Monthly Archives: January 2020

SwimGym with Bangle.

No catches in the pest traps overnight.

Shopping for the weekend. Karola went in mid-day for haircut.

Mark came 1:00pm and first we added a tap to the eastern water piping. That pipe starts at the north-east corner of the house garage, goes across to the road fence, along it and under the 133 driveway in the road culvert, and on, and on. We cut the pipe and inserted a short branch ending in a tap, screwed to a fence post.

Mark then continued weeding and mulching the red beech saplings while I made inroads on the tangle of ivy nearby.

Late afternoon Mark began digging a large pit for any future sheep carcasses, the old pit being full. Karola asked for this and she suggested we put it inside the planting area up near my runner beans, not right next to but about 15 metres away between a couple of young totara trees and a five finger.

As it’ll be a few days before I have drip irrigation for the young beech trees and it is forecast to be hot and dry for the next week I set up sprinklers to give the 16 red beech south of the 133 driveway a good drink.

After dinner I turned on the irrigation for the bay tree hedge (and special manuka and micro-fruit-orchard), the lime tree avenue (and five swamp cypresses), and the runner bean enclosure.

39 Red Beech: Weeded And Re-Mulched By Mark

16 Younger Red Beech: Tap Installed And Getting A drink

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—33℃ no rain [77.74] IKBOrchard Mark=4

Some days ago I got a small splinter of metal in my thumb and despite trying hard, using a magnifying glass, I could not find and remove it. And when using my cell phone I somehow repeatedly managed to press just the very spot where this bit of metal was embedded, pushing it deeper. So, this morning, we decided to take action. Karola chatted to our GP’s receptionist and as a result we went off to the A&E department of the practice – same building, different floor.

Karola came with me – despite her magical effect on the Zoe making the gear lever stick in Park, flashing various incorrect messages on the screen, and refusing to go, Karola came too but did not drive the car. I managed to coax Zoe into behaving by turning everything off and back on a few times. Once at the health centre we sat about for nigh on three hours interspersed with several minutes of clinical attention and a short x-ray. Karola at least had a book to read – which she finished about two hours in.

Wanting to put her book back in the car, Karola found that she could not get Zoe to open the doors.

The final diagnosis concerning the splinter and my thumb was that the tiny, less than one millimetre long, fragment should be left alone as trying to find and remove it would cause far more harm than letting nature take its course.

We left and Zoe obligingly opened her doors for me and started obediently. However she did observe, correctly, that the charging flap was open – why, I’m not at all sure.

So that was the morning.

I noticed that Lexi, formerly known as Alex, had water blasted her name in the concrete apron of the house garage after she cleaned all the outside walls, windows, and doors. Last holidays Natalie and Alex left their names written in clean concrete on the apron and they’ve only just faded away,

Mark came shortly after we got back from the health centre. He continued weeding and mulching the red beech saplings. Late afternoon Mark checked the trap line. No catches. Mark reset the traps and also laid out ten “chew cards” which are intended to show where and what kinds of pest are running about the place.

Mid afternoon Karola & I went to see a polo game at the Hastings polo grounds. There is a national polo competition underway at the grounds finishing I think on Sunday. Karola thoroughly enjoyed the game we watched, between Auckland and Christchurch.

Somewhere along the way I did a bit more investigation of cattle stops and decided against a remotely controlled gate in favour of KiwiCattleStops standard cattle stop. I am now in negotiation for delivery of a 3.5 metre wide and 2.4 metre deep grid in the next few weeks. I may also see if we can get a “magic eye”, an infrared beam across the drive which alerts us in the cottage when a vehicle breaks the beam.

I had suspected that possums were gaining access to the attic and walls of the house via a raised section of roofing iron on the lean-to, close to the back door. Today I noticed a tuft of fur waving from a sharp end of the iron. It would be unwise to close off this access while there was any possibility of capturing a possum inside the house – been there, done that.

xRay – Metal Fragment Under 1mm Long Embedded In My Thumb

Possum Entrypoint

Lexi’s Waterblasting Mark On Garage Concrete Apron

Polo – Auckland vs Christchurch

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—31℃ no rain [77.89] IKBOrchard Mark=4

SwimGym

By the skin of my teeth I had finished breakfast when the HeyHoe team came to talk about remote gate openers. Kay & Ted may have been their names – I did ask but it vanished as soon as I heard it. Anyway we discussed the possibilities and I settled for a very plain gate in Karaka green, made of aluminium but looking like a traditional five-bar wooden gate. Just a single simple 3.5-metre long swinging gate held up at the gatepost – no wheel or track needed. That’s what they’re asked to quote for. I said that we’d arrange for the 24v electricity supply to the gate and for extra fencing/railings to bridge between the gate and the existing railings. The existing gateway is much wider than 3.5 metres.

Getting electricity to the gate from the house garage will be a problem. There are too many trees for solar+battery to be an option – they said. And the distance to the mains box on the west side of the house garage is more than the 100-metre limit for ethernet and tricky for 24V DC.

Later I did a little online research for remotely activated swinging gates – there are kits of parts which look good for under $1000, including the gate but assuming power is available at the gatepost. That’ll give me something to calibrate the HeyHoe quote against.

I also took a look at a much more practical option, a cattle stop plus a magic beam. Cattle stops seem to be in $3000-$5000 range and the magic beam to alert us to visitors/intruders is maybe $500.

I took Karola & her friend Lyn Sturm to John Bostock’s landowner “day at the races” for lunch, racing, and meeting the other landowners. I was unaccountably excused, probably because Lyn was prepared to go in my stead. Lucky escape. Lyn baked a cake in my gluten-free honour as taxi-man to the races, another large chocolate cake with lots of sweet icing. Hmmm.

After ferrying the ladies to the Hastings Racecourse I did a little shopping including posting off Lexi’s special cake-making tip (see photo yesterday) for squirting out whorls and letters etc in icing.

Mark came and began by weeding and mulching some more of the red beech – the ones planted a couple of years ago, on the north side of the 133 gateway. As a change of activity I asked him to switch after afternoon tea (Karola thinks I am too indulgent providing drink and biscuit mid afternoon) to laying vermin traps. Starting at the north east corner I hope to saturate an area with possum and rat traps for two or three days, then move on to the chunk of land southwards.

