Monthly Archives: October 2020

A day mostly spent pottering about, me enjoying time on my programming project, Karola reading, sorting out family photographs.

Karola did spent several hours out in the cottage garden, taking advantage of the good soaking the ground had last week to weed the bay tree hedge along the cottage garden railings.

We did take a short trip to Gagan’s roadside greengrocers for some more kiwifruit, Granny Smith apples and the like. We nipped into Caltex Omahu on the way home for Karola to get a newspaper and coffee. The coffee wasn’t as bad as I’d predicted.

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—22℃ 0.1mm rain [76.45] TdT eggs=2

Usual feeding of feathered things in the morning. The farm shed garage door is sticking still so probably needs more expert maintenance.

Have had one chook broody for a week or two but now there are two who stay on-nest all day except, presumably, for short breaks when I’m not there for food etc. One other chook has been AWOL for a couple of days so probably broody too but away somewhere with the obvious danger of proudly producing chicks in a week or so. Of the six chooks: white, orange, and red bands are still in the workforce. Light green and dark green bands are broody. Bluebandg is AWOL.

Mark mowed and mowed all afternoon. At this time of the year you can almost see the grass growing so it’s a few weeks of mow, mow, mow. The sheep are overwhelmed with pasture – which is good for fattening up the lambs.

Goose Paddock With Ram – Park-Like

Karola’s Favourite – Wild Manuka Blossom

Oh So White Camellia Flowers – The Last To Bloom

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—22℃ 0.1mm rain [75.88] TdT eggs=1 Mark=4

Rain has stopped and ground is drying out. We spent most of the day with emails, reading, and, for me, some productive programming.

Mark came mid-day and began by trying to fix the farm shed garage door. It seems to jam ⅔ of the way up as if catching on something, but then with a press of the button continues to open fully. He made some adjustments as I suggested but we haven’t cracked it yet.

Mark went on to tidy up the part of the goose paddock that the chooks occupy. The ram and pukekos have scattered firewood around and there is a forest of nettles under the fir tree. Mark cleared all that up and Grillo mowed the grass so now it matches the rest of the goose paddock – pleasantly park-like.

For his final hour he finished Grillo mowing the Californian thistles in the last quarter of the One Acre.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—19℃ 0.2mm rain [76.40] TdT eggs=3 Mark=4

Good rain overnight and very light drizzle all day so Mark will see what tomorrow brings.

We, as planned, tried the Havelock North New Word for our weekly grocery shop today. It does feel a bit as if the goods are higher quality except for the fish but mostly the only real difference is the ambience, being in Havelock North near all that agedness and money.

So we’ve tried Havelock North and we’ve tried Green meadows, both a bit further than Hastings New World and in opposite directions. On balance we think we’ll stick with Hastings for now.

Meticulous Maids came and did their thing, on Wednesday because the Monday was a public holiday, Labour Day.

Had some parsley from the raised bed herb garden with our soup at lunchtime – first rewards from the new plantings.

Karola took some photos while down on the Tour de Twyford today.

“Tour de Twyford” – Aka The Ngaruroro Stop Bank Run

“OK, Lets Go”

“Well, I’m Off”

The Master Returns

“Beats” Earphones, Bridget’s Blue Icebreaker, And All

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—15℃ 0.5mm rain [75.88] TdT eggs=3 Mark=0

Mark tackled the last quarter of the One Acre, the one the sheep were grazing when he did the other three quarters. He’s mowing just the areas infested with Californian thistles – unfortunately that’s quite a lot of the last quarter. Mid afternoon a shower came through and with the forecast of rain into the evening we cut our losses and stopped for the day.

I cleaned out the goose bath having found a dead hedgehog floating in it this morning. Also let the ram back into his section of the Goose paddock intending for Mark to mow the area round the chook house but rain put paid to that.

One of my grand-daughters has a school friend with a dog called “Smudge” – a Labradoodle like Bracket. And yesterday Anna sent the photo (below) of another dog called “Smudge” that belongs to Mark Florent’s new family. “Smudge” is staying with Anna for a few days while Mark and family are on holiday.

