The weekend fencing got off to a really good start on Friday when in the afternoon I collected the remaining strainers, stays, netting and a roll of wire and got a good price on them aswell. Then on Saturday morning the weather was perfect, overcast with a slight breeze. Once Steph got back from picking up the borer we got started ripping down the existing fence and putting in a new corner strainer post. Once that was in we laid out and tensioned a guide wire and very quickly (only because of the borer) dug the remaining holes. Since we had the post hole borer around we put in another strainer for the bottom section of the race, and dug 2 new strainer holes for the top edge of the middle paddock. Again, once we got the strainers rammed in, we laid out the wire and dug the post holes. Since that was all we were aiming for we then did the last few holes for the post and rail fence around the water tanks.
That evening Steph and I watched the new Harry Potter movie in Masterton, and really enjoyed it, but didn’t get home till near midnight!
On Sunday the weather was iffy, but there was patches of sunlight so I took the bike and trailer with all the kit on down to start ramming, but as I got down there the heavens opened up and I ended up throwing a tarp over the trailer and sitting in the alpaca shelter with the bike! At the first gap in the rain we took the bike and trailer back up to the barn and gave up for the day as the holes were full of water.
Thankfully there was a big enough break in the weather around lunch for the farrier to out and trim Markissa’s hooves, and once more she has an abcess, we are now thinking that we might have a mineral deficiency in the soil causing soft keratin growth, we’ll find out later when we get another soil test done.
As for the other animals, the little chick is still alive, the goats are due for a hoof trim, and one has scald (a rawness in between the toes caused by wet grass) which needs treating, the sheep are fine but the lambs are due for vaccinations and the two from the black faced ewe are due for worming and they probably need their feet checked. We’ll do all this once the middle section of the race is in because it should make catching them much easier, hopefully it will be finished by the weekend (weather permitting).
Ah, our grass, it’s growing well, finally it has taken off and bushing up quite nicely, but there are a fair few weeds as well, so last night Steph organised for the sprayer to come out and use MCPA (a selective weedkiller), once more – waiting for the weather!
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Friday, November 25, 2005
Another busy weekend
Sometimes compiling software takes too damn long! Anyway, this weekend Steph and I hope to get the remaining posts in, about another 40 and get the last 5 strainers and stays in aswell. I think that will be all the farm improvements we'll do for the time being since fencing is very expensive thing to do. Oh,except for spraying with MCPA, which is a selective weedkiller. Since we sowed the grass in spring, all the other weeds came up with it aswell!
Also this weekend I want to get the holes bored for the post and rail fence around the water tanks, yeah I know, I was supposed to do them several months ago! If we find some time the bottom paddock is starting to go to seed so it's time to top that, the driveway and my vege & herb beds need spraying because at the moment they are weed beds, the garage by the house needs cleaning and all the fibre processing stuff needs to move out there, the alpacas need to move down a paddock, Jenny's fat sheep needs to be brought over for a diet otherwise it will likey die, I still have a few rimu walls needing dismantling. Then of course I would like to finish my sawbench and do some wood turning, Steph will want to play with Markissa.. hopefully we'll find some time.
Also this weekend I want to get the holes bored for the post and rail fence around the water tanks, yeah I know, I was supposed to do them several months ago! If we find some time the bottom paddock is starting to go to seed so it's time to top that, the driveway and my vege & herb beds need spraying because at the moment they are weed beds, the garage by the house needs cleaning and all the fibre processing stuff needs to move out there, the alpacas need to move down a paddock, Jenny's fat sheep needs to be brought over for a diet otherwise it will likey die, I still have a few rimu walls needing dismantling. Then of course I would like to finish my sawbench and do some wood turning, Steph will want to play with Markissa.. hopefully we'll find some time.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Splotty Lamb
When we had a wander around the paddock on the weekend we noticed that the splotty lamb had lost all it's splots, as predicted by Paul (the shearer), oh well, more meat!
