Monthly Archives: August 2020

Metaphorically. Well #814 had twins overnight, #006E and #007R – small but on their feet and drinking.

Simon from Langes came as planned and took apart the oven electrics, mused how it wasn’t working as he expected, put it back together and then it worked – so, no replacement parts and for reasons unknown it didn’t work but now it does. It was not the cooling fan thermometer as the other Langes man suggested.

Then Karl turned up with a grandson and his sheep shearing truck. I was expecting only his car as we didn’t need the shearing stuff for simple vaccination, but he was going on somewhere else to shear which explained the truck. So Karola was delighted when I asked him to shear her ten ewe hoggets as well as give them the vaccine, it was what she wanted.

Karola and I whizzed off to Greenleaf and brought back 20 more Rengarenga. Late afternoon Karola planted them under the Bay trees in the cottage hedge so there are now 40 Rengarenga spaced along from the cottage garage end right round to the bathroom window.

Now the hoggets are shorn Karola dragooned Mark and me into spraying them, “off shears” as it’s called, with Magnum against fly-strike. What’s the harm, so, with minimal supervision Mark quickly sprayed all ten hoggets.

So yes, Mark came this afternoon having been away last week while his wife Caz had her second hip replacement. The surgery was fine but apparently the anaesthetist was incompetent and actually asked a student to do the epidural which he mucked up. After several attempts they got someone else in to do it who had experience. Anyway it made Caz very sick for several days and she and Mark are upset that it happened and could easily happen to others. Apparently, even though there are no Covid cases at the hospital the place is teeming with new procedures “just in case” and the staff are pretty much panicking at the level of lock-down inside the hospital and all the extra work. They’re just getting more stressed and further behind.

Between us Mark and I got the trailer of river stones and some old broken bits of marble from the pre-1931 fireplace in Karamu stacked safely in the Stump Dump. We transplanted a Bay tree sapling from in my row of specialty Manuka to a gap in the cottage Bay Tree hedge. Mark also washed down the big trailer, removing the mud and grit left from transporting the gravel to make the hard stand.

Mark’s next big project is to complete the resurrection of three raised beds from the decaying remains of the six we had earlier. Now the plan is to have them a few metres away from the new railings in the paddock near the pump shed. Problem of mowing near and between the beds is solved – sheep will do it.

Mark has begun. First he is putting old battens inside on each corner and screwing the planks to the battens. That way they don’t rely on the protrusions at each corner, necessary because the structure was a “log cabin” design with interlocking slots holding the sides in place.

Then he is going to cut the battens to the same height as the raised bed and cut off all the protrusions. The now much more rigid beds can be tipped over without collapsing while Mark takes out a 50mm layer of turf from the raised bed site. Finally he’ll fill the beds with soli from their previous incarnation but filling up to the bottom of the top sidewall plank. The idea is to allow room for herbs to grow and protect them from sheep and birds by putting a simple plastic mesh net over each bed.

I noticed that two of the troughs which passed my testing with flying colours – no leaks and stopped filling about 300mm from the top – are leaking / overflowing now they’re back in use in the paddocks.

We have quite a lot of eggs now so I gave Mark a dozen to take home.

See The Snake & The Mongoose, below – a fascinating rivalry unfolds. Will the green snake crush his opponent or will the red-blooded mother mongoose prove too quick.

Heavenly Hawkes Bay Winter

Very Pregnant Ewes Slumber in The Heat

Freshly Shorn Ewe Hoggets

New Site For The Raised beds

Strengthening The Raised beds

Rengarenga Plantings – The Second Score

The Snake & The Mongoose

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—21℃ no rain [76.64] IBOrchard TdT eggs=4 Mark=4

Made good progress on the Sunday tasks, mowing the cottage lawn, taking out the rubbish for 7:00am pickup at the roadside, charging up Zoe, and so on after an enjoyable and successful morning programming.

Tagged the lamb born yesterday – best to do it soon because they very quickly become difficult to catch.

Another itch I want to scratch, the 133 wooden entrance gate slopes upwards from the hinge end just a bit too much. It’s held there by #8 wire round the gatepost anchoring it to the bottom of the next railing post along. I added a short length of wire and it now hangs as I would wish.

Painted the inside of the “lightly foxed” galvanised pail I intend to use for chook scraps. Glued together the two discs making up the wooden lid for the chook scrap pail.

I have been trying to remember the name of an Austrian film, a single word, a bit like revenge or renege – and tonight I found it, Revanche. We watched it years ago, but since coming back to New Zealand. Rather a good thriller.

It’s a record, five eggs laid and gathered today.

Young Fishermen On Ngaruroro River – Met On The Stop Bank

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—22℃ no rain [76.89] IBOrchard TdT eggs=5

Spent the morning programming; Karola got well into the first of her three John Buchan novels, Greenmantle.

These three paperbacks were found at the Little Red Book Shop in Hastings, owner Siobhan McCormack. It’s been around for years and years and Siobhan has, she says, 40,000 books in her shop. A struggling business as prices are effectively set by the big online resellers. Power to her elbow, I say.

And another “just for the record”. The Artisan Cafe, to give it its proper name,  in Queen Street in Hastings, is owned by Katie Whitcombe and has friendly staff: Ang, Julie, and Maria (assuming I’ve remembered correctly).

