Signs of spring

Howdy reader(s)! It is with great pleasure that I can declare that spring has sprung upon us. It arrived on September the first technically, but there is a change in the air to back up the dates as well. It stays light until about 6.30pm. That makes it almost light eough to go out and play after tea. It has been a bit warmer as well and I swear that the grass looks a bit happier. It still showers heavily most days, but we cannot have everything.

So the farm pootles along. The pigs are growing and show their displeasure at having turned their entire area into a mud-bath by escaping under the wire every day. They are high on the list for getting fresh pasture tomorrow.

The picture shows the results of a fast and furious fish last weekend. With a low due in on saturday night and a low tide at dusk, Eric and I went for a late afternoon fish at our favourite spot. We had action from start to finish and put smaller fish back to grow bigger. We pulled 6 fish home and smoked some fillets with manuka honey on Sunday. Also did some as sushi and smoked some whole fish with brown sugar and salt. Eric is displaying the fillets. They tasted very good for our tea.

Donna the rabbit escaped while we were all at school and we found her later on in a deceased condition. Stuart was bereft as she was his first pet.

The lambs are all doing well. We had some fun last w/e trying to catch 82, the ram lamb. If humans could run that well at a week old, primary sports day would be like the Olympics! After finally running him down on stewart Island, a ring was applied to his tail to keep it short.

Not much home news really. We are hanging out for the end of term in 2 weeks time.
Helen Clark (the PM) announced that the election would be on November 8th. Could be a close race this time. The opposition is provided by National who are keeping their cards close to their chests, because people are not going to be happy to hear that public services are going to take a hammering. We shall see.

Til next time.

Fishing

We seem to have lots of digital photo files called "fish" or "fishing". Got another one last weekend when Eric, Stuart and I headed north on Saturday for a fish at Paua wharf on the Parengarenga Harbour. There was a(nother) big low due in and the conditions were auspicious for a good fish. That was the forecast ... we awoke to a steady drizzle and wondered if the low had arrived early. We went anyway, stocking up on a range of baits, burley and fuel before gunning up to the North Country. I like heading north because it is quiet and elemental up at Paua. It is often blowing strong wind as well and there is little in the way of shelter.

We arrived to glass like water and an empty wharf. Not many fish to start with but the berley attracted small fish like pipers and parrot fish. To cut a long story short, we caught a kahawai and a parrot fish and lots of pipers. One of the pictures shows Eric modelling the parrot fish. The piper have ridiculously long beaks that must have some purpose thoug I am not sure what. The snapper in the fish bin was donated to us by a boat fisherman who stopped at the wharf to get some pipers. It turned out that he lives just up the road from us in Kaitaia!

The lamb arrived with the low on Sunday morning - we don't call its mother Dippy for no reason. Not only was her timing dodgy, she also decided to have it on Stuart Island before it was cut off by a flooding stream. That gave me a bit of a worry as it would have been tricky to rescue her. Fortunately, the rain stopped and out came the sun and dried up (some) of the rain and the little new born. It is called 81 as it will be eaten. Boo-hoo!

Dippy's daughter Nippy had her lamb on Thursday morning. A little ram lamb "called" 82. He is quite a bit smaller than 81 despite Nippy looking like she was carrying twins. Pregnant sheep look quite deceptive. No sign of a lamb from our last ewe Hilary and in light of my last comment, I am not prepared to speculate on her state.

We had a lovely spring day today after weeks and weeks of rain. The ground dried up a bit and I actually got to do some soil preparation in the veggy garden.

Family news: not a lot really, all tootling along nicely ta.

National news: Winston Peters who is the Foreingn Minister has been stood down by the PM for allegedly cooking the books. An election draws near.

Local news: a fishing boat came in too close at Waipapakauri and was wrecked. It had to be cut up and taken away for scrap. Kaitaia Chess club had an almost double figures turn out last week when the youngest member Paddy Bryan had a shock win over the oldest member George Johnson. Order was restored this week when George beat Paddy!

Til next time.

Noah's Ark

Feeling a bit like Noah on account of the incessant rain and the number of animals that we are accumulating.

