Here’s a Tip – Keep Your Mouth Shut

26 August 2008 Thursday last week Aaron had a tattoo session. He was staying at Jeff’s for the night, which meant I had to finish work a couple of hours early so I could get home in time for the 4 O’clock feed out. It was a quiet evening and finally I had the opportunity to watch some rubbish tv. Unfortunately it was so rubbish I didn’t want to watch any of it. The dogs sleep outside on the verandah every night now and they were active that night. Every time they ran onto the verandah I woke up with a start, worried they were human footsteps. Eventually fatigue must have overcome me because I turned my alarm off in my sleep. I woke at 06:30, confused by the light coming in the door. Then I looked at my clock and realized I was actually supposed to be sitting at my desk at that very moment. What could I do? Quite frankly nothing. I still had to feed out and get ready and the drive in is 45 minutes. It didn’t matter how much I rushed I was going to be majorly late, so in the end I just tackled my morning routine at the usual pace. When I did get to work I went straight into the Charge Nurses office to apologise only to discover the cleaners had left my door open that night so everyone thought I was at work anyway. So clearly the moral of the story here is – admit nothing and you might just get away with it. We Shall Not Be Moooved Saturday morning, after the usual tasks we went into Wellsford RD1 to buy some more electric fencing and pig pellets. The dogs enjoyed the journey. As per usual Coppa spent most of it with his head hanging out the window.We came home and moved the cattle to the roadside paddock. We were expecting a storm and some flooding that evening so we wanted them to go straight across the back of the stream to the DoC paddock at the far end. Unfortunately they didn’t want to go and made their feelings known by running around the paddock trying to trample the dogs. We gave up and left them to it. Problems in the Coop Saturday after lunch I went into the coop to clean it. That’s when I made the awful discovery that the chickens had all been losing feathers and 2 had bald heads. Unfortunately because I’m currently only seeing the animals in the dark I don’t pick up on abnormalities as quick as I should. As for Aaron, animal observation is not his strong point, he’d never even realised. I watched the chooks for a while, they seemed a little unhappy but they weren’t off their food and they were laying just fine. Frank rang not long after that to say he’d meet us at the back fence. He’s having a tough winter, there’s not enough grass so he’s feeding out more silage than usual. He’s still working out in the bush during the week and with the winter we’ve been having he’s been wet most of the time. He was full of cold and clearly fed up with this season. However, it had been a beautiful morning so he’d spent it in his boat fishing. We swapped feta for fish. Frank suggested our chooks problem was lice. I wondered how they’d got them and then realized that bloody rat in the trap under the nesting box must have shaken off its lice. By this stage the vet and RD1 had closed for the weekend so we couldn’t go buy anything. I decided to go over to Koanga to see if they had any organic treatment. Unbelievably they’d just sold out. The only other option was to try Google a treatment on the Internet. And it was as I was doing this that I suddenly remembered that lice are host specific and the only way our chooks could have got lice was if they had come into contact with another bird. But how could that be? And then the penny dropped. Those sodding little sparrows! Yes they had found another way in. Aaron and I went into the coop and attempted to close up every gap we could find. There was no way the little buggers would get in now.I searched the Internet but could not find any treatment that used products we had in the house. The poor chooks would have to wait until Monday when I could drive to the vet. On Getting Old Saturday night the stormy weather hit. I got a call from mum to say Joy was in hospital. It appears she’s had a stroke. It doesn’t matter what hits Joy she always pulls through and gets back on with life but I’m not so sure this time. This will probably mean the end of her independence. I don’t envy the person who has to tell her she has to go into a home. She won’t go willingly. In fact, if she had the ability I’m sure she’d go kicking and screaming. Do I blame her? No. Do I understand? Yes. When you finally have to admit you can’t look after yourself it must kill something inside. It must surely be like someone has just extinguished your spirit. All those years of doing your own thing, making your own decisions, dispensing advice from your repertoire of been there, done that experiences and suddenly it all means sweet F A. It’s not like you’ve earned life credits that you can suddenly cash in now when you most need it. All that you were is now just a memory, and probably half the time not even yours. What you are now, who you are now is a shell of your former self. You think, you feel but your body just packs its bags and retires way before you’re ready and suddenly you’re left fearing you’re that burden