Skools Out

Well that's it for me! I have sat through 2 prizegivings this week, the seniors on Monday night and then the juniors yesterday. I joined the rest of the staff in farewelling various colleagues who are moving on. I was thanked for being the Year 9 Dean. Today after a lovely lie-in and a mosey round the garden, I wandered into school at midday to tie up some loose ends. I cleared out my office and handed the key to my successor. And that is it until next year. I need a break and to remind myself who my family is.

The boys and Chantelle have to carry on until next week, because for some reason primaries have longer terms than secondaries. I get to have the house to myself, which is blissful especially as Stuart and Patrick are going through a music stage at the moment. Stuart is dithering between guitars and harmonicas. Patrick is showing some promise in the woodwind section and has been practising mary had a little lamb on a very cheapo Wharehouse recorder. Such was his enthusiasm that we splashed out on a $10 upgrade tonight. They go to school at 8am ...

Some pictures above, with more to follow. Firstly Captain Stuart on board the SS Matty. As well as being a pleasure craft, his boat has proved its worth as a work boat when we had to repair the irrigaton system to the veggy garden. Then there is the eating of the first peach from our tree - the one that Margaret and Ian bought us when they were over. It was soft and juicy and divine and we hope to have a bigger crop next year. The boy watching Paddy eat is Reuben and though it does not look like it, he had some peach as well!
The other pics are of the Christmas parade which was held last weekend through town. The boys had helped make the float, but Stuart and Patrick were both ill and could not go on it in the end. Eric was a shepherd with his sheep. The other float is of some pupils from Chantelle's school. Maori women often used to have facial tattoos on the chin like these girls - theirs are not permanent.

England vs NZ

I have not done an update for ages. Lots has been going on, mostly at school, where we have all been busy marking exams, writing reports and then getting ready for next year. All takes a long time, but not the sort of stuff I want to put on this blog really. Tonight is Friday night and the pressure is off me. Prizegiving next week on Tuesday ( and for seniors on Monday night). Then that is it as far as obligatory attendance at school goes until February. I worked out that we get 7 weeks off! It seems like we deserve a long holiday as we have been under a lot of stress this term. I do wonder if this holiday is too long and the others are too short. One day when I am minister of education, I will realise why things rae like this, in the mean-time the future looks good.

Check out the pictures. I wanted to compare our crowded UK life with our spacious existence here. The Google Earth image is taken at the same altitude 280 feet and our property is outline in yellow. Nuff said!

We finally bought 3 more more sheep last week. Beautiful dainty Pitt islands they are. The residents are not being too friendly, but they will accept them eventually I think. We knocked Stony on the neck and had him for tea last Sunday. Decided that we only really need 1 cock and that Stony was a brute and was better off to us as slow cooked tea rather than a vicious rapist!

Other news Northern Force won their first match on Wednesday against the Brazilian team Futbao. We are getting better every week though we have some way to go before we win the cup!

Hopefully the next update will be quicker coming than this one.

Stuart's 10th

It was Stuart's 10th Birthday on the 14th..

He had a really good day and recieved some really cool gifts. Her you can see Stuart with 2 of his best gifts, a watch from Great grandad( thankyou GG), and a hammer from his expansive tool box he got. Now he is busy fixing or in the case of his bike , dismantling things. Infact it's going to take a while to work out what goes where on the bike.
Busy week for all at school, Collage is at the peak with exams and year 12's going off now for study leave.
The primary school still bumbles on towards the summer holidays.
A beehive has been installed up the top of the top paddock, in in the photo you can see 2 aliens inspecting it.( Chantelle in the goldie suit mike P in the other.)

Chicks

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

What a good dog.

Zeph is amazing. He is so tolerant of the other animals.

When posy came , he let her bite and play with his tail. And now he is such a softy with a couple of new chicks. Mind you I thought he inhaled one the other day when he was licking it.
God bless big , scary looking dogs ,with small brains!

