Monthly Archives: October 2018

SwimGym, but not with Karola today although she sort-of promised Friday.

I missed the initial episode of the fifth series of The Brokenwood Mysteries, but Gill reminded me so I’ve recorded it from Prime TV’s “Catch-up”, online. I’ve also missed the first 10 episodes of the third series of 800 Words and have started recording them for later consumption off TVNZ’s “On Demand” website. Capturing them as I now do is time consuming – play the episode in real time to get a file then convert it to the right format which takes about the same again. I wish there were some easier way but both Sky and Freeview, using encryption, make copying their saved recordings very hard to use except back through the original set top box.

The ewes and lambs are in the Middle paddock once more and there’s plenty of grass.

Got fish & chips for our mid-day dinner, combined with the mid-week shopping.

After lunch (dinner) deconstructed the long electric fence round the big oak and the homestead lawn. The grass has grown so quickly that the electric fence is shorting out too much.

Using the old Fergie and the pretty much indestructible orchard mower I flattened some of the vigorous growth of grass and weeds along the top of the ha-ha, widening the cleared strip allowing the electric fence to border a wider alleyway onto the homestead lawn.

Took some photos of the homestead AV system, complementing the 55” TVs which I photographed for an earlier journal entry.

UHF Aerial In Homestead Roof Space

On Top Of The AV Control Cabinet

Top Shelf Of AV Control Cabinet

Bottom Shelf Of AV Control Cabinet

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—17℃ no rain [75.0] KBOrchard

After vet visit yesterday for upset tummy, Bangle is on antibiotics twice a day. She eats a ball of cheese with enthusiasm so no trouble getting the pills down.

Postie beeped, bringing bits for the AV system – cables and an amplifier for the aerial in the roof space. After Karola & then Scott & Henare helped point the aerial in the right direction we had 100% quality and 60% signal strength (whatever that might mean). With the amplifier we have 100% quality and 90%+ signal strength.

We all three went off to Karamu road Bay Espresso for “eggs benedict” and a coffee for lunch – well our main meal actually. Delicious and out in their courtyard very peaceful.

Sheep under the big oak again but the lambs breaking out too readily so this is the last time they have un-electrified electric fence – the fence is shorting out in several places so they can ignore it if they wish.

A few showers but no sustained downpour. I watered the fruit trees – 15 minutes each.

Jeremy & Sue Nash dropped off a book for Karola and seem keen to see us again.

Up in the roof space of the homestead when experienced a couple of earthquakes, it rocked and rolled a bit. “Magnitude 6.2, 207 km deep, 25 km south-west of Taumarunui at 3.13pm” and at about the same time, much closer to home, “Magnitude 3.7, 45 km deep, within 5 km of Porangahau”.

While walking Bangle round the orchard I had a chat with Chloe, following up Karola’s chat with Harry on the same topic. Chloe is concerned that Harry just works all the time and never leaves the farm, barely leaves his office. year after year. So my “Baldrickian” plan is to invite H&C out to a restaurant dinner for my 72nd birthday in a couple of weeks. I suggested having it in Palmerston North, not so far from where H&C live in Bulls, but Chloe thinks Wellington would be more enticing and enjoyable. Chloe said “leave it with me”.

In the afternoon I fitted the aerial amplifier to my satisfaction. In the evening I put most of the elements of the AV system together, screwing them down in the cabinet where the equipment had provision, and making the signal and power cables as short and neat as possible.

The terrestrial broadcasts work well on all TVs – well they do until I plug in the rest of the equipment. In fact they work well after I connected all four HDMI extender units – I had to change settings on the units but otherwise they worked as expected. It was only after introducing the matrix switch that some things became dodgy – the terrestrial broadcasts – and I think it’s only the High Definition streams – break up and don’t display properly. I’ll have to get some help to decide what the problem is although the improved signal strength from the amplifier has helped a lot. More experiments needed, but I plan to leave that for a while.

UK mate Geoff sent photos of autumn in Southern England – fungi and so on. Autumn and winter, when not dismal and wet, can be quite bracing in England.

Fly Agaric (aka ‘Fairy Toadstools’)

I Am Not Alone In My Cottage Mowing – Geoff Listening While He Works

Delightful If Infrequent Autumn Day In Hampshire

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—19℃ 6.7mm rain [74.3] IBOrchard

Karola & I went to SwimGym (Active Fitness), Karola for a look around and for me to have my first exercise session after the refit. I got us each a ten-visit concession card and then had to sign fairly draconian waiver for the gym and get photographed so that when I, using my card, entered the building, the receptionist could check it was the right card for the person.

Later I did the start-of-the-week shopping including four castors for Karola who wants to outfit another large drawer with mobility. Also dropped into Alexanders for a new belt – old ones are too long – and Aertex shirts. Unfortunately it’s the wrong season for long-sleeved shirts, or they’re out of fashion or something, so they offered to order me one in and I took one short-sleeved shirt as well.

While I was in New World Karola called to say Bangle had a bad tummy upset and I should take her to the Vet’s – which I did. So we have a week-long programme of antibiotics for her.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—19℃ 0.5mm rain [74.4]

Red Beech trees and ex-root trainers all watered today.Root trainer stock are in raised bed and just had an hour or so of mist from a hose adapter which sends out a simple fan of water droplets. The 13 young Red Beech trees are, in a matter of a week or two, writhing with Convolvulus aka Bindweed so I first got rid of that, carefully otherwise in taking off the vines you strip all the poor tree’s leaves as well. Then I tried to set up my new “professional” sprinkler but it just sat there. When the water was turned on it seemed very stiff to rotate although without water pressure it rotated easily. Mused over this for a while, tried oiling but no difference. Finally I unscrewed the sprinkler from its base and peeked down the pipe to the head. Oh, there was a piece of twig almost as big as the pipe to the head jammed in there – amazing that it got in through the hose connector. Problem solved and the Red Beech had several hours of a good soaking.

Also watered the flowering crabapple next to the septic tank. This is intended to be a cross-pollinator for the Ballarat & Cox Orange Pippin across the fence.

Mowed the cottage lawns and curtilage but first i cut back the lanky lavender interspersed with the bay trees along the cottage railings – only where it was getting in the way of the cottage gate or seemingly smothering adjacent Bay trees. For my pains I got stung on the index finger by a bee – there were lots of bees on the great swathes of Lavender blooms – but Stingoze quickly made that disappear. No indications of allergy. Again had no shirt on for about an hour – faint hope that I’ll look healthily brown but at least it stocks up on Vitamin D. I try to do this every couple of weeks when mowing the cottage lawn because that take about 45 minutes.

