Monthly Archives: March 2017

Subaru Windscreen Repaired

SwimGym with Karola

I hitched up the chipper and reduced yesterday’s piles of branches to a tidy heap of chippings, it took about two hours.

Henare came mid morning. He mowed some undergrowth for Karola down near the 121 entrance, on the north side, where Karola will plant a few trees. However, after looking art the cleared area Karola decided not to put any precious trees in such a dry and overgrown area – despite the clearing it’ll be overgrown again in a trice.

Later, after fish-and-chip lunch, Henare started digging out th iris near the lime tree, where I expect to establish a small grove of beech trees – along the lines seen at Grumpy’s Farm in Christchurch the time we went to Christchurch to buy the Landrover, in 2001 or 2002.

Also mid morning the Smith & Smith roving windscreen repairer came and replaced the Subaru windscreen – because of the heavy star crack caused by a large stone thrown up on the way to New Plymouth that subsequently enlarged to a horizontal crack about 200mm (8 inches) either side of the star.

After the chipping I went into town for the GF bread and the fish & chips for lunch.

Walked round the orchard with Bramble. More computer stuff, and that was it for the day.

Today’s Chipping Pile

Windscreen Star Crack Has Spread Horizontally Either Side

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—25℃ no rain [74.1]

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And Finally The Sun Came Out

Another long lie-in, hope the need for this diminishes quickly.

Karola did a bit on her tree guards; I did mostly computer stuff, backing up and scouring for viruses, until mid-afternoon when I returned to the two-yearly trimming of the planting along the north and west boundaries, cutting it back so that it doesn’t shade the paddocks – or not very much.

See Bangle, below, under the Osmanthus burkwoodii, a rather stunning medium-sized tree with multiple stems, glossy dark green leaves, and, as you can see, myriad delicate small white blossoms.

Bangle Treads The Blossom

Biannual Trim Of The Orchard Drive Planting Area

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—26℃ 1.6mm rain [74.3]

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Computers Soak Up The Time

SwimGym with Karola. Slept till noon – not sure why this is happening.

After lunch I walked with Bangle round the orchard then had another exercise for Bangle, climbing the stairs again.

Mostly computer stuff during the day – it began sunny but descended into quite heavy rain. Updated my Macbook Pro, iPhone, and iPad to the latest version of the system software.

Did my presentation on “basic income” for the BINZ committee meeting on Sunday.

Searched high and low for a mythical photo I’m supposed to have taken in May last year in Gisborne at Eastwood Hill Arboretum.

Oak Avenue Weather:17℃—23℃ 76.5mm rain [74.3]

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Bangle Conquers Her Stair Phobia

Slowly got going this morning, Karola & I walked with Bangle round the orchard before Karola went off shopping for an hour or so. Then it was lunchtime after which we planned the planting of the saplings we bought at the IDS auction on Friday night. I planted my two fuchsia under the cottage laundry window.

Banner day for Bangle. Because of her hard claws slipping on the wooden stairs she’s been hard to coax up and I’ve been training her with bits of cheese balanced on ever higher stairs. Today she made it right to the top – and down again.

Bangle Gingerly Climbs The Stairs

Ah, Nice Bit Of Cheese Here

Oh, And Another One – I Can Just Reach It

Last Bit Of Cheese Is Mine!

Oh, It’s A Long Way Down

Easier Just To Keep On Going

Wow, I Made It

Who’s Queen Of The Castle!

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—17℃ 3.6mm rain [74.9]

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Wrecked – Recouperating

SwimGym

Then I quickly dressed, grabbed the shopping list, and bolted for the car – off to pick up Bangle languishing in her Pet2Us prison. They agreed she was pretty anxious when I left her there and she was just beginning to acclimatise yesterday. Home now, and by the afternoon Bangle was in good humour again – sniffing for rabbits and so on.

I slept almost all day, in fact Meticulous Maids came, as expected but earlier, and woke me up. Late afternoon the insurance assessor came and took a look at the garage and some photos. AIG will send their builder out to give them a quote and they will pay us based on the lower of our quote and theirs – minus the $500 excess of course.

Karola has contacted the AA Insurers and they are going to come and replace the Subaru windscreen on Friday. To my surprise and delight we seem to have “excess-free” windscreen replacement.

Evening Visitor Through The Open Window

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—16℃ 4.2mm rain [75.0]

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Tupare Gardens – New Plymouth

Off to Tupare Gardens after breakfast and checking out of the Devon Hotel. Spent the morning there, leaving around noon for Bulls and on home.

We stopped for lunch in Stratford, stopped again in Bulls where Karola delivered her present of a tree (Pseudocydonia sinensis, the Chinese quince) to Jo & Rauf Rangooni and picked up a couple of boxes of papers from Justine Haylock – stuff left by her late mother Hilary. Pleasantly uneventful drive home, much of it in the rain. We listened to the beginning of the next Anthony Price spy novel, A Prospect Of Vengeance” as we drove.