Oak Avenue Weather:20℃—32℃ no rain [77.13] IKBOrchard Mark=4

Karola did a spot of shopping while I emailed and read stuff on computer. Karola also cleaned the trough she missed yesterday, the one by her group of Kauri trees in the Middle paddock. Karola bought the cake-making icing tip that Lexi wants.

Mark came after lunch. He began by completing the Grillo mowing of a ten metre wide strip round the outside of the cottage railings, a mild attempt at a fire break from the long dry paddock grass; he then cleaned the Grillo with the air compressor.

Mark emptied the big trailer of its load of firewood, potential firewood, and pine cones.

We together moved the two sheep troughs from next to the damson tree in its railing triangle to shadier places. The one in the Front paddock went along to the other end of that fence, in the shade of the planting arrea and the Liriodendron nearby. The other moved up its fence line towards the orchard but switched paddocks, from the Totara paddock into the One Acre, again to get some shade from the planting area trees and flax.

The trough Karola cleaned today, the one by her group of Kauri trees, is still in bright sunshine all day so Mark and I added an extra 15 metres of pipe to the tail coming out of the trough and relocated the trough in the shade near the Middle paddock fence with the Goose paddock.

There’s a tall large Scotch thistle about to go to seed – has been in flower for a few days – inside the tree guard of a Kauri tree so Mark & I weeded that tree guard and gave the tree a drink.

We tidied up the Rangiora along the western side of the 122 driveway, removing three dead ones along with the now unused tree guards and standards. One living Rangiora was covered in blackberry so we weeded that tree guard and uprooted the blackberry.

We also searched out all the lengths of alkathene pipe we could find that was 1” (25mm) or thinner and laid it out in the Goose paddock. This is in preparation for installing irrigation for the red beech “forest” either side of the 133 entrance.

Lexi’s Icing Tip

The “Bund” – Karola’s Long Narrow Compost Heap – Is Enormous

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—31℃ no rain [77.66] IKBOrchard Mark=4

SwimGym with Karola & Bangle

Another very warm day after a cool start. Checking the traps I found I’d caught a plump rat.

Two SD cards with WiFi arrived today so now I have three of these, one for each of the surveillance cameras.

Karola cleaned three of the sheep troughs; I cleaned the concrete trough and the goose bath.

Mark came and, with Karola, they cleaned the rest of the sheep troughs. Then Mark mowed round the 17 small bay trees, in the glade next to the farm shed, and finished the “fire break” of short grass round the cottage garden.

Not The Possum I Expected

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—29℃ no rain [77.55] IKBOrchard Mark=4

A late start but I managed to get the cottage lawn mown just in time for Kirsty & Bruce’s arrival for lunch. The visit was copacetic, being the day after the More family left and with us having quite a bit of food to eat up.

Kirsty gave us some runner beans, much better than my beans this year, and we had some tonight with our dinner – delicious.

Apart from the usual Sunday chores – rubbish bin out, Zoe charged up, etc – we had a rather relaxed day reading. It was hot.

As mentioned yesterday, we’ve had a lot of Welcome swallows darting about the place, and it’s not the ones still in the nest, they’re not quite ready to fly yet. Karola counted 20 today. It’s as if they are gathering together before going off to pastures new. Late afternoon one Welcome swallow unwisely flew in the open door and I had to gently coax it back off the transom windows and out.

IBOrchard

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—27℃ no rain [77.68] IBOrchard

In the morning Lexi washed the house garage walls using the water blaster we bought last holidays and, as Karola said, it looks heaps better.

Meanwhile Natalie began the proper undercoat painting of the gate at the 133 entrance.

There seemed to be a lot more Welcome swallows flying round this morning, some coming so close I could feel the rush of their wings. I suspect that was one of the parents of the nest of four chicks on top of the security camera. We counted up to ten adult swallows briefly perched on the cottage garage wall.

For lunch we went one more time to Bay Espresso in Karamu road. On the way backI ducked into Mitre-10 and got a small tin of the Hammerite blue that we’d been using on the trailer bottoms – so that Lexie can finish the bottom of the second trailer.

After lunch the More family packed ready for their drive home in the evening.

Then Lexi finished her painting of the trailer bottom and Natalie, with a bit of help from me, put the Karaka green topcoat on the 133 gate.

When Natalie had finished the gate she did some mowing on the Grillo. She picked up the controls in a trice and was able to teach Lexi without my help. Lexi then too did a round of mowing.

Time to hit the road so we all went into Hastings and had an ice cream at Rush Munro’s before they set off for Wellington and Karola & I returned to our empty nest.

Four Welcome Swallow Chicks

Gathering Of Welcome Swallow Clans?

Lexi Water-Blasting House Garage Walls

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—27℃ no rain [77.88] IBOrchard L=2½ N=4½

SwimGym with Karola & Bangle

Postie – well, relieving postie-woman, delivered the final two of the Victor rat traps today.

Haircut mid morning followed by shopping including getting more paint for the 133 gate.

Mark continued working on the octagon, completing the weeding – difficult because of the thick couch grass infestation – and beginning levelling the earth across the octagon.

Lexi used up all the remaining blue Hammerite metal rust eating paint on the bottom of trailer two.

Natalie continued sanding the 133 gate and late afternoon put an undercoat of yellow Hammerite rust-eating paint on the visible bolts and bars and hinges. The paint was left over from a prior project and there’s still a bit left so that can be applied to the parts of trailer two’s bottom where the blue paint ran out.

Natalie Applies Undercoat To 133 Gate’s Metal Parts

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—25℃ no rain [77.71] IKBOrchard Mark=4 L=1 N=4

Postie delivered the first of three Victor tunnel rat traps I’ve ordered. The rat trap proper is inside the tunnel; the enclosure itself is so simple that Karola asks why can’t I make them myself. Well the trap costs $10 and the rest, the simple box, delivered, costs $25. Value for money I’d say. I was prompted to buy these particular traps by Bruce Utting, of Kirsty & Bruce fame.

The stay wire I put on the 133 Gate post, to stop it bending over and allowing the gate to touch the ground, was an old piece full of twists and bends so I replaced it with brand new wire – looks tidier.

