March 12th 2019

I've been constantly thinking I should update this, nearly 3 years since the last post.

Tuffy at the Aorere


I'll just say I have been really badly depressed for a long while, going through the daily stuff and not actually taking much notice of anything.

I've had to finish working, too many injuries, the early starts and hours haven't helped, so I retired last April. It hasn't been easy with the cut in income going onto Superannuation and no other income.

I broke 4 ribs last August, in all honesty dying would have been preferable. I was a month on Tramadol, which is effective, as well as highly addictive.  Along with the paranoia it causes as well.

Then Spencer knocked me over and I damaged my shoulder which has taken a while to recover from. Nothing broken, but it froze the muscles and tendons requiring a fair bit of physio to free it up, along with dislocating my neck.  One of those years to forget.

Tuffy had a malignant lump removed off his chest, then Spencer developed a lump, thankfully benign, but we had it removed anyway.

Thinking that was all, I started to relax when I found another small lump on Tuffys' hip. That was another malignant tissue, operated on and back home. But, with the position of the cut, he kept ripping the stitches when he moved, so after 2 attempts to restitch it, the Vet Clinic offered to keep him there in confinement till the wound healed. He was in there for a month, I am just thankful the Clinic staff donated their time, and all I had was the bill for the medicine. All in all, it rolled up to $3,700.

Collingwood beach

I've got Lupus back in both hands, peeling skin, burning feeling as the nerves in my hands go berserk, a lot of small cuts appearing and the tips of my fingers have lost all sense of touch and feel like thin cardboard.

Spencer at Collingwood beach

The house is just a shambles, run out of money, time, interest. I'm still deciding whether to try and stay here, or hit the bank up for an improvement loan, get everything fixed and sell. Then find somewhere smaller in house size but still with some land attached. I was considering buying a mobile home/housebus but my Doctor promptly scotched that idea. As she pointed out, I have MS, my blood pressure is only kept in control with medication, I have macular degeneration in one eye, and on and on it goes. She did threaten to have my Drivers licence cancelled on medical grounds if she thought I would be driving some 10 tonne mobile home.

God what a tale of woe.

Spencer

Oh, and I ripped my AC Ligament  in my knee as well a month ago. I've managed to avoid surgery so far, wearing a fairly stiff knee support all the time to keep it in place. So far ok, I can't walk too far, which is annoying with Tuffy and Spencer both needing a lot of exercise.

Dahlias

 Snow cover along the hills, the Heaphy Track is on the right side, Mt Perry just visible. Not a good time to be up there tramping, or mountain biking

 Spencer looking all alert and intelligent.

 Aorere River in July.

Aorere River in July. The water is just above freezing, straight off the hills.

Beautiful sunny day here, after  -3*C start to the morning. Snow is all along the hills, not as much as there has been last year, but still time for a bigger dump.

I have brocolli sprouting in the polytunnel, going to plant into the growing tunnel and try for spring brocolli, along with early beans and peas. I had a huge crop of rhubarb this year, planted in between the polytunnels, I ended up with 20kg in the freezer, and gave away twice as much. There is only so much rhubarb anyone can eat.

Also more silver beet sprouting, Fordhook Giant. I do use a lot of that, either steamed or in filo parcels with cottage cheese and pepper.

Been a while. 2 years of depression, MS relapses, spinal problems, and in general a total lack of commitment.

Tuffy now has a playmate, his son Spencer. Mostly Mastiff, with Border Collie markings. Big dog, 42kg, lovely nature, goofy as.

Life on the farm carries on, I've moved to a different farm for the last 2 years, smaller herd, slightly smaller milking shed, only 50 bails, not 80. About 900 cows. It isn't very far from home, maybe another 2 km to travel.

Winter is here, once more. I keep thinking I'm living in a Colin McCahon painting at times

The house is at a standstill, I ran out of money, and energy when I had a couple of MS relapses, and it has taken me a while to recover. Hopefully I will have the energy to get back into the repairs and replacement side again. Need a new fireplace for he other end of the house, in the spare lounge, that has finally been fully lined and insulated. A skim coat of plaster, then paint and trim around the doors and windows and it will be finished.

7th July 2014

About time I caught up with this.

Stef came down for a couple of weeks holiday at the middle of June, the weather co-operated reasonably well, not too much rain, and the snow held off this the last few days she was here.

We managed to get a day out at Wharariki, saw the seal pups in the pools, got blown along the beach with the wind, but the day itself was clear and sunny.

