet again, stopping play till next week.

House Lawn More Paddock Than Lawn

Pukeko Commune Disturbed But Not Harmed

Four Pukeko Chicks (Hiding) & One Egg Unhatched

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—26℃ no rain [72.7]

SwimGym, both of us, and an hour later than usual.

This morning the tractor sickened quickly. I first noticed the hydraulics were sluggish, then the power steering stopped, and finally the tractor just refused to budge.

Picked up the oil filter from Power Farming. To my surprise it is indeed just a press-fit into the well surrounding the splined PTO shaft so seems vulnerable to a repeat incident when mowing thick, tall grass. Tried to buy 10 litres of the right tractor transmission oil from Farmlands (only 20 litre packs – I couldn’t pour out of one of those and it’s double what I need), who suggested Repco (long time to find their name for an equivalent oil – only to find they had none in stock), back to Power Farming (only 20 litre containers, like Farmlands), and, later, on to VJs who did have what I needed. What with that goose chase and getting the bread and one of those delicious Bostock organic chickens to roast from Cornucopia, and the Friday fish etc from New World, that was the morning gone.

Peter Fitzpatrick came with the annual Bostock gifts and invitation to the horse racing JB sponsors in January.

So I had the oil filter and only had to tap it into place – but, which side innermost? I consulted with Leigh Jone at Power Farming again, “flat side outermost”. Back home I fitted the oil filter and fed the beast with 10 litres of transmission oil and hey presto everything seemed to work again.

Attached the mower which took only 20 minutes if you discount the several mis-attempts. It helps to have the mower facing forwards, and to start with the hydraulics up at first, lowering them once the mower is in place. Did a bit of mowing just to make sure all was going as expected – all OK.

There’s 10 cents off each litre today down at Caltex so I filled up the tractor (diesel) and the lawn mower (petrol) and took the Landrover down to the garage along with two empty diesel cans and one empty petrol can. Filled them all up.

Henare came round for some fresh water and was very pleased with Karola’s Christmas gift of a 10 litre water jar with a spout. Apparently Denise had been on at him to get one.

After dinner I began moving the topsoil heap next to the goose bath into the old small trailer. I’d sunk the bath on top of an old rubbish heap and so the top foot or so was full of old bones, bits of crockery, and broken glass. We’ll use it when next burying a dead sheep. Almost finished when darkness fell. Into the farm shed and I painted some pieces of pegboard ready to be put on the wall.

Mid-Section PTO Clear Of Grass, With Press-Fit Oil Filter Missing

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—24℃ no rain [72.7]

I noticed some water on the floor of the house garage, under the back wheels of the tractor this morning. Suspicious I touched it and, sure enough, it was oil. Seemed to be coming from above the mid-mounted mower so I took the tractor out of the garage and took off the mower. Grass was packed and wrapped tightly round the PTO coupling for the mower. I dug out the grass with a screwdriver and oil flowed more freely. Karola provided a stainless steel basin which I put under the stream of oil and then I crawled under took a good look. The oil was oozing out round the tines of the PTO as if there were an oil seal missing. Maybe the grass wrapped round the shaft dislodged it. I called Power Farming and they expect to have a replacement for me to fit tomorrow. Tonight I paid my $30 and downloaded a workshop manual for the Kioti CS2610 tractor.

A few days ago it was a family of quail near the west One Acre gate, today a couple of pheasant chicks near the north One Acre gate. Birdlife abounds. After all the mowing yesterday, making pathways for the electric fence as the grass is about 300mm – 400mm high, today I set up the electric fence turning the Front paddock into four small paddocks joined by a runway along the slope of the ha-ha. And dis-assembled the electric fence around the house lawn. Took hours.

Late afternoon I got back to the Goose Bath project. Had a little adjusting to do of the sides of the hole and admired the ½ cubic metre of AP40 gravel that just filled it to the right depth. Hoping that the loss of a litre or so of transmissiion oil wouldn’t stop me using the hydraulics I turned the old bath upright, sprayed the large patches of rust with “rust converter” and lofted it using a small fence post under the lip at each end. Gently, well fairly gently, lowered it into the hole and added a few inches of water. Applied a level to the sides and ends and to my immense relief – well it was mostly blind luck – the bath was very nearly level. Filled the bath to overflowing and went off for dinner well satisfied.