Fred Tydeman (Kathy Bohrer’s partner) sent me a link to a rather nice project, Window-Swap, which is a world-wide group of web-cams looking out of people’s windows – just that, a street scene, beach front, and so on. These are not still images but living, breathing realtime video streams. The ones I sampled were tranquil, some actually quite boring, but oh what a tonic from the toxic news from around the world.

Mid afternoon I made a lid for a regular galvanised pail that may be suitable for storing chook scraps in the laundry. I tried fruitlessly to draw a circle of the right size on some 17mm plywood but using a pencil on a string attached to a nail at the centre was just too imprecise. Karola had the sensible and obvious answer so I just traced round the pail rim and found a plastic bucket lid of the right size for the inner disc.

Of course Dave Mitchell in Totnes could have whipped a lid up on his 3-D printer in a brace of shakes, but I’ve yet to progress from scraps of wood and screws.

The lid consists of a top piece of plywood big enough to cover the rim attached to a bottom piece which is like a plug, stops the lid slipping around. I drilled a hole in the top disc big enough for a short piece of old broom handle. Tomorrow I expect to glue top and bottom disc and paint them.

The Chook Scraps Bucket

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—20℃ no rain [76.92] TdT eggs=4

Morning out, first I had quarterly diabetic’s health check – no surprises there, still fitter than most my age regardless. Blood pressure 120/60 is just one sign. I then came back home to pick up Karola for her fortnightly appointment with Kim the hairdresser. Coffee and a friand from Artisan on the way home. All done by noon.

It’s a nice day although cool and quite a stiff wind so we did our daily Tour early afternoon.

Lots of good news today. I got an email from the Hastings District Council saying that we’d, at long last, Heritage NZ not-withstanding, been granted Resource Consent to do our plans for the renovation of the homestead. Our plans were first submitted to the Hastings Council for Resource Consent- receipt acknowledged on 23rd May 2019. Gollowing this the negotiations started with Heritage NZ in June 2019, and today we’re through that particular show-stopping hurdle.

I know of no actual roadblocks now, just the mechanics of Ruth completing her detailed plans and calculations, and getting council Building Consent before engaging our wonderful builder Paul Libby, to begin.

Found another ‘away’ nest today, on the top of a bale of meadow hay in the farm shed lean-to. Three eggs there. There have been no more eggs in the nest I found over by the rainwater tanks.

Pottered about in the late afternoon – buried the still-born twin lambs from yesterday; no more lambs today.

Got a call from Gill in Seatoun, Wellington. She and Ben are coming up to Hawkes Bay for her birthday week, 10th – 14th September. As the homstead is not yet renovated they’ll stay with Gill’s “ex” and his wife Charlotte in Havelock North. I’m looking forward to showing Gill & Ben the doves (20) and chooks (6 laying pullets + 1 cockerel).

Another “At Last” moment. Today, after sitting on my desk unused for four months, I upgraded from Bridget’s surplus old iPhone 6S to my shiny new iPhone SE. That’s the size a smart phone should be! (in my humble opinion).

Karola took advantage of the damp soil and warm sunshine to plant all twenty little Renga-Renga (Arthropodium cirratum) along the north and west side of the cottage bay tree hedge – it’ll be good to see how they get on. Bridget of course has planted around 100 at her place in Khandallah, Wellington.

Karola Plants 20 Renga-Renga Under The Bay Trees

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—17℃ no rain [76.77] IBOrchard TdT eggs=4 +3 Mark=0

Ewe #723 started lambing in the morning but still hadn’t produced by lunchtime. Late afternoon I did what I really am not best suited to, vet-substitute, as I removed the large still-born lamb from mostly inside the poor old ewe. Even later she disgorged another still-born lamb of her own accord.

I thought it about time I tagged the living lambs, well the two that were born after my last tagging event last Friday. But I couldn’t find the tags nor the applicator anywhere. The applicator turned up on the cottage verandah but the tags remain a mystery – perhaps Bangle thought they smelt nice and took them to her lair deep under the cottage. Anyway after spending way too much time trying to find them we cut our losses and got a few blanks from Farmlands in the hope the printed ones will turn up before too long.

Fuse, the coffee shop in Stortford Lodge we used to go to almost as often as Artisan, has opened under new management. Very friendly but still finding their feet and not the same ambience as the previous owner. Might as well go to BP Wild Bean Cafe which is almost next door.

The Covid-19 Contact Tracing app on my iPhone really is excellent at recognising the QR codes on shop windows so I’ve been snapping the QR code almost every place I go – it needs to become a habit. And we’ll have record of most other comings and goings here in the journal, as Karola remarked.

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—14℃ 0.4mm rain [76.94] IBOrchard TdT eggs=4 Mark=0

We all three pile into the Zoe and set off for Hastings for the monumental weekly grocery shop. New World was not busy and the lockdown rules meant half the checkouts and self-checkout points but still no big queues today.

Lovely afternoon so after The Tour we did some weeding of the bay tree hedge area and suddenly it was time for dinner.

Wilder Part Of The Garden At Karamu

Dave Moss – Won This Mean Machine – Allegedly – But Is Anna Impressed?

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—13℃ no rain [76.93] IBOrchard TdT eggs=3 Mark=0

We popped into Hastings for some anti-ant preparations; we’ve got a small infestation in the kitchen – running over the sink bench and nearby surfaces. While on that trip we noticed Fuse had reopened – the good coffee shop in Stortford Lodge that closed recently due to a change of ownership. So we stopped in to get coffees on the way home.