you’d hoped you’d never be. You want my honest opinion? If it was me in that situation I’d just give up and die. F*** it. I don’t want be dependent on another person to tell me what to do and when to do it. I don’t want to have to rely on someone else to help me across the room in some shared old person’s facility where you know that once you’ve checked in the only way you’re checking out is in a box. That’s why I've decided that when I retire I’m moving to a retirement village with an aged care facility attached. I want to go in lively and make it my home. I want it to be my own decision to be there so if the time comes when I can’t make my own decisions there won’t be any major trauma involved in moving home. I want to choose my final home. And to be fair I don’t have kids to make that decision for me so who would? That’s an even scarier thought. We Consider Building an Ark Sunday was a write-off. The rain poured and eventually the bottom paddocks disappeared under water. Unbelievable. We were flooding yet again! In the morning we went to check on the cattle. The stupid bovine had decided not to leave their small paddock and the point of crossing was well under water, not to mention Baby Red’s knees. We yelled out to her to get out of the stream. The problem was it hadn’t been a stream when she’d originally chosen to stand there so she hadn’t figured out she had to move. I was concerned a large branch would float down stream and take her legs out so Aaron went and got her. We came back down a short while later. The stream had continue to rise and Baby Red was once again in the water. We moved all the cattle up to the ridge by the fenceline. By lunchtime virtually their whole paddock was under water. They cattle had no choice but to sit by the fence and wait it out. Aaron and I spent most of the day inside. Makin’ Bacon We needed to discuss what we were going to do with Belle once she returned from the butcher as portions of meat. Due to her age, which we were told was about 3 or 4 (but we’re thinking it’s more) she will become bacon, mince, sausages and salamis. There’s a small fortune in equipment to buy – mincer, sausage stuffer, scales, meat slicer, vaccum sealer, mixing and curing containers, salt, curing mix, sausage casings, etc. But in theory we’ll be using them at the very least every 6 months so we’ll just have to grin and bear it for now. There’ll be a lot of meat to process and Aaron suggested we have a sausage and salami making weekend or two that we can invite some people to. I thought it was a good idea. It would surely be more fun for people than say a ‘come help me paint my house’ weekend. Recycling at its Best We also discussed resowing the pig paddocks. Without mechanical equipment and not wanting to use chemical fertilizers we have our work cut out for us. Saturday morning we’d watched 'Rural Delivery' on tv and saw an extremely productive dairy farm which only fertilized with effluent. Of course they had hi-tech, expensive systems to mix and spread effluent and our system would have to be extremely low tech with no cost attached, if we were lucky. I tried last year to dump animal manure in barrels of water but it just floats and then spreading it was a pain in the bum because it involved manually throwing buckets of the stuff into the air on a windy air. I went on the Internet to look for a better method and discovered someone’s blog suggesting that Hessian sacks be used as giant tea bags. What a fabulous idea. Now I just had to get hold of Hessian sacks. Trade Me was my first port of call but I was reluctant to fork out $4 for a used sack. I kept searching and then I found it –http://www.nothrow.co.nz Oh my god. What an absolutely brilliant site. It’s basically businesses all around New Zealand that have bulk items of used goods/waste product for collection. All I have to do is email a business if I’m interested and ask if I can collect. I discovered that Atomic Coffee regularly has Hessian sacks to give away. By Wednesday Troy had collected 20 sacks for me. I also discovered the Matakana Sawmill wants people to collect their untreated macrocarpa sawdust. I fired off an email on Monday and within 5 minutes got a phone call advising me I could collect anytime during business hours. The only bad about viewing the website was discovering that several orchards down south want to get rid of their waste fruit. Oh to be a pig farmer in the Tauranga / Katikati area! A New Home The other thing we discussed as we sat and watched the lousy weather was rehousing the chickens. We were well overdue building the chicken dome and the chickens need to be able to scratch around on the grass. The dome will take a couple of weekends to build and we need the wire from the current coop for the dome. What to do?... I suggested we look at building a temporary rabbit hutch type house that we can just move around the back garden until we’re ready to build the dome and the permaculture garden. Aaron sketched a plan and we worked out a rough costing. I’m guessing it’ll be at least October before we can afford to build it. Thinking About Belle Eventually the rain stopped, the sun came out and we went for a walk with the dogs. We decided to extend Belle’s