One Survived
Yesterday when we got home we checked on the hen, and to our surprise we found a hatched chick, there are still a few more eggs left unhatched, hopefully they will hatch over the next few days.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
No Chicks yet
We checked the hen and her eggs last night and unfortunately the egg with the chick in was pushed to one side when she sat back on the eggs and the chick died of cold. Such is life…
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Chicks
For the last few months we’ve had a broody hen who has been living in the barn sitting on no eggs, but recently, whilst she was up eating the other hen has been jumping in the nest and laying eggs! Last night Steph decided that she had sat on the eggs long enough and was going to throw them away so that we can start collecting and eating the eggs again. Whilst she was collecting the 8 or so eggs, one of the cheep’ed and upon closer inspection it had a crack and from inside you could here the chipping away of the shell. We quickly rehomed the eggs and hen into a rabbit run (to keep the chicks away from cats and hawks). Fingers crossed that the chick managed to get out of the egg last night, we’ll see this evening.
I also assembled the saw bench last night, still don’t have a top for it, but I put together the frame and much to my surprise it was level, square and solid!
I also assembled the saw bench last night, still don’t have a top for it, but I put together the frame and much to my surprise it was level, square and solid!
Monday, November 21, 2005
The rest of the weekend
Well, I never did finish it off, nor did I get photos of the lambs with their tails docked, oh well, maybe later. To continue with Saturday’s tasks, in the late afternoon as it was cooling down we moved the alpacas to the next paddock because they’ve topped enough off the new grass so as to let it bush up, they are now up in the paddock around the arena and barn. Also we ripped down the fence on the boundary of our place and John’s as a while ago his cows broke through it, and this week he intends fixing it, but our compost piled had collapsed and was in the way so I moved the offending part using the FEL and the tractor.
On Sunday we went to our felting lesson, it was really hot and sunny at our place, so shorts and t-shirts were the order of the day, but by the time we got to Eketahuna the weather was abysmal, thankfully the workshop was inside. After a tour of her workshop she did a demonstration of how to make a felt bag from 100% alpaca, it looked surprising easy! After lunch every one had a go, Steph made a felt evening bag and I made the strap for it. At least now we have found something we can try to do with our fleece that we have stored. The carding and spinning ideas we had for a business kind of went out the window yesterday as we realised that without such large equipment, we would not be able to compete. Time to start looking for another opportunity, starting a commercial flock of high quality suri alpacas still looks quite attractive, but once more the same problem arises, land and investment! Oh well we’re not even 30 yet, so we’ve got a while!
On Sunday afternoon we went along to the WoodTurners Christmas BBQ, we had quite a good time, and thankfully it was only 6kms away.
On Sunday we went to our felting lesson, it was really hot and sunny at our place, so shorts and t-shirts were the order of the day, but by the time we got to Eketahuna the weather was abysmal, thankfully the workshop was inside. After a tour of her workshop she did a demonstration of how to make a felt bag from 100% alpaca, it looked surprising easy! After lunch every one had a go, Steph made a felt evening bag and I made the strap for it. At least now we have found something we can try to do with our fleece that we have stored. The carding and spinning ideas we had for a business kind of went out the window yesterday as we realised that without such large equipment, we would not be able to compete. Time to start looking for another opportunity, starting a commercial flock of high quality suri alpacas still looks quite attractive, but once more the same problem arises, land and investment! Oh well we’re not even 30 yet, so we’ve got a while!
On Sunday afternoon we went along to the WoodTurners Christmas BBQ, we had quite a good time, and thankfully it was only 6kms away.
Friday, November 18, 2005
That's Saturday
Gee's today was a real scorcher, got soo hot at one stage Steph went and had a lie down!.
What have we done today, well this morning we went into town, I wanted to pick up a morticing attachment for the drill press, Steph wanted to look at saddles as she has sold hers (finally) and I wanted to pick up some timber for a bench I'm making for the workshop.
After spending the morning in town, Steph played with Markissa, her foot is finally healed enough that she can be worked again. Whilst they were in the arena I carried on making the new bench for my table saw, it's current one is too small to be useful. On Friday I bought a new bandsaw, it makes doing tenons so easy! The workshop is starting to look just like that.