First tree guard for the fruit trees takes shape. I’ve cut off the top two rows from the deer fence netting, wound a few inches of the wire upright round the new top wire, and put some electrical tape over the end to stop it snagging on the shade netting cover. Following Karola’s advice I used her bright yellow builder’s string to bind the shade netting to the wire netting and that worked well – the flakiest bit is joining the two ends – the vertical join where there is no helpful reinforced seam with eyelets.

Bangle helped us shepherd sheep from under the big oak over to the Long Acre and this involved much rushing about and some barking, so no need for an orchard walk today.

Sprinkler Was Jammed By A Twig

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—23℃ no rain [74.1]

Yesterday it was Lyn Sturm, today a local retired person interested in local and family history, Jeremy Nash. He and his wife came for morning coffee and stayed until lunchtime, entertained by and discussing local events with Karola.

The ewes and lambs had an hour or so under the big oak as the grass there is getting quite long.

Karola spent the afternoon watering the Tilias again.

I made a little progress on the tall tree guards for the seven fruit trees.

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—20℃ no rain [74.2]

Karola went off this morning for a haircut and to do the shopping, but not before I trundled down to SwimGym to try the refurbished facilities under new management.

The machines are pretty new and different although the same general classes of gym equipment are there. No-one able to help me make the cycle machine use my heart monitor nor how to set up my short programme but it looks promising so I’ll go back on Monday when someone more expert is supposed to be on site.

Lyn Sturm came to see the shearing and ended up spending half a day with Karola. Karl & Wendy arrived on time with their newly modified truck and were happy to vaccinate all 24 lambs with 5-in-1, shear all 27 ewes and the ram, and then spray them all with flystrike-preventing Magnum, (Withholding for meat of zero days). Two #400s got replacement ear tags, #410 and #439 – I’d been waiting for a suitable time to swap the new ones in.

Chris Ormond dropped in briefly, returning some diaries he’d borrowed from Karola.

Very Woolly Ladies

Waiting Their Turn

The Ram Is Last

Light As A Feather And Lots Of Food

Well? Haven’t You Seen A Shorn Sheep Before?

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—19℃ no rain [74.2] IBOrchard

Wood burner guys came today. apparently some part of the chimney structure is a bit skewiff so some extra steel bracing needed to be ordered and delivered, hence the silence earlier in the week.

Steve Laracy came mid afternoon and together we finished his job of installing the cables and providing the special HDMI-extender boxes and ensuring at least one of them worked.

Karola spent most of the day multi-tasking with watering the Tilia trees – an hour each on slow trickle so that it soaks in. She’s done 15 of the 16 today.

Later I began carefully assembling everything in its final connected form and then the problems began to appear – not necessarily disastrous but worrying. With the matrix switch switched on the terrestrial broadcasts stopped – some sort of interference. With the matrix switch mediating the video streams the DVD playback went quiet – no sound. The AppleTV doesn’t play on the screens whether going through the matrix switch or connected directly into one of the HDMI-extenders. Plenty to investigate calmly and methodically.

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—25℃ 0.7mm rain [74.0] IBOrchard

Bit slow to get started today – the mowing and without a shirt for a couple of hours in the warm sun took its toll. Or maybe it was staying up until past 11:00pm in the homestead tinkering with the AV wiring while listening to music from YouTube on one of the new TVs.

Off we went at 9:30am to Havelock North to a talk at the Friendship Club by an ex-army, ex-prison manager, Peter Grant. His last post before retiring was as manager of the local Mangaroa prison, the Hawkes Bay Regional prison.

NZ has the second highest incarceration rater in the free world, second only to the USA. And 60% of the inmates are Maori where if it were proportional to the populations outside prison would be 20%. It costs around $100,000 a year to keep someone in prison.

Peter Grant said his views would be controversial and paint a rather different picture to that relayed by the media. Contrary to some media reporting, prisons are not pleasant places for malingerers and layabouts to have a quiet time, well fed and pretty much left to themselves. The facts are that prison life is always fearful, everyone is either in a gang or being coerced by gang members, and NZ prisons do provide experience and skills and in particular criminal contacts & networking, grooming the prisoner for a life of crime – assuming they are not already on that life track.

Peter’s focus was, and still is, in converting criminals into useful members of society and to that end he is enthusiastically in support of programmes for prisoners which provides access to education and life skills and readies them for reintegration into NZ society. The sad part of the story is that NZ prisons are not run along these lines, lines that would bring the transformation from prison inmate to free citizen inside the prison system rather than delaying any adjustment until the inmate leaves prison abruptly leaving them without support or supervision. In recent years such moves towards a more enlightened treatment of prisoners has retrenched due to political vote-catching and government use of lowest cost private prison services.

Peter attributes the marked increase in young offenders to their growing up in an environment where there are no consequences – unruly school children “get away” with anything and they take this lesson with them into young adult life where suddenly there are consequences, one of them being prison.

It was an interesting talk, Peter’s opinions were common sense and contentious mostly in the context of the views in the media and as portrayed by the Sensible Sentencing Trust – which wants there to be a stronger element of punishment and retribution in the NZ prison system.

Afterwards we went to Margery & Brian Cobbe’s place in Havelock North, quite close to the meeting hall. Like Lyn Sturm’s place in Frimley Village, the Cobbe’s now live in a close of spacious houses, large rooms but few of them, very close together – no lawns and only the slimmest of shrub beds and outside decks.

Later I did the mid-week shop and bought new sandals and shoes replacing pairs that were chewed into oblivion by Bracket the Labradoodle puppy.

The sheep have been kept in the holding paddock today as it had long grass and needs to be eaten out before they spend the morning there on Friday, on reduced food and water rations before shearing. Karl & Wendy are expected around lunch time.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—21℃ no rain [74.2] IBOrchard

Anthony continued helping me with some of the AV wiring in the homestead until it was time to go to lunch at Bostock’s Organic Kitchen. Se all went in Zoe and shortly after we returned Anthony set off for home.

The mail today was a bit more interesting than usual. A rather overdue book for me, from the online Book Depository. It came from Australia and has taken a couple of weeks longer than books ordered at the same time from Book Depository but sourced in the UK. An old second-hand and expensive book I bought Karola – about William Colenso. Half a dozen short HDMI cables for the AV system. And two letters from a debt collection agency addressed to someone with a very foreign name but addressed accurately and completely to our house. Apparently the gentlemen to whom the letters was addressed had neglected to repay a personal loan and an overdraft generously provided by ANZ bank.

Karola went into Hastings and tried to get the local branch of ANZ interested in someone who apparently had used our address as their permanent address and owed them money. But all the ANZ branch would say was that it was illegal for us to open the letters – so of course we shouldn’t have been able to identify ANZ as the bank who has given a loan and an overdraft to someone providing a false address – in fact an address of someone who has had an account with them for a decade or so.

Meanwhile I mowed the cottage lawn and curtilage – left over from Sunday’s chore because we were entertaining, and being entertained by, Anthony Fletcher.

