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Monthly Archives: February 2021
Chickens Off To Live With Tracey & Graham
The last day of summer and we relaxed after the excitement of the week (sheep boluses etc) and weekend. We have a few days now before the Mount Biggs School Centenary over in Feilding.
Switched the paddocks for the big (#977) and little (#027) ram so that the big ram, #977 could no longer assault the two hickory trees and two chestnut trees in their small tree guards. Mark will replace those guards with bigger ones.
Turned on the watering for trees
As planned, Graham & Tracey came and collected the rest of the young chickens. I remembered just in time and in fact we got back from a very late Tour de Twyford only a few minutes before they arrived around 9:00pm. All the chooks return to the chook house at night but during the day wander far and wide so collecting the five remaining chickens was only possible after dark. I popped them in a cardboard box with a limited amount of hysterical flapping and screeching; the older hens and cockerel were pretty calm, just shuffling out of the way on their perch as I captured the departees.
Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—24℃ 0.2mm rain [77.475] TdT TdO eggs=2
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BINZ Meeting at Karl Matthys Place
After breakfast Iain & Gaylene set off for Taradale and I followed in Zoe. We joined the BINZ meeting at 120 Kent Terrace, Karl’s house in Taradale up on the hill.
The main topic of the morning was a presentation by Te Rangikaheke Kiripatea, a Māori elder from Rotorua who has been involved with BINZ (Basic Income NZ) for many years. He is leading a discussion as to whether there’s a way to energise the Basic Income debate by involving the Waitangi Tribunal. The underlying assumption is that a little-known law “Of The Forest” closely associated with the Magna Carta is part of New Zealand’s law foundation and that law requires the government to provide everyone with the basics of life. Stranger things have happened.
Karl also has a group, the Free Thinkers, comprising the humanist and rationalist communities in Hawkes bay and they have regular meetings at Karl’s (karl@ymail.com, 06-845-4372, 027-243-4780)
Karl & Lorraine provided a pleasant barbecue to end the meeting and ,after the others had left, Iain, Gaylene, and I chatted on throughout the afternoon. When at last we tore ourselves away and went back to Karamu we immediately set off for Rush Munro’s and had large ice-creams in the shade there.
Now really having eaten way too much we had a simple soup and toast for supper. Afterwards Iain and I took Bangle down to the river and we walked the Tour de Twyford until after dark.
Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—24℃ no rain [76.84] TdT eggs=1
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Middletons Arrive
Quite a busy day beginning with medical check-ups for us both then a hair appointment for Karola.
I had to be back home at 11:30am to greet the Freenergy Solar Solutions team come to clean the solar panels. It took them much longer than expected because apparently we had severe build-up of lichens on the panels.
Mid afternoon AONet sent out a technician to look for reasons for the very variable and terribly slow performance of our Internet connections. I think the best he could do was a combination of cutting back a bit more vegetation and some tinkering back at the source. Anyway when he left the connection was humming although it is only a bit better this evening.
Karola brought back some extra food for the dinner tonight and I went out to CountDown later for a bit more.
Mark watered the trees in tree-guards in the Ram paddock and the Ngaios over near the Macrocarpa in the Front paddock.
He then continued with his war on blackberry in the wild jungle at the top of the ha-ha. Later we chose some old long posts for Mark to construct a bigger chook pen and he took them on one of our small trailers for the weekend.
The Middletons arrived around 6:00pm and we had a hearty meal comprising Karola’s lemonfish pie and ice-cream with raspberries and blueberries for pudding.
Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—24℃ no rain [76.469] TdT eggs=3 Mark=4
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The Day Of The Boluses
I awoke to a light earthquake at 6:35am, magnitude 4.3 at a depth of 35km just 10km south of Hastongs.
Tried to get all the sheep in the yards ready for Karl & Wendy O’Neale mid-morning. The two rams came briskly up to the yards and were placed in the crush and race, out of the way of the ewes. Then I attempted to get the nine ewe hoggets from the Totara paddock up to the yards but with their parents in the Front paddock they’d have none of it. Plan B: Shut the nine hoggets in the crop and move the mature ewes up to the yards – no problem, no fuss. Now, surely, the ewe hoggets would follow their mothers up to the yards but no, they still assumed their mothers were in the Front paddock and stayed put.
Long story short; it took me and Karl and Wendy several attempts to get the hoggets up to the yards but eventually we did, and it all went smoothly from then on. We had enough boluses of the right sorts and none got broken. So for the next six weeks all the sheep have protection against facial eczema.
Oh and the older ram, a bolshy beggar, bit Karola’s thumb and drew (a miniscule amount of) blood.
Afterwards I put the two rams into the Goose paddock (aka Ram paddock) hoping that if it was only for the afternoon the older ram would not kill the youngster. Then the mature ewes had the run of the Long Acre and the buckets-full of acorns under the oak trees, and the hoggets were kept in the Holding yard.
Late afternoon I popped the hoggets back into the yards proper and shooed the mature ewes into the Front paddock via the Holding yard. Then I separated the rams so that the youngster was back in the Long Acre and the older ram in the Goose paddock, back to where they were before. Finally released the hoggets back into the Holding yard for the night. Tomorrow we’ll push the ewes back to the Front paddock and let the hoggets have the Middle and Totara paddocks, all will be back to where it was before.
Mark came and watered the Cercidiphyllums, the ones he weeded and mulched yesterday that are in tree guards surrounding the big oak. Afterwards he raked out the chook house, keeping the droppings for valuable compost. He turned the back of the chook house into a pair of large extra nest boxes as I hope that’ll entice more of the chooks to lay-at-home.
Mark also trapped two beasts in his cages overnight: a hedgeog and a big possum.
Gill’s Report – The Seatoun Heights Road Summer Bounty
Ben’s just brought in another big bag of lovely tomatoes!
Photo 1: Yakum pear part of dual pear tree nearly ready to harvest. We’ve had all the good fruit from the other variety.
Photo 2: our apple trees last year gave, literally, about 10 fruit between them. This year I’ve had to remove 70+ apples from the little Adore apple (on right) as the branches were sagging. Tree on left is a Montys surprise – it’s apples get to 400-500gm.
Photo 3: a quince in a pot producing 5 fine quince – nearly ripe! The walnut behind still giving modest amounts of fruit.
Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—28℃ no rain [76.500] TdT eggs=1 Mark=4
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Bridget’s Chris, His Project Has The Green Light
Shopping for the week. The “traditional” picking up of GF bread from the OMG shop and coffee from Artisan next door. Also on the way home we swung by Farmlands and got the replacement boluses for the shortfall of eleven in what was sold as a full box yesterday. Before that I got some more cash from the BNZ who let me in without fuss this time, now we’re back at lockdown level one. And Karola got the battery in one of her watches changed at K-Mart; she has almost as many watches as hearing aids and glasses. I haven’t worn a watch for well over a decade, maybe two; iPhones have changed the usefulness of that but maybe I’ll go back to a watch when the price and usefulness of iWatches looks attractive.
Power Farming called and said the tractor mower was fixed and sharpened – they even replaced a belt that was cracked and about to fail. So I went and picked it up, getting one of their mechanics to put the mower back on the tractor this time. There are four plastic wheels on the corners of the mower which you set to avoid “scalping” the grass, ensuring it keeps a minimum distance above the ground. These wheels need to be turned to face sideways whenever you take off or re-attach the mower and for convenience I left them that way when I took the mower in. Foolishly I left them that way when I drove the tractor home and a large oak root protruding out into Oak Avenue was just high enough to catch the front left mower wheel and break it off. Ordered a replacement by phone.
Mark did some more searching for laid-away egg caches but only suceeded in frightening Red Band off her nest under the buondary fence. She did return later so her paltry three eggs probably didn’t get too cold.
Mark also finished repairing the hogget damage to the cover of the herb raised beds and weeded and mulched the circle of Circidiphyllum japonica.
Cercidiphyllum japonicum, known as the katsura, is a species of flowering tree in the family Cercidiphyllaceae native to China and Japan. It is sometimes called caramel tree for the light caramel smell it emits during leaf fall.
Meridian Energy’s huge new $395 million wind farm, and 260 jobs, coming to Hawke’s Bay
Computer simulations of Meridian’s planned Harapaki Wind Farm in the Maungaharuru Range, northwest of Napier (on the Napier-Taupō Road).
A huge new $395 million wind farm is to get underway in Hawke’s Bay this year. Meridian Energy has said its Harapaki Wind Farm, in the Maungaharuru Range northwest of Napier, will get underway in the second half of this year. It will be New Zealand’s second-largest wind farm with 41 turbines, each 145 metres high, generating 176 MW of renewable energy, enough to power more than 70,000 average households.
The construction will take around three years and is expected to create 260 new jobs.
The turbines will be visible from a long distance. The farm will cover 1,235 hectares at altitudes of 730m to 1,100m.
Meridian Energy Chief Executive Neal Barclay says the decision to commence construction is a sign of confidence that clean energy infrastructure can deliver strong economic benefits. The announcement comes seven months after the company put the plan on ice last year amid concerns the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter might close this year.
Consents to build wind farms at the site, alongside the Napier-Taupō Road, were granted in 2005. The consents were issued to Hawke’s Bay Wind Farm and Unison Networks. The consents were purchased by Meridian in 2010 and 2011, and combined as one site. The consents were extended and now expire in late 2023.
Location of the proposed Harapaki wind farm.
Barclay said New Zealand will need to build more grid-scale wind generation every year to reach its international and domestic emissions targets and meet demand as transportation and industry move from fossil fuels to clean energy.
He continued by saying that Harapaki would use advanced wind generation technology from Europe to set new benchmarks for turbine efficiency and sustainable construction practices. Design reviews have lowered the amount of concrete and steel needed in construction, reducing the overall carbon footprint of the project by over 30 per cent.
Our vision is for Harapaki to be New Zealand’s most sustainable wind farm and one that delivers transformative economic growth and advances our goals for climate action,” Barclay said.
Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—28℃ no rain [76.795] TdT TdO eggs=1 Mark=4
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Chaffles – Cheese-Based Waffles
We had lunch at Lappuccino’s – Keto chaffles with bacon. Delicious though the cheese flavour was quite pronounced. I first discovered the Lappuccino’s Keto Chaffle when Bridget and her girls were up here after Christmas and have been waiting for the opportunity to try them again ever since. Then on to Gagan’s roadside green grocers for fruit & vege. Not very impressed because despite Karola’s protestations about “fresh is best” and food miles etc the big supermarkets IMHO have more choice, it’s better presented and not too old. I think that the local stores get the stuff not good enough to export or send to the more profitable main centres.
Before lunch we’d dipped down to Stortford Lodge to get more Pharmacy stuff and, from Farmlands, more wheat and maize for my birdlife plus the small torpedos called “boluses”, full of zinc, for the sheep – to fend off facial eczema.
The boluses, one per sheep plus a couple of spares, meant I took away a 36-item full box plus a couple of extras. Out of idle curiosity I opened the full box only to find there were eleven short. Not malicious but obviously someone at Farmlands had sold eleven to a customer and not marked on the box in any way that it was part-used. As I remarked calmly to Jeremy, the counter clerk who served me, if we’d not found out until after our shearer/sheep-hand had arrived we’d have been rightfully very cross.
At my request Mark spent an hour or so looking for the laying-away chooks nests, but to no avail. He did however find a single egg on the ground and nearby Red-Band sitting on her nest. Red-Band had selected a spot in thick undergrowth literally beneath the wires of the roadside boundary fence.
There was very little wind so Mark weed-sprayed the hard stands outside the garages and behind the homestead, and the driveway at the 133 gateway. Later he began repairing the damage the hoggets had done to the herb raised beds, just the one with parsley in – I assume it’s a hogget favourite. They had danced on the wire netting cover till it broke and then eaten down the parsley almost to the ground.
Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—27℃ no rain [76.700] TdT TdO eggs=1 Mark=4
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Regular Blood Tests
Drove the little red tractor down to Power Farming and dropped off the mower for mending and blade sharpening. Mower is too heavy for me so slightly strained my back detaching it from the tractor. Tomorrow will tell I fear.
Mark spent the afternoon mowing and re-mowing the second quarter of the One Acre, the area vacated by the sheep on Sunday.
Email from Graham & Tracey – they expect to pick up their five young chooks next weekend. Mark says his three are thriving.
