October 2015

The mercury has hit the late 20’s, but only with a nor’wester wind.  When the wind comes from the south it’s usually much cooler, and the risk of frost lurks until around the end of the month.  We’re getting used to these weather patterns now that we’ve been here 4 years (gasp).  The gorgeously happy lime green spring growth is endlessly delightful, and the longer days really just mean more time to spend outside working the land.  With the exception of the cherries, the stone fruit have mostly finished their blossoming frenzy, and now the pip fruit have taken on the mantle.  Apples, pears and quince are in full bloom.  It’s very satisfying to see tiny fruit developing on the damson and blackthorn trees – bodes well for next year’s gin!  For the first time, the step-over espaliered apples have blossom. Maybe my hatchet pruning hasn’t been totally devastating for them after all.  Flowering weeds are adding to the show, and there is a sense that they’re running away with themselves and mocking me. 

We had the pleasure of Grannie-Annie’s company for a very happy couple of weeks.  We took the ferry to Wellington for the World of Wearable Arts show.  It was our first time and hopefully not our last - truly spectacular theatre.  We also visited Peter Jackson’s ‘Gallipoli’ exhibition at Te Papa – another jaw-droppingly awesome kiwi creation.  Back home we went to share some flowers and have a chat with Dad at Karaka Point. A few day trips and several thousand games of cards (including the addictive ‘Kings and Arse-holes’) filled in the rest of Ann’s time.  She was considerate enough to give our stock of Chardonnay a decent hammering.

Billy’s done some clearing up around the acer and grass seed has been sown.  There are 2 tall tree stumps behind the acer, the heads of which were lopped off to avoid shading the solar panels.   While we were in Wellington, Peter began work on a new and previously secret project.  By the power of his craftsmanship and the humble chainsaw, one tree stump is now transformed into a seahorse (my favourite creature).  He wants to work on more of the finer detail and also to carve another seahorse in the second stump. 

The horse arena is definitely finally getting there.  Billy has worked on the currently unoccupied beds, levelling them and turning the clumps of weeds upside-down to kill off the roots.  Those that remain unoccupied are the ones ear-marked for grains next year.  There are 3 feijoas in one bed, under-planted with strawberries, and so far 4 citrus – just another 2 more needed to complete the grove.  The weed-mat is down between the beds, awaiting the delivery of a load of ‘pea-metal’ (cheap gravel) next week.  There’s a new teuchrium hedge marking the divide between the vege garden and the horse arena, and a young korokia hedge along the pig-run-to-be.  A blackboy peach (a 50^th birthday gift from my students) marks the end of the korokia hedge and hopefully will feed future pigs as well as us.  Only a few of the vine prunings have rooted, so we've added 3 new varieties of table grapes.  We'll probably get a few more prunings next year and try to look after them a bit better.

Madame Cholet has been accommodating a range of beautiful seedlings.  A trailer-load of compost has been mixed into the remains of last year’s broken-down straw bales, so it’s now ready to receive the transplanted seedlings.  Here’s hoping I manage not to overdo it with the cucumber seedlings this time.  Some seedlings are ready to be planted outside too.  They're hardening off outside, so that small matter of some serious weeding is definitely in order.  I was deluding myself that the weeds are just shallow-rooted annuals and it’ll be a breeze to deal with them.  Then I calculated that, based on recent progress, it'll take around 36 hours (a conservative estimate) to completely clear them.  Hmmm.

The lambs seem to visibly get bigger and they’re all enjoying the surge in pasture growth.  The chooks are enjoying each other’s company.  Though they’re straying onto the driveway, the vege garden is as yet undiscovered by these fowl critters, so they  can all continue to free-range.  It’s a pleasure seeing and hearing them as they go about their scratching and cock-a-doodle-doo-ing.  Hopefully one of the hens will go broody very soon.

It seems that Hera is probably just fat and not actually pregnant.  She should be due any day, but though she is well-rounded, she’s not pendulous or obviously imminent.  There’s been no udder development either, so we’re bracing ourselves for no calf.  Very disappointing indeed.  Fingers crossed that the same fate is not awaiting Athena.

The bees are busily buzzing and both hives are jam-packed with bees, brood, pollen and honey.  None have attempted to make queen cells, at least not yet.  Varroa strips are in, but some re-organisation of boxes and frames has to happen.  In one hive I’ve repeated the same ingenious mistake of trapping the queen above the queen excluder.  In the other hive I’d already previously trapped the queen above the excluder and had removed the excluder.  That queen has since decided to lay her brood in all 3 of the boxes, creating a slight management issue.  It’s a very good job that the bees know what they’re doing.