Anna Is Looking After “Smudge” For A While

Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—20℃ 12.1mm rain [76.31] TdT eggs=2 Mark=2½

Began the day by creating little individual “glass houses” for eight wysteria cuttings (see photo below). I topped up each pot with composted soil from Karola’s first bund, watered each pot. The blue trough has a couple of inches of water in it and the pots have holes in the bottom so there will be plenty of moisture.

Having watered the octagon and raised beds yesterday I remembered to do the little bit of new lawn next to the new vehicle hard-stand north of the cottage garage.

Mark began by finishing off the Grillo mowing of the homestead lawn. He then put in the three young trees we bought on Saturday at Chris Ryan’s home plant sale. That involved digging quite big holes for each tree, laying the turf from the hole upside down on the bottom as per Karola’s instructions, planting each tree with a fertilizer tablet underneath then watering with a couple of buckets from the nearest tap. Then erecting a tree guard to protect it. We used existing tree guards and Mark banged in three standards per guard.

Mark then began the next mowing task – all the areas round the houses except for the just completed homestead lawn and the cottage lawn and curtilage. He got the 121 driveway and south of the homestead garage before it was time to knock off.

I did Karola’s GST which didn’t take long but due to interspersed tasks actually took all day.

Wysteria Propagation “By The Book”

Two New Hickory Trees

One New Catalpa – Replacing The Big Thuja

Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—27℃ 0.2mm rain [76.24] TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

I began the day by mowing as much as I could of the land immediately outside the 121 cattle-stop – very dusty.

Then I enticed the ram to come under the electric fence partitioning off his area from the chooks. The chook house area grass has shot up and needs eating, and I want to mow the rest of the Goose paddock so the grass has a better chance against the iris and occasional thistle. Used the Kioti tractor to mow as it is wider and faster and today I don’t need to pick up.

Turned the water on for the bay trees, special manuka, and micro-orchard. Then the two taps watering the bay tree saplings and the tap for the five swamp cypress and 16 lime trees. Bucket of water on the pineapple sage and another on the nasty pink geranium – both are alongside the homestead garage. Gave a drink to the three trees we got from Chris Ryan yesterday and watered my mustard and cress.

Later I set sprinklers going for the octagon and for my raised bed herb gardens. Surely it will rain now.

Californian thistles and other deep-rooted weeds are coming up on the new parking hard-stand so I zapped them with Roundup.

Mark’s attempt at propagating Wysteria from cuttings is not working. I retrieved the old plastic sheep foot trough – bought to give the sheep a zinc foot bath against facial eczema but these days we get Karl to administer zinc boluses, much more effective. The trough now provides a shallow watering tray for the propagation pots, as suggested by Karola. Mark’s choice of cuttings were too small and they just shrivelled up and died. I did a quick Google for ideas on taking Wysteria cuttings – there were plenty and remarkably consistent.

Karola and I then sought out slightly older and thicker Wysteria shoots and cut them as prescribed. Put them in an old jam jar of water overnight while we let the potting mix in the propagation pots soak up moisture.

Began Karola’s GST for September-October, due in this week.

Goose Paddock aka Ram Paddock – Now Park-like After Mowing

Ram For Now In With Chook House – Lots Of Tucker

Outside The Cattlestop

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—26℃ no rain [77.34] TdT eggs=2

Off this morning to Chris Ryan’s home plant sale. He’s well known and very knowledgeable local plantsman – member of Tree Croppers and IDS etc. and these days spends all his time up at the Guthrie Arboretum next to lake Tutira on the road to Wairoa from Napier. He lives on the hillside at Havelock North with a huge garden, a gully really, with thousands of plants and trees.

We bought three trees, two Hickory and one Catalpa.

Returning home we dropped in at the Havelock North New World and despite it being quite small it did seem to have a slightly higher quality range of groceries so we might try going there for our mid-week weekly shopping. THe OMG bread shop and Artisan would still be on our way home from there.

We dropped in at Rush Munro’s for an ice-cream. However as last time my experiment with attempting to get home before my cone dripped failed we ate our cones in the courtyard of Rush Munro’s.

The afternoon just slipped away.

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—24℃ no rain [76.80] TdT eggs=3

Very pleasant day, again – Karola reading on the cottage verandah, again, and me up in my attic in the cottage, tippity-tapping away.