Took her back to Nelson on the 28th for her flight to Auckland, comong back the Pajero decided to have a break and blew the hose off the waterpump just as we started going up Takaka Hill on th eMotueka side. Large amounts of steam, swear words and feeling rather frustrated.

Len stopped just after I stopped, we managed to do a patch,  and I coasted back to Riwaka and left the truck there for Neville to work on. It needed 2 new pipe fittings for the waterpump, the radiator got a flush out, and found I will be needing to get it replaced sometime soon.  While the radiator was out, it seemed like a good time to replace all the drive belts as well.

We have 8 cows dropped calves so far, really early, I think they are some of the ones Hayden bought into the farm from Lumsden, or somewhere down south, all heifers, and as contrary a hell.

Another month or so and it will be all on, we've had the diggers going around the farm clearing drains, removing trees, stacking firewood to be split for the last month. A lot of the paddocks have bare earth, or piles of earth and rocks from the streams.

 That's my place lower right, next to the paddock with all the soil scattered

I'm going to work towards a photo exhibition for Summer, about Dec/Jan. Slowly building up some more negatives to print up, mainly landscape from around here, some sort of semi abstract, rocks/close up but mainly the landscapes around here and out at Wharariki.

5th June

I've taken longer than normal to get over the milking season. Nearly 2 weeks later I still feel washed out, exhausted, and continually tired. But certainly better than I did the first week after we finished.

Tuffy has a girlfriend, Jolene, a Lab x mastiff. She is smaller than Tuffy, despite the parentage. Cute dog, they get on really well, or even better than really well I should say. Dan is hoping to breed her, then have her neutered, she's 3, and slightly plump.

I dropped Tuffy off at 8am Tuesday morning, picked him up at 1pm, he was asleep in the truck, sitting up with his head against the door frame, fast asleep. He had a bowl of food when we got home, then crawled onto his couch and slept again, food, sleep, for the rest of the day till about 6pm when we went for a walk.

It was much the same today, he was asleep within 1/2 km of picking him up, then back to the food bowl, sleep, food sleep

Golden Bay Firewood have been running a secondhand shop as well as the firewood business, but it has proved to be more of a nuisance than making money. So they are clearing out everything at up to 50% off.  I picked up a fairly good bedroom vanity unit, mirror, 5 drawers for $30, I may buy another one, 4 drawer though for one of the other bedrooms. Lord knows what I'll do with everything when I move, or die, or whatever I do next, but they will come in handy if anyone stays here. Rather than live out of suitcases or piles on the floor

Plus having the mirror will help.

I'm trying to make some sort of plan for the rest of the year going into next year. What I want to do, what I want to make happen etc. So far, all I have down is get the darkroom finished, and start back into B&W photography. As well as the ongoing repairs to the house. Hopefully having my pension start in October as well as working may help financially, the extra income will certainly help anyway. Then it becomes a matter of time, I may cut down on hours at work, but that cuts the income down as well, it is a hard choice.

Moana is doing well with the sewing machine, she's able to just work at home now, and has dropped out of the shop side of the business, to concentrate on building up her stock and designs.  http://www.moana-lee.co.nz/

3rd June 2014

I've been a member of www.scamwarners.com and www.419eater.com for about 7 years. I'm not as active in either as I was, still keep the contact up, but not actively participating as much. I joined Senior Net Golden Bay when I moved here, it is a group set up to advise/help/tutor  people over 50 that haven't had much experience with computers etc. Including bloody Windows 8.

Scamwarners is a website set up as a sister site to 419eater, more a help and advice website. I've used material from Scamwarners extensively over the last few years in showing Senior net members how scams work, what to watch for.

At the Senior Net meeting today, one of the ladies told me she had just found out her husband (83) has been involved in a Spanish Lottery scam for the past few months. She's managed to get the bank accounts, property title, and farm ownership signed over to her, plus all the bank accounts, but not before he has sent between $180,000 and $250,000 to the scammers. He has cashed in his life assurance policies, tried to obtain a mortgage on their farm, used the overdraft facility to max it out.

Sad all around, he had a stroke a few years ago, has recovered, but there is something missing  ever since then. He is a soft touch, every telephone marketeer that calls gets him to agree to $30 a month, $50 a month payments for orphanages/red cross/whatever. At one point, he had agreed to over $2,000 of payments each month to various charities and organisations.