Mark came after lunch. He and I finished off the mulching (aka chipping & shredding), crunching up half a dozen little piles lying around the place. Mark then began on his next project, cleaning up the octagon around the Canary Island palm tree – the one the pigeons live in.

Bridget cycled down to Frimley and had another swim.

Lexi startedpainting the bottom of Karola’s second Cyclone Pup trailer.

Natalie started the renovating the 133 entrance gate – a big wooden gate with five steel bars.

Vector Tunnel Rat Trap Arrived Today

Stay Wire Replaced

Natalie Sanding The 133 Gate

Natalie Applying Metal Undercoat

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—27℃ no rain [77.54] KBOrchard Mark=4 L=1 N=3

SwimGym with Karola & Bangle

Later, shopping for food and, at Mitre-10, more paint for the trailer and plenty of turps.

Bridget went to see Tony Snell (Peter Snell was his father), physio down at ProActive, next to SwimGym. Bridget has a bad foot but Tony Snell, the same physio who treated my back a few months ago, believes it can be put right in time.

Mark & I put the mulcher onto the little tractor, not the simplest of tasks, and Mark began an afternoon’s mulching of piles of small branches fallen from trees over the last few months, including the big branch in the Long Acre I recently cut up for firewood.

Mark Mulching

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—24℃ no rain [77.08] IBOrchard Mark=4

Karola & I went into town – she to drop off six wooden outdoor folding chairs no longer wanted at Habitat for Humanity, I to get more paint and turps for Lexi’s painting, and both of us for food and coffees.

Mark came and together we finished the clearing of the One Acre paddock. Mark went on to clear up my chainsawing of stumps and branches around the rainwater tanks and then the pile of slash where I’d cut up a fallen fir tree branch in the Long Acre next to the Stump Dump gate.

Lexi painted the final coat on the bottom of one of Karola’s Cyclone Pup trailers.

Bridget & Natalie cycled down to the Frimley swimming pool for …. a swim.

The Last Bucket Of Phalaris Straw

Cleared At Last

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—22℃ 0.1mm rain [77.41] IKBOrchard Mark=4¼ L=1 N=0

SwimGym with Karola & Bangle in good time this morning.

Later I went to Stortford Lodge and got coffees and a hot chocolate for the adults, and picked up my sharpened chainsaw chains from Saw Doctors. Saw Doctors is down a narrow lane off Omahu Road and I met a vehicle coming out, stopped rather suddenly, and spilled coffee on the Zoe passenger carpet at the front.

Another possum trapped, this time under the big oak. Later, as Mark and I were fetching the white goods from the orchard shed he spotted a large possum, fetched his air rifle, and added to the day’s bag. He and I took the broken stove and old dish washer to the Hastings Transfer Station just minutes before it closed. To my embarrassment the Landrover chose that moment to refuse to start so we held up closure of the recycling. This is a recent annoying behaviour, stalling or refusing to start but happily starting again if you leave it for five minutes or so. Eventually it did start again and a resigned lady recycling worker let us out of the by-now closed entry gates.

As promised, Waste Management replaced our bin today. The new rubbish bin has a bright red lid saying “General Waste”.

Meticulous Maids came right after lunch and cleaned the cottage.

Lexi used a wire brush and the air compressor to clean the bottom of one of Karola’s little trailers. Then she applied the first coat of blue Hammerite ant-rust paint.

Bridget & Natalie attached the prepared small whiteboards to the front of a dozen or so plastic storage boxes, finishing what I set up many months ago and Natalie and I made a start on yesterday. I do like the end result – three shelves of the farm shed with storage boxes that can be labelled with whiteboard marker pens and wiped clean with turps.

Mark and I worked throughout most of the afternoon on removing the phalaris straw from the One Acre. One more afternoon should do it.

Lexi Starts The First Coat Of Ant-Rust On Karola’s Cyclone Pup Trailer Bottom

Bridget & Natalie Finished Adding Little Whiteboards To The Storage Boxes

Removing The Straw From The One Acre

Clematis vitalba – Old Man’s Beard – Festooning A Section of Casurina Shelterbelt In Karola’s Orchard

Oak Avenue Weather:17℃—23℃ 0.8mm rain [77.34] IBOrchard Mark=4 L=3½ N=3

Bridget took me into town, firstly to drop off some rubbish at the Hastings Transfer Station, then for some flip-flops for me until my sore toe gets better, then to replace one of the 20 plastic storage boxes that I bought yesterday, it had a fractured corner. Bridget also stocked up on food at New World.

Natalie continued helping me with putting little white boards on the end of the storage boxes, interrupted by the arrival of Patrick & Lis Cooney. P&C live in Perth but come over here to their small house in Haumoana most summers – it’s very hot in Perth.

Meanwhile Lexi scraped away at the rust on the bottom of one of Karola’s Cyclone Pup trailers in preparation for painting it with Hammerite anti-rust paint.

We bought an online course on learning Swift programming and making iPhone apps and Bridget, Natalie, and I watched the first few lessons; Natalie continued on later, watching another handful.

Natalie had an error in the app she’s developing and we spent a while last night trying to figure it out. It nagged at me and so today I tussled with it for quite a while before the solution burst forth.

Dead hedgehog in the goose bath. Sent it off with the rubbish – collected early Monday mornings.

Oak Avenue Weather:16℃—24℃ 0.5mm rain [77.84] IKBOrchard L=1 N=½

We all, sans Bangle, had a late brunch at Bay Espresso on Karamu road.

I did a couple more hours of tractor mowing in the One Acre paddock, we’re getting close to the end of clearing the accidental flourishing of a forest of Phalaris. With a bit more rain I’m hoping we’ll see lucerne, red clover, and plantain sprout up.

Bridget’s new iPhone arrived by courier; now she has the same new model as her daughters and the talk turns to iPhone cases – there’s too much choice and so many shonky cases advertised online.

Natalie helped me finish putting up the extra shelf in the farm shed and we began fixing the small whiteboards to the ends of each plastic box – labelling the boxes will mean we know roughly what’s in them even on the top shelf.

Bridget & Lexi did a long combination swim and cycle ride. Meanwhile Natalie and I went to Mitre-10 and bought 20 more of the plastic boxes for farm shed storage; brightly coloured green, red, yellow, and blue. We also bought a pair of stout metal strap hinges to replace the damaged ones on one of the gates into the cottage go-between. I replaced the old bent hinges.

