Monthly Archives: August 2018

Karola did the weekend shopping today.

I set out to convert my ethernet cable connection in the roof space, the connection used by the security system, into one that would resist being damaged by accidental bashings or tugs. Right now it works but the connection plugs one cable into a junction box from above, making a little loop just waiting to trip someone up or be trodden on.

Ethernet plugs are at the edge of what an older person can do, it requires good eyesight and a steady hand. So, my master plan was to make up three short ethernet cables in the good lighting and comfort of the cottage, practicing for doing the plug connections in the roof space under dim lighting and definitely not in comfort. Having seen some YouTube videos on how to do it I knew the mechanics, in particular the strict order that the coloured wires need to attach to the pins of the RJ45 plug.

Using the little tester I bought the other day I was able to see when any of the wires wasn’t making contact with the plug’s pins. You attached the tester to one end of your cable and another bit of it to the other end. Then each end would signal whether a pin was connected. A little LED shone red for pin 1 on both ends if that pathway was OK. All the way up to pin eight. Unfortunately on three separate occasions I got pin 1 on one end showing as pin 8 on the other, pin 2 as pin 7, and so on. I’d inserted the wires upside down. Easy enough, I told myself, because the plugs are clear plastic and the top looks pretty much like the bottom. But three times! At least I’d progressed from pin 1 lighting on one end but no light at all on the other – meaning that pin 1 was disconnected.

I did my three short test cables and then tackled the join up in the roof space. Up there the best test was to see if, from a laptop connected to the local WiFi network, we could reach out and touch the Paradox security system, also in the roof space with us. It all went very smoothly and I wrapped the connection in copious blue electrical tape to make it difficult to dislodge, laid the new connection under the insulation, and called it a day.

During one of my breaks from ethernet plugs I called the New Zealand distributor of the HDMI extender systems I plan to use to transport the TV programs from under the stairs – the AV congtrol centre – to the TVs. He was politely insistent that he could only sell to a recognised real installer, no retail sales, and nor would he make me an installer for the day. A shame because his price per unit is $120 but the installers charge their clients $200 or more. He did give me one more local installer if Steve Laracy & the Cook brothers didn’t want to get these devices for me at a reasonable price – the XTND2K30 “HDAnywhere” 2K HDMI Extender (up to 30m, over CAT6 cable). The other installer is Keith Brown (021 027 89271)

I found a site in the UK that sold the XTND2K30 much cheaper than the $200 being offered by Steve, but after I calculated the import duty & tax, and the time it would take to get here, I saw sense and agreed to Steve’s high, but not untypical, price. By buying my own 4 x 4 matrix switch it’s saving me around $1000 even with Steve’s high price for the extender units. And tonight I think I’ve saved another $100 by buying three recessed entertainment boxes online – finding the lower priced items took some ferreting – lower priced even though the equipment is from the same manufacturer.

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—18℃ 0.9mm rain [75.4]

Very misty start to the day, then overcast and cool.

Karola had a doctor’s appointment this morning, just routine and I went into town with her. I went and looked at the recessed entertainment box suggested by Selwyn and Steve for the homestead wall-mounted TVs. It’s a large version of a light switch or power point, flush with the wall. In my case I need twin power points, two RJ45 sockets, a minijack socket, and optionally a coax socket. Looks like this would work.

I checked the sheep, took Bangle on a leash.

Karola went to Napier in the afternoon.

I spent the rest of the day fixing the landline telephony wiring in the homestead. Yesterday I too enthusiastically pulled out some unused telephone cable – well I thought it was unused … I spent hours crawling around under the floor trying to find out which telephone cables went where. It was dusty and the pink batts insulation rained dust on me – pretty unpleasant. Also it seems that, while excavating the hole for the cellar, earth was just thrown around the rim, under the house. This made for some areas being just too tight to negotiate and I got into some unpleasantly tight positions.

Having found the right wires I tried attaching them to a late 1900s Telecom modular jack. These require a tool to push the wires down hard into a tiny slot. I have such a tool from my heady telephone days over a decade ago – before WiFi became the answer to most communications questions. It took me a while to realise that my plastic push-down tool was actually broken, one of its essential teeth had broken off. It was nearly 5:00pm so I rushed into town and got to Cory’s, a big tradesman electrical supplier, just after 4:55pm. Yes they had one, no it wasn’t on the computer – so I got it for free.

After dinner I quickly got back life in three telephone sockets – in the sun porch, by the front door, and by the back door. Plenty for a landline in the heady days of mobile phones. So then I went up into the roof space and took out all the telephone wire I could find, miles of the stuff.

Old Plum Tree In Bloom

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—13℃ 3.9mm rain [75.5]

I did the mid-week shopping, having to drive over the lawn to get Zoe out onto the road as the cottage drive is blocked with electric fence.

When I returned, and in the evening I worked on setting up the new computer – it’s going to take weeks. My notes from the last major setup runs to tens of pages.

Karola went to Napier after lunch, picking up some trousers she had altered and dropping in on Hohepa. As they say on their website “Hohepa is a disability service provider, catering for special needs children, and adults with an intellectual disability, where respect, personal development and caring go hand-in-hand.”. It’s a farm and a shop as well. We got our shorthorn cow and calf from Hohepa way back in 2002 – the steer calf was donated to the Ormond Reunion in 2005. Karola called in for some cheese and our friend Charlotte, Peter Offenberger’s wife, was there – she works there several days a week – so she and Karola “caught up”.

After lunch Steve Laracy took time off from his big job outfitting all the guest rooms in a refurbished hotel in Napier with their audio-visual need, wiring for TVs and so on. He’s doing something similar for us, three CAT6 cables from the AV-control-centre-to-be under the stairs to each room with a TV: living, dining, kitchen, and my room upstairs.

He spent the early afternoon with us, and I helped him lay the three CAT6 cables from the kitchen, (the AV control centre will be through the wall, under the stairs), up to the roof space, and down the chimney void. By the end of the afternoon he had only the kitchen to do and he expects to do that sometime in the next fortnight.

After Steve left I did a cleanup of the telephony wiring in the homestead, pulling out most of the wiring, intending to leave only the downstairs jack-points live for our landline. Somewhat over-enthusiastically I pulled too vigorously leaving us with no phone access in the homestead. I’ll need to fix that tomorrow.

Bangle and I sauntered round the orchard.

In the evening I attended the last video-meeting of the BINZ work-group; we now await reactions from the BINZ committee in the next few weeks.

Harlequin Ladybirds – Chronic But Not Severe Infestation

After Yesterday’s Incident – Noel’s Bicycle Hits Electric Fence – Karola Warns Others

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—14℃ 1.6mm rain [75.3]

The new postie on our route brought in my latest acquisition, a pair of external 3TB hard drives as backup drives for the new computer.

I finally got round to doing Karola’s bi-monthly GST returns, the penalties for late payment are getting too high for comfort.

