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!