The latest acuisition is Donna a Giant Flemish Rabbit that Stuart bought from Kaitaia Market last Saturday. He had been complaining on and off that he was the only child who did not have their own pet. Now he has a rabbit. She will grow into a massive thing. I have tjo keep reminding myself that she is not a meat animal, though crosses of Flemish Giants with other rabbit breeds are apparently good for meat. While she is being doted upon in the first glow of ownership, she spends the days outside in a large coop on the lawn. She is brought inside at night to be cuddled and to run around the front room looking for cables to chew and things to amuse her. She is quite cute. Zephyr the dog and Camo the cat were trying to work out why the rabbit was allowed inside when they were banished into the wet and cold.

You may have noticed in the previous pictures that there was a photo of 2 pigs. We have gone porcine. They are interesting compared to sheep. Very noisy when we go to feed them - squeal their heads off. I will try and remember to take a pic of their pen after a couple of weeks. It has been trashed. As one bloke round here said there is one month's difference between pigs being good for the ground and ruining it. The plan is that they will root up a whole area of grass, crap all over it and then we will be able to grow spuds and pumpkins on it before we get new stock next year. We bought them at 2 months old for $50 each. We will kill them early December and turn them into hams bacon and sausages in time for Christmas.

Other news: no more lambs though I think that Dippy is pretty close. Chickens are coming back into lay with 3 eggs most days off 9 females. The ground is sodden from all the rain so it is hard to get much work done on the place. That's my excuse anyway. Eric and I did make an extension for the pigs last weekend. I have been clearing long grass down our Eastern boundary, partly to increase grazing for the sheep, partly to make way for their race, and also to give to the pigs so that they churn it up and make even better soil.

Family (human) news: Chantelle has been hit by an illness this week. It is sweeping round the country, a sicky, throat coughing bug that has also hit Paddy and Eric for a day each. Paddy moves into his new class room on Monday and wanted that mentioning in here. Eric has started at the gym and is doing some punchbag work. I let him punch some cushions the other night and he nearly knocked me over. He will be a force to be reckoned with if he converts a bit of marge into muscle.

Stuart has been selected for a school chess team playing against Kaikohe Intermediate. He has had a few games with me of an evening and is accepting advice on how to improve his game. Paddy had a game last night and he shows promise as well.

We have the wood stove burning here to fend off the gales, it is Friday night and I have cold home brew in the fridge. Have a good week folks.

New Lamb

We survived the weather, though it carries on being wet and windy. The only casualty
was the pump shed which got blown over. In the middle of all the wind, Survivor, our oldest ewe showed signs of impending delivery. She did not come running over for food as she usually does, but stayed away from the others in a secluded spot. That evening I went out at 8pm to check on her and she had popped out a little lamb and was delivering the afterbirth. I went back at 10pm and the lamb was bleating, but on its back in a pampas clump. Mum was staying close and protecting it. The rain was not as bad, but I was not 100% hopeful that such a small creature would survive through the night. It did! We have named her Ivette because this is the year of the letter "I" and she was as bouncy as the Ivette that we know.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and the bonus of the storm was that scallops got washed up in large numbers on the exposed beaches. A friend of Chantelle's went out and collected some. They were delicious raw.

Weather bomb

Writing this as we are in the middle of a tropical storm. Pressure is going down to 959kPa (?).
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10523616&pnum=0 for all the details.

The wind and rain started at 3am and there was surface flooding by dawn. Rain has been steady since and the wind has been howling. Fortunately for us it has been an Easterly so far, and we are protected by our hill from the brunt of the storm. If my understanding of lows is correct, the direction will swing around to the West as the low goes over and that is when we will feel it. So we are staying close and all feeling a bit nervous. The low pressure is making some of us feel a little light headed. So a day of staying in cleaning up and having a nice warm fire.

Back to the pictures when we went to Auckland a couple of weeks ago now. We travelled down on Friday and had the obligatory toilet stop in Kawakawa and then the UK shop in Orewa. We stayed at the Mount Albert Motor Lodge where we got 2 rooms with a decent kitchen, 5 beds a heater and Sky TV for $140 a night. It was off a main road and a lot noisier than what we are used to, but it was also handy for the places we wanted to visit.

We started off with an Indian takeaway on Friday night. Yummmmm!! I can still taste the lamb pasanda now, and Stuart has developed a taste for Mango Lassi. Everyone had some and even Patrick liked the tandoori chicken. It was from a place called Little India, that was almost empty at 6pm on a Friday night. Apparently all the eating places are having a hard time as people tighten their belts against the recession.