Jenny & Noel Hendery cycled over from Napier for lunch. They were showing off their shiny new electric bicycles – very eco-friendly. They cost about $2,500 each and you would hardly notice they had a battery pack under the rear parcel carrier and a thicker than usual frame. It still looks just like a bicycle.

Noel had an incident on the way in, careening into the electric fence at speed. The fence lost, thankfully. As Noel said, lucky it wasn’t laid at throat height. The invisible fence was across the drive, allowing the sheep to get to the grass under the big oak. Lucky that no-one from Health & Safety (OSH) was around – what were we thinking having an unsigned hazard like that. Karola has now posted a sign in the middle of the drive on the corner lest there be a repetition.

Noel showed us a local news app, “Hawkes Bay app”, that son Simon Hendery runs.

After the Hendery’s left Karola took Bangle round the orchard and I picked up sticks for the still smouldering bonfire. Bangle has a bit of an upset tummy which isn’t pleasant – must be something she ate. Usually it passes in a day.

Ewe #410 had ewe lamb #821E, ewe #434 had ram lamb #820R, the lambs were both quite small.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—18℃ no rain [75.2]

Start of week shopping.

Filled up the firewood bins.

Working on the setup for the new computer – gleaning what I can from all the emails and comments which described settings and customisations on my computers back to the early 2000s.

Ewes and lambs moved gently into the Front paddock where yesterday’s bonfire was still smouldering. I pushed it together again using the Fergie.

Another ewe, #327, lambed today, a small singleton ewe lamb, #819E. Last year she didn’t have a lamb at all.

Took Bangle up through the Long Acre and round the orchard.

I mowed the cottage lawn and curtilage which didn’t take long because the ground is still quite cold and the grass isn’t growing much at all.

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—17℃ 0.2mm rain [75.3]

We docked the first tranche of lambs today, 18 of them. We got most of the sheep up into the holding paddock, leaving only four ewes and their lambs behind. I then quietly manoeuvred the ewes with lambs into the pens of the yards, one family per pen except for one pen where the lambs were singletons and distinguishable by gender. The ewes without lambs were bundled into the Long Acre for the night, out of the way.

I noticed #224 didn’t have any lambs with her but I knew she had twins, so she was kept behind in the yards. I went searching and found the twins, where #224 had parked them, as far away from the yards as possible. The twins were agile and skittish so it took me a long time to finally catch them and bring them back to the yards.

Meanwhile Henare had turned up to have a chat, a coffee, and to tell Karola that her orange and white neutered male cat was ready to be delivered. Henare helped us with the docking. With his new hip he’s already more agile than he was a few weeks ago.

The ewes and their docked lambs were let into the Middle paddock. They’ll get some of the luxurious grass under the big oak tomorrow.

Karola has been asking me to burn the bonfire in the Front paddock for a while now. I was waiting to see if “sprinkler” Paul and Michelle had any burnable waste from their installation job. They didn’t so, being a bright sunny day with a mild breeze to the south – a northerly veering occasional north-easterly – the timing was right. I lit the fire, using the Fergie to push it all together, and it was almost burned up before dinnertime.

Just as I was lighting the fire Chris Ormond turned up with his younger brother Tom. Chris was returning some old journals of Hannah Ormond – well photocopies of them – and hoping to get some more. They had afternoon tea and chatted for an hour or so, taking with them the next instalment of the Hannah story.

Karola & I went with Bangle round the orchard, stopping off at the bonfire on the way back for one last “pushing together” on the Fergie.

It being Sunday when I do various weekly chores, this evening I finally got round to putting more wires into the anti-swallow platform high up by an air vent on there cottage kitchen verandah. Swallows occasionally squeeze onto the ledge between the wires, making a mess of the walls and verandah below. My extra wires intend to dissuade them from perching. They do have specially made perches over the poor into the cottage garage and tonight that is where they are roosting.

Another BINZ work-group video-chat this evening. One more on Wednesday.

Ewes & Lambs Peacefully Grazing After Docking

Bonfire Ready To Burn

Height Of The Blaze

Almost Gone Before Sundown

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—16℃ no rain [75.5]

A morning of emails and phone calls. In the afternoon a long phone call with Iain Middleton. Very pleasant sunny morning with a bitter wind from the west, but really turned to custard in the afternoon.

Karola went off in her Zoe after lunch and took in the recycling.

I took Bangle round the orchard, just missing a gentle shower of rain under a sullen sky and sharp, cold breeze.

I mowed round the perimeter of the grass under the big oak, also along the 121 driveway and the lawn at the back of the homestead garage. Then I shooed the ewes and lambs off the top of the ha-ha, deconstructed the electric fence and erected a new one round the big oak.

No more lambs today.

After a roast lamb dinner we watched the All Blacks again trash the Wallabies to regain the Bledisloe Cup for another year. An exciting and enjoyable game to watch, unlike the stodgy fare we get when the UK @ Ireland Lions play, fast, accurate, and spirited play on both sides.

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—17℃ no rain [74.9]

I had a haircut in the morning so combined that with weekend shopping. Farmlands to pick up the sheep tags – big ones for the ewe hoggets and little button tags for the new lambs. Cornucopia for the weekly GF bread. New World for the general groceries. Greenleaf Nurseries over at Clive to pay the missing $300. I also asked for an apple tree to compensate for the two missing Red Beech trees. My preferences were: Ballarat cooker, Bramley cooker, or Coxes Orange Pippin. Dan Sankey, the owner, couldn’t find a Ballarat but did have a Bramley so that is what I took.

Karola went over to Napier at lunchtime, to the Napier Library Archives, housed nowadays in the old art-deco Rothmans building – it used to be the local headquarters for the National Tobacco Company Building (aka “Rothmans”) in Ahuriri, a suburb of Napier on the waterfront.

Karola took Bangle round the orchard again today

Ewe #443 had ram lamb #818R.

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—14℃ no rain [74.8]

Paul & Michelle finished their sprinkler work. Once the pipes were sealed, water from the two secondary rainwater tanks were used to fill the main tank, allowing the pump to be tested and made active. Paul kindly put up the fixture comprising the two water filters and the UV biological zapper on the back wall of the pump shed adjacent to the pump.

We did an inspection of the pump pipes and of the ten upstairs sprinklers – each mounted centrally in the room and with concealing caps over the recessed sprinkler heads.

Karola went to Napier, to Bay Audiology for a check on her new hearing aids. She came back via Hohepa, the organic (Demeter) farm with care for disabled children. It has a farm shop and Peter Offenberger’s Charlotte was there, minding the store.

When Karola got back she let the sheep graze a strip along the top of the ha-ha again. There were more lambs and hence things were a little confusing for them today. I had to carry a set of twins who wouldn’t run back through the gates into the Front paddock unaided.

