Ken and Jenny both lived on lighthouses when they were young, and they are currently trying to revisit each of the lighthouses; Cape Palliser was were Jenny lived for a few years when she was 2, so we thought that today we would head down. First we went to Lake Ferry pub for lunch, previously the food has been fantasic, but today it was of a disappointing standard.
Thankfully the trip out to the lighthouse made up for it. Firstly there was some spectacular scenery, some cool photo opportunities, and lots and lots of seals.
Whilst Steph and I were clambering around the rocks we found the nursery! Not such as wise thing as we came across one of the bulls, and he still had fresh blood on him! We took a few photos and left pretty smartly, thankfully I had the zoom lens on.
There were so many seals, it was very cool to see.
When we got to the end of the road, we went up to the lighthouse, many many steps, 200 and something steps, but the view was pretty impressive.
One more for Jenny to tick off.
Monday, December 26, 2005
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Christmas Day
Merry Christmas all.
After a reasonably sleepless night (not sure why, I don't think it was excitement though!). I got up nice and early - we were all up and having breakfast by about 9am (and yes it was a variety pack). After breakfast we got started into the presents.
After opening the presents and playing a game of scrabble it was lunch time. Ham sandwiches for lunch.
In the afternoon I quickly harrowed Markissa's paddock because it needed doing, and it's not a unpleasant way to spend 10 minutes!
Steph and Jenny played many games of Scrabble whilst Ken was figuring out his new iRiver MP3 player.
In the evening we sat down an watched an episode of "The Saint" as Ken got the DVD's for chirstmas.
All in all, quite a good christmas, very relaxing.
After a reasonably sleepless night (not sure why, I don't think it was excitement though!). I got up nice and early - we were all up and having breakfast by about 9am (and yes it was a variety pack). After breakfast we got started into the presents.
After opening the presents and playing a game of scrabble it was lunch time. Ham sandwiches for lunch.
In the afternoon I quickly harrowed Markissa's paddock because it needed doing, and it's not a unpleasant way to spend 10 minutes!
Steph and Jenny played many games of Scrabble whilst Ken was figuring out his new iRiver MP3 player.
In the evening we sat down an watched an episode of "The Saint" as Ken got the DVD's for chirstmas.
All in all, quite a good christmas, very relaxing.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Gardening
I suppose this classifies as being vegetative! One of the trees in the bush had a nasty vine that was starting to be a bit invasive. So with a quick snip with a chainsaw and a tug by the tractor, we ripped a fair bit of it out. Still some to go though.
Shearing
Not your usual Christmas eve activity, but then things around here are far from usual!
We were initially not going to bother shearing today as it rained yesterday, but we noticed this morning that they were dry (somehow), so a quick phonecall to Paul, and afew hours later he turned up. In between we moved the lambs from our paddock into Jennies paddock ('cause she has heaps of grass). I thought that with four of us it would be easy (Ken and Jenny are down for Christmas). We stationed Ken and Steph over at Jennies, and I, with the bike brought them up. This almost worked, but just before the gate, they balked and scattered. To cut a long chase short we ended up getting 20 of the 23 through the gate and into the driveway, and whilst we were trying to coax the last three through the 20 decided to jump the cattlegrid onto the main road! You have newer seen me run so fast, I'm glad we had the race, made getting down the farm much easier. Jumping fences in gumboots (wellington boots) and jeans in the sun is not much fun, I jumped the last fence onto the road verge and collasped to see the sheep going past. Thankfully just at that moment one of our neighbours was going for a walk, and just happened to be in the right spot to stop the sheep, in a matter of minutes we had the sheep back in the driveway. I must admit once they got on the driveway, my first thought was "So this is why we have public liability insurance!"
Once they had calmed down and had wandered up to the other gate, the other three lambs joined them comparatorly easily.
Just as we were all recovering, Paul turned up. Shearing the alpacas this time was reasonably uneventfull (thankfully), no blood etc.
Mum and Dad turned up whilst we were shearing and unfortunatly we didn't get to speak to them much.
In the afternoon we all just collapsed and went vegetative!