On Saturday we went down in the rain to MOTAT, the Museum of Transport and Technology. This was a favourite with the boys, especially Stuart. Lots of hands-on things to do including a big science hall. We took a tram over to MOTAT 2 and saw all the planes.

I took the chaps over to a wave pool in the afternoon where Eric and Paddy went down the water slide about 100 times. Stuart was obsessed with a set of buckets that are hinged and slowly fill up with water before tipping it on your head. We went to the poshest 4 Square I have ever been in on the way back. It had hand made pasta selling at $15 a packet.

In the evening we watched England getting smashed by the All Blacks, or was it South Africa? I can't remember, it was some rugby game that involved much shoving and pushing and dangerous looking tackles.

On Sunday Chantelle took Patrick and Stuart to church, while Eric and I went up One Tree Hill. This is the famous land mark immortalised by U2 and which once had one tree standing at its peak. The tree was cut down as a protest against something, so now there is a fanatstic view over the whole Auckland area and a large obelisk. It was funny seeing the sheer number of people toiling towards the summit, some running, some panting, some looking rather overdressed with hiking boots and poles (going up a tarmac road), others taking the easy way by driving.

On Sunday arvo we went to Auckland domain to the War Memorial museum. This was a very imposing building that Stuart is "holding" between his hands. It had enough material for several visits, so we split up and Eric went to see the war exhibits on the top floor. The rest of us checked out the Natural history and then we all got varying degrees of lost. There was a large Maori and pacific section on the ground floor that I did not have time to see.

We went over the grass to a huge glass house holding tropical plants. Very well tended and tidy and free.

We went home on Monday stopping off at the inspirational Koanga Gardens on the way. It was good to get away from small-town Kaitaia, but with all the people and cars and pollution and tiny gardens in Auckland, I know I would rather live where I do than there. The boys agreed, not sure about Chantelle...

We all had another week off school which was obviously good. Even Chantelle got a week off. The weather was not too hot, so we dodged showers and had little trips out. Eric went to stay with his friend and we went for a bit of tree felling and shooting at Ruth and Stephan's farm.

That'll do for now.
This was apparently our 366'th post. So we have posted the equivalent of a leap year daily!

Visit to the big city

Paddy's Birthday

Firstly, a big sorry for having not updated this for ages. It is the kiss of death for getting a good readership to leave a blog without an update for more than a few weeks. So here is hoping that you have not forgotten about us.

Winter is here with a vengeance, with lots and lots of rain. We even had lightning this week and strong winds. It was just over a year ago that we had extensive flooding in Kaitaia and other parts of Northland. It was as a result of a very heavy spell of rain on top of weeks of wet weather that had left the ground saturated. Strange that just a few 1000 km to the West there is desert land in Australia that goes years without any rain. What a strange planet we live on.

All in all it has not been the best time for getting out there in the outdoors.

A couple of weeks ago Paddy had his birthday. He is 9 now and growing about 12 inches a week, or so it seems. He had some of his school friends over for the day. In between Lego games, they set off bottle rockets, played tag and had a shooting competition. He had requested chicken and chips for lunch and then they all had icecreams.

There has been a lot of illness around in the community. Kids at school and our own have been limping on until the end of term. The bugs that have been getting people are tricky to shift, coughs that sit for weeks and viruses that come and go making you feel hot and achey for a few days every week.

All in all we are glad to have made it to the high ground of a holiday. We can have a more relaxed routine for 2 weeks. Lots of lie ins and late nights, afternoon siestas. A bit of time to catch up with farming jobs, in between the showers. The sheep are expanding outwards hopefully with lots of lambs. My big jobs are to finally get the race finished and at the same time to fence off the orchard so that the trees can grow without being browsed.

Matariki

We are in the time of Matariki - the Maori new year. Matariki refers to the constellation Pleidaes that rises in the Dawn sky at this time of year. Maori have lived here a long time and so their agricultural calendar is in tune with what is going on in the seasons. Matariki is the end of one year as growth slows to a standstill and it is the time for planning next year's plantings and campaigns. It is becoming part of the mainstream in NZ to celebrate matariki and Kaitaia has had a full blown festival this year. There was a big environmental day last week, concerts and plays etc.