Our other mission objective was to post Karola’s only copy of The Master by Rosamund Wilson nee Rolleston to Lexi, a loan while Lexi completes a school project.

Unusually we’ve run out of milk this week so we dropped into CountDown – no queues, not many people, all pretty relaxed despite the level two lockdown extension until next week. Some things are available at CountDown but not New World so I stocked up on Beyond Meat patties (meatless), GF corn flakes and wheatbix, and Adult Sleep Drops spray – these latter are barely medicine but seem to help relax into sleep so we take them occasionally.

No Mark this week due to Caz, his wife, having her 2nd hip replacement. I got a couple of little niggling things done; first I cut and moved a piece of the cottage lawn edging to reflect the new entrance option along the back fo the garage, essentially just terminating the bay tree hedge where the railings turn at right angles along the back of the garage.

Second was my annoyance at the so obviously crooked little gate from the orchard by the big shed into the Totara paddock near the concrete trough. I thought it’d only take a moment but I had one attempt that was worse than before but it turned out alright on the second attempt. The level says it’s level.

Lexi is to “interview” Karola on FaceTime tonight, quizzing her about ancestor J.D.Ormond – part of the same school project that has The Master winging her way.

This Is Actually Now Level – Imagine What It Was Like Before

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—17℃ 2.6mm rain [76.77] IBOrchard TdT eggs=3 Mark=0

After quite a lot of rain overnight, rain that caused Karl to call at 7:30am to say the ewe hoggets would be too damp to give vaccine to, it was a delightful day weatherwise.

Karola said the Welcome swallows were beginning nest building on the tiny ledge below the shower extractor fan grill on the cottage verandah – so I found last year’s solution and screwed it back up under the grill. Seems to be working.

More testing of sheep water troughs and attempting to stop the leaks.

On the stop bank tour today Bangle decided to run after me, pulling Karola behind her – so Karola’s 1½km walk was more of a jog today.

Found one of the lay-away nests used by the chooks – 11 eggs including one from today and all still sink so OK to eat. I noticed one chook scuttling over to the rainwater tank area and upon investigation stumbled over the clutch.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—18℃ no rain [76.85] TdT eggs=3 (+10) Mark=0

Ah, Sunday again – was that a whole week just whizzed by? So it’s the usual including: rubbish out to the gate, firewood in from the stack, charge up Zoe for another week, mow the cottage lawns – oh no, that was yesterday, in anticipation of rain today.

The sheep water trough bi-annual clean and check is almost done. All cleaned this week and a couple of leaks fixed. Just testing the last three of eight for sufficient freeboard – I prefer about 100mm (4”) between the water level when full and the rim of the trough. On the lawn next to the cottage the troughs all work as required, about 100mm freeboard. But put that same trough out in the paddock and mysteriously it overflows and by the next day has it’s own surrounding little lake.

Harry has some sophisticated conjecture concerning the differences in water pressure when the animals are drinking during the day and the likely lower pressure from the pump overnight. I think it is the blasted Pukekos who probably leap up and down on the float, cackling with glee as they make it overflow. Harry demands photographic evidence.

Still no more lambs, Karola checks them twice a day. The old girls are so heavy now that they can get “cast” – on their sides and unable to right themselves – we had one such yesterday. They lumber around like little battleships, wider than they are tall.

Karola has a theory that nettles, the common garden British variety, not our vicious bush ones that grow chest high and can put you in a coma, send their roots well down and bring up essential nutrients and trace elements – so they’d be good for the sheep to eat. And it is a fact that once cut the nettles soon lose their power to sting – I know that from many experiences. So by mowing them, once wilted the sheep will eat them. Hence my mission today to mow the small forests of nettles around the edges of the paddocks – it took over an hour.

Karola and I moved the three raised beds – the 3 x 4 frames of untreated Macrocarpa – from next to the new hard stand (parking for two at a pinch) out into the Totara paddock until I decide where they should now go. These three beds are all that remain when salvaging the relatively un-rotted boards from the six raised beds that for almost a decade sat where the hard stand now is. The other bits made well seasoned firewood. I then mowed the grass surround and it all looks much tidier.

It happened again today. Most days we three, Karola, Bangle and me, drive down to the Ngaruroro river, about five minutes away, and walk/cycle along the limestone path atop the stop bank. I go upstream for 3½km and then back, Bangle and Karola walk about 750m there and back taking roughly 30 minutes. What happened again today? Well, as I prepare to set off my iPhone route-guide app, Footpath, announces, in clear stern tones, “You Are Off Route, Route Is Zero Metres Ahead”. Adding insult to injury she pipes up again at my turn-around point. “Turn Left To Stay On Route” she commands. Well judge for yourself (photo below).

That air compressor is a joy; instead of arduous sweeping with a heavy brush I just blow out the dirt and leaves from the farm shed floor; it’s almost fun. Unfortunately the leaves may soon come back in as the prevailing wind is NNE and the open door faces ….

Mowing Nettles With Kioti Tractor – Before

Mowing Nettles With Kioti Tractor – After

New Hard Stand – Lawn Mown

Cleaning Farm Shed Floor – Before

Cleaning Farm Shed Floor – After

“You Are Off Route – Route Is Zero Metres Ahead”

“Turn Left To Stay On Route”

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—17℃ 5.3mm rain [76.61] TdT eggs=2

Rather a nice day which we wasted a bit by spending the morning inside – Karola reading and me programming. The geese got into the cottage garden overnight and displayed their enthusiasm by depositing messy droppings on the concrete and the verandah – hosed away quickly before it dried.