Bedtime, I'll finish this off tomorrow after our felting lesson!.
What have we done today, well this morning we went into town, I wanted to pick up a morticing attachment for the drill press, Steph wanted to look at saddles as she has sold hers (finally) and I wanted to pick up some timber for a bench I'm making for the workshop.
After spending the morning in town, Steph played with Markissa, her foot is finally healed enough that she can be worked again. Whilst they were in the arena I carried on making the new bench for my table saw, it's current one is too small to be useful. On Friday I bought a new bandsaw, it makes doing tenons so easy! The workshop is starting to look just like that.
Bedtime, I'll finish this off tomorrow after our felting lesson!.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Not quite what I expected
Yesterday whilst at work I started suffering from "sparkles" again in my vision, so someone suggested that it might be a good idea to see an optometrist, so I did, she noticed I had a lot of "floaters" in my right eye and a mark on the inside of my retina - I was then sent to hospital for a closer look and after several hours waiting they had a look and noticed a small hole in my retina which they want to treat with laser surgery. Not sure if this hole has any thing to do with the floaters though, but I should head in for the surgery in a month or two's time. But with all that my vision is still pretty much 100% (when I can't see floaters!).
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Weekend in Auckland
This weekend was slightly longer than most as Steph and I headed up to Auckland for Jenny’s 50th birthday. We started north on Thursday evening with a 2 hour trip to Waipawa to see Mum and Dad. When we arrived Jenny had left a message asking that if possible we should try and pop across to Tauranga to see her Grandad as he was going to be unable to make it to the party.
After spending the night there we carried on heading north on Friday morning around 8:45am. Unfortunately about 30 minutes into the Napier-Taupo road I started seeing “sparkles”, a sure sign of a migraine coming on for me! Thankfully Steph was already driving so we just stopped at the nearest gas station (Taupo!) and got some pain killers. Due to the headache Steph decided that we would just head straight to Auckland as Tauranga would add at least 4 hours to the trip, and that wasn’t something I needed with my head thumping! So as it was Steph drove all the way from Napier to Auckland and we arrived at her parents place around 5:30ish in the evening.
On Saturday, the plan was that I would head down to the factory with Ken, whilst Steph and Jenny went out shopping, before which Jenny took Steph and I out to the unit at the marina to see the alterations and decorating they had been doing. It looked really good. After that most of my morning was spent chainsawing up a purirui log (about 1.5m long and about 63cm diameter). I ended up hiring a chainsaw with a 24” bar, First I trimed 30cm of the end in a round and then the trunk that was left was halved and then quartered. Whilst doing the first quartering cut the chain came of the saw, it snapped! Obviously I was wearing safety kit and standing well clear, but what surprised me was instead of twanging around and being quite scarey, the chain just dropped to the floor in a heap; I think I was lucky. After getting another chainsaw I finished the two quartering and then Ken and I headed back to the house as it was nearly lunch time (a quick detour on the way though to pick up the birthday cake).
Whilst we were all having lunch Tristan turned up, much to the surprise of Jenny as he was supposed to be in Australia.
For the afternoon Steph and I headed out to a saddlery to drop off Steph’s saddle, and then we trundled down to Albany and then back to the peninsula to get ready for dinner.
When we got to Valentines, Ken had organised a little surpise for Jenny, and Steph, Jamie and myself had to quickly implement it – Ken had got 50 “tweeties” (as in the yellow cartoon bird) and he wanted on tweaty at each seat and the remaining clustered on the table. Talk about causing a stir in the restaurant, everyone was very amused at the 50 fluffy toys; they thought the party was for a child; nope it was for a Kiddie!
The evening went without a hitch and everyone had a good time.
