Tuesday 26th April

Well, the weather hasn’t improved, until today almost. The rain finally stopped on Monday, both Saturday and Sunday had high wind and horizontal rain here, so it became a tidy the house up again time.

I’m now on permanent over at Amberglen, morning milking at the moment, and in a couple of weeks more hours working on the farm as well. Sunday morning was certainly better than my effort Saturday, but still need to get a bit quicker, although as I found this morning taking the cups off, the 2 Argentinian guys that were putting on, aren’t any faster than I was, so that is some small consolation, with them being there for the last 3 months.

Sunday was a bit of a disaster zone, Hayden slept in, so Colin had to get the ute out at 6am and bring the cows in, which meant a late start, and a later finish, but it was pissing down with rain so no one was in a hurry to go anywhere. This morning was another one to match, one of the gates along the race had been left open, and the lead cows decided to take a detour in the paddock, so the quad bike and the ute spent 30 minutes trying to herd the cows up in the dark.

Some of the funny things that happen in a job, a couple of cows finally got me this morning, and I ended up with a fair dump of cow shit down one side of my overalls. No worry as far as I was concerned, it was warm, and I’m walking in it anyway so I just carried on. Hayden came around a bit later, saw me and said to go home get changed, you’re covered in shit. I just said, it’ll wash off, and carried on taking cups off. After he’d gone, Tom let out that Hayden does that to all the new people, if they do go home and get changed, they seem to get put off the roster in future. I’d picked something like that, just one of those things you put up with milking.

Finished the bench in the polytunnel, so that one is set up, apart from the watering system, which will come later. The hose will suffice for now.

I spent a bit of time making some adjustments to the roof vents, as they come, there is a fairly large gap at the ends where the “V” shape of the vent doesn’t sit flush with the rounded roof. A couple of rolls of foam insulation took care of that, and the warmer air doesn’t all escape out at night now. It was quite noticeable on a cold night, the amount of heat leaking out, like a small geyser of hot air into the colder night outside.

I’ve got pumpkins all over the place at the moment, Mike at Amberglen had a couple of paddocks of them hoping to make a bit of money off them. Unfortunately, as usually happens with crops, everyone else had the same idea this year, and pumpkins are selling in the shops cheaper than Mike can get to cover his transport cost. So we are all getting pumpkins every time he sees anyone. I’ll be turning yellow or orange if I have too many more. So far it’s been pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, roasted pumpkin, steamed pumpkin, I haven’t tried pumpkin chips yet. I think I’ll be buying a large deep freezer soon to cope with the amount of food that is available.

Easter Saturday 23rd April

Mike called in on me Thursday afternoon, was I home the Easter, and if so, could I help milk Saturday/Sunday/and possibly the rest of the week? It’s income, so this morning found me over at the milking shed at 5.30am with 1700 cows coming in.

It’s a good shed, 80 bail rotary, which beats working in a pit, or bending all the time. Although as I found out very quickly, if you get a cow that insists on kicking the cups off as fast as you’re putting them on, you end up ¼ of the way around the shed and then having to go like mad to get back to the start. Only 3 of us working the shed, 2 putting cups on, one taking off, we were finished and all washed up by 9am.

Now my shoulders are complaining. The cups aren’t heavy, a few kilos at most, but lift and then hold them out a few hundred times and your arms start to feel like they have had a good workout.

I’ve got the benches into one poly tunnel, ordered the propagation tubes, and going through the seed catalogues for veg and native trees and shrub seeds. If my arms don’t fall off, I’ll have a bit more income to order up large finally.

I was going to go to Rockville Settlers Museum today, there was going to be a live action steam day there, all the old farm machinery, but as it is blowing a gale, and the rain is coming down sideways, I think I’ll give it a miss. Visibility is about 800 metres, after that it is a watery blur fading into a wall of grey. Still, it’s a northerly wind, so it isn’t all that cold, just wet and rather treacherous driving on the gravel.

If Sunday clears up, although I think I’m being overly optimistic, Patons Road Steam Museum is going to have a live day as well, so I may get to take a few photos.

My little herb garden seems to be ok, none of the few herbs I’ve planted so far have looked miserable. I used field tiles vertically, filled with potting mix, and then potted up rosemary, oregano, parsley, marjoram, coriander and chives. There are a few more to get yet, plus I need some river stones to fill in around the pipes to keep the weeds away.