Tupare Gardens

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—18℃ 6.6mm rain [?]

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IDS – Day 2

Another big breakfast, another early start.

First stop, Magnolia Grove owned by Katherine and Vance Hooper, the garden absolutely crammed full of plants plus a commercial magnolia propagation section which wholesales thousands of magnolias throughout New Zealand every year. Nurseryman Vance is one of New Zealand’s top experts in plant propagation.

Then on to Abbie and Mark Jury, another large and densely planted garden. Mark’s father Felix Jury began the garden and, this being Taranaki, there was significant emphasis on the many cultivars and species of magnolias. I particularly liked Mark’s big shed and tools.

Finally we visited a retired gentleman, Jim Rumball, who had mentored several other IDS members at the prestigious Duncan & Davies nursery in New Plymouth. He had a particular interest in the Hinoki Cypress and explained how it, and some other tree species, have three distinct stages of development. Like the familiar Lancewood with its juvenile spikes and later stately tree, these conifers have not two but three forms, each stage can exist for decades and the stages look sufficiently different that they have been repeatedly mis-classified as different species all over the world. Jim has spent much of his career ironing out these classification discrepancies for his favourite, the Hinoki Cypress. His garden was small but densely packed with lots of different types of dwarf or prostrate conifer.

We all had dinner across the road from the Devon hotel that night, exhausted after a particularly full-on day.

Magnolia Grove – Cactus Do Even Better When They Get Plenty Of Water

I Found Some Hens At Magnolia Grove

Awesome Line Of Old Rimu At The Jury’s

Jury Garden Packed With Plants

On And On

And This Was Just Round The House

Very Odd Fig – Fruiting On Trunk – No Taste Though

The Hinoki Cypress – Third Stage Specimen

Jim Rumball’s Garden – Just A Smidgen

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—15℃ 12.5mm rain [?]

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IDS Day 1

Big breakfast and then off on a bus with the 45 or so other IDS members attending the 2017 AGM and field trips.

In the morning we walked round Jeremy Thompson’s farm way out in the back blocks, ending with a superb sit-down lunch. Jeremy is a pre-eminent forester who has spent his life on the research and development of timber tree plantations suiting the New Zealand environment. He is particularly proud of his trials of Giant Redwoods, in some parts of New Zealand a potential alternative to the ubiquitious Pinus Radiata.

After lunch our bus took us partway up Mount Taranaki for a walk through the bush-covered lower reaches of the volcano slopes. The tracks were vintage New Zealand – walkable with care but pretty rough, muddy, and unspoiled by the over-enthusiastic taming for tourists often spoiling New Zealand’s natural habitats.

The AGM took place in the evening followed by a dinner and then the much-anticipated tree auction. Karola bought a few plants and incited me to bid for a couple of fuchsia so we ended up taking home eight new trees.

Jeremy Thompson’s Redwoods – 45 Years Old

Mount Taranaki Bush Walk

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—19℃ 0.1mm rain [?]

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Off To New Plymouth

Packed up and left before lunch. Took SH2 via Waipukurau. In Dannevirke we had lunch at a new place called The Forge Restaurant before setting out towards Bulls, our mid-way destination. We had planned to call in on Justine Haylock to pick up some family history papers but Justine was otherwise engaged. We had a cup of tea with Jo Rangooni, just across the road really from Lethenty, at #5 Bulls Street.

On up the west coast with frequent glimpses of the ocean, passing Whanganui and many other familiar but (for me) never before seen towns en route to New Plymouth. It rained off and on most of the way and mist ands cloud lay heavy but as we got close to New Plymouth we saw the top of Mount Egmont, or Mount Taranaki as it is now called. New Plymouth is the heart of the Taranaki district – average rainfall near the coast, on the “ring plain” surrounding the volcano, of 2000 mm a year. On the mountain itself it’s closer to 5000mm a year. Pretty darn damp and qualifies as rain forest. Just inland from the mountain it is steep hill country right across to the central plateau.

Mrs Google directed us right to the door of the Devon Hotel in Devon Street in New Plymouth – not difficult because basically it was SH3 all the way from Bulls.

Checked in then went to the hotel restaurant for dinner where we met up with Peter Arthur (Touchwood Books as was) and a particular favourite person for me, Peter Wakling. Peter Wakling and his wife are the creators and owners of Te Puna Quarry Park – an amazing development of trees, plants, sculpture in a disused quarry in the Bay of Plenty, not too far from Tauranga.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—16℃ 2.0mm rain [?]

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A Little Light Chipping

SwimGym with Karola.