The next morning Steph and I left Auckland around 8:45 and because we were unable to visit her Grandad on the way up, we were going to pop across on the way back. In all the drive down was quite good, I did the first bit from Auckland to Tauranga through to Rotorua and across to Taupo (well almost, about 30 minutes out Steph took over). Steph drove from Taupo to Turangi, I then drove to Taihape where we stopped for coffee, Steph took over again until Palmerston North, and then I did the last stint to home. In all the trip took us about 12 hours (well 11:53 actually!) and over the course of the weekend we drove around 1600km. Time for the filters and oil change on the truck now.
Well, that takes us to Monday, as you can imagine we were (and still are) both pretty tired, so not a great deal was done, we moved all the stock; Markissa is now where the alpacas were, the alpacas are grazing the new grass (it will make the grass grow better if the tops are cropped off slightly) and the sheep are in where Markissa was. Which means one paddock is now being spelled (hopefully it will grow back reasonably fast).
But now we’re back to a normal week – so probably more to come next weekend, next weekend we’ve managed to double book our Sunday, we have a carding/felting workshop and the wood turners club Christmas party. Thankfully one is in the afternoon, so we might just get them both in.
After spending the night there we carried on heading north on Friday morning around 8:45am. Unfortunately about 30 minutes into the Napier-Taupo road I started seeing “sparkles”, a sure sign of a migraine coming on for me! Thankfully Steph was already driving so we just stopped at the nearest gas station (Taupo!) and got some pain killers. Due to the headache Steph decided that we would just head straight to Auckland as Tauranga would add at least 4 hours to the trip, and that wasn’t something I needed with my head thumping! So as it was Steph drove all the way from Napier to Auckland and we arrived at her parents place around 5:30ish in the evening.
On Saturday, the plan was that I would head down to the factory with Ken, whilst Steph and Jenny went out shopping, before which Jenny took Steph and I out to the unit at the marina to see the alterations and decorating they had been doing. It looked really good. After that most of my morning was spent chainsawing up a purirui log (about 1.5m long and about 63cm diameter). I ended up hiring a chainsaw with a 24” bar, First I trimed 30cm of the end in a round and then the trunk that was left was halved and then quartered. Whilst doing the first quartering cut the chain came of the saw, it snapped! Obviously I was wearing safety kit and standing well clear, but what surprised me was instead of twanging around and being quite scarey, the chain just dropped to the floor in a heap; I think I was lucky. After getting another chainsaw I finished the two quartering and then Ken and I headed back to the house as it was nearly lunch time (a quick detour on the way though to pick up the birthday cake).
Whilst we were all having lunch Tristan turned up, much to the surprise of Jenny as he was supposed to be in Australia.
For the afternoon Steph and I headed out to a saddlery to drop off Steph’s saddle, and then we trundled down to Albany and then back to the peninsula to get ready for dinner.
When we got to Valentines, Ken had organised a little surpise for Jenny, and Steph, Jamie and myself had to quickly implement it – Ken had got 50 “tweeties” (as in the yellow cartoon bird) and he wanted on tweaty at each seat and the remaining clustered on the table. Talk about causing a stir in the restaurant, everyone was very amused at the 50 fluffy toys; they thought the party was for a child; nope it was for a Kiddie!
The evening went without a hitch and everyone had a good time.
The next morning Steph and I left Auckland around 8:45 and because we were unable to visit her Grandad on the way up, we were going to pop across on the way back. In all the drive down was quite good, I did the first bit from Auckland to Tauranga through to Rotorua and across to Taupo (well almost, about 30 minutes out Steph took over). Steph drove from Taupo to Turangi, I then drove to Taihape where we stopped for coffee, Steph took over again until Palmerston North, and then I did the last stint to home. In all the trip took us about 12 hours (well 11:53 actually!) and over the course of the weekend we drove around 1600km. Time for the filters and oil change on the truck now.
Well, that takes us to Monday, as you can imagine we were (and still are) both pretty tired, so not a great deal was done, we moved all the stock; Markissa is now where the alpacas were, the alpacas are grazing the new grass (it will make the grass grow better if the tops are cropped off slightly) and the sheep are in where Markissa was. Which means one paddock is now being spelled (hopefully it will grow back reasonably fast).