Then I returned to the AV wiring in the homestead.

Gill asked about our next tasks on the homestead renovation and I quickly scribbled down this list.

Homestead Renovation Current project List

1. Storm water drain – done
2. Sprinkler system & new pump – upstairs & pump & pumpshed done, downstairs awaits the rebuild of lean-to
3. New base boards round homestead verandah – done
4. Additional security smoke alarms – awaiting the rebuild of the lean-to
5. AV system: wiring to 3 of 4 locations done, cabinet under stairs done, UHF aerial connection done
   – one more location to be wired up, all pieces to be assembled – iPad app to be written (best not hold breath – that will be hard but possible)
6. Connect pump to UV+filters and pipe domestic across to house, install auto-refill rainwater tanks from bore – waiting for plumber
7. Ruth to supply elevations and plan sketches – she is doing it now but no specific timescale
8. Woodburners in Dining/Living room – well underway but several weeks from completion
9. Electric plugs in wall recesses for TV – awaiting electrician
10. Plan for electric lights and power points in homestead checked and any additional ones commissioned – now
11. New electric distribution board on side of east verandah & new larger fuse box in new laundry area
    – waiting for Ruth’s stuff to be finished and consented
12. New laundry & kitchen design – ready for Karola & Bridget to do
13. New/improvement of homestead gutters & stormwater disposal – waiting for Ruth
14. Different climbing vine along homestead verandahs & porte cochere – not wysteria, collecting suggestions
15. Repair upstairs balcony fretwork – Karola to say when to ask Paul to do it – he agrees he is able to do it
16. Exterior chimney stack made with brick slips from our old bricks rescued from cottage – next year
17. All existing rooms to be renovated – scrim removed, thin gib applied, re-wallpapered – after lean-to & new kitchen & verandahs & gutters

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—21℃ no rain [74.7] KBOrchard

Anthony & I explored the innards of the misbehaving chain-operated window opener, one of the two for transom windows above the back door. We checked that the 24v motor was working OK and concluded that it was something in the electronics – the opener has two printed circuit boards. When we’d put it back together it was a little bit more lively but still not working as it used to. Karola plans just to pretend the window is sealed shut.

Then we spent a happy hour or so threading the AV wires in the kitchen into the cabinet on the other side of the wall, under the stairs.

Lunched at Bostock’s Organic Kitchen which as usual was tasty, nutritious, and cost very little.

Upon request Anthony gave us a private rendition of his 7-minute Toastmasters’ speech, “Expect The Unexpected” which is about events at the beginning of World War II and the welded iron hulled “liberty ships”.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—20℃ 1.7mm rain [74.9] KBOrchard

Henare came and spent about six hours mowing the homestead circle and around the back door, and the area cordoned off under the Liriodendron to stop sheep eating the low-hanging branches and leaves. I tractor-mowed the drives.

I also finished off the seven tree guards for the fruit trees – attaching shade netting over the wire netting. We tried one on and then ruefully decided they were not going to be high enough – wide enough, yes, but not high enough. So, back to the drawing board and we have seven spare guards for smaller shrubs.

Karola moved the electric fence notice from the paddock gate near the 121 entrance to a more prominent position on the other side of the drive.

Anthony came late afternoon in his Toyota Corolla Hybrid – an almost-electric car which is very sensible.

Karola watered the new fruit trees.

Neatly Mown Driveway Awaits Anthony

Karola’s Repositioned Electric Fence Notice

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—23℃ no rain [74.9] IBOrchard (with Anthony)

Listened to Country Life on radio at 7:00am. The last item was an interview with an energetic young woman living near Geraldine and the number of projects she’s engaged in, the breadth and scope of her activities is just breath-taking. And she has two children under five. While not a natural technology enthusiast most of her work involves using computers and social media to get people together. Her focus is on educating NZ children on what farming really is about and on building networks of farming mums now that tight-knit rural communities are a thing of the past and everyone is too busy doing multiple jobs and with both partners working just to make ends meet.

My plan today was to put the tricky ethernet plugs on both ends of nine cables but I got diverted into a Saturday trip to town for yet more food, more sheep nuts, and to drop in to the refurbished SwimGym under new management.

SwimGym, now called SwimGym (Active Fitness) seems only a little more expensive than before but bundles a lot of classes in with the basic membership. Also, the longer term prices seem muddled. Six months is exactly twice three months and 12 months is $10 dearer than 4 x the 3-monthly rate.

Clean and fresh appearance and lots of new equipment. They say it will provide 24-hour access using smart cards – I’m surprised that this doesn’t require expensive 24-hour manning (personning? erk!) for health & safety reasons. Karola & I discussed it briefly and we both think we should restart attending. The 10-visit casual-use option seems to be the best for us.

In the afternoon I got on with my fitting of plugs and got three of the nine cables working. I have a very helpful tester that you plug into one end and set going, then take a small companion device to the other end and plug it in. Both ends have a column of eight LEDs which light up one after the other if the wires are connected and in the right order. I had to re-do one of the plugs due to a pair of wires getting swapped but otherwise it’s been successful.

Fewer pukekos about but even more rabbits and hares.

Henare popped in briefly bearing cooked crayfish for Karola – another one for the freezer but a kind thought.

Lilacs & Manuka Boisterous Blooms

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—26℃ no rain [75.2] IBOrchard

So, today is a public holiday, a Provincial Anniversary Day to celebrate the founding days or landing days of the first colonists of the various colonial provinces. This day is also known as ‘Show Day’ as the Friday is the last day of the Royal Agricultural Show.

We rose late and breakfasted leisurely, it was a cold night but beautiful sunny day.

I spent the day on the homestead AV network, labelling the cables and beginning to put RJ45 plugs on the ends. Early afternoon I put the cabinet on a table and modelled the layout, measuring the cable distances between the elements.

One thing I learned is that the HDMI matrix switch and the Centro CM controller both have power plugs which orient the plug horizontally, covering the right-hand adjacent power socket.This would leave me a power point or two short but by using a two-way 3-pin plug adapter I can lift these “wall warts” out of the way and use up only one socket on the power strip.

I am getting a bit better at putting on the RJ45 plugs although the slightest lapse of concentration can be fatal – the first one I wired up was done upside-down – the wires were in the correct order and all made good connections, but, being upside-down they were in reverse order.

Steve Laracy called and agreed to order the four sets of HDMI Extender devices today for delivery mid-week.

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—20℃ 10.4mm rain [75.0] IKBOrchard

No sign of workers for the wood burners today.

Worked most of the day on the AV Control Centre under the homestead stairs. It’s coming along nicely and I’ll try to thread some of the cables into the cabinet tomorrow. Also connected up the three coax cables to the UHF TV aerial, two of them being attached to actual TVs, and still the signal is strong and clear.

