Monthly Archives: January 2022

I turned on the watering systems for the special Manuka, bay hedge, and micro-orchard plus the lime avenue and five swamp cypress and the two groups of red beech saplings. It is getting dry and hopes of rain keep receding day by day.

Late afternoon Bridget and Lexi set off from Khandallah and drove up to see us bringing with them the Hansa C7 petrol-engined chipper that Gill & Ben kindly bequeathed us. They also brought some family tableware – plates – and some small bits of scrap iron from Gill.

Oak Avenue Weather:17.6℃—24.5℃ no rain [77.363] eggs=2 Mark=0

There was a power cut around 7:00am which lasted until about 1:00pm. We didn’t notice it at first because we were listening to radio through an iPhone amplified by a BOSE little speaker and both those had batteries.

Kirsty & Bruce, on their way back to Wellington from the Mahia, dropped in for a natter and cuppa. There being no water, let alone hot water, they had soda water with lemon cordial and a biscuit.

Oxygen Weed Flourishing In Bath Fish Pond

South Aspect Of Homestead before Exterior Painting

Oak Avenue Weather:10.7℃—29.1℃ no rain [77.552] TdT TdO eggs=2

We went to see Frith Grey in Hastings at noon and she did her magic on our ears with her little vacuum cleaner.

Nice visit in the afternoon, Jenny & Noel came over from Napier on their elecrric bikes, 21km on the limestone cycle tracks almost all the way.

We solved the worlds great problems as usual, well, grumbled about them as usual. They asked to see the homestead development so we took them round – it’s a long time since Karola has been inside so it was good for her to see how things are coming along too.

Oak Avenue Weather:8.4℃—23.1℃ no rain [77.604] TdT eggs=2

Paul called me and said that the painter wanted to start next week and could I pay for and pick up the paint today.

Karola, Bangle, and I went to Hastings to the Resene Colour Shop and picked up the paint for Johnny Lett’s painters next week. He ordered it on his trade account (38% discount) and I paid for it and brought it back here.

Mark came and began by fixing the roller door on the orchard shed; it was catching on one side and consequently annoyingly hard to open. He then deconstructed the electric fence round the homestead lawn and big oak. The sheep will now spend time in the Long Acre extending their Middle paddock, Totara paddock, and Front paddock range.

On the road to the Ngaruroro stop bank, further down Ormond road, we saw a white Nissan saloon on the verge with one back wheel over the roadside ditch, obviously stuck but otherwise unharmed. Today, as per the photo below, it has been pushed into the ditch and is a mess.

On a brighter note, we saw a small car looking very much like Zoe, same colour, same size, that turned out to be a Nissan Leaf – which is what the Renault Zoe is based on.

Zoe Lookalike Down On The Stop Bank Today

Long Term Parking Injurious To Car Health – On Road To Stop Bank

Active Day At The Horse Riding Arena

Oak Avenue Weather:8.2℃—23.4℃ no rain [77.653] TdT TdO eggs=4 Mark=4

Karola and I went into town to the dentist and I had my back right molar extracted; not nearly as big a deal as I’d feared but I spent the rest of the day lazing about.

Mark came and cleaned out the chook house – manure to the Puriri and fresh hay in the nest boxes. Rest of the afternoon spent on the shelving project.

Oak Avenue Weather:12.2℃—22.3℃ no rain [77.976] TdO eggs=2 Mark=4

Building inspector did not turn up when anticipated this morning but a different one did come late afternoon and we have passed the important second inspection. The next inspection comes when the GIB is all up and before the joins are plastered over by a GIB-stopper. The inspection checks that the screw patterns on the bracing GIB are all in the right places.

Kitchen Things, Stuart Bryson, sent an email this morning with the final kitchen and laundry specifications and some questions:

• what colour are the cabinets to be painted [same as here in the cottage]
• what sort of drawer and cabinet handles do we want [ditto]
• can they have the range hood to integrate into the cabinetry [yes it’s in our garage now]

I spoke to Stuart and told him the answers; later in the day he sent someone round to photograph the handles – they knew the colour from their records of doing the cottage back in 2013. The Classic Kitchens ma pointed out that Ivan had the light switch wiring behind the kitchen door inside the food cupboard.

