Didn't work last time I tried, so time for another go!
Took these pictures on the flight back from Wellington back in January. One is of the Hokianga harbour looking out towards its mouth. The other is Diggers Valley (I think).
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Aerial photos
Didn't work last time I tried, so time for another go!
Took these pictures on the flight back from Wellington back in January. One is of the Hokianga harbour looking out towards its mouth. The other is Diggers Valley (I think).
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Busy weekends
We have all had a busy week at school, slowly getting used to our new routines and especially the getting up early part. All is going well for us at our various schools.
So we get ourselves to Friday night and collapse in a heap.
Whilst we have not done anything very remarkable this week and weekend, we have been busying ourself with lots of projects.
Chantelle has been plastering over the gib in the lounge. It is almost ready for painting and then we can move in. We shall double our communal living space in one slow move. It will be a cooler room because it is sheltered from the afternoon sun.
We have done our town visit, a crazy rush roundthe shops that open on a Saturday, most of which close at 12 midday. I used to think it was a bit unshop-like to close so early on a Saturday, but am assured by locals that it is actually an improvement on the past when no shops were open on Saturday!
On return we very efficiently sorted out a water supply for the ewes in the top field. I was feeling that we have been neglecting them in terms of water because they have only the muddy stream to drink from. To remedy this I bought 18m of hose and a few connectors from RD1 and ran it down from the garden to the gully bottom. I used a water butt that was originally part of the house water system (before we revamped it). Now we can connect one end of the hose in the garden to the veggie watering pipe and fill up the sheep trough with clean water. The sheep themselves do not seem to have found it, but with a bit of gorse pruning they will no doubt be very happy woolies.
We did consider getting rid of the sheep this week and concentrating on poultry. I feel far more comfortable looking after chickens and ducks rather than big, unco-operative sheep. But we will stick with for a while yet. The advantage of the sheep is that they are daily converting grass into meat. If we had none, we would have to mow the grass, or it would turn to scrub. Plus by keeping them, we are in with a chance of getting some home-reared meat for the table.
Other jobs done today: completed stuarts chicken pen the Mark II. Estimated cost $40. The plan is to have several small tractor like pens dotted around the place with a few chucks in each. That way they will be protected from predators and we will be able to get the eggs much more easily. We all went for a swim in the pond at 4 when it was a bit less hot. It was 29C yesterday! With help from Jethro we removed weed from the swimming lanes. I did some work on the veggy plot, keeping the kikyu grass from invading the beds. I did some gorse clearance. eric and I mowed a strip down the top field which is being invaded by gorse at an alarming rate. eric decided that it was too hot to mow at 2pm so we took the mower back. I fixed my back wheel back onto the bike. The boys made some to boats out of scrap wood. Chantelle made home-made pizza for tea. I fixed the iron onto the new sheep race and decided it will need an extra post for strength. One day we will be able to get the sheep in to check their feet. we do visual checks from a distance every day to look out for foot-rot and fly-strike. I will be happier when we can get them in for a closer look. Plus they are all due for a shear in March. We attempted to catch 4 chicks from mrs chicken to put in stuarts pen, but they were too fast and we will have to try again tomorrow. I got rid of a wasps nest that was getting pretty big next to a main path. Plus all the poutry were fed twice and the eggs collected.
Wow! So you see we keep busy even at the weekends. It is a different sort of work to what we do the rest of the week. They say that many lifestyle block people give up after 9 months because it makes too great demands on their time. It must be about 8 months since we moved in, but I am not considering selling up yet.
I shall attempt to add in some aerial photos from our trip back from wellington.
So we get ourselves to Friday night and collapse in a heap.
Whilst we have not done anything very remarkable this week and weekend, we have been busying ourself with lots of projects.
Chantelle has been plastering over the gib in the lounge. It is almost ready for painting and then we can move in. We shall double our communal living space in one slow move. It will be a cooler room because it is sheltered from the afternoon sun.
We have done our town visit, a crazy rush roundthe shops that open on a Saturday, most of which close at 12 midday. I used to think it was a bit unshop-like to close so early on a Saturday, but am assured by locals that it is actually an improvement on the past when no shops were open on Saturday!
