Monthly Archives: December 2018

A few more cards arrived today from the UK. And while Karola read the latest “Bumper Christmas edition” of the Economist I did a little light shopping. Temperature up to 32℃ in Hastings and not many shops open.

An afternoon for reading and snoozing. Once it started cooling down I completed the weekly mowing, the cottage curtilage, using Karola’s green Victra mower which is much much lighter than the self-propelling Honda.

Got a couple more mushrooms from the orchard while escorting Bangle round – we’ve had just a couple a day for the last three days. Weather that’s good for mushrooms is also good for Facial Eczema so Karola is right to be taking sheep precautions.

Oak Avenue Weather:18℃—29℃ no rain [75.7] IBOrchard

Still a bit groggy from the excitement and travelling of Christmas, Henare popped round at about 10:30am and spent the next six hours mowing the lawns round the homestead, the ones we don’t graze the sheep on. That includes the circle and its centre-piece the Ginkgo tree, and inside the drip-line of the 43 metre tall Liriodendron. About 30 minutes before Henare finished the propulsion cable on the mower broke so he had to push it. And now it’ll need a trip to the shop to fix it and perhaps have a service at the same time.

Some will know that my most recent email byline is

««« I’d rather be in New Zealand »»»

I am apparently not alone. Peter Clemerson sent me the link.

Hover over the dark green places on the map and compare the different increases.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—29℃ no rain [76.3] IKBOrchard

Karola & I trundled over to Middle Road this morning and picked up 15 bales of pea straw – the last 156 bales that was good quality and hadn’t been rained on. Nimmon Bailing had another 1000 or so that were ruined except as garden compost.

Kirsty & Bruce dropped by for lunch as planned on their way from Otaki to the Mahia.

I just finished mowing the cottage lawn as they arrived.

Janet Scott dropped in offering tangelos from her daughter Helen’s tree, and complimenting me on the clean state of the drives and under the big oak.

Bridget and grand-daughters are back in contact again at last – they’ve had no phone coverage while on their Whanganui water trip.

From Bridget: The Eponymous Bridge To Nowhere

Natalie’s Christmas Present For Her Grandfather

Fifteen Bales Of Pea Straw Destined For Karola’s Hay Shed

Park-like Under The Big Oak

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—27℃ no rain [75.8] IBOrchard

Karola & I, leaving Bangle to hold the fort, went off to SwimGym (me) and replenish the larder for the weekend (Karola).

Karola, having put the sheep into the Goose paddock with it’s shade and shorter grass, as a precaution against Facial Eczema, put some of her metal portable gates round the goose sunken bath and the raupo reeds we planted last autumn – they had begun to sprout but something – sheep or goose or rabbit – nibbled off the shoots.

With much chatting with HostPapa online help desk I did finally get the email passwords sorted out. Part of what tripped me up was that only certain not-so-special special characters are allowed in passwords, and some applications don’t allow any special characters. But the administrative program lets you set them with any characters you want, leading to confusion, annoyance, and frustration.

Late afternoon I tractor-mowed under the big oak and down the 121 driveway and behind the homestead garage.

Then, after dinner, back to working on my emails and domains and other such stuff.

Bridget and our grand-daughters are incommunicado somewhere on the Whanganui river. As husband Chris reassured me, they are probably not sending photos or messages because they have no cell-phone signal.

Gill said it’s a lovely day down in Wellington; she’s sitting, reading on her deck while the menfolk are out at Zealandia – seeking out new life forms and boldly going …

Ben Bell, aka Gill’s Husband aka “Gandalf” In Typical Pose

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—21℃ 1.4mm rain [76.3] IKBOrchard

A slow start after the long drive yesterday. Then Yvonne Wier dropped by as planned for morning tea and a catch-up on family affairs.

After lunch it was Chris Ormond and his two daughters; he was on a delivery round for his special beer and looking after the girls at the same time. I’d offered him some raspberries – pretty much the last of my crop that Karola & I picked yesterday evening. Only a small saucepan full but it was good to see him and have a chat anyway.

Then, also as expected, Darea Lewington, widow of Rodney Lewington who I knew slightly from my days at the Dept Statistics back in the 1960s, and better more recently from Karola’s family occasions of which Darea is usually part. I like Darea, who is about our age, because she is very definitely an intelligent live wire and speaks her mind. Darea’s brother, Gary Sherrat, a polo enthusiast, brought her over then went off to pick up his wife Jan who is a vet working for MPI – on the meat side, returning later to retrieve Darea.

Henare popped in to borrow Karola’s mower and dropped it off early evening. He says son Scott is intending to bring his partner CoCo down at new year and this will cause some tensions with Scott’s mum, Denise. Henare is not looking forward to the interactions.

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—21℃ 1.3mm rain [75.8] IBOrchard

It rained and was quite misty. I took Bangle for a walk along the Hutt river stop-bank again in preparation for the trip.