Bridget with help from Natalie mended the Grillo. It’s parking brake had gone all loose and we had to take off several covers and knobs to get to the mechanism. It only required repositioning and tightening a couple of small nuts and is now OK – but not sure how long the fix will last – not a brilliant design.

Ben & Gill – Happy Couple & Beautiful Day – Kapiti Island In The Background

Who Are You Calling a Silverback! (Courtesy Of Ben Above)

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—21℃ 1.6mm rain [77.91] IBOrchard L=0 N=3

SwimGym with Karola and Bangle, picking up Bridget after her run from Karamu to the SwimGym. No possums caught today although there’s still a lot of possum noise in the house at night.

We all (Bangle excepted) went into town at lunchtime for weekend shopping and to have lunch. We dined at the New World cafe which again had lambs fry, bacon, and potato/kumera mash gluten free. I picked up my weekly Young Buck Purebread bread from Cornucopia but cancelled the order in favour of buying the OMG paleo loaf as needed. I only used about a third of the paleo loaf last week.

The shopping included a visit to Rebel Sports to buy me a new pair of trainers for going to SwimGym, helped by Natalie and Bridget. My current gym shoes become my outside light footwear and I can throw away the current disintegrating outdoor shoes. Karola has been looking out for another Speedo navy swim suit and Bridget spotted one in her size at Rebel Sport so Karola got that.

I got more chainsaw chain oil and more Hammerite anti-rust paint at Mitre-10 before we set off homewards.

Lexi put on the final coat of Hammerite blue paint on the back of the orchard mower.

Mark came after lunch, before we got back, and began a long afternoon of moving the debris, the Phalaris straw and hay, that he’d pied up in the One Acre yesterday. I joined him for the last hour.

After dinner Natalie and I went round the orchard with Bangle before settling down to another UK murder mystery – this time an episode of Vera

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—21℃ no rain [77.90] IBOrchard Mark=4¼ L=¾ N=0

Still possum noises in the house at night in fact a fight was reported between at least two possums. The cage trap by the back door caught a large hedgehog which I let go.

Karola and I took the grand-daughters to Lappuccino’s for their breakfast.

Natalie’s new wooden recorder came in the post today.

Using the old Fergie tractor and the very tough orchard mower I made four passes over the remaining forest of Phalaris “reeds” in the One Acre today. First pass with the mower suspended at about a foot off the ground (300mm), then at the maximum height setting on the mower, twice, and finally at the lowest setting of the mower.

The two grand-daughters did some sterling raking in the One Acre, combining drifts of straw into piles for ease of disposal. Later Lexi cleaned the base of the orchard mower with a wire brush and the air compressor. She then painted the base a bright blue with Hammerite rust-eating paint. The second and final coat goes on tomorrow.

Karola did more sorting out of stuff in the hose garage and storeroom, taking one small trailer load to the public rubbish transfer station. She then began a vigorous clean-out of her summer house – the old washhouse that used to be.

I’ve ordered 500mg of aniseed flavoured possum lure oil and another 500mg of cinnamon lure oil. I also ordered three Victor rat traps – they come with an enclosing wooden tunnel. Both online suppliers were recommended by Bruce Utting.

Mark first finished off mowing all the patched of Californian thistles he could find – and a thorough job he made of it. Then he pushed together the stuff I’d mown in the One Acre this morning into a long row ready to be picked up and carried to Karola’s bund, between the house garage and the roadside fence.

We went to Napier for dinner, to Kilim, a turkish restaurant chain with a branch in Petone as well. On the way home we dropped in at Takitimu fish and chip shop where last Monday they cooked me three crumbed schnapper fillets and one grilled snapper fillet – unfortunately forgetting to put my grilled fish in the paper bag. So today they gave me a large snapper fillet to cook at home, for free.

I Begin Mowing The Last Of The Phalaris Jungle

Mark Pushing Together The Phalaris Straw

Ready To Be Carted To The Bund

Today’s Catch – One Large Hedgepig

Lexi (aka Alex) Begins Painting Rust-Eater Paint On Orchard Mower

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—19℃ no rain [77.86] IBOrchard Mark=4 L=3¼ N=1¾

Caught another possum overnight.

SwimGym with Bangle – picked up Bridget after her run from Karamu down to SwimGym.

Lexi, having made the Bushnell surveillance camera work with the Toshiba WiFi-enabled SD memory card, then tried to get it to send photos automatically to my Mac. Eventually we discovered that this was a feature of the Toshiba app for the iPhone and iPad but not for the Mac computers. Lexi got that working as demonstrated in the photo below. I now wait for Bridget to get a new iPhone so I can use her current phone to be the contact point for our three surveillance cameras. Through the magic of iCloud the photos deposited in this iPhone will appear in my photo library on my Mac.

Mark came in the afternoon and spent a couple of hours mowing the Californian thistles. It is a good practice, allegedly, to mow them close to the ground after rain as they appear to be more susceptible to fungal disease if you do that.

Mark then excavated several small stumps so that I could chainsaw them off below ground level. In fact most of them came right out without sawing. The stumps were under the Camellia next to the summer house and in the triangle containing the rainwater tanks, east of the homestead. In the former they were oak saplings of various sizes. In the triangle they were a few dead saplings, Lacebarks I think, and a Rhododendron branch overhanging the 133 front drive plus a clutch of privets that, despite being poisoned a couple of years ago, were springing back into life.

After dinner Lexi and Natalie raked hay into piles in the One Acre for 90 minutes.

Surveillance Camera On Tripod (Tripod A Gift From Dave In UK)

Surveillance Camera Now Sending Photos Over WiFi To Computer

Anna, Dave, and Grandson Felix In Vatican City

Another Unwelcome House Guest

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—20℃ no rain [77.93] IBOrchard Mark=4 L=2½ N=1½

I’ve been eating Karola’s OMG Paleo loaf recently and it does taste nice. I am almost resolved to switch from my staple, Young Blood Purebread sliced loaf made with buckwheat, because the calories are, and the sugar content is, lower. From 221 calories down to 175 calories per slice and from 0.9gm to 0.3gm sugar per slice. Just as I resolve to switch, Karola takes a dislike to the Paleo loaf because it becomes rock-hard mid-week and the devil to slice.