I went along to hear Nandot Tanczos speak about peak oil and our responses to it. Very timely as petrol has broken the $2 a litre barrier and 10 days later is at $2.15 per litre. Food costs more and people are feeling the pinch. The meeting heard how this is a global problem as fewer oil fields are producing and it is more expensive to extract. The bad news is that for all the tar sands and hydrogen that can be used as fuel sources, the age of cheap, easily extractable liquid oil is slowly but surely coming to an end. It does not matter how much the lorry drivers whine about it. Sure they are worried and sure diesel is getting more and more expensive. But let's get real; it does not make sense in any real kind of way, apart from a distorted crazy immoral economic one, to be transporting commodities all round the world in a single market. I watched a programme the other night on the glass house tomato producers in Almeria in Spain. They were growing cherry tomatoes using hydroponic systems heavily dependent on fossil fuels. The labour was immigrant Africans, who were living in disused greenhouses in 3rd world conditions. The tomatoes were being driven from Southern Spain all over Europe to supply the insataile demand for out of season salads. The producers were heavily subsidised by the EU and were breaking African markets by dumping surplus veg when they could not get the prices they wanted in Europe.

Anyway the Transition meeting was not doom and gloom and in fact I have never felt more positive about the world as I do now. The end of cheap oil will be painful for many and will involve an adjustment to many of our assumptions about living. But it can also mean more local food networks that produce better food and are more socially satisfying than visiting the supermarket. We will see less electronic entertainment potentially as poer becomes an issue and cheap computer become a thing of the past. Then we will have to switch off the tv and talk to each other. This blog may be no longer.

Better let you know how the rest of the clan is getting on as most of you will have no interest in the rant above.

Chantelle says she has been busy helping people out in the area. She had a good trip to Wellington and came back full of energy and enthusiasm.

Eric was crippled by his camp. They marched through forest and field for 3 days and he came back blistered and bruised.

Stuart is recovering froma fall he took in gymnastics yesterday. He was under the weather anyway so this was just the proverbial straw.

Patrick is still big on Neopets and has to be prised away from his virtual second world. He like playing down the bottom on his swing and raiding the veggy garden for any green beans he can find.

Animals all good. Joe developed a big lump on his face that required surgery. He needed a tooth removing as he had an abscess. The girl sheep (Ewes) are swelling up with growing lambs. The grass groth has slowed down, so they are eating it down quite nicely. I am looking to move Skippy the 3/4 year old ram on to fresh pastures, so if you want a Pitt Island Ram send me an email. The chucks are mostly having a break from laying. We are getting one a day from about 7 hens. The two home incubated chicks are pullets now and live with their aunties in the run in the veggy garden.

Thats all for now.

Paddy the brave

Have a look at this link at Paddy the brave.

Look under high wire on you tube ">

Queen's birthday Weekend

Kia ora folks!
We are into another Friday night. Cold last night and the car was reading 4 degrees C this morning as we went to work. It doesn't get much colder than that which is a blessing. Got pretty warm by the afternoon, up to about 18 I think.
Listening to: http://www.georgefm.co.nz/index.html good music to chill out to at the end of the week. I have just finished listening to a comedy on the BBC called Double Science http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/doublescience.shtml It wasn't the best episode but raised a smile.

Chantelle is in Wellington for the weekend. She flew out last night for the second time in a month! Quite the jetsetter. So it is a boys weekend. A long one as well as Monday is Queen's Birthday and the last Bank holiday before Spring.

We had a good ish week. Good weekend last week. Did the usual trip into town on Saturday, or at least Chantelle did with the boys. I made some progress with the sheep race that I am slowly building. We went off to Lee and Irene's for tea and a shoot. Good food and we had a walk round their block in the pitch black looking for possums. In keeping with our recent luck we did not even shoot the gun. Conditions were good. We saw one animal which melted away into the thick bush. More and more I am realsing that shooting possums is not an effective control method.
Some of my pupils have been doing an assessment on the use of a poison called 1080 to control possums. We had a couple of speakers come in to talk to the classes. I have come to the conclusion that 1080 is probably one of the better ways of keeping them controlled.
Anyway it made a change to get out on a Saturday night and stay up late! Sunday morning was church or work. I got out of school at 1pm and it was such a lovely day that I couldn't bear the idea of mooching round at home. Fortunately eric was game for a fish at Aurere so we went off with the hound. It is sucha lovely walk there that I don't reckon I could get sick of it. A reminder of the amazing place we live. The fishing was good too. Eric landed 5 kahawai to my 1, but I lost a few good ones, so I was not complaining. We took them home and put 3 of them on the smoker - very nice. That set me up for the week.
The seniors at school have been doing their practice exams this week so life has been a bit different. Lots of papers to mark this weekend and then lots of reports to write.

