Stoat killer

 
Camo is our wildest cat. She has brought in 2 stoats in the last 2 weeks. Not a bad effort considering she is only small herself.

Stuart and Chantelle

 

Stuart represented the family at Chantelle's graduation the other week.

Chantelle's graduation

 

Thanks Ian for the Picasa site. This is my first attempt.
This is a picture of Chantelle with friend at her graduation from the Community Ministries course that she has been doing all year.

Nearly Xmas

Hi folks.
The wotrd is coming back from the Northern Hemisphere that we have not done a blog in a while.
True!
And what could our excuse be as we are all on our summer holidays?
Fact is the less you have to do, the less you do.
Plus, the weather is great! Sorry to evryone who is struggling with snow in the UK and Europe. We have seen pics of harassed looking travellers getting stuck n Dover trying to flee blighty and being caught out by Eurostar problems, closed airports and buses not running.
Meanwhile we are having a drought here in Kaitaia. The ground is seriously dry. I have been cutting hayy with the scythe - keeps me fit- and it has been drying almosty to dust as it falls to the ground. The veggy garden requires constant irrigation to keep on producing. Getting some good crops from it mind. Tonight we had kahawai baked with home grown garlic and sorrel plus homegrown red poattaoes and sweetcorn (bought). Choice.

We spent the whole day stranded on Puketu island on the East coast. Stuart stayed home to make Star wars accessories. Paddy beat the 3hour tV and screen limit by staying over at Rubens. Eric came with us sans rod and acted as chief fish killer and gutter. We left at 5am and were fishing at daybreak at 6ish. Cool to spend so long fishing that you eventually have had enough and just watch the water and the wildlife and wait for the tide to drop enough to get back to the mainland.

The water was so calm at dawn, like a mill pond all the way out to sea. As the day warmed up a n onshore breeze developed that ended up chopping the water up. We brought home small kahawai and feasted on them. There were other fish rock cod and parore, but we threw them back.

A pair of Great black backed gulls watched us from a grassy ledge all day, calling constantly. Asd long as we were fairly stationary, they did not mind us, but if we walked about they would launch aerial assaults on us, dive bombing our heads and crying out. Puzzling behaviour as there were 2 together doing this and no sign of any nest or young. Round the other side of the island were a family of gulls complete with roly poly youngsters mewing away.

School finished for all of us a week ago, so we are in holiday mode full swing. The wake-up is stretching out later as everyone slowly unwinds. We will shortly be into breakfast happening post midday! Bring it on.

I want to load up pictures from this puter but have lost my Adobe photoshop cd that compresses the pictures to a small enough size to speed up theup and download.
Any one got any ideas on a free web based compression service or other solution?
Cheers
and heres to an update before we go back to school in February.
Stay warm you N hem peeps. How's about we swap you some of our warmth for some of your rain?

Summer arrives

Well the zeal did not last very long did it?
This is the first weekend since January that I have not needed to do any schoolwork at all. To make up for that, I have spent the last two weekends marking end of year exams and then writing reports.
The academic work for the year as far as the sudents go is nearly all done. Our seniors finished a few weeks ago. They went on exam leave to take their external exams. That left us with the juniors who are the Year 9 and 10's. Eric is year 9 and he was busy revising for and taking exams. They have a taste of what they will get in Year 11, 2 hours of joy in a hot hall trying to remember everything they have done all year. In the event Eric has done pretty well by all accounts. I was pleased with my two classes as well, as they had done lots of revision and took the exams seriously and reaped the rewwards of that.

So now we have got all that out of the way, we are into camp season. The weather has been scorching in the last few days. That bodes well for our varying school plans. I am off up north next week with the Year 10's on camp. It is quite an institution at our place and the kids talk about Y10 camp for years afterwards. I am helping with the kayaking activity. A replacement hatch (of the right size) finally arrived this week and we managed to find an hour yesterday to give the craft a go. It was quite windy so we just went to Unahi wharf and I took it for a paddle across the harbour. It was very cool being able to explore across the water from where we have stood for many hours. I beached the kayak in some mangroves and got out. I had always wondered what it was like where I was now standing. Very cool. Hopefully we will be able to borrow one for the summer.

Stuart and Paddy are both going on trips to Actionworld in Paihia for their end of year trips. Eric has a schol based activity week. He will try a range of craft and sporting and other activities. A nice way to end the year.