Mark continued with mowing the homestead lawn. At afternoon tea time he serendipitously ran out of petrol so I popped down to the Caltex Omahu road petrol station and got more diesel and petrol and a couple of newspapers for Karola.

Watched the Trump-Biden debate streamed by USA Today. They were helpfully fact-checking some of the more outrageous assertions in real time and, what a surprise, time and again Trumps claims were just outright false. But maybe they, USA Today, have a point-of-view.

I thought Trump looked ill whereas Biden merely looks ancient and decrepit – and this is the choice for leader of the free world.

Bridget sent a couple of photos from her walk from Khandallah down to work in the Wellington CBD via the Botanical Gardens/

Tulips in Wellington Botanical Gardens Brighten Bridget’s Walk To Work

… And A Shy Fuschia

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—23℃ 0.8mm rain [76.74] TdT eggs=3 Mark=4

In the morning Karola read and I programmed, relaxing on a pleasant sunny day. I checked out the mowing Mark had done of nettles and thistles over the last few days and he’s spotted and dealt with all the bad patches.

On my way to collect the mail I spied a hen actually laying her egg while strolling around. Silly chook, it just fell to the ground.

Today Mark began Grillo mowing the homestead lawn, lush from the week’s rain. He also watered the 20 young yew trees along the fence line south of the 133 entrance. Karola thought they looked a little stressed being so much under the canopy of the big trees that gentle rain doesn’t help them so much.

On our way to the stop-bank Karola, Bangle, and I went down to Stortford Lodge to the chemist’s aka Unichem Pharmacy and picked up our repeat prescription meds. It’s eventually sunk in that we have a four-day weekend upon us, Hawkes Bay anniversary Friday then Labour Day Monday.

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—20℃ no rain [77.23] TdT eggs=2 Mark=4½

Got lots done this morning; Karola had an appointment with her dental hygienist who Karola described as “calm, gentle, and thorough” – and only $150 too. Meanwhile I did the weeks shopping including OMG GF bread and Artisan takeaway coffees. We went past Rush Munro’s without stopping.

Mark helped me build a “plant propagation table” to put pots and trays on, up above the reach of chooks and geese. He then continued his programme of mowing the nettles that have been so prolific this year.

Later Mark & I took the cheap ($75) little old second-hand fridge to the recycling depot in Henderson road. They charge $10 for fridges as they have to get rid of the refrigerant gas. A few weeks ago the fridge started running continuously, 24 x 7 until I turned it off at the wall.

Mark “Helping” Me – That Is, Doing All The Work

Plant Propagation Table In Situ

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—19℃ 2.3mm rain [77.22] TdT eggs=2 Mark=3½

Mark came and spent the afternoon mowing. First he continued with mowing the Californian thistles in the One Acre – turned out there were so many he couldn’t finish yesterday. Then Karola wanted the bounteous nettles in the Middle paddock mown so that, when wilted, the sheep could eat them – full of iron and other healthy things.

Karola, Bangle, and I took Zoe down to Flaxmere to post a birthday card and then, on the way back, picked up fruit and vege from Gagan’s roadside shop.

Mostly I programmed and Karola raced through the compendium of John Buchan “Edward Leith” stories.

Manuka (leptosporum scoparium) – The Wild Variety – By Far The Best

Dark Red But, Worst Of All, Double-Blossomed

Single-Blossomed – White With A Red Centre

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—21℃ no rain [77.22] TdT eggs=3 Mark=4

Quiet morning but Mark came at lunchtime and we spent a satisfying hour fixing the last three gates that weren’t swinging properly.

Ewes, hoggets, and lambs, based in the Totara/Middle paddocks, were allowed into the fourth quarter of the One Acre paddock, stampeding in once they sussed the gate was open.

Mark and Karola then spent at least half an hour picking up rubbish from the avenue verges, from the 133 entrance south to our boundary about 50 metres beyond the 121 entrance and cattle stop.

Finally Mark Grillo mowed the thick patches of Californian thistles in the One Acre paddock. Apparently if you mow the ‘cali’ thistles while they’re growing fast in spring and when wet they get seriously set back – well I hope so.

We saw a very large cat up in the next door orchard when walking round with Bangle this evening. Initially I thought it was a small dog.