Is It Water, Hell No, It’s Oil

The Mower PTO With Most Of The Grass Removed

[28] – The Missing Seal, I Think

Goose Bath Embedded At Long Long Last

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—28℃ no rain [72.6]

SwimGym

Fire extinguisher guy came around 8:30am as planned. Our three existing extinguishers are past their use-by date and the two big heavy ones are probably corroded dangerously inside. He, Haden, took the old ones away and left us with three identical $100 extinguishers that spray powder depriving fire of oxygen. These extinguishers are not very heavy, though it’d be an exaggeration to say they were light, and they can be used on electrical, paper, wood and oil fires. One for the house, one for the cottage, and one for the farm shed where we keep small amounts of petrol, diesel, and various oils. Haden pointed out that two smoke or heat detectors were wall mounted and virtually useless. They need to be ceiling mounted. He also advised us to get Yale-style locks on our escape-route doors. There won’t be time for using a key.

Later when I went out shopping I bought two $20 extinguishers, one for each vehicle. They won’t be useful in a serious fire, probably only a few seconds of active spraying, but might help put out a fire in someone’s car engine, for example.

I also, on Karola’s instructions, bought a 10 litre water dispenser so that he can fill this up here and take it back for Denise and Scott. It has a little tap.

In the afternoon I completed the digging of the hole for the goose bath and underneath it a soak-away. Got half a cubc metre of AP40 gravel and, with Karola’s help, put that in the hole. Reflecting on the impossibility of getting the bath level as it is way too heavy for me to man-handle. If I pick it up, upside down, on the tractor forks and dump itt alongside the hole I’ll be able to roll it over and into the hole. Sleeping on it.

In preparation for strip feeding the Front paddock to the sheep I’ve mown a strip dividing each of four swathes so that I can run electric fence between them without shorting out.

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [72.6]

Computer work left over from the weekend occupied much of the morning. Suddenly it was lunchtime. Karola working on Christmas cards, letters, presents most of the day.

We have “fire extinguisher” on our list for the farm shed, which got me exploring where to get some advice and extinguisher. I rang Margo at our security monitoring place and she suggested Almak in Onekawa, Glenn McAdam joint owner. (19 Carnegie St, Onekawa 06-843-3482). Talked to Glenn and he got one of his chaps to call me back. They were proposing to charge $120 just for calling and giving advice. A bit of bargaining later and the deal is $40 for the visit waived if we buy fire extinguishers from them (they cost about $90 each). The rep comes tomorrow morning.

We had an appointment at 6:30pm with Karola’s heart specialist in Napier but his receptionist called just as we were about to leave saying they were running late so could we come instead after 7:00pm. So we had dinner first and Henare and Scott came and got fresh water. It’s Henare’s birthday today and the only person who remembered, Henare included, was Coco – Scott’s partner.

We got to the specialist’s rooms at 6:45pm and had to wait almost an hour but had taken reading material in anticipation. Miles Williams was his charming self. He told us of his world trip with his family last year including a trip to northern Italy, to Bolanzo, South Tyrol to see the 5000 year old mummified corpse, Ötzi or The Iceman. The Iceman had coronary disease. We asked, and he confirmed Karola’s and my prejudices that the supplements we use, recommended so heartily by various people, are not supported by proper clinical trials. He is pretty annoyed to find pharmacists recommending snake oil when they, like doctors, are supposed to have high standards of propriety and not just recommend useless medicines which merely enrich themselves. Miles also explained the difference between CT Coronary Angiogram and an ultrasound test for indicators of coronary disease. Ultrasound cannot image the heart nor the coronary blood vessels so as a surrogate it maps the walls of the carotid artery. Thickened walls indicate likely coronary disease, normal walls tell you nothing.

Karola had bought some more raspberries and boysenberries and we had them for supper.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—21℃ no rain [73.3]

SwimGym

I did a bit of hose-moving for Karola and saw the quite delightful picture of half a dozen or more bumble-bee sized balls of fluff skittering about in the long grass, heeding the parent quails’ calls to scatter. No chance of a photo, far to quick.