Blog Anniversary

I was looking back to see what we were doing and realised that we are into our second full year of blogging. It feels like a lifetime ago in a parallel universe!
Here was our first post
http://bryans2nz.blogspot.com/2004_10_25_bryans2nz_archive.html

Labour Weekend

Last weekend was "Labour Weekend", the traditional start of Summer, when people start swimming outdoors again, the camping season starts in earnest and everyone gets Monday off work. We all felt at home here cos it was like a British Bank Holiday weekend, blowing a gale, lashing it down and tv pictures of traffic jams as people crawled out of and then back to Auckland. Still no-one could take away the 3 day weekend so we had a chilled out time pottering about, dodging the showers.
We shouldn't really complain about the wind here as it hit 120km/hr down in Welly and people took 9 hours to cross Cook Strait (normally 3 hours) with 5 metre swells.

It was a strong wind which put paid to my ideas of catching our sheep and checking out feet and other bits. We went to see Dee's Pitt Island sheep on the Saturday. They have a farm carved out of the bush up in the hills and the boys like it there, because they have big wooden drums on the lawn that they can play on. We watched some of their sheep being shorn by a professional. I was convinced that whilst hand-shearing is an interesting experience, it is better to do it with an electric hand-piece in a fraction of the time. We didn't get to see our potential new ram Skippy, as he had skipped off into the bush and hadn't been seen for days.

On Sunday we retreated indoors and all the boys helped make a new mail-box to replace our old one that has taken a hammering from someone. We painted it a couple of times and it will go up soon (in the next year hopefully).

Marine aquarium news: total smelly disaster, only the crabs survived a week and the rest had to be siphoned out. Perhaps I should have believed the book that warned about using real weed and sand and recommended scrubbing everything.

Pictures to follow, luckily for you all we cannot upload smells!

Marine aquarium

We have been back at school for a week. All of us apart from Stuart who did 2 days and then came down with a nasty strep throat again - he had to take off Wednesday to Friday. We arrived at this weekend worn out from the unaccustomed early mornings and full on days. This weekend has been time to catch up on sleep and generally chill out.
We had a Fawlty Towers video night with Mike and some of his kids l;ast night. 6 episodes one after the other. Still funny but I couldn't have coped with any more. Basil is such a tragic character. Why does he not save himself a whole load of trouble and tell the truth. Him and Sybil could use some Relate counselling as well, either that or a ME weekend!

Today we heard through the grapevine that there was going to be a 12 hour power cut while some repair work was done. Fortunately I heard early enough to go into school yesterday and do my photocopying. That meant we had the day to play. It has been a bit grizzly, overcast with an unsettling wind and rain not far off. we decided to do something with the large fish tank that has sat gethering dust in the corner of the dining room for a year. This was brought about by Paddy producing some mud crabs that he had been "storing" in a plastic bag since his camping trip .... 11 days ago!
By some miracle of endurance they were all still alive and he had them housed in an ice cream tub. So we trotted off to Henderson Bay and got rocks and various invertebrates from the rock pools. we picked up some sea water at pukenui wharf and put the whole thing together at home. As Eric said it is like having Animal Planet next to your dining table. I will stick up some pics in due course.

Animal news: 2 ewes have been shorn. No 14 took 2 1/4 hours last Sunday. I am getting the sheep back on nuts so that we can get them doing what we need them to instead of chasing them round the paddock over and over again. One of teh barred rocks started sitting on 11 eggs on Tuesday so we put her in an isolation coop today. Eating lots of broad beans and are concerned about the resultant increase in greenhouse gases from Northland. A lot of my seedlings do not like the nutrient poor compost I am growing them in and they aren't too keen on the strong winds that have been drying them out either. In a future time I will build a lean to greenhouse.

Crazy Boy

It has rained a lot today so we have had a domestic day of pottering about, watching vids and getting out for short spells between to showers.
Patrick has been getting pretty obsessed with various computer games "Age of Empires" and "Settlers" which seem to be very complex games that go on for days and involve building civilisations and having battles with other civilisations.

In between doing that, or rather, when he is forced to do something active to stop his legs from turning into withered stumps, he goes hard out. Check out this vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzWEmzEmjGQ

Walk to the Cape

Last Friday Eric and I started our long planned "survival" trip to Cape Reinga. We were accompanied by Mike and Nathan - who is the same age as Eric. The plan was to walk from the top of 90 Mile Beach to Cape Reinga taking 3 days and carrying all our own gear.
The short of the story is that we did it!
The long version could take a while to tell, but here are some of the highlights.
Looking back down 90 Mile beach towards the Hole in the Rock from the top of the cliffs. Taking off a heavy pack at our camping spot. Completing the 10km walk on the first day so that we could explore on the second day. Catching and eating Kahawai and mussels for breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturday. Finding alsorts of treasures washed up on the beaches: a whale jawbone on Twilight, a sea horse, life belt. Not seeing any other humans apart from ourselves and a couple of fishing boats on Saturday. Listening to the sound of waves crashing whilst sleeping and dozing. Not being caught by a tsunami - we would have been scuppered as our camp was a few metres above the high tide mark. Being out of cell phone range. Seeing Eric walk and reach the end. Completing the challenge myself. Being stranded on Taupiri Island as the tide came in. Seeing Cape Reinga from Te Werahi beach far below from a completely different perspective than the usual one. Getting picked up by our transport - Marty's Pack and Paddle from the Cape Car Park - just after we arrived there. Having a shower to remove 3 days of grime when we got home. Starting to plan further adventures.
The pictures show various stages of the walk. I was amazed that despite it being a maintained track that is mentioned in the guidebooks, we saw only one other backpacker in the 3 days, despite it being a holiday weekend. Not taht I am complaining too much. The character of the trip would have been different if there had been more people about. I was profoundly grateful that it was so relatively easy to escape from the rat-race for a couple of days to recharge.
I will perhaps post other news in another post.

Walkin to the Cape trip pics

Link to Stuart's play

Having trouble getting the link posted up! Attempt no. 8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHQRjCb8nVc


or try this:

Drama King

If you have a fast connection, you might want to check out part of Stuart's debut to local acting:...
He has been rehearsing every Wednesday night for the last few terms and on Thursday night we trooped down to the Little Theatre to watch him perform.
We were treated to a smorgasbord of dramatic pieces, ranging from classical Macbeth to a modern play on the 3 little pigs - where the pigs have got a scam going where they lure wolves to their death for regular food. Stuart had bit parts in several pieces and played Evilus Ploticus in a Playlet called "Evil Plots".
He did the part well and got some laughs from the audience.
More soon ...">

Spot the weeds

Sheeps revenge

No update last weekend as it rained all weekend, were all fighting off illness and feeling a bit fed up given that it had been sunny all week and then the rains descended on Friday night and it remained wet all weekend. Don'tya just hate it when that happens? Eric and I were up at first light on Sunday to despatch 3 of the ducklings. We ate 2 of them for tea and they made a good feed. What with all the hens eggs we are getting, we are doing pretty well for produce at the mo. The veggy garden is coming on slowly, peas have come through and we had the first broad beans with the duck. We bought seed potatoes and I sowed lots of tomatoes, courgettes and pumpkin today.

We have been busy today doing some outside spring cleaning. gave the lawns their first shave of the year, more than anything else just to pick up all the detritus that has been sat there for months. The back lawn has taken a battering from where the ducks and chickens have been crapping all over it. It will recover, but it will be a while before it resembles a Cambridge College lawn.

I sheared Shania the goatess last week. Using hand shears. It took ages and my hand still aches a week later. She looks better now without all the long gorsey hair. She is a bit emaciated, but whenever we think that she is going into terminal decline, she pulls out and starts springing about the place. I don't have many very sentimental feelings towards any of the animals we have, the cats aren't too bad but I could happily live without them. I have to admit to quite liking Shania though, she is quite tame an will eat maize from my hand, plus she is pretty independent and disappears when I am looking for her sometimes. She is also co-operative in her attitude towards treatment, is easily caught when she needs her feet doing or is being shorn etc. I guess that she is a pet and I have no plans to eat her as she came with the house and has slaughter immunity. Well there you go.

The same cannot be said for the sheep! I have no feelings of sentimentality towards the sheep at all. Our friend Mike says that he does not have the patience to deal with sheep and that he would finish up shooting them all. (Which is what he did to the 2 the other week!) I can sympathise with that. Sheep are reckoned by some people to be determined to kill themselves. Let me give you and example. Independence and No14 have been limping slightly for a week now. They obviously have a problem with their feet that needs addressing. So this afternoon all the boys were rounded up and kicked out of the house to get the sheep into the yards. The yard was prepared, the holding gate strengthened to stop them from busting out and breaking the poor sod's hand who is holding it shut at the time. The foot shears, spray, drenching liquid and hand shears gathered together. Then we went down to bring the 4 animals up. 3/4 of an hour later we gave up, having chased them 5 times round the middle field. They were determined not to head up the hill. If they had done so they would now be able to walk without discomfort, their tummies would be free of parasitic worms and one of them might even have had a haircut. Instead the stubborn little woolies are wandering round even more footsore than they were before!