We, Karola & I, went to Taste next to Cornucopia for lunch – well our main meal. Delicious. Then the shopping and back home – this all on Thursday because it’s a long long holiday weekend with Hawkes Bay holiday tomorrow (The Annual Hawkes Bay Show) and Labour Day on Monday. So my Friday GF bread came up last night.

Karola discovered a large and very dead rat in a rat trap in the cottage hot water cylinder cupboard. Maybe s/he will not keep waking us up any longer with his/her loud wood gnawings.

Karola wanted me to attack the foliage growing in the cottage gutter so I brushed off the leaves and twigs on the gutter guard netting and zapped the growing stuff, above and below the netting, with RoundUp. This led on to beginning the experiment with a new gutter guard material, “cats whiskers” – well it’s more like an oversized bottle brush, stiff nylon wires protruding from a twisted pair of galvanised wires. We’ve just experimented with the western side of the farm shed for now.

Farm Shed Blocked Gutters

Experimental “Cats Whisker” Gutter Guards

Karola’s “Electric Red” Manuka Planted In 2015 – That Started My Interest In Coloured Manuka

One Of The two Dozen Manuka I Planted Last Year – Not The Common Variety As Ordered, Probably Leptospermum Karekare

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—21℃ no rain [75.0] IBOrchard

Pete came early as he requested, so we staggered out of bed in time to open up at 7:00am. He came, dropped some stuff off and was not seen for the rest of the day.

I have gained weight – I blame Dave’s delicious crusty sourdough bread mix.

Finished putting top coat on the AV cabinet.

Karola cleaned the windows along the east side of the cottage and they do look much better although I worry a little that were she to fall, even if it is only a metre or so, it could be nasty.

Bangle & I did the mid-week shopping including a trip to Mitre-10. Got another set of four momentary switches and flush panel so that I could replace the switches for the second pair of transom window openers. Also some hinges for the AV cabinet as I think I can allow it to swing back off the wall for ease of access to the rear. And a couple of 6-way power strips for the equipment.

When I got home I found that the momentary switches were not – almost identical switches right next to them and I picked the wrong ones. Hmmm. Later I went back into town and swapped for the right switches and also, at Cory’s wholesale electrical, bought a couple of wall plates with an oval opening for several cables and protected by two sets of stiff bristles. These are for the video & ethernet cables going to each TV.

Completed the change of switches for the transom window openers – which made not the slightest difference to their operation but I think looks a lot better.

Installed the TV UHF aerial in the homestead roof space and to my surprise when I connected it to one of the downstairs TVs it found 26 channels of digital terrestrial TV with very satisfactory picture quality. Looks like I have duplicate of the satellite Freeview channels, some in higher definition. So, in the homestead I don’t need a satellite Freeview set-top box which simplifies my AV setup yet again. I’m depending on the Sony Internet interface which lets you control their TVs from an app.

Janet dropped in from next door as I was doing this and we had afternoon tea – learned that SwimGym opened yesterday with a barbecue and enrollment was beginning today. So perhaps we’ll investigate on Friday.

I noticed that, as Dan Sankey advised, the Cox’ Orange Pippin is now showing some bud development, a month after the other fruit trees. And I thought it was dead.

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—22℃ no rain [75.2] IBOrchard

Pete came to continue work on installing the wood burners, shot off to another job and wasn’t seen again until mid afternoon.

I carried on mowing the Cottage lawn and curtilage – the grass was long as it’s springtime and I’d skipped a week. Karola did some hefty weeding, around her raised kitchen garden beds and making a start on the Bay tree hedge.

Highlight of the day was the baking and eating of the special GF Sourdough bread mix that had come in Chris’ luggage from England. Anna’s Dave generously got some extra and dispatched it with Chris knowing I’d be keen to try it.

It was worth every minute of the aggro Chris got at bio-security/customs/border security. Karola whipped up a loaf this morning but sadly by early afternoon it seems to have vanished.

So, very kind of Dave to show what can be done BUT

• It’s terrible for weight management
• … and now I HAVE to come over to England to see Dave & Anna next year to get another taste.

I might email Rana, info@ranasbakery.com, to see whether she has a franchise in Oceana or will post to NZ. However I think posting food might be quite a rigmarole though.

It really does taste like what I remember of proper bread.

Karola also baked a Lemon version of the traditional GF Orange cake.

In the morning I put a second undercoat on the AV cabinet; this evening I put on an enamel gloss top coat. Few bits to tidy up tomorrow and it’s done.

Today two of the transom windows open and close just as they always have; the other pair are not so good. Having figured out what the necessary switch wiring was I changed the misbehaving pair to use the four momentary switches I bough recently at Mitre-10.

It made not one whit of difference so maybe Karola & Anthony are right when they suspect the actual chain mechanism.

Crusty GF Sourdough Bread – From Dave via Chris

Wood Burner Progress – Dining Room

Wood Burner Progress – Living Room

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

Shopping at the beginning of the week: food and also bought six Nordic Momento porcelain mugs to replace the two that got broken at the weekend. I quite like these mugs and Karola says they have the added value of not staining from tea or coffee. Chose a lucky day to buy them because they were “buy one, get one free” and the six only cost around $30.

Also went to the “Fix-IT” shop where I got good advice from an Indian woman about iPads and replacing Karola’s dead iPad generation 1. I was so delighted with her free advice – and the second-hand but Apple-refurbished replacement I got from TradeMe for Karola which does work with the old familiar keyboard, although it is several years younger and two versions newer, cost very little. Wanted to thank her and leave a donation.

What with getting fresh fish from Hawkes Bay Fish Supply and coffees and friands from The Artisan coffee shop, that took up the morning.

Bridget called and said some of her emails were apparently not getting to her. I checked and indeed that was true but I was able to forward the 71 emails I’d accidentally corralled to Bridget and so I think no harm done.

Dylan & Pete continued their building of the surround for the wood burners.

Meticulous Maids came mid afternoon and cleaned the cottage.

I put undercoat on the AV control centre cabinet and began mowing the cottage lawn.

Early evening Bridget’s Chris came, as expected, bringing a gift of GF bread mix from Anna’s Dave in England. Chris was up here on business for the day and was rushing off for a meal with a client.

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—19℃ no rain [74.5]

Made the doors for the AV Control Centre this morning – Karola said “doors are gilding the lily, surely”. Anyway, we put it up under the stairs and it looks like it will do the job. I haven’t attached the doors yet and I suppose I might paint the inside, just to make it easier to see stuff. It’s pretty dark stuck above head-height in the large cupboard under the stairs.

Karola & I moved a large, heavy solid wood dresser from the homestead junk room to the cottage sun porch – a place for a small number of Karola’s files.

Pondered over the wiring for the faulty “momentary” switches that activate the electric window openers. Discussed the wiring diagram with Anthony Fletcher who also immediately spotted that the neutral wire connected the same way whether you pressed Open or Close.