Lexi set up the Bushnell surveillance camera with its Toshiba SD card containing 32GB of memory and WiFi so that it sent each photo to a Macbook Pro laptop. Karola wants this set up for real monitoring the house front verandah.

Late morning Karola & I went into Hastings and bought the food requested by Bridget for the evening meal; on the way we dropped off a lot of books at the depot for the Lion’s book fair next November. I doubt they’ll find many takers for the books to my taste or karola’s but maybe the paper will be recycled in a positive way.

After lunch Karola continued her sifting through her horde of papers and books in the house garage. Mark and I, at Karola’s request, were diverted onto moving the mounds of straw in the One Acre paddock. I thought it was daft as the heavy rain last night would have soaked the hay making it heavy and sticky. But in fact it was a very good move because there was no dust and the damp helped make the forks-full stay on the fork.

We were each using a proper, if antiquated, pitch-fork – I’d resurrected these from stuff found lying about over twenty years ago. Just as well, an ordinary fork wouldn’t penetrate the piles but a pitch fork, as intended, did a superb job.

Mark and I spent the afternoon on it, Mark doing most of the work of course, and we cleared all the piles. Mid afternoon Lexi came and cut some of the standing grass with garden shears. Later Karola came out and tried her hand at it too. Karola switched to using a pruning saw and that was much quicker – although still much much slower than doing it by machine. Mark took some of the hand-cut grass for his two guinea pigs. At home Mark has a pair of guinea pigs, a chicken, a cat, a dog, and a goat.

While Lexi did her stint with the hay Bridget and Natalie cycled down for another swim at the Frimley public pool.

In the nick of time I remembered a task set me by Bridget’s Chris, to get a heavy washer to place under his car’s towbar ball to better support one of those tow-bar attached bike carriers. I got to FairTrade (was B&H) before they closed and am now the proud possessor of a heavy washer with a 22mm hole in it. Tomorrow we find out whether it should have been 19mm.

After dinner Natalie came with Bangle, Karola, and me round the orchard where Natalie and I did a brief dog training session.

I set the possum traps with fresh apple, cinnamon powder, and aniseed oil. There seem to be plenty of possums about still, including one in the house.

Mark On Straw Removal Duty

Thank Goodness For Pitchforks – Ordinary Forks Don’t Do It

Lexi Is Our Team Photographer

Karola Prefers The Manual Methods

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—20℃ no rain [77.89] IKBOrchard Mark=4½ L=3 N=¼

SwimGym with Karola & Bangle. We picked up Bridget after her run from the house down to SwimGym.

We caught another possum in a cage trap (aniseed oil, cinnamon powder on slice of apple) and later Mark dispatched and took home for his dog and cat. Sadly, for me, we heard another possum in the walls this evening.

I took Natalie down to the pharmacy in Stortford Lodge for some medicine for Alex (aka Lexi) and it worked out well. Natalie selected her medicine while I ordered coffee at Fuse across the road and bought Karola a newspaper at the grocery store next door. Ran back and paid for the medicine then returned to Fuse and picked up the coffee, no waiting. It’s not always so slick.

Mark came after lunch and spent his afternoon, until the rain set in, continuing his mowing of the lawns.

Late afternoon, in good strong, constant downpour of rain, I took Zoe down to Stortford Lodge, to The Hub, a bicycle shop. There I met Bridget who had cycled down from Karamu and she left her bike there to get the gears seen to. We continued on to do a little food shopping.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—27℃ 30.2mm rain [77.67] IBOrchard Mark=2½

I emptied both Cyclone trailers of their firewood, dividing it between stuff that would fit in our cottage wood burner and the rest. The rest being a pile to donate to any worthy cause such as any one of Henare’s many siblings and cousins.

We went out for an early lunch at the Karamu Road Bay Espresso. We were joined by Yvonne Wier, Kaz’s widow, on her way back to Feilding from Gisborne.

Mowed the cottage lawns and afterwards gave the Grillo a good clean with the air compressor.

Bridget, Lexi, and Natalie biked down to the Frimley public swimming pool.

Lexi found time for another hour moving the straw piles in the One Acre paddock.

Took Chris to the airport for his 17:20 flight to Wellington. On the way back bought fish and chips for the family dinner. This was not a success on several levels. As I couldn’t get hold of Bridget or the grand-daughters, they were in the swimming pool at Frimley, I wasn’t sure they wanted fish & chips. Also, my fish had to be grilled without flour and when they called my number, handed me the package, they left out the grilled fish. Of course I didn’t find that out until I got home. Turned out that the grand-daughters preferred take-away burgers and I ate the crumbed fish, levering it out of its crumb coating to avoid gluten poisoning. So all ended tolerably well I guess.

Natalie, Karola, Bangle and I walked round the orchard together and entertained Bangle with a little light training.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—28℃ no rain [77.79] IKBOrchard L=1¾ N=1

We went out to Te Awa winery for a slap-up lunch, Bridget & Chris’s anniversary lunch. They were married in the Ormond Chapel on the bluff at Napier and their reception afterwards was at Te Awa.

Later that afternoon Lexi did an hour’s work in the One Acre, moving straw from the heaps in the middle of the field over the fence into the planting area.

Natalie and Bridget struggled with getting more storage for Natalie’s laptop so that she could install Xcode and experiment with writing programs in the Apple computer language Swift. It began with a camera card but after much annoying mucking about everyone concluded that the reader integral to Natalie’s laptop was broken. So Bridget bought a USB memory stick instead and that worked well – so Natalie is off, up, and running.

Natalie and I accompanied Bangle round the orchard and Bangle had a short training session

I turned off the irrigation of runner beans, swamp cypress, and bay tree hedge.

Bridget & Chris’s Anniversary Lunch At Te Awa – Where They Had Their Wedding Reception in 2004

L->R: Chris, Karola, Ian, Lexi (aka Alex), Bridget, Natalie

Hawkes Bay Summer Dry

One Acre Paddock – The Lucerne Experiment

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—24℃ no rain [77.83] IBOrchard L=1½ N=¾

SwimGym with Karola and Bangle. Bridget ran down to join us for the ride home. Chris also ran down but, the car being full, also ran back.