paddock back to the entrance gate. We moved the standards, redid the wire and I went and got the secateurs to cut back the flax leaves touching the wire. Initially I threw all the flax leaves on the ground and then it occurred to me that the cattle love eating flax. I picked up all the leaves and took them over to the cattle. They clearly didn’t know what to do with them as usually they just suck and chew the flax leaves while they’re still attached to the plant. I cut each leaf into small pieces and eventually they figured out how to pick them up and chew them. Late afternoon Aaron got a call from Alec, the slaughterman. They discussed what to do with Belle. We discovered that a pig that is going to be used for standard meat cuts has to have its skin scalded immediately after the killing. Then we realized that normal household water isn’t nearly hot enough. Our only option with pigs will be to take them to the slaughterman for killing. I’m not keen on the idea but in the end we have no option. However, due to Belle’s age she’ll need to be skinned so scalding isn’t an issue. Aaron went to bed early and I stayed up for a while. Eventually I put the dogs out and locked up and then it hit me, a massive attack of the guilts. I burst into tears. Suddenly the fate of Belle seemed too awful to comprehend. I got into bed, had a good cry and then went to sleep. I’d had the same issue when Big Red’s time had come but I dealt with it. In the end I just have to release the emotion and then I can move on. The way I want to raise our animals, with a personal touch, means that I will probably always feel some guilt, However, I firmly believe that good tasting meat comes from well treated animals. I have read that food prepared with love tastes better than food prepared as a matter of routine and I like to think that that also applies to the raising of meat. Brussel Sprouts – a Universally Hated Vegetable Monday was a beautiful warm, sunny day. How glad I was that I had the day off. I fed out the pigs early. All the troughs contained uneaten brussel sprouts. We had been very lucky to get to get 2 crates of brussel sprouts from the orchard. Unfortunately the pigs hate them. It doesn’t even matter if they’re covered in cheese, the pigs suck them clean and spit them out. The brussel sprout collection had been building up in the troughs all week so finally I scraped them out and started throwing them into the paddock. Maybe the sheep would eat them or the pigs would discover them and decide, “What the hell, I'll have a snack”. If all else failed perhaps the rabbits would eat them instead of the grass. I also put some of them back into the feed bucket and rinsed them off in the stream. I took them into where the cattle were and tipped them out. The cattle sniffed them cautiously, then looked at me with a ‘what the hell is this crap?’ look on their faces and turned around and walked away. Back at the house Coppa ran over to the crate of sprouts and grabbed one and ate it. Good boy! He got a couple more and brought them into the house where he devoured them enthusiastically. Somehow I don’t think I’m going to be able to convince him to eat a whole crate’s worth though. The Downside of Living in the Country After 9 I grabbed my bag, put the dogs in the car and we drove into Maungaturoto. What a mission! There were 3 stop and go roadworks to get through. The dogs quickly got bored with the 30km speed. It’s not exactly fast enough to really feel the wind whipping through the fur. I went to the vet and they’d run out of lice powder for chooks. I then went over to RD1 and they no longer stocked it. Unbelievable, it doesn’t matter where I shop in Northland every sodding shop has run out of what I want. Every damn time I shop for something, groceries, hardware, whatever there’s always something I can’t have. Shopping was so much easier in Auckland. I can’t believe how painful it is to shop up north. We drove home back through the roadworks empty handed. In the end all I managed was to waste 90 minutes of my life and few bucks worth of petrol. Ah well, at least it was sunny.I spent the rest of the day doing housework. Getting Rid of Lice Aaron came home with lice powder and we went into the chicken coop. By this stage I’d already discovered that if you pick up a hen Marty will attack. He is extremely protective of his girls and an attacking rooster is not an experience I recommend. If only he was a friendly and laidback as his namesake. Mind you, now that I think about it, if I was man-handling Marty’s girlfriend he’d probably respond in a similar fashion. Aaron cornered Marty in one section of the garden (I’m talking about the rooster here) and held him at bay with windnetting. We ran around after the hens, eventually catching each one and then did our best to cover the hens in the highly toxic smelling lice powder. (I swear it’s the same stuff we used to use on the guinea pigs when I was a kid). Then it was Marty’s turn. I left the catching up to Aaron. Marty wasn’t going down without a fight. In the end Aaron had to throw windnetting over him. That meant we could only douse his underneath but it was better than nothing and apparently that’s where most of the lice congregate anyway.

