Tuesday 17th May

Finally back home after the weekend. I thought it was going to be a disaster, Friday morning when I left wasn’t looking all that good, the Aorere was rising, we’d had a week of heavy rain, high tide was due about 9am, so I was more concerned with getting past Collingwood before the river and the tide decided to join up and block the road.

Left home at 5.45am, didn’t have to be at Nelson till 9.30, but didn’t want to take chances with the roads.

First bit of good luck was at Nelson Airport. I’d arrived at some ungodly hour, way before I needed to, in the dark and rain. Parked the Pajero, got my suitcase out, backpack, and wandered over to the Terminal.

I was sitting there getting terminally bored, there isn’t a book shop in the airport, and I’d forgotten to bring one, when I heard my name being paged, to report to Security. Wondering wtf have I done this time, went over, and the 2 guys there asked if I’d come from Collingwood, said yes, and got told I’d left the lights on in the carpark. Thank you Nelson Airport Security, it would have been a miserable Sunday night arriving back to find the battery flat otherwise.

Friday Afternoon at Damians was a bit hectic. He was slightly stressed out, trying to organise everything, beer kegs to pick up, chiller unit to get, food etc, but we all coped with it.

The rain was a fair nuisance, showers, then clear, then more showers, but the forecast for Saturday was for sunshine and clear periods.

Saturday was brilliant sunshine, ok, still a bit cold, but warmer than here. Everything got done in time, other than the minister being an hour late. The Bouncy castle house thing for the kids arrived, and that kept the youngsters amused for most of the day.

Ceremony was in brilliant sunshine, then up to the top of Mt Roskill for some more photos, then back to the house for the food.

We had a few $’s worth of fireworks that Damian and I had saved from last year, so about 8pm I was out on the front lawn setting them off. Matt arrived shortly after we’d finished them, and his reaction to being told he’d missed them was, “oh hell no, we saw them from the motorway, F******* Awsome!”

Sunday I went back around about midday, Damian and Tarsha were basically dead on their feet, the party went on for a long while into the night, and there were still a few stragglers around Sunday.

I cooked up some rump steak, roasted the potatoes that were left over, made a tomato salad with the parsley and basil left over, then Damian drove me back to Auckland Airport to catch the flight back about 7pm.

Got into Nelson at 10.35, pissing with rain, cool breeze, but totally different to Auckland, crisp air, not the humidity I noticed over the weekend.

Driving over the hill from Motueka to Takaka was a bit grim, near the top, about Canaan Downs, the cloud layer was at ground level, with rain. I was lucky to see a few yards in front at times, not the best thing to happen when you’re coming down on this side. By halfway the cloud had cleared, then it was just heavy showers from there to Bainham.

Monday was spent fixing the door on one of the polytunnels, it looked like it had got caught in the wind and popped the sealing strip, so the poly had come loose, washing, and a fair bit of sleeping.

I thought we were starting at 8am this morning, so about 7am I’m still shuffling around with a coffee, when Tom comes knocking on the door, and asking when am I going to turn up at the shed, like right now please. Hayden had decided, well, made the arrangements to have another 12 head dried off and sent over to the runoff farm at Blenheim, and the truck was arriving at 10, so they’d started at 5am, and not told me.

All good though, they had 4 in the shed, it was just getting the drafted cows prepared and sorted before the truck that was the urgent bit.

Now it’s back to watching winter set in here, rain, cold southerlies, expecting snow sometime this week.

Monday 9th May

We finally have a sunny day, the last week has been unrelenting rain. Not heavy, well not all the time, just enough to keep the puddles filled, the ground saturated and the river slowly rising.

We’ve got back to 6.30am starts in the milking shed, new grain feeder installed and operating, and the cows running into the yard in the mornings to be first into the feed trough.