Ewe #227 had twins #811E and #812R. Ewe #209 had triplets #813E, #814E, and #815E. Ewe #439 (no big tag) had twins #816E and #817E.

Karla took Bangle round the orchard by herself again today.

From The Tank To The Pump

Filters & UV On The Left, Pump On The Right

Across, Entrenched, To The House

Up Into The House Via he East Verandah, Southern End

Up From The Hearth In The Chimney Void

First Floor And On Up

Diaspora Of Pipes In The Roof Space

One Concealed Drop-Down Domestic Sprinkler

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—13℃ 0.3mm rain [74.9]

Paul & Michelle arrived early and ploughed on with installing the sprinkler system – the pump and main pipe under the house and up the chimney void, and the ten sprinklers upstairs.

Shortly after they arrived, Postie came with parcels – for me my new Apple super-computer, for Paul, some fittings and lengths of pipe he’d got couriered down from Hamilton overnight.

Then we all went into town in the Zoe for the mid-week shopping: dropped off some saws to be sharpened at Saw Doctors, food from New World, couple of hook-and-eyes for the pump shed from Mitre-10, and then out to Greenleaf Nurseries at Clive to see what had happened to our 80 odd trees that we ordered months ago for our autumn planting. To my delight the 40 Red Beech, 16 English Lime, and a couple of Monkey Puzzle trees were ready for collection. We planned to return and collect them in the afternoon.

There were lots of short conversations with the installer team, making sure we agreed to where things went and how they were done. Not the actual layout of the sprinkler pipes in the roof space and the installation of the sprinkler heads themselves but about how to get the water best from the pump up to the roof space without harming any of the old homestead timbers or being visible. Once the trench is filled in there will be nothing showing from the edge of the pump shed on.

Karola put the sheep on a strip she’d fenced off along the top of the ha-ha and they were overjoyed.

Neither mower would start yesterday evening but this morning they both roared into life immediately. I did the cottage curtilage outside the cottage garden; Karola did the cottage lawn itself. It’s still cold enough that there’s been little grass growth in the last month.

Ewe #224 had twins #809E and #810R.

I went in the Landrover and brought back the trees from Greenleaf Nurseries. Most of the Red Beech were root trainers instead of the much larger PB5s we’d ordered but, with some bad grace, knowing our lack of success with root trainers, I accepted them. I paid over $500 for them.Later, when checking what I’d been charged for, I found that I was overcharged by a couple of Red Beech but under-charged by $300 – a ‘5’ instead of an ‘8’. Later I arranged to go back and pay the difference at the end of the week.

Bangle missed out on her walk round the orchard today.

Paul van Weerden – Owner of HomeSafe Sprinkler Business in Hamilton

Putting The Sprinkler Main Up Through The Chimney Void – From Below Ground Floor To Roof Cavity

Michelle Does All The Sprinklers And Delivery Pipes – Welding The Plastic Joints

A Neat Criss-Cross Of Sprinkler Pipes

Red Beech, English Limes, And Two Monkey Puzzle Trees

Ian’s Apple Super-Computer (Not Really – But Big Screen & Very Fast

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—16℃ 4.5mm rain [75.4]

Paul van Weerden (HomeSafe – sprinkler installer) and Michelle, his very bright and active, very competent worker, not a young woman, arrived around 8:30am having set off shortly after 4:00am this morning from Hamilton.

They cased the joint – did a bit of a recce – before having a sandwich for breakfast and then getting stuck in. By the time they left around 3:00pm the ten sprinklers for the first floor were all marked out, holes sawn carefully in the ceilings, and pipes laid in the roof space. Paul and I discussed the placement of the pump and the filtration unit inside the pump shed and looks like my first thoughts – having the pump nearest the tank and the filters nearer the homestead – wasn’t eh best idea. The way the inlets and outlets are organised it’ll mean shorter pipe connections if they’re the other way round. Paul has chipped a hole down the side of the old fireplace for his 40mm sprinkler main to get from under the house right up to the roof space inside the chimney void.

I mucked about trying to load a heap of very fibrous palm roots into the big trailer with the Fergie. Started to make quite a mess and the tractor wasn’t able to pick up bucket loads – the fibres clung together and anything scooped up was just dragged back out of the bucket by the stuff remaining on the ground. So, Karola advised me to just pile it all up over the hole left by the palm tree trunk, which I did.

Michelle found a dying rat in the homestead kitchen – one of my traps had got it – so I finished it off and popped it in the bin.

Karola & I counted the sheep several times without getting 28. Later, doing a recount, I finally got the right number. And ewe #311 had ram lamb #808 today.

Now the pump shed is finished I’m going round filling in some of the holes I dug – like a demented rabbit – when trying to locate buried water pipes last month.

Neither mower would start for me today so the idea of mowing the cottage lawn evaporated.

I took Bangle round the orchard, neither of us said much.

After dinner I had my weekly BINZ work group phonecall – we have a couple more meetings to go.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—17℃ no rain [74.8]

Ewe #510 had twin ram lambs #806R and #807R today.

Start of the week shopping with Bangle.

Put the bolt and hasp onto the pump shed. Experimented with having garden gate latches to pin the doors open but fraught with (unnecessary) problems. The weatherboards are at an angle and the bar to engage the latch is not cranked far enough away from the door to mesh. So, give up that idea and, if we need them, will fit ordinary hook and eye.

Pump shed doors were a little to snug so rasped down the inside edge until they closed easily.

As the shed is now officially finished I returned the tools to their accustomed places and removed the unused plank offcuts from the verandah – generally tried to restore order.

Karola has almost finished electrifying a strip along the top of the ha-ha for the sheep. Grass on the lawn and under the big oak is much more luxurious than the paddocks now.

Karola took Bangle round the orchard.

We have decided that Karola will attend Julia Fletcher’s wedding in September; I will remain behind and keep an eye on sheep and Bangle etc – we’ll still be lambing until mid-October. Booked Karola’s flights – astonished at how expensive the hour flights to and from Wellington have become.

Finished At Last – Expecting Pump To Be Fitted Tomorrow

All From Stuff Lying About, Except For The Screws & Roofing

Trench For Sprinkler Main, Domestic Water Main, Electricity To Pump

2018 Computer – Due To Arrive On Thursday

All The Way From China

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—16℃ 1.9mm rain [75.3]

Ewe #531 had a singleton ewe lamb #805E overnight. Despite the quite heavy frost – the windmills were whirring before daybreak – the sheep seemed contented in their long winter wool.

Karola saw a rat in broad daylight as she was moving some pieces of wood over at the sheep yards. She out-stared it. Karola also saw a family of Californian quail scuttling through long grass into the orchard. And Karola completed her picking up of the Casurina windbreak trimmings.

Silicon sealant on the pump shed roof where screws holding the roof down are not on the crest of a corrugation.