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

20 August 2008

Last week passed by relatively quietly.

Tuesday evening I got a long overdue haircut. Just a trim, or so I thought until I put my glasses back on and thought “Holy crap! Where the **** is my hair?!?” No worries, I told myself. I’m married. I’m not in my 20’s anymore. I don’t need to find a husband. I can cope. I left the hairdresser with wet hair. I got home with dry hair and curls.

Curls?! Where the hell did the curls come from? I used to pay a fortune for those. I assumed it was something to do with having the heater on and the car window slightly ajar. The next morning I straightened it. And it took far longer than usual. And worst of all I didn’t like the look.

Thursday morning I got out of the shower and thought “What the hell, lets blast it dry with the hairdryer and see what happens”. Curls! All day staff were complimenting me “Wow, you look great”, “You look heaps younger”, etc What an ego boost.

But now I’m worried. How come I’ve got curls? Where did they come from? Will I just wake up one morning and they won’t be there anymore? I had a wave. That was it. A slight, wonky, hideous wave that had to be straightened into non existence on a daily basis. Now I have my sister Sarah’s wonderful, fluffy, bouncy, loose curls. The ones I desperately wished I had. What the hell?!? You don’t just get stuff just cos’ you want it.

I’m freaking out slightly. This is too good to be true. But hey, what the heck, while we’re here and the wishes are being granted, please, please please let me win the Lotto1st division this weekend!

Pest Control

Thursday morning I fed out the chickens and discovered a rat in the trap. Unbelievably it wasn’t dead. I can only assume it had just been caught. Bloody hell, what was I going to do? I had to kill it but with its head inside the trap, other than chopping it in half or whacking it with something I didn’t see I had many options. Quite frankly I didn’t know if I’d be up to the task. Then I walked out of the chicken coop and one of the dogs ran up and grabbed the rat’s body in its mouth. Problem solved! I would hand over the responsibility.

I released the rat from the trap. Coppa ran off with it. Only problem was he dropped it to have a look at it and it squeaked loudly. Whisky heard and came running. Coppa grabbed the rat in his mouth and tried to hide. Whisky wanted to see and Coppa didn’t want him to and he didn’t want to kill it until he’d had a good look at it. Bugger that. I tried to take it off him but he wasn’t having any of that. I dragged Whisky away and got the pig’s breakfasts.

Coppa kept dropping the rat and it would squeak loudly and then Whisky would run over and it just became hideously painful to watch and listen. “Kill the bloody thing will you!” I had no option but to head down the drive with the breakfasts. Coppa followed with his rat. While I was feeding Belle the dogs started to scrap. It was too dark to see so I yelled.

When I saw them in the light of my headlamp neither had the rat and Coppa was growling. Not a good sign. Joy and Phyllis were making an absolute racket.And so it was - “Hold on girls I’m coming. Boys, be nice! Be nice! I’m coming! Be Nice! Alright I’m coming!”

I fed the girls as fast as possible and then back got over the fence to make sure I was ready to sort out any further scraps. I adjusted the electric fencing around Belle’s paddock. It had rained heavily during the night and the stream was up and quite close to the fencing standards. We walked back up the drive and I caught a glimpse of Whisky munching on the rat. By the time we’d got to the top of the drive he’d finished eating it. It was best this way. The last time Coppa had a rat he kept it as a trophy in his run until its lifeless body was starting to squirm and writhe once again. Euwww! When he wasn’t looking I got a spade and biffed it into the compost.