Chantelle has almost finished her course and is starting to imagine life without assignments. She has started to read books that are not about the Bible for the first time in over a year. It was our 15th wedding anniversary on Thursday! We went out for a meal at the Northern Indian last night. Very quiet in there but deliocious curries.

On her way back from her last block course down the line Chantelle bought me a scythe. It is an Austrian design and is very light compared to your average grim reaper design. That means that you can cut grass without being exhausted after 5 minutes. I have spent many a happy evening laying into the waist high grass that now coats our block. With the weather being dry I am basically making hay while the sun shines. I will use it for mulching and compost making. The garden is growing well. We are harvesting broad beans, strawberries and new potatoes. The peas will be ready to pick this week. In the past I have grown short rows of peas and very few have made it to the kitchen as Paddy is partial to them. This year I have grown a 10 foot row and have actually gone to the effort of giving them something to climb up. They are heavily laden. My polytunnel was getting so hot during the day that a lot of the seedlings were burnt, so I have taken off the plastic for now. The ground is very dry where it is not been regularly irrigated.

We got a present of a number of laying hens from Lyn recently. They were getting into her veggy patch. So we now have lots of eggs daily. Still not got a bantam to sit on them to make some chicks for us.

Camo the cat surprised us all yesterday by catching a stoat. We have been trying to trap it after Chentelle saw it run across the drive a few months ago. They are quite fierce little animals so Camo as done us proud.

Having a few troubles loading up pictures at the mo as we have lost the Adobe program off the computer that has the photos on it. I will try and get it sorted in the summer.

Weekly update

Full of new zeal for the blog, here is another update.

We are looking forward to a weekend of warm settled weather as a high slowly crosses. I have been teaching my Year 11 class about weather forecasting this week, and we have been watching this high as it formed over Tasmania. For a change it has reached us in time for the weekend. Often at this time of year we get into a pattern of lows at the weekend followed by highs on Mondays!

Last w/e was a 3 day one and marked the official start of the summer as Monday was Labour Day. The forecast was giving out rain for Sunday and Monday, so we went out for our fun on Saturday. I was actually crook on Saturday, with almost no voice and a thick cough. That wasn't going to stop us as we had an evening kayaking trip planned. We took off to Tokerau beach, because the swells were supposed to be small there and also because it tends to fish well in the evenings.

The plan was to set up 2 lines baited with 3 hooks and a big sinker on the end. Two fishing rods were set up on the beach with the line free to come off the spools. I put both weights into the rear hatch of the kayak and lightly screwed it down. Then I was pushed off into the surf to take the lines out. Even though it was very calm, it still took some effort to get out. The kayak is very wide and stable so takes some paddling to get moving. I was going all out trying to get beyond the breakers. I was encouraged by the shouting of the family back on the beach and kept going until I was in deep water. When it felt safe to turn round and see if I was far enough to drop the weights. Everyone was waving to me from the shore - what a great family I have - I thought - backing me up 100%!.

I looked at the hatch to remove the lid and got a jolt when i realised that it was not there any more. There were no lines in it either! I turned round and had an exhilarating ride back in, carried by the surf and getting tipped over as the wave shifted the kayak sideways.

Apparently one of the lines had got stuck on the reel and the operator (who shall remain nameless) had tugged the rod and pulled the hatch off. It was made from dense plastic and disappeared into the surf never to be seen again. So that was the end of the kayaking for that night. I have been trying to obtain a replacement hatch, because I definitely want to do it again. I might carry the weights differently next time!

We had hot chips for supper and that was a good night out. We went to a bbq on Sunday at the home of the Salvation Army captains - Helen and Bernie. As predicted, it rained a lot on Monday so we had a quiet day at home. That was our long weekend all over.

Family news: Stuart is getting ready for going to College. He brought home a guitar body from school tonight and is going to restring it. We finished off his chicken coop last week and put the cock in with the rescue hen. They seem to be getting on OK. She is a red hen from the battery farm. They sell them off in pretty poor condition when they are a year old. Our friends bought her but she was getting harassed by their chucks so she came to us as a refugee.

Eric is coming home with some good school results. He is learning German with Frau Schoffa and got 100% in a recent test. He is quite dedicated towards his work. He is currently trying to catch a possum that frequents our bottom field. It has been going into the live trap and removing the bait, without getting caught.

