Another weekend

This weekend went reasonably well, Friday morning was spent at the doctors, vets, bank, hair dresser and at the wool packers. In short the morning was very hectic, especially since I had already done a few hours work first thing. The doctors appointment went well, with Connor growing as expected, this time though Simon was able to hear him hiccupping, so, finally he has had hiccups. Also Possum went to the vets and had another checkup for her eyes, they had slightly improved, but unfortunately after the trip they had regressed again. After shopping, selling the wool etc I spent the afternoon doing the rest of my day’s work.
Friday evening, Steph and I headed out to Carterton to collect Amy and Nigel. Whilst we were in town, we picked up “Ice Age 2”, gees, what an appalling movie.
Amy and Nigel came up for the weekend to help us make some more headway with the decorating in the nursery and lounge. We started nice and early with Amy sanding down the walls, Steph heading into town to pick up some paint rollers and beer (the day looked like it was going to be a scorcher), Nigel and I started measuring and cutting the skirting, scotia and alcatraves. Once all that was measured and cut, we started painting it.
By lunch time, we had the undercoat on the walls, and several coats on the woodwork, and the scotia for the lounge started (it needed sanding and some filling of holes).
Steph very handily had a antenatal social event, so she headed off to that, and left the three of us to paint (which was good, really!). In between coats, Amy decided that bathrooms, and our porch needed cleaning, and Nigel continued with the wood framework, meanwhile I was slaughtering the last three rabbits from Snowwhites previous litter.
Steph got home in the early evening, just as we were putting up the last coat in the nursery, after which we discovered that two of our rams had escaped from their paddock and were in with the neighboring farmers ewe flock! Steph and I rounded the flock up (about 150 ewes and a few big rams), and attempted to draft them through the yards so as to get ours out, that wasn’t going to work as they were being stubborn. It was at this point I discovered that Rex’s crook was still on the front of his bike, and that seemed like it could be easier. What a fantastic tool (not toy!) after a quick investigation of how it works (there is a special clip that catches the back leg and doesn’t let the sheep escape), I proceeded into the holding pen and just slowly moved around the sheep (they were going all ways). After identifying our rams, I put the crook under the stomach of the ram, just as a ewe ran past and got herself caught instead! After flipping the ewe and unhooking her leg, I tried again, and caught me a ram! That one was quickly thrown in a holding pen. The other ram decided to be in the race part, so he was just pushed into the holding pen. That was the easy part, then we had to get the two rams, and the other ram still in it’s paddock into a more secure facility (ie the other paddock with sheep netting, not large holes). I tried carrying the ram but he was too wriggly (bit like Connor at the moment, the only difference is I could drop him at will and get someone else to carry him!) We ended up with me on the front legs, and Jules on the back and just carrying him across the paddock and dropped him over the fence. The other ram, I thought would be easier just to crook his back leg and left him run (in a semi-directed manner), and then Jules and I threw him over the fence (gently-ish).
Sunday, hmm, the morning was spent putting up the skirting and scotia, so that’s now the nursery almost ready (in the room sense anyway, still little furniture, not “little furniture”, but not much furniture). I digress, after doing the room, we headed over to Jules and Andy’s for a coffee, and found out that they were heading to Cape Palliser to look at the seals, so Steph and I headed to Whangamoana to do a spot of kite fishing. The beach was packed, there was a kite out, and a kon-tiki, consequently Steph and I had to walk miles (read:1km) down the beach, but it was worth it. The first set went out, it really needed the sky hook but after 30 minutes traveling and 10 minutes fishing, we brought it in with 1 fish, no idea what is was though, so it went back. The next set was put out with the sky hook, and it went out much better (after we got the weight right, at one point the bottle and hooks all went into the air). After twenty minutes fishing, and after Jules and Andy turned up, we brought the set in. We only had 1 fish, but by golly what a fish, a nice conger eel, it was massive, as big as my entire body, with a mouth that could swallow ships, ok so that’s a slight exaggeration, it was about 8lbs, maybe 10, so we’ll round it to 15 just to be safe!
We put out one more set, and after 10 minutes, we brought in 1 kawhai, not a bad size though. Since it was getting late, we all went to the Lake Ferry Hotel for some fantastic fish and chips!

So, all in all, a good weekend, now I have to work out what to do with conger steaks!

Congor Eel

Just a quick post, here's an congor eel I dragged in on Sunday kite fishing

What a roller coaster of a weekend

Since I missed last weeks blog entry, I'll start there. Last weekend Steph and I drove to Hawkes bay to collect a few more angora goats, a pedigree buck (called 203), and three does ranging from 3 years old to 5 years old. All very cute etc. The buck was really gentle and really stood out from the rest whilst we were picking him because of his temperment. Anyway, we got them home and then put them in the quartine paddock out by the back of the house so we could keep an eye on them. On Thursday morning when we moved them to another paddock, he seemed a little quiet, so that evening I asked Julia to check in on him (as we were up in Hawkes Bay again, as it was horse of the year and field days). Oh, that's right, Thursday was spent at the field days, wasn't too bad, found out some information we needed on tagging, but probably won't go next year as it wasn't top much different to the last 2 years. Back to HOTY and Hawkes Bay, on Friday morning Steph went to leave around 9am, and the truck refused to start, flat battery, and low fluid levels in the battery, I topped up the levels and we managed to jump start her of Mum's car. Our options at that stage were to take it over to YPuk and get it fixed, or for me to drive Steph to HOTY and then go into Hastings and get it fixed, we did the latter. Thankfully on the way to HOTY we passed a battery centre, and after dropping Steph off, I trundled back and got them to check the batteries, low and behold both batteries were dead, one was so dead it couldn't even register on the battery check computer thing he had! Fixing it was a case of putting in two new batteries, unfortunatly not cheap!
Whilst walking around HOTY, I heard my cell phone, and it was Julia, unfortunatly she was ringing to tell use that the buck had died, what a day! Anyway as you can imagine, the rest of the day wasn't that great, but things did pick up. That evening I phoned the goat breeder and he has offered to replace him, phew!
Saturday, Steph went off to HOTY on her lonesome, and I dragged Mum and Dad out to Porongahau for an afternoon's kitefishing. First set didn't get anything, but the second set we brought in 3 dogfish, since there was nothing out for dinner, we kept them! I've heard reports on how yucky they taste, but they weren't that bad, I would rate them along with red cod.
Once Steph got home on Saturday night, we decided that we would drive back to Littlebush that evening, as we knew we had a few things to do back here and an early start would be good, so after tea, we hit the road.
Sunday morning (after the clocks had changed), I got up and started to dig the goat hole, and then by around 7am, the hole was all done, along with a nice blister for my efforts. The morning was spent doing the weekly shop and collecting the dogs from the kennels, and then having a coffee over at Julia's and Andy's. Since the wind was looking promising, Andy and I headed down to Lake Ferry with the kite, but due to the wind shifting a bit, and there was a lot of trees floating out there we didn't put a line out, it would have been like playing frogger (but with a fishing line and a flag instead of a frog) and having to miss the logs, not jump on them, oh, the other difference was we couldn't move side to side, and you can't always see the logs!
Once we got home, the horns were cut off the goat, and then he was cast into his hole and covered up. And another week starts (only 7 to go!)