And that was pretty much it. Spoke to Brian Cope across the fence while walking Bangle round the orchard in the dark. He didn’t know that Labradoodle “Bracket” had died.

Karola’s Next Filing Cabinet

The Expensive Electric Window Opener

The Suspect Pair Of “Momentary” Switches

Inside The Switch Panel

Making Some Sense Of The Wiring

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—15℃ no rain [74.5] IBOrchard

Extra ethernet switch (aka hub) came today along with another of the Mick Herron spy thrillers. Now we have the first five in the Jackson Lamb series and a short novella with the same characters we’ll have to wait for him to write more.

Today I thought I’d see how far I could get with making the audio-visual control cabinet to go under the stairs in the homestead. I’ve already made the Sketchup drawing and will no doubt modify it slightly to accommodate bits of wood I already have and unexpected difficulties along the way.

Strange day weather-wise with bursts of sunshine, cloudy periods and then sudden quite heavy downpours.

Henare came for a chat and to pay me back for online paying his power bill yet again.

The cabinet is almost finished, the doors still to do. In the sketch (below) the different bits of equipment are different colours and are to scale to make sure they’ll all fit with room for the cabling. The big orange box is the space needed for the aerials of the WiFi router.

Sketch Of Audio-Visual Control Cabinet

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—13℃ 0.9mm rain [75.1] IBOrchard at lunchtime, KBOrchard late afternoon

Off to do the weekend shopping with Bangle in Zoe. Got a baguette for lunchtime and coffees for Karola and me from YaBon on the way home.

Karola put the merged flock into the Middle paddock and they were delighted. A bit cross they had to eat less palatable grass for so long.

Dylan & Pete continued with the wood burner job.

Ruth came and we had a light lunch and caught up. The plans remain as they were when last she came and so Ruth will now begin drawings – elevations and plan views etc. We had a good time – discussed some of her holiday in Europe, Italy mainly.

I drew a plan (Sketchup) of the little cabinet for the AV control centre under the homestead stairs and listed where all the power cords, HDMI cables, Ethernet cables, IR magic eyes are to go. Oh what a tangled web …. I do need one more ethernet switch, there are so many ethernet connections, so I did that today.

Karola had trouble with the transom windows in the cottage kitchen again today so late afternoon I whipped down to Cory’s – electrical wholesaler – to see if they had better control switches – I think it’s the “momentary” switches which are playing up. I never liked them and I now see that they were rather a home-made job forcing some complicated switches into a standard wall plate. Also got a terrestrial TV aerial to test out Steve Laracy’s claim that we can get a good signal under the iron roof inside the roof space at Karamu.

Rain showers and some thunder and lightening through the afternoon and into the night.

Level Concrete Base Laid For The New Wood-burners

The “Momentary” Switches For The Cottage Transom Windows

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—18℃ 8.1mm rain [74.5] KBOrchard

Finished wiring down the Lime tree guards. Watered the fruit trees – 15 minutes each on a slow hose as per Karola’s suggestion. Put up electric fence protecting the fruit trees from any sheep incursions pending the completion of the guards for those trees.

Rob Findlay called and confirmed the estimate for the wood burners – $13,000. The decorative brick chimney surround will be several thousand more but Rob & Dylan are trying to find a less expensive way to do that and we’ll treat it as a second job.

Dylan and a mate, Pete I think, arrived mid morning and worked through the day. Dylan expects to continue tomorrow.

Paul Libby drove up, inquiring whether we’d made contact with Ruth Vincent – which we had. Coincidentally, (perhaps), Ruth emailed tonight and suggested she come round tomorrow or Monday.

I made a start on cladding the fruit tree guards in shade netting – got a couple finished.

Manuka Making A Nice Showing

Fuchsia Next To The Cottage Entrance

Work Begins On The New Wood Burners Installation

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—19℃ 3.9mm rain [74.1] IBOrchard

I’d turned on the Bay hedge watering system overnight and this morning I had hissing sounds and big damp patches where the pipe had been damaged. There are at least half a dozen places needing a fix – but not today.

Spent an hour or so on listing the sizes and key attributes of all the stuff that comprises our homestead audio-visual system-to-be. Discovered some very good news which simplifies the physical network a lot. The new Sony TVs can be controlled over the Internet – well over our local WiFi network. So, I don’t need an IR extended link from under the stairs to each TV nor do I need a little IR transmitter glued to each TV. And I don’t need a second Centro-CM controller box either, I can use the second one to replicate the same control system in the cottage – putting all the blinking-light stuff out of sight in our wardrobe in the bedroom.

Karola, Bangle, and I went off and did the mid-week shopping – me being so forgetful that I staggered out with one load only to remember things I’d meant to get and tottering off for another load – both so expensive that I had to put my pin in when paying with Apple PayWave. Before the food though we dropped in at Mitre-10 and bought a new can of Glysophate weed killer – I’m almost out – and another pair of wire snips, those little ones about the size of a small pair of pliers but this model has some compact fancy levers that mean you can chomp through lacing wire and the like with ease. On the way home we dropped in at the Artisan coffee shop and got ourselves take-away pick-me-ups, in my case this is usually a ‘large latte’, Karola has the more modest ‘regular flat white’.

In theory one of the sheep could have a lamb between now and the weekend but this is becoming highly improbable and so I decided today would be the official end of lambing 2018. I updated the records and made us each print-outs of the Sheep Tally, the Annual Lambing Report, and the Ewe-Order Lambing sheet.

The Tally has a column for each age-group and a line for each time an adult sheep enters or leaves the flock, when lambing has finished, and at the end of the financial year. The Annual Lambing Report, going back to 2006, lists the lambs and their mums in the order they arrive. The Ewe-Order Lambing sheet is just a large-print working document for taking round the paddocks during lambing. It has the ewes in sequence, a note of their last years lambs and dates, and spaces for this years progeny and when born. This year we have, docked and alive today, 13 ewe lambs and 8 wether lambs and one ‘intact’ ram lamb – the one born to hogget #721 several weeks after all the rest.

Then I did a bit more of the parts list for the homestead audio-visual system during the heat of the afternoon but as soon as it got a bit cooler we did some sheep work. I coaxed the ram into a small pen in the yards and then got the hoggets and ‘drys’ into the yards. There, with help from Karola, I docked the tail of the little ram lamb #829R and put the new tags in his mum, #721, and the one that I mucked up last time, #719. Bangle was with us at the yards and didn’t do anything to help by barking ferociously and rushing about. Luckily Bangle’s so low-slung that the sheep couldn’t see her or her glittering teeth so didn’t take a lot of notice.

After this we merged the flocks so they are now all (sans ram of course) in the Front paddock with daily release onto the homestead lawn and under the big oak.