Scourge Of The Local Birdlife

Not Hanging Round here

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—25℃ no rain [77.02] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=5 Mark=4

Quiet day – programming for me and reading for Karola. Cool sunny day again so walk/cycle along the stop bank was pleasant.

Another rugby game to watch this evening, recorded at 4:00pm and view during and after a dinner of some surprisingly delicious Bostock chicken sausages – Karola bought them on Wednesday as an experiment.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—18℃ no rain [77,32] TdT eggs=3

I noticed that my tray of cress seedlings, par of my mustard and cress project, were completely lifeless – due I think to a combination of frost and lack of water. The soil they’re in has a high organic content but dries out quickly. So I re-seeded the tray, starting again.

We mistook the date of Chris Ryan’s garage sale of his personal collection of trees and prepared to go in the Subaru and leave Bangle behind, in charge until we returned.As we were about to leave Karola noticed it was actually next week, not election day, for the garage sale. And the sale of trees isn’t in a garage but all along Chris Ryan’s driveway, some of the trees on offer are quite large.

So instead we took in some dry-cleaning and got papers and a coffee for Karola at the BP station in Stortford Lodge.

Karola called Nimon Baling, (DR & KM Nelson, 266 Ruakawa Road, RD4, HASTINGS 4174 – 06-879-7758), to see if they had any pea straw yet. Too early apparently.

Mark came today and transplanted some small shrubs growing against the west wall of the homestead to new homes in the octagon. When the homestead renovations begin their old posse’s will be under the new verandah.

Then Mark and I adjusted four farm gates that were dragging on the ground. There’s still a couple more to do. As part of this we popped the ram, #977, into the Long Acre to avoid his constant bunting and poking his nose in – the gate from the goose paddock into the Middle paddock is one of the gates we re-hung. He was lured back into the Goose paddock later with sheep nuts.

The election results have started to come in, no surprises so far.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—17℃ no rain [77.27] TdT eggs=3 Mark=4

Miserable start to the day weather-wise. But we needed to drop Bangle off at Emma’s for grooming this morning – it takes about two hours for Bangle to emerge bright and clean and fluffy with short nails and a happy smile.

In contrast, late afternoon the weather was divine – sunny & cool and very little breeze.

It was so wet this morning that Mark postponed and will likely come tomorrow.

Karola And Bangle, Tour de Twyford, Coming …

… And Going – It’s Lovely Along The River Bank

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—15℃ 0.5mm rain [77.35] TdT eggs=3 Mark=0

Rained most of the night and today. Programming and reading. Fire in the evening watching a rather flat if civilised debate two days out from the national election.

Mark deferred due to precipitation. Too wet underfoot and showers too frequent for either the orchard walk or the Tour de Twyford.

Even the sheep and lambs spent most of the day under the trees, snoozing and ruminating.

Guest Blog By Sister Gill Brackenbury

Byline: Gill Brackenbury – Seatoun Heights Road, Wellington 2020-10-15

A few weeks ago I received an email from Christina Patterson (nee Brackenbury) saying that her sister, who lives in Germany, had contacted her having come across my Ebook Eve’s Journey:1923 on the web.

It transpires that Ian’s and my grandfather (Graham Brackenbury – born Simmons) is Christina’s great-grandfather – Christina’s family are from Graham’s first marriage to the then well-known journalist, socialite, and author, Anita Bartle (1876-1962).

That arm of the Brackenbury family kept in touch with Graham’s large family, many of his siblings lived in Golders Green, London. I loved hearing that one of our great aunts was Victoria Lidiard a social activist, the last living suffragette – she was also an optician and she wrote her first book at 99!

Christina is Home Support Manager for the Waiheke Health Trust, husband Adam is Associate Professor at University of Auckland, doing Cancer Research. Both their daughters, Azura and Tallulah, are at university. What a surprise it was to hear Azura was here in Wellington at Victoria, doing a Masters degree in Environmental studies.

Ben and I met Christina and her daughter Azura this last weekend in Wellington; a really enjoyable and entertaining “first contact”.

Both Christina and Adam spent their early years in Zambia where they first met. Fabulous wildlife, slightly edgy living. You didn’t drive on roads at night, but if you had to and you came across a ‘police’ roadblock it was “Duck!” and a flat-out drive through, you couldn’t be sure if it was police or bandits. Christina’s father, Andrew, once got beaten up by two South Africans for defending his Zambian friend. So many stories to tell.