We were initially not going to bother shearing today as it rained yesterday, but we noticed this morning that they were dry (somehow), so a quick phonecall to Paul, and afew hours later he turned up. In between we moved the lambs from our paddock into Jennies paddock ('cause she has heaps of grass). I thought that with four of us it would be easy (Ken and Jenny are down for Christmas). We stationed Ken and Steph over at Jennies, and I, with the bike brought them up. This almost worked, but just before the gate, they balked and scattered. To cut a long chase short we ended up getting 20 of the 23 through the gate and into the driveway, and whilst we were trying to coax the last three through the 20 decided to jump the cattlegrid onto the main road! You have newer seen me run so fast, I'm glad we had the race, made getting down the farm much easier. Jumping fences in gumboots (wellington boots) and jeans in the sun is not much fun, I jumped the last fence onto the road verge and collasped to see the sheep going past. Thankfully just at that moment one of our neighbours was going for a walk, and just happened to be in the right spot to stop the sheep, in a matter of minutes we had the sheep back in the driveway. I must admit once they got on the driveway, my first thought was "So this is why we have public liability insurance!"
Once they had calmed down and had wandered up to the other gate, the other three lambs joined them comparatorly easily.
Just as we were all recovering, Paul turned up. Shearing the alpacas this time was reasonably uneventfull (thankfully), no blood etc.
Mum and Dad turned up whilst we were shearing and unfortunatly we didn't get to speak to them much.
In the afternoon we all just collapsed and went vegetative!
Cooking Waffles - the Man way
When a man cooks, powertools are by far the best kitchen implements, just wait till I start carving!
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Shopping and Jam!
Since shearing was off, and we managed to get most of the stuff done yesterday, we thought it would be good to head to Palmerston North for some Christmas shopping. In all it was a successful trip. When we got home, we figured it would be a good plan to pick the plums – so out came “Tom” and we loaded Steph on the FEL and lifted her up to the fruit. After about 30 minutes of picking we had about 4.5Kg of plums. Once we finished there, since I had the tractor out, I decided to mow the driveway again, and after finishing that Steph directed me to paddock beside Markissa, in the last few days the grass had shot away and was mainly now seed heads (which isn’t what we want), so I buzzed around the paddock whilst Steph was being a “calming” influence for Markissa who kept going mad every time the tractor went past her!
After that I headed inside and the plan was to start doing dishes etc, but instead I started making plum jam. Last time I made it I carefully cut each plum in half and removed the pip, this time I just squished the pip out, and then fed the plums through a food processor. After about an hour I had 2 ¼ L of plum jam, I did shatter one of the jars though, I heated it too much.
After that I headed inside and the plan was to start doing dishes etc, but instead I started making plum jam. Last time I made it I carefully cut each plum in half and removed the pip, this time I just squished the pip out, and then fed the plums through a food processor. After about an hour I had 2 ¼ L of plum jam, I did shatter one of the jars though, I heated it too much.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Shearing - not
What with the heavy rain yesterday, and that the grass was very wet, we decided that shearing was best left to next weekend.
As we have no history about the lambs, we figured it would be best to drench and vaccinate, so we brought them all in, and gave them a check over. There were a few with scabby mouth, a couple with feet needing trimming, and a few others that were in pretty good shape. Hopefully with the drench and some good grass they will put weight on. We also brought our 4 lambs in, and gave them there vaccinations – unfortunately one of the back faced lambs cut its foot in the yards, oh well.
Also we had noticed that the goats were a bit lame, so we caught them and trimmed their hooves, which are now looking really good.
As we have no history about the lambs, we figured it would be best to drench and vaccinate, so we brought them all in, and gave them a check over. There were a few with scabby mouth, a couple with feet needing trimming, and a few others that were in pretty good shape. Hopefully with the drench and some good grass they will put weight on. We also brought our 4 lambs in, and gave them there vaccinations – unfortunately one of the back faced lambs cut its foot in the yards, oh well.
Also we had noticed that the goats were a bit lame, so we caught them and trimmed their hooves, which are now looking really good.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Even more stock, and even more rain
On Thursday I was supposed to have laser eye surgery, but upon getting to the hospital and seeing the specialist, he decided that it wasn’t entirely necessary, but offered to do it anyway; when he went through the pro’s and con’s (and one of the con’s was there was a chance of complete blindness in my right eye). Upon coming around from fainting, we decided it wasn’t worth it!
This morning though my eye was still quite sore from when they were looking at it so I did a half dad of work from home, and then went to the sales to pick up some sheep, there were quite a few pens of good lambs, and also several pens of light lambs (which is what we wanted), when it came around to a pen of 23 light lambs, I started bidding at $20, and I bought the 23 for $30/head. Then it was a quick trip down to Margo’s to pick up the horse float, and then back to the yards to collect them. Unfortunately since horse floats aren’t designed for carring sheep, I had to load the lambs in one by one.