I did mow the cottage lawn pre-empting that task for tomorrow.

Peaches Suddenly Burst Into Flower – From The Stop-Bank

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—11℃ 0.2mm rain [76.78] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=3

I’m part-way through checking all the eight sheep troughs for leaks and for over-filling. Mark’s cleaning seems to help reduce the over-filling, probably because there was gunk stopping the float close off the water supply completely. I’ve returned one trough to near the Stump Dump and expect I will have another two ready tomorrow.

The sheep tags for the 2020 season came today so Mark and I put ear tags in the ram, the ten ewe hoggets, and the two 2020 ram lambs. With Mark to help it is calm and efficient.

Mark then went back to weeding the bay tree hedge for a while.

Lyn Sturm dropped in for a chat and that was why we were a little later than expected for our Tour today.

Karola, Bangle, and I went down to the river as usual. Strong wind from the north-west so it was a slog in 3rd gear upstream but whistling back in 7th on the return.

Man from Langes came mid afternoon and replaced the broken part in the back of the fridge, now we wait to see if it has fixed the over-icing problem. Karola has been saying it’s too cold for months and months and I wasn’t very encouraging, but she was right.

Our Friendly Ten Ewe Teenagers

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—19℃ no rain [76.94] IBOrchard TdT eggs=3 Mark=4

Had a good morning programming; Karola went round her sheep and let them go into the Front paddock for a change, shutting them out of the One Acre so that it can recover a bit. No lambs today.

Mark continued with weeding the cottage bay tree hedge today. I went round the sheep troughs, now all clean thanks to Mark’s cleaning yesterday. I’ve painted an identifying number on each of the eight troughs, should have done it years ago. I think that there’s one known leaking trough and another three that may be set to fill too much leading to constant spills.

Chooks Posing With Newly Numbered Sheep Trough

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—20℃ no rain [76.94] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

Made our lists and off we went to Hastings wondering whether the lockdown level two would mean long queues at the supermarket. As a precaution I got Karola a newspaper in Stortford Lodge then, after Karola dropped in at the dry-cleaners, we went and bought the weekly GF bread and stocked up on coffee and nibbles at Artisan Coffee Shop next door. Armed with food, drink, and reading matter it turned out that there were very few shoppers, there was plenty of space to socially distance, and no security guards watching us like hawks.

As I staggered out of New World with two overflowing BYO shopping bags and enough over for a third I did wonder again, how is it that two pensioners can consume so much in a week.

In the afternoon one of Lange’s people came and this time he really did seem to know his fridges. He quickly checked the likely reasons for our fridge component and the vegetable chiller drawer being too cold. It is caused by a broken baffle that mechanically opens and closes to control the flow of cold are from the pump at the bottom, behind the freezer drawer. He (probably Nelson, said the woman at Lange’s) would organise a quote for a replacement and we could take it from there.

Meanwhile Mark did sterling work cleaning the sheep troughs so that by this evening all eight were sparkling pristine black.

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—15℃ no rain [76.91] TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

Karola wanted the hogget ewes moved from the Front paddock into the Long Acre which meant somehow getting them past the pregnant ewes. So, as before, I did a shuffle of expectant mums into the One Acre, hoggets across to the yards and through the holding paddock into the Long Acre, then expectant mums allowed back into the Middle and Totara paddocks.

I spent a while looking at YouTube videos on how to use a plate compacter – for tamping down gravel into a hard surface, and it looked straight forward. Called Hastings HireCorp and they had a small one for hire. Karola took Bangle and me there and we picked one up, to be returned before 5:00pm to attract half-day rates.

Mark came soon after we got back and, using the compacter and the rest of the gravel in the bg trailer, finished the two new hard stands for vehicles on the north side of the cottage garage.

Having disconnected three leaking and slimy sheep troughs yesterday and brought them to the cottage, today I scrubbed one with hot water and cloudy ammonia, getting most of the slime off. I then re-packed the water connections and checked for leaks – none showing after two hours. Finally I tested the level to which water rose – the level it rose to when the float cut-off kicked in. As of late afternoon this particular trough performed perfectly.

We went off to the stop-bank after afternoon coffee – not as nice as yesterday but still quite pleasant.

Having kept the chooks in their house until almost 4:00pm I expected a good number of eggs – which would prove that there was some laying-away going on. Quite the opposite, today there were two eggs and a broken shell so three hens didn’t lay. Also, the broken shell suggests any egg eating is being done by the chooks themselves. As Bridget suggested, I’ll just leave them to come and go as they please for the next month and re-evaluate the situation then.

After Mark left at 4:00pm Karola took us to Hastings to return the plate compacter and on the way back I got my quarterly diabetic’s blood test done; I was apprehensive that the Level Two Lockdown might have made it difficult but not so.

Checked the three rat traps in the Bee room in Karamu, I’d caught one large rat.

Dirty Trough

Clean Trough

Mark Operating 45kg Plate Compacter

Landrover Parked On New Hardstand

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—14℃ no rain [76.56] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

Karola reported one of her ewes, #510, had twin ram lambs on Sunday 16th; mother and sons all well.