Boy news: Eric is off on cadet camp tomorrow apparently having a 40km march? or have I been misinformed. I am hoping that he stays warm enough as he is camping on the beach. On the plus front, he tends to not feel the cold the way I do.
Stuart is goofing through his week. He came to the second meeting of the Kaitaia Chess club on Wednesday and had a few games. He seemed to enjoy it and says he will make it a regular thing.
Paddy doesn't tell us much about what he is doing at school "stuff" is how he normally answers "What have you been doing at school today?". Ask him about neopets and its a different story. He was emailing a girl from his class the other night.

Other news: Everyone is in a tizz because petrol now costs $2.00 a litre. It cost 88cents a litre when we came here 3 1/2 years ago so that is quite a hike. Thursday is world environment day and Nandor Tanczos(?) is going to talk here in Kaitaia about transition towns - the idea that as oil becomes more scarce, we need to plan for a future that will look different but potentially no worse than the one we live in now. If we are peak oil, then the price will climb and climb and transport will change massively - Chantelle will not be nipping down to Wellington on a plane. I won't be driving Eric on a 150km round trip tomorrow etc etc. A lot of it has been on the cards, but economically made sense up until now. I could never get my head around apples going from NZ to the UK to supply the desire for out of season apples. It seems like the UK is ahead of people here on food miles, but we will be catching up. Already food prices are climbing steeply for a number of reasons. Chantelle helps administer the local food bank which provides food parcels for people who cannot afford to eat. The demand is going up and up.
If we can plan for change, put in local food production systems I can see it working. It might be trickier in the UK, in big cities, but as an optimist it could happen. Read Callenbach's Ecotopia for a vision of how the future could look.

Time to go. Ka kite.

Holiday pictures

Its raining here on Friday night and all is quiet. Mostly because Stuart is doing a 40 hour famine and he has committed to not talk for 40 hours. You may not be surprised to hear that sponsorship has been brisk!

I have posted up a few pics from the last holiday. Eric is busy getting the smoker ready to do some eels and you can also see the finished result. Shame you can't taste them as they were delish.

There is another pic of Paddy half way up a climbing wall at ActionWorld.

We have had another action packed week, busy at work. Eric is studying the second world war and is the class expert apparently. Stuart went to the school disco and wowed the audience by doing the robot dance on stage. Paddy has been selling Lego on Trademe to pay for his new bike.

bak 2 skool

Holidays are over and we have been back at school all week.
Illness has been the keyword - we have all been laid low with various ailments, involving headaches, sore shoulders and noise sensitivity.
So the holiday was a quiet affair, with lots of sleeping and reading and recovering. Eric did his ATC parade on Anzac day and we (C and I) went to the town service at 11am rather than the dawn parade. It was a sobering event.

Calamity put a spoke in the wheels of our family day out as well. Eric managed to drop a large log on his foot when we were out being lumberjacks. He and Chan spent the day getting it sorted at hospital - he had an Xray and then had to wait until Friday (from Monday) for the result! Good job it was only a sprain.

So Paddy, Stuart and I went down to Paihia without them. We had lunch at a cafe they had been to with Gma and Gdad Cambridge called Freddy's. Then we went to a circus activity themepark called Action world. You could have a go at tight rope walking, trapeze and there was a massive water slide. They loved it and used up lots of energy.

We had a couple of shooting nights, did some gardening and then started getting ready for school.

Pictures will follow at some point.

Lest We Forget - by Cadet Eric Bryan

25th of April 1915 thousands of Anzacs (Australia new Zealand army core) landed at Gallipolli. That day on the very beach they landed on, they were ambushed by the Turks. Many thousands were killed in action, many died of wounds and some died of diseases in the hot sun. Some men were just over 15 years old. I am in the air-training corps and every 25th of April we do a dawn service and one in the late morning. This is my account of what happened.



We went to HQ the day before at 1 o’clock.We cleaned the hall and set up the beds. At 4 o’clock we went in groups around town for a navigation exercise. That lasted 2 hours and when we returned we were tired and were ready for some easy shoe polishing before a kfc. My shoes were so clean I didn’t need to, so I ironed my shirt. After dinner the president of the RSA (returned services association). She read us a story about the Anzacs. After watching Epic Movie it was finally time for bed at ten past eleven. We woke up at half four in the morning. We had shower and Milos then got into our uniforms. At half five on the 25th of April we marched to the Remembrance Park and paid our respects to those who gave their lives for our freedom.