Later I discussed this with Ivan and he’d moved them there from the other side of the doorway because at some point I’d suggested we move that door over towards the inside wall and make it hang towards that wall – making more room for the food cupboard. However after consultation with Bridget we’d decided that having a full 600mm deep food cupboard was too deep and so the door could safely be left as it is today. So Ivan has to move the wiring back to where he had it originally.

Mark water-blasted the front of the LandRover clean where it had suffered by being directly below a Welcome swallow nest in the farm shed lean-to. He then continued with his shelving project.

Oak Avenue Weather:17.3℃—29.2℃ 7.6mm rain [77.919] TdO eggs=2 Mark=4

Shopping morning as usual on a Tuesday.

Mark continues with shelving for the orchard shed.

Anna & Dave In Lyme Regis – Anna’s Birthday Break

Oak Avenue Weather:16.6℃—26.7℃ 2.00mm rain [77.488] TdT TdO eggs=2 Mark=4

Electrician Ivan dropped in, hoping for more eggs but as we took two dozen to Food Bank on Friday there’s not enough. Ivan has done almost all the wiring infrastructure and needs to wait until the GIB is on before attaching the appliances. He also wanted to know where the vanity unit mirrors were going, and the heated towel rails.

Karola and I took all the sheep up to the yards at midday as Lachie requested. That involved first getting the two rams up from the Goose paddock and into the smallest internal pen. Then we got all the other sheep into the yards and drafted out the lambs from the mature sheep. Not only are the lambs to be crutched but their zinc bolus protecting against facial eczema is smaller and needs a different applicator. I’m sure Lachie doesn’t want to be switching back and forth.

Got an emergency appointment at the dentists today as I had a more severe recurrence of a grumbling molar over the weekend; as per the previous visit, nothing obvious, not even on an x-ray. Apparently there’s a large filling in the tooth and maybe the root is dead, or maybe it’s a slight infection above the (back right upper) molar – ears, noses, and throats are all connected. So a course of antibiotics may settle it down, otherwise it’s an extraction.

Meanwhile, as expected, Lachie the shearer came mid afternoon – while I was at the dentist – and Karola had to stand in for me, providing the Facial Eczema boluses (capsules) and managing the tricky task of extricating the two rams from the centre of the yards without getting butted or the rams fighting. It all went well. As anticipated there was one lamb with fly strike but that’s well and truely zapped now. Lachie crutched all 25 lambs and gave all 50 sheep, including the rams, the “time capsule” zinc bolus.

Mark helped shepherd the rams peacefully back to their domains; they seem to like him whereas the big old brute does nothing but attack me.

Mark continued with making the shelving for the orchard shed (see below). He also took the six bales of very old meadow hay on one of Karola’s trailers back to Napier – for his chooks and garden.

Mark’s Very Sturdy Shelving In Lockable Bay Of Orchard Shed

Oak Avenue Weather:16.8℃—19.6℃ 3.4mm rain [77.485] TdO eggs=1 Mark=4

Quiet Sunday. Chooks are either having a holiday or laying away.

Listened to too much information about Covid and the Omicron escape and our descent into the Red Traffic Light regimen.

Karola and I did a bit of sheep work and of course, just as we’d finished Lachie Baynes calls to say he’s coming to do the sheep tomorrow. Today’s sheep work consisted of drafting out the 25 lambs plus three older ewes who seemed a bit daggy. Then we drenched all 25 lambs, including the ones that were clean and tidy, to be sure to dose the two or three persistent coughers. It’s hard to tell which lamb it is when you hear persistent bouts of coughing, usually a sign of lung worm, so we drenched them all. Next I applied Magnum on all the lambs plus #714, #904, and #929, these being the three ewes in need. (Withholding period for Magnum for meat is zero days). Finally I applied Maggo to the tail regions of all 28 sheep, the three older sheep were twitching their tails which is often a sign of fly strike and a number of the lambs likewise.

Very warm down on the stop bank but a slight cool breeze meant Bangle and I walked our three kilometres in relative comfort.

Oak Avenue Weather:12.0℃—28.6℃ no rain [76.915] TdT eggs=1

Off to the Nelson’s (used to be Nimmon Baling) for some pea straw as supplement for the sheep should a long drought set in.

A quiet day although we did ring Tessa Wier on her birthday and had a good chat. KiwiTech has two people who were close contacts of the Omicron positive person in Palmerston North and that’s delaying delivery of their products. Meanwhile the other employees are apparently suggesting they too should have time off on full pay which is not quite the supportive response one hopes for.