Stormy Weather

Thursday night, close to midnight the electrical storm started. The dogs are terrified of thunder. Aaron’s alarm went off at 2am. I don’t think we’d got any sleep for those 2 hours.

On more than one occasion one of us had had to get up to try calm the boys down. Sometimes they get so panicked it becomes doggie hysteria. They bark, they cry, they whimper and they just generally go berserk trying to find the source of the thunder. Aaron got dressed and left for work.

For the first time the dogs followed him to the gate. They clearly wanted dad to save them. He gave them such a telling off they sprinted back up the drive to the house. The storm continued and I ended up getting up a couple more times, once to calm them down and once to stop Whisky beating up Coppa.

At 4:15am my alarm went off. Sleep had eluded me.The whole time I was feeding out thunder rumbled across the sky. The dogs raced around going completely mental so I had to keep stopping what I was doing to give them reassuring chest rubs. The stream was even higher this morning so I had to adjust Belle’s fencing again. Then as I started walking back up the drive the wind and driving rain hit really hard and there was such a wall of sound that it actually scared me. I fully expected to be hit by something, flash flood, tornado, something, but nothing happened.

Despite the raincoat I was absolutely soaked by the time I got to the house. The dogs didn’t want to go in their run. I got the pleading, scared, begging look and I came extremely close to ringing in sick just so I could cuddle my boys better (not to mention get some sleep). However, I decided to harden up and I shut them in and went inside to get changed.

As I went to leave Coppa was sitting in the pelting rain by the doorway to his run. He refused the offered treat he always gets before I leave and just looked at me, pleading with me with his eyes. Man, talk about guilt trip! I felt like the worst mum in the world. Thank god they don’t speak, I’d never be able to cope. I drove off and Coppa flipped out and started barking incredibly aggressively. I stopped and reversed the car. I yelled out to him to calm down and eventually he did. I left for work.

How Much Does A Pig Weigh?

While googling on the internet for info about pigs I discovered a calculation for ascertaining the weight of one’s pig. This was fabulous. Previous attempts to get the pigs to stand on our bathroom scales had failed miserably, besides, the last thing we need is big muddy piggies traipsing through the house and into the bathroom.

Unbelievably we didn’t even need scales. All we needed was a tape measure and to wait until the pigs were eating so they’d stand still long enough to be measured. When we fed out next Aaron got in with a tape measure.

The first measurement is around the pig, just behind the front legs to get the heart girth in inches. The next measurement is the spine measurement from ears to tail, again in inches. As Aaron measured I wrote the measurements down. Back at the house Aaron got out the calculator. Heart girth x heart girth x length / 400 = pounds of weight, with an extra 7 pounds added for pigs over 150kg. Aaron then worked out the kilo weight and we ended up with Stanley 51kg (4 ½ months) Spotty 151kg (9 months) Joy 142kg (9 months) Phyllis 148kg (9 months) Belle 256kg (4-5 years) This would seem a reasonably accurate way of measuring pig weight, as we know Belle was roughly 270kg on arrival and she has since lost weight.

Blokes In Sheds

Friday evening Troy and Russell picked Aaron up at work and they headed up to Kaiwaka. Troy and Russell spent the evening putting the repaired gearbox in the ute. What a relief it will be to have it up and running once again. The boys finished about 8ish and I started making dinner. Marty visited to drop off his block and tackle and air compressor and ended up crashing out on the sofa for the night. After dinner I went to bed and the boys stayed up drinking, chatting and watching the Olympics.

Spotty Discovers The Love Shack

Saturday morning Aaron and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 7:30.We moved the cattle onto the bottom paddock early morning. It’s the only place with grass the cattle can actually get to at the moment. It was heartbreaking watching them walk onto the sodden ground knowing it will be a complete mess by the end of the week.

With cattle moved we decided it was time to put Belle and Spotty together. Spotty and Stanley happily trotted up to the gate when called but then we had to find a way of separating them. I started giving Stanley scratches and belly rubs and he was automatically in piggie heaven, oblivious to the gate Aaron was holding wide open.

Unfortunately Spotty wasn’t interested in going through the gate. He wanted scratches as well. Eventually Aaron convinced him to go through the gate and Spotty was soon happily trotting down the drive and into his new paddock.