Karola popped into town for some food for Kirsty & Bruce lunch – they’re dropping by on their way back to Wellington having been in the area for a family 70th.

A little light rain in the morning precluded outside work. And then Kirsty & Bruce arrived. Meticulous Maids came to clean the cottage too today, their last clean this year, and so our lunch was in the sun porch of the house. Bruce is an engineer a little obsessed with cars and skilled at fixing them too so I took the opportunity to show off the new shed (he is also a persistent owner of sheds, mainly to house his vehicles) and the new tractor. He then helped me take off the intentionally-removeable attachments – the mid-mounted mower and the front end loader. The user manual had sort-of adequate diagrams, naming the parts, but the menus for dis-assembly (and re-assembly) were terse to the point of absurdity and in parts incomprehensible. So it was good to have someone with a natural flair for how engineering things worked.

Late afternoon, when the visitors had gone, I, aided by Karola, put the pieces back together while fresh in my mind. It was a long job but eventually we got there – at least everything seems to work.

A Three Card Trick

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—23℃ 0.7mm rain [73.0]

Fixed a couple of minor leaks in the farm water extension I put in yesterday and all now seems OK.

Karola revised the list of types of things to go into the farm shed and I updated the farm journal (yesterday’s post)

Sprayed the bottom of the old bath with rust converter again. This binds with the rust and stops further corrosion, allegedly. Also started digging the hole for the bath. It is to nestle in the ground and sit on a soak-away full of coarse gravel so the hole will be quite large.

Using the forks on the tractor I moved the 7-drawer map cabinet from the farm shed to a temporary spot in the house garage. I stopped at the cottage and filled up the drawers with all my Arduino / electronics stuff. Despite certain people being very sceptical, only a couple of things wouldn’t fit in the shallow drawers.

The showers forecast haven’t amounted to anything so some more tree watering is called for.

After dinner I finished off the drip-line to the Manuka bushes by the farm shed – burying the pipe across the gates.

Surprise – Raspberries Amongst The Runner Beans

Lush Green One Acre Paddock

Beginning Of The Goose Bath Hole

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—22℃ 0.7mm rain [72.6]

Karola used a hose to give her Totara and Five Finger trees a good dollop of water. Showers are forecast again today but nothing substantial enough to wet the dry hard ground. Later she cut all the flower heads of the mass of Acanthus outside the 133 gate, to reduce their rate of spread.

Karola saw that the orchard side netting was up, it’s an inoffensive grey colour, about five metres high and helps hide the house next door. It’s actually there to protect Karola’s orchard from spray drift from the neighbouring orchards north and south.

Ewe #337 died today, casualty of the facial eczema last autumn we think. We buried her in Henare’s death pit and now it’s full. The little tractor is very good for moving dead sheep and burying them – a lot quicker than covering them over by hand – with a shovel I mean.

I finally roused myself and did the little project to bring water to the farm shed. Tonight, as darkness fell, I tested it and all seemed well. Goose paddock trough moved back under the Copper Beech but with a new connection and valve to the mains extension running from half-way down the 121 driveway up and round the corner and along behind the flax to the farm shed. Two taps on the strainer post nearest the farm shed, one for washing things – the tractor, shovels and other tools – and one to keep an old bath full for the geese. The position of the old bath for the geese has changed to be up by the farm shed. The old bath is to be sunk into the ground about 2 metres from the new taps on the strainer post next to the farm shed, inside the Goose enclosure and shaded from the worst of the sun and the wind.

What Goes In The Farm Shed

Karola & I drew up a list of the sorts of things we’d keep in the farm shed. It’s already getting pretty crowded. This shed is only for things we actually use and other stuff will be found a home elsewhere or disposed of:

• Vet tools & supplies (in the Vet cupboard)
• Poisons – for weeds, vermin & bugs (in the Poisons cupboard)
• Garden hoses & portable water pump
• Ground sheets
• Garden tools & supplies – fertilisers, seeds etc
• Traps for vermin
• Tractor & tractor tools & parts
• Fuel (petrol, diesel), oil, & other flammable liquids
• Lawnmowers, catchers, & spare parts
• Electric fence equipment (posts stored outside on back of farm shed)
• Post & wire fencing equipment (except wire, posts, battens)
• Attachments & tools for hanging gates
• Chainsaw, its tools & spares
• Long ladder (step ladder in house and in cottage garage)
• Farm water fittings and plumbing tools
• Electricity generator and its trolley
• Vehicle tools (jacks, tyre pump, spanners etc)
• Animal foodstuffs
• A fire extinguisher

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—29℃ 0.6mm rain [73.2]

SwimGym, an hour later than usual, after breakfast.