Nipped into town with Bangle and was back shortly after 10:00am.

Computer work including returning signed tax returns for 2016 and submitting claim for the work needed to repair fallen branch damage to the house garage.

Karola completed her current tree guard project – she seems to be using bigger and bigger guards (diameter) and more and more standards per guard. Also chewing through the wire crimps for joining the high-tensile netting.

Most of the afternoon spent chipping & shredding the several piles of branches and twigs about the place. Still got to trim & chip the planting area along the orchard drive, to the north, but got the rest done. The little tractor works very well.

Ewes and new ram into the Middle and Totara paddocks, male sheep into the Front paddock, and the nine ewe lambs remain in the Long Acre.

Sharpened Henare’s dutch hoe – he could shave with it now. Wasps still there. Puffed poison into the three wasps nests yet again – hoping the fresh, new bottle will be more effective.

Bangle Slowly Learning To Go Up & Down Slippery Cottage Stairs

From The Fallen Branch Next To The House Garage – Before

From The Fallen Branch Next To The House Garage – And After

Serious Trimming Around Liriodendron Sapling – Before

Serious Trimming Around Liriodendron Sapling – And After

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—27℃ no rain [73.8]

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Bangle’s First Experience of Pet2Us Kennels

After breakfast I took Bangle to Meeanee, to Pet2Us Kennels for her free one-day acclimatisation that they provide for the first visit of any “re-homed” dog. She parted without fuss but was clearly put out by the many vociferous dogs baying and howling and generally making a terrible racket.

I shopped at New World in Green meadows on the way home, surprised to see nine distinct varieties of apple on sale, seven of them ordinary eating apples and with not much to distinguish one from another. I bought a couple of Ballarat cooking apples for possible baked apple for dinner, a rather mangy grapefruit, cheese, butter, fly-spray, and a paper – riveting stuff. I then detoured through Stortford Lodge and got three 100-capsule bottles of magnesium tablets, briefly on sale at 3 for the price of 2 – that’ll last us a year or so. Then calling it at Farmlands for more kill-wasp powder and other odds and ends. Yesterday’s assaults on three wasp nests seem to have been successful, by the way.

Meanwhile, as planned, Ruth Vincent, our house designer & para-architect came to see Karola, her first visit on the Karamu Homestead renovations project. I was out of the way deliberately, giving Karola over an hour without the guidance she so clearly needs and so clearly doesn’t want.

I returned and Karola had, they said, just finished giving Ruth a historical account of Karamu and Karola’s many layers of concern and desire for the old homestead. All three of us chatted for another hour and Ruth then left with a pretty clear outline of what Karola wanted.

The proposal is to extend the single-storey lean-to with a second floor, so an area the size of the downstairs bathroom and current kitchen is added to the top floor.

We will reuse Guy Natusch’s old idea of combining the Apple room and adjoining Junk room to make a new kitchen, extending it across the east-facing verandah and incorporating somewhere to sit and eat.

With the additional space above the downstairs bathroom and kitchen, the current space for the bathroom and loo doubles in width and a finger, half the width, extends along in front of the stairwell. This is to give us two bathrooms plus storage space for towels & bed linen etc.

The original hall will be enclosed where today there’s a bit of an archway separating it from the stairs and downstairs passage to the back. This will still have the old large front door opening north onto the front verandah, but will also be used as our library.

Karola wants a verandah along the west side and the western half of the south side. Karola’s dad’s verandah bump on the north west corner is to stay. The downstairs bathroom is to stay – as a bathroom/cloakroom – and it’s likely that a new entrance off the western verandah will be used as the main entrance, library on the left, cloakroom on the right, stairs and passage to kitchen straight ahead.

I have a feeling this will work and am quite excited at the prospect of getting going.

After Ruth left Karola returned to her tree guard work, she’s trying to get her current work done before we head for New Plymouth on Thursday. I started trimming the planting area along the north & west boundaries, beginning with the two railed areas containing Liriodendron trees that Karola planted several years ago and now tower five metres above the rest of the plantings.

Karola & I went and picked up Bangle from the kennels around 4:30pm; Bangle seemed no worse for wear but pretty pleased to get back to her own territory. I took her round the orchard so she could check that out.

A Railed Area And Its Liriodendron – Cutting Back Of Coprosma Has Started

The Other Railed Area And Its Liriodendron – Trimming Complete

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—23℃ no rain [74.1]

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Dimmer & Dimmer

SwimGym

Monday morning shopping, got in early before the rush and so was home again shortly after 9:00am.

Karola has remarked on the four lights in the cottage bedroom, how they are too bright and not dimmable. So today I bought warm, low wattage LEDs, small, round, frosted bulbs, and a dimmer switch. Thank goodness for RCD fuses – I know that should I accidentally imagine the lighting circuit was off when it wasn’t I can expect to live to tell the tale. Well, today they were unnecessary.