The rest of the garden is in a “work under progress” mode. I’ve got one bed finished and planted with silverbeet/cabbage and brocolli, 2 beds under construction and 2 more in the marked out stage. I decided I didn’t like the fence between the area, so I’m using the fence palings as garden edging, then I’ll espalier a couple of apple and pear trees to the framework.

Tuesday 19th April

Been a sort of busy week, I’m still waiting for the timber to arrive for the posts in the tunnel houses. The 50 x 25 is here, the 100 x 100 seems to keep missing the truck from Nelson, but it is meant to be in Takaka today. I’ll check again in the morning and take the trailer over and pick it up. Then I can get the shelves into one tunnel anyway.

I’ve got a variety of wildlife getting used to me here. The fantails keep flying into the house if I have the ranchsliders open, the weka is used to me being outside, and keeps coming over to see if I disturb anything that looks like food. I saw my second black fantail over the weekend, and managed to get a rather blurry pic of it. It isn’t as tame as the others, whether from being chased by the normal looking fantails or it is just not used to people.

It looks like I have a few months work pruning kiwifruit once the picking is finished, meeting up with the owner tomorrow to go over things and then it is just waiting for a few frosts to clear the leaves off and start.

We had the first decent snowfall yesterday on the tops. Woke up and looked outside and the hills were capped with a nice dusting of snow. It didn’t last though, a day later and it is nearly all gone again, but as everyone said it is the earliest for snow in a long time here.

Saturday 9th April

If anyone has any idea on how to get plaster to stick to walls please let me know. I’ve spent most of the week arguing with it upstairs on the outside wall. I’m starting to think it is the sunlight hitting the wall on that side of the house in the afternoon, and causing the interior wall to heat up and bubble the plaster. I’ve sanded the walls so they have a rough surface, put thin coats of plaster on to try and give some base, put plasterers mesh on, it still bubbles. I may just give up and sand it smooth and paint over, at least the grooves in the panels are gone this time.

The veg garden outside is slowly progressing, I keep running out of horse manure to dig in, so it is a case of driving to Rockville, grabbing whatever bags Frankes have got out, then digging a bit more. At least the horse manure is cheap, $1.50 - $2 a bag. I’ve got silverbeet, cabbage, brocolli planted already in the first bed, and leeks, cauliflower, more silverbeet, brocolli in seed boxes in the tunnel house to plant out in a few weeks.

The timber for the shelving in the tunnel houses is mostly here, the 50 x 25 arrived, but not the 100 x 100 for the uprights. Hopefully it will be here Friday of next week. Thank God for 2 years in the Solomons, I can cope easily with slow deliveries now.

I let Shukita and Will at the store know I would be in Takaka with the trailer next week, if they needed anything bought back out, so it looks like I’m picking up their washing machine from the repair shop.

Took a morning off on Thursday and went for a drive up to the end of the Aorere Valley, to the start of the Heaphy Track. http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/tracks-and-walks/nelson-tasman/golden-bay/heaphy-track/

I’d like to walk it some time, 4 – 6 days depending on weather and fitness, make that 8 – 10 days for me then.

Salisbury Falls Aorere Valley

Aorere Valley/Heaphy Track

The country starts to get a bit rugged up that end of the valley, you can see the snow levels on the bare mountain tops, and the nature of the forest gets very heavy with lowland beech on this side of the divide.

I’ve got on the list at one of the kiwifruit orchards for May/June pruning season, I know I’m too old to go picking, well, old maybe not, but certainly not fit or agile enough to keep up with the usual picking gangs.

Mark with the dairy farm around me, 1250 cows, called in tonight. I’m on the list with them to do morning milking in a week or so, depending on when the new herd he has bought, another 700, arrive. They are only milking once a day at the moment, about 3 – 4 hours, 4.30am to about 8.30/9am. Which suits me, I’ll still have most of the day to keep pottering around with the nursery.

He asked me what I intended growing, and pushed hard for me to get more native trees etc underway. So the demand is there, all I have to do is get it all working. Plus the veg and ornamentals that everyone wants as well.

