Down on the farm

End of another week and we are watching the All Blacks take on the Springboks in the tri-nations series. Eric is impressed by the new haka.
Today Paddy played in the Kaitaia AFC tournament at Taipa. He was back on form, scoring all the goals for his team winning 2/3 games. Lost the first 1 -0, second was a 5-0 drubbing of Eastern 2 and the third a tight game of 1-0 against Kaigaroa. Paddy was playing more up front in the 2nd 2 games. Plus he was on a cash incentive (mum's idea! 10c per goal for his team - he took the iniative and did all the scoring). Perhaps next time, we will reward him for each goal he sets up for someone else to score.
As if that wasn't exciting enough we got a puncture on the way. First time I have ever changed a wheel and it went OK. Thanks to Steve L for teaching me how to do it !
The unsealed roads are pretty tough on tires and punctures are apparently common.
Back at the ranch, it was good to see Eric and Stuart walking (Yes WALKING) back from town. They had got fed up waiting for our return and went to the warehouse on foot.
We spent the afternoon clearing scrub and having a fire to get rid of the gorse and pampas that we had cut down. Just another 20 fires like that and we will be able to see a difference!
Trapping wise, the stoat trap hasn't caught anything yet but something has been taking the bait. I tried setting it with a pilchard rubber banded onto the plate tonight.
We have had more success with the rats, catching a huge male on Wednesday and a smaller one on Thursday. They have gone in the freezer at school and will be used in a dissection class by the senior biologists.
Talking of school, it was science fair this week. Very impressive once all the exhibits were up in the hall.
Other news: Stuart made his first reconciliation on Friday after school. A very quiet affair followed by a KFC.
Eric is learning lines for his play.
Paddy is obsessed by dinosaurs.
Chantelle seems to have recovered from the shingles. She has been planning our Summer holiday to Wellington this week.
There is an election here mid-September. I feel pretty detached from it as we cannot vote until we have been here for a year. The Greens do well here because of the electoral system. They have about 9 MPs at the moment and may be able to exert more influence as a coalition partner with Labour. The Maori party is new on the scene this year in response to an unpopular piece of legislation that Labour has passed that has got the backs up of both Pakeha and Maori. National is the Conservative party equivalent and they are as bumbling and inept as their British counterparts. The leader Don Brash was head to head against the Labour leader -Helen Clark - on TV this week. The consensus was that he was out-performed; he explained his lack of shine by saying that he is too gentlemanly to lay into a woman MMMM.