Then the Friday shopping for GF bread, vegetables, and fish. Also dropped in at Harris Pumps & Filtration and bought 50m of 20mm polyethelene (aka alkathene), and 50m of 13mm polyethelene plus another plastic valve – all ready for the small extension to the water reticulation to bring water to the farm shed and make a permanent home for the old bath for the geese.

Karola & I looked at the rat traps in the house and I replaced the lure bottles. Later I also repositioned the possum trap as I’d had no kills where it was.

I moved the old bath, intended to be a rather modest pool for the geese, to where I think it will serve best, in the Goose Enclosure near the driveway fence and just north of the fir tree with lovely cones in the Goose Enclosure south-east corner.

Henare called round for more clean bore water and helped me liberate 50m or so of alkathene pipe from the undergrowth down the avenue side of the 1221 driveway. We haven’t used it for years and as Karola says, should we decide we need some irrigation on that side of the driveway we could use a smaller diameter pipe. The tractor did most of the hard pulling but Henare helped and also chopped clinging vegetation with his trusty and seriously effective loppers.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—23℃ no rain [73.3]

A plodding sort of day. Rained gently for a while in the morning. I did some investigating on Google for a transparent polycarbonate translucent cover for the new keyboard; unfortunately the key sizes and layout have changed a bit so the old one won’t fit. Also for low-cost transparent plastic boxes, about 200mm in one dimension so they fit on the width of the smallest shelf in the farm shed. I found a set of four at Bristows, 40% discount, which worked out at only $1.50 each.

I drew and re-drew a schematic for the water pipes and taps outside the buildings at Karamu. (see below)

Postie came to the cottage with a cardboard box about the size needed for a large laptop computer. Inside was a very small and light package – the replacement wireless keyboard.

I rushed into town for food, mainly for Karola tonight, and bought 7 sets of four little boxes from Bristows.

Over the course of the day I put plastic push-to-click garden hose connectors (male) on every outside garden tap except for three. These three have a Y-connector with taps, also ending in the plastic push-to-click connectors.

I moved the wall-mounted saddle-holder from the house garage to the farm shed, just inside the roller door, on the right (looking in). I added a large metal hook at right angles, just below the electricity board on the west wall. I hung the four longest non-kink hoses on the saddle holder and the shortest on the hook.

Later I, ask Karola asked, banged in standards for her two Five Finger young trees up in the planting area, three per guard, two trees, and wired down so that rabbits cannot lift them up.

Around 6:45pm I went into Hastings to pick up Karola who’d come by bus from Wellington, via Palmerston North. A six hour trip compared with 4½ by car and 2½ by plane, if you include getting to and from the public transport.

Census Of Outside Water Services For Stock & Irrigation

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [73.1]

SwimGym

Watered the nine Pittosporum outside the 133 entrance railings, and the surviving Cercidiphyllum inside the railings. Also the nine Rangiora newly planted along the 121 driveway next to the Goose Enclosure fence, and, along the railings next to the place of three gates, three Kowhai & three AkeAke.

In the afternoon I pulled up several old leaky pipes from along the Avenue fence in the Front paddock, a very prickly and sticky burred business.

The Cercidiphyllum Survivor

No-One Home Any More

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—28℃ 1.7mm rain [73.8]

Yesterday afternoon I started on the new temporary back-door access to the house and this morning I completed it. Trailer-load of AP40 yesterday and overlaid with another trailer load of “Builders Mix”, topped up with the little pile of gravel left over from making the ramp into the farm shed. Also covered the possum-extraction hole with a piece of tin I found amongst Karola’s garden things, just the right size.

Jeff Rencontre came and chatted, and chatted, and finally did clean the windows where his painting last Friday in the rain had splashed a little.