Highlight of the day was Karola & I getting our blood tests done in Stortford Lodge. It’s a walk-in clinic and there was quite a queue but we were actually out of there inside 15 minutes. Congratualated ourselves on a chore well done with a banana split at Rush Munro’s.
Back home just in time for the end of Mark’s working afternoon, in fact a little late so I cleaned the Grillo (air compressor – air fliter – very important), and cleaned the Farm Shed floor at the same time.
One Acre Crop Is Working Well
Oak Avenue Weather:9℃—27℃ no rain [76.652] TdT TdO eggs=1 Mark=4
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Strange Divots In The Pasture
Another hot Hawkes bay summer’s day.
Sheep let into the third quarter of the One Acre. But there are only 23 and supposed to be 24. I counted and re-counted, but the answer was consistently 23. Searched the rest of the One Acre, the Totara and Middle paddocks, the sheep yards and Long Acre – no corpse nor straggler.
The electric fence corridor across the Front paddock was intended to allow the ewes to get into the third and fourth quarters of the One Acre while still based in the Totara paddock but it was not to be. A couple of the ewe hoggets, currently parked in the Front paddock, still hanker after their mums and broke through the electric fence in a trice. So, slight change of plan; hoggets in the Totara paddock and sheep in the Front paddock while they eat out the final two quarters of the One Acre.
As I rounded up the nine ewe hoggets I found the missing ewe, a 900 that somehow slipped through, joined the ewe hoggets when my back was turned at some point. So, numbers are all there, 24 mature breeding ewes, nine ewe hoggets, and a couple of rams.
Cleaned the Kioti mower with the air blaster and re-connected it to the tractor. My intent is to take it to Power Farming in the morning and ask them to mend the broken baffle and sharpen the blades.
My internet connection is intermittently very slow and when I asked AONet about it they suggested trees might be the problem so today I trimmed back the shrubs in the line of sight from the aerial to Te Mata Peak; they have grown up a lot but I don’t really think they’re high enough to block transmission. The other possible culprits are the dangling fronds of an oak tree across the road, or the tips of the rows of apple trees in the orchard opposite. Anyway I”m still having the problem tonight and have done a couple of dozen speed tests which show good results except at dinner time and mid-late evening. It doesn’t sound like “trees” to me. There’s no correlation with wind or rain.
Watered the herb raised beds and the octagon for a couple of hours. The rest of the trees had a decent drink last week so can survive until next weekend I’m sure.
Puzzling, the torn up clumps of turf near the damson tree. It’s in a big patch that was mown when Bridget was up a few weeks ago – to collect barley grass seed heads. Lots of divots, small clumps of grass pulled up by the roots. Most of the patch is outside the reach of sheep, as been for a couple of weeks. Pigeons, Pukekos, rabbits, lots of rabbits: could one of them be the culprit? No sheep, geese, chooks have been there. It’s as if we’d kept a horse there for a while.
Front Paddock – Next To Damson Tree – Turf All Torn Up
Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—27℃ no rain [76.848] TdT eggs=0
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Julia Harris Calls In
Very sleepy today, dozed for about 16 hours off and on so not getting much done.
Julia Harris called in for nostalgia’s sake. Julia is daughter of John Harris who himself called in from Whangarei a few weeks or months ago. Now John Harris is one of Erma and Howard Harris children; the Harris’ senior lived in the cottage at the back of the homestead for 40 years or more. John, now a widower, lives in Whangarei north of Auckland which is where Julia lived until recently when she moved back to Hawkes Bay to be near an elderly and unwell relation in Havelock North. Julia’s brother Russell Harris, mokopuna to Erma Harris, lived here for most of his childhood and is still knocking around in Hastings somewhere.
Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—27℃ no rain [76.717] TdT TdO eggs=0
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Personal Tax 2019-2020 In To Accountant
Bangle booked in for her 6-weekly grooming today so, after some last minute printing for the taxation package, we set off. Got there right on time, 10:30am, and dropped Bangle off for her two hours of bathing, b low drying, pedicure, etc etc. We went back through Havelock North and dropped off the tax input. Then on back to Hastings and we say the Green Door nursery was selling swan plants on special – so we stopped and I bought the swan plants while Karola bought a couple of bottle-brush shrubs.
Next stop Artisan for coffee and a nibble for Karola. Dropped in at Bridgestone Select Tyre & Auto Service who replaced the inner tube in the wheelbarrow wheel that went flat a week or so ago. Only $20 for supplying and fitting.
Called in at Unichem pharmacy, Stortford Lodge, for the antibiotics ophthalmologist John Beaumont prescribed for me yesterday. All these things took time so I TXTed Mark to say we’d be a little late.
Mark carried on with his eradication of blackberry campaign, finding tie to re-assemble the mended wheel with its wheel barrow. Slight hiccup in the a flat chunk of steel has come loose from the leading edge of the Kioti mower and we spent some time getting the mower off the tractor and turning it upside down so I could see clearly what the problem was.
Meanwhile Red-Band chook has gone AWOL, presumably with the same intent as Blue-Band – I hope so anyway. And I spotted an away nest with eight eggs in it, not the one Red-Band may be sitting on; none of the eggs floated.
Photos of the Tour de Twyford scenery were taken on the way back, having cycled from Ormond Road up to the turnaround pount 3.6KM upstream. The 1.5KM marker post is where I walk with Bangle on-leash when I can’t cycle.
Tour de Twyford – The Turning Point 3.6KM Upstream
Looking Back Down The Track
The Top Gate – 3.3KM To Go
Large Fields Of Maize, Apples, Peaches Outside The River Stop Bank
Carrick Road – River Access – 2.2KM To Go
Carrick Road – River Access – Looking East
Middle Gate
Passing Equestrian Centre – Almost There
Ormond Road – River Access – The Start & End
Oak Avenue Weather:7℃—26℃ no rain [76.821] TdT eggs=0 Mark=4
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Pullets Off To New Home
Mark came over first thing and picked up his three pullets. He dropped me off in Hastings so I could retrieve the Landrover now its new windscreen is installed. I then drove over to Tamatea Motors and Heath affixed the new WOF sticker. Picked up an iced coffee and flat white on the way back via New World at Green Meadows.