We were there for an hour, not moving our eyes or body only when commanded to. We stopped for the bugle call "The Last Post” and then went to the RSA for an invited breakfast. We were supposed to go after the RSA members but they were in the bar - as you may have guessed - having whisky at 7 in the morning! So we got to have breakfast first.

After the big breakfast we went back to HQ. Soon it was time for the second service in the Community Centre. There was a clip of all the brave soldiers who died at Gallipolli. After the final service it was time to go home.

And that’s my story of how I, cadet Bryan in Squadron 64, remembered the brave Anzacs 93 years after they fell for their country.

Dunedin

It was the Sally's 125 anniversery of arriving in NZ,So off to Dunedin for the celebration. I was a 125 years since 2 young men ( a 19 and 20 year old), were sent by William Booth to "Open fire" on NZ.
New Zealand territory covers Fiji and Tonga, as you can see by the uniform worn by a pacific brother.
Also pictures of Dunedins answer to the UK's red telephone boxes, although, the kiwi's will probably claim to have had them first!
We also marched down to the octagon in the centre of the city.
It was a very enjoyable and uplifting weekend- even if Dunedin is cold and windy!

Made it!

We have made it to the safety of the Term 1 holidays with a big sigh of relief. It has been a struggle to get up this last week, the only consolation being that it is now light in the morning at 6.45am which helps motivate us to get up.

Been doing the usual stuff that weeks and w/ends are made of. We are into Autumn now I guess with swallows heading north, a slight morning chill in the air and mists over the reserve. It is still warm enough to walk around in a T_shirt on the block.

Eric has been trying out his new toy the last few weekends. He saved up all his Xmas money for a .22 rifle. I had to get a firearms license in order to legally own a gun. Shooting is big over here. A very different scene to the UK where most people do not have anything to do with guns unless they are farmers, rich or in a criminal gang. Here lots of people have connections to land and shooting. Possum control is almost a patriotic duty and lots of folk go out blasting ducks when the season starts. There is a big thing about pig hunting round here as well as they run wild in the bush, getting to be big and by all accounts pretty fierce. There are several magazines dedicated solely to pig hunters generally featuring some grinning hunter with the carcase of a big pig draped on his back.

It is this world that Eric wants to enter, and I have to admit that it appeals to some basic instincts in me, so I am happy to go along with his enthusiasm. Probably following on in the way that my dad used to take Dominic and me fishing when we were kids, until we were old enough to go ourselves. We had a go at possum shooting a couple of weeks back in the local reserve, but scored a blank on account of the thickness of the foliage. The next night we were out chasing rabbits in Diggers valley. Again no luck. The following Saturday saw us scooting round the hills up the road after possums. Finally we chanced upon a few hapless possums and Eric shot his first. Stuart got another one and all were happy.

Last weekend we went back to Diggers on Saturday to collect wood that we had hauled in from the hillside. We also cut down some more trees that will sit out in the pasture for a year, then be hauled in and stored for a year in our shed before being burnt. We chopped trees down without a chainsaw and it was hard but pleasant work, just the sound of our saws and axe and the birds. We fixed that by having afun target shoot afterwards shooting about 50 rounds off into the hill. Eric is a better shot than me!

The rest of the weeks have been pretty much work work work, every night and through the weekend. I am pretty satisfied with the results though. The school year is front end loaded work wise, with most of the hard yards going in at the start. Once the juggernaut is moving at a good pace it should be an easy enough matter to keep it going. He says! I organised a trip for the new Year 12 Science course to a local vineyard to see how they make wine. Then we have had a policeman in to do lessons on Forensics to the Year Nines this week.

Chantelle has pictures from her trip to Dunedin to post, so I will hand over to her.
Ciao for now.

More pics

A load of pis this week because i haven't loaded any up for a while.
In this section you can see Sidney strutting his stuff with his girls. He looks nice but we have only got one of his offs pring this whole season. For some reason the girls have only hatched one of his fertilised eggs. We have tried incubating them ourselves and the first lot all went bad. The second lot had 2 good ones at 3 days old last time I looked. I suspect he might have a low sperm count! I wonder how one goes about getting a sample? And what would be a normal count?
The swimming pool was in Stephan and Ruth's swimming pool, dug out in front of their house. Paddy was keen for a swim so a few of us jumped in as well. It was surprisingly warm and deep.