We left Annemarie’s after breakfast doing a detour to Bridget’s in Khandallah to pick up Karola’s handbag. Having gone back that far we went on up the west coast instead of back up through the Wairarapa as karola initially intended, which in hind sight would have been a faster option.

All went well until we got within seven kilometres of Otaki where roadworks in Otaki had caused a long tailback. However, once past Otaki it was plain sailing again and we stopped at Shannon for lunch – nibbles from our own coolie bin plus coffee from Highway 57 Bakery & Cafe. No credit cards, no gluten-free food at all, but quite good coffee and clean and cheerful. Took Bangle for a brief walk but we were scared off by some fierce yard dogs which threatened to jump over their fence to get us. Karola took us over the Pahiatua Track then left towards the Manawatu Gorge and on to Woodville. We stopped at Woodville and at a Caltex petrol station I got myself a coffee and Karola an ice-cream on a stick and then I drove until we got to Waipawa where at another stop I got an ice-cream on a stick from a small grocery store and Karola took over the driving again. We could have done without the ice-creams and the coffee.

Arrived home late afternoon, in time to check all was well before tumbling into bed, fairly exhausted. Bangle very pleased to be home I think.

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

Took Bangle along the river stop bank again. After breakfast we set off in the Landrover and Annemarie’s car to Bridget’s intending to be there at Alex’s requested time of around 10:30am.

Bridget provided nibbles before the present-giving ceremony. Natalie surprised me by giving me a rather good metal sculpture of a cockerel – it now has pride of place on top of our cottage wood burner, at least until we need a fire again. Annemarie gave Karola & me Thermos coffee cups which will be particularly useful and environmentally friendly as we’ve taken to having coffee from the Artisan Cafe in Hastings a couple of times a week. Bridget got me novels including one that is allegedly a delayed birthday present, the latest in the Rivers of London series which I thoroughly enjoy. Karola & I gave each other heavy tomes, books we’d decided we’d like to have some time ago – so at least we knew they’d be appreciated.

Natalie talked about her trip to Houston with quite a large group of girls from colleges around Wellington – the Junior Space School trip, with lots of photos shown on their big TV. Natalie returned on the Friday before Christmas.

Bridget’s usual bountiful Christmas lunch along with large amounts of pudding that was both sugar-laden, calorie-laden, gluten-free, and delicious – so how could I resist. Bridget did her trademark pavlova and Annemarie contributed chocolate brownies and strawberry sauce to the dangerous delights.

Karola took Bangle for a walk round the block and we took her up to Kelburn Park for another one late afternoon. After the usual after-lunch Christmas film we wound slowly down and eventually set off back to Annemarie’s in Upper Hutt. I gave Bangle a last walk along the stop bank before putting her in her crate for the night.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—27℃ no rain [?]

SwimGym

Walked bangle quickly round the orchard as she has a long drive, hours of of inactivity ahead of her.

Packed for the couple of days we expect to be away. We chose to go in the Landrover because the anticipated hassle of refilling the all-electric Zoe was too much and the Subaru is still on the endangered list because of an unfulfilled recall for faulty airbags. Not to worry, they only kill you when supposed to be saving you, in an accident.

Off we went late morning, stopping at Waipukurau (Hatuma Cafe) for a coffee and at Dannevirke for another one. While I got the refreshments Karola sought out, and found, hearing aid batteries for her second-best set of VERY EXPENSIVE hearing aids. I think she hears pretty well without any aids – when the occasion demands. We took the eastern route down the Wairarapa stopping at Masterton for a bio-break and to give Bangle a bit of time to stretch her (diminutive) legs. Bangle and I looked at the aviary, admiring the bantams, the peacock, the pigeons, and the parrots of various sorts. We also strolled through the fernery.

I remembered just in time as we were almost past it that Masterton has a Moore Wilson grocery store so we stopped and filled up with edible delights. They do some splendid snacks.

Got to Bridget’s place late afternoon and it was clear from the recent return from trips and the imminent setting off on another trip to Whanganui on Boxing Day that it’d be better if we stayed the night at Annemarie’s in Upper Hutt – so after dinner we went back there for the night.

We’d planned to have fish & chips for dinner but all the local shops were closed so instead I walked with Bangle up to the local New World and got fresh fish and vegetables which Bridget cooked for dinner.

Up in Upper Hutt Annemarie spoils me with snacks and we have a very comfortable bed there, and Bangle is used to sleeping in her crate in Annemarie’s laundry. I took Bangle for a long walk along the Hutt river stop-bank and round the adjacent sports field; it was raining so Bangle got rather damp.

After the long drive Karola & I both slept soundly.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—19℃ 31.7mm rain [75.3]

Did the last of the Christmas present preparation.

Karola baked the special bread mix that Dave Moss sent with Chris More from the UK a few weeks back. It is delicious and is certainly crusty.