They spent their early marriage, while Adam was doing his PhD at Oxford, living in a canal boat there. The family came to NZ from the UK in 2000 and Christina and Adam live on Waiheke Island – an idyllic somewhat alternative lifestyle fairly close to the sea, although it is changing in character as more and more city dwellers buy houses there just for holiday homes and investments. The Pattersons used to have horses there while the girls were growing up. And they’ve bungy-jumped a couple of times. Excellent to have more of our extended family in NZ.

Aloysius Graham Brackenbury – From The Westinghouse Internal Magazine – Early 1940s

From The Official Gazette Of The United States Patent Office, Vol 495, 1938, p381

Oil Painting In The Tate: Sir William Orpen’s Anita – 1905

The Second Oil Portrait By Sir William Orpen, Modelled By Anita Bartle, The Red Shawl

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—10℃ 19mm rain [77.23] eggs=4 Mark=0

Shopping list then off we go, leaving Bangle to guard the cottage, to Farmlands for more sheep nuts and maize, then to New World for groceries, on to OMG and Artisan for GF bread and coffees, pick up a bit of cash for the worker at the bank and then – tsk, tsk – an icecream cone each from Rush Monros. It’s a hard life, sunny skies, temps in the mid 20s.

Mark came and began my project to plant Wysteria and Muehlenbeckia in the octagon he weeded last week. Using Wysteria roots with sprouts from around the base of the homestead foundations planted directly round the palm trunk and trying our hand at propogation from cuttings by setting up six little pots. We’re using very friable soil from one of Karola’s well rotted bunds of compost and some ancient rooting hormone. An interesting experiment to see which technique is best.

Cutting From The Old Homestead VIne Karola Planted Few Years Ago Amongst Yew Boundary Hedge

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—20℃ 12.6mm rain [77.57] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=3 Mark=4

It rained overnight and showers got heavier and more frequent until mid afternoon, clearing just in time for our afternoon Tour de Twyford on the stop-bank.

Late afternoon the sheep got moved back to the Totara & Middle paddocks and a new quarter of the One Acre crop paddock.

I made some good progress on programming and Karola got well into her latest Kate Atkinson novel, A God In Ruins.

Marks Mowing Under The Big Oak – Bangle On A Mission

Chooks Out Foraging (One Is Broody)

Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—19℃ 7.7mm rain [77.43] TdT eggs=1 Mark=0

Turned off the watering systems. Forecast is for some rain mid week but then it changes, usually becoming later in the week, but in fact there was a little light rain this afternoon and we all got a bit wet on our Tour de Twyford.

I nipped down to Mitre-10 this morning, having rung ahead to make sure the loaner lawn roller hadn’t been taken out already, and picked up their sturdy roller – an empty heavy plastic drum with handle that you fill with water for weight.

Mark then used it to roll the area round the cottage pump shed – I’d already watered it heavily for several hours – before sowing it with lawn seed, rolling again, and watering again.

Afterwards Mark began mowing the area under the big oak, behind the homestead garage, and along the 121 driveway. It looks so much better.

Meticulous Maids came late afternoon to clean the cottage. We left for the stop bank before they’d finished but after Mark’s afternoon was done. Karola is well into her latest Kate Atkinson novel; I just pottered on computer.

Area Round Pump-Shed Levelled, Watered, Rolled, Seeded, Watered

Combined Nursery & Rumination Parlour – Under The Eucalypts

Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—21℃ 3.0mm rain [77.43] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=3 Mark=4

Mowed cottage lawn and curtilage. Just a normal pleasant Hawkes Bay Sunday. Watched the first Bledisloe Cup rugby match on TV almost live – cliffhanger ended in a draw. Both sides happy not to have outright lost but disgruntled at how victory escaped their grasp right at the end. Please, please can we have our Sunday evenings back – let there be an end to this relentless spate of rugby games.

Karola finished her marathon read of five Richard Hannay stories by John Buchan.

Water set on for the usual sets of trees – I’ll give them 24 hours. Also the area next to the cottage pump shed and the octagon given a good sprinkle.