Edible crops are sparse, but the newly sewn seeds should begin to feed us within a few weeks.  We’re down to  carrots (still plenty of them left), some beetroot, jerusalem artichokes and a bit of kale.  Our precious stocks of firewood and hay have just lasted long enough.  Peter’s been working on the firewood supplies.  He’s sourced some gum from trees which have been felled at his workplace.  We have plenty of pine and willow on the property, but gum burns for a lot longer than them, so it’ll be good to have this variety.  We’ve allocated a couple of paddocks for hay.  Once the truck has delivered the pea-metal (it’ll have to cross both paddocks to get to the horse arena), we’ll shut them down from grazing so that they can be cut for hay before Christmas.  And talking of Christmas, we’re expecting visitors – Kaja, Jeremy, Michael and Melissa – to join us for the festivities.  We’re also very much looking forward to a repeat visit from David, Peter’s cousin Janet’s son, sometime over the summer holidays.  He came for a few days a couple of years ago and has now returned to NZ for work.  Hopefully it’ll be possible to squeeze everyone in somehow.  

In the meantime it’s head down, bum up and getting on with work – paid and home.  No surprises there.  Sarah, one of my Polytechnic colleagues, says this quotes makes her think of me.  Love it!

“Behind every good woman is a flock of chickens”

September 2015

It was my special birthday on August 23^rd – half way towards getting a card from the queen, as Sam kindly pointed out. Peter and me decided to have a weekend away and opted for Nelson as our destination.  The boys were left home alone and in charge of the animals.  We spent a lovely Saturday meandering around the market and then the shopping mall, before heading back to the motel for DVDs and chilling out.  It was such a luxury to be able to spend ages in a 2^nd hand book shop and a spa bath without anyone getting bored or whinging.  On Sunday morning, Peter took me to my surprise birthday destination – the airport at Motueka for a sky-dive.  It was a fantastic and truly memorable day, and very worthy of a special birthday celebration.  Thank you Peter – great to know that you can still surprise me after all these years!

Other memorable presents included knit-your-own-gumboot-cuffs and a bee necklace.  There was a wheelbarrow of assorted poo – specially selected by my chief poo-picker Billy, and on the same theme, this stunning painting of a turd was created by the talented Emily (to her ‘mad auntie Silke’).  Aw shucks, you lot know me so well.

Happiness is…..planting seeds, with all their seductive promise of abundance.  Though I’m wise enough to know that the promise may not quite match the reality, it remains a favourite pastime.  This year I’ve started some seeds off in the house in a miniature heated and covered seed-tray.  Last year some early tomato plants got frosted in the tunnel house, so no plans to repeat that.  So far cucumber, melon, gourd, tomato, pepper, aubergine (egg-plant), Echinacea and nasturtium have germinated, and I’ve just sown some brassicas and asparagus.  Some have come through nicely and are already potted on.  They’ll go into Madame Cholet after the current cold-snap, ensuring that they’re not close to the walls where frost damage is more likely.

The horse arena has progressed a little.  Four olive trees are planted and staked, and some very reluctant weed-spraying was done prior to laying down weed mat.  Proud of finally getting round to planting the trees, I splashed out on a length of expensive jute tree-tie.  It wasn’t enough to secure the 4 trees, and I’ve no idea what possessed me to pay dearly for it, instead of using the usual old ripped T shirts or bits of crappy rope lying around.  So I untied it all and re-fashioned it using baling twine extensions.  A much more satisfactory outcome all round.  Spurred on by this success, the remaining posh jute was used to re-stake the nut trees too – they should now be much better able to withstand the spring winds which are probably on their way.

The lambs are ever-robust and have found their way into the wetland on several occasions.  I’m prepared to let that go, as long as they keep out of the vege garden.  We’ve only recently stopped feeding out ‘sheep nuts’, and the flock still turn up religiously when we feed the chooks to see if there’s anything for them.  The ewe mother of the single lamb is the tamest – she’ll even tolerate me patting her head.  The lambs keep their distance.  Maybe they haven’t yet forgotten the indignity of tail-docking and vaccination. The photo shows their strategy for sheltering from the rain.  Here's hoping we don't have to move the trailer in any hurry.

Hera’s getting rounder in the abdomen, and we’re hoping that’s not our imagination.  Her calf is due mid/late October, assuming that she’s definitely pregnant.  The cows (and we’re mostly blaming Zeus) have now destroyed 3 gates.  Recently they took out the gate to the tiny paddock behind the house and were happily munching on the stored hay in the shelter.  Billy and me had to persuade them to return from whence they came.  Zeus was surprisingly cooperative, and it only occurred to me afterwards that we were lucky he wasn’t having a bad hair day.