Mark was back again at noon and spent the afternoon mowing (Grillo) the quarter of the One Acre eaten out by the sheep last week.
Karola & I went to see John Beaumont, ophthalmologist, at Royston Hospital late afternoon. It was actually Karola’s appointment – to discuss whether or not it was time for her to have cataract surgery – but I asked to have my eyes looked at too when karola was finished. No, Karola does not need cataract surgery yet; John thinks her eyes are still good enough for driving as long as she uses both of them. My eyes were much the same as last time I visited John. Ice-cream for Karola and another iced coffee for me from Rush Munro on the way home.
One Quarter Of The One Acre, Twice Mown
Local Barbary Dove Flock Has Grown To Over Twenty
Oak Avenue Weather:6℃—21℃ no rain [76.61] TdT eggs=0 Mark=4
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Yvonne Wier Stops Off For Lunch
Mid-week again and so to shopping. We’re still in Lockdown Level Two so I went unescorted. Anyway Karola needed to stay in in case Yvonne arrived. Yvonne, Karola’s brother Kaz’ widow, has relations up near Gisborne and was on her way from Feilding (the correct spelling) to Gisborne for a wedding. Yvonne arrived in good time for lunch and we had a very pleasant time until she left early afternoon having enjoyed Karola’s bacon and scrambled (local) eggs plus some little cakes from Artisan Cafe.
I picked up the cakes and coffees for me and Karola on my way back from New World, risking an iPhone photo of the Artisan staff unusually all clustered round the coffee machine. It shows the atmosphere of the place.
Final stop was the bank but, under their interpretation of Lockdown Two, they were only letting in a handful of people at a time. It took me a while to fathom why the automatic doors wouldn’t open for me and by the time the penny dropped the external ATM was free so I used that instead. Much more Covid-scanning today and even a few mask wearers.
Mark came over and, because it is still pretty wet, he spent the afternoon pulling out blackberry, something Karola has been asking for for a while. We agreed I’d catch three pullets tonight and he’d pick them up tomorrow morning; his hen house is ready and he says Caz and Wolfgang are both excited to get them, they like fresh eggs. It’ll be a few weeks before that and I’m counting on the difference in comb development to tell pullets from young cockerels.
The Landrover windscreen has been fixed and I can pick it up tomorrow. However in the meantime our Tour de Twyford consisted of me walking Bangle briskly one kilometre upstream and back again.
Artisan Coffee Shop, Queen Street, Hastings
Unusual Large Scratching On The Driveway After Night Of Rain
Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—20℃ no rain [76.994] TdT eggs=0 Mark=4
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Seeds Arrive
My 15g of cornflower seeds and two packets of Forget-Me-Nots arrived from King Seeds today and I spread some of them over the octagon.
Otherwise the welcome rain gently fell, I struggled with my smart scales integration and, like Karola, read most of the time. Too wet for Mark to come.
The landrover’s windscreen still hasn’t been fixed, I was called late afternoon to say the replacement glass had only just arrived in Hastings. So, it being wet and the landrover with its bike carrier being still in the workshop we went down to the river in the Zoe and I gave Bangle a three kilometre walk on-leash, which she performed very obediently.
At Last, A Decent Spot Of Rain
Oak Avenue Weather:_13℃—19℃ 15.7 rain [76.95] TdT eggs=1 Mark=0
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Lockdown Level Two – Again
Turned off the four watering systems. Mark TXTed to say he’d not be in today – the COVID level two lockdown is causing his family some disruption.
Karola & I drove in to her optician’s (Phil Donaldson) appointment mid-morning. Then shortly afterwards we took two vehicles in to Smith & Smith on Karamu Road in Hastings, to get the Landrover windscreen replaced. The new windscreen hadn’t arrived – more strife due to the lockdown, and we’re just hoping it can be done early tomorrow. On TV the look of the queues at the COVID border out of Auckland were horrid – they being at level three while the rest of us are level two – I’m not holding my breath for a rapid arrival of the windscreen. Coffee at Lappuccino’s on the way back.
In recent talk about Puriri native New Zealand trees Gill sent the photo of the one growing on her steeply sloping section in Seatoun, Wellington.As she said, the Puriri is only just suitable for suburban gardens; although it is beautiful it does have a huge spreading canopy. It always has berries or flowers, is a great bird tree. In the photo it’s on the lower steep slope so you don’t get a feel of how tall it is.
Today Geoff sent me a picture of the picturesque village of Burnsall, he said: “Edwina and I got so nostalgic talking about your [Gill’s] Grandmother’s journey[Eve’s Journey] that we’ve decided to book ourselves a cottage in Burnsall in the summer. It’s the next village downriver from Grassington, where we had our honeymoon.”
So, yes, Burnsall is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated on the River Wharfe in Wharfedale, and is in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The village is approximately 2 miles south-east from Grassington.
I struggled all day with my IoT application that graphs our weights sent from smart scales. The owner of the product, Withings (maybe Nokia in fact) is not into software usability. Still it’s bested by the popular stitch-it-together service called IFTTT. Talk about unintuitive, it’s a blasted mess. Of course once you’ve used it for a while it’s not so bad, just such a contrast to most Apple stuff.
Thanks to Dave in England and Bridget in Wellington having a combination of pity and patience so we’re at least back to where we were last week, up and working but without adding Bridget’s Chris to the system which triggered my meddling and caused chaos.
Gill & Ben’s Puriri Tree In Their Garden On Seatoun Heights Road
Burnsall in Yorkshire
Oak Avenue Weather:17℃—23℃ 29.5mm rain [76.90] TdO eggs=1 Mark=0
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Lockdown Level 2 Reimposed Tonight
Well a bit of an anticlimax after yesterday’s social whirl.
Except that I spotted an SUV drive up to the back of the homestead so went out to see who it was. It turned out it was Brian Cope’s parents, Brian is next door to the north, they are away down Ormond Road in the opposite direction; we haven’t met them before. They had some visitors they were entertaining and thought they’d show them the outside of Karamu to fill in time. We really don’t appreciate unannounced visits from strangers just wanting to fill in time but were civil to them and chatted away for a while.
Watched some of the Prada Cup racing from yesterday but had soon seen enough. The boats are very elegant up on their foils but the racing itself soon becomes a bit boring.