Despite the demise of two possums in the house kitchen last week, the catching of two more just outside the house in the same week, and one two nights ago, there’s still a noisy possum in residence. However as Mark won’t be back until Monday I’ll probably not attempt more captures until Sunday night.

Marcus Ormond turned up in Cynthia Chalmer’s old red Landrover. We’re not sure why, it seemed either he was filling in time before another meeting in town or was at a very loose end. Still, nice to see him and, by happenstance, he arrived just as James Russell (Jimmy Rural) came to buy Karola’s surplus ewes and lambs.

Unprompted,, and to our surprise, Marcus, who is a sheep farmer for a living, having found his calling as a horse trainer did not bear fruit, started calculating what he thought our sheep were worth. We tried hard to assure James that we weren’t listening to Marcus but I’m unsure as to whether Marcus effectively pushed James into paying more than he intended. Anyway Karola’s 25 sheep fetched a good price and Karola is relieved to have fewer mouths to feed over the summer. James is going to fix us up with a good ram for mating; I thought maybe in March but he and Marcus think earlier is better. So I suggested compromising with late February. Bit of a change from our earlier April/May tupping dates.

I did the weekend shopping ending up with iced coffees for me and Karola from Rush Munro’s – good, but not as good as the first time.

I finished up Karola’s GST. Karola and Alex made a start on moving the piles of phalaris straw off the One Acre paddock.

I almost got suckered into sending money to Turkey, ostensibly in support of a medical emergency for Patrick Cooney’s sister. I dashed off a sympathetic response to the initial email but then tried calling Patrick. He answered the second number I tried and said that it was a scam. I don’t really think I was in danger of sending any money although my initial reaction had been one of immediately and urgently offering help. The English in the first couple of emails was quite good, no silly grammatical or spelling mistakes, but the style was wrong. Initially I put it down to the stress of the situation.

I kept up the dialogue to see where it would lead and the later emails were less convincing. The scammer’s insistence I had to send cash to a postal address in Turkey didn’t ring true and even without Patrick’s warning I’m sure I would have woken up before actually sending anything. But I was surprised at how a cry for help from a friend so easily overrides common sense.

Mark spent the entire afternoon mowing, mostly on completing the re-mowing of barley grass patches, then beginning on the main lawns.

Picked the first runner beans after I, Karola, and Natalie accompanied Bangle round the orchard this evening. Also turned on the irrigation for the runner beans, the five Swamp Cypress’s and 16 Lime trees, and the Bay tree hedge and fancy Manuka, and micro-orchard.

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—25℃ no rain [77.90] IKBOrchard Mark=4 L=1½ N=½

Fed the doves and the geese then checked the cage traps on the house verandah. Caught another adult possum, we hope the only one creating a racket at night and keeping Bridget awake.

Outdoor Power’s boss drove up bringing back the Grillo after its service.

At Karola’s request I popped into Hastings and got another “paleo” loaf from OMG bakery, also getting a couple of Vodafone prepaid iPhone SIM cards and coffees for me, Karola, and Chris. A delightful morning, sunny but not too hot nor too windy.

Natalie spent an hour prepping the two old iPhones she and Alex gave me so that they were as close to a simple mobile phone that only supported voice calls and TXTs; it can be done.

In the cracks of the day I completed almost all of Karola’s GST for October/November, due in next week.

Bridget et al went into Napier after lunch for clock golf and a look around.

Afterwards Bridget & Natalie cycled down to Frimley public swimming pool for a dip.

James & Barbie came at lunch time and Karola produced a fresh vegan lunch plus a bottle of John Bostock’s wine – JB’s gift to us at Christmas. As always we had a spirited discussion, James with his evangelical promotion of all things vegan and two published books to his credit. Later James and Karola swapped anecdotes from their researches into their Wilson family history. Late afternoon they departed in their compact and very well designed mobile home.

Mark came and spent the afternoon Grillo mowing the barley grass patches, the same patches as before that had so quickly recovered with new deadly seed heads ripening in the sun.

I gave Mark the two iPhones hoping that he and his wife Cas might find them somewhat useful and that I could talk to Mark when he was out and around the place without me having to walk over there.

Bridget walked round the orchard with me and Bangle after dinner – which Bridget cooked, rather nice Terakihi pie and grilled fillets, the latter for those watching their diet.

The Noisy Blighter Keeping Bridget Awake

James & Barbie Wilson – Karola’s Cousins

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—24℃ no rain [77.77] IBOrchard Mark=4 N=1

SwimGym with Karola & Bangle. Bridget ran from Karamu down to the gym and arrived shortly after we’d finished, as planned, and we took her home in Zoe.

Chris took his daughters to Lappuccino’s for breakfast. Bridget began her day, “working from home” upstairs in the cottage.

Natalie and Karola then began their day of sorting through Karola’s boxes of books, papers, and other treasures in the homestead garage store-room.

Alex meanwhile loaded the 40 or so “sleepers” (actually H4-treated half-round retaining wall boards) onto a trailer – I eased them out of the ground with a crowbar. We unloaded them in the stump dump for now. Later I hope to have them made into a fat lip for the ha-ha, level with the top of the ha-ha and fastened to the top board, as a stable edge for the mower going along the top of the ha-ha.

Mark came and spent the afternoon mowing the area he cleared yesterday with the tractor mower set close to the ground – very dusty work and the tractor kept overheating. Now we have a well chopped up layer of straw across that part of the One Acre paddock and I am hoping the Grillo will be able to pick it up once it comes back from its service.

Late afternoon I too started sorting out stuff in the house garage store-room, throwing out books and media and electronics that I have treasured over the years but really have no prospect of consulting in the future.

Bridget reported possum racket in the house last night so, as she suggested, I put traps on the balcony.

Bridget and Alex did the mid-week shopping for us all.

Alex Loading Up Trailer With Sleepers

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—20℃ 0.2mm rain [77.27] IBOrchard Mark=4 L=1 N=4¼

Put a hook & eye catch on the inner door in the “place of four doors” so that now I’ve got it automatically closing there is a way to keep it open.

Checked the traps and collected all but the GoodNature ones up. Got one more possum from under the Macrocarpa in a Timms trap – victory for the aniseed oil again I think. The two conventional rat traps were sprung again without catching anything and one of theme has lost its trigger – I threw them both away.

