Chicks

Spring has sprung with chicks all over the place. Eric has been rescuing the ones that are too weak to make it on their own. Stony (cokerel son of Rocky) was getting too cocky (!) in the back garden jumping up and attacking us when we came out with food. So he was sent down to his dad's in the coop to get sorted out like some adolescent being sent off to his dad's. That worked pretty well as he was beaten into submission. You could cut the tension with a knife in the coop as they were regularly scrapping, so today we rehoused him in a tractor on the veggy patch, with a wife to keep him company.
One hen with chicks lost a chick on Thursday night and we noticed evidence of a rat or stoat run going through its cage. I set the trap last night and we caught a rat this morning.
We said good bye to Independence the wether sheep last weekend as he went back to Pete and Irene's farm. So now we only have 3 ewes and the grass is romping away. We are still waiting to get hold of a new ewe and ram to get our breeding flock into the shape that we want it.
It was Chantelle's birthday last weekend and we had a pleasant celebration. Chantelle had the day off on Saturday apart from rounding up the sheep (some things just have to get done!). We had a nice meal on Saturday night with bubbly. We were going to go to the beach on Saturday but the weather as not good so we went to Rarawa beach on sunday morning. What a place! It is halfway up to the Cape from here on the East coast. White sand and pretty crowded with 2 other people there apart from us! Chantelle had been camping there with Rissy and the boys in the holidays and our school Year 10's camp there at the end of the year. We had a fish and a swim and Stuart made a hobo stove and cooked bacon, picked a handful of tuatuas, and had an icecream on the way home. Being there reminded me of why we moved here and made me more determined to have more trips like that.
The army came to the boy's school this week and took them on trips round the field in a big lorry. Paddy thought it was cool but eric found it boring. He is getting geared up for leaving primary school and going to the Intermediate next February. Stuart and Eric are going on a one night survival trip at one of the teacher's farms at the end of November. Then they both go on the end of year camp in December. They have certainly had some good experiences at Pamapuria.
I started playing in a football tournament on Wednesday night. Our team is called Northern Force, but I don't think that I will be selected to play for NZ just yet. We are a mixture of school kids and parents playing other teams in a local league. Soccer is not as big as rugby over here, but it gets support especially from mums who don't like the violence and injury associated with rugby. I do not much enjoy watching union, league is better as the pace is a bit faster. Anyway we had two games and lost both. I thoroughly enjoyed it came home knackered but buzzing and wasn't too crippled on Thursday.
Oh yes! we had fireworks last Saturday. It was fun especially when the last one fell over and set fire to the hillside. Chantelle and I have never moved so fast with a bucket of water. Due to increasing problems with youths misusing fireworks it is likely that we will not be able to buy them next year.