Herb Beds: Marigold Companion Plants. Flowering Already

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—20℃ no rain [77.20] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=3

Mark came today, making up for Thursday’s absence, and spent the afternoon smoothing out the ground around the cottage pump shed ready for sowing as future lawn. Stones and other rubble was taken to in-fill trenches left between the rainwater tanks when they were connected via 50mm pipes years ago.

Christina Patterson (née Brackenbury) is down seeing her daughter this weekend and has asked Gill & Ben to brunch tomorrow. This is the unexpected find from Gill’s ancestry research and the publishing of her book documenting grandmother Doris’ epic travel with a donkey in England. Relations from Doris husband George Aloysius Brackenbury’s first marriage, and they actually live in New Zealand.

Some Of The 22 Ewes With Their 25 Lambs, Plus 10 Maiden Hoggets (Shorn)

Ewe #813 And Her Mother #510 (Probably)

Ram #977 (Charlie) – Who’re You Lookin At, Eh!

Gill’s Wellington Garden In Late Spring

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—17℃ no rain [77.24] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=3 Mark=4

Took Karola to her annual precautionary medical scan – very efficient, all over in 20 minutes. Getting a paper and the coffees at BP on the way home took as long.

Spent the morning fiddling with my dozen Internet domains, some rationalisation of email accounts.

Mark transplanted Jenny’s Pineapple Sage and the large pink-flowered geranium to new spots next to the homestead garage. He began levelling the area next to the cottage pump shed ready for sowing lawn seed.

After dinner I did a little more tidying up, emptying the big trailer and Subaru into the store room.

One quarter of One Acre grazed for four days and now left to recuperate. They certainly made a difference. Sheep given the next quarter.

Sheep Clean Out One Quarter Of The Crop

My Manuka Varieties – As Intended With Mix Of Whites And Reds

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—15℃ no rain [77.01] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=3 Mark=4

The little Kioti tractor is scheduled to have its 500 hour service today and the service man from Power Farming came mid morning and did the service on the spot, finishing soon after lunch.

Karola & I spent the morning moving all the stuff out of the Apple room onto the big trailer and into the Subaru. Unloading it is for later.

Late afternoon Paul and Ruth arrived and, as requested, Ruth took us round all the parts of the homestead changed by the renovation plan. As Ruth reiterated, the windows and doors need to stay exactly where they are on the plan that Heritage NZ approved, otherwise we’d be back in another approval cycle with them.

Ruth pointed out that even when we have access from outside to the upper floor level there is the small matter of the stairwell to cross. We expected to reduce the uplifting of floor boards in the upstairs room to add sprinklers and more monitored fire alarms in the ceilings of the downstairs rooms. This will still be true but less so because we’ll need to get access to the dining room ceiling and half the living room without going straight in between the floor joists of the upper floor.

The changes discussed with Bridget and more recently with Ruth were clarified today. We prefer there to be no “wing wall’s in the laundry area and have some changes to the downstairs bathroom and laundry. The downstairs bathroom footprint is the same, exactly as it is now, but we prefer not to have a shower in it. Ruth said that if we left the loo where it is then a short (600mm) wall alongside the loo would provide some privacy and also help greatly with her bracing calculations.

At the far end of the laundry we’d like to reinstate last year’s idea of having a shower, loo, and basin in a separate small bathroom there. That gives Ruth two wing walls, either side of the door into the little bathroom.

Empty Junk Room

Empty Apple Room

Oak Avenue Weather:3℃—14℃ 0.1mm rain [76.76] TdT eggs=3 Mark=0

Mid-week shopping for the week ahead. Today Karola suggested trying the New World at Green Meadows as she thinks our Hastings New World is getting a little stale. Turned out that despite feeling more spacious, light, and airy the Green Meadows new World didn’t have all the items on my list so we ended up going to Hastings new World to get the missing items.

Back in Hastings, coffee at Artisan, GF bread from OMG next door, and then a treat, an icecream from Rush Monros on the way home.

Mark came and continued all afternoon on his weeding of the octagon.

Karola and I went off to Twyford School hall to vote – where we always vote – only to find that it isn’t open as a polling booth for the extended period – extended due to Covid 19 precautions and convenience – but only on election day. One of the teachers directed us to a polling station she knew would be open, in Mahora – about as far east from Karamu as we’d gone west to Twyford School. St John’s Presbyterian Church hall was indeed open and we voted with “social distancing” no problems.