Happened to spot a huge variegated thistle in the Octagon, flowering. So pulled it up and put it in the bin.

Spent a while trying to un-jamb the tandem-axle of the big trailer – it’s rusted up. I have put bottles of rust loosening spray and lubricant on it and it’s a little better, but not totally free.

Went to town to get some fish for dinner and my GF bread. Chased around in the Karamu Road area looking for a piece of angle iron about 2.5 metres long to use as a guide for sawing sheets of plywood (2.4m x 1.2m). My usual steel merchant didn’t have a long enough piece, suggested I try Wine Country Steelworks who sent me on to Campbell Brothers (TowBars) who were having lunch, so I gave up. I did see a special offer in Mitre-10 for a 3 metre long curtain rail – someone’s reject I suppose – for $20 so I bought it and will try it. Paul the builder uses a curtain rail as a guide when cutting big sheets, but more robust than my $20 purchase.

Variegated Thistle In Flower

The Ladies Have Got A Taste For Mint – Really

… And the Agapanthus

Lawnmowers, Doing Their Best On The House Lawn

Took Me A Day Plus 1.5 Cu M of Gravel To Make Temporary Back-Door Access

We Have Six Good Long Hoses, Five Shown Here

But Do We Have Enough Hose Joiners, Connectors?

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—26℃ no rain [73.5]

SwimGym (from now on unless I say otherwise, it’s just me)

Then breakfast and slept till morning teatime. Finished mending the fence and other small jobs before lunch. Went out after lunch to take chainsaw chains in to sharpen, to Power Farming to discuss the faulty front wheel rims on my tractor, to Bay Tyres to see how long they thought the temporary fix of an inner tube in a damaged tyre would last (piece of string), and get 20 litres of diesel for the tractor.

At the Saw Doctors I asked for two chains to be sharpened. One, as I suspected, is worn out so they’ll make up a new one for me. The other, he pointed out, hasn’t been used since last sharpened. So much for the “brown marks on the teeth means it needs sharpening” old wives tale then.

At Power Farming spoke to Aaron White and he discussed with the engineers. They have no reports of other people having faulty front wheels but they will contact manufacturer and also see if they can rustle up another tyre to replace the one I destroyed – I doubt that’ll be a gift though.

At the petrol station I bought the diesel and a bag of Gisborne oranges, I’m rather partial.

Later on I drove the car and a small trailer to Mitre-10 and bought some more irrigation pipe stoppers, some galvanised saddles to anchor the pipe at strategic places, and some more pegboard for the farm shed. Much later on I went to Winstones with the Landrover and the big trailer and got ½ a load of AP40 gravel and a few more metal standards – there’s no knowing when Karola will have enough tree guards.

The ram and wether are now confined to the Goose Enclosure. The rest of the sheep have the house lawn for a few hours at a time and that includes all the fenced pieces now.

There are myriad pukekos, every where you look, and suspicions of nests abound. Ditto Californian quail – in fact I like them both. Also small rabbits get under your feet as you walk around in the long grass. No possums or rats caught and I’ve not seen a feral cat for a while.

Lucerne / Plantain / Phalaris In The One Acre

The Bust Fence Is Mended – All Crimped Up & Battened Down

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—20℃ no rain [74.1]

Karola’s second night seems to have gone well and she sounds cheerful.

I spent much of the morning doing the online chores – bills to pay etc – and buying stuff. I ordered supplies for the rat and possum traps, some escutcheons for the cupboard locks (I didn’t know what to call them but eventually Google offered up the right word). My wired Apple keyboard was so filthy that a few days ago I cleaned it, vigorously. Now I need to buy a replacement keyboard.

Later I cleaned the old concrete trough by running a hose at high pressure into it for a long time. I then spent literally hours trying to find and sort through the myriad hose and alkathene connectors and fittings before working on a permanent connection for my Manuka trees next to the railings by the farm shed. Karola did not like me trailing long hoses across to the cottage back door tap. Like mending the broken wire fence, this isn’t finished although it does work. I’ve taken a tee off the pipe watering the Bay tree hedge and, as Karola suggested, put a valve on each leg so that I can water the Manuka and Bay trees independently. Finally tonight I set the rat traps in the house – must reduce the population before Bridget and family come up. During my searching I found a dead Welcome swallow in the house garage, sad, but I should expect more because they keep getting trapped in there when I close the roller door.