Usually we are boringly unencumbered by aches and pains but today Karola frightened me by having a strong chest pain that took a while to subside. Later we figured out it was probably a combination of too much sitting in the sun reading and then too sudden moving round stuff on the verandah while trying to get out of the strong afternoon rays. Meanwhile I’ve been having niggling tooth ache which is disconcerting as I’ve just been to the dentist.

Late afternoon I unloaded the pea straw. It’s a good sign that several sheep came up while I was unloading and greedily gobbled up any loose pieces they could reach – so t’s obviously palatable.

On our walk round the orchard I noticed a family of Californian quail out in the Totara paddock; not the usual two or three chicks but at least ten.

And in the orchard we spied a broken join in the apple irrigation system so I TXTed Peter Fitzpatrick, our Bostock’s orchard manager, and he sent someone round to fix it pronto.

Sheep Enjoy Nibbling At The Pea Straw

Twenty Bales Of Pea Straw Go Into The Hay Shed

Californian Quail Family (Ten Chicks) Scamper For Cover

Oops – A Break In The Orchard Irrigation Network

Oak Avenue Weather:10.4℃—25.2℃ no rain [77.644] TdT TdO eggs=3

Haircuts in the morning. Dropped off two dozen eggs at the Food Bank.

We began the afternoon with Mark and I walking round several of the fields. I explained to Mark what I wanted for the irrigation extension to include the eleven Totara trees; that includes an extra tap and trough connection point in the north-west corner of the Long Acre. The idea being that with a trough at either end of the Long Acre we can subdivide it with electric fence and put a ram in each half to give the Goose paddock a spell.

Mark continued with his project making shelving for the lockable bay in the orchard big shed. Whilst choosing planks to reuse from the ones discarded by the builders he took the remainder up to the big shed.

Karola and I took the recycling to the depot in Henderson Road and as we were nearby I dropped in at the Hawkes Bay Scrap Metal and asked if they’d been sold a couple of green 3 metre farm gates with rails made of square cross-section mild steel rather than the usual tubular ones. Not in the last few months, no. Popped down to BP at Stortford Lodge for coffes and hoping to get the Landrover washed as it’s spent a week or so directly under a Welcome Swallow nest in the Farm Shed lean-to. But again the BP car wash was out of service.

Plumber Dean and I had a chat and decided precisely where the new bath should go upstairs in the homestead; we also agreed on where the floor-recessed drains should go in each of the upstairs bathrooms. Modern baths and some basins lack an overflow so instead modern best practice is to embed a drainage grill in the floor to avoid water damage to the floor below in the unlikely event of an overflow.

After just one day of confinement to the broody coop Blue-Band has decided she’s serious while Yellow-Band just wants her freedom. So I have obliged. I’ve put another egg under Blue-Band as she hasn’t laid another one herself.

Henare, Scott, and a neighbour of Henare’s came round and decided that none of Henare’s bee hives had colony collapse or foul brood.

Oak Avenue Weather:12.4℃—24.5℃ no rain [77.599] TdT TdO eggs=3 Mark=4

A very somnolent day, not sure why but masses of ennui for both of us. Mark didn’t come today so we didn’t have that distraction to wake us up but we did go down to the river as usual.

Various emails with folk about our perspectives on the evolution in New Zealand society of the relationship between Māori and Pākehā. 

Gill rang, excited about another piece of history concerning Eve which fills in some more gaps for the life of a very avant-garde woman.

Henare called round to service his bees this evening – and have a chat and a coffee. Two of his hives here have colony collapse disease or something similar fatal to the hives, leastways that’s what he suspects and he’ll need to bring Scott round to make sure.

Chooks Yellow-Band and Blue-Band turning broody but mucking about so both have been consigned to the broody coop for a few days to see whether either of them is genuine about settling down to the job. For preference I’d hope they both think better of it.

All About Eve – More Intriguing History From Gill

Oak Avenue Weather:15.2℃—25.3℃ no rain [?] TdT TdO eggs=2

Took Karola to the eye doctors again as planned. Karola shuttled between Penny Wilson and John Beaumont as they measured her eyes and applied various drops. Conclusion was that yes there were signs that the left eye in particular was discomforted and the vision in that eye is significantly worse than it was back in August last year, some weeks after the cataract surgery. Dr Beaumont wants another opinion so Karola is booked to see Liz, at the same place, in a couple of weeks.