Late afternoon we began emptying the homestead’s long thin Junk room into the garage store room using the big trailer to ferry stuff from one dwelling to the other. With that done this evening it does seem possible we’ll have the Apple room cleared too in time for the meeting tomorrow afternoon with Ruth and Paul.

Junk Room – Destined To Become Part Of New Kitchen

Apple Room – To Be Joined To Junk Room As New Kitchen

Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—23℃ 0.2mm rain [77.04] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

Very strong wind gusts most of the day, pleasant enough out of the wind.

We went into town to drop off some old and unwanted travel bags – at the hospice shop opposite Countdown – and more books at the Lion’s book drop. As part of that trip we went to Mitre-10 for some cheap light-weight tarpaulines and to Artisan for coffee.

Ruth the draughtsman rang as promised and we discussed the concern that Bridget alerted us to – building regulations require significant bracing front-back and left-right. With a long thin room like the current kitchen and soon-to-be laundry this is hard to achieve without getting a special set of metal beams engineered for the purpose or introducing a small number of “wing walls”. These latter tend, in our family’s view, to reduce the perception of space and the actual clear wall area for shelves and cupboards.

And now Bridget has focussed on the actual plans submitted to the council – she needed to do that when proposing a kitchen layout last weekend – she strongly urges us to have a small bathroom at the end of the laundry with a loo and shower and basin. This is then easily accessible from the kitchen and from the outside, unlike the current downstairs bathroom. Bridget adds that in her opinion, with this reinstatement of a downstairs bathroom at the end of the laundry, the existing bathroom doesn’t need a bath or shower and the space currently taken by a bath could better be used for more room for coats and storage.

This will be part of our discussions when Karola and I meet with Ruth and builder Paul Libby on Thursday afternoon.

Mark began his afternoon by putting up an electric fence across the goose paddock, just beyond the chook house, so that the ram is prevented from butting me each time I come to collect eggs or feed & water the chooks. This little fence is powered with the new solar energiser. Unfortunately, when creating this fence and putting up the solar energiser, he sliced through the alkathene pipe which carries water under pressure to a trough and two taps near the farm shed. The fountain was quite spectacular but Mark quickly re-joined the pipe in ten minutes or so and apart from his time and a pipe connector there’s no lasting damage done.

Mark and I took down the electric fence from round the homestead lawn and the big oak.

Mark watered the 20 young yew trees along parts of the roadside fence, south of the 133 entrance. While he did this I mowed the lawn (well mainly weeds) immediately round the octagon surrounding the Canary Island palm tree. He then began weeding the octagon preparing for some planting there in the next few days.

I spent the evening re-stacking and consolidating the large number of boxes of books and paraphernalia which filled the store room into groaning shelves (I do hope there’s not an earthquake any time soon) and a large clear space in the centre of the room. Now we can empty the homestead junk room and apple room ready for our Thursday afternoon meeting with Ruth and Paul. Lifting the boxes of books up to the top shelf was right on the edge of what I could do unaided.

Mark’s Mishap – The sliced pipe Now Re-Joined

Considerable Consolidation Of The Store-Room

Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—27℃ no rain [77.30] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

Finished watering the bay tree hedge & manuka varieties & micro-orchard. Also the lime tree avenue and five swamp cypress. And the two groups of red beech trees either side of the 133 entrance. Gave half a bucket to each of the eleven little totara trees along the Long Acre fence line. And set sprinkler on the octagon surrounding the Canary Island Palm with its six Escallonia “Apple Blossom” shrubs.

Mark mowed diagonal pathways in the One Acre paddock and then strung up electric fence creating four separate grazing areas each accessible from a different gate. I merged the ewe hoggets and ewes and lambs putting them in the Front paddock and the north-eastern “congruent triangle” of the One Acre.

Mark ended the afternoon by completing underground placement of the southern distribution wire for electric fence. The southernmost switch is on the cottage railings next to the septic tank.

Ballarat Apple Tree In Bloom

Banksia Rose – A Favourite Of Karola’s Despite Being Yellow

Mark Finished Undergrounding The Electric Fence Distribution Wire

Mark Divided One Acre Crop Into Four Triangles each With Its Own Gate

Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—29℃ no rain [77.32] TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

The big bar of peppermint dark chocolate I’ve consumed since Friday put a dent in my sequence of days weighing-in under 77kg.