Painted pump shed doors with a second coat of Karaka green

Dug trench between the pump shed and verandah, about 600mm deep, for sprinkler and domestic water pipes to the homestead and electricity out to the pump shed.

Karola also took some of the planks on the east verandah up to the big shed in the orchard.

Arts & Climate Innovation meeting for two hours in Hastings at the Hastings Community Arts Centre in Russell Street, near to the optometrists, “Shattkey on Russell”.

We were late and missed the first half an hour and the talk by Maori storyteller Periri King. Therer were 40 – 50 people there I guess, but the sun coming in from the north windows made seeing presentation slides well neigh impossible and the noise from the street just outside made it hard to hear. Other than that it was quite a good venue.

It was intended as a meeting of minds between scientists and artists. Two Victoria University climate scientists, James Renwick and Tim Naish, spoke about climate change, somewhat more optimistically perhaps than is warranted. There wasn’t anything new, but as intended for artists and the public that was understandable.

Imported scientists and local artists was the billing. Local artist Susan Mabin chatted on about her art comprising detritus mainly from beaches formed into sculptures and “installations” and “compositions” made to be pleasing to the eye and provoking sorrow and indignation at the masses of waste being washed up on the shore. Quite a bit was from her time in Iceland where much of the debris is from the fishing industry although the Icelanders say the rubbish is from Norway.

Jacob Scott, son of the locally famous John Scott, architect, muttered and bumbled along with inexplicable and mostly invisible slides saying who knew what. He did however, eventually make some observations that were interesting.

The first story was about how he played a small part in an attempt by NZ Trade & Enterprise to craft a written description of what it meant to be a New Zealander, something to replace the “pure & green” image which was internationally known to be somewhat tarnished. The new vision incorporated such iconic concepts as the #8-wire mentality, the great ideas/inventions from a tiny country, doing impossible things because we didn’t know they were impossible. When the new vision was tested overseas the push-back was upsetting – that’s so last century, you’re not like that at all, you don’t take risks any more, you’re not particularly innovative. and all your world-shaking ideas were from decades ago. Oops.

The last story was about Jacob’s involvement wiht the Napier airport roadway re-make. The current road access to Napier airport has been known as a very dangerous intersection for a long time, the new road layout intends to change that radically. Jacob’s work involved suggesting to the developers how artistic ideas could be incorporated into the sights and shapes of the new roading, sights that, from the air and the ground, told stories consistent with the time and place of Napier airport within Hawkes Bay. It sounds like the ideas were, in the main, inexpensive changes to the sight lines and shape of the round-about and incorporation of themes into the significant drainage and earthworks necessary to support a roadway in estuary swampland. Sounds like that was a successful collaboration between Maori artists and NZ Transport Agency.

The organised speakers were done, the panel assembled to take questions and then George Nuku, a Maori artist and self-proclaimed radical thinker, took the floor until closing time at 6:00pm. If he hadn’t been so interesting we would have sympathised with the panel waiting patiently for him to finish his impromptu tirade – no tirade isn’t fair – he had so much he wanted to tell us and it poured out enthusiastically and not always coherently. I know the feeling.

George’s theme was, I think, plastics and about change. About how we need to mutate to fit the evolving environment, that staying fixated on the past is not an option. Some of his art involves, collaborating with children in schools – he’s apparently held group sessions at dozens of schools throughout New Zealand – making art objects out of waste plastic, transforming the plastic into something beautiful and memorable, and valuable.

They saved the best till last, and he wasn’t even on the agenda.

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—15℃ 0.1mm rain [74.8]

Parcel came quite early – the post delivers only parcels on Saturdays. It was an Internet-to-Infra-Red (IP2IR) adapter to add to my library of interesting boxes that I hope will help me create an iPhone app that can control all the TVs and select which service and then which programme you want to watch. Today’s gizmo is like a super TV remote, it can send IR commands to any equipment that has a magic eye. Whereas your normal remote has to be pointed at the equipment’s magic eye, it has to have line-of-sight as they say, using this little gadget I can send commands from a computer program pretty much anywhere in the world to do the same thing. If I do manage to create an app to control the TVs then all the mess and tangle of wires currently in the corner of the cottage living room can be banished out of sight in the bedroom wardrobe – that’s the plan.

I put the Karaka top coat on the front of the pump shed doors and left them to dry until after lunch.

Karola checked the sheep and fed them sheep nuts and pea straw for variety – she spoils those sheep. No more lambs today.

After lunch I began my several attempts to attach the doors to the pump shed. Main problem was that:

• I was trying to put the hinges on the inside of the doors.
• The weatherboard cladding didn’t provide a flat surface to attach hinges to.

Karola finally came and looked and observed that the only way the doors could be hinged so that they, when open, laid flat along the weatherboard wall, was if the hinges were attached to the outside of the doors. Karola also thought the hinges were too small and observed that if I bought coated ones I wouldn’t feel the need to paint them.

So Bangle & I trundled off to Mitre-a0 in Karola’s Zoe and bought four strong ‘T’ strap hinges, a matching bolt and two matching gate catches – all in a bronze coating. The gate catches are to hold the doors wide open when maintaining the pump and filtering system.

After that it was relatively plain sailing and tonight the doors are attached and swinging freely. Tomorrow I plan to touch up the paintwork, attach the bolt and the catches.

Bangle, Karola, and I walked round the orchard as the sun set.

Paul van Weerden called to say the pump delivery was delayed so he’ll not be coming down until Tuesday.

Late last night I got an email shipping notice from Apple saying my new computer should be here on 24th. Unfortunately when I upgraded the storage to two massive terrabytes the order mistakenly changed the Magic Trackpad into a Magic Mouse which I do not want. So I’ll call them on Monday.

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—12℃ no rain [75.0]

Undercoat on the inside face of the two pump shed doors.

End of another week. Food shopping as usual plus a quick dip into Mitre-10 for four strap hinges for the pump shed doors and a couple more wall plates with twin power points and twin USB charging points.

Mail had arrived when we got back and my two special control boxes from the UK had arrived courtesy of DHL and, on the last leg, our postie.

Karola spent another few hours picking up Casurina trimmings – she’s within a few metres of finishing but rain stopped play.

Did a bit of research into how to install an iron ridge cap flashing, in particular the ends. Put the examples into practice, rather inexpertly, and secured the ridge flashing despite it raining gently all the time I was doing it. As soon as I stopped the sun came out, of course.

Went round the sheep – all 28 ewes present and correct. Ewe #511 had twins in the night, #803E and #804R – small but active.

Top coat of Karaka green on the inside of the two doors.

More trouble with the web space – our IP address was blocked again. Seems likely this is associated with restoring and reconciling all my emails due to the melt-down of my Mac at the weekend. Contacted AceWebHosting tech. support and they unblocked the IP address and put it on a “whitelist” so, in theory, it shouldn’t get blocked again.

