Happy birthday Dominic! If you don't read this I am intending to send you a letter (along with letters to many other folks in the UK!). You will have to be patient as my emails get sent a lot more quickly than my letters.
Well we have had a rollercoaster of a week. We said good bye to Shazza the goat on Saturday as she had been getting progressively worse and was finding it hard to get up. She started scouring and went blind in one eye. Her mate Shanya was upset and stood a few yards away bleating. Mike came along with a gun and put her down. We buried her after shanya had had a chance to sniff at her friend's corpse. I was amazed at how quickly the blowflies moved in! Her rump was swarming with maggots within an hour of death. The flies over here lay live maggots and not eggs, which obviously speeds up the decay process. Makes me a bit nervous about the idea of going to sleep outside! You might wake up with half your arm eaten off!
It being Labour weekend, which is traditionally the start of the outdoor swimming season, I took the boys to the Takahue water hole on Sunday afternoon. It was a lot colder and deeper than it was last year. Shortly after we got back to the car, the heavens opened and we had a downpour.
Monday dawned cloudy and unpromising, typical UK bank holiday weather! It did get better as the day progressed and we went off to Tokerau beach on the East Coast. The boys all went in the surf on their body boards and I had a fish, trying to get the bait out into the surf as far as I could. It was a different way to fish, being battered by the waves and with gannets and terns flying over. I had a couple of bites, but nothing big was on. Apparently the Kahawi were running up the west coast!
On Wednesday Eric performed in his Drama club plays. It was a good night of talent, lots of variety, ranging from Dr Seuss poems, to Orpheus and including some funny little sketches, like the family eating out at a restaurant. Eric's main part was as the huntsman in Snow white and the seven dwarves. He played his part well, especially when he showed the step-mum a real bleeding sheep's heart as proof that he had killed off snow-white. Thanks To Ruth and Stephan for the offal, we might write a book "101 uses for a sheep's heart". The play was a good twist on the traditional story, as Snow-white steals the magic mirror and the dwarves use it to get rich at the horse races.
Until next week then.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Friday, October 21, 2005
Friday 21st October
Kia ora readers, whoever you are!
We are at the end of the second week of term 4, with about 7 to go until the end of the year. The pictures below are from the holiday. I tried to post them several times last week but could not get them to load up.
We have had a typically busy week. Exchanged our 6 rams for 4 ewes and a ram last week-end. They are now officially ours, to look after and ultimately to eat! The plan is that they will mate in November and lamb in April. Pete assures us that they have all produced healthy offspring up until now. The ewes are quite different to the rams. They are more flighty and my initial impression is that they are not eating as much grass as the rams did. As a consequence the grass seems to be getting longer all over. The ram is a bottle reared one called Mosetse (apologies to Irene if the spelling is not right). He is hanging around his women after taking a few days to connect with them.
Before we went shopping for sheep, we went to the Diggers Valley rally. It was one stage out of several. I have to admit that it was quite exciting to see and hear a load of cars come tearing down the normally pretty much deserted metalled road. We tried various vantage points around Ruth and Stephan's farm eventually realising that the front gate probably gave the best vantage point!
We followed that with our first swim of the year in the water hole, neatly before the traditional start of the swimming season which is this weekend (Labour Weekend).
Other news: chicks are doing well, at least the 2 of them that survived their hopeless mother's pathetic attempts to keep them alive. We now have them in the spare room with a lamp on them and mother back down the bottom with the flock. We have another bantam up the top sat on 5 eggs, due to hatch in about 10 days. Meanwhile down the bottom, there are 2 shaver hens trying to hatch imaginary eggs in the nest box. It must be broody time.
The ducks are growing daily and stray further away from the pond now than they did. We ate the smallest one for Sunday dinner. Yes I know .... it wasn't the easiest thing to chop its head off, but this is not a zoo. It is concentrating my mind on the amount of meat that we eat and at how easy it is to divorce eating meat from killing animals. I am also realising first hand something that I have been teaching for years, namely that animals eat 10x the amount of food for every unit of mass that their bodies actually grow. I take down grain and buckets of food to the ducks and chickens every morning and most of the energy just goes on keeping them warm. When one actually prepares a bird for eating, by removing feathers and feet and inedible parts, it hits me how little of that grain we are getting on the table! The vegetarians have always used this as an argument, but I have never appreciated what they are on about as much as I do now. Not that I am about to go veggie, far from it when there is so much meat and potential meat walking round the paddocks. But my ideal diet would involve eating far less meat and far more vegetable protein. The top veggy bed was finished last week-end and planting will start soon.
Other news: Labour managed to pull together a government that involved some interesting compromises. New Zealand First were in the limelight( as usual) and their main man Winston Peters got himself a key post - minister for Foreign Affairs. He insists he is not part of the government and even wants to continue sitting on the oppostion benches. He likes it both ways. Sadly for my political persuasions, the greens were left out in the cold as none of the other minor parties would serve if the greens were part of the mix.