Patrick has whacked his elbow tonight and is looking a bit pale. This is the one that he broke recently. His mate Ruben is over for the w/e, so they are into all things pokemon. Patrick bid for and won an auction on Trademe for some Pokemon cards. He was very helpful in the garden for a week while earning the money to pay for them, but he seems to have tailed off since then.

Chantelle is out at her group tonight. She has been working in the Sally's shop this week, as they have been short staffed. She needs a new picture on here as she has acquired some hair straighteners and looks quite different.

That's about it apart from a bit of local news: they are doing up the main street of Kaitaia again, putting in new footpaths and benches. The local environmental business centre that employs 70 odd people in a variety of eco jobs celebrated its 20th birthday today.
National news: Rodney Hide is being questioned over his use of taxpayer money for taking his girlfriend on holiday to the Uk.

Til next week.

These pictures just show how desperate we were for meat on the camp. One night Mike, Stuart and his friend went possum shooting and only got a headchog. So we bake it in clay and ate it. Well what meat was actually on it. It tasted like crispy chicken but not nice chicken!

Spring pictures

Here is a long overdue post with a few recent pictures.
Sometimes we get so busy living life that there is no time to report on it. I find that my daily rhythm changes when the clocks change - there are possibilities for going out and playing after tea. The grass is growing fast and the garden needs planting. The boys are wanting to run around like little spring lambs (stretching the imagination there ..).
Anyway here are 5 pictures showing some recent activities.
Patrick and I went for a paddle on lake Ngatu last Sunday to test out a kayak that we had borrowed. We hope to do a more challenging sea trip this summer holiday. We found that it was uite difficult to capsize this kayak - we managed in the end, though and had some pracice at getting back in in calm water.
Eric went out shooting turkeys and between us we bagged another 4. They are more challenging than possums but easier than rabbits. Plus they carry a lot of free protein. There is no comparison between these genuinely free-range tureys that wander about the grasslands in mobs of 10-20 birds and the "free-range" birds that we occasionally ate in the UK.
Patrick went to the local soccer league prize giving yesterday. It started at the ungodly hour of 9am on a Saturday and went on quite a while. His coach gave alot of his free time for the weekly practice and the Saturday games. Thanks Darren. He has now moved away from the area ao we could not thank him in person. Patrick got a certificate for playing, plus a medal for winning the league and a trophy for something else. NZ is slowly switching on to soccer. It does not compete yet with rugby which is definitely the national game. But soccer is growing.
Finally the rest of the family are all very keen on the 2 lagomorphs - Minty and Peanut. I will let them tell the world about them.

Flying pictures

Eric and Stuart went on a fanatstic flight from Kaitaia Airfield up to the very far north. .Eric flew the plane up most of 90 Mile beach and Stuart took over to go over Cape Reinga. Some other cadets flew it back. They had a qualified pilot sitting with them. All this was done with the local ATC. What an experience!
Here are some of their many pictures

Pictures

Long time no post so here are some pictures of what we have been doing.

Little Riding Hood a modern version

Red ridding hood went through the woods on her quad bike, after stopping at KFC. Unfortunately her quads pistons got jammed, when she got off to fix it a wolf with out of fashion clothes jumped out at her. Red ridding hood reached for her paintball gun but she had forgotten to stock up on ammo at Kaitaia’s Hunting and fishing store. She ran off at a steady pace, she tried to contact her grandma with the new ‘Telecoms xt mobile’ service. But she forgot to top up her sim card. The wolf speeded towards the grandma’s house in his Aston martin. He put on the female billabong clothes that red ridding hood bought. He also put on the make up that red ridding hood had bought. He entered her grandma’s house and then noticed the pictures on walls. The pictures were of the grandma with a 50 calibre semi automatic rifle, proudly standing over a pack of wolves. The wolf, shocked headed for the door. But the granny randomly came out of her bed room. The wolf hoped she forgot her glasses, but then to his dread he heard. “Hello dear. I just bought some contact lenses”. The opticians at Kaitaia do some good contact lenses. Now let’s go and have some stew.” The wolf was starting to get very scared, he proceed to the kitchen. He was hungry after all, he had intended to steal some food off of little red ridding hood but she is an anorexic. He walked into the kitchen and there were guns up all over the wall, the wolf is petrified. The granny brings out a pot of stew; there are big chunky meat pieces. He is served a big bowl and he wolfs it down, get it? Wolfs down? Anyway, the bowl is clean but the granny saw the tongue and says. “What a disgusting tongue you have.” The wolf, offended decides to strike. He stands up, reviling his dirty fur. And he tries to grab the granny, but he is too late. The granny pulls out a tazer gun and shoots the wolf in the crutch. The wolf falls down in pain. She hits him with her walking stick and he is unconscious. Red ridding hood rolls up in her Lamborghini armed with a machine gun. The decide what to do with the, and they agree to humiliate the wolf. They go to the grannies apple computer put the web cam on, start to give to wolf a mucked up make over. They tied him to a chair with a sign saying ‘BIG FAT LOSER’. They took a clip and sent it to ‘you tube’. The wolf is humiliated scared with the embarrassment. Every time he walks down the main fox hole he is teased because they had all seen him at the internet café. After two days he decides to end it all. He puts a loaded pistol to his head and pulls the trigger. He wakes up screaming, his wife next to ask him “what is the matter?’’ and he replies “I had another night mare about humans.” She replies. “oh you know humans are a myth.” And they both go back to sleep. Still having nightmares about the mythical creature ‘humans’.