The bedroom switch is complicated because there are four cables joined up inside the switch cavity. By a process of elimination I found out which of the four red wires was the mains feed, which was the florescent in the wardrobe under the stairs, which the pair of lanterns in the sun porch, and by elimination, which was the wire for the bedroom wall lights. Karola created labels for me so that I don’t have to experiment again in the future. All went well, the wardrobe light still works, the sun porch lights work, and the dimmer dims the bedroom lights. Te only wrinkle was that I had to go back into town to get a simple mains wire connector – in fact they come in strips of ten, but now the job is done.

After lunch I took Bramble round the boundary noting places where I could chip/shred some branches – I found ten spots with a pile of branches. Then, leaving Bangle behind, I sprayed the entrances to the three very much alive wasps nests we’ve noticed recently. I went again after dark and applied liberal amounts of anti-wasp powder to the nest entrances.

Afternoon spent in fiddling about with anti-virus checking of the web space and my computer – the latter so that I can download stuff from my old account, scan it for mischievous code, and then upload it to the new account.

The Wiring Before I Added The Dimmer

A Nice Swamp Cypress – Karola Has Just Weeded & Improved The Tree Guard

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—23℃ 0.1mm rain [74.0]

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Best Weather This Year

A delightful day, cool & sunny with a hint of a breeze. Took Bangle round the orchard, spent an our or so swapping the blades in the Caravaggi chipper/shredder, then mowed the cottage lawn, and just the lawn. Karola toiled on her tree guards for another day.

Electric Fence Round The House Lawn

Ruminating In The Shade Under The Liriodendron

Hard At It – The Biological Lawn Mowers

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [73.8]

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Hacked – Very Much Hacked

Heavy dew today, vwery wet in the grass underfoot. Karola mostly attended to her tree guards plus some weeding of the Titoki trees down the 121 driveway – oh and she made me and Henare scrambled eggs for lunch – we always give him a good mid-day meal when he helps us out.

Apart from the daily walk round the orchard with Bangle I didn’t do much outside today. Went with Bangle to the garage and got the Landrover filled up plus two cans of diesel for the tractor and two cans of petrol for the chainsaw and mowers.

Henare spent half the morning putting in two big posts to help support a major branch of the rimu near the ha-ha, the branch is sagging under its own weight and maybe this will stop it snapping. After lunch Henare mowed the areas of the house lawn that the ewes cannot reach.

Much of my day was taken up with the slow business of moving to new domain names for email and the web sites, after I was “hacked” by the Indonesia To World hacking group at midnight, exploiting some flaw in the blogging software, WordPress. Last night I spent an hour trying to establish whether the hacking had done damage, but superficially I can find nothing. The ITW hacker replaced a very small file used as the first programme executed each time you browse the web sites so I just overwrote it from a backup and everything started working again. I checked a few random days of the web log and that all seemed to be OK so I heaved a sigh of relief and went to bed. Today I began the process of creating a brand new account for our web logs and I suspect it will take a few weeks before I’ve checked and copied over what needs to be kept – I’ll jettison a lot of old stuff I’m sure.

Karola’s Mahia Cousin, Henare Ormond

The Page That Replaced My Home Page

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—21℃ no rain [73.3]

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Sheep On House Lawn At Last

SwimGym with Karola.

After breakfast I did the usual Friday shop. I also bought yet another adjustable spanner – the one I bought recently, Stanley brand, would not open quite wide enough for a key nut on the tractor. Today’s purchase, again a Stanley, opens much wider although being otherwise roughly the same size. Also got a couple of years supply of C4 pre-paid envelopes, so Im obviously expecting to keep on sending magazines to Bridget and to the Rashbrookes for a while longer.

Spent much of the day on computer doing a bit of reading/listening about “basic income” and sending off a couple more emails to friends.

Couple of hours outside spent putting up the electric fence round the house lawn. Ewes were delighted to be allowed in. Karola, meanwhile, is back onto her perennial enthusiasm, tree guards.

Taupata Hedge Trimmed Prerequisite To Putting Electric Fence Along It

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—20℃ 0.1mm rain [83.8]

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Weather Clearing At Last

Karola had a doctor’s appointment in town in the morning and after that she did some shopping. I did the rounds of the orchard with Bangle and wrote several long, impassioned emails.

Wayne the roofer came and prepared an estimate of the roof repairs needed after the big branch clipped the end of the house garage.

After lunch I mowed the little lawn outside the house garage, under the washing line and a few other bits – the grass is growing so quickly – and then did a high cut around the house lawn where the sheep will graze behind electric fence.