Outdoor Power came and retrieved the Grillo for its service. We hope they do it quickly altough apparently everyone has the same idea straight after the end-of-year break.

Karola has washed the house kitchen floor twice, I gave it another wash and it’s a lot better though I would not recommend eating off it. That plus the windows being open for a couple of days has reduced the smell to tolerable levels. I also washed the area of the wooden floor in the upstairs “bee room” where there was evidence of rat activity and that cleaned up quite well.

Karola has taken down most of the pictures from the walls of the house kitchen; I took down the rest and the other fittings screwed to the wall then unscrewed or pulled out all the stuff banged into the walls over the years.

The piece of plank missing from high up on the inner wall, used to thread electricity and TV cables, was used by possums to get from the roof space down into the kitchen – a one-way journey as it happened. But they made the wall there grubby so I scrubbed it clean.

Replaced the catch on the cottage bedroom wardrobe door. The original catch blade was a bit too short to hold the twin wooden doors firmly shut and it looked as if it might burst open at any time. Using the old catch from the cottage kitchen french doors with its longer blade has cured that.

Mark finished off his weeding of the tangles of wysteria along the front (north) side of the house. He and I then took down the electric fence round the big oak, liriodendron, and house lawn so that it was back to a lawn for the visit of Bridget et all from tonight. He spent the rest of the afternoon pushing together the debris from my mowing of the tall phalaris grass a few days ago.

Another Possum From Under The Macrocarpa

Mark On Tractor Pushing The Phalaris Stalks Into Heaps – Stop It Smothering The Grass

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—22℃ no rain [76.82] IKBOrchard Mark = 4½

SwimGym, eventually, and then start-of-week shopping ending with getting a couple of iced coffees from Rush Munros for lunch.

Karola continued with her cleanup of the house kitchen including another clean of the floor, this time using some industrial strength Dettol disinfectant smelling of lavender.

I emptied the traps, netting one large possum and a fat rat. Mark took the possum for his dogs. All the traps had been sprung so at dusk I reset them one last time before the More family arrive.

The chimney cavity in the upstairs house bedroom called the “Bee Room” is hidden by a heavy pair of curtains and these had been taken down whilst I was toying with putting in wood burners – still a much cherished objective. So, as part of re-civilising the house for Bridget’s visit I stapled the curtains back up using our heavy duty stapler – one intended for materials other than paper.

Mark came while I was still in town shopping and he continued weeding along the front of the house, from the steps east to the corner. Just as he and I had cleared the west side of its tangles of wysteria vines, he did the same along the front.

Annoyed by the free-swinging action of the door leading from the “place of four doors” into the hallway, that is the door opposite the back door in that place of four doors, I tootled off down to Mitre-10 and bought a strong door closing mechanism just as Mitre-10 was closing. I also bought a French door handle set and some reciprocating saw blades for cutting metal. And a couple of hook-and-eye sets.

The French door handle set enabled me to replace the broken one in the cottage kitchen that I’d mended with a pop rivet, so that it functioned perfectly but looked a bit unsightly.

The door closing mechanism is quite strong and does close the heavy door firmly, “with a bang” – so we may need to give it something more yeilding to close against and of course now it won’t stay open. I expect to add a hook-and-eye to solve that. It’s only temporary, until we get permission to start the renovations, but who knows when that will be.

Another Fine Possum Catch – And A Fat Rat As Well

Eldest Grandson Felix With His Other Grandmother, Barbara, In Boulogne

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—22℃ no rain [76.98] IKBOrchard Mark = 4½

No mowing today because the cottage lawn etc grass is barely growing at all – as is it’s wont in Hawkes Bay summer.

Karola did a lot of work in the house kitchen, sorting out the contents into “keep”, “charity shop”, and “throw away”.

Late afternoon I set the traps; I’d waited for Sunday to avoid trapping possums before Mark makes his week-day appearances.

 
 
I suddenly decided that another shelf running the length of the farm shed would be a good idea. To my delight the materials were all to hand, the metal shelving brackets only needed cutting to length, the plywood sheet just needed sawing in half lengthwise. By tonight the materials were in place bar end bracing blocks and joining up the plywood planks.

I am ashamed to say that there was an incident while Karola helped me saw the plywood sheet in half. I gaily sawed down the middle, following a metal guide I’d screwed to the plywood, without thinking about what would happen when I reached the far end. And of course, without support, the sheet just fell apart as two pieces, dumping Karola on the ground – she’d being lending stability by pressing down on either side. Apart from a nasty graze on her chin and considerable shock – it’s not what a 73 year old woman expects you know – Karola is OK but decidedly wary of engaging in further construction adventures. My loss.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—26℃ no rain [77.0] IKBOrchard

The main event today was solving the #227 ewe problem and then re-drafting the flock, this time into “keepers” and “leavers”, that is sheep and lambs to go off with Jimmy Rural sometime soon.

I rang Mark – no answer so I rang Peter Wiffin down the road. He has a gun and dogs to feed, just like Mark. So, it was agreed that Peter Wiffin would come and take #227 (with suspected bad mastitus) away tomorrow. Then, after we got the flock into the yards, karola took a look and said she didn’t think it was so bad after all. So, #227 has a temporary reprieve and I TXTed Peter to say it was a false alarm.

I had already just this week sketched out a plan for how many sheep and lambs Karola should keep on for the 2020 season, (see below).

So, armed with a list of the sheep identified by ear tag number this should have been simple and quick. At Karola’s suggestion, on the first attempt at drafting we also sprayed all the sheep with Magnum (withholding for meat of zero days) as fly-strike preventative.

Having split the flock we counted the two factions, and re-counted them, and re-counted them. After many re-counts we concluded that we had the right numbers of ewes and hoggets in each faction, but the number and sex of the lambs wasn’t adding up.

So we re-drafted and re-drafted the keepers and the culls separately, finally getting down to one alleged wether lamb discrepancy. I went back inside and compiled a list of the ear-tag numbers of all the ewe lambs because one must surely be an imposter. One last re-draft of the “keepers”, ticking off the ear-tag number of each lamb. We found the imposter, #932. I checked the undercarriage. it really was a ewe lamb, so my records were at fault, not the lamb. Hard luck though because she was made a honorary wether and joined the culls.