Dropped in at the BP station in Stortford Lodge and also got Zoe a car wash.

Mark came and worked on weeding and mulching the cercidiphylums round the big oak. He then used the red Kioti tractor to heap up the bund rubbish where the chooks had scratched it across the track.

Oak Avenue Weather:12.9℃—28.8℃ no rain [?] TdT TdO eggs=4 Mark=4

Shopping day. Got replacement EcoMist device that puffs out Pyrethrin every few minute to keep the flies and cockroaches down. Karola oscillates between hating the flies so much she uses the EcoMist to insisting, instead, that all doors and windows be tight shut to keep the flies out and EcoMist is synthetic poison not to be used in her vicinity.

Mark mowed cottage lawn and then continued clearing and spraying around the area of the new homestead western verandah. As the afternnon progressed Mark began weeding and mulching the Cercidiphyllum’s in tree guards round the big oak.

Warm day with strong breezes but nothing like the forecast dregs of a cyclone.

Playing international Wordle with Anna, Dave, and Felix in Ealing and Gill & Ben in Seatoun. Quite fun, we’ll see how long it lasts.

Oak Avenue Weather:12.4℃—28.0℃ no rain [?] TdT eggs=5 Mark=4

Meticulous maids came and cleaned the cottage.

Blue-Band is broody but as she’s not moving from nest to nest and stealing eggs (so far) I’ll let her be in the chook house.

Used the different route again today but there was a lot of big truck activity taking gravel away from the large piles so that made it dusty and noisy.

Bath/Pond Has Good Crop Of (Forbidden) Oxygen Weed

Oak Avenue Weather:15.4℃—25.3℃ no rain [?] TdT TdO eggs=2

Karola and I put tags on the eight ewe hoggets and also #817 who had lost hers somewhere down the track. The hoggets still had their juvenile little button tags but the printing used that year did not last so all the button tags are clean. We tagged the hoggets roughly in order of size on the basis that the biggest ones were born first.

I filled in and rammed hard the large rabbit hole in the inside pen of the sheep yards. It’s appeared, been filled, and re-appeared several times over recent years, so here’s hoping.

We tried a different Tour de Twyford today, well not much of a change for me but Bangle and Karola did their walk from the Carrick road entrance to the river. Meanwhile I just did my ride in two sections, the bit past Carrick road then the bit from Carrick road to Ormond road.

Karola With Sheep In The Holding Pen

Oak Avenue Weather:16.9℃—22.8℃ no rain [77.952] TdT TdO eggs=4

Turned on the irrigation for the young trees; promised rainfall keeps just slipping away and not even coming at all so irrigation is a sensible precaution.

Late morning we went to Outdoor Power in Karamu road to see Craig. He’d rung earlier to say the Grillo was almost out of oil which, if we’d been topping it up regularly, would mean that dust had got into the pistons again and corrugated the walls.

We’re still waiting on Trevor’s snorkel solution to the dusty Hawkes Bay soils, the main thing there being that the snorkel incorporates a two-stage filter the second one being for the powdery particles that are destroying the Grillo engine.

Meanwhile Craig suggests we use soe air filter oil sprayed gently on the outside of the sponge filter each time we clean it.

Craig showed me how to access the second drive belt, the one that drives the deck and blades.

Instead of the Ngaruroro river we walked along the Clive wetlands today, a pleasant change.

Karola And Bangle On The Beach At Clive Wetlands

Oak Avenue Weather:13.0℃—22.3℃ no rain [?] TdC eggs=3

Johnny the painter came and Paul introduced me and we discussed how to tackle the exterior painting of the homestead.

Johnny, it turns out, is a long-time friend of Brett Newton who did the homestead painting, some inside and all the outside, back in the 1980s. Johnny has a gang of three painters who work for him.

We agreed on using Resene as the paint manufacturer despite it being more expensive. I reiterated Karola’s request that the colour be quarter pearl lustre and agreed that the new popular paint for exteriors which is low-sheen would be appropriate. As Paul explained later the type of paint is different from its colour which is added later, and the same type of paint can be procured from different manufacturers. The low-sheen paint does not accentuate imperfections in the surface as gloss paints do.

We will decide on whether the sills of the windows should be left plain or edged with Karaka Green.