Listened to the PM telling us we were back in lockdown, albeit for us not a severe one and we hardly notice.
Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—25℃ no rain [76.87] TdT eggs=1
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Arthur Ormond’s Funeral
Sheep given access to the next quarter of the One Acre – still very dry. Watering systems turned on for the weekend.
Main event of the day was attending Arthur Ormond’s funeral over on his son Tom’s farm, Arapata, on the Havelock Hills. Arthur Ormond is Karola’s cousin and of our generation. The farm is very dry with beautiful views out over the Hawkes bay plains. It is opposite Birdwood Cafe. We’ve often taken friends and family there for lunch.
A large hillside paddock lined with trees had been mown, to minimise the fire risk, for parking. We walked from there up the hill to a flat grassed area in front of Tom’s house and a large marquee plus other tents and stalls for drinks and nibbles. The marquee overflowed so that maybe 40 – 50 people, the late-comers, had to stand in the sun, however the service was only an hour long so no-one fainted or needed medical attention. They’d catered for 500 people and it was probably close to that what with the extensive family members, Arthur’s horse-racing contemporaries, and his close golfing friends, The Grizzlies they called themselves, who met for golf every Friday for years and years.
It’s been a while since Karola and I attended a funeral and so my suit had been hanging in a wardrobe in the homestead, neglected for many years. So it wasn’t surprising when a large cockroach crawled out of my inner pockets and onto Karola’s shoulder during the service. We quickly popped it into one of Karola’s hearing aid containers before everyone started clamouring for one.
Marcus and Chris Ormond, two of Arthur’s sons were there, we know them quite well, and Chris did a very good eulogy. Arthur Ormond’s brother Mick was MC and also eulogised; the family clergyman, The Rev Warner Wilder, officiated and his contribution was mercifully short. A group of Arthur’s grandchildren did a reading.
We sat round in the shade afterwards and Karola chatted to several of her relations we’d not seen in a while.The nibbles were excellent, ruining any ideas I had of abstemious eating today. We sat wih Peter Ormond’s widow Liz. Peter was a tree man with nursery and landscaping business who, along with Peter Arthur of “Touchwood Books” fame, co-opted Karola into the New Zealand branch of the International Dendrological Society years ago. We gave Liz a ride home; she’s older than us but still very with-it. Liz said that Arthur’s widow, Monica or “Nick”, has had serious dementia for over two years, a great pity, but Nick was at the funeral, being guided around by her carer.
Got Karola an ice-cream on the way home; luckily for my programme of nutrition management the Rush Munro’s coffee machine was being cleaned so I couldn’t get a delicious iced coffee with chocolate ice-cream.
Meanwhile, Peter Offenberger had called and we’d arranged to have an evening meal with him and Charlotte. They called in as arranged about 6:00pm and took us over to Ahuriri, the other side of Napier, to the Sri Thai Restaurant. I think last time we went there was with Peter and Charlotte, Gill, and Ben. Delicious meal, not too heavy but filling. Very convivial company.
ORMOND, Arthur Eyre: (1947 – 2021)
Loved husband of Monica, father and father-in-law to Georgie and Matt, Chris and Siobhain, Marcus and Chrissy, Tom and Benita. Gaffa to nine grandchildren. A funeral service for Arthur will be held at 321 Middle Road, Havelock North at 2.00pm on Saturday, February 13, 2021.
Scrubbed-Up For The Funeral
321 Middle Road – An Outdoor Funeral On Tom Ormond’s Farm
Lots Of Cousins, Horse People, Golf People
Marquee Where Funeral Was Held
Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—23℃ no rain [76.39] TdO eggs=1
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First Time Breathalysed, Ever
It’s been quite an upsetting week with the brawl down towards the river, the fatal car accident up the other end of the avenue. But there was a bright spot today; I was breathalysed for the first time in my life. I was delighted, and of course I passed. The police had set up a random breath testing point just 200 metres along from our place towards the river and we were in the Landrover, Karola, Bangle, and me, on our way home.
In the morning Karola & I had haircuts and on the way home we treeated ourselves at Rush Munro’s – a Feijoa single cone for Karola and a wickedly decadent iced coffee for me – not just cold coffee but with chocolate ice cream and whipped cream and chocolate syrup.
I’ve been battling with problems that have just come up with the support software for our intelligent scales, the ones I and Bridget and Dave use. Withings fixed the issue I had and in the process required all our little applets to be rewritten; luckily it isn’t a big deal. The main problem was knowing exactly what to do.
Mark came and spent the afternoon with continuation of the weeding and mulching of the 16-tree avenue of Limes.
Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—26℃ no rain [76.50] TdT TdO eggs=1 Mark=4
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Landrover & Trailer WOF
Took the Landrover and its trailer over to Tamatea Motors, to Heath Goldfinch, for their overdue WOF tests. Karola followed in Zoe with Bangle and we returned together.
Ordered a repeat prescription of Karola’s meds online and got confirmation late afternoon, they should be ready for pick-up tomorrow at the Stortford Lodge pharmacy.
Strangely two wheel barrows had damaged tyres in that they’d come off their rims. One was flat and one just over-inflated and off the rim on one side. Gremlins again. Anyway the flat one has a punctured inner tube but I got the other one back on its rim OK.
Mark did the filling in of more rabbit holes all afternoon – most of them now filled with earth and rammed solid. As Karola observed after we completed this wish of hers, well, they’ll soon dig some more. Ain’t that the truth.
Karola spent most of the day outside tidying things up until around 4:30pm when we went back to Tamatea to pick up the Landrover. As expected all good except for the cracked windscreen. I can pick up the sticker once the windscreen is replaced next Monday.
From Gill’s Archives, Mary Amsden & Pony Holly, Late 1930s We Think
Karola With Her New Garden Cart
Crisp Cold Bright Day Today In Richmond, London (c/o Anna’s Dave)
Oak Avenue Weather:15℃—24℃ no rain [76.6] TdT eggs=0 Mark=4
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Another Major Incident In Ormond Road
The weeks shopping comes round again, dispatched efficiently so we were back home and finished before 11:00am.