Mid afternoon Karola, Bangle, and I went to Clive and had a long walk along the lime cycle track that runs along the stop banks and the wetlands down by the sea.

I did a little more investigation into what we did in the last two years, in case I get motivated to produce an end-of-year summary email for friends & family.

Mowed cottage lawns and curtilage as dusk fell and it rained shortly afterwards so that was all fortuitous.

On The Beach At Clive

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—23℃ 18.4mm rain [74.8] IBOrchard

Bit of a slow day here. I did pick raspberries that ripened over the last few days and took the brimming small saucepan to Noel & Jenny Hendery in Napier – we’ve had enough raspberries for now.

Email stuff seems to be coming right although I’m still a bit dubious about Google’s G-Suite forwarding.

Am a bit sad because looking through the photos for the last twelve months it’s the happy pictures of Karola with Labradoodle puppy Bracket that are the most vibrant.

After the recent bit of rain and the serious haircut I gave the One Acre paddock it really has greened up splendidly with most of the colour being lucerne – just what Karola wants.

Natalie came back from America yesterday, her Junior Space Cadet adventure with NASA in Houston. The travel over was marred by delays at Auckland airport – about an hour late taking off – but much worse on the way back as they were delayed for eight hours in America and thus missed their connection in Auckland and had another wait, longer than planned, in Auckland. But Natalie is home in one piece, very very tired and with a bit of a cold.

Meanwhile Ben & Gill, Paul & Jean, Kate & Ross drove to KeriKeri then flew to Auckland and on to Wellington – all without incident.

Front Paddock On Left, One Acre Lucerne Crop On Right

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—23℃ no rain [74.4] IKBOrchard

SwimGym

After breakfast we all went off for the weekend shopping in Hastings, ending with getting a couple of coffees from the Artisan Cafe.

Showers on and off all day but pleasantly warm. Karola & I did an hour or so stint of destroying Scotch thistles, lots had flower heads but we were just in time for a couple of large ones which were in flower.

Struggled all day and most of the evening with email – just one long string of mini-disasters after another. Despite all this we’ve lost a couple of days of emails but are now back online. Some would-be communicators will be surprised that they cannot send us emails unless they have the SSL security feature switched on in their mail programme. It encrypts the messages as they go across the Internet – a good thing but disconcerting when you meet it for the first time. I know how to change the mail program settings so we’ll not be bounced ourselves.

Karola Under Big Lime Tree – A-Thistling We Did Go

And Now It’s Christmas

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—23℃ 5.5mm rain [74.8] IBOrchard

Gosh the entire day seems to have been a struggle with email servers. Got all the
stuff transferred as of Tuesday and in consultation with the HostPapa help desk made
the changes to let the mail server switch begin. Right now I’m not getting mail at
either old or new server – maybe it’ll heal itself overnight, maybe.

I did get going on my reorganisation of online information using Things 3, Bear, and
Apple Mail. All three can talk to each other and are available on computers,
iPhones, and iPads. At least that was a little progress.

Karl & Wendy turned up with three grandchildren and our bill for yesterday’s sheep
work.

Karola got some old photos enlarged and duplicated today – we picked them up late
afternoon.

More families of quail pecking their way along the lawns and drives, from singletons
with grown-up plumage to hordes of just-hatched little balls of fluff.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—22℃ 9.2mm rain [74.4] IKBOrchard

SwimGym

Filled tractor with 15 litres diesel, one of the two jerrycans I got late evening yesterday. Emptied the big trailer of mulch, it was almost full. Cut down a handful of young walnut trees self-sown under their parent tree behind the homestead garage – one of the two big old walnuts due for demolition early next year.

Zoomed into Hastings for mid-week food getting us coffees from the Artisan Cafe on the way home.

Karl and his grandson arrived soon after lunch to crutch the lambs. It’s very favourable conditions for fly strike so we’ve had the lambs crutched and all the sheep sprayed with Magnum (withholding for meat of zero days). I also cornered the little ram lamb, destined to be The Man for next year’s mating, and popped him in with the current Man who is about five times his size. Ram lamb’s mum seemed anxious not to lose him but it was hard to see if he cared one way or the other.

Later, after more irritating mucking about with email – the transfer to the new hosting provider, HostPapa – Karola, Bangle, and i tootled off in Zoe to pick up some Christmas presents Karola was having embroidered in Hastings.

Finally I got round to the first priority of the day, thank goodness the forecast rain held off, to finish the mulching of the Catalpa. The Caravaggi chipper/shredder that we call our mulcher still makes ghastly mechanical thrashing sounds for several minutes while it gets into its stride – we don’t know why, Hawkes Bay Tractor Dismantlers don’t know why. And it jammed again, but only the once, which means undoing eight bolts, opening it up, clearing the jam, and putting the bolts back. Thank heavens for ratchet socket wrenches.