Then we have Bob the Tractor man mulching our fields.
Stuart follows the tractor of firewood making sure that none of it falls off.
Finally this little fella was crawling down my leg inside my trousers after the wood collecting. I had an anxious few moments when I realized that there was something large in there! I was so relieved when I established that it was benign that I took lots of pics. It is a weta - cave apparently. These are a group of giant insects that evolved to take the place that mice take in other continents.

Til next week then. A big shout out to my northern hemisphere rellies who are looking after Mum and Dad as he gets his blood condition sorted out.

Pictures

A smorgasbord of pics from the last few weeks.
In this section we have Stuart and the first Granny Smith from the tree he planted 2 years ago. Also the 2 butchers skin and prepare to gut our Easter lamb. I was impressed, they told me sit down and watch while they got on with it. Which they did.
Also pics of the boys heading out into the woods on Stephan's trailer last w/e when we went out to haul in firewood.
The last picture shows a randy ram Skippy sniffing Survivor's backside to see if she is on heat. Sheep are not very subtle about courting. From what I have seen coitus is not much better lasting a matter of seconds!
Apologies to anyone who is offended by the content on this site. We laugh at the English food programmes that are so coy about showing animal death. What hypocrisy! Ok if the whole country was vegetarian. The people round here are much more exposed to the realities of meat rearing, with its continual cycle of birth and death. I find it refreshing and think it is healthy for the boys to know what is on their plates. Whether they continue with their omnivorous diet or if they become veggy it will be an informed choice.

Long W/e

it is tuesday night and we haven't gone back to school yet.
This has to be the definition of stress free - a long enough w/e to have a whole day for farm jobs, a day for rest, a day to go out for a trip and a day to get ready for school!
So Friday we lay in and did very little. Some of us had a go at a 24 hour fast, just to remind ourselves what it is like not to eat. I found it hard at times but cannot say I really felt hungry even after 23 hours without food.
Then we killed a fat lamb to be ready in tme for Easter.
We broke our fast with fresh liver and kidneys and belly flap mince burgers. Scrummy!
Up early on saturday to carve up the carcase that had been hanging overnight. Stuart and Eric had done the skinning and gutting, but only surfaced in time to see the meat go in the freezer.
I am getting more sophisticated at butchery and used a saw to cut the ribs and back bone this time.
We did farm things and were going to go to Diggers, but their fert truck ahd arrived so we satyed at home. good job as our neighbour Bob turned up with his tractor and mulched the fields. The grass was getting long, but was nowhere near as bad as last year when it was over my head.

Easter sunday was another day of changing plans and I ended up doing very little apart from cooking for friends. We made them work for their tea as one of the Pitt Island ewes had flystrike for the second time and we had to catch and treat her before we ate.

Monday was lie in time and I actually went into school to get some work ready. eric and I had an epic fishing trip to our favourite place. I caught a large kahawai on the first cast and we had another 2, a couple of snapper and eric even hooked a huge stingray. I had to take over his rod as it was heading for China, stripping line off the reel at a fair rate. I managed to get it back to the rocks, but the line snapped as I lifted it in. Probably a good thing as we werent sure what we should do with it.

The weather broke today which was an ideal way of making me get stuck into my pile of marking and prep. Chan was back at work, so we had a boys day at home. Snapper and kahawi for tea.

Back to school tomorrow. Pictures will follow. The rain has stopped so off to check on sodden sheep. Stop press: Skippy was very "interested" in Nippy the ewe. Did you know that a ram's penis is about 18" long?

Mostly Farm Pictures

Mike's Birthday

It was my birthday on Wednesday and I am now 42. The wags have been telling me that I now know the meaning of life and maybe they are right! I reckon I have got more idea of what it is about than I did half my life ago when I was 21. I remember going on a holiday hitching round Ireland with the purpose of working out what life was about - and singularly failing to do so.