But now we’re back to a normal week – so probably more to come next weekend, next weekend we’ve managed to double book our Sunday, we have a carding/felting workshop and the wood turners club Christmas party. Thankfully one is in the afternoon, so we might just get them both in.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Monday, November 07, 2005
Fun Whilst Fencing
Wow, what a weekend. On Friday afternoon I went to Masterton to pick up the timber , wire netting,a new fencing chisel, a book called the “Hand Made Fence Book”, the new PTO drive shaft, a bucket of tensoners and of course the weekly shopping!.
Trying to unload the trailer was fun, I dragged the bundle of stays and strainers of the side, then dragged the next bundle of 40 posts of the back, but then the next 40 had had the wire that held the bundle together cut so that they sat on the bottom of the trailer better. As posed a problem that I could not get the snig chain underneath all of them easily. After thinking about the problem I realized that with a bit of a shove from the FEL on the tractor I could push them all towards the safari and wrapped the chain around them when they were overhanging at the truck end of the trailer. A few shoves later and I had the chain around them and was lifting them out of the trailer. A quick scurry back to Masterton to drop the trailer off before 5:30pm (just made it) and then home to do some house work as we had guests for the weekend (Matt and Kylie were coming up to help build the fence).
Once we had picked up Matt and Kylie and had dinner, I rigged up the halogen lights outside and replaced the PTO drive shaft, surprising easy to do.
Saturday morning I was up around 6am with the intention of mowing Jenny’s paddock around 6:30 before we got into the fencing (because we’re in Auckland next weekend and the grass is getting quite long). At around 6:30 Steph and I took the tractor over to Jenny’s and the tractor was starting to get a bit reluctant to start, it seemed like an electrical problem, putting the gear stick into “start” and nothing would happen. We got a bit of the paddock done, but the grass was too long so I’ll have to work out a way of keeping the mower much higher and make a couple of passes at the paddock. I stalled the tractor once at which point I checked the oil and realized that there was none! I must have lost a bit too much oil whilst changing the PTO drive shaft. We abandoned the mowing, and as soon as the tractor started we took it back to the barn…On to the next job.
Once we got back, Matt and Kylie were up and Matt and I headed into Greytown to pick up the post-hole borer and 22 litres of oil for the tractor. After getting the borer, we worked our way up the country visiting each town (well, Greytown, Carterton and finally Masterton) trying to find a cheaper way of buying oil (instead of 4 litres at a time). Ended up at a tractor place (how obvious!). Then it was home to start digging.
Whilst Matt and I were out driving around the countryside hunting oil, Steph and Kylie were marking out the fence and where each hole should be dug. The general idea for the day was to put in the 3 strainers (the fence is L shaped), tension a wire around the bottom (as it acts as a better guide then thin string) and then put in the rest of the holes and then the posts,stays and finally the fencing.
For some reason Matt and I did the first strainer, and it’s stay straight away. Digging the hole with the post-hole borer was soooo easy, still had to use the manual borer to clean the hole but took us about 10 minutes to have the hole ready! The strainer was in and rammed in about 45 minutes, and then another 1;15 was spent putting the stay in. Meanwhile Steph and Kylie were continuing laying out the other 2 fence lines and dismantling the old fence lines, including the water troughs that were in the way.
After lunch, Matt and I dug the other two strainer holes and rammed those in, which was quite easy, and then put down the first wire and tensioned it up. With that in place we were able to change auger to the smaller one and bore all the holes the girls had marked out. We found out after a bit of trial and error that instead of pushing on the borer, lifting it slightly out of the hole made a significant positive difference on the speed of boring. We did 37 holes to a depth of 600mm between 1pm and 4:30pm! Steph was following along behind us putting the poles in and ramming them, meanwhile Kylie was up in the house baking muffins for afternoon tea.
By the end of the day, we had rammed in the long edge of the “L” fence (15 posts), dug 37 holes to a depth of 600mm, dug 3 holes to a depth of around 1100m, tensioned one wire and fitted 1 stay.