Despite being a glorious day outside I spent hours doing computer and web site backups in preparation for moving to the latest Apple operating system.

Henare came as darkness fell, just to get some more unchlorinated drinking water.

A Cleaner Concrete Trough

Spaghetti Junction For Irrigation Pipes

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—24℃ no rain [73.6]

I had a restless night while Karola had a somewhat drug-induced sound sleep she says. I popped down to her room, #203, at 8:00am when she was expecting to get a hospital breakfast in bed. This she did. We discussed who would take which bag as, when I was optimistically hoping all our clobber would fit in one bag an a shared plane trip there and back, we only brought one checked bag between us. In the end Karola had a good solution, She would take my voluminous red bag, I would take her small cabin-bag sized one and check it. That way Karola has lots of room for extra stuff she may accumulate while in Wellington and I don’t have to squeeze everything into my computer bag as carry-on. I left around 10:30am just after serendipitously meeting Malcolm the Knife, come to check up on his patient the morning after.

Karola, after a final discussion with M the K, packed up and went down to the lobby and waited for Bridget to pick her up. Meanwhile I had an awkward conversation with the receptionist who was barely civil. She asked me how the room was and I said that a couple of the lights didn’t work then she said fill out the feedback form in the room, and so it went on. If she didn’t actually want to know, why ask. Then she was about to let me go without the invoice for the room, which we need for the insurance claim and she said yesterday we’d get today. I remembered just before the taxi arrived and sure enough, there was an envelope on her desk for Mrs Brackenbury with the invoice in it.

It was all much better after that, beautiful summer morning, pleasant taxi driver. simple self-check-in, cup of coffee until time for the flight, smooth flight. On the way down we’d parked in the airport secure park which is in great disarray because they’re increasing the size and laying new asphalt. There was no barrier down so we drove straight in, not getting a ticket. Upon return I found that the park was not free due to the reconstruction, other people had obtained a ticket. A nice lady in a Subaru station waggon suggested I tailgate her, so I did. Now I feel guilty although I really do doubt anyone else noticed or cares. Lovely day in Hawkes Bay, high cloud and not too warm.

I stopped at the Green Meadows New World on the way home, called Karola who sounded in good spirits, and got the evening meal, and tomorrows meal too. When I got home I let the sheep back onto the lawn and had a bit of a look around. There’s been a decent drop of rain up here yesterday so the newly planted trees and pasture are looking sprightly.

Late afternoon I sawed up the heavy Wellingtonia branch that had snapped the fence running from the farm shed down to the One Acre. As darkness fell I straind up the wires ready for crimping tomorrow. A couple of the wires need a short extension in order to meet up.

Runner Beans Flourishing

Smashed Into The Fence, It Did

Busted The Wires, It Did

Chopped It Up, I Did

Strained Up The Wires, I Did

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—18℃ no rain [?]

Came down to Wellington yesterday afternoon and got a taxi to Wakefield Hospital in Newtown, near the General Hospital. We stayed overnight in the Wakefield appartments, number 4 of five. Spartan but not uncomfortable – I would say it felt rather 1960s. We went down the hill and shopped at the local New World. A bit down-market from Hastings or Green Meadows New World.  More like the New World in Karori or Havelock North. Terribly crowded, very multicultural – multiple simultaneous Christmas promotions on the go, and it was only 1st December. Meal in our room, partly what we brought with us, partly the New World shopping.

We got no further in finding accurate information about the Friday events, the procedures. Karola filled in her admission forms, rather untidily, and objected strenuousy to the repititious writing of names and date of birth etc on each form. Quicker actually to just do it and not fulminate. Then a remarkably good, sound night’s sleep.

This morning I confirmed that Karola could have breakfast – but should only drink from then on, water or tea. And that we needed to register – get admitted – at 12:25pm, which we did.