Gill, Ben, and entourage are still way up north, today on a day trip to Cape Rienga.

Cape Rienga Lighthouse

Wilding Walnut & Caro Bound For Mulching

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—27℃ 1.9mm rain [74.3] IKBOrchard

While I struggled with email account transfers Karola did a sterling job of
re-returning the cottage garage to order and tidying up much of the years of clutter
making it hard to negotiate around let alone find anything.

Gill et al are still up north enjoying their first summer holiday.

A Fush Without Any Chups – Gill The Handler

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—30℃ no rain [74.2] IBOrchard

SwimGym with Karola quite early

Karola got her hair done while I did the start-week shopping including getting a
long-handled socket wrench to try and budge the nuts on the mulcher flywheel. They
had been tightened by Hawkes Bay Tractor Dismantlers using a compressed air torque
wrench. Misery compounded when I found that the long-handled wrench needed socket
attachments one size larger than my set. My Stanley box of tricks is 3/8 inch, the
new handle needed 1/2 inch – so back to Mitre-10 I went. Fortunately the escapade
was successful, just. By stampling with my boot on the end of the wrench I managed
to loosen the nuts. And then unjamming the mulcher was pretty easy.

And in between times I too had a hair cut.

The Expeditionary Force Up North

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—24℃ no rain [75.2] IBOrchard

Henare came over and helped me begin mulching up the piles of branches from recent
pruning – the lower limbs of the Goose paddock Copper Beech in particular. Just as
we finished that the mulcher jammed more comprehensively than usual. So we finished
the afternoon by picking up and stacking firewood instead.

Gill, Ben, twin brother Paul and his wife Jean, Paul’s daughter kate and her partner
Ross all flew up to Auckland today and then on to KeriKeri, hiring two cars for
their holiday even further north based in Mangonui

Another Load Of Oak Firewood

Karola’s Lucerne Coming Away Very Well In The One Acre Paddock

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—23℃ no rain [74.6] IKBOrchard

I spent the day struggling to clean up my email; plenty more to do yet.

Sheep spent the day on the homestead lawn.

Karola is typing up her mother Cynthia’s old letters which is quite a feat as they are hand written and faded.

Henare came after work and dug us a new “pit” – in our light clay subsoil it isn’t hard and Henare did a very clean job. It took him about 21/2 hours and the pit is approximately 2 metres by 1 metre and 800mm deep. It’d be nice if we didn’t need it but experience says we’ll have a resident before the summer is out.

I prepared the Caravaggi chipper/mulcher for work, changing the centre blade and attaching it to the new tractor. Then I emptied the big trailer and one of Karola’s little Cyclone pup trailers of their firewood, some of it adding to the wood in the side-mounted old apple boxes and the rest, most of it, onto a new pile along the 121 driveway for Henare and cousins to take away when it suits.

There’s been a noisy event at the Sports Grounds, about half a kilometre east of us, ending in some VERY loud fireworks which had poor Bangle shivering with fright – some sort of Christmas party I’ll be bound.

Henare Ormond, Karola’s Cousin, Digs A New Pit

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—24℃ 1.4mm rain [75.0] IKBOrchard

SwimGym

Tom from Peak Plumbing & Gas came at 9:00am as planned. He took a look at the top of our hot water cylinder and confirmed that this was the source of our leak. He reconnected the external screw fitting, applying the tape that stops leaks. He said that the connection hadn’t been packed at all so I guess we were lucky it’d taken so long for a leak to appear. I wonder which other plumbing connections are likewise un-packed. It was Grayson Allen’s team that installed the cylinder and the water radiators for central heating some years ago.

Karola got rid of the puddle in the tray under the cylinder and we checked throughout the day; it’s not leaking any more.

Shopping for the weekend.

Bridget and family (minus the space cadet, Natalie, of course) enjoyed the beach and caves at Cathedral Cove in the Coromandel yesterday. Today it was The 309 Road, the Waterworks, and the water-fall and Kauri trees in Waiau. The young lady in the photos is Alex.

https://thewaterworks.co.nz/visitor-info/the-309-road/

I spent the day beginning to sort out my jumbled email and planning the organisation of my online material. It’s going to take a while. I have thousands of duplicated emails from some time last year when something scrambled my email – no idea what did it. So my email files are huge, and I need to find a way to weed out the duplicates.

I heard from Gill today that Ben’s twin brother Paul and his wife Jean have arrived from the UK for the beginning of their 2018 New Zealand holiday.

Neighbour Janet Scott came round for a chat mid afternoon, giving us some cherries and leaving bearing raspberries and rhubarb.

Another Cup And A Half Of Raspberries, And There Are More To Come.