Whilst I dashed back to Greytown to return the borer, Steph went around the paddock and collected all the fallen branches etc incase we wanted to burn things later on! Unfortunately whilst Steph and I were taking the bike and trailer into the back paddock were the fire was to be, we caught one of the branches on the side of a gate and it shattered the front sheet of plywood on the trailer, nothing we can’t handle though.
Whilst everyone was showering, I drained the oil in the tractor, the oil is supposed to be a golden toffee color, it came out of the sump a very pale caramel color (which apparently is due to being contaminated with water, so I guess an oil change was in order anyway!) I did discover than hydraulic oil isn’t a very good hair product!
The initial plan was for a BBQ, but since we were all so exhausted we went to the “Gladstone” (the local) for dinner. Very very yummy food, a good couple of games of pool,over all a good night. Once we got back we burnt all the fallen branches and Steph and I ended up turning in around 11pm once the fired had burned down.
Sunday morning saw a slightly later start to the day, around 8am – since we were running out of dishes I thought I would get into them as soon as I got up. Most were finished before everyone else was up, and the house was looking a bit tidier.
The weather was very pleasant, as it was overcast and a slight breeze. Whilst Matt, Kylie and Steph headed down the paddock with the bike and all the kit, I put the 22 litres of oil in the tractor, and just like magic it tried to start (but I left the electrics on all night and the battery needed charging, sigh) I then joined everyone down in the paddock.
Matt and I got straight on to ramming the short edge of the “L” fence, and then I started on the corner stay whilst Matt supervised with a beer ( After reading our book on fencing it turned out our first stay block was way too deep, so by altering the depth, and having a sharp chainsaw (on Saturday is was quite blunt, so I sharpened it in the afternoon) to prepare the end of the stay we managed to get the stay installed in around 30 minutes and it looked really good. We then moved on to the last stay and instead of doing all the mortising on the post with a chisel I decided to try the chainsaw, wow what a difference, it was so much easier. Once more a really good fit!
Whilst Matt and I were doing that, Steph was ramming in the other fence line (the other side of the race to the long edge of the “L” fence) and Kylie had headed up to the house to prepare something for lunch. By the time Matt and I had finished Steph only had four posts to go, so I gave her a hand whilst Matt prepared the final strainer hole (it had got some water in it). Then we headed up for lunch.
After lunch all that was left on the fence was to put up the wire, which we needed the tractor for (as it was dropped in the wrong place, and 100m of sheep netting is quite heavy and the cargo tray would make life much easier. So I gave Kylie a quick lesson on tractor driving and she took the tractor down to the paddock. Once we moved the netting to the other end of the fence we rolled it out and stapled it in at one end. I then started installing the 8 permanent tensioners, after the first 5, my hands were getting sore (installing a tensioner, involves tying 2 knots in high tensile wire (about 4mm thick) and cutting it a few times in different places) so Steph took over and did one, and then Matt did the last two.
The next step was taking up the slack in the wire using chain tensioners. There was heaps of slack and we ended up having to reset the tensioners halve way through! Once the tension was in the fence we trimmed the excess and removed a few upright wires so that the horizontal wires could be fed into the permanent tensioners. With the tension transferred to the permanent tensioners we released the wire ones and started straighten up the fence and within a few minutes, we had a fence!
All that was left to do for the day was catch the sheep and find out why the lamb was lame. After chasing the *?$@%^# things around for a while, we cheated and rolled out the old fence in a big funnel shape, still not easy, but we caught all except the black and white spotty ones, oh once we have the race this will be so much easier. It turned out that the lamb was lame due to reasonably bad scald (as was Bully (the goat), so we sprayed their feet, all the others got a feet trimming, drenching for worms and dipped for keds.
Whilst we were on the second to last sheep we realized it was 4:45, the train back to Wellington for Matt and Kylie was 4:24! And it’s about a 20 minute trip. A frantic packing and we bundled into the Safari around 4pm, and got to Woodside around 4:20, phew!
Steph and I went home, stapled in the bottom edge of the “L” fence, and then relaxed for the rest of the evening…Ah, we’re at the train station, what good timing.