I see that my shopping spree with Apple has spurred Gill’s husband Ben to order the latest Macbook Pro 13” model.

One of the things lost in the computer software meltdown was the knowledge of what was spam. Consequentially I have been wading through mountains, 100s, of spam emails. I hope it relearns the rules quickly.

Bangle took Karola and me round the orchard – quiet and sunny but cool, not a sign of anyone else.

The Harlequin invaders, ladybirds in various bright colours, continue to be everywhere upstairs, on the curtains, the computer screen, on my keyboards and desk, on the floor. Today, after Karola said they were invading her kitchen and the bedroom, I saw what she meant. They have moved downstairs as well.

Top coat on the outside of the two pump shed doors.

Harlequin Ladybirds – Small Numbers But Always Here

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—16℃ 1.3mm rain [75.0]

Painter Jeff finished the pump shed today, cleaned up, and left.

Karola continued her clearing up of windbreak trimmings.

Margo from Havelock Hills Security called to say the homestead security system wasn’t sending her its late night “alls well” message. I investigated, found that it wasn’t getting through to the local network, went up into the roof space and joggled the connections, and it came to life again. Maybe the cold snap, maybe a rat disturbed it – I do not know. But as the connection I made is clearly unreliable I need to make it more secure and durable.

To that end I set out to make up two or three ethernet patch cords thinking that the practice would ready me for fitting RJ45 plugs to cables while sitting in the roof space amongst the insulating Batts.

Unfortunately the two short cords I made didn’t work although I have fitted ethernet cable with plugs successfully before and I have the tools. Frustrated I went into town to JayCar, after going online and seeing that they had what I wanted in stock, and bought an ethernet cable tester. This quickly demonstrated that few of the eight wires were actually connected. More practice required but as the homestead security system was working again there was no panic.

Karola Has Now Cleared Most Of The Trimmings

Ewe #514 With Lambs #801E & #802E Born On 12th – First Lambs Of The 2018 Season

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—17℃ 0.2mm rain [75.5]

Car battery flat so I jump-started it with the Landrover and we ran the engine for an hour or so and now it’s fine.

Karola gave herself the herculean task of picking up the mounds of Casurina windbreak trimmings and taking them in her trailer to the compost heap. They are strewn not only on the grass of the Long Acre but also partially burying the mountain flax growing just in front of the windbreak.

Painter Jeff came and painted away on the base boards round the homestead verandah and the outside of the new pump shed.

Alerted by Mike Cain, the managing director of a small UK firm on the campus of Leicester University, I found that NZ Customs were charging me 15% GST on my new DemoPad Centro-CM IP Controller boxes plus another about $70. I called DHL and argued fruitlessly about it with them, then with NZ Customs. But, as expected, they were implacable, that was the least any importer had to pay. So eventually I calmed down, gave up, and paid. After all, it only amounted to 20% of tax/duty which is what they pay as VAT in the UK – I was at least not paying VAT as well as GST & duty.

More work on attempting to restore the computer. I also found that the version of Apple software which caused my computer software meltdown at the weekend wouldn’t even begin to install now. Something has been destroyed or overwritten so that it just won’t proceed. Not to worry, my new computer is coming soon.

Midweek shopping with Bangle.

I took Bangle round the orchard and, much to my surprise, she unearthed a large edible (ie not totally rotten) apple from within a clump of grass.

The regular BINZ workgroup – video-conference – was delayed from Sunday until this evening. I think it’s coming to a natural conclusion – maybe a couple more sessions.

Base Boards Undercoated

Karola Cleans Up Casurina Windbreak Trimmings

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—15℃ no rain [75.9]

Jeff Rencontre, painter, came. Personal circumstances meant he didn’t come on Saturday, nor yesterday, Monday, because in that case it rained.

I did the Monday shopping on a Tuesday, floating round town in the little blue Zoe. Ordered the sheep tags for the young ewes and the anticipated lambs.

DHL sent an email which led me to a web page showing where my DemoPad Centro-CM IP Controller boxes were – stuck in customs.

My overnight restore of a June backup took 14 hours to complete. Now I have to combine that with what I rescued from my main computer – comparing folders to see what’s new in the rescued files.

After lunch (or in my case my non-lunch) Karola and I went to Niven road in Onekawa, to HB Longrun, where I picked up the metre of roof ridge flashing they’d prepared for me.

We all walked round the orchard – good to get back into the routine quickly.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—14℃ 0.3mm rain [76.1]

Bangle and I had a nice stroll along the stream bank and round the local sports field with the frost crunching on our paws. Bangle didn’t seem to mind the cold one bit.

We had breakfast with Annemarie, packed up and were on our way mid-morning. First stop was Pukerua Bay, at Cilla’s, for an early lunch.

Cecilia invited Adrianne & Artie Kebbell, Daria & Rodney Lewington. A very pleasant lunch, gluten-free fish soup and fruit crumble – delicious.

We were a little early and Cecilia showed us her garden in winter; it’s a lot larger that it seems from the front, going steeply down at the back towards the railway cutting. Secluded and plenty of trees, very pleasant. And tui in the garden, playing in the trees, very tame. Cecilia hasn’t mellowed a great deal – I enjoy that.

Artie couldn’t come because he was hosting a visit by an arborist – according to Adrienne his life is outdoors stuff involving lawn mowers, chain saws, and the like.

Adrian talked about “democracy” and her views on what needed to change – more participation, more cooperation. Adrienne gets about a lot, reads a lot.

Rodney, who was an economist for 20 years before beginning his career in Dept Statistics, where I worked for several years before I went to the UK and my career with IBM. He now has a passion for liverworts – is more botanist than statistician.

Daria, as always, has a sharp mind and speaks it. Good to see her again. Karola was a bit subdued, possibly not helped by the charger I brought down for her hearing aids not charging overnight.

The road around Paraparaumu and Waikanae is a motorway, we glided past in moments.  The Manawatu Gorge being very much closed for the foreseeable, we had to choose between the Saddle road or the Paiatua Track road east into the Wairarapa. We chose the Paiatua Track with a twist. After 20 minutes crawling along behind a big truck we turned off at Bennett’s Road and went on a small country road across to the one-way bridge over the Manawatu river at the eastern mouth of the Manawatu Gorge. Not sufficiently different from the main road north from Paiiatua that I’d do it again.

Home as darkness fell; sheep all present and correct with #514 and her lambs looking fine.

Ordered a new computer while the mood was right. Not a laptop – you get much more for your money with a desktop computer and I so rarely actually travel with a laptop being content with my iPad. I upped the spec to 2TB compared to what’s shown below.

Lovely Crisp Morning – Come On, Come On

New Computer Configuration – Modestly Spec’d

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—13℃ 3.4mm rain [?]

There was a hard frost and Bangle and I ventured out as it was getting light, she seemed quite at home trotting through the crisp white stuff.