We had a bit of a wind earlier on in the week, I got woken up with an incessant banging from outside. Went out to check, and one corner of the roof had started to lift, so I was up the ladder banging in nails at 3 am, holding onto the spouting to keep steady in the wind, and getting frozen with the rain. Not one of those things you want to do repeatedly. Went back up to check in the daylight and secured it all down a bit better so hopefully it won’t lift again. The tunnel houses never moved at all.

Monday 4th April

I’m up to 23 mice in the traps, and the Talon bait is vanishing at a rapid rate. I think the wekas like the idea of finding dead mice outside, they clean them up as fast as I throw them out.

Yesterday turned into a long day and into evening. It started off with a bit of rain, then settled into that gloomy still silence that precludes a storm. I figured I had the day clear though, so started on the tunnel houses at last.

The first one took the longest, just setting it out, and making sure it was square and level. In between the intermittent showers as well. About 3 hours setting out, then put the frames in, and started on the second one while I was waiting for David down the road to help with the covers. He arrived just as I was finishing off the second base, and we got the covers on both before he left about 5pm. I carried on till it got too dark to see anything, as well as keeping out of the rain that took over from the showers.

Had a little bit of finishing to do this morning, putting the vents and door on the second one, tidying up around them, but they are both up and ready for the shelving to go in this weekend.

Then it’s order the seeds, potting mix, biodegradable tubes and get started.

Last night had the first major storm since I’ve been here, I woke up about midnight to the sound of the wind and rain howling around the house, then again about 2am when it seemed to reach a peak. Took the torch and went outside to check on the tunnels, both were handling the wind really well, so finally went to sleep and didn’t worry.

Saturday 2nd April

Another week of up and down stuff. I’ve got an ad running in the Golden Bay Weekly for lawnmowing/gardening/etc for the Aorere Valley, Collingwood – Bainham and hopefully will eventually pick up some work through that.

Kiwi fruit season is about a month away at least here, then there will be work all over the place, but only for a month or so, with maybe a few weeks afterwards pruning.

I’m undecided about where to put the tunnel houses now, where I want them has been used as a parking area, with a fair bit of gravel added to the ground and a smallish hump in the middle. I tried to dig through it, so I can level it out a bit, but the spade just bounced back up. Will try to get the farmer down the road to scrape it back with the tractor and bucket, when I can catch him.

I bought another toy on Tuesday, small Poulan Chainsaw, and got rid of the acacia that I just knew would fall once I put the poly tunnels up. It wasn’t too bad, I got about a cu. m of good firewood from it, and a lot more light coming through the gap now as well.

My P class licence is turning into a major exercise, going to cost $550.00, with written tests and an hour spent driving the licencing guy around in Motueka, then waiting 6 – 8 weeks for a Police clearance. Oh well, once I have it there are the school buses, tourist buses, and general bus service that I can get.

I’m still plastering upstairs, going over where the plaster hasn’t stuck to the walls, I’ve got mesh on it now, and hopefully it will decide to stay there.

If anyone remembers the fun I had in Honiara with the rats, here I’m now inundated with field mice from the paddocks all around me. Since they were cut for silage last week, it seems as though every field mouse in the neighbourhood moved in with me, I’ve got 2 traps set continuosly, the best score so far is 8 last night out of nearly 20 I’ve caught in the past 3 – 4 days. They have no fear of people, I had one get caught at 9am this morning, while I was having a coffee. Then 2 more this afternoon while I was outside cutting the lawn.

I’ve got some Talon bait down as well now along with the traps.

I had a bit of a clean up around the garden as well, trimmed a few overgrown bits and pieces back, stacked it up and let it dry out till Thursday

between times, I tried out the oven and got rid of some ripe bananas and made banana cake with lemon icing

In

The cows are spending a few days next door in the paddock,they all look
like they are due to calve soon, and are extremely curious. If they see me in the house or outside, they all cluster around the fenceline watching.

Just up the road from me, on top of the hill, is a typical farm paddock sculpture. I don't know how long it has been there, but everyone in the area knows it, and it makes a good reference point to describe where I am.

I've spent the day going over the plaster I put on yesterday, the grooves in the panel suck it in, so I'm trying to get away from what happened downstairs with some of the grooves still showing. Haven't got up the ladder yet,

Here's a few photos from the last few days, we've got a coldish westerly blowing the clouds over the hill tops, and into the valleys,