Eric went on a clean-up of the Mangamuka Gorge with his school.He is also busy rehearsing for his performance on Wednesday. Paddy is into planets and produces fantastic posters about them and their charcteristics. He acted as an advisor on a worksheet for my Year 10's. Stuart is busy trying to build a boat that will be able to carry 14 people. He is scrounging wood from off cut bins at various businesses in town. Chantelle is the official shepherd as she is better with the stock than I am.
Until next time then, with pictures due of sheep, chicks, rally cars. If there are any pictures you would like to see on here, just email or leave a comment.
We are at the end of the second week of term 4, with about 7 to go until the end of the year. The pictures below are from the holiday. I tried to post them several times last week but could not get them to load up.
We have had a typically busy week. Exchanged our 6 rams for 4 ewes and a ram last week-end. They are now officially ours, to look after and ultimately to eat! The plan is that they will mate in November and lamb in April. Pete assures us that they have all produced healthy offspring up until now. The ewes are quite different to the rams. They are more flighty and my initial impression is that they are not eating as much grass as the rams did. As a consequence the grass seems to be getting longer all over. The ram is a bottle reared one called Mosetse (apologies to Irene if the spelling is not right). He is hanging around his women after taking a few days to connect with them.
Before we went shopping for sheep, we went to the Diggers Valley rally. It was one stage out of several. I have to admit that it was quite exciting to see and hear a load of cars come tearing down the normally pretty much deserted metalled road. We tried various vantage points around Ruth and Stephan's farm eventually realising that the front gate probably gave the best vantage point!
We followed that with our first swim of the year in the water hole, neatly before the traditional start of the swimming season which is this weekend (Labour Weekend).
Other news: chicks are doing well, at least the 2 of them that survived their hopeless mother's pathetic attempts to keep them alive. We now have them in the spare room with a lamp on them and mother back down the bottom with the flock. We have another bantam up the top sat on 5 eggs, due to hatch in about 10 days. Meanwhile down the bottom, there are 2 shaver hens trying to hatch imaginary eggs in the nest box. It must be broody time.
The ducks are growing daily and stray further away from the pond now than they did. We ate the smallest one for Sunday dinner. Yes I know .... it wasn't the easiest thing to chop its head off, but this is not a zoo. It is concentrating my mind on the amount of meat that we eat and at how easy it is to divorce eating meat from killing animals. I am also realising first hand something that I have been teaching for years, namely that animals eat 10x the amount of food for every unit of mass that their bodies actually grow. I take down grain and buckets of food to the ducks and chickens every morning and most of the energy just goes on keeping them warm. When one actually prepares a bird for eating, by removing feathers and feet and inedible parts, it hits me how little of that grain we are getting on the table! The vegetarians have always used this as an argument, but I have never appreciated what they are on about as much as I do now. Not that I am about to go veggie, far from it when there is so much meat and potential meat walking round the paddocks. But my ideal diet would involve eating far less meat and far more vegetable protein. The top veggy bed was finished last week-end and planting will start soon.
Other news: Labour managed to pull together a government that involved some interesting compromises. New Zealand First were in the limelight( as usual) and their main man Winston Peters got himself a key post - minister for Foreign Affairs. He insists he is not part of the government and even wants to continue sitting on the oppostion benches. He likes it both ways. Sadly for my political persuasions, the greens were left out in the cold as none of the other minor parties would serve if the greens were part of the mix.
Eric went on a clean-up of the Mangamuka Gorge with his school.He is also busy rehearsing for his performance on Wednesday. Paddy is into planets and produces fantastic posters about them and their charcteristics. He acted as an advisor on a worksheet for my Year 10's. Stuart is busy trying to build a boat that will be able to carry 14 people. He is scrounging wood from off cut bins at various businesses in town. Chantelle is the official shepherd as she is better with the stock than I am.
Until next time then, with pictures due of sheep, chicks, rally cars. If there are any pictures you would like to see on here, just email or leave a comment.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Friday 14th October
Kia ora koutou!
One week into school and time to resurrect the Friday night update. Listening to dance music on George FM because there is nothing on TV worthy of watching, even by my low Friday night standards. I am slowly moving towards a view that many have reached before me; namely that TV is a monumental waste of time. We have started an experiment in having one TV (and computer) free day a week. We are trying out Thursdays, so don't expect the usual speedy response if you email on a Thursday.
That is not to say that all the tv here is rubbish. One thing I am slowly getting used to is the ads on all channels. Even on the news shows. It slows down the flow and makes a half hour programme into a 1 hour programme. Some of the good programmes imho are:
- Brotown a cartoon about the doings of some Morningside youngsters. Not universally liked (some think it vulgar!), but we find it amusing. There is a lot of stuff that goes over the heads of the boys.