We had 6 roosters and 4 hens, and so much carnal carnage there were occasions when it was like a porn movie out there.  When it verged on episodes of what appeared to be gang rape, it was clearly time to do something about it.  So now we’re down to 1 rooster (the new Cornelius) and the 4 hens, and a bit less space in the freezer.  And a much smaller chook-food bill.  They still free-range every day, and so far have kept to the orchard area.  They can continue to free range until the time comes when they discover the vege garden, then their activity will be curtailed. 

In the last week of August we welcomed Japanese boys Kakeru and Mikiru to our home.  They travelled over with around 40 fellow pupils from Jissen Gakuen school in Tokyo and were here for a week of English Language immersion.  They were billeted out to us, though attended school at the usual times.  Being the end of winter put the dampers on a number of activities we usually offer to guests, but we were determined to get some fishing in.  Happily our friends Jeff and Vanessa Hammond also had 2 Japanese boys, and they took them all out with Peter and Billy on their boat into the Sounds on a fishing trip.  At home they particularly enjoyed numerous games of table-tennis, table-football, Mr Bean DVDs, as well as the obligatory PlayStation.  They were prepared to have a go at everything and were really lovely company, despite the language difficulty.  We hope that one day we might be lucky enough to see them again.

Sam’s band activities have been newsworthy lately.  He was interviewed by the local paper and they published a half-page article and photo.  The Brass Band has a concert coming up for which he’s the poster-boy.   As the current NZ National Soprano Cornet champion (slightly long story), he’ll be doing a solo and a duet.  It’ll be quite an adjustment for us when he leaves home next year.

Despite the chilly nights, we’ve been getting our fair share of stunning sunny days.  Plenty of rain too, and finally some visible pasture growth.  Sam’s already mowed the lawn twice, and it‘s nearly ready for its next trim.  Spring blossom is popping up everywhere and bulbs are flowering.  The wetland has been a happy recipient of the rain and is looking stunning. The weeds are already onto it – they never miss a trick.  It seems I’m beginning to get my come-uppance for my laissez-faire approach to the vege garden of late.  Partly that’s been because of the focus on the horse arena, but also that we’ve occasionally escaped the life-sentence block and done other stuff, even a bit of guilty day-time reading.  Have we reached a watershed in the natural progression of the life and work of a small-holder?  Or have we perhaps lost our marbles?  Spring will no doubt have its revenge. Moo ha ha…

August 2015

It’s still mid-winter of course, but that’s frankly beginning to feel like a pretty poor excuse for never-ending cold weather.  We’re getting a bit over the numerous freezing nights and frosty mornings during what’s been our chilliest winter so far.  Complaining is not usually necessary between about 10am and 4pm when we are blessed with fresh and vibrant sunshine.  We’ve also had some rain, which the land still needs, so there is an occasional reprieve from the cold.  It’s rarely wet and cold together, though the nor’wester winds can blow in uninvited any time.  Talking about the weather again – hmmm, my Englishness is never very far away.  However, it’s also true now that much of our lives outside of work are weather-dependent, so we do have another feasible excuse for weather navel-gazing.

On the ‘getting on with jobs’ front, we’ve been seriously tardy.  Shorter days and too much paid work have contributed to this, as has a lack of urgent in-your-face tasks whilst the land appears to be tucked up and sleeping.  

The day after I posted last month’s blog, we got the first lambs of the season – twin ram and ewe lambs.  They were followed by another set of boy twins and finally a single boy.  The first twins were born one hideously rainy night, which we’d heard is potentially more risky than extreme cold.  They were dripping wet and shivering away when I spotted them, so I tried to gently coax them into the hay barn.  I ended up having to pick them up, one under each arm, and then carry them into the barn.  It was a heck of a job getting the mother ewe to join them there, and for a while I wondered whether I should have intervened at all.  Seasoned farmers don’t interfere with lambing, as the general rule is that you’re more likely to make things worse.  Anyway, all was well in the end and the lambs are now robust and energetic and beginning to get into mischief.  We’re a bit disappointed with having only one girl, but probably not surprised.