Bangle spent her nights in her crate in Annemarie’s laundry and was very good – not a peep although she was in there for 8 – 10 hours with very little attention. Maybe her former life going to dog shows prepared her for that.

During the day, when not actually being taken for walks, Bangle had the run of the car.

Chris Ormond, who had kindly agreed to pop in and see how the sheep were while we were away, TXTed Karola to say that one ewe had twins and mother and twins seemed well. Lambing wasn’t due to begin until Tuesday.

We had a birthday lunch for Natalie and family, Annemarie, Karola, and me, at Taste in Khandallah. Delicious.

In the afternoon Bangle & I went to visit Gill & Ben in Seatoun. On the way I planned to buy a special cable that, in theory, one could use to attach my very sick laptop to Gill’s laptop and rescue the data files. I called JB HiFi and they had one in stock.

Wellington has changed a lot since I roamed the streets there back in the 1960s. On a Sunday afternoon the place was buzzing, not a parking space to be found. after about 20 minutes of driving round I found one near the library and set off for the old BNZ skyscraper – heading south (or east).

When I got to a street called Manners Street – well it was unrecognisable but that was the road sign – I realised I should have been going north (or west). A pleasant stroll got me back to JB HiFi, a glittering, gaudy, overstocked, underground store more like Tokyo’s electronics shops, worse than the nasty commercial gauntlet that is “arrivals” at Auckland International airport.

Got my expensive Apple cable and set off for Seatoun, about 15 minutes drive in normal traffic. Stop-start traffic almost from the get-go. And as I eased into the lanes for the cross-town route to the airport the car suddenly wouldn’t move out of first gear. It was embarrassing, making a terrible racket and holding up the traffic by crawling along at top speed – for first gear. I pulled over and tried changing gears a few times – from Drive to Park and back again, but no change. I then back up a bit and, oh what a relief, it behaved.

Traffic still not flowing, it was stop-start right across Wellington and up through the Victoria tunnel, and across to the airport, only freeing up when I turned off the roundabout at the airport entrance, heading for Seatoun Heights road. I must say Bangle just slept through it all.

Got to Gill & Ben’s – fairly stressed – but after a cup of tea and a sugary (hence illicit) GF gingernut biscuit I was ready to try the data rescuing stuff with Gill’s laptop. But no, it was not to be. Didn’t work.

Back to Silverstream for our last night, another nice meal from Annemarie and a slice of Natalie’s birthday cake, but one seriously dead computer. Didn’t stop Karola and me having a very restful night in a warm, comfortable bed, none-the-less.

A Hard Frost At Siverstream

Natalie’s Birthday Cake

The New Front Fence At 34A Izard Road

The Back Garden Transformed

Nearly Finished – It Will Be Splendid, It Will, It Will

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—13℃ no rain [?]

Took Bangle and did the rounds of the vehicle-sized gates on the perimeter with a detour round the orchard. The combination locks are getting rusty, a couple were nigh impossible to open until oiled. So I oiled them all, meaning a second round of the gates, oiling and locking them.

We set off in good time stopping first at Anzac Park just north of Norsewood. It’s a small secluded bit of bush and a large grassy area – ideal for Bangle. The short walks into the bush are being upgraded, covered with a deep coating of lime. The band of youngsters doing the maintaining were having lunch but were friendly, calling out to Bangle. I took Bangle round a loop track, returning near the working party. An older man who seemed to be supervising came and chatted, in fact he followed me still chatting as I took bangle back to the car. Then I noticed the label on his jersey, “Dept of Corrections” and all became clear. a “community service” working party – but no chains and no vivid orange overalls.

Next stop, Masterton which has a park for Bangle and to stretch the legs, and a very pleasant cafe, part of the museum and information centre.

We got down to Silverstream, to Annemarie’s place, in good time and Annemarie gave me a delicious rice and beef meal before going out for the evening. Karola went to bed and read. I started on what I’d planned would be an enjoyable bit of computer work, upgrading my laptop to the latest Apple software in order that I could experiment with some new software for developing apps for the iPad.

It was not to be. The new software downloaded OK and began to install but stopped after about 20 minutes. The upshot was I had a software meltdown. The installation would not proceed but had so damaged the original system that it wouldn’t work either. I spent the rest of the evening trying to get back a working system – to no avail, The unpleasant news online from other people who had experienced the same thing was that one had to reset the machine to factory defaults and install a fresh copy of the system, losing all your data and hoping you had a recent backup you could then restore. Oh woe is me. My latest backup is from June but I’ve done quite a bit of writing and programming since then.

Gill’s Damson Tree Gift – Stark Against The Winter Sky

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—13℃ 0.1mm rain [75.7]

It being Friday I did a quick trip for weekend shopping; as we’re off to Wellington tomorrow there wasn’t much to get.

Karl & Wendy came and crutched the 28 ewes and gave them a 5-in-1 vaccine jab. Afterwards all the sheep, including the ram, were sprayed with Magnum pour-on for preventing fly-strike and killing lice. (Withholding period for Magnum – zero days).

I had a last little bit of woodwork to do on the pump shed but as the wood was untreated and unpainted I painted it with undercoat before fixing it along the edges of the roof. Then, with a lot of help from Karola, we got the two sheets of corrugated iron on the pump-shed and screwed firmly down.

Jeff Rencontre, the painter, plans to come tomorrow – being guided mostly by the weather – to begin painting the new base-boards around the homestead verandahs. Jeff will also paint the pump shed walls although I imagine that’ll be next week, or later if the rain begins again.

Nice Clean Backsides & Undercarriages

Ready For The New Pump

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—17℃ no rain [75.7]

Beautiful day, cool but sunny.

Continuing from the several hours spent on the BINZ work last night, Karola kindly read through my responses and with her help they were much improved – shorter, less obscure, and in English.

Then I drove off with Bangle in the Landrover to Niven Street in Onekawa, to HB Longrun – a roofing supplier. Dave, the chap I spoke to yesterday, searched in their rubbish bins for an off-cut to suit. I want just over 850mm of ridge cap flashing, preferably in Karaka Green. That colour has gone out of fashion now, Dave said, they rarely do it. But in any case the off-cuts are usually quite a bit smaller than 850mm. No joy there so I settled for a metre of the Karaka Green flashing which will be made specially and be ready mid-week next week. Only cost $20 – I think Dave was being kind.

In the afternoon I carried on with the new pump shed. It’s now almost ready to put the roof on. At one point I heard a loud crack from the oak trees between the homestead garage and the road. No wind, no rain, quite a still, dry day. Minutes later there was an almighty crash and a large branch broke off from way up high and thundered to the ground. I was so relieved it didn’t hit the garage (again), nor did it damage the Internet dish on the end of the garage.