First priority is to paint the south end, in particular the new, pre-primed weather board. At Johnny’s suggestion, as we intend eventually (this year) to paint the whole exterior Johnny’s gang will first paint the entire south end, new and old.

I then want the fascia painted while the guttering is off – we are going to replace the guttering throughout and re-balance it so that about half the captured rain goes into the rain water tanks via the south-east corner while the rest goes to a collection point on the north-west corner and then underground to the big stormwater drain waiting it that goes to the ha-ha.

Mark began the afternoon by cleaning the Grillo and he’d just finished when Chris from Outdoor Power arrived and took the Grillo off for repair on his truck. We should get it back on Monday.

Mark then dug Karola a new compost hole before preparing the gravel area round the cottage septic tank (aka waste management system) for weed spraying.

Angry Cyclone Approaches

Oak Avenue Weather:8.0℃—22.3℃ no rain [?] TdT TdO eggs=2 Mark=4

Mark came and began clearing the luxuriant growth of all manner of plants in the border along the front (north) verandah of the homestead. Firt, however, he staked up each of the eleven Totara saplings along the Long Acre fence line.

Meanwhile Karola and I went down to Floor Mart to confirm our order of vinyl for the new bathrooms and laundry. Luckily Bridget had taken details and a photo of the swatches of vinyl meeting with our approval when we did our research last year. Karola was not happy with the tiled hexagon in grey that I’d thought might be good for the laundry and after some debate we decided to have the same vinyl upstairs and down: Nomad (Robert Malcolm), design=ginger, colour=T70.

The Chosen Vinyl Pattern

Oak Avenue Weather:12.7℃—21.3℃ no rain [?] TdT TdO eggs=4 Mark=4

Dean the plumber came and beavered away all day.

Mark came and his project for the next day or so is to spray the weeds that have suddenly erupted on the driveways and hard stands. There’s barely any wind.

Karola and I went round to Richard and Paddy Bayley’s place (chair-people of Founders’ Club) for Karola to pay her annual sub and buy a copy of their year book, The Bulletin. On the way back we dropped in at Farmlands to get more spray for Mark plus three 1.2 metre fibreglass stakes and tree ties so that Mark can stake up the 11 Totara saplings which seem to me to be drooping too much.

Oak Avenue Weather:14.3℃—28.7℃ no rain [77.668] TdT TdO eggs=4 Mark=4

Ah, back to normal-ish now that the four-day weekends have finished and we can go shopping on Tuesday again. Today that was sandwiched between taking and retrieving Bangle from Emma the dog groomer.

We got back before Mark arrived and he set off to finish “releasing” the small yew trees along the fence south of the 133 gateway and also freeing the young Red Beech saplings from more convolvulus strangulation. Even though I’d freed the Red Beech just a week or so ago the convolvulus was back. Mark then watered and added mulch to the five Puriri trees before beginning his new project of chopping all the Scotch thistles. Unlike Californian thistles, just chopping off the leaves of Scotch thistles kills them.

Dean the plumber spent most of the day here and we discussed placement of the downstairs basins and vanity units. Ivan turned up just as we were about to return to Hastings and I gave him another half dozen eggs in return for his latest invoice. Having forgotten to take in two dozen eggs to the Food Bank in the morning we retraced our tracks to drop off the eggs and to pick up the lamb zinc capsules or boluses needed to ward off facial eczema.

One misunderstanding was cleared up today in that I have inadvertently been donating eggs to the wrong Food Bank. My intent was to offer them to the unaffiliated charity called The Food Bank but instead was giving them to the Salvation Army’s Food bank. Two different organisations with the same name, “Food Bank” and within a block of each other in the same street in Hastings. One is run by the Salvation Army and one by the Hastings Food Bank Trust. I’ve no idea whether one is more effective than the other, I was just intending to go to the Food bank that was multi-denominational or just unaffiliated with any specific denomination. I now know where to go.

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [77.652] TdT eggs=4 Mark=4

Builder Paul and plumber Dean returned from the Christmas break today but Paul then retired hurt because over the holidays he broke a bone in his foot which means he’s out of axction for a week or more.

Mark came and continued weeding and mulching the Lime avenue after giving the eleven Totara trees a drink.

Karola felt like an ice-cream so late afternoon we went to Rush Munro’s and shared a banana split in the cool of the Rush Munro garden.

Craig of Outdoor Power is unable to come this week for the work on the Grillo but maybe next week. Mark’s temporary mend is still holding for now.