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—20℃ no rain [74.0]

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Occasional Light Rain

SwimGym with Karola

Took Bramble round orchard as usual. With Bramble bounding around excitedly I took down all the electric fence splitting up the Middle and Totara paddocks so that we can fence off the house lawn tomorrow and get the ewes onto it before the grass gets to long, as it did last time.

Rest of the morning writing long emails to my friends about Basic Income ideas.

After lunch Karola stacked some of the wood I’d cut into firewood from the large oak branch that fell down near the house garage recently.

ChemWash man came and washed down the outside of the cottage and cottage garage.

Late afternoon, nearby the farm shed, I heaped up the big trailer with firewood rounds or rings, slices through the trunks and larger branches of trees that have been felled or fallen. I took them across and added to the pile of English Beech tree rings next to the eucalypts in the Front paddock.

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—17℃ no rain [74.3]

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Cooler, Cloudy Autumn Day

Lie in this morning after the chainsawing yesterday.

Pottered round at home all day, mainly wrestling with computer and web sites.

Walk with Karola and Bramble round the orchard, also along the boundaries to see if any more branches had fallen.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—15℃ 0.3mm rain [74.1]

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Oak Branch Crashes Down

SwimGym – Breakfast – Shopping.

Karola moved the beds round upstairs in the cottage – so that a single adult visitor has a full-size bed to sleep on.

Meticulous Maids came and cleaned the cottage in the early afternoon.

In the afternoon there was an almighty thud and crunch – another large oak branch fell to earth. It took a couple of smaller branches down on the way but fell on about the best spot possible – if it had to fall at all. No other saplings or shrubs taken out and it just clipped the edge of the house garage, at the south-east end. The Internet dish on the north-east end didn’t move – we still have access.

I talked to the Insurance broker, Dean Sewell, and to our builder, Paul Libby. Paul came round late afternoon and did a temporary repair just so that rain wouldn’t get in. The damage was worse than it appeared from the ground – five sheets of roofing iron damaged – but the structure wasn’t damaged – a purlin smashed and the soffit, but mainly just the roof.

I chainsawed up the downed branches into firewood sized lengths except for the largest ones which I just cut into pieces for convenient removal with the tractor.

In the evening, after watching another episod of Follow The Money, I bought and activated a new SSL certificate for the web space – for domains brackenbury.nz, bickasoft.nz, and bickasoft.com

Oak Branches, Wet & In Full Leaf, Just Fell

Beds Rearranged Upstairs In The Cottage

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—18℃ 0.6mm rain [73.3]

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Polly Goes Home

After a good breakfast we, Bangle, Karola and I, took Polly to Napier airport for her 11:10am flight. Saw her off after having a coffee and a GF Polenta cake each (not Bangle – she’s not allowed in the airport).

Later, walk round the orchard with Bangle. Much later, Bangle had a good brushing which she enjoyed. Rained on and off so nothing doing outside. I spent most of the afternoon and evening converting my main Internet domain name from brackenbury.nz to brackenbury.nz. The email side of it is working AFAICT but getting the website access to work may take a little longer. I’ve been very extravagant and registered both brackenbury.nz and bickasoft.nz domain names for ten years. I have recently let carefreecomputing.org, oakavenue.org.nz, spiderfence.com, and spiderfence.org lapse – so I suppose I’m saving a little there.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—20℃ 3.8mm rain [73.7]

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Karola & Polly Return

Wet day until late afternoon then the sun came out and it got quite hot. Meanwhile I had spread the fourth and last trailer-load of mulch over the swamp cypress planting area, done the inside Sunday chores, and lit the fire to make things more cheerful when the travellers returned.

Bangle had her orchard walk late afternoon, just before the wanderers arrived.

The main flock had their turn in the One Acre for four hours in the middle of the day, the ram and wethers have it again for the night.

After a cup of tea for the returnees we decided to go out for dinner rather than cook in; we went to Kilim in Napier. Returned and had raspberries and cream for pudding and then settled down to watch another Inspector Alleyn Mystery (Ngaio Marsh) – we’ve watched three while Polly has been staying here.

Mulch Spreading Complete

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—21℃ 2.6mm rain [73.8]

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Long Spells Of Gentle Rain

SwimGym

Bruce Utting called me with more woes of his mail system. Bridget called me soon after that, attempting to call Karola who is staying at her house for two nights.

Walked round orchard with Bangle.

Made a CD containing Windows XP for Bruce Utting which I took to town and posted. I also got the weekend food and took Bangle to the Vet to have her claws trimmed. She didn’t seem to mind.

Mid afternoon I spent a couple of hours spreading another two big trailer loads of mulch over the area with the five swamp cypresses. One more load should complete it.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—20℃ 20.1mm rain [73.7]

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Karola & Polly Go Off To Wellington

Karola & Polly finished packing and went off in good time to Paekakariki, where Polly is staying with an elderly cousin for two nights, and Karola carried on to Bridget’s place.