Closer And Closer

Crashing Down It Came

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—18℃ no rain [75.1]

We awoke to the throaty mechanical roar of Brimar Trimmers’ trimming demon hard at work on our southern windbreak. He also did the orchard side of our Manuka hedge to the west, really only because I think it must be a pain trying to work the apple row next to the fence with these Manuka fronds brushing against you.

I popped into town for the mid-week shopping.

After I came back, it was then things turned pear-shaped.

I made myself a cup of coffee, turned towards the sink and saw an old cup that I hadn’t finished – it happens, I sometimes forget to finish it. So there it was, a half-full mug of murky liquid looking just like a cold, old cup of my coffee.

Thinking to be tidy and not wasteful I picked it up and took a mouthful. Ugh! – it tasted of lemons with a sour metallic taste. “What IS this I yelled at Karola. Oh, she said, I’m cleaning the mugs, trying to get the tea stain off – it’s a special stain-removing cleaner. Did you drink any?

So we read the label carefully – “keep away from children, if taken seek medical advice”. I drank glass after glass of water hurriedl, hoping to dilute whatever corrosive liquid I’d just swallowed.

Karola called our doctor’s surgery who said to come in straight away and go to their emergency room. Which we did, me, Karola, and Bangle (she stayed in the car, of course).

Once in the emergency suite we surrendered the canister of cleaner and its poisonous contents were gradually revealed. It seemed quite a laborious procedure with multiple databases being consulted and phone calls to experts elsewhere.

Why oh why I expostulated, isn’t there a poisons database indexed by barcode – just scan the regular product barcode and it should tell you instantly. Oh, no, we’re not that advanced.

It was a tad worrying that, according to the poisons databases, one should wear gloves and a face mask when handling this relatively benign (we thought) kitchen cleaner. – no mention of that on the label.

Having ascertained that all my vital signs were staunchly normal they concluded I was not seriously poisoned and we were sent on our way, but not before I paid $30 for my free National Health visit.

Later I continued with putting up weatherboard on the gable ends of the new pump shed only to be stopped by rain when in sight of finishing. After the weatherboard goes up and is trimmed to the shape of the roof then it’s time for the roofing iron. I have an appointment with HB Longrun tomorrow in Onekawa to see if they can find me a very short piece of Karaka Green ridge flashing to top it off.

Mid afternoon, while the rain eased, we took Bangle round the orchard.

In the evening I wrote up my thoughts for the BINZ work group – I’ll leave them to ferment overnight and if they look ripe tomorrow I’ll send them then.

Some good news today too. My special TV controlling boxes, two of them, the Centro-CM IP Controllers, are expected to arrive next week. And I ordered another HDMI Matrix Switch, like the one we have here in the cottage, for the homestead. Best of all, my technical problem of how to turn the TVs ON and back to Standby remotely isn’t a problem. All I need is a piece of CAT6 cable running to each TV from under the stairs with 3.5mm stereo jacks and sockets on either end. Then all I do is plug one end into the appropriate socket of the Centro-CM and at the other end plug the emitter, which comes with the box, into the socket at that end of the cable. Voila, all done.

Brimar Trimmer, Trimming – A Fearsome Machine

Rain Stopped Play – But I’ll Get There

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—14℃ 1.0mm rain [75.0]

Karola went out to a talk at the Museum in Napier – more about Ormonds.

Agreeable eMail discussions with Karl Matthias about our work on the BINZ vision/values etc.

Steve Laracy came and started on laying the audio-visual cables in the homestead. He had one of the HDMI-over-CAT6-with-IR he recommended with him so we tried the experiment, running the IR from the AV contgrol centre to the TV instead of the other way round. Sadly, but not altogether surprisingly, it doesn’t work.

I put the first weatherboards on the gable ends of the new pump shed – creating much mud in the process, it is still so wet underfoot.

Brimar Trimmer guy brought his fearsome machine round today and will be back tomorrow to trim our windbreaks.

Karola took Bangle round the orchard.

Scott brought Henare round for a chat and to get some unchlorinated drinking water. He’s walking albeit gingerly and says the hip replacement was not a pleasant experience, very painful.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—15℃ 0.3mm rain [74.3]

Left Bangle and Karola behind and did the start-of-week shopping unaided in the Zoe.

pent rest of the morning on making progress with programmatically switching the associations of TVs to video devices: Sky, Freeview, the DVD player, and AppleTV. Using a multimeter I confirmed that the cable needed for talking between the Internet-connected serial controller and the USB-connected one was a “null modem” cable. Tried doing that between two copies of the Windows Hyperterminal program and to my delight it worked. Then tried from the Hyperterminal program under Windows to the matrix switch and, even better, I could switch it – could make any source device play on any TV from my computer.

Last piece of the puzzle today was to do it natively from the Mac, without Windows and its Hyperterminal program. Using the eponymous PacketSender program on MacOS it too worked. Much better progress today. Next is to write a program for the iPad which can do the same.

Karola stayed in the relative warmth of the cottage and did more work on her family diaries. Chris Ormond came round in the afternoon with his two daughters to read some of the diaries and chat about family history. I scuttled off and worked on the new pump shed rafters.

Once Chris had gone, after taking his daughters for a brief spin round the oak tree in the Zoe, Karola helped me put up the rafters. Now I’m ready to put weatherboard on the gables.

Karola took Bangle round the orchard late afternoon as I made the rafter assembly permanent.

Got a n email from Fakro’s Australian agent. No they don’t stock the Fakro scissor attic ladder but similar German ones. They cost many times more than the usual wooden folding ladder and don’t have the style of the Fakro ones so we’ll give them a miss. Find something unobjectionable from a New Zealand source.

Third Time Lucky – This Time The Rafters Fit

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—15℃ 0.7mm rain [74.9]

Feeling a bit guilty about having neglected my homework for the BINZ workgroup on “values, purpose, and vision” I thought about it for a while and came up with some provocative vision statements – emailed them to the group.

1. Transform the chronic unfairness of the New Zealand welfare system
2. Prepare for the social dislocation of comprehensive widespread automation
3. Begin to redress the inequality of Maori and women in New Zealand.

That should be food for thought. And yes, I do know that I meant “acute” when I wrote “chronic”.

Lots of blissful rain, replenishing the aquifers, but not the weather for continuing with building the new pump shed.

Karola & I went to the Hastings Farmers Market at the show grounds – inside under the grandstand because of the weather. We got Granny Smith apples and New Zealand walnuts.

Still struggling with my RS232 interface to HDMI matrix switch. I popped down later to Jaycar and bought what is called a “null modem” cable, hoping that is at least some of my problem – having a “straight-through” cable instead of a “null modem” one. Slowly the information about technology from the 1980s begins to creep back.

In the afternoon I put up some hand-holds in the upstairs Bee room, the one with the chimney void soon to be re-occupied with twin wood burner flues. Builder Paul made a neat job of taking down the shelves occupying part of the space but we used to use those shelves to climb up into the roof space. So today I put hand holds on the north wall creating a ladder up to the roof space. Karola and I then cleaned up the area and took the removed shelves and other bits of wood downstairs en-route to the homestead garage. Karola did most of the cleaning while I removed nails from the liberated pieces of wood.