On return we very efficiently sorted out a water supply for the ewes in the top field. I was feeling that we have been neglecting them in terms of water because they have only the muddy stream to drink from. To remedy this I bought 18m of hose and a few connectors from RD1 and ran it down from the garden to the gully bottom. I used a water butt that was originally part of the house water system (before we revamped it). Now we can connect one end of the hose in the garden to the veggie watering pipe and fill up the sheep trough with clean water. The sheep themselves do not seem to have found it, but with a bit of gorse pruning they will no doubt be very happy woolies.
We did consider getting rid of the sheep this week and concentrating on poultry. I feel far more comfortable looking after chickens and ducks rather than big, unco-operative sheep. But we will stick with for a while yet. The advantage of the sheep is that they are daily converting grass into meat. If we had none, we would have to mow the grass, or it would turn to scrub. Plus by keeping them, we are in with a chance of getting some home-reared meat for the table.
Other jobs done today: completed stuarts chicken pen the Mark II. Estimated cost $40. The plan is to have several small tractor like pens dotted around the place with a few chucks in each. That way they will be protected from predators and we will be able to get the eggs much more easily. We all went for a swim in the pond at 4 when it was a bit less hot. It was 29C yesterday! With help from Jethro we removed weed from the swimming lanes. I did some work on the veggy plot, keeping the kikyu grass from invading the beds. I did some gorse clearance. eric and I mowed a strip down the top field which is being invaded by gorse at an alarming rate. eric decided that it was too hot to mow at 2pm so we took the mower back. I fixed my back wheel back onto the bike. The boys made some to boats out of scrap wood. Chantelle made home-made pizza for tea. I fixed the iron onto the new sheep race and decided it will need an extra post for strength. One day we will be able to get the sheep in to check their feet. we do visual checks from a distance every day to look out for foot-rot and fly-strike. I will be happier when we can get them in for a closer look. Plus they are all due for a shear in March. We attempted to catch 4 chicks from mrs chicken to put in stuarts pen, but they were too fast and we will have to try again tomorrow. I got rid of a wasps nest that was getting pretty big next to a main path. Plus all the poutry were fed twice and the eggs collected.
Wow! So you see we keep busy even at the weekends. It is a different sort of work to what we do the rest of the week. They say that many lifestyle block people give up after 9 months because it makes too great demands on their time. It must be about 8 months since we moved in, but I am not considering selling up yet.
I shall attempt to add in some aerial photos from our trip back from wellington.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Bak too Skool
We have survived our first proper week at school. Boys went to their respective places on Tuesday, in fact we all did. Chantelle started her new job as a teacher aide and it all went well.
My week has been incredibly busy but it is all part of getting back into the routine. We are all recovering this Saturday. whilst doing all the farm jobs that have been left while we have been out.
Moetsetse left us today and went back to where he came from. He had knocked the boys over one time too many. We swapped him for a pregnant ewe and a wether who should be better behaved.
The 2 shavers that were in the coop down the bottom have both hatched their clutches, so we currently have 15 chicks. Boys are busy building new coops to take them.
The pictures are from last week when Chantelle went bee-keeping. She is planning to increase our livestock numbers by several thousand in one go by getting bees! I will leave all that to her, but will be quite happy to eat the honey.
The other pic shows eric in his newly decorated bedroom. The boys all have a room each which makes life a lot easier.
We had Molly and Vicky to stay for the last 2 nights. They are the sister and friend of a friend from the uk, on their world tour. They did the Cape Reinga tour and wend down the te paki dunes. They left for Whangarei today and will eventually fly from Auckland to Santiago! Makes us feel a bit sedentary, we were all excited because a chopper went over carrying what looked like a monsoon bucket this morning.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Urgggghhhhhhh!
Warning!!!
This post is not for the squeamish!
We went to Kiwanis bush yesterday afternoon for a walk. patrick had been wanting to take us there for ages to show us some of the bugs he found with the one day school. We did find several interesting bugs. Also live and dead Kauri snails (one is pictured being held by Eric).
Tonight we have had heavy rain after daytime mugginess and temps of 29C.