I whipped down to Winstone Aggregates and got a trailer-destroying cubic metre of “GP40” gravel for the new parking spots. Later Mark and I got a second trailer-load which will be more than enough.

Meticulous Maids made their fortnightly cottage cleaning pilgrimage and, given the level-two lockdown here, we decided to go off while they were here and do our “Tour de Twyford” and also grab some clips for 13mm irrigation pipe from Fruit Federation in Stortford Lodge – the last lot I bought were for 16mm pipe and too loose.

The automatic chook feeder arrived today and it’s in their house tonight – it says “Made in USA” and is certainly solid, simple, and feels high quality. The instructions were in understandable English.

Mark and I cut some 4” x 1” (100mm x 25mm) H3-treated boards into eight pieces about 2½ metres long and Mark laid them out in an octagon round the Camellia tree near the big oak. Karola thought his earlier marking out was too cramped so this gave us a more realistic feel for how a 2.0 meter sided octagon would look. After much robust discussion I concluded that 2.1 metre sides would do and cut the boards to size this evening.

Mark also emptied the first load of gravel and spread it across the new parking spots which demonstrated that we needed quite a bit more. Hence our trip for a second load.

No eggs at all in the chook house today so, there having been two empty shells seen nearby on earlier occasions, I suspect either we have a robber animal – possum maybe – or they’re all laying away. I’ll try keeping them in the house till the afternoon and see what that throws up.

Ewe #510 With Twin Ram Lambs #001 & #002 – 1st 2020 Survivors

Social Distancing, OK, But This Is Absurd!

It’s “Apples All The Way Down”

Riparian Plantings On Ngarurora Flood Plain

The Congestion, Oh The Conjestion

Back 30 Minutes & 7.2km Later – Delightful Sunny, Cool Day, Hardly A Breeze

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—13℃ no rain [76.77] IBOrchard TdT eggs=0 Mark=4

The rain has stopped but the promised sunshine has yet to make an appearance. All’s well with the sheep, geese, chooks, doves, and Bangle of course – and the blasted Pukekos are thriving.

Very enjoyable day for me, programming. Karola reads more of my scientific magazines than I do these days and is often coming up with interesting article she’s read. Oh and today’s “book du jour” is The Master by Rosalind Wilson nee Rolleston; Lexi’s interest in the family history and questions about the genealogy sparked this re-reading.

The ram is really getting to be a pest with his quite hard bunting as he tries to solicit sheep nuts from anyone entering his paddock – well the Goose paddock actually. I kicked him as hard as I could but he seemed to think that I was playing, that I liked being hit on the legs while trying to gather the hens eggs. So eventually I took a rotten branch to hand and bashed him on the head which made him think for a while. Finally I poured water over him from a nearby trough, scooping it up with the chook’s feed tin, and thios did get him to leave me alone, for now.

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—12℃ no rain [76.88] IBOrchard TdT eggs=3

Highlight of the day was the very cold ride along the stop-bank and Karola’s simultaneous walk with Bangle along that same bank.

Less so the last of the big rugby games on TV – it’s actually a relief they’ve come to an end for the time being.

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—12℃ no rain [76.72] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2

Sad to see that the UK is still in second place in the world “deaths per capita from Covid-19” rankings. It’s eerie here in that the new cluster in Auckland feels very ominous but not actually real for us in Hawkes Bay – a bit like a war that’s advancing but isn’t yet close enough to feel panic.

I did not like two pieces of news today:

1) That China is asserting they’ve detected active Covid-19 virus on frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil.

2) That UK had wildly underestimated the number of people who’ve already had Covid-19 – much more widespread than thought, and London has perhaps as many as 13% of its population with the antibodies indicating they’ve already had it. This brought into view through additional testing, not because of cover-ups.

Murky sort of day after quite a lot of rain overnight and too soggy for Mark to come today.

Karola & I had haircuts this morning followed by a quiet afternoon inside.

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—11℃ 0.4mm rain [76.81] IBOrchard TdT eggs=3 Mark=0

Karola got Mark to start her small garden lawn mower and mowed a lot of nettles or her sheep in the Middle paddock – once they’ve been cut green nettles are quite palatable and don’t sting. The mower has developed a bad habit of not turning off but Mark & I fixed that by straightening the throttle cable.

After Selwyn Cook’s comments about rats in the homestead attic I took a look today and it is DISGUSTING – there must be hundreds of them living up there. I went up in the attic and placed about twenty poison baits and also set the three wooden “Predator-Free” rat traps in the Bee Room – the one with open access into the attic. As bait I used a small chunk of smelly cheese – one of Karola’s special varieties – smeared with peanut butter and a melted chocolate peanut slab.

Mark did more work on the two new parking areas, laid out the small octagon to go round the Camellia tree where the old green shed used to be, and continued weeding the bay tree hedge round the cottage railings.

We checked all the sheep: ten hogget ewes, 21 pregnant ewes, one ram and one companion matriarch #209. No more lambs and everyone present and correct.