Mark began the afternoon by filling some of the many rabbit holes with earth and ramming them tight shut, starting with the ones in the sheep yards. Late afternoon he emptied the big trailer of its heaped load of chippings created over a week ago. Necessary because tomorrow I take the Landrover and the big trailer for their warrant of fitness tests at Tamatea Motors.
Mid afternoon there was a serious accident about half a kilometre down our road, towards Omahu road. We only found out because Janet Scott, our neighbour, had to negotiate two road blocks from the Evenden road end in order to be allowed onto our part of the avenue.
I talked to the contractors manning the road block and apparently there had been fatalities in the crash between a big truck, a car, and trees. It’s easy to imagine a laden truck inching its way out onto the avenue in one of the narrow pack-house driveways and thinking the road was clear driving straight into a car that had suddenly turned into Ormond road and accelerated along at well over the 60kph speed limit. I guess we’ll find out in tomorrow’s local paper.
I got the contractors to agree that when Karola, Bangle and I came out for our Tour de Twyford along the Ngaruroro stop bank they’d let us back in, and that is what happened.
We were advised that Arthur Ormond, same generation as Karola, who had been battling cancer for a year or more, died yesterday.
Karola & I are attending a “Driving Refresher” course provided for senior citizens by the government; it’s in Waipukurau in March, at the Masonic Hall.
Masonic Hall, Waipukurau – For Our Driver Refresher Course In March
Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—24℃ no rain [76.7] TdT eggs=2 Mark=4
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Jenny & Noel Drop In For Morning Tea
A pleasant surprise indeed, Jenny & Noel Hendery on a bike trip (electric bikes) from Napier arranged to come mid morning for tea and a chat. Jenny brought a lettuce from er garden and two jars of damson jam. The damson plumbs were picked by Jenny’s son Mark from the tree Gill gave us a few years ago.
Over the warmer months we try to have salads instead of cooked green vegetables for dinner and so the lettuce is very welcome.
Jenny remembers when the homestead northern face was a riot of Wysteria – before it was cut back for painting thirty or so years ago. In fact the Karamu Wysteria was so old and infested with boring insects that it mostly fell down, died back, and rotted. Jenny & Noel had lunch at the Hastings show grounds on their way home and sent us photos of the grandeur of Wysteria adorning the stately home once at the centre of the show grounds.
Tonight I had three GF crackers with Jenny’s damson jam, delicious.
Mark dug another small pit for Karola’s kitchen waste before beginning on maintenance of the lime tree avenue, (16 tilia cordata).
Jenny’s Photo From The Hastings Show Grounds
Oak Avenue Weather:18℃—27℃ no rain [76.80] TdT eggs=1 Mark=4
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Rural Police Action
Turned off the watering systems this morning and in so doing I found a little fountain of spray from a hole in one of the pipes, near the big Lime tree. I also found that one of our garden hoses that I’d used to water the Ngaio saplings near the Macrocarpa in the north-east corner of the Front paddock had been moved and the hose connectors had been taken off each end. It wasn’t me nor Karola nor Mark so obviously someone was prowling around and just stole them. Very odd.
Patience was required in mending the leak as I initially mistook the size of the alkathene pipe and fetched the wrong size of fitting. Then I checked for and found the small hole in the pipe, sliced the pipe through at that point, and joined the two pieces using hot water to soften the alkathene and a purpose-made clip either side.
To check all was well I turned that piece of the watering system on again. Oops, I found a little fountain of spray from a hole in one of the pipes about ten centimetres along the pipe from the new join. So, back to the farm shed for more hot water and another joiner and clips. This time the join worked.
I also noticed a heavy infestation of Convolvulus strangling one of the larger red beech saplings so I removed Convolvulus from half a dozen of these medium-sized saplings and then another ten or so of the smallest, the latest planting of red beech.
Mark came and his first task was to check the tyre pressure of the Grillo and the Kioti tractor. We had an annoying incident a while ago with an under-inflated tyre on the Grillo allowing the tyre to come off its rim. This time the Grillo tyres were bang on the correct maximum pressure; the tractor tyres were all a little over-inflated.
Mark then watered the row of eleven Totara along the southern fence of the Middle paddock, and the ngaios and mexican oaks in the triangle next to the Macrocarpa and Wellingtonian. Mark observed that the half dozen trees in tree guards alongside the cattle-stop at the 121 entrance were very overgrown – so he weeded and watered them as well.
Mark’s final job for the day was to continue Grillo-mowing the barley grass down near the eucalypts in the Front paddock. Natalie and Lexi had helped make big inroads on the barley grass but there was still quite a lot to do under the trees.
As Bangle, Karola, and I drove down to the stop-bank today we were diverted from our usual trundle down Ormond road to the river by a clutch of police cars, an ambulance, and two or three civilian vehicles strewn across the road and verge. So we went round to the Carrick road access-point and I did my cycling down to the Ormond Road access-point and back, then upstream to my usual turning point and back to Carrick road. At the end of Ormond road there were three more police cars and four or five police looking in the grass and down the bank.
In an unsuitably jocular tone I asked the nearest constable what was the incident, was it a bad car crash. No, he said, it was a fight. So “what are you looking for here” I said, “knives? guns?”. “Any stuff” he replied in an unamused tone.
Karola’s guess is that it was rival drug dealers coming to blows. Probably it started in the car park below the stop bank and ended with one group fleeing pursued by the others, ending in a deliberate crash just before the intersection with Evenden road. And I suspect knives were involved as there was an ambulance at the scene but no armed defender squad. What excitement, and it does make you think that going along the stop bank alone is not a good idea.
Armed Defenders Squad At Ormond Road Intersection
Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—25℃ no rain [77.18] TdT TdO eggs=1 Mark=4
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A Little Light Sheep Work
Karola and I drafted the sheep into three lots: the little hogget ram, the nine ewe hoggets, and the 24 mature ewes. We put the ewe hoggets in the Front paddock which caused a certain amount of bleating from a couple of the hoggets who were still devoted to bossing round their mothers. The other ewes were given the Totara paddock plus a quarter of the One Acre. The ram hogget went into the Long Acre so that he could have the company of the older ram (in the Ram paddock aka Goose paddock) without being beaten up by him – as happened fatally when last we tried that combination.
