A Nice long weekend

Three days off, and a few important jobs around the place done now. This weekend was Labour Weekend (ie. a Bank Holiday) and with it being close to Amy's birthday we had a family day out at the Zoo. Steph and I headed down to Wellington quite early in the morning because Steph had a little bit of work to do first thing. Once Mum and Dad turned up at Amy's there was a bit of discussion as to if Dad needed to ring Barry and Ann because they were also meeting us at the Zoo, and we were trying to decide if the Zoo was really a good idea because the weather looked iffy.
After a while we piled into the two cars and headed out to the Zoo. As we arrived you could see the band of rain coming in, and then we had to wait around for about an hour for Barry and Ann because there was a minor misunderstanding regarding phonecalls!
The Zoo wasn't too bad, a bit chilly, as the chimps in the photo prove! After the Nocturnal house Dad and Barry disappeared and Amy, Mum, Ann, Steph and I went around.
After the Zoo it was decided (eventually) that we would head up the coast to Porirua. Once we got there Steph and I bought Amy some lunch whilst Dad and Barry went to "Bond & Bond" to look at a new digital camera for Dad, and Mum and Ann were somewhere else. After lunch we had a look in a few shops and ended up buying Steph a nice new mohair jumper. Then we meet up with Mum and Ann, Dad and Barry again, and they were all heading over to the NorthCity mall for coffee, so Steph and I went around CraftWorld with Amy (because that's where she wanted to go if we went to Porirua). Once we finished at CraftWorld, we drove Amy over to NorthCity (would have been about 20-30 minute walk otherwise), there ended the family day out. Steph and I got to spend quite a bit of time with Amy which was good!
As the day was getting quite late we zipped up to Paraparaumu and decided that we would try getting to either the Saddlery Warehouse or the woodturning shop as we didn't think we would have time for both. After scooting through Paraparaumu, we found that the Saddlery shop was closed, then zipped north to the Lindale center where the woodturning shop was. Thankfully we got there just in time, and I managed to get the chisel I was after and a few project kits, and some timber.
Then we head north again and took the Akatarawa road between Waikanai and Upper Hutt, yikes I forgot how twisty that road was!
Sunday was much more sedate, we got up nice and early, did some house work, then I headed down the three tree paddock with the topper mower to give it a clean up, worked quite well. Mum and Dad popped in for a quick visit on the way back to Waipawa. Then in the afternoon I finished the paddock and then played on the lathe for a few hours before Steph and I headed out to Wakelin House for dinner.
Monday morning we got up just before 9am, and quickly headed down to try and round up the lambs for docking and castrating. But sheep being sheep, they were typically difficult and Steph and I tried several times with them bolting just as they got near the gate, and then John (our neighbour) arrived to show us how to do the docking, and with the extra person after a few attempts the sheep were in the makeshift yards and we got going. The first ram was a bit difficult as we couldn't find the testicles initially, but we won!
And then we docked them aswell. It turns out to be really easy, with a special tool that applies rubber rings you just put one 3cm down the tail, and one above the testicles and below the teats on the boys! I would have took photos but the weather wasn't particulary friendly to electronics (ie drizzling).
The rest of the day was spent just doing odds and sods, except Jenny asked if we could top her paddocks, thinking it was going to take hours I offered to do an hour, and then carry on next weekend, but once I realised the mower works quite nicely in 3rd gear the paddock only took about 40 minutes!
The last job for the day was picking up the remains of the bonfire the other weekend and dumping it on the compost pile. This was intended to be an easy and quick job, but upon entering the paddock I realised that our neighbours cows had smashed a fence and if I proceeded I might have startled the cow and it was all agmost wire netting! Steph phoned John and Trish and they came down a moved the stock on to the next paddock and are going to fix the fence this week. After the first scoop of the fire the tractor ran out of gas, and then it started raining, well I had started the job and it was only a few scoops so I quickly picked up the rest of the fire and then headed back to garage. The afternoon was mine, so I started making a rose petal dish for Steph, it's a hollowed out bowl (quite deep) with a pewter rose lid, but the sides are going to have rose petals carved in them, all made in English Oak. When I came back up to the house, it was no longer the afternoon, but actually 7pm!