Start Of The Tour-de-Twyford Stop-Bank path – Looking South-West

… Two Kilometers On – Facing South

… Same Spot But Looking North Towards the River

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—14℃ 2.5mm rain [76.38] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

As is our wont we made the weekly shopping list and toddled off around 9:30am to do the next week’s shopping. All fairly normal when we got to New World but within half an hour it’s clear the Covid-19 Lockdown had caused some panic buying. It was impossible to keep two metres apart because of the crush of people and trolleys and the checkout queues stretched the length of the store and along the back wall. I, having been trained by Marks & Spencers and Tescos in Ealing last year, always do my own checkout and so it was today. However I was scolded for having too many items as I staggered out with two brimming shopping bags and a pack of toilet rolls tucked under one arm. Usually they don’t mind but I suppose it was wrong as every second self-checkout was shut for social distancing. Tsk, tsk.

To our delight we unexpectedly had success at the Health Centre pharmacy. I’d ordered a repeat prescription for Karola yesterday but they expected a 48-hour delay till it could be picked up. And my last prescription receipt clearly said ’no more repeats’ although that didn’t seem right. We were able to pick up Karola’s pills and strangely they decided to give me a month’s supply of my eye-drops.

Got the GF bread from OMG and coffees and a snack from next-door Artisan Coffee Shop.

No Mark today, it was just too wet and Mark reported traffic congestion in Napier as everyone scrambled to buy stuff before the lockdown started at noon.

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—13℃ 1.6mm rain [76.94] IBOrchard TdT eggs=4 Mark=0

Bit of a cold, overcast day so I spent much of it programming. Karola checked her sheep and fed the three groups: ten ewe hoggets, 21 pregnant ewes, and the ram with matriarch companion #209.

In fact it was too wet for comfort so we didn’t do our stop-bank cycling and walking today. Also Mark didn’t come today, other commitments but just as well as the weather wasn’t conducive.

Henare dropped by for a coffee and a chat and we gave him a dozen eggs.

Late evening we got a call from Bridget with the bad news – that four people in Auckland had tested positive for Covid-19 and there was as yet no track back to a known source so Auckland was going back to Lockdown Levle 3 tomorrow and the rest of New Zealand back to Level 3 for at least the rest of this week.

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—12℃ 7.6mm rain [76.94] IBOrchard eggs=3 Mark=0

Kerry, the owner/operator of Hawkes Bay Tractor Dismantlers, called to say the Fergie and the Caravaggi mulcher were fixed and ready to pick up so Karola ferried me there in the Zoe and I drove them home.

Ruth Vincent, our draughtsman for the Karamu homestead renovation, came as planned at 2:00pm for a meeting to discuss next steps now we have the green light from Heritage NZ. We all agreed that in preparing the package of drawings and specifications for submission (re-submission) to the Hastings District Council we would not change anything on the last set of plans sent to heritage NZ in order to avoid any opportunities for further discussion and debate.

As I drove the tractor over the cattle-stop I saw Mark who had just arrived for the afternoon. Mark mulched the big trailer’s load of shelter belt trimmings onto the bund. He then went back into the Long Acre and, as Karola requested, mulched up the heaps of trimmings from the weeping willows, trimmings left when Brimar Trimmers cut the neighbour’s side of our shelter belts – the machine tends to throw what it chops away from the tractor so it ended up mainly on our side of the fence. All good.

Late afternoon and Karola & I went to Farmlands to lodge this season’s order for sheep tags – I should have done that two weeks ago. We also picked up a jar of peanut butter and a small slab of peanut chocolate – for traps. Mark is still after possums and rabbits, the air gun he bought with his first week’s payments from us takes its deadly toll but he also uses two cage traps for possums and these need bait. Also, based on Selwyn’s comment about the rat droppings in the homestead attic I need to put rat traps up there.

Walked Bangle round the orchard in the rain and chatted to Brian Cope across the fence on the way. Brian has talked to the hydroponics people and apparently we’ll be hearing the bird scarer for a while yet as they’re infested with sparrows attacking hundreds of trays of hydroponic lettuces in the open air.

Oak Avenue Weather:1℃—18℃ no rain [76.66] IBOrchard TdT eggs=4 Mark=4

Sunny day and we enjoyed out Tour … along the stop bank today. Uphill very slightly on the outbound leg with a bit of a headwind but of course down hill with a tail wind on the way back. Easily did the 7.2km in under 30 minutes. Meanwhile Bangle takes Karola for a walk in the same direction and they walked for ten minutes upstream so got back only a few minutes before I did.

Sadly our first lamb birth today was still-born, poor #708. Only three days early and a big ewe lamb too.

Looked up again the feeding requirements for my chooks and also reviews for automatic feeders. One and a half standard tin’s worth of layers pellets a day (600g) is what’s recommended so I have been giving them plenty by that measure. I quite like to look and reviews for the Chooketeria (see below). It’s available in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK. I asked (email) an NZ distributor whether they had any advice for stopping Pukekos from sharing the food.

Raked up a mess of dead Cabbage Tree fronds in the Holding paddock and finished the picking-up of shelter belt detritus that Mark almost completed on Friday. All loaded on the big trailer and towed out to beside the bund ready to mulch once the mulcher returns from HB Tractor Dismantlers.

… and The Chooks Just Love It

Chooketeria – Automatic Chook Feeder Excluding Unwelcome Guests

Oak Avenue Weather:0℃—16℃ no rain [76.90] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=4

Rather quiet day just pottering about. And as usual that includes some reading on the verandah or in her comfortable Stressless recliner chair for Karola and some programming for me.