Parksley the End or Beginning



By,the writer (Eric Bryan)

Blog or facebook?

I was a bit suspicious of facebook when it started. But as more people join in and post photos and other interesting things, I wonder if it will replace blogs. I guess the difference is that blogs tend to involve more writing than Facebook, so I will use both for the while.

It is now week 3 of Term 3, and we hit the weekend in the best shae so far all term. Chantelle went down to her course for the first week, so that went by in a blur. I was so desperate to make good use of the weekend that I did not stop. Soccer with Paddy on Saturday, down at Ahipara. We won 2-1 in a tight game. The team are getting some good coaching from Darren and Carol, who give up a lot of their time to do this. Saturday kids soccer looks very jolly on the surface , but you don't have to stand on the sidelines for long to realize that some parents take it very seriously. The ref has a thankless task keeing an eye of the scrum around the ball. Imagine being a ref of a televised game! Everyone becomes an expert with the benefit of slow motion relays and multiple angles. The Saturday morning soccer refs are often the one parent who has the guts to get out on the field to take the job. Decisions are loudly commented on. It is quite a spectacle when combined with the action on the field. Add to that the little stories that you get to know about the young players, which ones don't pay too much attention, the ones who make good runs. Good stuff. Paddy had a good game, he has lost the touch he had when he played a few years back for scoring goals. He is good at using space and being there when the ball is kicked out of the pack. He seems to get on well with the rest of the team.

We went fishing in the afternoon at Aurere. Caught a really weird looking fish called a leatherjacket, that had a huge dorsal spine. Also got a kahawai, so we had fish for tea on Sunday.

Chantelle and I got crook the next week. Swine flu maybe -who knows what it was? Not nice anyway - achey, lacking energy with bad headaches that did not go away for several days. I was not right until yesterday really. So it is good to be going into the w/e feeling fit.

Paddy broke his arm last Sunday. He fell awkwardley on the trampoline. When he came home, I thought he looked a bit pale and gave him some ice and let him go on the computer. Chantelle got home and immediately realised that it was a break. She took him to kaitaia A&E and had it plastered on a Sunday night. Our hospital is not too bad after all.

pictures to follow.
Ciao

Stormy Weather

Hi there folks.
Updates seem to becoming once a month, perhaps because we get more used to everything and so events are not as newsworthy as they were last year or the year before. I update now more to keep the blog going than because there is much new to report on.
Yes, it is holiday time. Just after Winter Solstice/ Matariki. We are currently having a big storm with 100km winds and a good dumping of rain. This follows on from poor weather last weekend. We have all suffered from varying degrees of illness. Paddy was off for a week with a flu - high temperature and flat out for 2 days. He managed to drag himself in for the last day of term and has been ok since then. Not pleasant though with a thick cough. Chantelle and I have both had a sort of sub-flu. Headaches and muscular aches and a feeling of lethargy. Not full out flu, but probably a sign that our bodies were fighting something off. Eric has escaped unaffected and Stuart has mostly been Ok.

So what to do in the holidays? We planned a day out on Thursday and were going to go to Whangarei. Chantelel was the main mover behind this as she was after running shoes. Not feeling up to it, we considered closer venues and explored possibilies.
Most attractions shut down at this time of year, the tourist trade must not be enough to keep them open, and the residential poulation cannot be enough for them to be viable. In the end the day dawned beautiful, calm after all the wind, with strong sun. We went down the East coast to Totara North - a sheltered harbour over the water from Whangaroa. Lots of game fishing boats go out from here. We had a couple hours of fishing from the wharf and caught 4 fish, called parore. The last one in particular gave as good a fight as would a snapper. Eric smoked them yesterday and they kept us fed for a day.