After getting covered in sheep sh*t I headed home and unloaded them into the top paddock where they will live for a week, and then proceeded to clean the horse float and take it back to Margos. Just as I was leaving Littlebush, a whopping big thunder storm was developing above our place, and by the time I got back the intersection had flooded and one of the paddocks was underwater! Ah, within an hour it had all gone
.
This morning though my eye was still quite sore from when they were looking at it so I did a half dad of work from home, and then went to the sales to pick up some sheep, there were quite a few pens of good lambs, and also several pens of light lambs (which is what we wanted), when it came around to a pen of 23 light lambs, I started bidding at $20, and I bought the 23 for $30/head. Then it was a quick trip down to Margo’s to pick up the horse float, and then back to the yards to collect them. Unfortunately since horse floats aren’t designed for carring sheep, I had to load the lambs in one by one.
After getting covered in sheep sh*t I headed home and unloaded them into the top paddock where they will live for a week, and then proceeded to clean the horse float and take it back to Margos. Just as I was leaving Littlebush, a whopping big thunder storm was developing above our place, and by the time I got back the intersection had flooded and one of the paddocks was underwater! Ah, within an hour it had all gone
.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Yet another weekend....
Another week, and still things are ticking along nicely – this weekend we managed to achieve quite a bit. On Friday afternoon, because it was going to rain, I got the tractor out and topped several paddocks in the hope that when the rain comes, they will bush up even more, I managed to get the three new paddocks done, and I started on another, but gave up because the sheep were in there and getting a bit stressed running in front of the tractor. Early that afternoon, I installed 2 new T-joints and taps of the main water line, so that we can irrigate the trees permanently.
Also I managed to fix the leaking tap on the tractor, it turned out to be a small rubber washer, I picked that up for nothing from a plumbing shop in town.
Saturday was not such good day for achievements though as we spent most of the day on the road, first driving to Masterton for some piping (for the irrigation) and some hoof stuff for Markissa, and then to the other end of the Wairarapa to a friends place to drop off some chilly-bins. We ended up getting back home around 3pm, and then in the afternoon I started cleaning up the garage so we can move all the fibre stuff out there (so we have a spare bedroom again), and I installed one line of irrigation along the trees beside the arena. During the morning though we did pick up “Annie”, our neighbours morbidly obese sheep and put here in the paddock with the Alpacas and goats (there’s no grass down there).
Sunday was much better in terms of achieving things, I got up nice and early and finished cleaning the garage and moving everything out of the spare bedroom, then Steph got up and we brought our sheep up to the yards, after catching Winston and putting him out of the yards (I didn’t want a ram with horns around whilst trying to catch the other sheep!), we caught the black faced ewe and her two lambs and drenched and dipped them. Then we caught the other ewe as she was also limping slightly; just a hoof trim for her, and then it was on to the lambs, one had really bad scald, which we’ve now treated, and will do so again later this week, the other was fine though. They are both good weights, and we’re thinking about getting one done for Christmas lunch – should organise that soon.
To make life easier for later this week, we put the sheep up in the orchard, there is really long grass there and it’s right beside the yards, it did involve building a small temporary fence around the compost pile as there is no fence behind it yet, our neighbours cows pulled it over, and he still hasn’t got around to fixing it yet.
After that, we moved the alpacas into one of the new paddocks as they are being shorn next Saturday, fingers crossed that this year the fleece will be better, it’s certainly looking less polluted than last year. We’re thinking that this years fleece we’ll get professionally carded so we can use it as an example of what we should be aiming for. Another job all done, but now we realised that we had to move around a few water troughs as Adam likes sitting in baths (and the paddock they are in has a bath for a water trough). We took the 280L water trough (which he can still stand in though) from the other paddock and plumbed it in, but then we still had to move the bath, and gee’s they are heavy – this called for the tractor. Using the cargo tray to lift it up was much easier than any other way. Whilst I was finishing up the troughs, Steph started cutting the front lawn. Once I had finished I went across to Jenny’s to pick up the mower and sprayer, I quickly mowed the back garden, and then after lunch we filled the sprayer and Steph drove the tractor around whilst I was walking along behind with the sprayer, we did the driveway, around the tanks, the vege bed, the edges of the arena and around the junk area, hopefully in a few weeks it will all be dead!
After returning the mower, I started making Steak and Kidney pie (the kidneys from our sheep, and steak from Margo’s cows), and Steph carried on painting the fence. Once the meat was stewing, I drove into Carterton to pick up some pastry and some bell collars for the cats (we’re getting fed up with a bird a day!)