Campbell Watt of OMG Power Equipment sent me paperwork for the backup generator project and I responded with photographs of the mains meter box and layout of the grounds.

Dave Mitchell’s Aerial Photo Of Karamu – 2009

Oak Avenue Weather:12.8℃—27.6℃ no rain [77.881] TdT TdO eggs=4 Mark=4

Gosh a very warm and sticky day. The main event was that Karola and I attended the Free Thinkers meeting at Karl Matthys’ place in Taradale. As I recall it from a short conversation with Alton Harris it seems that The Free Thinkers was founded about 45 years ago by Kate Contos, an American who lived in Havelock North for a while. She felt the need for a group to discuss matters of interest to both men and women – pushing back against the stereotype of “women discussing children and families and cooking up one end and men discussing beer and rugby down the other”.

Karl said that he joined in 1993. By then Kate had returned to Hawaii where (we are told) one day she sailed her dingy out to sea never to return. When he joined the venue was the Hamoana community centre. Over the years it moved from place to place, mostly in people’s homes. Most (if not all) of the original group have died. It is a pity there is no written history.

Membership has changed over the years though some like Alton have been members for decades. Karl Matthys and Lorraine who live in a large house up on the hills behind Taradale currently keep the group alive by offering their home as a venue, meeting on the second Sunday of every month. We’ve not met for several months because of the Covid and vaccination challenges so today was the first meeting for quite a while.

I suggested that Karola come along today and she did. As she says, the lockdowns and general social caution have meant our meagre flow of friends and family has pretty much dried up over the last couple of years so she thinks getting out and seeing some new and different people would be a good idea.

One fact that came up was the prevalence of fake Vaccine Exemption certificates; apparently an enterprising couple of English women are selling them in New Zealand. The certificate claims that the holder is a member of a control group in a big study of Covid sufferers.

Orange-Band was released from her solitary confinement today – we’ll see if she has decided to stop being broody.

Oak Avenue Weather:10.1℃—31.9℃ no rain [77.761] TdT TdO eggs=4

As agreed we went in to Royston hospital for our 9:30am appointment with Dr John Beaumont, opthalmologist. Upshot was that Karola did have something wrong with her left eye, an inflamation that will be cured with some steroid application. Also both eyes had a weak bacterial infection for which Dr John prescribed a cream ointment. As for her finding that print seemed smaller and books harder to read since the surgery, Dr John recommended quite strong magnifying reading glasses, 2.4x rather than the 1.5x Karola has used in the past.

Otherwise a quiet day; another day with the sheep on the homestead lawn and under the big oak.

Oak Avenue Weather:8.0℃—24.2℃ no rain [77.818] TdT TdO eggs=2

Took Karola in for her hair appointment; coffee on the way home, and picked up three months supply of Karola’s meds. This time we’ve asked for them to be done in lblister packs so that each day is a little enclosure containing the right mix of pills for the day. I’m not sure that it’s really much less complicated than Karola’s usual method of doling them out herself into little circular boxes with seven quadrants.

Mark came and finished the electric fence round the homestead lawn and the big oak, leaving plenty of space for the building team who are expected back next week.

I, with great relief, finally dispatched the remaining Boxing Day Letter emails, right up to the ones responding to cards that arrived today. We’ve whittled the list down to about 50 emails this year and I don’t think we sent a single physical card.

Expected John Beaumont to ring around 5:00pm as he’d agreed to see Karola about her uncomfortable eye and troubles reading – he did thecataract surgery a month or so ago. When it got past 6:00pm I TXTed him and he asked to re-arrange it for 9:30am tomorrow, Saturday.

I bunged another three episodes of The Girl From Oslo tonight; Gill pointed it out to me and it is indeed gripping. As I said to her, shades of The Honourable Woman and The Little Drummer Girl.