At 12:30pm Karola was led off to a room on the second floor, I, the trailing spouse, trailing. She cooled her heels there for half an hour and was then prepared for theatre in a leisurely way. Far from being the 30 – 45 minute process I was told yesterday, by the ward sister no less, on the phone, I enquired again and was told that the specialists wouldn’t be around until at least 2:00pm. Eventually I was shooed away and went back to the apartment – which did have WiFi.

Around 5:00pm, having heard nothing, I strolled over and enquired how things were going. Oh, she’s just gone into theatre about half an hour ago. So I went out for more food shopping, stopping in again on my way back to the apartment, but there were no nurses around. New World was much quieter today, now the initial Christmas jollities are over. At 6:30pm still no information and Karola’s room was still empty. I had a large and familiar meal of baked snapper, peas and cauliflower fried in olive oil. Another check around 7:00pm and there Karola was – the operation complete and she quite chirpy and glad to be out of it. We chatted and I TXTed the several people who had been asking for progress reports all afternoon. Karola had a little food, brought by her nurse, and I fetched some yoghurt and a novel.

Bumped into Dr Miles Williams, her Napier heart diagnostician, just as he was coming to see Karola and I was leaving to fetch more clothes and so on from the apartment. He proudly showed me photos of the afternoon’s work. Apparently only one stent was installed, but a long one. The second calcified artery turned out, on today’s closer examination, not to be blocked. Miles attended and interpreted the Coronary Angiogram (not to be confused with the earlier and less precise, and less invasive CT Coronary Angiogram), but Malcolm Abernethy did the actual placement of the stent. As if we’re interested. Only matters that it were done, and done well. Miles indicated that the artery unblocked by the stent really really did need treatment.

So Karola is now officially bionic. She must take it easy for a week or so and will be staying with daughter Bridget in Khandallah for the next week. Being driven to Khandallah is less stressful than flying up to Napier of course, and even more to the point, when Karola is at home she worries about her sheep, and the garden, and everything. So staying away for a while is the best option – although I will miss her – I fly back home tomorrow.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—21℃ 7.7mm rain [?]

SwimGym early and alone.

We packed for our two-day visit to Wellington, we’re flying down this afternoon.

Then I took in the flat front tyre of the new tractor to Hastings Tyrepower (221 Wilson Rd, 06-879-7029). The other front tyre was fixed by them on 1st November. Both times it was a failure of the rim beading but this time I’ve trashed the tyre itself because I noticed it too late. They put in an inner tube for now, so I could get it inside and under lock & key while we are away, but it’ll need a new tyre. Bother!

On that trip I also dropped in at Mitre-10 and bought new hacksaw blades and a wheel brace – one that fits the small wheel nuts on the new tractor and gives plenty of purchase to dislodge very tight nuts. I also picked up 5 NZ Bird calendars Karola had ordered as Christmas presents from the post shop in the K-Mart mall, a local paper and some sushi for her lunch.

Jeff the painter came and finished the reconstruction of window sills. They no longer call attention to the dog damage. Jeff is also putting top coats on the house weatherboards Paul put up a week or so ago. He expects to finish that tomorrow.

Upon my return I noticed that the ram and wether were out of their paddock in the Middle paddock, separated from the ewes and hoggets and lambs only by an electric fence. I went out to investigate amidst a hail of cross blaming as to who left the gate open and found all relevant gates still tightly closed. However, in the night, a heavy branch had fallen from a Giant Sequoia and smashed the fence – that’s how the ram and wether escaped.  I opened gates to guide these escapees into the Long Acre paddock and strolled round to get between them and the ewes when suddenly the ewes, seeing me, stampeded towards me, obviously hoping for sheep nuts. The ram joined in and in so doing crashed through the electric fence, and began very positively vetting the ewes for re-mating. I had my work cut out trying to take his mind off it and keep him moving. Rang Karola and she came out and we sorted them out – possibly without a single sheep being impregnated but time will tell.

We left for the airport soon after 12:30pm, a bit earlier than I’d planned as I thought the flight was at 2:00pm. We parked, self-checked-in and were sitting idly having a quiet coffee when Karola remarked that actually the flight time was 3:00pm not 2:00pm. Another senior moment – but the time passed pleasantly enough.

Overnight Wellingtonia (Sequioa Gigantica) Branch Falls & Breaks Fence

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—19℃ 1.0mm rain [73.6]