Trying to unload the trailer was fun, I dragged the bundle of stays and strainers of the side, then dragged the next bundle of 40 posts of the back, but then the next 40 had had the wire that held the bundle together cut so that they sat on the bottom of the trailer better. As posed a problem that I could not get the snig chain underneath all of them easily. After thinking about the problem I realized that with a bit of a shove from the FEL on the tractor I could push them all towards the safari and wrapped the chain around them when they were overhanging at the truck end of the trailer. A few shoves later and I had the chain around them and was lifting them out of the trailer. A quick scurry back to Masterton to drop the trailer off before 5:30pm (just made it) and then home to do some house work as we had guests for the weekend (Matt and Kylie were coming up to help build the fence).
Once we had picked up Matt and Kylie and had dinner, I rigged up the halogen lights outside and replaced the PTO drive shaft, surprising easy to do.
Saturday morning I was up around 6am with the intention of mowing Jenny’s paddock around 6:30 before we got into the fencing (because we’re in Auckland next weekend and the grass is getting quite long). At around 6:30 Steph and I took the tractor over to Jenny’s and the tractor was starting to get a bit reluctant to start, it seemed like an electrical problem, putting the gear stick into “start” and nothing would happen. We got a bit of the paddock done, but the grass was too long so I’ll have to work out a way of keeping the mower much higher and make a couple of passes at the paddock. I stalled the tractor once at which point I checked the oil and realized that there was none! I must have lost a bit too much oil whilst changing the PTO drive shaft. We abandoned the mowing, and as soon as the tractor started we took it back to the barn…On to the next job.
Once we got back, Matt and Kylie were up and Matt and I headed into Greytown to pick up the post-hole borer and 22 litres of oil for the tractor. After getting the borer, we worked our way up the country visiting each town (well, Greytown, Carterton and finally Masterton) trying to find a cheaper way of buying oil (instead of 4 litres at a time). Ended up at a tractor place (how obvious!). Then it was home to start digging.
Whilst Matt and I were out driving around the countryside hunting oil, Steph and Kylie were marking out the fence and where each hole should be dug. The general idea for the day was to put in the 3 strainers (the fence is L shaped), tension a wire around the bottom (as it acts as a better guide then thin string) and then put in the rest of the holes and then the posts,stays and finally the fencing.
For some reason Matt and I did the first strainer, and it’s stay straight away. Digging the hole with the post-hole borer was soooo easy, still had to use the manual borer to clean the hole but took us about 10 minutes to have the hole ready! The strainer was in and rammed in about 45 minutes, and then another 1;15 was spent putting the stay in. Meanwhile Steph and Kylie were continuing laying out the other 2 fence lines and dismantling the old fence lines, including the water troughs that were in the way.
After lunch, Matt and I dug the other two strainer holes and rammed those in, which was quite easy, and then put down the first wire and tensioned it up. With that in place we were able to change auger to the smaller one and bore all the holes the girls had marked out. We found out after a bit of trial and error that instead of pushing on the borer, lifting it slightly out of the hole made a significant positive difference on the speed of boring. We did 37 holes to a depth of 600mm between 1pm and 4:30pm! Steph was following along behind us putting the poles in and ramming them, meanwhile Kylie was up in the house baking muffins for afternoon tea.
By the end of the day, we had rammed in the long edge of the “L” fence (15 posts), dug 37 holes to a depth of 600mm, dug 3 holes to a depth of around 1100m, tensioned one wire and fitted 1 stay.
Whilst I dashed back to Greytown to return the borer, Steph went around the paddock and collected all the fallen branches etc incase we wanted to burn things later on! Unfortunately whilst Steph and I were taking the bike and trailer into the back paddock were the fire was to be, we caught one of the branches on the side of a gate and it shattered the front sheet of plywood on the trailer, nothing we can’t handle though.
Whilst everyone was showering, I drained the oil in the tractor, the oil is supposed to be a golden toffee color, it came out of the sump a very pale caramel color (which apparently is due to being contaminated with water, so I guess an oil change was in order anyway!) I did discover than hydraulic oil isn’t a very good hair product!