Oak Avenue Weather:11.8℃—22.2℃ no rain [77.857] TdT TdO eggs=4 Mark=4

Well, to my surprise and our delight we did indeed get our third dose of the vaccine today and it didn’t take too long. We got to the Racecourse a few minutes early to find quite a long queue of people waiting for their vaccinations, twenty or thirty I’d say. Having booked our appointments this didn’t bode well for a timely meeting with the needle so I asked a queue member whether they had an appointment or were “walk in”. They were walk-ins so I went to the front of the queue, in through the ostensibly secured front door and asked the guard inside whether there was a separate queue for people with appointments. When he got over the shock of someone just walking in, into a supposedly Covid-free reception area he ushered me out to the nurse doing pre-screening. After I pointed out that some in the queue had appointments and some were casuals, walk-ins, she said “those with appointments over here”. About a third of the queue swarmed to the new assembly point and several people mumbled loudly about how no-one had told them and there being no signage. I thought it was handled quite well from then on. A few people had 10:00am appointments and it was after 10:15am already. Once they were processed, questioned and their temperatures taken, the screenbody took 3 – 4 from the walk-in queue and then came back to us.

Once inside, just as before – we came to he same place for our jabs one and two – there was another queue of 20 or so people waiting to be assigned a number so about 20 minutes later we got our numbers and joined the 10 – 15 people waiting for their numbers to be called. A bit of a wait but eventually Karola and I together were escourted to a booth and promptly processed. Karola’s injection was so fast that I blinked and missed it, one minute she’s rolling up her sleeve, the next a plaster is being applied to the spot. The nurses and support staff were all very polite and friendly, especially the nurses who one suspects were retired hospital nurses recruited for the pandemic.

Treated ourselves to coffee on the way home.

Mark came at noon and began fencing the homestead lawn and under the big oak with electric fence.

Orange-Band returned to her broody behaviour so was reincarcerated in the broody coop.

After exploding with rage at being unable to find three vehicle license cards, the annual license needed for all our cars, tractors, and trailers, I eventually simmered down and looked up how to replace lost or stolen licence cards (also known as ‘rego’s). In practice it was very easy, our local VTNZ (vehicle testing and WOF station) culd do it and they are only a couple of km away. Karola and I went down, I got the replacement regos, it cost $5 for three and took about 15 minutes. We celbrated with a Rush Munro ice-cream.

Oak Avenue Weather:15.1℃—24.2℃ no rain [77.841] TdT TdO eggs=5 Mark=4

Shopping, a day later than usual because, like Christmas Day, New years fell on a weekend so Monday and Tuesday were public holidays. I also lashed out on a couple of blue galvanised iron 25 litre buckets and, at Mitre-10, a bag of wheat, 2.5L of Magnum anti-flystrike pour-on, and 25 zinc boluses for the mature sheep to ward off facial eczema. Metal buckets because my supply of plastic buckets is dwindling, they become brittle when exposed to sunlight and are cracking. Boluses for the 25 lambs are on order; when they arrive I’ll call Lachie the shearer to come and administer them. I also ordered ten adult sheep tags for the hoggets retained to replace the older and more moth-eared ewes next season.

On the way home we had yet another Rush Munro ice-cream and I spied another electric car parked just behind us. The Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe were, allegedly, co-developed and so share quite a lot of technology and some of the styling.

Thought it was about time I put the licensing stickers on the tractors and trailer; they’ve been here ready since November. So I went to check the WOF and license dates on all the vehicles. To my consternation I could not find the second Cyclone Pup trailer. I walked the boundary and looked in all the likely places, consulted Mark as to possible hiding places, but to no avail. Perhaps the gate thieves had also stolen a means to transport them away.

On my walk I noticed a lamb by itself lying down next to a tree guard by the sheep yards. Closer inspection showed it was actually stuck with its head through a square of the tree guard wire netting. Got bolt cutter, a 2.4mm crimp and the crimping tool. Cut the top wire; freed the lamb; rejoined the wire – all over in a matter of minutes. From the droppings I’d say the lamb hadn’t been caught there for more than a few hours, anyway it skipped away apparently none the worse for its adventure.

A book, ordered from BookDepository in October, arrived today. Or perhaps it was the replacement copy BookDepository sent when I alerted them to its non-arrival. If I get another copy I’ll know.

After a short 24 hours I freed Orange Band to see if that was long enough to un-broody her.

Mark came whilst we were still out shopping and spent the first half of the afternoon continuing his assault on the dreaded barley grass, the heads of which can work their way into the corners of the eyes and jaws and other joints of sheep and dogs.

I mowed a perimeter strip of grass round the homestead lawn and under the big oak ready for electric fence. Late afternoon Mark began laying out the electric fence so that i can graze the sheep on the lawns for a week or so, there’s not much rain in the forecast which means not much new grass growth in the paddocks.