Cathedral Cove – Coromandel

Waiau Falls – Coromandel

Waiau Kauri Trees – Coromandel

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—23℃ 2.1mm rain [75.2] IBOrchard

Builder Paul Libby arrived just as we were surfacing after 8:00am this morning. It didn’t take him long to disassemble the front of the cupboard holding the cottage hot water cylinder but in so doing he found the source of the leak, not underneath but from a join at the top of the cylinder. The water was trickling down the back of the cylinder where we couldn’t see it so looked as if it were coming from the base of the cylinder. So maybe we’ll get a new cylinder, maybe we won’t.

Last night we discussed the TVs that I’ve installed in the homestead, rather prematurely seeing as we’ll not be in there to live for months. When Karola heard that my reason for this was to have the programmable TVs attached to my weird and wonderful electronics so that i could try to program an iPad app to select channels etc she suggested i bring the TVs to the cottage, replacing the TVs we have here and use that as the development site. That. way the new TVs won’t get dusty and potentially damaged while the building work is going on and nor will they look odd and out of place while the homestead is still in its pre-renovation state.

So I spent much of today just moving the stuff over and hooking it up.

Peter FitzPatrick called in with Christmas cheer from John Bostock, our orchardist who leases Karola’s orchard – four bottles of wine from the Bostock vineyard.

Mid afternoon I went into Hastings to pick up another copy of Lyn Sturm’s book about her grandfather and get an inside small aerial for the cottage so that my experiments can include Freeview terrestrial broadcasts.

Henare called in after work to borrow Karola’s lawn mower, returning it later once he’d finished.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—23℃ 0.5mm rain [74.6] IKBOrchard

SwimGym with Karola

Later we went to do the mid-week shopping and get some presents for Christmas Day in Wellington.

Mucked about on computer all day. I have so much to do and feel that I am flailing about in circles. Not helped by fiddly online process to register with Forsyth-Barr for KiwiSaver and then request transfer from ANZ to them for both Karola and my accounts. Stupid website needed DOB but only allowed date-of-birth years back to 1948 – really! And so I had to scan and send copies of pages of passports to proved DOB. And the website forms are so badly designed that my password manager (DashLane) thought the username field was a password field. This is 2018, you’d think that sort of thing would have been sorted long ago, DashLane doesn’t have that problem with any other website I’ve visited.

Henare called in to borrow Karola’s lawn mower but it started to rain in earnest soon after he left so he returned without mowing his lawns in a couple of hours time. It’s Henare’s birthday tomorrow, he’s 58.

Alex in Whitianga At Bone Carving School

Likewise Bridget

One Bone Carved Masterpiece Each: Chris, Alex, Bridget

Wearing Their New Bone Fashion Accessories: Alex & Bridget

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—23℃ 5.7 rain [74.4] IKBOrchard

Karola popped the sheep for sale into the yards and shooed the ram out of the Middle paddock into the Goose/Ram paddock.

James Russell (Jimmy Rural) arrived around 9:00am as expected and gave Karola good prices for her nine wether lambs and three cull ewes. Well four of the nine lambs were very good, the other five pretty marginal. All up $1245 plus GST.

Bangle woke up whining this morning with, we suspect, a tummy ache. Maybe it was the raspberries she wolfed down 48 hours ago; maybe it was the de-worming tablets I gave her yesterday. Anyway, eventually she was sick outside and by afternoon was much livelier, pretty much back to normal by this evening.

I spent most of the day immersed in computer stuff – trying to learn about some new software. BBC and the BREXIT saga diverted us for a while.

Karola got some cakes from Bay Espresso in case they were needed for afternoon tea with our financial adviser Chris Day. He came as planned at 3:00pm and we discussed how to move our ANZ KiwiSaver accounts to Forsyth-Barr – it seems straightforward. He also put a positive spin on how badly the markets had fared in the last three months.

Later I did pick up one load of sawn up firewood from behind the homestead garage using the tractor bucket to ferry it from deep in the periwinkle and blackberry out to the big trailer.

Anna Natusch dropped by to chat to Karola late afternoon.

Bridget & Family Have Clear View Of Ruapehu From Taihape On Way To Whitianga

Bridget’s Trip To Coromandel – Driving Creek Railway & Pottery

Yes There Is A Railway (Publicity Photo)

Bridget’s Trip To Coromandel – Hot Water Beach

Bridget’s Trip To Coromandel – Cathedral Cove From The Sea

Bridget’s Trip To Coromandel – Very Friendly Dolphins

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—19℃ 4.1mm rain [74.4] IKBOrchard

SwimGym

Bridget, Chris, and Alex are up in the Coromandel for a week’s holiday based at Whitianga. Sounds like they’re having fun exploring – potteries, old railways, hot pool beach, and so on. Bridget is sending us photos.

Meanwhile Ben is in Australia where he’s giving a talk on “Extraordinary Longevity in the NZ Herpetafauna” at the conference and being presented with a life membership of SRARANZ (Society Amphibians and Reptiles).

https://www.australiansocietyofherpetologists.org/2018-ash-conference/

I had a dental checkup late morning and went on from there to do the start-of-week shopping.