Tonight I cannot sleep and was having a post-midnight surf when a white-tailed spider came hunting over the computer table. For those not familiar with these beasts, they are one of the few dangerous animals that NZ possesses, and believe it or not are not native to this country. Their bite can become inflamed in some people and cause severe swelling. There is some debate in medical circles about just how toxic they are. There was no debate in my mind tonight, we have uncovered quite a few of these guys during our recent changes and they get hunted down and killed on sight. I took a few pictures before squashing this guy, i am a biologist after all!
If you ask really nicely, I will post up a picture of the meaty centipede that I have pickled in gin.
Oh the suspense ... Blogger is being awkward and won't let me load up the pictures, you will have to wait until tomorrow.
This post is not for the squeamish!
We went to Kiwanis bush yesterday afternoon for a walk. patrick had been wanting to take us there for ages to show us some of the bugs he found with the one day school. We did find several interesting bugs. Also live and dead Kauri snails (one is pictured being held by Eric).
Tonight we have had heavy rain after daytime mugginess and temps of 29C.
Tonight I cannot sleep and was having a post-midnight surf when a white-tailed spider came hunting over the computer table. For those not familiar with these beasts, they are one of the few dangerous animals that NZ possesses, and believe it or not are not native to this country. Their bite can become inflamed in some people and cause severe swelling. There is some debate in medical circles about just how toxic they are. There was no debate in my mind tonight, we have uncovered quite a few of these guys during our recent changes and they get hunted down and killed on sight. I took a few pictures before squashing this guy, i am a biologist after all!
If you ask really nicely, I will post up a picture of the meaty centipede that I have pickled in gin.
Oh the suspense ... Blogger is being awkward and won't let me load up the pictures, you will have to wait until tomorrow.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Summer Daze
There was going to be a long post here all about what we have been doing, Mrs Chicken's new brood (see picture), eel fishing and star-gazing at night, plus the answer to last posts competition (=30) .....
.... the post was written taking about 1/2 an hour. I had added the pictures an went to wash-up while they loaded up. At which point, Stuart told Patrick to turn off the lap-top. Patrick did this by simply removing the plug from the wall socket, thereby removing power from the 8 appliances connected to that socket which ... you've guessed it ... included the main computer with my blog entry on.
Anyway here are the pictures again:
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Monday, January 23, 2006
The latest addition to the menagerie
Just an update on the ark situation. We are now settling in Zepyhr who is an 18 month old german shepherd/ cattledog cross. He arrived last Tuesday from the Whangarei SPCA and has settled in very well. He is pretty calm around most of the other inmates. He gave Mosetse a cautious kiss as they sniffed each other through the wire. Shanya was not going for that and ran off like a hare - a bit surprising as she has been hobbling around the last few weeks making out she has dodgy feet and going for the sympathy vote!
We are training Zephyr to follow all the commands, he does "sit" and "lie" and is working on "heel". "Stay" needs lots of work. I am not really a doggy person, but Zephyr is quite a pleasant hound really. The kiwis keep their dogs outside and we are doing the same which cuts down on some of my major objections, like smelly fur, farting, bad breath and bouncing around in confined spaces.
This is going to be a short entry. One final thing a little pop quiz to see if you have been paying attention. How many domesticated vertebrates are we currently hosting? Answers on an email or in the comments to me. There will be a personalised mention for the winner in the next post.
We are training Zephyr to follow all the commands, he does "sit" and "lie" and is working on "heel". "Stay" needs lots of work. I am not really a doggy person, but Zephyr is quite a pleasant hound really. The kiwis keep their dogs outside and we are doing the same which cuts down on some of my major objections, like smelly fur, farting, bad breath and bouncing around in confined spaces.
This is going to be a short entry. One final thing a little pop quiz to see if you have been paying attention. How many domesticated vertebrates are we currently hosting? Answers on an email or in the comments to me. There will be a personalised mention for the winner in the next post.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
More views of Wellington
Hope our readers are not getting too sick of the Wellington pictures, because there is another day after this one. For those of you who are following the plot we have been to Te Papa on Thursday and are into Thursday evening when we went to a seafood restaurant in Oriental Parade. Check out the litter free streets and clean beaches. People still drop litter here, but the clean-up is more efficient than in the UK. There are perhaps fewer dogs hanging around in citties and towns, and we hardly ever see dog dirt on the pavement. Now that we have our own hound (who is settling in well and geting to know all the other inmates) we will be scooping ourselves!