We shall have another go tomorrow....

Cardsharp

A few pictures for you. We have been extending the boys education by teaching them about the perils of gambling. We started with Pontoon and as you can see by the size of Paddy's pile, he is a natural. He has got the game well sussed as you can see from my worried expression. We will learn poker when I can wean them all off pontoon.

Been nice and dry this w/e. NZ Father's Day so I got breakfast and bed and was indulged by having a non-whinging trip to the garden centre. I have been getting the veg garden ready. as you can see from the picture, it is a very heavy, sickly looking clay and so we got 4 bags of soil conditioner and with Paddy's help, planted some peas, beans and radish and carrots this afternoon.
The other picture is of a peach tree in the garden which is now in flower. I do not hold out too much hope of us getting any peaches, but we live in hope.
I spent Friday night at Te Hapua marae with the school trip. It is the northermost settlement in NZ, rich in natural beauty and steeped in history. We got a locals view being shown round the cemetery by Bundy Waitai and the school by the Y9 pupils. We all embarked on some boats that looked like WWII landing craft and that had powerful motors but no rails. We went to an oyster farm and ate oysters fresh from the sea, then on for a fish. Despite several combined centuries of fishing experience and about 30 lines being dipped in the water, we caught nothing big enough to take home, but it was lovely out there.
All in all an amazing stay and difficult to convey in words, so i'll stop there.

Not for the squeamish

Pictures

Mutton on the menu

Well we finally got around to killing 2 of our ewes today. We chose No19 and No 55 because they were the wildest ones who always hung back when I fed them every day. They are the most difficult sheep to yard and given that we do need to get the sheep in for a check regularly, it was fair enough that we should cull out those ewes that were least cooperative.
The starter plan was to get all the sheep up to the yard and then pop the 2 chosen ones in the race. It all started off well as they were the only 2 that headed up to the race. the other 4 stayed in a tight flock under the totara tree. So mike and I steered them up the hill very gently towards the race. Our race is set at quite an obtuse angle that apparently does not encourage entry and the 2 girls decided to make a break for it after all.
Plan 2 was to drop them in the field. Using the bins to read the ear tags and with Mike using the .22, the ewes were shot cleanly in the head from 20 feet away whilst they stood next to their mates.
The living sheep only ran off when we started to approach the carcases. Their throats were cut to drain the blood and we left them for a bit.
The next job was to gut them. The boys took a keen interest in this, especially Stuart, who did his best to identify the internal organs. We found that each ewe had 8 teeth the 4th pair of which were fairly small relative to the others.
We kept the heart and lungs for school dissections and the liver and kidneys for our own consumption.
We took the carcases up to the garden to be skinned. This was quite fiddly and time consuming but working as a team we got the job done - just like Bob the Builder!
We had thought about butchering ourselves, but decided to use a professional for this first time.
Stuart and eric have commandeered the fleeces and Stuart has been trying to spin some of the wool.
Tea was liver and fried bread - very tasty. We have asked the butcher to turn the rest into roasts, chops, mince and sausages.

The other pictures are of a trip Eric and I took last week to the gumfields above Ahipara. They used to dig up Kauri gum here many years ago, now it is a vast expanse of low growing bush and scrub.

My family and other animals

Some of us are coming out of illness, Chan and nyself, while Stuart is going down with the lurgey. All 3 boys took part in their school's cross country races yesterday which took place at Pukepoto School. They are all a bit achy today.

Not a lot of news this week. The chickens have started to lay much better and we are getting more eggs now than we have had since the Autumn. That gives us something to barter with. Our neighbour gave us a long roll of instant fencing that was surplus to her needs and so we installed it as the veggy garden fence last weekend. I also started to dig a drainage ditch along the edge of the wire. The plan is that each veggy bed will be raised and the water will drain down into the stream. I might be able to use the same channels to irrigate in the summer if I can rig a pipe up from the water trough to the garden.

The pictures are of assorted animals and eric. The centipede was about 6 inches long and was found by Mike in a manuka stump. They have a nasty nip apparently, but I did not try it out.