We had planned to go from Totara North to the dinosaur museum near Kaeo. This is a gem of a place, run by an enthusiastic rock hound as a hobby. The place was still there but no-one was around. The Texas Diner was next on our list and that too was closed for winter. We decided to carry on to Kerikeri to see what we could find there. I took a left on the way to Matauri Bay as I had always wanted to explore that piece of coast. It was a lovely place - in the Winter with few people there. We got a lolly each, cos that's what you do on a day out. The owner of the camp store told me that booking for the summer were going well and they were expecting 1500 people for xmas. Call me a snob, but I just don't get the seaside crowding together thing. The campsite must be jammed packed. We had a trot up the hill to stare out at the last resting place of the Rainbow Warrior. I told the boys how the French agents put a bomb on board the boat as it was moored in an Auckland harbour, stocking up before it went off to protest against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. There was a monument on the hill top with an arresting stone design.

Back on the home front, the fields are sodden with rain. We moved the chucks onto fresh ground last weekend, so we have more manured ground to turn into veggy plot this spring. It pleases me that I have a whole field to gradually bring into cultivation. I must take some photos of the beds in their winter resting state. With no sheep to consume vast amounts of our time, I can keep picking away at the veggy garden. I am also using this winter time to remove gorse bushes. I find that if we cut them in the spring, then birds have already started nesting. At the same time I am trying to increase the cover of native plants by planting seedling manuka, kawakawa, and totara. I stuck in 2 olives and a plum tree. Plenty more waiting to go out.

Teas ready so I am off. Apololgies for typos.

Winter Brrrrr

Paddy the soccer player

Young paddy is not so young anymore having hit his tenth birthday yesterday.
He has had a busy two weeks, what with the build up to the big day itself on top of an operation to remove a growth from his arm.
That went well but left him with some swelling and ugly looking stitches. Anyone else would have cried off playing soccer the day after, but not our Padz. He was up for the game - especially as it was against his old schol, Pamapuria. He put 2 shin pads on his shins and another on his arm and he was off onto the "park". They won 8-0 and Paddy scored 2 plus got the Player of the Day award!
This Saturday was his birthday and he had a friend over the night before. Paddy was looking a bit worn out when he was being drivern over the hills to Taipa for the game. There is a lot of flu going around and I suspect that it will be visiting our household before long. Anyway back to the game. Eastern have a fierce reputation. Watching the 9th grade I could see that it is justified. Their players are able to spread out and pass the ball o each other so they run rings round most of the opposition, who generally cluster around the ball like bees round a sugar pot.
To cut a long story short, after conceding a first minute goal, Kaitaia were lucky to keep the damage to 4-0.
Then it was party on with a group of lads descending on our place like only 5 ten year old boys can do. The weather was kind, so they spent quite a lot of time outside and unbelievably a fair bit of that time they were submersed in our pond, swimming, boating and rafting.

Update

Blimey! It has been ages since we updated this blog. Sorry!!
I did ask Eric to stick something on about his latest hunting escapade on Saturday.
All I will say now is that we have 2 wild ducks aging in the fridge and he is going to cook them for us on Friday.

While we wait for Eric to update, here is a video I made at school with the e-learning students from Te Hapua. I don't think any school has ever made glass from sand in class before, so we filmed ourselves making it. The samples were pretty small. If anyone has any bright ideas about how to get a furnace up to about 2000C, then let me know.

Picture time

Time for an update after 3 weeks back at school. We had an inspection in Week one and Chantelle and I went away for a short break ON OUR OWN! to Hamilton last w/e.
Weather is changing, the rain has been in, the mornings are getting cooler and the courgettes have decayed. The duck shooters have been waking the dog up at dawn for the last few Saturday mornings.

This s et of pictures show Eric and stuart in their ATC uniforms after the Anzac Day parade. Also Eric with the rabbit he shot using the car headlights the other Saturday. The picture of me was taken with the timer on. I had a great solo walk up to the TV transmitter that overlooks town. You can see Kaitaia in the foreground and way out up North in the distance. Our house is over on the right hidden by the low hills.