Other pictures are from the cable-car going up to the Carter Observatory and Botanic gardens. Eric found a shop selling Dr Pepper and his reverence towards the can, which got pride of place in his shrine, once drunk, was about as religious as I have seen him recently.
Meanwhile Stuart and Patrick discover that no matter how fancy a solar clock is, it does not work when the sun is behind a cloud.
The cable car picture is taken inside the excellent cable-car museum, the seats are placed at quite a steep angle so that they are level as the cable car sits on the steep track.
The final picture is a view towards Oriental Parade from the top of the cable car.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Smile please
Various piccies of us all enjoying ourselves in our own ways from a wet and windy day in Wellington.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Matiu-Soames Island
On the second day we went on a boat trip out to Matiu Soames Island. It was very windy out there and the boat mooring was quite tricky. We saw some of the natives of the island, skinks and wetas do well in the absence of the predators that kill them off on the mainland. The building is the Beehive, NZ's Parliament. Picture taken from our backpacker room. I couldn't get over how the Parliament was fringed by forested hills. Just another reminder that NZ has a very small population and is a very rural place.
The sea view is from Matiu-Soames looking back towards Wellington.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Train to Wellington
Most of these pics are self explanatory. The mountain is Ruapehu, an active volcano in the Tongariro National Park. Seeing it was special for me, because I taught lessons about its last eruption in 1995 to my Year 10's this year, all based on what I had read. It makes it easier to talk about something when you have more experience of it. Now I have my own pictures to add to next year's lesson.
After we passed Ruapehu we followed a river that had cut its way deeply through the rock and made a gorge. Stuart fell asleep at this point!
The train was older and more rattly than I had expected. The views were exceptional, but for a long way the train could only travel at 40km/h which added an extra hour to the 12 hour journey. On the upside, the buffet car was selling decent food and at quite a reasonable price (e.g. chicken curry for $6, a hot drink for $2) we spent a small fortune on refreshments but would have needed a second mortgage to buy the same stuff on a UK train. We could also get off and stretch our legs about 4 times on the journey.
Flight to Auckland
Waiting to take off at Kaitaia Airport. Thumbs up to the people who run this place. It is very small, with 2 commercial flights to Auckland a day, but despite that it was friendly, efficient and saved us a 5 hour plus trip in the car.
The plane seats 19 passengers and almost everyone gets a window seat.
The aerial view is of Kaitaia town. In the foreground is our house. At the back is the bottom part of 90 mile beach and the sand-dunes of Ahhipara.
Summer holiday
We are back from our summer holiday in Wellington and readjusting to the rural life once more. Anyone would think we had been away for weeks. In fact we flew from Kaitaia Airport on Monday afternoon and arrived back on Saturday lunch-time.
That is not to say that we did not pack in a lot of stuff. For starters we went on loads of different btypes of transport: plane to Auckland, train to Wellington, boat out to Matiu-Soames Island, bus to the airport, taxi back from a restaurant, cable-car up to the Botanic Gardens, Ute back from the airport, on foot around the place. We spent quite a lot of time discussing Kayaks, but did not actualy venture out into the harbour in one.
We can see why they call it windy wellington - 2 out of 3 full days, it was very windy. It was also cloudy and not really warm enough to be going round in T-shirt and shorts. It certainly felt good to get back to the hot sun of Kaitaia yesterday.
Our accommodation was the Backpackers next to the railway station. Very convenient location for a family obsessed with modes of transport. We could not actually see the trains because our room was facing the front of the station. We could hear them though. We did get good views of the big container boats in the harbour and also of the inter-island ferries that go to South Island.
The room was a dormitory with 3 double bunks in it. En-suite bathroom with shower and toilet. Chantelle cunningly converted the shower into a bath by making a plug out of a drink bottle top, so we had an indoor bath. What luxury! It was a little bit awkward as we had a stranger in the room one night. He was a pleasant enough guy on a farming exchange from Canada and he was no trouble, the boys liked him. After that we asked that the bed be blocked, because the next person could be dodgy for all we knew. Socially it was an odd place. All these young back-packers doing their world tours but all so intense and insular. I had expected that people would be more open to talking. Perhaps that happens more in smaller places than the one we stayed in.
