December 2012

We’ve gone from wet wet wet to dry dry dry in a matter of weeks.  There’s barely any water in the wetland, and irrigation has become an urgent priority.  I rooted around the shed and found an old sprinkler, which can cover quite a broad area.  In the veg garden, the whole area can be accounted for by siting it in 3 key spots.  Using a hose timer means that I only have to remember to move it between those spots and it’s not a disaster if I occasionally forget.  The spuds are flowering, the carrots are just popping up and the corn is stunning - not a time to be slack.  Cropping is well underway - snow peas, lettuces, spring onions, kale, silver beet and some bandicooted new potatoes for starters.

The orchard has also been treated to an irrigation system (of sorts).  I was considering a soaker hose system, but this would end up wetting the whole orchard rather than just the trees.  Instead it’s now adorned in a dripper system, using a sequence of connected black hoses.  The hose begins in a line up the soft fruit area with small upright sprinklers at intervals, and then continues through the orchard tied to the tree stakes and with a single dripper for each tree.  It’s very DIY and certainly not pretty, but seems to be effective.  Another hose timer completes the setup.  The newish trees are too young to fruit this year, but all have survived with most looking very healthy.  The two original stone fruit trees are laden with fruit this year - probably a nectarine and a peach, but yet to declare themselves.  It was quite a surprise to see them, since last year they produced nearly nothing and we considered chopping them down.  We’ve neglected them just as much this year, so it must relate to the natural variability of stone fruit cropping.

Much weeding and mulching has taken place in these productive zones, and hopefully that’s the lion’s share of the hard graft for this season.  Now that the plants have been given a head-start over the weeds, they’re on their own.  All new weeds will be left to provide ground cover and help with soil water-retention.  The worst to deal with were the thistles, which have left numerous prickles in my fingers.  They’re all over the property too, and thistle-bashing is our least favourite but most required activity.  I plan to complete the final phases of the veg garden development in autumn/winter when the pasture growth slows.  It will be lovely to have a pond and gravel/woodchipped paths and no grass to mow. 

 

A trio of NZ White rabbits arrived a couple of weeks ago, and have been named ‘Gandalf’, ‘Galadriel’ and ‘Belladonna’ in honour of the Hobbit.  It was really difficult to find female Hobbit character names, so it’s likely that future offspring won’t be named.  Instead they’ll be eaten (but we haven’t mentioned this yet to the rabbits).  They’re a bit nervous of being held, but do tolerate it, even by boys.  We moved them into a big run designed for chickens, and sure enough yesterday they managed to nibble a hole in the wire.  I spotted Maggie chasing one across the lawn, but cleverly she managed to chase it into the shed where we caught it easily.  It was only when we returned it we discovered that Gandalf was missing too.  A few minutes later he turned up and was duly returned to a small rabbit-proof enclosure, made of tougher wire.  We’ll start looking for more suitable premises after Christmas, and keep the small run for future rabbit kits.

 

4 baby chicks hatched but alas 3 were taken by hawks.  We should have wised up to this much sooner than we did, but it is a lesson well-learned.  The chicken run now has some raggedy old electric fence ribbon running in zigzags across the top, in the hope of deterring the hawks.  The remaining chick seems to be doing well and is a feisty little critter.  Probably we’ll look at separating hen mums and chicks in future, and using a properly wired enclosure to protect them.  We’ll also get a few more hens so that we don’t lose out on egg production when hens are brooding.  This would also provide Bob with more females to harass - the hens sport bald patches on their backs from Bob’s claws during his moments of conjugal rights.  I do wonder if he abuses his privileges from time to time. 

The cattle have visibly grown in the last few weeks, as have the sheep (and lambs).  Despite being a ‘shedding’ breed, only Rambo has significantly shed his wool.  The others have shed to some extent, but clearly needed a bit of help.  Bring on the total amateurs and their one set of hand-shears!  After the usual lengthy debacle of rounding up (during which there is plenty of time to ponder on which is the more intelligent species), we eventually contained them in the race and began the process of shearing.  Wiltshires are a big breed, so getting them turned over onto their backs was quite a challenge.  I think they were a bit worried that Peter might be trying to dance with them (his reputation as a daddy-dancer seemingly extending into sheepdom), but we did manage to kind of wrestle 3 of them to the ground and hack off their wool.  The 4^th sheep was absolutely not having a ‘baa’ of it, and we ended up using a new, and as yet undocumented, technique of shearing her whilst she was standing wedged against the gate.  It was surprisingly effective and her haircut was no worse than any of the others.  However, we may well have set a new standard for appalling shearing, and are sincerely hoping that the lambs will be more considerate in their shedding-capacity.

 

The solar power was connected and has been quite busy generating power.  We can check on production from the comfort of home using a device which connects to our computer modem.  It tells us how much electricity we’re producing that day/week/month and what the temperature is.  On the hottest day the panels reached a whopping 44°!  We’re looking forward to our next power bill.

Amazingly we’re coming to the end of the immediate priority job list, so hope to have a few days off from the graft of lifestyle-block work and sit back and enjoy the summer.  As well as Christmas cake decorating and pie-making, there’s plenty to enjoy, from swimming in the watering holes, picnicking in the reserve among the mighty kahikateas, days out to the beach, bush walks and barbecues.  And Father Christmas might even bring us some new toys!

 

Cheers, Merry Christmas and warm wishes for a very happy 2013.