Ben from AONet came mid afternoon and replaced a faulty part in our Internet transceiver dish which much improved our access. ben says that trees over on Te Mata peak below their station there are obscuring our signal and so it’d be better if we could site our end to have direct line-of-sight with perhaps the AONet station on the hills above Taradale, due north of us. But that’s a project for next year. Our speeds would be better and we’d avoid degrading their service to all customers from Te Mata peak as we are doing at present. It’s not clear whether we could get a clear sight of the Taradale station from here – perhaps on the cottage garage.

Meticulous maids came for the fortnightly cottage clean.

Grayson Allen & son Tom dropped in early evening and took some photos of the cottage hot water cylinder as requested by the manufacturer so that they are sure they’re sending the correct replacement for our leaking cylinder.

Rob/Byron Findlay (Wood Burners) did not turn up today so I called and Rob said his engineer expects to come out tomorrow morning.

I finished putting up the electric fence around the homestead lawn and let the sheep in for a couple of hours.

Natalie is now in Houston on her Junior Space Cadet course. Bridget sent me an email from the course providers which included information about the activities and a picture of the “Seven Habits” for teenagers, modelled on Stephen Covey’s “Seven habits of Highly Successful people”, one of several “fads” to which I subscribe – along with Mindfulness, the Alexander Method, and Dr Michael Mosley’s exercise and diet advice.

Electric Fencing Of Homestead Lawn Protects the Liriodendron Low-Hanging Branches

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—25℃ 1..2mm rain [74.4] IKBOrchard

Intending to get the electric fence up around the homestead lawn I first cleared away stuff I’d cut from flax bushes and Karola’s “architectural” giant cardoons which look striking from a distance but fall over and break off and are messy close up. These architectural plants are in the octagon surrounding the Canary Island palm – the palm with the pigeons roosting and nesting in it. The cardoon (Cynara cardunculus), also called the artichoke thistle or globe artichoke, is a thistle in the sunflower family.

Took away a heaped small trailer load of these weeds and palm fronds ready to put up the electric fence.Then diversions occurred. Karola came out to do some weeding of the octagon which will not be easy once electric fence and sheep surround it. So instead I tractor-mowed under the Liriodendron, which I had forgotten to do when mowing the homestead circle yesterday.

Then, it beginning to get hot, I did the weekly mowing of the cottage lawn and curtilage. Shirt off for the first 30 minutes to get some of that vitamin D.

Yet another large family of Californian quail rushing about. The large group of bumble-bee sized balls of fluff follow their parents across open spaces in swirls, ebbing and flowing like waves on a gently shelving beach.

Late afternoon Karola began mowing the Barley Grass under the Canary Island pine, catching and disposing of the seed heads.

Donned waterproof plastic gloves and pulled up the Voodoo Lily I’d poisoned a few days ago and put it in the rubbish bin so no fox-like furry animal could be harmed by it. Karola assures me it’ll come up again soon, that the bulbs will outlive the occasional Vigilant poison.

Later we all, including said fox-like furry animal, went round the orchard stopping on the way to pick another cup of raspberries. When we got back I put the saucepan containing the raspberries on the cottage kitchen verandah, turned my back for a second and heard sounds of licking on a metal bowl. Blow me down, Bangle had scoffed the lot.

Voodoo Lily – Beginning To Be Rather Invasive

Karola Mows Barley Grass Under The Canary Island Pine

Cardoon Architectural Plants

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—27℃ no rain [74.6] IKBOrchard

The last two of the three waterproof thermometers I bought from MindKits arrived today – they’re for the black & white KiwiTech water trough experiment. Also a book by Michael Fowler on Historic Hawkes Bay for Karola.

Mowed under the big oak and the driveways today, and the circle in front of the homestead, and the path of the electric fence round the homestead lawn. Hope that’s the end of tractor mowing for a few days.

Cut the flowers off Acanthus that have spread along the front of the homestead. Began putting up the electric fence round the homestead lawn, the grass has long gone to seed so there’s plenty of it but not a lot of nourishment.

Karola went to Flaxmere post office and posted this years Christmas cards.

Picked another cup and a half of fresh raspberries. They are rampant in the runner bean cage, all spreading from three plants I bought from Mitre-10 two years ago – and one of them died. Runner beans are poking their vines up amongst the raspberry canes.

Delicious Fresh Raspberries

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃–22℃ no rain [74.6] IBOrchard

SwimGym

Later I took the old, really old Honda self-propelling roller lawn mower in to Outdoor Power; it’s my $500 trade-in for the Grillo FD450 due to land in NZ in February. Contined on to New World and then Cornucopia for the weekend shopping.