Spring is definitely in the air in the orchard, with many of the fruit trees sporting fat buds and some fresh twiggy growth.  The nut trees need to be better staked, but otherwise most of the fruit trees are looking well-anchored and strong.  Some of them are supporting their stakes, rather than the other way round, so definitely an orchard sort-out needs to happen.  We’ve done a whole heap of cutting back and tidying at the front of the property, around the pig run/orchard.  There’s a pittosporum hedge which had got too high and wide to manage with a hedge-trimmer.  We’ve hacked it right down to waist-height so it’s looking bare and very sorry for itself right now.  Hopefully it’ll take off again once the temperatures increase.  It’s opened up a different view and we can now see the pig run from upstairs in the house.  We just need to decide how best to fill the gaps left behind the hedge, which are now open to sunlight.  And then we need to get on with it.

For the first time, we bit the bullet and ordered lime for the property.  We had been advised that it needed liming when we first moved in, nearly 4 years ago so have taken way too long to get around to it.  We used a local company run by my good friend Jax.  A guy came in a truck and it took him minutes to spread the lime everywhere.  I have to wonder why we never got round to it before, as it was a painfully easy process.  We were left with a small pile of left over lime which was spread around the drip lines of the orchard trees.  Hopefully we’ll see a positive difference with this year’s hay and pasture growth.

The horse arena is slowly taking shape.  Jorgi came and did some more clearing, and now we’re nearly at a point of being able to put down weed-mat between the raised beds which are all constructed.  The dividing fence is in place, only a gate needed now.  There’s lots of hefty work to be done around filling the various beds with organic materials to break down into soil.  We have new neighbours who have horses so can now add liberal volumes of horse poo to these new beds.  And I'm planning on another seaweed run soon.  Some of the beds are priorities for filling with decent soil as they’ll be planted up in the next few weeks with olive, feijoa and citrus trees. The rest will be filled up then covered with hay and left until next year for planting. They will be used to experiment with grain-growing, just to get the hang of it in a small area.  It’ll be great to finally get some things growing in there. 

We finally managed to coordinate Athena's heat with some Artificial Insemination.  It all ended up happening at a busy work time for us, and I chickened out so we called an AI technician to do the deed.  In the end it was definitely meant to be as it wasn't straightforward.  Fortuitously the technician had also brought along a student to whom she explained every step of the process.  I was all ears and learnt several practical tips.  I felt slightly vindicated when she said that heifers who had not been pregnant before (like Athena) are the most difficult to inseminate.  Here's hoping that it worked and we can look forward to her beautiful calf in the autumn.

Karyn joined us to help round up all the sheep and give them some unwanted attention.  One of the ewes had very long and curled up nails on her back feet, and another also needed a bit of a pedicure.  We got them into the race, which had been specially adapted with plastic netting to hold the lambs in (a lesson well-learned from last year - thanks Karyn).  First the lambs were unceremoniously tail-docked and vaccinated.  They probably don’t appreciate how lucky they are to have avoided castration - we’ve decided to downplay the possible genetic implications and keep the best shedding of the ram lambs to be the flock ram for next year.  The other 3 boys can then either be sold as ram lambs, or dispatched in the usual way.  Then we were onto the ewes and the truly disgusting task of trimming toenails.  The vet nurse suggested that garden shears would work – it turned out that she did mean secateurs and not shears, which was a huge relief.  The nails were duly cut, and aside from a spell of nauseous heaving (for me, toenails are the most repugnant things in the world), I’ve recovered from the ordeal.

The prosciutto is hanging in the kitchen and happily no rotten meat smells are lingering in the air.  The salami only took 4 weeks and has been a success – it looks and tastes like salami, just a bit of an odd shape.  It’s not the best salami in the world, but things are looking promising for next year when I’ll be confident enough to be a bit more adventurous with the ingredients.  We’re still very much enjoying the sausages, bacon and other pork products from the freezer. Luckily for Zeus, there's still a shortage of freezer space.

Sam has been busy in the last month.  On the back of the National Brass Band competition last month, there’s been the school performance and the Southern Jam.  His 18^th birthday fell in the middle of the show, and Kevin the band leader secretly arranged for the band to play ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.  We celebrated later at home in our usual way with cake (Lolly Cake at Sam’s request) and champagne.  The Southern Jam is an annual Jazz competition for South Island schools, which always takes place in Blenheim.  It’s a lovely event, this year with 22 bands or ensembles playing over the course of a week in several venues across town (cafes, bars, wineries and schools) before the main Saturday evening event.

 

It's hard to believe that yet another month in paradise has passed.  We're still eating our own eggs, meat and some vegetables, feeding out our own hay, generating solar power and using firewood from the property.  Billy's even making a bit of money on the side with his 'Poo-well Ltd' cow poo sales.  My vege seed order has arrived and I'm itching to get them started.  Roll on spring.  Our lovely 'Grannie-Annie' will be here next month - we hope you're ready for us!