We have had an up and down week. Eric and I went fishing on Sunday at our favourite spot. It was calm with the threat of rain but still pretty sunny. We were surprised to find 2 other cars parked up and our fave spot already taken. We had a go a bit further round the rocks. It was too weedy and we had no bites. Fortunately the other people went so we got ourselves a feed of mussels and moved. The water was very clear and I couldnt see any fish. We fished for an hour with no bites and I was resigned to going home empty handed. I told Eric I would reel in and then we would go. As I reeled in slowly, the bait wa staken with a whack and I was into a massive kahawai. It was all over the place trying to lose the hook. I was afraid the rod would snap as I pulled it out of the water but it was safely brought in. Measured about 24 inches. We ate fried fillets for tea and it was lovely.

The next night we had snapper courtesy of Aaron who had been out on his kayak. One of the benefits of living in the Far North.

Stuart is enjoying his new bike and went down with me to the museum on Saturday afternoon. We had not been for at least a year and I had forgotten how good it was. There is a good mix of natural history, geology and human stuff. Always something new to see and ponder about. This time I was struck by the number of moa skeletons that had been found near our fishing spot.

We have had a few losses on the farm this week. The worst was Picton the cat getting run over this morning. Eric was pretty upset especially as his last cat got run over as well. We lost our only sussex pullet to a hawk on Wednesday and then lost a barred rock hen today. At this rate we will have no chickens left by next w/e when I had planned to move them to more secure quarters. We will have to make it a priority tomorrow.

I was at school on Wednesday for my big day and so it was a pretty normal. The boys had made cards which was nice. Chantelle got up early and made me breakfast which was nice. We had an Indian curry for tea from Redan Road dairy. We had butter chicken, chicken Korma and a lamb rogan Josh(?). The korma was best, but not a patch on a Lancaster Nice and Spicy. I reckon we will have to get the spices and have a go at doing it ourselves.

Patrick has been growing in front of our eyes these last weeks and he was off on Thursday from the effort, plus a tummy bug. We knew something was wrong when he didn't go out for an hour on his bike after tea. I took the day off because Chantelle's stuff was less rearrangeable than mine.

Thanks to everyone for their birthday cards and wishes. The celebrations continue ... I like to string my b'days out for at least a month. Had cake with my housegroup at school today, then drank the english beer I had been saving for a special occasion at Social club tonight. Tomorrow C and I are off to The Beachcomber for a meal.

Pics to follow .... after I have taken some!

More rain

Saturday morning and the rain is back. Heavy persistent rain that is forecast to be here all weekend. We shall be working indoors by the look of it.

We have had a fast quiet week, settling into our routine. The karate is going well and they have gone twice a week for 2 weeks. Stuart went on a school trip to sketch rock pools yesterday. They go out more here than in the UK.

Last weekend we went for a family walk on Sunday afternoon, carrying on a long Bryan tradition. Much resistance was encountered from the boys, but it evaporated when we got there. We went to look at the scout camp up near the quarry. It was abandoned and overgrown. The expected track that would take us up the hill for a view, had either not existed, or was overgrown. The bush here is so rampant that tracks soon grow over if they are not regularly cleared. So we made do with the familiar track. Patrick was on his bike. Chris and Clinton went past on their mtb's and that was enough to get Stuart to want to get a new bike! That is today's job, along with making his video for Lets get inventing.

Eric was off school this week with a stomach bug, but he was back by Thursday. He reluctantly missed his cadets on Wednesday as he had been off school.

Chantelle was off one day as well with a bug. She is keeping busy with her work. As am I ....

Farm news: I am keeping an eye on Skippy the ram to watch for him mating the ewes. The white ones all seem good and they have plenty of food. I am checking them twice daily for flystrike. We have 2 little ewe lambs that will end up as roasts at Easter weekend. That will leave us with 2 rams and 4 ewes to breed from over the winter. Our land cannot cope with any more than that.
We have had a do with broody chickens this week. Finally found out where the red chicken has been hiding for the last few months - under a sheet of roofing iron with 11 eggs. She has not been near a cock in ages so they were all infertile. I took 11 eggs from the bottom coop and put her on them in the wire coop on the lawn. She was unimpressed and refused to sit on them. We let her go and put the eggs under a desk lamp in Eric's room. We will see if our home made incubator does the job.

Show Pictures

Here are a couple of pics.
Eric took out second prize at the A&P show with his scones, beaten only by the infamous Alice Yuretich who took out many cookery first prizes. As predicted the outdoor show was cancelled because of the weather.
The other photo shows Patrick on his bike ride last w/e.