Was standing to check out next to woman in Cornucopia when she introduced herself – it was Ronnie Chalmers, eldest daughter of Cynthia Chalmers, one of Karola’s school friends. “You don’t recognise me” she said. “Oh yes I do, you’re the one with the psycho husband” – not in a whisper. Her husband is a criminal psychologist, works at the regional prison near Flaxmere. Not the most tactful remark, but she didn’t seem to mind.

Karola bought 24 Christmas cards a few days ago. Yesterday we sorted through my aide-memoire of about 100 names to see who we thought were this year’s “deserving poor” that would get a Brackenbury Christmas card. We’ve been reducing the number of cards year on year for ages. Mostly we eschew card sending to local friends & family or the younger generations and I try to resist the tit-for-tat of card giving that perpetuates unnecessary card flow. So, if you got a card it’s not just because you did, or did not send us one in recent years. It might be because you’re far away and we feel the distance; it might be because you too grew up in an age when the Internet wasn’t.

Then I mowed the final third of the One Acre. Using the highest blade setting it took many passes to cut down the thickets of Californian thistle and Phalaris grass clumps.As the last outside task for the day I chainsawed up a branch torn by wind off one of the large elm trees.

Another cup and a half of raspberries from my patch.

Final Third Of One Acre To Mow

All Mown Now – So We Wait For Rain

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—21℃ no rain [74.0] IKBOrchard

I helped Karola cut the seed heads off the Acanthus at the 133 entrance, and in the nick of time as they were almost ready to pop. They throw their seed pods metres away and are pretty invasive, spreading very quickly. We have several other Acanthus hot spots all coming from the 133 entrance plot where they were introduced to replace the similarly invasive Agapanthus providing succulent ground cover to suppress accidental fires.

John “JB” Bostock came past in a sleek black sporty car and paused to say hello then zoomed on, turning in to one of his 60 organic apple orchards, on the other side of Oak Avenue. We think he really likes leasing Karola’s orchard because of the shortcut his workers can make through it from several “JB” orchards behind us to the couple of “JB” orchards across the road. It saves them about 2km per trip.

In the afternoon I poisoned another half dozen of the Voodoo Lily (below). Gill helped me “name that plant” as Dracunculus vulgaris, or Voodoo lily. It is a striking, not to say menacing looking plant that goes by many common names: Dracula’s flower, Dragon Arum, Black Arum, Voodoo Lily, Snake Lily, Stink Lily, Black Dragon, Black Lily, Dragonwort, Ragons, Wake robin, Dragon’s tongue, Stink Lily.

https://www.terrain.net.nz/friends-of-te-henui-group/exotic-trees/dracunculus-vulgaris-dracula-s-flower.html

The web page began:

All parts of the plant are poisonous if ingested and touching the plant may result in skin irritation or an allergic reaction.

As Gill suggests, even though I’ve zapped them with Vigilant, I think we’d better remove the plants to avoid little dogs getting into trouble.

Spent another couple of hours mowing in the One Acre. The little clump I left containing a Pukeko’s nest with a dozen eggs is still being tended.

Noticed that both the Red Beech by the 133 gate and the eight assorted trees by the 121 gate were being overrun by Convolvulus (bindweed) so I released them all. It’s not hard and doesn’t take long but you have to catch the Convolvulus before the trees or shrubs are choked.

Another cup of fresh raspberries today.

Acanthus In Full Flower – Before

Acanthus In Full Flower – After

Mowing The One Acre Crop

Voodoo Lily

Convolvulus Is Choking Young Trees

Released From Convolvulus Grip

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—21℃ no rain [74.8] IKBOrchard

SwimGym very late morning as yesterday’s excitements exhausted me.

Karola did the mid-week shopping while I did the gym thing.

We discussed what to tell Paul our builder about the state of play on the Karamu renovation and concluded there really wasn’t much we could do, much he could do, until we had building consent from the council.

Oh and the plan for Christmas, confirmed today, is for us to go down to Wellington on Christmas eve and stay at Annemarie’s in Upper Hutt for the night, attend Bridget’s Christmas celebrations on ChristmasDay but leave for home around 3:30pm so as to return while still daylight.

And the current proposal for the visit of five of Karola’s school friends in February, they’re invited to stay for two nights, is for me to decamp to the homestead while they are here. Benefits of this include no need to worry about the state of various works such as wood burner installation at that time.

Afterwards we quietly and amiably went through the many many photographs taken since December 2017 looking for ones which might possibly interest others and have a tale to tell.

After taking Bangle round the orchard as usual I finished chainsawing the seriously trimmed Catalpa and so finished with the chainsaw for now. There’s still the firewood ensuing to be picked up and stacked, and the trimmings to be mulched. We picked another cup and a half of fresh raspberries. I noticed that the ram-in-waiting, #829, had slipped through the wire fence and rejoined his ewe-lamb mates in the Front paddock.