Highlights for me were seeing red-crowned parakeet on Matiu Soames Island, seeing the snow-capped peak of Ruapehu from the train, seeing genuine toe-toe in National park and seeing how different it was from pampas grass. I also enjoyed the genetics exhibition at Te Papa and the talk on the stars in the Carter observatory.
Stuart and Patrick seemed to particularly like going on a climbing wall at the quay. I will have to post again for Chantelle and Eric's favourite bits.
I will stick up some pics now and then add some more later as it takes quite a while to do each batch.
That is not to say that we did not pack in a lot of stuff. For starters we went on loads of different btypes of transport: plane to Auckland, train to Wellington, boat out to Matiu-Soames Island, bus to the airport, taxi back from a restaurant, cable-car up to the Botanic Gardens, Ute back from the airport, on foot around the place. We spent quite a lot of time discussing Kayaks, but did not actualy venture out into the harbour in one.
We can see why they call it windy wellington - 2 out of 3 full days, it was very windy. It was also cloudy and not really warm enough to be going round in T-shirt and shorts. It certainly felt good to get back to the hot sun of Kaitaia yesterday.
Our accommodation was the Backpackers next to the railway station. Very convenient location for a family obsessed with modes of transport. We could not actually see the trains because our room was facing the front of the station. We could hear them though. We did get good views of the big container boats in the harbour and also of the inter-island ferries that go to South Island.
The room was a dormitory with 3 double bunks in it. En-suite bathroom with shower and toilet. Chantelle cunningly converted the shower into a bath by making a plug out of a drink bottle top, so we had an indoor bath. What luxury! It was a little bit awkward as we had a stranger in the room one night. He was a pleasant enough guy on a farming exchange from Canada and he was no trouble, the boys liked him. After that we asked that the bed be blocked, because the next person could be dodgy for all we knew. Socially it was an odd place. All these young back-packers doing their world tours but all so intense and insular. I had expected that people would be more open to talking. Perhaps that happens more in smaller places than the one we stayed in.
Highlights for me were seeing red-crowned parakeet on Matiu Soames Island, seeing the snow-capped peak of Ruapehu from the train, seeing genuine toe-toe in National park and seeing how different it was from pampas grass. I also enjoyed the genetics exhibition at Te Papa and the talk on the stars in the Carter observatory.
Stuart and Patrick seemed to particularly like going on a climbing wall at the quay. I will have to post again for Chantelle and Eric's favourite bits.
I will stick up some pics now and then add some more later as it takes quite a while to do each batch.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Summer Days
We have been having a lazyish time, getting up late and pottering around for the day.
Not a lot of news really, we all went to Whangarei for the sales on Tuesday. The sales bit was the huge retail park with the largest Warehouse in New Zealand and a whole load of other great big sheds. We picked up various bits and bobs.
We also visited the Whangarei Fernery which was a haven of peace and tranquility by comparison. It has been built by various local groups and was totally free to visit. Lots of different fern species, plus another couple of houses for lilies and even a very arid cactus room.
Chantelle and Eric and Stuart went again today to visit the SPCA with a view to getting a dog. We have reserved a German Shepherd cross called Zephyr. He looks really big in this photo, but actually he isn't .
Monday, January 02, 2006
New Year's Day
It is now 2006. New Year's Day passed off without major event. We did very little today, pottering about. In the afternoon, the boys were insisting on going out somehere and it was proving very difficult to agree on where we should go. That is becoming more common now as all 5 of us have very different and strong opinions on where we should go! I would be interested to know how other families resolve this one. We ended up deciding not to go anywhere apart from our own dam, where we had a swim for the first time.
Access to the dam is a bid muddy and yucky so we first knocked up a little jetty. It is a bit of a bodge job, but I reckon that the ducks will like it. The water in the dam is deep and dirty, so although the swim was refreshing, you needed a shower afterwards because you came out covered with weed.
For tea we had 2 of the ducklings that we have been rearing for the last 8 weeks. They were very tasty, but it did feel very different to be eating something that we had had around the house for so long. It brought out some strong emotions amongst the diners. Either some of us will become vegetarians or we will become less sensitised.