Anna’s Dave in Ealing – Made His Bike Electric With DIY Kit

Oak Avenue Weather:-1℃—12℃ 5.4mm rain [76.98] IBOrchard TdT eggs=4

Our Heritage NZ assigned agent, Laura Kellaway, sent her first email about the Karamu Homestead renovations, on 18th June 2019. Today, 7th August 2020, we got the letter of approval. As I have repeated to myself many times, we must be thankful for Laura’s unhurried painstaking attention to detail such as would befit the assessment of a major public asset like a library or museum. Yeah, right!

Heritage New Zealand supports the proposed changes documented in the preliminary drawings, subject to final building consent drawings, which includes:

• Partial demolition of rear services wing due to condition , and to be rebuilt in part
• Removal of the itemised old 1870s joinery – under Architect control with some reuse.
• Retention of the 1950s summer house room
• Addition of a new side verandah and associated new French doors
• Addition of new gabled rear porch which references the loss of part of the 1870s homestead
• Placing kitchen services in one of the main ground floor rooms
• The new interior doors and protecting the historic archway

The upper floor additions are supported by Chris Cochran, Conservation Architect.

While the addition of new upper floor above the lean to is not the preferred method of change the proposed
repairs, partial demolition and alterations to the historic building are considered acceptable, based on
documentation provided, and that there will be some conservation supervision during construction with the
ICOMOS Charter is applied to all works.

And the good news is that we’ve celebrated “mission accomplished” with the architect Graham Linwood and will take it from here ourselves with the able assistance of our draughtsman Ruth Vincent and builder Paul Libby. Ruth has offered to come to discuss next steps on Monday afternoon. Trying not to feel too ebullient, not to count chickens etc, but it’s looking more positive.

Mark came and took down the electric fence from round the homestead lawn then used four standards to anchor the ladder up into the chook house, the ladder that the ram delighted in scratching himself agains and dislodging from the house. Finally he almost completed the loading of shelter belt trimmings onto the big trailer so that, even though the Caravaggi mulcher is out of action for a week or so, we can get those fir tree branches out of the way of Karola’s expectant ewes – they tend to lose their lambs if they eat a lot of conifer leaves.

Meanwhile we all went down to the stop-bank for our daily tour-de-Twyford and later Karola & I took quick trip down to Gagan’s for some more fresh fruit and vege.

I kept the chooks shut up until after mid-day today and the result was five eggs proving, sadly, that there’s some laying-away going on.

Anna sent us a screen-shot off her iPhone showing the heatwave they’re having in London.

I investigated where the loud double bangs are coming from that happen at random times during the day and early evening. It’s from the far end of the Hydroponics sheds next door (see below).

London Summer Heatwave – Like Hawkes Bay At It’s Hottest And More

Source Of The Thunderous Bangs Every Few Hours From Next Door

Hydroponics Next Door – Lettuces Galore – Attractive To Sparrows

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—17℃ 1.8mm rain [77.17] IBOrchard TdT eggs=5 Mark=4

Spent quite a bit of today, carrying on from last evening, in trying to get Gill’s website, https://gill.brackenbury.nz to load its first page more quickly. I think we’ve got it down to about 4 – 5 seconds now from 11 seconds or so last week. My searching on the Internet suggests that 70% of web pages take more than 4 seconds even though Google advises under 3 seconds is advisable given the short attention span of web browsing people.

Mark let us know he wouldn’t be coming today.

Late morning Selwyn Cook came with a replacement battery for the homestead security system. Unbeknownst to me, the battery is a lead-acid one (old technology) which, if it is used for several days, drains so thoroughly that it’s very hard to re-charge. It protects just fine against the odd power cut of a few hours but there’s a circuit in the homestead intermittently tripping the main fuse so at times it’s been off for several days. Still, apart from the expense it’s now not a problem.

Around noon Grayson Allen came, as planned, and took a look at the cottage hot water cylinder. It’s no wonder he’s always late or behind, he talks and talks. He’s going to try and get a replacement cylinder for our leaking Bauxi 300 litre one that’s nine years old.

In parallel with that we want him to quote for a heat pump to drive both the water radiators and heat the HWC. I have a strong feeling that with the heat pump directly heating the liquid going round in the radiators they’ll get hot and stay hot much more effectively than our current mode of heating the HWC to heat the radiator liquid.

https://www.mitsubishi-electric.co.nz/materials/hotwater/brochures/@Ecodan.pdf

Mitsubishi Ecodan Hydrobox Heat Pump

Charming Small Chess Set – A Bygone Gift From Bridget

Oak Avenue Weather:5℃—16℃ 0.1mm rain [77.24] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2 Mark=0

Mid-week shopping for the next seven days all went off smoothly. Also got some oil for the tractor, “15W40” grade, and a carton of eight mini-salt-lick blocks. Karola posted a birthday card to Natalie. OMG for the GF bread and next-door Artisan for coffe and we were done.

Later I tried to fix the mulcher that jammed yesterday. Mark said he’d unjammed it but it still wasn’t cutting properly. So I set out to make sure we’d got rid of all the blockage and to change the blades. ALl went well until I tried to re-assemble the very heavy fly-wheel that holds the blades and bolts onto the back-frame with its paddle flails. I got the six bolts off OK but when it came to putting them back they just wouldn;t line up. Mark arrived and he helped a lot as for over an hour we attempted to find some winning rotation of the fly-wheel that would align the bolt holes. No joy so I drove the mulcher down to Hawkes Bay Tractor Dismantlers and talked to Kerry about it. He also had a go at putting the bolts in but admitted there wasn’t a simple answer and his engineers would have to do some work on it to realign and re-thread the bolts.