In addition to the usual Sunday tasks – which help demarcate one week from another – I picked up all the electric fence in the Middle, Totara, and One Acre paddocks and set up two fences. One electric fence now separates the Totara paddock from the Middle paddock, the other makes a wide corridor on the western end of the Front paddock so that I can let the older ewes in the Totara paddock into the two One Acre crop quarters accessed from Front paddock gates.
Gill (using her “PictureThis” iPhone app), was able to identify the two different yellow flowers that abound in the cottage garden. We tend to call them all “dandelions” but the Common Hawksbeard is more like a small yellow daisy to my mind.
Yellow Flower – Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Yellow Flower – Smooth hawksbeard (Crepis capillaris)
My Favourite Pig – Nestled Amongst Muehlenbeckia
Electric Fence Separating Middle and Totara Paddocks
Wider Corridor Western Front Paddock For Accessing Crop
Oak Avenue Weather:11℃—23℃ no rain [77.18] TdT eggs=2
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Changing In A Tap Washer On Waitangi Day
Karola still quite nervous about the likelihood of fire; as the photos below show, it’s fields of tinder just needing a spark.
Janet Scott from next door called in a bit of a state; we’re in the middle of a long weekend and her kitchen hot tap was gushing, wouldn’t turn off. So we grabbed a few tools and went over. Janet’s house was built in 1950s and its water supply, out here in the country, was from the bore that also irrigates her orchard. There’s no “Toby” with a tap cutting off water to the house. However I did find a likely in-line tap, a valve, that looked promising. We turned off electricity to the hot water cylinder and I turned off the valve. Water pressure in the house dropped and after a while did stop. I changed the washer and as far as we know things are back to normal again.
I took down all the electric fence in the Middle and Totara paddocks and let the sheep extend their grazing to that whole area plus a quarter of the One Acre with its dusty green crop of lucerne and Phalaris grass.
Janet Scott’s Fine White Rose
Midsummer On The Stop Bank – Dry As …
… And This Is Our Front Paddock
Dry Grass Is As High As Bangle’s Eye
Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—21℃ no rain [77.41] TdT eggs=1
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The Answer is In The Genes
Rather a quiet day. Gill rang with her DNA analysis from Ancestry.com (see maps below). Karola thinks she and I should have ours done too – and there’s no harm in it because the police or other interested parties have Gill’s DNA so can find me from that, if detective novels are to be believed. I have yet to investigate what these maps mean – how much they are educated guesswork and how much scientific fact.
Karola reached out and turned on the portable radio in the kitchen. At that precise moment the smoke alarm, a very piercing wail, sounded, driving Bangle into panic and addling my brain so I couldn’t remember the code to disable it. After a few mintes of this horrible sound I did remember that I could disable the alarm with the security system remote – which I did. Spooky thouhg, the power of Karola’s touch.
Later I pruned back the climbinng yellow Banksia rose on the cottage sunporch; it is vigorous sending shoots a metre or more out into space so no doubt the pruning will be only a temporary setback for the rose.
Brackenbury DNA Mapping – Primarily Located In England
My Herb Garden – Laced With Marigolds As “Companion Plants”
Oak Avenue Weather:13℃—20℃ no rain [77.47] TdT eggs=1 Mark=0
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Coffee Table Picture Book Arrives
The coffee table picture book “Libraries”, photographer Candida Hofer, arrived today. This is the one I intended to send to a friend in the UK that my USA shipping forwarder mistakenly and efficiently shipped before I had time to change the forwarding address. They have agreed to refund the postage, which is about as much as the book itself, and I have ordered another copy to send to my UK friend. Meanwhile we have a beautiful book of photographs of the most majestic libraries in Europe.
Craig came round from Outdoor Power and replaced two of the three Grillo blades with the ones that finally arrived from overseas this week. Because I can hoist the front of the Grillo with the bucket on the little red tractor it saves getting Outdoor Power collecting and returning the Grillo. It only too Craig about five minutes to make the swap.
Mess of electric fencing so either Mark didn’t fix it yesterday or there’s been a repeat. Anyway I untangled quite a lot and Mark finished it this afternoon. Mark also sowed some Forget-me-not and Cornflower flowers in the gaps between plants in the octagon – as an experiment. It turned out that the packets of seed each only had about 20 seeds. And once Mark had prepared the ground, sown the seed, the chooks decided it was an ideal place to scratch for tidbits. If I really want to see Forget-me-nots and Cornflowers waving in the breeze I’ll have to get more seed and put some sort of barrier round the lip of the octagon.
Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—23℃ no rain [77.55] TdT eggs=2 Mark=4
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Janet Scott Calls In
This morning combined my visit to the dentist with the week’s shopping. Fillings keep dislodging because I grind my teeth at night – leastways that’s what Tracey Eales my dentist claims, no it couldn’t be that her fillings keep falling out. Shopping then coffee and OMG GF bread pick-up and a Rush Munro ice-cream for Karola on the way home.
Mark helped put back electric fence after again there was a “border infraction” overnight and a section of it ended up in a heap of posts and tangled wire. The sheep are now occupying the last two segments of the Totara paddock as well as the corridor along the western boundary right across to the sheep yards.
Mark moved some heavy earthenware pots for Karola and, at her request, cleaned the windows of the Landrover. We’ve had a lot of difficulty seeing into the sun-strike on the way back from the Tour de Twyford late evening because of the dust on the windows. Now it’s much less hazardous.
Landrover is booked in to have its front windscreen replaced and, along with the big trailer, booked for an overdue warrant of fitness (WOF).
Janet Scott came round for afternoon tea and a chat – she got regaled with the “locked car” sketch. Janet says there are neighbours getting fed up with the quantities of rabbits and pukekos in their orchards and she herself has supplied ammunition to some lads to cut back their numbers on her place. Also to put out some rabbit poison, so we’ll have to keep an eye on Bangle. Mark has shot a few rabbits in the past but that hardly dents the dozens of rabbits here and next door. Mark did comment that there were lots of rabbit holes he encountered while mowing the Long Acre today.
Janet also relayed something the arborists told her, the arborists trimming the trees in the avenue. Apparently they’ve been doing an urgent job down in Waipukarau for a fortnight but will probably be back doing more work on the avenue outside Janet’s and our properties next week. Janet said that a substantial branch fell naturally off a tree further down the avenue, near the Harrington’s and this is what prompted the tree work now underway.