I took Bangle round the orchard. Bumped into Brian Cope from next door and he confirmed that the black rabbit we saw a few days ago was a pet rabbit belonging to one of their children.

The ewes had their first taste of the next tranche of pasture in the One Acre – the lucerne, fat hen, and plantain.

I took the stock crate off the big trailer, putting it back under a large tree in the Long Acre paddock. I then loaded the trailer up with mulch from behind the house garage, took it over to the swamp cypress planting area and began mulching the ground I cleared a few days ago. It will probably take 4 – 5 loads to cover the cleared area. Later I sprayed a litre of concentrated seaweed fertiliser on the five Swamp Cypress trees.

In the afternoon and evening I spent several hours attempting to help Bruce Utting with his damaged email system.

Karola’s Quince & Crabapple Fruit Ripening

First Load Of Mulch Around The Swamp Cypresses

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—19℃ 2.6mm rain [74.0]

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Polly’s Winery Tour

SwimGym with Karola & Polly

Took Bramble round the orchard before going off with Karola, Polly, and Bangle on a winery tour. To begin with Polly took us to lunch at Clear View. Out table was in front of a pleasant log fire; the food was delicious.

After Clear View we went to the end of the road at Clifton and stared at the breakers and the far-off headland where the gannets nest. Then back to Craggy Range winery where we had afternoon tea, on to Te Mata winery followed by Black Barn winery and lastly a scenic drive through the Havelock North hills before going home via a short stop at new World.

Later I cut a path for the next electric fence across the One Acre paddock; the sheep are ready for a new tranche.

Clear View Restaurant

Around The Beach At Clifton To Cape Kidnappers

View From Craggy Range Over To Te Mata Peak

Strip For Electric Fence Cut Across One Acre

Grazed Versus Ungrazed Strips Of One Acre

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—16℃ 0.3mm rain [73.7]

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Art Deco Day

I tinkered with Polly’s camera SD cards and, for once, actually managed to resstore the cards to a useful state and not lose the few photos she wanted to keep.

Late morning Karola and Polly went off to Napier for the rest of the day. I joined them early afternoon for lunch at the cafe previously known as Divines, now Ajuna. They then went on an Art Deco guided tour for the rest of the afternoon. I returned to Karamu.

Before leaving for Napier for lunch in the Landrover I’d switched the sheep flocks so that the new ram and his ewes were in the Front paddock and the ten male sheep, including the old ram, were in the Middle paddock. Attempting, at Karola’s request, to keep as much distance between the young vigorous new ram and the ewe lambs in the Long Acre. And Bangle and I walked round the orchard, as usual. So there are nine ewe lambs in the Long Acre, eight wether lambs, a wether and the old ram in the Middle paddock, and 20 ewes and the new ram in the Front paddock.

Mid afternoon entertained the representative of a firm selling domestic water filtration equipment and ventilation systems. He described some of the products that might be useful when renovating the house and left us brochures and approximate prices.

Late afternoon, with rain forecast imminently, I planted the two new swamp cypress trees and watered them well. Just as I’d finished and watered them in the rain came down and it poured for hours. A happy coincidence.

Root-bound Dead Swamp Cypress trees, Now Replaced

Five Swamp Cypress – Including The Two New Ones

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—24℃ 37.5mm rain [73.8]

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The Day Of The Ram

SwimGym with Karola and Polly

New ram joined with ewes today

Rob Forsyth – Premier Texel Stud – In Discussion With Karola & Ian, With Old Woolshed In Background

Rob Forsyth Gives Us The Lowdown On Six Of His Rams

We Choose #1032/15 And He’s Pleased To Be Joining Us

#1032 Off To Meet His Ladies

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—26℃ no rain [73.6]

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…And Then There Were Nine

Quite a day. No word from Rob Forsyth ( 82 Mangarara Road, RD2, Otane 4277, 06-858-4383 robandkath@farmside.co.nz), the ram breeder, so I called and he later left a voicemail saying it was all fine to go over tomorrow. So, that’s the plan.

The three kittens I picked up from the Front paddock yesterday are still imprisoned in an old bantam coop. Karola said I could keep the larger, marmalade one if it is a female, if I get it spayed, and if I disposed of the others. She then went off shopping. As Polly is coming this afternoon I decided to cook up another lot of beef and rice for Bangle before she comes. Less rice this time and it filled only five jars instead of 11 but there’s a lot more nourishment in each jar this time.