The keepers are now in the Front paddock and One Acre, out of sight of the culls who are in the Long Acre. In a day or two, we hope much sooner, the baaing will die down. There are enough ewes separated from their lambs for it to be quite noisy tonight.

It started to rain, just a few drops, so I took the white goods from the homestead kitchen, the old broken stove and the dish washer, up to the big shed in the orchard.

Six doves came to the bird table this evening. Also a pigeon made a short appearance as did a couple of mynahs and multitudes of sparrows.

Sheep Numbers For 2020

• Each year aim to have 24 breeding ewes and 10 ewe hoggets.
• The hoggets will not be mated in their first year but be replacements for old ewes and poor performers in later years.
• All the wether lambs will be sold.

Ewe Cull Programme – 2020

 
 
The ewes to be culled were selected from a combination of age and performance, taking into consideration the ewe’s performance over the three previous years.

Cull Sheep – January 2020

(#209 is to be kept but not bred from any more)

From current breeding stock: #209 (virtual cull), #227, #311, #410, #439, #443, #501, #602

From this years ewe lambs: #902, #910, #917, #918, #921, #924, #932

All wether lambs: #901, #903, #912, #914, #916, #919, # 920, #926, #928, #930, #931

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—20℃ 0.1mm rain [76.90] IKBOrchard

SwimGym

Later, shopping for the weekend with Karola, ending up with an ice-cream cone at Rush Munros.

Mark came in the afternoon and together we finished the weeding of the nine Cercidiphyllum trees round the big oak. Mark then added extra mulch and I watered them for an hour each.

Mark & I then embedded the old slate bench alongside the cottage outside tap to make a platform where Karola can store her watering cans. We brought the slate bench out in our first 20ft container of belongings in 1999. I remember we had a sign on the back of the container to warn anyone opening it that there was a heavy slate bench standing up against the doors.

Mark took home the big trailer yesterday with the old homestead washing machine, dryer, and dish washer on board. Cas, Mark’s wife, said she’d like the dish washer and dryer but in the end plumped for the washing machine and dryer.

Due to an oversight I let the ewes back onto the homestead lawn late afternoon not remembering to put right the electric fence where we’d pinned it to the ground for ease of access when working on the Cercidiphyllums. So eight of them cantered off down the drive searching for their lambs. Luckily Mark and Karola saw the break-out and directed them into the Long Acre. Further misunderstandings and Karola noticing that #229 had mastitus led to us recombining the lambs and ewes once more. Less noisy now, although it made the shenanigans of the last two days rather pointless.

Old Slate Bench We Brought Back From UK – Now Useful For Watering Cans Etc

Nine Cercidiphyllum Trees Around The Big Oak: Weeded, Extra Mulch Added, and Watered For An Hour

Joan Phillip’s Idea Of What I Should Do For The Doves

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—30℃ no rain [77.03] IBOrchard Mark=4

Karola and I shepherded the sixty sheep and lambs (32 ewes, 28 lambs) into the yards and separated the lambs from the ewes. The lambs are over three months old so it’s high time they stopped pestering their mothers anyway, but the reason today is that the lambs keep escaping from within the electric fence round the big oak so they will be banished to the Goose paddock. Much baaing ensued, and is continuing. I did give each flock a salt lick block but they weren’t to be bought.

Karola bravely tackled the homestead kitchen, the recent site of two dead possums, possum and rat droppings and sticky patches all over the floor. As part of the clean-up we moved out the little fridge, the stove, the washing machine, dish washer, and clothes dryer. It all works except for the stove. The fridge is now in the north-east corner of the homestead garage, plugged in and working again. Mark has taken the clothes dryer and dish washer to see if their household can find a use for them.

Mark arrived around 1:00pm and helped move the white goods from the homestead kitchen before starting on todays new project, fencing off a patch of irises and elm saplings in the Goose paddock. Karola and I noticed the crowd of elm saplings, suckers that had bolted up in the last week, and I thought that rather than have them all eaten away by the lambs we could make a netting fence round the patch. So Mark did that with a little assistance from me.

Karola’s Sixty Sheep & Lambs Following Her Towards The Yards

Fencing Off New Sapling Elms Before The Lambs Can Devour Them

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—31℃ no rain [77.38] IKBOrchard Mark=4

A pretty nice day to start the new year. After a very leisurely start we sat on the cottage verandah, cool but sunny and with the slightest of breezes, with Welcome swallow parents zooming round us, and behind us, on the other side of the cottage, sheep peacefully grazing under the big oak tree.

I read and Karola pootled around with her family history books and letters.

Mid afternoon I galvanised myself into action, using 3 two-litre haversack tanks of Versatil weedkiller to combat the growing infestation of Californian thistles. There are still plenty left to do but we’ll see what happens where I’ve sprayed along a couple of fence lines and around the perimeter of the One Acre. As has happened before, the sprayer pump handle came adrift and I only noticed when the pump seemed not to be getting pressure. One bolt lost, the other almost adrift but once noticed, soon mended.

Then I used another two tanks-full of Glysophate (Roundup, it used to be called) to spray the iris in the bottom of the ha-ha and around the grass bridge, a metre swathe round the homestead orchard, and a metre swathe along the top of the ha-ha. The latter because I expect to uplift the heavy planks that were intended to edge a lime pebble path along the top of the ha-ha and re-use them just to make a thick lip to the ha-ha wall of wood, making it possible to mow right up to the edge. I also intend to get rid of iris growing in the bottom of the ha-ha from a few metres away from the grass bridge towards the avenue, right up to the far end by the damson tree. Oh and I also sprayed the octagon under the Canary Island pine in preparation for levelling it and planting it with a variety of plants from elsewhere in the homestead garden.

The ewes and lambs spent most of the day on the homestead lawn and under the big oak but several lambs are just jumping over or through the fence and wandering off so we should probably wean all the lambs and just let the ewes graze behind electric fence, giving the lambs full reign in the Long Acre and Goose paddocks.

Early evening I cut and poisoned 28 large Scotch thistles, all about to flower, using Vigilant.

New Years Day – Calm & Peaceful – Looking East From The Cottage

Some Of The 28 Large Scotch Thistles Threatening To Flower

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—26℃ no rain [77.78] IKBOrchard