Walking to the stump dump from the farm shed I, caution to the winds, strolled through the big ram enclosure – small area, big ram. He came over, stepped back a couple of paces, then charged. I was thrown to the ground, bruised but nothing broken. When will I learn. He’s probably only playing but is so solid he can do real harm.

Rang up about getting the Covid booster and to my surprise got appointments for me and Karola at our preferred location (Hastings Racecourse) tomorrow at 1015am.

Ordered a repeat of Karola’s meds online and asked that they pre-package them into a set for each day of the week. Looks like the pharmacy will do that, providing weekly “blister packs” for her three month supply.

Two Blue EV’s – Behind Us It’s A Nissan Leaf

Oak Avenue Weather:15.6℃—26.5℃ no rain [77.934] TdT TdO eggs=4 Mark=4

Nice cool breeze early morning and again this evening.

Karoa and I, mainly I, spent much of the day listening to long audio/video programmes about Covid, something which I like to do once in a while just to see what’s happened in the intervening weeks or months.

According to my sources it is just possible that Omicron strain of Covid is the one we’ve been hoping for. Infectious enough that very quickly almost all of us get it and there’s no hosts left for the earlier strains. And benign enough that it’s rare to get hospitalised let alone die from it, as long as you’re healthy.

Now Orange-Band is pretending to be broody so she will spend a day or so in solitary confinement.

See Dave At The Window Of Local Cafe – Photo From Anna In Ealing

Oak Avenue Weather:11.8℃—24.5℃ no rain [77.809] TdT TdO eggs=2

Turned off the water; at last the poor well pump can have a rest, it was going on and off every few minutes since I turned the watering systems on.

Another warm day, outside the breeze made it pleasant. Dyson fans are just so good in this weather.

When going off down to the Ngaruroro stop bank, just turning into Ormond Road, Karola wanted to look at something in the stump dump. I backed up and suddenly noticed that neither of the 3.7m old green-painted metal gates, the ones with square rails instead of pipes or wires, were missing. Some enterprising person had seen that the gates were covered in Convolvulus and Periwinkle so they came back, presumably at night, unhooked each gate then just lifted it off its gudgeons (hinges) and onto their trailer – never to be seen by us again. It probably happened over the Christmas period.

Henare dropped in later to tend his bees.

We were quite taken with the following wry observation, although, to be fair, we’re not terribly forthcoming when it comes to sharing with medical professionals.

Oak Avenue Weather:14.2℃—25.2℃ no rain [77.402] TdT TdO eggs=3

Henare had about twenty hives here for a short while but is back down to a sensible number for us, two by the five Swamp Cypresses, two under the Bentham’s Cypress.

Let Green-Band hen out of the broody coop and she seems to have been reformed by the experience.

Lucerne In One Acre Really Coming Away After Spraying To Kill Grasses

Henare’s Hives By The Five Swamp Cypresses

Monarch Butterfly Caterpillars

Not Another Lot Of Eggs, Please

Oak Avenue Weather:12.9℃—25.0℃ no rain [77.772] TdT TdO eggs=5

Got a look at what the weather is like over in Maine as Karola’s AFS “sister”, Sheila Alexander, flicked us a photo of her corgi, Lucy, frolicking in the snow with a friend, Teddy.

Power cut last night was actually quite localised although it seemed to me that all the lights in the area went out, right over to Hastings. Power went off around 9:30pm and came back on again by 10:30pm and only 73 Unison (Lines company) customers were affected, they say. Mind you we’re pretty sparsely populated out here so that included the expressway roundabout lights and the lights of the sports centre.

I fixed two leaks in the irrigation pipes, one near the fancy Manuka by the cottage, the other amongst the oldest 20 red beech saplings. Allowed the irrigation to run for another day. Gave a couple of buckets of water to each of the Puriri young trees and weeded the two that are on the lip of the ha-ha.

Culled a few more Monarch caterpillars.

Henare came round with his son Scott and Scott’s partner, Coco – Coco’s family are from Taiwan. We gave them ice cream and two dozen eggs.

What A Contrast – Corgis Teddy & Lucy In Winter In Maine

Back In Hawkes Bay, Bangle Saying “Come Along”

Bangle

Bangle And Her Chariot

Alongside The Stop Bank, The Equestrian Centre

Oak Avenue Weather:12.8℃—26.4℃ no rain [77.803] TdT TdO eggs=2