I have a plan for the eight young chooks: If Mark wants he can have three of them; apparently he has an old chook house at his place that could be pressed into service. The remaining young chooks will be offered to Graham & Tracey up the Taihape road. It is up to the recipients to deal with the mixture of hens and cockerels. That’s my plan, anyway.
Julie O’Regan, a member of the local Friendship Club who was at the Italian dinner last week and took some of Karola’s damson plums, sent an email today thanking for the plums and showing pots of damson jam she’d made. The damson tree was a gift to us from Gill, lovingly cared for (pruned, weeded, watered) by me. Mark harvested this year’s crop.
Another Hedgepig Springs A Cage Trap
Oh (Sigh) – Another Furry Friend Soon To Be No More
Julie O’Regan’s Damson Jam
Oak Avenue Weather:8℃—23℃ no rain [77.41] TdT eggs=2 Mark=4
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Notes On The Wonderful Puriri Tree
Bridget sent me a flyer from Big Trees nursery telling us about the Puriri tree. I now expect to order one from them in the autumn, hoping to get agreement from karola to plant it beyond the Ginkgo, north of the homestead and as a feature tree to replace the Ginkgo and the Feijoa currently in the homstead prospect foreground.
Another late start for me. Mark came and finished off the homestead lawn then weeded the octagon. To our delight several of the Wysteria roots he transplanted from around the homestead have flourished and even a piece of the Muehlenbeckia which, like the Wystweria, looked very dead only ten days ago, is green and growing.
Excitement on the Tour de Twyford. I got about of the third of the way when, at the Carrick Road access point, I met a tall professional looking man waving a piece of wire around. He’d been locked out of his SUV by his dog. Windows shut, engine running, and he couldn’t find a way to get in and was contemplating breaking a window. In fact he’d got as far as unlatching his removable tow bar and giving a side window a heavy thwack. The window wasn’t even chipped. His phone, credit cards, and young black labrador puppy were locked securely inside.
I suggested he call the AA but he said he wasn’t a member. He also said he had a spare key at home but couldn’t call his wife because he had never memorised his own number – with modern phones you just use your address book. So I looked up the AA Roadside Assistance number, called and explained the situation. As it was a dog trapped in the car this elevated the incident to an emergency so before long we had a case number and someone due to come to the spot within 15 minutes. The AA wanted a phone number to contact so I stayed around to provide the link.
I rang Karola suggesting she pick me up from the Carrick Road tow path entrance and we waited for the AA truck and it, unusually in my experience, turned up well within the half hour. Unlocking the car was simplicity itself, given the right tools. A stiff thin bladder looking like a table-tennis bat was introduced into the gap between the edge of the door, at the hinge end and near the top. What looked like the handle of the bat was a bulb and with a few squeezes it inflated the bladder enough to bend the top of the door a few millimetres so he could introduce a piece of #8 wire – well it looked like #8 wire into the car.
It being a modern vehicle the top of the door locking catch was rounded off with no place to grab it. As we watched, wondering how the AA man would handle this, he just used the wire to press on the electric window opening switch – and he was in!
Karola arrived just as the “pharisee” had left, they passed each other barely 100 metres away.
Homestead Lawn – Mown
Octagon – Weeded
From The Big Tree Nursery Monthly Letter
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The genus Vitex comes from a family of flowering plants known as Lamiaceaewhich contains 230 genera and around 7,000 species. Puriri is the only New Zealand member of the genus. Vitex is derived from the Latin, Vieo, meaning to weave or tie up, while lucens means, shining, or showing through. Long lived puriri can reach over 1000 years old, but many of these are hollow at the base creating a cavity which was sometimes used by early Maori as a burial chamber for important people. Because of this Maori have built up sacred traditions around Puriri. Leaves are wound together as coronets or carried at tangi.
- Along with Rata, Puriri is the heaviest of the New Zealand native timbers
- The wood is stable and very strong and will remain intact despite enduring damp and exposure for long periods
- Seasoned wood is a rich dark red-brown and accepts fine finishing but the irregular interlocking grain makes it difficult to work
- Maori found Puriri made strong implements and structures, including canoe paddles and domestic woodware
- Legend has it that buckshot ricocheted off Puriri palisades
- Maori made hinaki (eel traps) from Puriri because it was one of very few timbers that sank
- Europeans used Puriri for decorative inlays, and furniture, but also for piling, house blocks, railway sleepers, culverts, machine beds, bridges and other construction work
- Vitex lucens can be a target for Puriri moth but despite the sizeable holes left in the tree, timber strength is unaffected. Holes grow over and are often not detected until the timber is milled.
- Puriri will grow easily from fresh seed though germination may take some time
- Sow fresh seed into trays and germinate in a shade house
- Can be established from cuttings
Oak Avenue Weather:14℃—24℃ no rain [76.83] TdT eggs=0 Mark=4
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What Happened To Once-A-Week Shopping
Mark spent the afternoon mowing the homestead lawn – it takes about six hours to do it all.
Before Mark came I cleaned up the Grillo having done most of the cottage lawns & curtilage yesterday. The air filter was very dusty so well worth cleaning if we are to avoid wrecking another engine.
After Mark finished we cleaned the air filter again, using the air compresser again, and there was a lot of dust caught in the filter.
Ran out of milk and cashews so needing these staples of our diet, well mine anyway, we popped into town, to CountDown
- milk & cream (no Zany Zeus yoghurt sadly – I don’t think they ever stock it and New Word was out when we got there last Wednesday)
- bag of roasted & salted cashews which I’ll share with Bangle although usually I get her her own raw cashews as treats
- couple of bananas and a small bag of peaches for Karola
- Hubbards Freedom Cornflakes packet – I spied this elusive item, the only one, and snagged it
- Couple of packets of Beyond Meat burgers – so they do still stock them and were just out of stock on Friday
Indulging ourselves I got Karola a single-cone Feijoa ice-cream and myself an ice-cream coffee from Rush Munro on the way home.
Pleased to be able to count eight small chooks today as I haven’t seen all eight together for a few days.
Oak Avenue Weather:10℃—23℃ no rain [76.96] TdT eggs=2 Mark=4
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