Tonight I attempted to order a scissor loft ladder – not available in New Zealand but the Polish manufacturer gave me the name of an Australian agent.

Still raining, but not hard, we took Bangle round the orchard – deserted on a Sunday in winter.

The BINZ Sunday evening workgroup video call went ahead as usual.

New Hand-Holds Inside The Chimney Void Upstairs In The Homestead

Fakro Metal Scissor Loft Ladder

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—14℃ 11.3mm rain [75.3]

Another day of wrestling with a ridiculously simple way of driving an HDMI matrix switch. How much one forgets. I have now remembered the delights of “straight-through” cables versus “cross-over” cables, and roughly when to use which. Hampered rather by needing to use Windows 10 on top of MacOS and Windows 10 decided I needed a huge number of security fixes – loading them took literally hours and slowed everything down a lot.

Nipped down to Jaycar in Hastings – but on this side of Hastings – and got another little adapter I thought would help.

I did go out in the gentle rain and pick up the wood offcuts from Paul’s piles and base-boards on the homestead verandahs. Apart from that it was a day that matched the weather – drizzling.

Karola took Bangle round the orchard between showers, well it was barely raining when they went round.

That reminds me, earlier this week, before the rain, the wildlife under the big oak was unusual: two rabbits (who live in the Camellia shrubs nearby), two Mallard ducks, just visiting, and a dozen Pukeko, several generations of our raucous, colourful, native (but not endemic) Purple Swamp Hens.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—12℃ 16.5mm rain [75.0]

End of the week, a day drifting slowly into rain for the weekend.

Regular quarterly doctor’s appointment for me, then the weekend shopping. Karola haircut.
Got a free vaccination against shingles today. Karola thinks she’s had one too but I suspect that was a flu shot – which we both had a few weeks ago.

But first, Jeff Rencontre drove up – I mentioned to builder Paul that we’d like Jeff to paint undercoat on the base boards and later paint the new pump shed. So Paul contacted him and here he came. He expects to start on Monday.

I am trying to find out how my little toy, an Internet-to-TV-switcher (matrix switch), is supposed to work. Yesterday having got past the initial hurdles I can talk to it from my computer but now I need to find out what to say. This is necessary now because I expect to buy another of the same switches for the homestead and being able to control the TV switcher is part of the plan.

I did help Karola for a while with copying and emailing some Ormond family tree stuff to grand-daughter Alex and to one of Johnny Ormond’s family, his daughter Hannah. Hannah recently asked Karola for information about her grandmother and Karola was delighted to help.

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—13℃ 12.8mm rain [74.3]

75.1. 3 – 18 0.2I took the IP-RS232 interface gizmo to the local Jaycar shop, even though I’d bought it at Jaycar online. Instead of offfering me the chance to set up a password when first I accessed it, or accessed it after resetting the device, it demanded a user name and password – neither of which I had. We swapped the faulty device for another and I tried using that.

Got past the password problem but had a lot of trouble attempting to – in fact couldn’t – continue beyond that point. In frustration I eventually took it over to Peter Offenberger’s place in Havelock North and used his real PC to go through the steps – which then worked beautifully of course.

Knowing it could be made to work I came back and persevered with my Windows virtual machine under MacOS. Late afternoon I found the winning combination of networks, cables, settings, and incantations.

Karola went off to Bay Audiology for a check of her hearing and her new hearing aids. Somewhat of a waste of time.

Builder Paul came and finished up his work on the verandahs. He then delighted Karola by building her a slatted shelf at the top of the cottage hot water cylinder cupboard. Then delighted her even more by putting up a wide shelf in the cottage garage, running the length of the garage on the cottage side. I went to Mitre-10 and got six big black angle brackets for the shelf.

Cecilia Chalmers dropped in for coffee and a catch-up chat with Karola.

I took Bangle round the orchard.

I did some more refinements to the rafters for the new pump shed – it isn’t quite as easy as I thought.

New Top Shelf In Cottage Airing Cupboard

Long Wide Shelf In Cottage Garage

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—18℃ 0.2mm rain [75.1]

After lunch, when it had warmed up a little,I put one top coat of Karaka Green on the corrugated iron. I put the second on three hours later. So that’s done.

Struggled with the rafters a bit more – they’re still not quite right.

Paul; had a good look inside the homestead cellar and we agreed that the previous attempts to waterproof it had been done well. We deferred any re-painting of the walls and floor until after the next time water is spotted in the cellar.

Karola took Bangle round the orchard again.

Paul finished the base boards including the little gate allowing access under the verandahs.

Sent an email to Steve Laracy describing the current state of the plans to wire the homestead for TV etc.

Karamu Homestead Audio-Visual Wiring Plan (Provisional)

The Infrastructure:

• Wall mounted cabinet for under the stairs (not essential but OK to be 19” rack-mounted)
• Centro-CM IP Control box x 2 (Ian getting from UK)
• CYP HDMI4x4S matrix switch with RS232 control (Ian to get from Elive)
• Per TV:
• Two cat6 cables terminated by HDMI-over-2-CAT6-plus-IR (Ian to get from JayCar)
• One CAT6 for ethernet for the TV
• In-wall box with sockets for: power, RJ45, HDMI, IR emitter – yes emitter! (for three of the TVs)
• (just add to wall plate for HDMI and the IR emitter in fourth room)
• One Coax cable

 
TV locations:

• 3 x Wall mounted: Living room left of fireplace, Dining room right of fireplace in corner, new Kitchen centre of north wall
• 1 x Free standing, room at the top of the stairs

Steve to install the in-wall combination socket boxes, install and connect the CAT6 cables. Install the under-stairs AV control cabinet. Terminate the cables in the under-stairs cabinet. I will provide a TV for testing the ethernet, HDMI and IR reception in each room. Steve does not do electrical wiring but does provide the ready-for-wiring power socket in the in-wall combo socket boxes.

As Steve remarked, there will be mountains of wall warts at the cabinet – but only one at the TV though as the IR emitters don’t need power. I Hope I can contain the power wart for the TV HDMI in the in-wall combination socket box.

The “vision”:

Eventually I expect to have a single app on iPad which enables us to

• Turn on the TV, adjust the volume (using the emitter)
• Select which source device to play on that TV
• switch channels and pause/play, change volume etc

The two Centro-CM IP Control boxes are needed to get enough IR outputs, four for the sources, four for the TVs. Still one IR output short so the matrix switch is to be controlled via its RS232C port.

Rafters Taking Shape

The “escape hatch” Into The Netherlands Under The Verandahs

The Base Boards Really Make A Difference

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—19℃ no rain [74.7]