I took Bangle over to check the irrigation for the swamp cypresses – all fine – and to turn off the irrigation for the runner beans. The beans have stopped producing. We, Bangle and I, then walked round the orchard, ending up at the little hay shed where I broke open a bale and put it in the big trailer. Later Karola helped me put the stock crate on the trailer, ready for tomorrow. But, unbeknownst to me, the ewe lamb #615 that I thought was just fast asleep leaning against a tree guard was dead. Karola found it and reported back. We popped it on the big trailer and rolled it into Henare’s death pit; there’ll be room for just one more. So, one ewe lamb down, “and then there were nine”.

Earlier in the day, while Karola was out, I first did a bit of Google research on how to determine the sex of a cat. All three kittens appear to me to be male. Then I made the sensible decision and drowned all three in a sheep trough. Not my favourite task I must say.

In the afternoon I used the tractor front-end-loader to bury #615, to cover the corpse with a good layer of earth. It really is quite good for this. Then I set out to mow the cottage lawns. I started with the little lawn in front of the house garage. To my horror two more kittens appeared on the lawn. And I thought that was behind me, but no, so I got a bag and string from Karola and dispatched these two in the water trough. Back to mowing that lawn.

I finished the little lawn and was just trundling the mower back to the cottage to begin the bits of grass down there when, this is beyond a joke, another kitten ran along the drive. Sigh, so I scooped it up, got another bag and string, and the sixth kitten ceased to be. Let that be an end to it.

I finished all the little bits and pieces of lawn that I do with the lawn mower, not the tractor mower, all except the actual cottage lawn, when it was time to pick up Polly (Celia Pollock) from Napier airport. We drove over, Karola, Bangle, and me, and we were on time, Polly’s flight was on time, and we motored quietly back to Karamu. Henare, who had come over to get more drinking water, was there to meet us and we sat down for a drink and a chat.

Later I mowed the cottage lawn and we all had dinner.

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—25℃ no rain [73.5]

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Litter-ally Too Many Kittens

Relaxed start to the day. Unexpected callers in the morning, Tom & Brenda Lawrey – grandson of old Ron Lawrey who was grazing 1000s of lambs in local orchards when we came back to Karamu in 2001. The role later taken over by Jim Cornes. They live in Oak Avenue, opposite the Unison offices at 4 Ormond Avenue (06-879-7330). After a while, as Karola entertained htem with the history of the house – the reason they’d dropped by – I drafted out the ten ewe lambs from the ewe flock, anticipating that the ram will join his ladies sometime in the next week.

Karola wanted the evidence of rats in the house hoovered up so I obliged. She also wanted her ancient and barely working American industrial vacuum cleaner sent to the tip – again I obliged. No rats in the four conventional traps laid by Karola inside the house. Several mice have been trapped by Karola in the cottage.

By lunchtime I’d finished clearing the planting area where the swamp cypresses are. After lunch, at Karola’s request, the trailer-load of mulch intended for the swamp cypresses was diverted to the place of three gates. Sheep camping there have made it very smelly. Later I put down the irrigation for the swamp cypress area. I expect to replace the two dead swamp cypresses and later have a combination of five tall, emerald-green, brittle swamp cypress trees amid a grove of crimson-flowered coral trees.

Gill & Ben replied to my request for information about the large spider. Ben thinks it’s an Avondale spider, Delena chanceries, normally seen only in Auckland and further north.

More news on the kitten front. I was about to open the new wooden gate out of the Front paddock when I spied a marmalade teenage kitten basking in the sun on the wooden fence. I very quietly and slowly got out my iPhone and took a picture, crept forward a metre or so and took another. This charade carried on until I was able to stroke it and pick it up. So much for the feral offspring of some local wild cat. Obviously house cats just abandoned and dumped, three of them. The marmalade is a bit older than the two others, one tabby, one longer-haired grey. I took them back to Karola who was not exactly pleased. Still, I couldn’t leave them without food just to starve, and it’s very bad for other wildlife should they survive and take up residence as wild cats. We got the old bantam coop from the Long Acre and put it on the concrete floor of the farm shed lean-to, gave them a blanket, water, milk, and some of Bangle’s dog biscuits and left them for the night.

Karola checked out the neighbours just in case these were straying rather than dumped kittens. She called Matt & Karen Saunders across the road at 140 Ormond Road on our land-line, using the number in our own phonebook. She got an old man who stoutly denied he was anything to do with the Saunders. Thinking maybe it was a mis-dial Karola looked the number up in the latest official phone book – it had the same number – and dialled it carefully on her mobile. Same result. Later, hearing about this, I called Directory Service – same number – and called it on my mobile – same bewildered gentleman. I told him what number I dialled and he replied that his number was different and read it out to me. So I got hold of the Telecom (Spark) customer support number and waited on hold for an hour before giving up. Drove over to the Saunders next door to tell them, found house-sitters in residence, and also found that the Saunders had discontinued their land line and were only using mobiles these days. (Karen 021-205-2667, Matt 027-556-8526). C’est la vie.