He really needs to be watched 24/7, their family are aware, and the bank is aware also, and have cancelled all his access to any account. The money is gone, luckily it wasn't everything, and while it has made a hole in their life, they have enough in the farm to recover.

We had our first real frost this week, the snow has gone, so it is just the valley floor that had the frosting.

 

Tuffy has a girlfriend. I dropped him off this morning about 7.45 on my way to Takaka. She is a Lab x staffie, white and black spots. She's on heat, and her owner wanted to breed her this year. From what Dan said, they got on really really well. I picked Tuffy up about 2pm, he slept all the way home, had something to eat when we got home, crawled up on his couch and went to sleep again. 

He woke about 5, took him out for a walk, he's back asleep again, but he's eaten 4 bowls of food so far since this afternoon. Normally that is about 2 - 3 days worth of food.

He's going back for another day on Thursday :)

Slowly getting the house sorted out and tidy, 10 months of 12 on 2 off  roster with 4am starts, and all I do is clear a path between where I'm going, then I sleep the rest of the time. Finding jars of jam/preserves that I've done this year, and forgotten about stored in the pantry, cupboards. 

I've got nearly all the slides filed, a few more boxes to go then I'll be able to write a index or description for each page of pictures. Some go back to the late 60's, 70's when  I was wandeing around Northland, weddings, funerals, trips. 

A few pics of Takaka 

1 June 2014

Well, the storm we were expecting arrived the weekend. I lost power for a day, internet and phone for 5 days, and we got our first real snowfall for the year.

We had some great thunder and lightning Saturday, Tuffy spent most of the time sitting on my feet, or entangling himself around my  legs whenever the thunder boomed. Naturally, every power pole and transformer in the valley got hit by lightning, I was in Takaka Saturday morning, came home and found the power was off, then that came back about 5pm, but no phone or internet.

That took till Wednesday before Chorus could get out here to check the cable boxes, a few wires got replaced, burnt out, then found my modem  was burnt out as well, second time this year due to lightning. I must admit, they were quick at replacing, although I have an old model that works in a desperate situation.

I've spent most of the week splitting firewood on the farm,  I have enough for a month or so stacked on the verandah now, and more to split over the next few weeks. It comes in handy lately with the mornings around -5*C, and a southerly wind blowing up the valley. Filled the trailer on Thursday, spent this morning stacking it on the verandah. About a months worth of firewood, Stef should be warm while she's here.

I have a lot of garden to clear out over the next month, both polytunnels need a good clean up, the outside gardens, one I have cleared and started mulching, the other summer garden needs to be cleared out, I still have spuds to dig out, and the silverbeet is still producing. It has been a bad season this year, compared to last year. My courgettes all got frosted late November, and the replacement plants never had a chance to establish before the weather turned, so there wasn't the abundance I had last year. Beetroot is still struggling, my dill and coriander kicked off really well, which came in handy when the gherkins I had in the polytunnel started. For once I had it timed right, and ended up with 40 jars of dill pickles, 8 litres of tomato sauce, 4 x 2litre containers of dried tomatoes. Dried apples and pears, I burnt my dehydrator out finally, Sunbeam, ok, it is 5 years old, it has had a hard life, I used it a lot in the Solomons for pawpaw, pineapple and bananas. Then having to cope with 10 trays of tomatoes/apples/pears etc here. plus the herbs, and fruit leathers.  Anyone got a spare $98 so I can replace it? I considered getting a more upmarket one, about $400, but when I read the reviews, they don't last any longer than the Sunbeam.

I'll have to build a big solar dehydrator outside, I have enough window frames and stuff laying around.

I heard back from Terri and Dennis, the Americans that summer here. They are back in NY, and have decided that my bagels are way better than what they can buy in New York. Well, ok, they buy from Price Choppers, so the bagels will be mass produced, not batch made, but still, flattery gets them more bagels when they come back in November. I'll have to get down and clean the tree branches and rubbish off their section this week, and get the lawn mowed as well before it gets overgrown.

Heard from a lady that was at school with me, oh lord that is so long ago, 1965. I vaguely remember her, school and I didn't have a very good relationship and I wasn't there a lot from about 1964 onwards. It was nice to hear from her though, I've heard from several people the last year or so I was at school with, through OldFriends.com NZ. Some I remember better than others, a well as other people who know me but not from school, but workplaces. It's a great site for finding people that you sometimes wonder "Where the hell are they now?" type of thoughts.

Lemon Meringue pie, just to close on a sweet note :)