- Facelift - another comic puupet satirical - a bit like Spitting Image.
There have been other dramas on and short comedies that have been good.
The rest seems to be 80% imported from UK/US/Oz.
Back to reality, we are all excited by the new chicks and are finding hard to resist checking them every five minutes. It is very smelly out there as some eggs have blown up, the ones that were not fertilised and have basically been kept stewing under mum's butt for 3 weeks. SMELLLLYYY! She does not smell too sweet either; having rather let herself go! Her character has changed, she is all dopey, but delivers a mean peck if you go near her chicks.
We went to the Waiere Boulders last week when we were on holiday. Patrick and Mum had been there before so Patrick was keen to show everyone around. We walked quite a way and for the first (but probably not the last) time, Chantelle and I were left trailing as all six younger legs ran off in front to see this or that. Very photogenic place. The boulders are volcanic basalt and have fluting marks on them that had me wondering as my basic knowledge of geology tells me that igneous rock is very hard and resistant to weathering. Apparently, the grooves on the boulders are caused by kauri leaf chemicals that corrode the rock by constantly dripping onto the same place. Feel free to comment on this if you have a better explanation!
So it was back to school this week. It was a bit like being bulldozed on Monday as the easygoing attitude of the holiday was displaced by the faster pace of school. Probably made harder for me because I spent Friday and Saturday night at Te Tii Marae with the te reo course. Te Tii is a beautiful place not far from Kerikeri. The course was very good as well and I consolidated a lot of my language. It was a boost for my confidence to be able to explain a few things to some people who had just started the course.
Until next week then, if the volcanoes, earthquake or bird flu don't get us in the mean-time.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Ahhhhhhhhh.
Well our very first chick. Isn't it cute!
Here the little chook is peeking out from between it's mums wing. BB (broody bantum) was sat on 21 eggs. We moved chook and bub from the bush they were in ,into a special hutch/ run, which had sucessfully drought up the ducks. Another egg was in the process of cracking.
We wait to see how many eggs finally produce chooks.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
The workers
It is still the holiday and we are working on a range of projects. The water system is more or less fixed. Thanks to everyone who has helped with design advice and troubleshooting.
We made an exciting find today - well it was exciting for us simple country folk! We lost a bantam nearly 3 weeks ago, just before the strong winds. At first I assumed that it had either been blown away, or had been eaten by a hawk or a feral cat. Eric claimed to have seen a hawk fly off with a bantam, so we assumed the worst. In the last few days we started to consider another possibility - that our bantam was sat on eggs. If that was so we might expect it to appear with some fluffy bundles in the next few days - as hens take 21 days to incubate. Eric and I found the little luv this morning tucked away in a thicket and sitting hard. We did not want to disturb her, but are keeping our fingers crossed and eyes open. Eric and I fixed up a coop for any chicks that are led out. We think their chances will be better up close to the house rather than in the field with the hawks flying over all the time.
The picture of Stuart is a rare photo of him engaged in a work-related activity. One has to take these pics while one can. He took a strop about 30 seconds after the pic was taken and the mowing was left to me!
The lack of any pictures of the old man working does not necessarily mean that I am sat on my backside watching everyone else working ..... at least that's my story.
We made an exciting find today - well it was exciting for us simple country folk! We lost a bantam nearly 3 weeks ago, just before the strong winds. At first I assumed that it had either been blown away, or had been eaten by a hawk or a feral cat. Eric claimed to have seen a hawk fly off with a bantam, so we assumed the worst. In the last few days we started to consider another possibility - that our bantam was sat on eggs. If that was so we might expect it to appear with some fluffy bundles in the next few days - as hens take 21 days to incubate. Eric and I found the little luv this morning tucked away in a thicket and sitting hard. We did not want to disturb her, but are keeping our fingers crossed and eyes open. Eric and I fixed up a coop for any chicks that are led out. We think their chances will be better up close to the house rather than in the field with the hawks flying over all the time.
The picture of Stuart is a rare photo of him engaged in a work-related activity. One has to take these pics while one can. He took a strop about 30 seconds after the pic was taken and the mowing was left to me!
The lack of any pictures of the old man working does not necessarily mean that I am sat on my backside watching everyone else working ..... at least that's my story.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Ralph
This is Ralph.
Ralph was snatched from the jaws of Mo on Wednesday morning. At first we thought Ralph was a mouse, but on further inspection we found him to be a very small, baby rat. He was so small , his eye's were not yet open.
The vet gave us some suggestion, so we instead of dispatching him, we decided to make him tame.
AS you can see he is dead cute, and tiny.
Mo ,managed to get him a couple of times again, even though he was snuggled up on a hot water bottle in a box.
He brought great joy to us ,even though he was a rat.
Unfortunaly Ralph became unwell on Saturday morning, and died whilst being cared for on my lap.
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