Slow Sunday. Usual tasks enlivened by Jenny Hendery dropping in for afternoon tea and to while away the time when Noel was at a church service involving lots of animals including a bearded dragon and a tortoise.

Mowed the cottage lawn and curtilage; watered the usual suspects: the herbs in their raised beds, the bay trees and fancy manuka, the lime tree avenue, and the red beech trees.

After afternoon tea we took Jenny on our Tour de Twyford, she and Karola walked Bangle along the stop-bank while I cycled. Noel picked up Jenny from the stop-bank starting point, at the end of Ormond road.

Noticing that the diesel cans and most of the farm petrol cans were empty I took the Landrover down to Caltex Omahu and filled them and the Landrover, and got three ice-creams-on-a-stick for afternoon tea.

Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—28℃ no rain [77.66] TdT eggs=3

Another beautiful day, very relaxed. Good fortune for the blossom festival allegedly going on in Hastings today. We just pottered around and enjoyed the quiet and lovely weather.

Bridget, with help from Lexi, made a Sketchup draft of the new kitchen design for the homestead.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—23℃ no rain [76.90] IKBOrchard TdT eggs=3

Off after breakfast to Hastings to pick up an expiring repeat prescription for me and some Arnica stuff, recommended by Bridget, for Karola’s ankle and elbow bruised in a fall over a tree stump yesterday. Also got a few more groceries and a coffee and friand each from Artisan. Picked up some docking rings from Farmlands so we could begin docking this afternoon and had a chat to Vince about the erratic performance of the electric fence energiser. Vince offered to test the energiser.

Mark came and together we tested the various pieces of the electric fence system. The tester readings were inconsistent apart from establishing that there was leakage across one off the switches when open. We swapped out the old, weather-beaten switches for new ones I happened to have stockpiled. Mark then switched the old energiser with the second one that I bought years ago intending to run another set of fences from the farm shed. Same make and model.

All of a sudden it was sweetness and light. The old energiser gave us readings sometimes from 5000 volts and sometimes only 1500 volts. When the voltage at the energiser measured 5000 volts or thereabouts a voltage of 4000 – 5000 volts could be measured on all parts of the circuit. However when the energiser started playing up, giving readings at the source of about 2000 volts, the rest of the system varied from almost zero to 1500 volts.

A working electric fence should have voltages in the range 2000 – 10,000 volts. The replacement energiser measured 8000 – 9000 volts and we got similar readings wherever we measured on the fence. That is going to be very much more effective.

Karola, Mark, and I docked all the lambs this afternoon, with Mark catching and holding the lambs, some pretty big and boisterous, it went quickly and without a hitch. Karola noted the numbers and sexes as we docked each lamb – all present and correct. We left #209’s ram lamb intact as a potential successor to the current ram.

Mark continued with the project, running an underground (sometimes just “on the ground”) insulated aluminium cable from near the cottage pump shed round the cottage railings to near the septic tank.

Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—18℃ no rain [76.83] IBOrchard TdT eggs=2 Mark=4

Recorded the second Leaders’ Debate last night – Ardern – Collins with excellent moderator Paddy Gower. atched it this morning: whew the contrast with the Trump – Biden debacle was considerable and Gower’s pace and pertinence of his questions was excellent.

Tracey Craig & Graham Harvey dropped in after lunch for a chat, as planned, and i gave them a dozen fresh eggs. They gave us a jar of home-made cucumber relish. Had hoped to give us some Doris plum jam but the jar broke when getting it out of the car.

Mark came before our visitors and continued on undergrounding the electric fence distribution network.

The chook nest on a hay bale in the farm shed lean-to has been used every day for a week or two now and I put one of the fake eggs in there to encourage continued laying where I can find the eggs. However the fake egg disappeared yesterday and there have been no eggs to collect from that nest since. I suspect a predator but wonder what it could be – they’re pretty heavy, unwieldy items for a rat to carry off.

Karola’s Orchard Bursts Into Bloom

Oak Avenue Weather:2℃—17℃ no rain [76.8] IBOrchard TdT eggs=3 Mark=4