If Karola’s resolve holds she’ll take them to the vets on Monday and have them put down. If not then at a minimum they’ll have to be “de-sexed”. Bangle is so far tolerant but suspicious.

House Main Bedroom – Rat Trims Carpet

House Upstairs Hot Water Cupboard – Rats Attack Door And Tank Stand

Fungi Under An Oak – Also Seen Years Ago When German Visitor Cooked And Ate It

I Think I’ll Pass On This One, Under Macrocarpa

Ground Cleared By Lunchtime

Very Shy, Very Wild – I Think Not

Trickle Irrigation for the Swamp Cypress, Leaky Pipe For The Rest

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—27℃ no rain [73.6]

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Hot Sun – Cool Breeze – Hawkes Bay In Summer

SwimGym with Karola.

Took Bangle for a walk round the estate, not the orchard because it’s full of apple pickers and their minders. Then took her in to get the Friday shopping. After lunch I started clearing the area within railings directly north of the house where I planted five swamp cypress, three of which are still alive. The idea is to remove the long grass and apply a thick layer of mulch then, next month, to plant Coral tree seedlings (when they’re ready) and seeds. As I expect there will be lots of growing Coral trees I plan to put down leaky pipe rather than the small diameter alkathene with individual drippers.

The sheep continue the pattern – ewes and ewe lambs into the One Acre strip by day, the male sheep & ewe #218 by night. Karola showed me where the new wasps nest was and I zapped it with spray can that squirts up to a metre. Met a large spider that’s made its home on the new wooden gate into the Front paddock.

As darkness descended I drove back from the clearing work along the northern edge of the Front paddock, espying in the headlights four half-grown kittens who slipped back through the fence into the planting area. Spells trouble for our bird life. Karola caught a mouse in the cottage sun porch but no rats in the house. The house rat(s) have been busy gnawing a hole under the door of the upstairs hot water cupboard and under the door of the Bee room. My trap counter says I caught one rat outside near the rainwater tanks.

After dark I puffed wasp-killing powder down the nest entrance.

Six Minutes To Detach Mower – From This …

To This

Not A Huntsman – But Quite Big Enough

Shiny Dark Red Grass-Grub Beetles – Millions Swarmed For Two Nights

The Swamp Cypress Planting Area – Before Clearing

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—26℃ no rain [73.8]

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Quiet Day At Home

Beautiful early autumn day. Spent much of the day ripping DVDs (very slowly) and recording audio off the Internet. This is the second day we’ve gone all day without driving into town – excellent. No visitors either, really a pretty quiet day.

Karola, Bangle, and I walked slowly round the orchard and the paddocks. I took notes using Siri on the iPhone. Siri amazes me at how often she gets what I say right – even quite idiomatic stuff.

I did construct a second sliding tray for under the workbench in the farm shed. I plan to do one more before moving the mitre saw back to the house garage.

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—23℃ no rain [73.9]

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A Little Light Wood Work

SwimGym with Karola

Walk round orchard with Bangle and Karola.

Sheep were allowed into the the next tranche of the One Acre. There are three tranches left, including today’s tranche, and given a week in each they will finish just in time for our IDS trip to New Plymouth on 23rd March.

Late afternoon Karola cut back the Karo shrubs, originally planted to provide shelter for the young Pohutukawa trees on the west side of the house garage. Of recent months the Karos have been sheltering a little too well. At the same time I cut back the Pittosporums, initially intended as a hedge on the corner where the cottage driveway bifurcates from the drive to the house. I then attached the chipper/shredder to the tractor and processed all the trimmings.

A mason bee has built its nests behind the thermometer on the cottage kitchen verandah. Today i lifted the thermometer and photographed the nests.

Karola Trimmed Back Karo’s In Front Of Her Pohutukawa (NZ Christmas Tree)

Pittosporums Seriously Trimmed Allowing Mowing To Trunk

Mulch Spread – Job Done

Iconic – Mason Bee Nest – Parasitic On Spiders

https://creativewoodcraft.co.nz/blog/466/

Mason Bee or Mason Wasp? (Pison spinolae)

A familiar sound in Summer, is the high pitched buzzing of a female Mason Bee.

The female makes the cell, then collects spiders, which she paralyses , buzzing away happily while she works. Once the cell is packed with food supplies, she lays an egg & seals it shut. The egg hatches & the larva feeds on the preserved spiders. It’s a bit grim! Often we find empty cells with a hollow brown cocoon, which is all that’s left when the next generation emerge & fly away.

Mason wasp on oxide daisy

The Mason Bee itself is quite demur, a small black insect, maybe 10 to 15mm in length. They are native to New Zealand. The high buzzing sound is often the first indication that you have a Mason Bee

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [73.7]

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