After dinner I wired down 12 of the 16 Lime tree guards, three ties per guard, and then it was dark.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—21℃ no rain [74.9] IBOrchard

All that standard ramming and then hours in the homestead trying to thread audio-visual cables from roof space to ground level was too much so I had not the most restful of nights, Karola also had a broken night. She, however, got up at the usual time and then called and woke me at about 9:00am. It transpired she’d taken the Landrover over to Tamatea Automotive for its WOF and service and now wanted to be picked up. Which Bangle & I did.

Karola then completing her watering of the Lime trees; she did ten yesterday and the last six this morning, 15mins each with a hose, two at a time.

We returned late afternoon to pick up the Landrover and on the way home I bought us iced coffees from New World in Green Meadows – yum but obviously only for an occasional treat. The Landrover had several holes in its exhaust which needed welding but then it passed its WOF just fine. We showed off electric car Zoe at the garage and Heath (Goldfinch – proprietor) was interested to know how far it would go on a tank (250km easily), how long the batteries lasted (5 – 15 years, gradually deteriorating), and so on.

After dinner, at Karola’s suggestion, as tomorrow’s forecast is for 22℃ with strong winds, I watered the fruit trees.

The rest of the day was spent in the homestead, going from the kitchen to the roof space and back, time and time again, as I threaded wires from one part of the house to another. The kitchen inside wall where the cables end is the same wall that, on the other side, will have shelves holding the audio-visual control boxes under the stairs. For now the kitchen side is the more accessible for threading cables.

Satellite Feed: The cable from the satellite dish on the west end of the homestead now terminates in the kitchen.

Terrestrial HDTV: This will need a normal TV aerial mounted in the roof space. “Faraday Cage” comes to mind but Steve Laracy measured the signal and assured me an aerial mounted inside the roof space would work just fine.

I finished pulling coaxial cables through from the roof space to the Living room and Dining room and added a new coaxial cable from the roof space down to the kitchen. Steve intends to take cables from the under-stairs AV control centre under the house to get to the TV on the new kitchen wall, that is, on the north wall of the old Apple room. By threading a coax from the roof space to the kitchen Steve will be able to extend it to reach the TV in the Apple room..

HDMI Cable from DVD to Matrix Switch: We got that threaded yesterday so today I got a small TV and attached it to the kitchen end of the HDMI cable and played a DVD on it for an hour or so. It worked well.

The next thing I have to do for the homestead audio-visual setup is to make some shelves under the stairs to hold the many control boxes and their numerous wires.

Gill sent a photo recently showing her propagation project, air-layering a branch of her favourite “Adore” dwarf apple tree. If it works well we have lots of opportunities for similar propagations up here.

Gill said: We have a very nice dwarf apple (Adore) which I’d like to keep so in addition to a bunch of cuttings I’m trying air-layering. You remove about 2cm of bark and cambium in an internode area, paint with rooting hormone, pack wet sphagnum moss around it and then cover with plastic then Al foil. Wait for a couple of months and check it. Interesting to see if it works!

Gill Is Air-Layering An “Adore” Dwarf Apple Tree

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—18℃ no rain [74.8] IBOrchard

After breakfast Karola & I, and Bangle, went to the Front paddock and did the final half of the Lime trees, banging in the standards which hold the tree guards in place. It’s really good to get them done, that’s 80 standards in two days. Now I need to wire the guards to the netting so that neither wind nor rubbing sheep dislodge them. Took down the electric fence that was protecting the Limes prior to putting on the guards, and tonight Karola began giving each tree a good long soak.

Quick start-of-week shop.

Rob Findlay’s son, Dylan came round this afternoon and did some re-measurements – he’s putting in the wood burners for us, subcontracting to his Dad. They plan to make a special fire-proof enclosure for the fires but instead of the usual zero-clearance cabinets they’re going to build a masonry surround – it takes less room and it’s cheaper for the two fires.

Turns out that Dylan is a good friend of Kimberley Pedersen, (our hairdresser), he and Kim were part of the same gang at school together. Kim said as much when I mentioned Dylan’s father was the one doing our wood burners. And Dylan’s girl friend is Olivia Dupree, she and her family stayed at Karamu for a few years many years ago. When Dylan told her he was doing a job in a big house in Oak Avenue she asked if it was Karamu Homestead where she used to live. They dug up a nice photo of Karamu from 1930s or 1940s (below). It shows where the chimneys were before the 1931 earthquake knocked them down.

I, with help from Karola, she in the homestead kitchen, me up in the roof space, attempted to thread a thick HDMI cable from the inside kitchen wall up to the roof space and down the chimney void to the living room. Steve Laracy has drilled two 25mm holes in the wall plates at the first floor ceiling and floor levels but there are so many wires going through them that the HDMI plug would not go through. After much ado I pulled the four existing cables out of one of the holes, threaded the HDMI cable, then threaded back the four wires initially occupying the space. The 20-metre HDMI cable is intended to transmit signal from a DVD player in the living room to the AV control centre under the stairs and it looks as if it will be just long enough. It’s always gratifying to reuse some expensive bit of kit that outlived its original use – such as the high-quality 20-metre HDMI cable.

Lime Tree Avenue With Tree Guards

Old Photos Of Karamu Homestead Seen On Hawkes Bay KnowledgeBank Today

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—17℃ no rain [74.8] IBOrchard

We awoke to Hymns On Sunday as usual but then had to scramble to be on our way up the Taihape road to Peter Arthur’s farm. The farm used to be the home of Touchwood Books until he sold the business. There we joined the small IDS party on their way home after attending Bob Berry’s commemoration service at his Hackforth’s arboretum the day before.

IDS visited Peter’s place and went on to the Hallidays a few kilometres up the Whanawhana road, in Beamish Country. The Beamish family own thousands of hectares of land and have done so for 130 years, gradually selling parcels off as is the usual history of those early land-grabs. The Halliday’s bought their two hectares from the Beamishes 18 years ago as a 100-year old cottage in a bare paddock.

We’ve not seen Peter Arthur’s tree planting before. He has several acres and over his lifetime he has acquired an eclectic collection of trees. These are housed in a motley set of tree guards, the best one being a small guard made of horse fence.

After 2 – 3 hours scrambling round with Peter we drove off in convoy to the Hallidays.

At the Halliday’s we had a rather good buffet lunch including a large GF almond cake for those of us needing gluten free. Then, a stroll round Dan’s own lifetime of eclectic plantings, they began with bare paddocks on a windswept hillside only 18 years ago.

We arrived home mid afternoon much to Bangle’s relief and then, late afternoon, started ramming in the five standards for each of the tree guards protecting the new Tilia (Tilia Europaea – English common lime) trees. We completed eight of the sixteen today.