We would like to wish all our international readers a happy new year. Now that we have clustrmaps at the bottom of the page, we can see who is logging on to read our page, or rather from where they are logging on. We have a regular reader in Eastern Australia and people in the US who have logged on. Leave messages folks!
Access to the dam is a bid muddy and yucky so we first knocked up a little jetty. It is a bit of a bodge job, but I reckon that the ducks will like it. The water in the dam is deep and dirty, so although the swim was refreshing, you needed a shower afterwards because you came out covered with weed.
For tea we had 2 of the ducklings that we have been rearing for the last 8 weeks. They were very tasty, but it did feel very different to be eating something that we had had around the house for so long. It brought out some strong emotions amongst the diners. Either some of us will become vegetarians or we will become less sensitised.
We would like to wish all our international readers a happy new year. Now that we have clustrmaps at the bottom of the page, we can see who is logging on to read our page, or rather from where they are logging on. We have a regular reader in Eastern Australia and people in the US who have logged on. Leave messages folks!
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Christmas Day
With all the leisure time available now that we are on holiday, I could attempt to update the blog more than my customary once per week.
We have experienced our first Kiwi Christmas and had a pleasant day. It was very different to last years. Far less sociable, steak and swimming would sum up the main differences. Church was a lot quieter than usual, which was a surprise as many catholics make a special effort to turn up only on Christmas Day and at Easter in the UK. Perhaps they all went to the midnight mass. Father Pat gave a good sermon on the differences that the birth of Jesus has made in the world.
We had made the boys wait until after church before they opened their presents, much to their dismay. Lots of talk about "delayed gratification" was met with protests, all to no avail. The presents went down well and the surprise trip to Wellington was well received. Chantelle had made booklets giving a detailed itinerary. The boys have been studying times of arrival and departure and discussing them.
After that we went for a swim in the Mangamuka Gorge. We found a flat field with access to a cooling swimming hole and we all had a dip. Even Mum! We were disappointed at the amount of discarded food lying about which made it feel more like England than NZ, but apparently there is an element here that thinks nothing of chucking their bottles and cans out in a pile after their feed.
Back home to lounge out in the garden, eat steak for tea, have a bush bath etc. The TV did not look too promising, but I found 2 good films "Lucky Break" with James Nesbitt and a real cracker called The Stationmaster - American, minimal dialogue, very lttle plot, but very well observed.
Chantelle had spent the day making and receiving phone calls from the UK. I tried making mine on Boxing Day but only made contact with Dominic. Mum and Dad rang up at midnight on Christmas Day. I'll try and catch the rest of you guys at Clare's party.
We have experienced our first Kiwi Christmas and had a pleasant day. It was very different to last years. Far less sociable, steak and swimming would sum up the main differences. Church was a lot quieter than usual, which was a surprise as many catholics make a special effort to turn up only on Christmas Day and at Easter in the UK. Perhaps they all went to the midnight mass. Father Pat gave a good sermon on the differences that the birth of Jesus has made in the world.
We had made the boys wait until after church before they opened their presents, much to their dismay. Lots of talk about "delayed gratification" was met with protests, all to no avail. The presents went down well and the surprise trip to Wellington was well received. Chantelle had made booklets giving a detailed itinerary. The boys have been studying times of arrival and departure and discussing them.
After that we went for a swim in the Mangamuka Gorge. We found a flat field with access to a cooling swimming hole and we all had a dip. Even Mum! We were disappointed at the amount of discarded food lying about which made it feel more like England than NZ, but apparently there is an element here that thinks nothing of chucking their bottles and cans out in a pile after their feed.
Back home to lounge out in the garden, eat steak for tea, have a bush bath etc. The TV did not look too promising, but I found 2 good films "Lucky Break" with James Nesbitt and a real cracker called The Stationmaster - American, minimal dialogue, very lttle plot, but very well observed.
Chantelle had spent the day making and receiving phone calls from the UK. I tried making mine on Boxing Day but only made contact with Dominic. Mum and Dad rang up at midnight on Christmas Day. I'll try and catch the rest of you guys at Clare's party.
Friday, December 23, 2005
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