Sunday, March 29, 2009

The great make over continues (and continues....)

Well,
  I'm knackered, thats about all I can manage...Actually yesterday Steph was at a course on soil and fertiliser, so I had Connor for the day, and he had a massive tantrum, he isn't always smiles!

On Friday though, Connor and I spent a few hours dismantling the dog deck, here you can see I've ripped it down to the new width, and have managed to pull it out of the ground using the tractor, glad when we made it, we were lazy digging the footings!

As you can see from the photos, Connor was being "helpfull"
Then today we started burning the felled trees at around 7:30, and around lunch time, we had got most of it cleared up. The ash pile is around 3ft high!  It still burning now, and there is still heaps more to go (but they are still standing, but looks like we've found a contractor who is local and should be able to dig the stumps out, just got to get hold of him).
In addition to that, we also got the goats shorn, unfortunatly 1 girl (Gloria) had maggots in her back leg, but she should come right pretty quickly. 
On a aside, this morning whilst doing the fire, I could hear the deer in the hills in front of us roaring!  Hopefully I'm going to get out in the next few weeks for a hunt, fingers crossed!

 

 

 

 
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Thursday, March 19, 2009

Little owls

Over the last few days I've been hearing a strange bird call in the dusk, also heard it this morning on the way down to the office, it's another owl, probably a little brown, and it was about 2m from me...how cool, considering it is wild!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Connor the carnivore

 

 

 
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A bit more work on the dismantlement of the chook house.

 

 

 

 
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Connor Free falling.

 

 
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Connor

This morning, one of the cats left a present in the lounge in the form of a small mouse. Connor was very intrigued with it, so I gave it to him to look at (and cuddle).


So, is it a boy or girl?


Look Daddy, I've got a new friend


Nice cuddles for the little mouse.
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Friday, March 13, 2009

Monday, March 09, 2009

Sunday, March 08, 2009

A few misc shots from our trip to Auckland

 

 

 
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Ripping down the old chicken/vege bed

 

 

 
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A few photos from the weekend

 

 

 

 
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First photo from the trail camera

It's not that great, but it is Jag sniffing a dead rabbit. For some reason, it's out of focus, maybe the case is inteferring with the auto focus mech.
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Thursday, March 05, 2009

Playing with electronics





For the last few weeks, I've been playing around with making a TrailCamera, it's triggered by passive infra-red. Here's the results so far, I've got one bug left to sort out, not sure if it's software or electrical yet, and then I have to attach the glass and camo.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Being Shorn

Folks, Next Friday, I'm getting my head shaved for the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation.

Please go to my profile page, where you can sponsor me if you wish (you can use VISA so you can sponsor me regardless of what country you're in, hint hint)

My Profile

Friday, February 27, 2009

Very slack

Well, after chatting to Paula briefly, I decided that it was probably time I put some more photos up, and a quick rundown of whats happening on the farm. Please excuse the terseness.

Steph, Connor and I spent a week up in Auckland, and had a great time (unfortunately I can't find the photos at the moment!), but Steph and I had a couple days away by our selves at a marine reserve and had a great time. Ken launched one of his boats, and we all went fishing (including Connor).

I recently did a "try dive" to see if I would like scuba diving, and thought it was very cool, now to find the several hundred dollars to get my certification.

Steph and I went out hunting last weekend, got 55 rabbits and 2 hares, admittedly it was for over 150 bullets, so pretty poor performance, too many long range shots.

We've decided to start making some changes around here, and consequently have felled about a dozen trees so far, and more yet to come down. This is in order to make a new lawn, orchard and vege garden. It will take a few years before it looks nice again, but that's the way with plants.

Connor is pretty much always sleeping in a big bed now.

I've almost finished making a passive infra-red motion detecting camera (for mounting in trees to photograph wildlife). Hopefully you'll see some cool snaps soon (fingers crossed for the microprocessor to arrive today).

We've got rid of the last of our two kiko girls, and acquired 4 more angoras, unfortunatly that means probably after next shear or kidding, we'll be culling one of our girls (she always has foot problems and is off iffy temperment).

Vege garden is doing well, harvested the spuds, and put another 2 in, tomotatoes have gone mad, so we're now making tomatoe sauce, and it looks like we'll have chilli's coming out of our ears too!

Connor's swimming is going really well, he can now move around the pool quite confidently with armbands on.

We've just lost 2 rabbits to rabbit haemorrhagic disease (or RCD). Had to do my own autopsy. Fingers crossed that the young ones will be immune (young rabbits don't tend to fall to RHD). Thankfully the breeding stock are kept in cages off the ground, the ones in the overflow run were two babies that I didn't cull in time and subsequently had babies.

We've started preparing one paddock for resowing. I sprayed it out early last week, and will put down another 100L of glycophosphate in a weeks time or so, then rotavate and sow (hopefully in time for winter this year). I don't think we're putting in a winter crop like last year though.

The plough restoration has come to a grinding halt (no pun intended), I need to get some bits made up, and I have to remember to take them in to a engineering place to get a quote for them, might do that this afternoon, as I'm in town to get some new electric fence ground pegs (2m galv rods!)

I think that's about all, but now you're all up to speed on the developments at Littlebush.

Connor and his hobby horse

 
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Connor decided that being inside on a rainy day was boring.

 
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Connor making some mods to his tractor

 
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Monday, February 09, 2009

Been a while since the last post

Hopefully in the next few days I might get some photos up from our trip to Auckland, and some news of what's been happening around here...