Once I got home, Steph finished up painting and quickly went down to do Markissa’s hooves, and I turned a new drawer knob for my dresser out. Once we both finished, the rain started, and then we decided that the day had finished (and it was still early afternoon). Time for a relaxing bath for Steph, and I cleaned the office and started working on a new project writing an computer system to monitor and control a fishtank.
We rounded the evening off with the pie, glass (or two) of wine, and we sat down and watch “The Truman Show”, unfortunately the projector was playing up a little bit, so I’ll ring L.V. Martins today.
Hopefully this week I’ll purchase another 15 or so sheep, Jenny has a large paddock that is getting overgrown, so we’re going to throw in 15 sheep, and Paul (the shearer), is going to put in another 10. Hopefully we’ll fatten them up and then move them onto the yards and make about $15/head, we’ll see how long we can keep them in there, would be good to keep them in till around August, we would make a much better profit if we can.
Anyway till later.
Also I managed to fix the leaking tap on the tractor, it turned out to be a small rubber washer, I picked that up for nothing from a plumbing shop in town.
Saturday was not such good day for achievements though as we spent most of the day on the road, first driving to Masterton for some piping (for the irrigation) and some hoof stuff for Markissa, and then to the other end of the Wairarapa to a friends place to drop off some chilly-bins. We ended up getting back home around 3pm, and then in the afternoon I started cleaning up the garage so we can move all the fibre stuff out there (so we have a spare bedroom again), and I installed one line of irrigation along the trees beside the arena. During the morning though we did pick up “Annie”, our neighbours morbidly obese sheep and put here in the paddock with the Alpacas and goats (there’s no grass down there).
Sunday was much better in terms of achieving things, I got up nice and early and finished cleaning the garage and moving everything out of the spare bedroom, then Steph got up and we brought our sheep up to the yards, after catching Winston and putting him out of the yards (I didn’t want a ram with horns around whilst trying to catch the other sheep!), we caught the black faced ewe and her two lambs and drenched and dipped them. Then we caught the other ewe as she was also limping slightly; just a hoof trim for her, and then it was on to the lambs, one had really bad scald, which we’ve now treated, and will do so again later this week, the other was fine though. They are both good weights, and we’re thinking about getting one done for Christmas lunch – should organise that soon.
To make life easier for later this week, we put the sheep up in the orchard, there is really long grass there and it’s right beside the yards, it did involve building a small temporary fence around the compost pile as there is no fence behind it yet, our neighbours cows pulled it over, and he still hasn’t got around to fixing it yet.
After that, we moved the alpacas into one of the new paddocks as they are being shorn next Saturday, fingers crossed that this year the fleece will be better, it’s certainly looking less polluted than last year. We’re thinking that this years fleece we’ll get professionally carded so we can use it as an example of what we should be aiming for. Another job all done, but now we realised that we had to move around a few water troughs as Adam likes sitting in baths (and the paddock they are in has a bath for a water trough). We took the 280L water trough (which he can still stand in though) from the other paddock and plumbed it in, but then we still had to move the bath, and gee’s they are heavy – this called for the tractor. Using the cargo tray to lift it up was much easier than any other way. Whilst I was finishing up the troughs, Steph started cutting the front lawn. Once I had finished I went across to Jenny’s to pick up the mower and sprayer, I quickly mowed the back garden, and then after lunch we filled the sprayer and Steph drove the tractor around whilst I was walking along behind with the sprayer, we did the driveway, around the tanks, the vege bed, the edges of the arena and around the junk area, hopefully in a few weeks it will all be dead!
After returning the mower, I started making Steak and Kidney pie (the kidneys from our sheep, and steak from Margo’s cows), and Steph carried on painting the fence. Once the meat was stewing, I drove into Carterton to pick up some pastry and some bell collars for the cats (we’re getting fed up with a bird a day!)
Once I got home, Steph finished up painting and quickly went down to do Markissa’s hooves, and I turned a new drawer knob for my dresser out. Once we both finished, the rain started, and then we decided that the day had finished (and it was still early afternoon). Time for a relaxing bath for Steph, and I cleaned the office and started working on a new project writing an computer system to monitor and control a fishtank.
We rounded the evening off with the pie, glass (or two) of wine, and we sat down and watch “The Truman Show”, unfortunately the projector was playing up a little bit, so I’ll ring L.V. Martins today.
Hopefully this week I’ll purchase another 15 or so sheep, Jenny has a large paddock that is getting overgrown, so we’re going to throw in 15 sheep, and Paul (the shearer), is going to put in another 10. Hopefully we’ll fatten them up and then move them onto the yards and make about $15/head, we’ll see how long we can keep them in there, would be good to keep them in till around August, we would make a much better profit if we can.