The initial plan was for a BBQ, but since we were all so exhausted we went to the “Gladstone” (the local) for dinner. Very very yummy food, a good couple of games of pool,over all a good night. Once we got back we burnt all the fallen branches and Steph and I ended up turning in around 11pm once the fired had burned down.
Sunday morning saw a slightly later start to the day, around 8am – since we were running out of dishes I thought I would get into them as soon as I got up. Most were finished before everyone else was up, and the house was looking a bit tidier.
The weather was very pleasant, as it was overcast and a slight breeze. Whilst Matt, Kylie and Steph headed down the paddock with the bike and all the kit, I put the 22 litres of oil in the tractor, and just like magic it tried to start (but I left the electrics on all night and the battery needed charging, sigh) I then joined everyone down in the paddock.
Matt and I got straight on to ramming the short edge of the “L” fence, and then I started on the corner stay whilst Matt supervised with a beer ( After reading our book on fencing it turned out our first stay block was way too deep, so by altering the depth, and having a sharp chainsaw (on Saturday is was quite blunt, so I sharpened it in the afternoon) to prepare the end of the stay we managed to get the stay installed in around 30 minutes and it looked really good. We then moved on to the last stay and instead of doing all the mortising on the post with a chisel I decided to try the chainsaw, wow what a difference, it was so much easier. Once more a really good fit!
Whilst Matt and I were doing that, Steph was ramming in the other fence line (the other side of the race to the long edge of the “L” fence) and Kylie had headed up to the house to prepare something for lunch. By the time Matt and I had finished Steph only had four posts to go, so I gave her a hand whilst Matt prepared the final strainer hole (it had got some water in it). Then we headed up for lunch.
After lunch all that was left on the fence was to put up the wire, which we needed the tractor for (as it was dropped in the wrong place, and 100m of sheep netting is quite heavy and the cargo tray would make life much easier. So I gave Kylie a quick lesson on tractor driving and she took the tractor down to the paddock. Once we moved the netting to the other end of the fence we rolled it out and stapled it in at one end. I then started installing the 8 permanent tensioners, after the first 5, my hands were getting sore (installing a tensioner, involves tying 2 knots in high tensile wire (about 4mm thick) and cutting it a few times in different places) so Steph took over and did one, and then Matt did the last two.
The next step was taking up the slack in the wire using chain tensioners. There was heaps of slack and we ended up having to reset the tensioners halve way through! Once the tension was in the fence we trimmed the excess and removed a few upright wires so that the horizontal wires could be fed into the permanent tensioners. With the tension transferred to the permanent tensioners we released the wire ones and started straighten up the fence and within a few minutes, we had a fence!
All that was left to do for the day was catch the sheep and find out why the lamb was lame. After chasing the *?$@%^# things around for a while, we cheated and rolled out the old fence in a big funnel shape, still not easy, but we caught all except the black and white spotty ones, oh once we have the race this will be so much easier. It turned out that the lamb was lame due to reasonably bad scald (as was Bully (the goat), so we sprayed their feet, all the others got a feet trimming, drenching for worms and dipped for keds.
Whilst we were on the second to last sheep we realized it was 4:45, the train back to Wellington for Matt and Kylie was 4:24! And it’s about a 20 minute trip. A frantic packing and we bundled into the Safari around 4pm, and got to Woodside around 4:20, phew!
Steph and I went home, stapled in the bottom edge of the “L” fence, and then relaxed for the rest of the evening…Ah, we’re at the train station, what good timing.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Looming weekend
Well, I've ordered the timber and 100m of fencing wire, so thats 80 posts, 5kg of staples, 30 permanant tensioners, 5 strainers + stays. Also the petrol post hole borer is all put aside for Saturday. So this weekend we're going to do as much as the fencing as possible, fix the tractor, check the lambs (one is quite lame), have a bonfire + BBQ.
Should be good...
Should be good...
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