End of holiday

We are up to the last weekend of the holiday. It is raining hard with more forecast for the next 24 hours. It is also the eve of Anzac day so Eric and Stuart are camping out at ATC HQ just down the road in preparation for the dawn parade tomorrow. This will be Stuart's first and the rain certainly did not put him off going. Eric was keen to go as well.

We have had a pretty good holiday. We mostly stayed local, with a couple of day trips just to get us out of town. The first one was an all-day fish last week sometime. Eric and friend Amos accomapanied Chantelle and I out to Puketu Island where we got ourselves cut off by the tide for the day. Our fishing trips normally last a couple of hours and there is always the feeling that time is short and we should be going home. So it was nice to know that even if we wanted to go home early, we couldn't without wading up to our waists. So we fished and cooked fish and ate, and sat and explored and sat in the shade of rocks for the whole day. I had always wanted to climb to the top of the island, partly for the view, partly because there was an old Maori bloke (tohunga) who used to live up there, and mostly because there is an innate part of me that sees a hummock and wants to get on top of it! It was a steep climb, nearly vertical, through shallow rooted grass and gorse, riddled with rat holes. It put off the 2 young 'uns early on! The top of the island has been planted with flax and other natives and was very thick. Got some good views and different perspectives from usual. I can see why the tohunga made his base there and was able to warn his people about the neighbouring war party heading their way from Taipa.

That day on Puketu marked the start of the holiday proper. After which I could sleep in and not wake up worrying about school, pupils, classes. We spent some days mooching around. Did lots of farm work, getting the veggy beds ready for winter plantings of garlic and strawberries. The boys came down the odd time to do some work. Stuart is a dab hand at the scythe. Eric proved pretty good at digging. Paddy is always up for helping and weeded the strawberries and gave the windows a good clean.

Transition Town Kaitaia had a film show on Friday night, showing a cool film about Mike Reynolds - an American architect who has built a whole series of highly energy efficient houses mostly out of tyres and other waste products. This led to finding out that a community garden is in-planning on a site adjoining our school. Very exciting!

This week Chantelle and I have been doing some of our respective works. Meanwhile the boys have amused themselves with constant trips into town. Paddy and Stuart routinely cycle to and from town which is great for all concerned. Eric's bike is apparently too small for him ...

We all had a trip out to Whangarei on Wednesday. There is not a huge amount to do in Kaitaia if you want something non-beach or bush. So we had a city day. It started with Laser maze - a big hit with all 3 boys (yes! all of them came out sweaty and smiling!). BK for "lunch" - once in a blue moon, nuff said. Then clothes shopping was perhaps less successful. Eric found a rare edition hotwheels for his friend. We found a cool second hand bookstore positioned unexpectedly in a huge retail park. Then onto the cinema to watch Pink Panther 2. I think we all enjoyed it. Paddy and I were laughing out loudest - I did not expect it to be so good. Finally a stop at our favourite Chinese - Tai Tong - where you buy a plastic pot for $6.80 and fill it with whatever takes your fancy from whatever the chinese call a "smorgasbord". Oh no .... Paddy insisted (all day) on going to a dairy to buy more lollies. We headed back north through shocking rain, very carefully.

Pictures later ...

Coming up for Air

That was the title of a George Orwell novel eh?
Fits our state as we sit back at the end of a very pleasant Easter Sunday.
School finished on Thursday after a manic week at the end of a manic term. Chantelle was away at Matamata doing her course, so I was it.
That included ferrying boys to various after school activities, sorting out bikes locked to lamposts at school with lost keys, cooking, cleaning, making sure all got to school on time, and that Eric got to Whangarei on Thursday for an orthodentist appointment to replace a broken brace wire - total travel time 4 hours, time spent in chair less than 10 minutes!
All to be expected really. Last week of term likewise. Kids all trying to complete work so they could meet deadlines to get credits, on top of all their other commitments and trips. My 12 Science class have been making red wine this term. They have to compare its density (and so alcohol content) with that of commercial wine. It was surprisingly good and strong. The grapes came from the principal's small vineyard. I was so impressed by the results that I will increase the size of our own vineyard and have a go at growing more grapes next year so that we can make our own vintage in the future.
We have finally de-stocked. The last 3 sheep went off to a guy a few kms away. We put the last lamb in the freezer. Ate a leg of it tonight - bloody gorgeous - literally as it was quite rare! That is the only part of sheep keeping that I will miss. The rest of it is a pain. Checking twice daily for - dog attacks, escapes, lameness, falling in drains, getting into tree areas, flystrike at certain times of year. They are not really that much hassle, but it is quite liberating having the property sheep free. For one thing I can leave all the gates open.
More than that it now makes sense to plant large numbers of trees all over the place. I have visited a number of really cool properties since we moved to Northland and none of them have been sheep farms! Alright if you like a short field of grass. I like the vertical dimension and have seen some really great treed places. Orchards with patches of garden is the look I am going for. Perhaps some kind of rambling jungle, with clearings where little shacks will sit hidden from the hot sun and from neighbours. Curving paths that wind beneath fruit trees, so that you can have a meal as you walk around the place.