The Drive To “Curly” Dan & Monique Halliday’s House An Hour West Of Napier

Dan & Monique Halliday Welcome The IDS Party

Monique’s Influence – Their Visually Stimulating Living Room

A Lovely Lunch Spread For The Ravenous IDS Visitors

Main Blossoms Were Crabapple Trees – Delightful

The Largest Of Dan’s Three Dams

Half The Lime Tree Guards Safely Staked – 40 Metal Standards

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—19℃ 2.1mm rain [74.5]

We carted the 16 refurbished large tree guards over to the lime trees and placed them in position ready for the great staking.

I gave the 13 Red Beech saplings by the 133 entrance another long soaking using the “professional sprinkler” I bought yesterday.

Postie’s van tooted outside and it was Karola’s new second-hand butfactory refurbished iPad 3. I cold not resist but spent much of the rest of the day setting it up and setting up Karola’s iPhone 5S to be as similar as possible to the iPad.

Karola’s iPhone has allowed her to send TXTs and Apple iMessages all the time but the iPhone actually got denied access to iMessages through her AppleID many weeks ago. I tried and failed to fix it, it was taking too long so I just found a work-around using Karola’s mobile phone number. But she’s never been able to send or receive TXTs (iMessages) on her iPad and I resolved to fix this problem. I have no problem on my stable of iThings nor, using a different AppleID on her devices either.

A few frustrating hours later I basically threw in the towel and called Apple helpline. I’d read that Apple didn’t charge for issues to do with AppleIDs and also there was a hint that under some circumstances Apple actually blocked specific AppleIDs so they stopped working. The upshot was that, some time ago, someone advised Apple that Karola’s AppleID, karola@brackenbury.nz, had sent them a spam TXT. So Apple had blocked her AppleID from sending any further messages, without telling us. All my hours of trying to fix the problem were completely in vain as nothing I could do personally would fix it. Now the AppleID is unblocked and all is working as desired, but after rather a lot of my time wasted attempting the impossible.

The sheep and lambs spent several hours on the lawn until Karola banished them back to the Front paddock just before dinner. They’ve eaten the lawn down to where they don’t see much difference between their Front paddock and the lawn, so it’s time to regroup them and mover to fresh pastures.

Gill Sent This Handsome Picture Of The Primula’s I Gave Her

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—15℃ no rain [74.2] IBOrchard

Ah, the weekend shopping.

It began with my six-weekly haircut where I asked for something a bit less like a retired banker – not wanting to be among the first up against the wall come the revolution. There were mutterings about how “product” was needed to make it more spiky and up-to-date but I resisted with ease. Later when getting the weekly GF bread in Cornucopia the assistant didn’t recognise me although usually she does. “It’s the hair”. Even Karola noticed something was different. Included here so that daughters will still recognise me.

After getting the weekend food at New World and the health-food shop, Cornucopia, I dropped into Bunnings looking for shade netting to complete the fruit tree guards. All they had was 2 metres wide. I picked up a “professional” irrigation sprinkler, remembering that our sprinkler towers had all become dis-functional over the past decade or so and summer being on the way. Used it this evening on the 13 Red Beech saplings by the 133 gateway.

Next it was Artisan to pick up a couple of coffees and friands for lunch, and on to Farmlands:

• 2.5 litres of Magnum anti-lice & anti-blowfly pour-on treatment for the sheep
• A (relatively) cheap plastic gun for applying said magnum – given the old one leaks so much air it’s impractical to use
• One medium sized male yellow ear tag – so that I can give the unfortunate hogget #719 her proper adult tag ($0.83)
• Ten more 1.65m metal standards, extras needed to meet Karola’s new rule of five standards per tree guard – for the new fruit trees
• The large jar of 2.50mm wire crimps was not available
• No shade netting

The only supplies needed to complete the fruit tree guards were the standards and 50m of shade netting, one metre high. So, off to The Plant Shop in Pakowhai road but only two metre wide and very expensive. But, and this only happens in New Zealand, the assistant said, why not try Fruit Fed (a competitor). Of course, so back I went to Stortford Lodge – Fruit Fed. is across the road from Farmlands – and to my delight they had just one role, one-metre x 50 metres and cheap.

By now it was well into the afternoon. Karola had finished her 16th refurbished tree guard in the morning and so we have tree guards for each of the 16 lime trees. Previously I bought tall deer netting and shade netting to match thinking I would need to make the lime tree guards but this has been superseded by Karola’s donation of refurbished guards. So, what to do with the (materials ready to construct) 16 tall tree guards. Top candidate now is a row of Lombardy Poplars along the fence between the Middle paddock and Long Acre – next autumn. Iconic Hawkes Bay, Lombardy Poplars.

Karola & I replaced one of her large tree guards on the Sweet Chestnut that isn’t thriving under the shade of an old and damaged Catalpa in the trees by the sheep yards. This involved banging in standards, trying the guard by slipping it carefully over the 3-metre tall Chestnut, cursing when it didn’t fit, pulling out the standards, banging them in again closer to the tree – repeat until exasperated. Third time lucky – well it’s a bit tight but we made it work. A bit of basic maths would have helped but doing it “by eye” is somehow more authentic and satisfying.

Later I watered the 13 Red beech by the 133 gateway and the 23 Red Beech “root trainers” for a couple of hours. Let the sheep onto the homestead lawn and under the big oak, and closed the 121 road gates to ensure no prison escapes while we sleep.

New Profile Photo

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—21℃ no rain [74.4] IBOrchard

Late start to the day and time outside was mainly spent watering trees by bucket:

• the seven fruit trees in our micro-orchard
• the 16 Lime trees along the northern boundary of the Front paddock
• the 13 Red Beech on the left-hand side of the 133 entrance (at Karola’s suggestion done with a hose and sprinkler)

Now that Karola has set the rules for tree guards at five standards per guard I sorted out whether I had enough and seems that, because the Persimmon’s old guard was using particularly short standards, I need another bundle of 1.65m ones to complete the micro-orchard.

First thing I consulted with Karola and she agreed that as her original iPad was basically dead I could get her a replacement second-hand one via TradeMe. So it’ll arrive in a few days – a 16GB (ie the very smallest) iPad 3 – two generations newer and the last iPads to have the same 30-pin connector as the original iPad, for $185 delivered.

Discovered ewe #224 dead under the Sitka Spruce by the long wooden gate into the Front paddock – must have died in the last 24 hours. And Karola discovered a still-born lamb delivered several days ago behind a log in the Goose paddock. We will try to identify the mother next time we get them in the yards.

After dinner I buried the corpses in the “death pit” so at least it’s not the first job for me in the morning.

Sunny Hawkes Bay – The 121 Driveway

Karola’s Leased Organic Orchard – Apple Blossom

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—22℃ no rain [74.0] IBOrchard

Off to a good start this morning, even though the grass was still pretty damp I mowed the tear-drop lawn and the lawn in front of the homestead garage before tractor mowing along the 121 driveway, the Goose paddock, and the eastern half of the Long Acre. Shaken, rattled, and rolled for sure.