The other side of that, getting them out of the bail and off the rotary is a pain in the butt. I’ve got 12? 15? Cows that persist in trying to stay on and get more grain, a few are cunning about it. They will back out of the bail, then wait for the next cow to back out, and duck their head down and try to sneak back into the bail thinking I haven’t seen them. It makes a slow start to the day when I’m continuously stopping the rotary and chasing cows off. Some will back out just with shouting, but a few others just ignore me until I spray the water hose over their ears.

All the fantails are out in force this afternoon, chasing insects, about 8 fantails dancing in the air after midges and gnats. My black one is still here, hopefully it is a partner to carry the gene through.

I haven’t seen the weka families for a few days, but they let me know they are still around each night by holding a neighbourhood discussion group outside my bedroom window at 2am.

There was a pig hunting competition based in Collingwood the weekend. I went over on Sunday afternoon to see the results. Apart from the crap weather, rain, train and more rain, it looked as though everyone got something for the pot. A few deer, a couple of goats, the kids were after rabbits and hares, and several good sized wild boars.

I’m away up to Auckland this weekend for Damians wedding, after waiting this long for it to happen I’m not going to miss it. Jesse and Kahu are Flower Girl and Page boy, I hope the weather holds out and it is a sunny and dry weekend.

Thursday 5th May

It is certainly getting into winter here, well, ok, late autumn. We’ve had a week of rain, and a few mornings down to –2*C, all the leaves are yellowing off and dropping on the grapevines and wisteria.

Garth and Chris called in for a few days on their tour of the South Island, they have been a year or so travelling with their caravan and 4wd everywhere. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best for them here, although the one fine day we had they managed to do the Farewell Spit Tour, and a bit of sightseeing along the Aorere and Takaka Valley.

Chris cooked dinner, and I made Turkish pide bread, which Garth decided he loved, and couldn't get enough of, especially cheese and garlic pide.

I’m still doing morning milking, a few early early starts this week, 5am, as we had work being done on the milking shed, installing a new barley feeder, and the cows needed to be out of the way before the installation crew could start. The only problem has been with trying to get the cows out of the bails now, they get an extra ½ kilo of barley with the new feeder, and several of them, including the usual 3 or four, refuse to leave the bail and continue eating as much as they can.

Saturday 30th April

End of the month, doesn’t time go quickly when you’re having fun. Or something.

I’m still managing the morning milking thing, around the other side of the shed now, taking the cups off, and spraying iodine on the teats. Once you get the rhythm going it is quite pleasant in a sort of mind numbingly manner. Although as usual the cows can be as obstinate and cantankerous as always.

There is one I’m getting to recognise as being a sly bitch, she starts to back out of the bail then looks down to see if I’m watching, then dives back in to get another feed of barley on another circuit of the shed. So it turns into a water spray and loud shouts, and most times, into stopping the rotary and almost physically forcing her out of the bail and along the race. I’ll get her number tomorrow morning and write up a citation.

We are well into Autumn now, the last week has had temperatures in the early mornings down to –2*C with frost everywhere. The hills are still clear of snow, but that is more the result of the weather pattern, no clouds or rain, than any form of management. It takes a while to warm up in the milking shed as well, about 15 – 20 minutes before I feel warm once the rotary is going around. Then it is 2 – 3 hours of constant movement followed by hosing water everywhere.

I haven’t done a lot this week, other than dig over more garden, get more seedlings underway, cabbage, broccoli and brussel sprouts for a winter crop.

I haven’t seen my weka all week, although they do still make a fair bit of noise at night. The little black coloured fantail is still outside, which is good, the others don’t seem to chase it away, as I would have expected, so there may be more of them around the area.

2 more weeks then I’ll be in Auckland for Damian and Tarshas wedding, for the weekend, fly up Friday, come back Sunday night. About time too, now Tarsha has her Pharmacuetical Degree. I get the impression it is going to be a large and chaotic crowd arriving.

I was in Takaka yesterday, a bit of grocery shopping, and took a few pics on the way home at Takaka Wharf, and the River Inn.

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.