Thursday, December 23, 2010
Rabbits
We went out to Ruth and Stephan's for a camp this week. Granddad shot a rabbit, so we had a stew for tea. Thanks, Ian. After that I went for a stalk myself. Last time i went rabbit shooting, I missed at 10 yards range. This time I amazed myself by shooting 3 in the space of 5 minutes using only 4 shots! That is the diffrence between a gun that is sighted in properly and one that is not. These rabbits ended up as bait for Stephan and his stoat traps.
We camped on the site of the ATC bivvy. I was not too keen on the nearby swamp, but assumed that all would be well because the cadets had camped there previously. As it turned out all was not well. The ground was sloping down hill at quite an angle so we all slipped downwards and needed to keep on returning to our start points several times throughout the night. Then there were the mozzies. Not just a few but whole squdarons of them whining around our bare flesh. No worries with the old spray liberally applied you might think. Wrong! These were no wussy town mozzies that could go and find another warm meal elsewhere. These were kickass Herekino mozzies that hadn't smelt fresh blood of this tenderness in many generations. they ignore the spray and sucked on any bit of flesh they could see. So we had to cover our heads with sleeping bags. It was very hot so I was soon drowning in sweat and aspyxiating at the same time. Further impediments to sleep were the moreporks that sat in the trees above our bivvy gossiping with the neighbours,followed by the persistent rain that started to fall at about 1AM. Stuart and I both agreed in the morning that it had been our worst night's sleep in years.
The bottom picture shows a moth on Ruth's arm. We called it the "snout moth" for obvious reasons. If anyone knows its real name let us know.
The top picture shows a red berry that looked a bit like a strawberry, but had leaves like a raspberry complete with prickly thorns. Again a name for this plant would be appreciated.
We camped on the site of the ATC bivvy. I was not too keen on the nearby swamp, but assumed that all would be well because the cadets had camped there previously. As it turned out all was not well. The ground was sloping down hill at quite an angle so we all slipped downwards and needed to keep on returning to our start points several times throughout the night. Then there were the mozzies. Not just a few but whole squdarons of them whining around our bare flesh. No worries with the old spray liberally applied you might think. Wrong! These were no wussy town mozzies that could go and find another warm meal elsewhere. These were kickass Herekino mozzies that hadn't smelt fresh blood of this tenderness in many generations. they ignore the spray and sucked on any bit of flesh they could see. So we had to cover our heads with sleeping bags. It was very hot so I was soon drowning in sweat and aspyxiating at the same time. Further impediments to sleep were the moreporks that sat in the trees above our bivvy gossiping with the neighbours,followed by the persistent rain that started to fall at about 1AM. Stuart and I both agreed in the morning that it had been our worst night's sleep in years.
The bottom picture shows a moth on Ruth's arm. We called it the "snout moth" for obvious reasons. If anyone knows its real name let us know.
The top picture shows a red berry that looked a bit like a strawberry, but had leaves like a raspberry complete with prickly thorns. Again a name for this plant would be appreciated.
Smoker
Week one of the holiday got off to a good start.
Stuart was invited out to Merv's boat to learn how to change oil and the filter.
A few days later he was invited out to fish on the boat and came home with a couple of feeds of snapper. We had fillets grilled for tea. It seemed wasteful to throw away the frames and heads so the next day I built a smoker in the back garden. Up until now we had been making do with a biscuit tin and a piece of chicken wire. Effective but slow as you can only do a couple of fillets at a time.
The newly built smoker will take a dozen fish at a time. At the moment it is powered by a gas ring with a hot plate covered with sawdust on it. It took about 2 hours to smoke the heads but they were worth waiting for.
The other picture shows our field after the mulcher had removed the chest high carrotweed. Our local tractor man, Bob, told me it would be easier if I did not leave it for 2 years between mulches. Now we can see where are going and can plan the next lot of tree planting.
Stuart was invited out to Merv's boat to learn how to change oil and the filter.
A few days later he was invited out to fish on the boat and came home with a couple of feeds of snapper. We had fillets grilled for tea. It seemed wasteful to throw away the frames and heads so the next day I built a smoker in the back garden. Up until now we had been making do with a biscuit tin and a piece of chicken wire. Effective but slow as you can only do a couple of fillets at a time.
The newly built smoker will take a dozen fish at a time. At the moment it is powered by a gas ring with a hot plate covered with sawdust on it. It took about 2 hours to smoke the heads but they were worth waiting for.
The other picture shows our field after the mulcher had removed the chest high carrotweed. Our local tractor man, Bob, told me it would be easier if I did not leave it for 2 years between mulches. Now we can see where are going and can plan the next lot of tree planting.
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