Where were we? To accompany the lamb, there was a very acceptable bottle of Dalmatian wine made by one of William Tailby's neighbours. It had legs stout enough to get up and carry the glass away. Almost strong enough to be a port.

We have a couple of the boys' friends over for the night and now that the post-tea wrestling match has finished, they seem to have settled down to watch the film. Not a great selection tonight - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, followed by some Yank Hollywood offering. The only good thing is that there is no TV advertising, so you get the film in about half the time it would normally take. There have been some great films on Maori TV the last few Sunday nights. "Trouble on the Waewae Express" last week was a great little study of a group of youngsters who live and drive too fast. One of them kills his mate in a crash and then has to live with the repercussions. Half the cast were Maori and half Pakeha, including a Buddha-like Malayan taxi driver, who saves the guilt stricken driver from self-destruction. Lookout for it on C4 if you are in Blighty!

So we are gradually getting our breath back, Chantelle took the boys to the beach for the Easter dawn service. I have tried to have a proper Sabbath, by doing no school or farm work. It was difficult as I ended up doing washing up, cooking, and even some scything, but it was all just playing.

That's all. there is queue for the computer so better log off and let them back on.
Have a good Easter yourselves.

Crash!

We were rudely awakened from a cold induced early sleep last Saturday night by the sound of a car crashing into our garden.
No injuries amazingly.
Driver ran off leaving his large truck blocking our drive. We went out to investigate and phoned the police. We were impressed by their amazingly quick response time; and put it down to the big number in town keeping an eye on a kick-boxing match.
Meanwhile boy comes back with mate and another truck to remove the vehicle.
Police established who the driver had been. Car had landed on its wheels and and hit a fence post.
Recovery driver pulled crashed car over on its roof as he attempted to pull it back up the drive.
That was when we started taking pictures.
It all looked different on Sunday morning when boy and mates turned up to retrieve truck. They managed to do this but our fences and 2 gates were in the way so needed to be removed.
We wait for the team to come back and put right the damage.

Footage of Hornet

Whenuapai Air Show

Air Show Pictures

Whenuapai Air Show

Kia ora Koutou
Last weekend, Eric Stuart and I travelled down to Auckland on Friday night with the air cadets for the Whenuapai Air show. We had a very interesting weekend.

I had never been to an airshow before. Nor had the boys. To be honest, I wasn't really all that keen on going away for an entire weekend with a whole bunch of teenagers. But the bottom line was that if I didn't go then neither did about 5 cadets. So I did my school work by 3.15 and we met up at cadet HQ at 6pm. Eric has been going to ATC every Wednesday for over a year now. It is quite a small unit that struggles to stay viable at times as cadets and officers come and go. It has given Eric a valuable activity out of school for the last year. With regular weekend trips either out camping, or going shooting.

We arrived in Auckland at about midnight and were waved through the gates into the air-base. Couldn't see a lot as it was pitch black. Cadets debussed and were told to make sure that their uniforms were ironed before crashing out. Wake up at 5.15 am. That is a few hours before my normal wake up time on a Saturday - I thought to myself.

Up we got and had a shower that made me feel vaguely human. As a parent helper along with a couple of other blokes, I spent most of the day watching the cadets and air force go about putting on a huge public event. We had a quick breakfast and then the cadets paraded and were inspected, before marching off to the edge of the airfield. They were based in the parachute training hangar out of the sun and heat of the day. They were made up of units from Thames, Morrinsville, Kaikohe and Kaitaia and numbered over 100. Air force regulars had been drafted in from the other RNZAF base to help out, but the cadets basically ran the barricades and parking for the day. They made sure that the public stayed off the runway. Stuart and Eric did shifts of 1 1/2 hours on and 11/2hours off. It was a lot of work for such young fellas and they were looking pretty cream crackered by the end of the show at 5pm.