Watered the Red Beech root trainer saplings again for a couple of hours.

A little more email problem solving with Bruce of Otaki and together we seem to have cracked it. I am so fortunate not to live on the fringes of communications coverage, poor Bruce has very patchy Internet connection whether it be by satellite or telephone wire or cellphone towers – he has low speed connections and regular drop-outs. What a mess.

Caught up with the emails and bills that should have been done on Sunday and then did the mid-week shopping in Hastings. Also got some more crimps for joining the wires to make netting hoops for Karola’s tree guards as she’s almost run out.

Around midday Karola said she thought she could see that one of the hogget ewes had had a lamb. She was right.

Mid morning Karola remarked that her old, favourite iPad would not start up. I tried and had to admit it wouldn’t start for me either. So I took it with me into Hastings and went to Fix IT, (909 Heretaunga St, 06 878 6501). A very pleasant Indian woman got it started again – I think they must have extra powerful chargers that punch old iPads into life. The lock-screen showed up so I was pretty happy that we had a chance of reviving it.

I explained at some length Karola’s devotion to that particular model, a first-generation iPad we went to Melbourne to buy on 14th July 2010. It has the original 30-pin connector. Apple keeps changing the connector making the new versions of iThings need new cables, pshaw! And that iPad had a nice keyboard which incorporated a stand for the iPad in portrait mode. The iPads we’ve purchased since have incompatible connectors so the keyboard only works with the original iPad antique.

Karola is used to and DOES NOT WANT TO CHANGE to a different keyboard, hence her devotion to the original iPad. Got the iPad home and it will not behave, just starts up and then closes down, and starts up again. I tried restoring it to factory settings but it will not do that, says it has an unknown and irrecoverable error.

So, as the woman at Fix IT suggested, I shall look for the most recent second-hand iPad with the right connector to replace the dead one.

After dinner of Fish & Chips with added vegetable – also obtained on the earlier shopping trip – I went and verified that yes, hogget ewe #721 had a ram lamb, #829R. I got the rest of the hoggets and yet-to-lamb ewes int the yards and replaced the hoggets ear tags with the new ones, with our name spelled correctly and the name and number on both tags this time.

Almost without incident. One poor hogget, #719, lunged violently at the worst moment and tore her new tag out. Oh and the ram, temporarily put out of the way in a central pen in the yards, got so excited that he gave up trying to butt me and leapt over the side of the race on top of the hoggets and ewes. I managed to wrestle him out of there before he began procreating in ernest. He only takes a New York minute.

From inspection I’d say that maybe one more hogget will have a lamb but the rest, and the older ewes that haven’t lambed, won’t have a lamb this year.

As dusk fell Bangle & I trotted round the orchard. Because, as hoped, taking Bangle round the orchard is a regular habit, we want a record of just how often we remember to do it. To avoid the endless repetition I will from now on just make a note at the bottom of each entry:

• IB-Orchard – Ian & Bangle go round the orchard
• KB-Orchard – Karola & Bangle go round the orchard
• IKB-Orchard – We both take Bangle round the orchard

— and if the walk is somewhere else we’ll note that. The orchard walk is just under a kilometre and takes 10 – 20 minutes.

Eastern End Of The Long Acre, Looking South

Eastern End Of The Long Acre, Looking West

Looking West Across The Goose Paddock

Looking North Across the Goose Paddock

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—18℃ 0.1mm rain [74.3] IB-Orchard

I spent what seemed like most of the day working on email problems. For Bridget I was trying to get sending emails from our new hosting site – sending them by program I mean – to work. As it happened i just got bogged down in stuff that didn’t work but when Bridget got home from work she made one simple change and her stuff all worked. Annoying for me, but main thing is that her stuff is all operational now on the new hosting platform.

The other thing was Bruce Utting calling re an email problem with his computer. That I don’t begrudge one little bit – it’s fine and it’ll be a sad day when no-one wants my assistance any more. But, no, today I wasn’t any help at all.

So it’s 3:00pm and I haven’t started on today’s job-sheet.

Karola is still converting tree guards for her 17 Willow Oaks from ones with shade netting around the outside to ones which are just the netting, “see-through” as she calls them. Karola has completed another one today and is part-way through another two. Only three to go after that.

I mowed the cottage lawn and most of the curtilage today, going without a shirt for the first half an hour, it was a glorious warm day with hardly a breeze. It was dark by the time I stopped and I still have the teardrop lawn in front of the cottage garage to do, and the “D” lawn in front of the homestead garage.

Watered the seven new fruit trees and also the 23 Red Beech saplings bought in root-trainers, heeled into one of Karola’s raised beds.

Bangle & I waltzed round the orchard in record time as it was nearly dinner time.

Bangle’s Private Sunbrella

Grass Is Shooting Up – As It Does Here In The Spring

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—21℃ no rain [74.0]

Tested my 20-metre long HDMI cable with the Oppo DVD player on one end and one of the new homestead TVs on the other. Worked.

Sheep & lambs let in under the oak again.

I went shopping in the morning with Bangle in Zoe. All good.

Most of the day working on the web space transfer – still a long way to go but i need to try out the more arcane aspects of what we can do before the 30-day money-back offer runs out. But given the effort that Bridget has put in already i don’t see backing out now would be very easy.

Karola refurbished another two tree guards making 11 in all. Only five more to go.

Karola & I went to EIT for a 6:00pm lecture by Professor Maryanne Garry, NZ Institute of Security and Crime Science, University of Waikato.

The talk was a sequence of entertaining anecdotes – of where memory had let people down in dramatic ways – interlaced with a little science.

Prof. Garry endorsed a book I have always considered important, Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Khaneman.

She reminded us of the nuclear missile arming password, set to six zeroes for most of the cold war – because a useful password would be too hard to remember under stress. Amazed us with research, hers and others, showing how quickly accurate memory attenuates and how easily people in very stressful situations mis-identify other people. And the ease with which a little suggestion can change one’s memory of events is staggering – and it happens to people trying hard to be objective and truthful. There was a fascinating clip of Hilary Clinton’s terrible mis-remembering of a visit to Afghanistan I think – as she told millions of TV viewers it was a dangerous and stressful trip. Evidence from on the ground reporters showed it was anything but. There is absolutely no way that was deliberate lying.

As she ended Prof. Garry reinforced something I’d fairly recently bumped into – that the memories which last – of a holiday, an assignment, a bit-of-a-do – are the highest or lowest moment and the moment at the end.

Made me reflect that the English stereotype of a bobby with his notebook is a really good idea. As Prof. Garry said, if you are involved or witness a traumatic incident, write down what you saw and heard, and don’t talk to anyone first.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—20℃ no rain [74.5]