Gill & Ben’s Amusingly Unkind Birthday Card 2018

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—24℃ no rain [74.7] IBOrchard

A quite exhausting day.

Karola & I went again through which of the sheep should stay and which should go. Then we got them all, except the ram, into the yards and I drafted off the three old girls to go: #229, #327, and #508. Also separated out the eleven male lambs, further dividing them into the nine to be sold as big meaty lambs, the one, #829, which is to stay as our ram replacement, and the runty male orphan lamb, #810. We ended up with 4 groups:

• the meaty nine plus three retired old girls – to be sold to Jimmy Rural next week and put in the Long Acre for now
• the runty orphan wether ram and his sister, #809, also runty, and ewe #434 who is skinny as a rake and hasn’t been well for months – given to Mark Hendery for dog tucker
• the ram replacement lamb #829 – put in the Ram/Goose paddock with the ram
• the rest of the ewes and lambs – put in the Front paddock, as far away from the ram lambs as possible

We talked to Mark and he came over late morning and dispatched his three, taking the meat for his two dogs. He’s currently got a little feral goat at home which he is hand rearing – I didn’t ask what it’s destiny was. Later I filled in the death pit – there was just room for the offal etc that Mark left behind. Henare is on notice to dig another death pit for us when time permits.

I began mowing the One Acre. The sheep have been grazing it for a week or so and what’s left are many many clumps of Phalaris well over a metre high and patches of Californian thistles also over a metre tall. Plantain, clovers, and lucerne have been nibbled down. The idea is to give the lucerne a chance to grow and flower in the next couple of months with as little established competition as possible. I’ve mown about a quarter of the One Acre and each strip took three or more passes because the thistles and Phalaris are very tough and springy, not easy to mow. I and the tractor got very hot so after a couple of hours I stopped mowing for the day.

Highlight of the day really was Karola finding her car keys that had gone AWOL since yesterday late morning. Karola also disappeared for a while, food shopping.

The panel beater called to say that Zoe was ready so we popped over to Omahu road and picked it up – no trace of my folly to be seen.

I did more chain-sawing of logs and branches lying about, picking up the firewood as I went. Karola generously helped by picking up several trailer loads of the trimmings and carting them up to the mulching pile near the Catalpa I “pruned” so heavily last week. At karola’s suggestion I took another ring of the bottom branches off the Copper Beech in the Goose paddock.

Setting Off To Mow The One Acre Paddock

On Third Pass Round The Perimeter

Low Hanging Branches Taken Off Copper Beech

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—27℃ no rain [74.8] IBOrchard

SwimGym pretty late as I was up again until around 3:00am. The renovation document was sent in an email to Ruth Vincent around 2:30am.

Karola’s Renault Zoe is due in at the panel-beaters today so we took her in on the way to SwimGym; Karola dropped me off and carried on into Hastings to do the start-of-week shopping.

I mowed the cottage lawns.

Having traded-in our ancient Honda roller self-propelling mower for a new Grillo ride-on arriving in February I thought we’d better see if it still works, and it started easily and mows happily. We bought it in England in mid 1980s and brought it out with us in 2001.

Paddy & Richard came around 3:00pm and Karola served afternoon tea/coffee and little cakes from The Artisan Cafe in Hastings’ Queen Street, currently our favourite coffee shop.

Karola Proving The Old Honda Still Starts & Mows

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—24℃ 1.3mm rain [75.7] IKBOrchard

Was up till 300am last night working on the SketchUp model of the proposed renovations to Karamu.

Spent a couple of hours chainsawing up fallen branches.

Rest of the day I worked on selecting and annotating the images for the Karamu Renovation document taken from the SketchUp model. The hope is to send the finished document to our draughts-woman Ruth tonight.

Anna sent a photo of herself and Felix miserably sipping local gin in St Andrews, Scotland, after their football team, Tottenham Hotspurs, lost to their ancestral rivals Arsenal.

In St Andrews – The Local Gin Being Sampled Here Cheers Anna & Felix After ‘Spurs Loss

Picturesque St Andrews

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—21℃ 0.5mm rain [75.1] IKBOrchard

Listened to the Country programme on National radio as usual.

Spent much of the day finishing the online course on basic SketchUp, an excellent course, very helpful. Then on into the night using this refresher information to update the Karamu Homestead Renovation plans so that I can make snapshots for the document reflecting the changes we’ve agreed.

We took some books to the depot in Hastings where they collect books donated for the annual Lions Book Faire.

Found time to do a bit more chainsawing of fallen branches.

Got a good handful of raspberries from my canes in the north-west corner, in the rabbit-proof enclosure. Not sure how the runner beans will react to being invaded by raspberries.

Lots Of Fresh Vegetables With Our Duck This Evening

First Decent Serving Of Our Raspberries

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—20℃ 6,1mm rain [75.0] IKBOrchard