Meanwhile I was pretty much a free agent, getting free access to the show. I am not really a machine head at all, but the planes were interesting. Who could fail to be impressed by the huge Globemaster that supplies bases on te Antarctic and can land on a 300m runway. Or the thwack-twack of the Iroquois choppers zipping around.

My big fave was the Australian FA-18 jets called Hornets. One did a display to round off the show and the sheer noise and power and speed of the thing was awesome. It is difficult to describe in words what this aircraft was capable of doing, but it did not seem possible. I took loads of video but that does not really do it justice. With all the planes I was glad that it was a friendly airshow and not a war zone as I would have cacked myself!

Stuart got to do guard duty on the main runway at the point where the parachutists landed and he immediately attracted the attentions of a number of chatty women! Eric was stuck on car park duty for ages.

At the end of the day all the cadets were summoned to the far end of the base, the rumour being that we were going to be given a Hercules flight to thank us for our help. Instead we got to shift a couple of Km of crash barriers and to pick up litter off the entire base! All in all a good intro to life in the forces, bringing back memories of being a cadet myself, sitting around for hours waiting for orders and then being ordered (rather than asked!) to do something mindless.

We had takeaway pizza that night and the cadets all watched a film and passed out.

It felt like having a lie-in getting up at 7am on Sunday morning after the previous day. We got a full breakfast in the Mess and then use of the 25m swimming pool on the base. The group visited the War section of Auckland Museum before heading back to Kaitaia in the afternoon.

All in all a good weekend, though I have to admit that I am quite happy to have a chilled out w/e now to recover.

A&P show

Today was the annual A&P Show, held just down the road. As usual we left Friday night to the teens and the police. It is the time for settling of accounts and is keenly anticipated by those who like a bit of a scrap. None of ours showed any interest in going. We will no doubt hear all about it on Monday, and be on full alert for reprisals and the overflow of events.

We waited until 10am saturday to make our appearance. We were rostered on to do gate duty, collecting the entry fees off the visitors. It helps out teh Cadets apparently and was not particularly onerous. We had chance to go and look round as well. It seemed a little quieter than the last time I went, perhaps because it was early, perhaps because of the rain showers, and perhaps because people don't feel that they have as much spare cash for a day out.

Stuart enjoyed a go on the dodgems, paddy got himself an icecream and I am not sure what Eric was doing, but he came back smiling!

We are getting into the groove of working and schooling and doing our weekly activities. Paddy is running in the atletics club this year. He is taking part in some event in whangarei apparently. He ran 4km last week in the training. Stuart and Eric go to cadets every Wednesday night. They are looking forward to a trp to Whenuapi Air festival in a few weeks time.

Chantelle is getting used tostudying and reading lots of books. She is passing the papers that she has submitted so far.

The farm ticks over. We have just 4 sheep left, 2 lambs and an old ewe and the PI ram. I am trying to sell them so that we can plant the fields up with fruit. I spent a few hours today hammering into gorse and pampas regrowth. It is the time of year when the pampas flowers. There is a lot less than there was, but the battle is not yet won. Eric and I( have just been planting out some chinese cabbage and setting a trap for a family of rats that are burrowing into the offal pit. Eric will be busy tomorrow as he is going to despatch a young cockerel and then he will be dealing with any trapped rats as well. He and Stuart can pretty much sort out sheep, hens and rats with no need of my assistance. I shall be enjoying a lie-in!

Summer veg

Just posted up a whole load of pictures from the end of the holidays.
It has been wet this week and those long hot summer days seem distant.
In this section is the garden as it has been this summer. The best ever! The constant application of manure and mulch is starting to pay off as the clay mutates into a workable tilth. The pic shows one of the daily harvests of beans corn and eggs, plus the strawbs. They have been awesome this year. So many that we have been able to make a few pots of jam. Stuart and Patrick are constantly working out new ways of stretching their wages. Stuart had a go at selling some old marrows on a roadside stall, without success. I am encouraging paddy to help establish a new strawberry bed and offered to go 50/50 on te profits. He is a cheeky little fella and came back with "how about 60/40?" He seems to inherited some business sense from somewhere. Must have skipped a generation.

Memories of the long hot summer