Anyway till later.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Fencing (again)
Friday was a really good day, started nice and early doing Metservice stuff, I had a reasonably difficult bit of code to suss out, and thankfully, by the end of it, it worked (albeit 1 bug which I need help on). After that I drove to town to pick up the weekly food shopping (and for once, no timber!). Upon getting home, since it was clouding over, I thought I would get into the ramming of the few posts left over from the last weekend when our efforts were thwarted by the rain. By around 4pm I had all that done, and moved on into the shed to finish my new saw bench - another hour and a half and that was all done, and I started cleaning up the massive mess I had made over the last week or two!
Around 6pm the sprayer guy (Bruce) came around and put down 3 litres of MCPA (a selective weed killer) over the hectare of new grass, then Steph finally got home, and we sat down for dinner and a movie.
Today has also be really productive, we were down in the paddock by 8am doing stays, we had three to do and by 11am we had all three stays in place and the 8 permanant strainers all tied in and ready to go. After a late morning tea we tensioned up the opposing L shaped fence to the last time (another 97ish metres) - so we now have 1 third of our race, and it's useable!. That took us about another two hours or so, and then it was lunch time. After lunch there was the last edge of the paddock the the first L shaped fence formed. It was only about 50m of fencing so we reused the netting of one of the fences we had pulled down, and just for fun, I found out how fast I could tie in a permanant strainer (two knots in high tensile wire, 1 around a post and another around a cast metal contraption) - it took around 1 minute and 42 seconds.
Anyway, a while later that fence was all done, and the only thing missing was the gates (we done the first gate last weekend I think). So with our new batteries for my drill (it was cheaper to buy a new drill + 2 batteries than it was to buy a new battery!) I made the holes for the gudgeons and hung the gates. It looks really cool (in a farmey sort of way; photos tomorrow, I'm relaxing, and I might even have a whiskey, I've ran out of port :-(
So, when we moved on there were 7 paddocks - 8 fences; only 2 of those fences remain, and we're down to 6 paddocks (the areana takes up one) - and only 1 paddock at the moment is in it's finally (well close to, we haven't put the top electric wire on, and the water is properly done yet) state. Still a fair bit of work to do, but at least all the timber is already paid for, just netting to get (and probably more staples - by the 5kg lot!)
Anyway, must almost be time for me to finish up and do some tea.
Around 6pm the sprayer guy (Bruce) came around and put down 3 litres of MCPA (a selective weed killer) over the hectare of new grass, then Steph finally got home, and we sat down for dinner and a movie.
Today has also be really productive, we were down in the paddock by 8am doing stays, we had three to do and by 11am we had all three stays in place and the 8 permanant strainers all tied in and ready to go. After a late morning tea we tensioned up the opposing L shaped fence to the last time (another 97ish metres) - so we now have 1 third of our race, and it's useable!. That took us about another two hours or so, and then it was lunch time. After lunch there was the last edge of the paddock the the first L shaped fence formed. It was only about 50m of fencing so we reused the netting of one of the fences we had pulled down, and just for fun, I found out how fast I could tie in a permanant strainer (two knots in high tensile wire, 1 around a post and another around a cast metal contraption) - it took around 1 minute and 42 seconds.
Anyway, a while later that fence was all done, and the only thing missing was the gates (we done the first gate last weekend I think). So with our new batteries for my drill (it was cheaper to buy a new drill + 2 batteries than it was to buy a new battery!) I made the holes for the gudgeons and hung the gates. It looks really cool (in a farmey sort of way; photos tomorrow, I'm relaxing, and I might even have a whiskey, I've ran out of port :-(
So, when we moved on there were 7 paddocks - 8 fences; only 2 of those fences remain, and we're down to 6 paddocks (the areana takes up one) - and only 1 paddock at the moment is in it's finally (well close to, we haven't put the top electric wire on, and the water is properly done yet) state. Still a fair bit of work to do, but at least all the timber is already paid for, just netting to get (and probably more staples - by the 5kg lot!)
Anyway, must almost be time for me to finish up and do some tea.
Friday, December 02, 2005
No more males
Yesterday, after many months of procrastinating, we finally got the vet in to castrate Galliano,Monty and Rapper. In all it took 1.5 hours, and ended up being a spectator sport; we had Liz the vet who has done many, Peter the vet who has done none but came along to learn (he did one), Stephanie a vet student, and someone else!
All the boys seemed OK about an hour later, but we were told they are a bit over weight!
I'll post photos later.
All the boys seemed OK about an hour later, but we were told they are a bit over weight!
I'll post photos later.
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