There’s still an hour or so of mulching to do but that’s obviously going to have to wait.

Mark started the ordinary lawn mower for Karola and she mowed under the Canary Island pine and the large oak tree nearby, chopping the nettles. We think that sheep will eat them once they’ve been chopped.

Then Mark began weeding the Bay Tree hedge round the cottage railings in preparation for transplanting a few Bay Tree self-sown seedlings into gaps in the hedge.

AFter work Mark went out shooting rabbits and possums for a couple of hours. He got a couple of possums.

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [77.15] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

Late start due to falling back to sleep reading about how to improve web-page performance for Gill’s website. Which reminds me, Karola and I are watching all 34 episodes of the televised Montalbano (Andrea Camilleri), three left, and they were made by Italian TV. The BBC bought the series and they have English subtitles but are still spoken in Italian. I keep going to sleep and need to rewind for a few minutes to avoid losing the plot – they are quite intricate books and were obviously hard to translate into two-hour TV episodes – one per book. Karola is remarkably calm about my all too frequent rewinds. She’s re-reading some of the books which makes for very confusing watching.

Peter Offenberger called and we discussed what to do because Charlotte’s laptop. only three years old, has got a broken WiFi connection. Peter was wondering if I had got a favourite PC fixer in Hawkes Bay. I do not and for somerthing as small as the WiFi function in a modern laptop I suspect the answer would be to replace the motherboard, that is most of the insides. So I thought that using one of the USB ports for a USB-WiFi dongle might be simplest and least expensive.

Mark came just before we set off on today’s TdT, continuing his shredding/chipping of the shelter belt slash. We returned from the Ngaruroro stop banks for afternoon tea then set off for Havelock North to pick up the final concept drawings for the Karamu homestead restoration from Graham Linwood, architect. We should remind ourselves of what we’ve agreed to and what, presumably, Heritage NZ will approve later this week.

On the way back from Havelock North we dropped in at Mitre-10 so that I could order some perspex – my cunning plan to let light into the food & drink cabinet along the back of the chook house. The lass on the till wasn’t sure that they could even order the sheet of clear plastic that I wanted, even though I had a printout of the web page where they advertised it. She called in her supervisor who, when he heard it was for the chook house waxed lyrical about all the different breeds of chooks he had – couldn’t have been more helpful – and found me a piece of clear plastic in stock, the same size as I was after, and much stronger. Took off 15% too.

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—17℃ 0,2mm rain [76.88] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2 Mark=4½

Second day riding the new route for the Tour de Twyford. Karola & Bangle did their on-leash walk and I almost enjoyed the 3½ ride upstream and the same back down.

The Meticulous Maids had come, unusually early, while we were on our TdT so when we got back Karola suggested we have our main meal out, at Lappuccinos in Omahu road. So we did. They’ve stopped serving pan-fried fish, which was the main attraction for me, and I’d say the business is really struggling after the effects of the Covid19 lockdown. I don’t think I’d take visitors there for a while. Particularly revealing is the number of their bench seats with upholstery split right across and the foam stuffing showing.

Later I drove the elderly Fergie tractor to Hawkes Bay Tractor Dismantlers for its service – it has one every two or three years. Kerry said that the oil leak, as I described it, was probably a failure of the big end seal. Replacing that requires splitting the engine in half longitudinally, a big and expensive job. As I didn’t detect any leak while driving to HBTD, Kerry said just put up with it until something else major such as a new clutch needed doing.

While we were out on the TdT and for lunch Mark worked on the edging for the two new parking spaces next to the cottage garage; after we came back, before driving off on the Fergie, Mark resumed his chipping/shredding of the shelter belt slash.

Off Again On The Tour de Twyford (New Edition)

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—15℃ no rain [76.89] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=4 Mark=4

Our main adventure today was trying the new “Tour de Twyford” route along the stop bank of the Ngaruroro river starting at the bottom of Ormond Road. The experimental notion is that we all, Bangle included, drive down to the stop-bank. I cycle off upstream for 3½km and Karola and Bangle stroll in the same direction for about 15 minutes. I turn round and cycle back and should rejoin the others about five minutes after they get back. Well, we’ll see how it goes. At present, in winter, there are very few people out on the stop-bank. No vehicle traffic allowed so that’s relaxing too. And Bangle gets a bit more exercise.

Yesterday’s trial along the stop-bank was longer, over 8km, and it meant Karola driving me up to the bridge at Omahu village 20km away then returning and waiting at the end of Ormond Road. Today’s “there and back” approach is more economical of time and petrol and is about the same distance as my old route round the block.

The New “Tour de Twyford” Daily Cycle Route – There & Back

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—14℃ no rain [76.84] IBOrchard TdT eggs=3

The cycle route we explored along the stop-bank of the Ngaruroro river (see below) is 8.13km long and takes about 35 minutes instead of my old 7km round-the-block route taking 25 mins. Tomorrow we may try going from the Ormond Road end (on right in photo) for 3.5km and return. It takes less than 10 minutes driving for Karola that way compared with 25 minutes drive for drop-off in Omahu and pick-up at the end of Ormond Road.

Otherwise Karola read and I programmed most of the day, very pleasant.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—14℃ no rain [76.83] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=2