And so we stood there, watching as Spotty discovered the scent of Belle and went quickly looking for her. Belle emerged from her house, realised Spotty was there and started to tense up. Spotty went up to her all excited and she lashed out. Spotty hesitated but then he tried again, grunting appreciatively, grinding his jaw and frothing at the mouth.They clashed again.

She drew blood. Side by side they stood, unsure what to do next. He grunted, she lashed out again and with that he quickly turned around and trotted back to us. Belle went back inside her house. On further inspection Spotty had some deep wounds. They’d need cleaning and disinfecting. He’d be alright. We hoped that would be the end of the aggression.

I gave Spotty some reassuring rubs and then checked on Belle and the house. I discovered Belle had snapped 4 slats of the pallets she was sleeping on. These would have to be fixed quickly to avoid leg injuries. Aaron went and got some plywood, wooden planks and nails and I sat in the house to make sure Spotty didn’t come in and hurt himself.

Aaron came back down and started fixing the flooring and I wandered back up the drive to get some more hay for the house. When I got to the shed I could see poor Stanley racing around looking for his best friend. That was all it took to get a lump in the throat. My poor little Stanley was all alone! By the time I returned Belle was asleep and Spotty was wandering the perimeter and getting worked up.

Stanley Is Lonely

We went up to the house to get something to eat and then we wandered back down the hill. Poor Stanley looked lonely.

I suggested that maybe we put the girls with him for company. That meant we could also move the sheep into the girls’ paddock as they were now desperately short of feed in the southern paddock.

We fetched some cheese and got the girls up the drive. As usual it was a very easy move. The girls happily trotted up the drive with us.We put them in Stanley’s paddock and called Stanley over. He saw the girls and it was an automatic ‘What the hell, who are you?” reaction from Stanley. But then he realised they were girls and started grunting heavily and frothing at the mouth.

Unfortunately Joy is in heat so she was giving off all the right signals. Poor little Stanley was like a horny little teenager. However, a few quick gentle nips from Joy and Phyllis quickly put him in his place. The girls trotted off to reacquaint themselves with their old paddock and Stanley trotted excitedly after them. Knowing he was far too small to mount either girl we left them to it.  

3 Men, A Tree And A Chainsaw

As Troy and Russell wanted to head back to Auckland no later than 2pm we had an early lunch and then the boys went down to the stream with the block and tackle and chainsaw to bring down a tree that had partially fallen in the storm. I understand Russell (The man who fears nothing) risked life and limb to climb the tree and attack it with the chainsaw. At one stage the tree rolled, with Russell on it. He survived, the boys were impressed and I decided I didn’t want to hear about it because quite frankly it’s best I don’t know the stupid things men do.

Crazy Chickens

While the men did battle with a tree I cleaned out the chicken coop. The hens seemed hungry so I took in a plate of pellets and a bowl of crumbled feta. I turned around to pull the door shut with my foot and suddenly there was a hen digging her talons into my arm pecking crazily at the bowl in my hand. She wouldn’t let go until I put the bowl down. That crazy hen must have smelt it as soon as I got in the door. I’m sure feta is not the best thing for chickens but they sure do love it.

Killing Time

We fed out early, and then Troy drove us to Puhoi, where we picked up Aaron’s car from work. We drove straight to Kevin and Raewyn’s and dropped off some cheese for the party that night. With 2 hours to kill we made a couple of errands and then made a surprise visit to Jo and Phil’s. We stayed for a couple of hours, watching the Olympics and chatting. It was a very pleasant afternoon and I even held Blake for a while. Then Jo asked me the parent’s version of “Does my bum look big in this?” – “Don’t you think he’s cute?” Uhhhh… Crap. What could I say? Quite frankly I just don’t think babies are cute unless they come with 4 legs and have fur. I think my response may have been “Well he’s not ugly or unpleasant looking”. I think Jo took it the right way, although I suspect I’m the only person who would get away with a comment like that without offending.

Kevin's 50th

We spent the evening at Kevin’s 50th birthday celebrations. The evening was cold and wet but we kept dry under the large verandah. Troy and Jacqui were also guests and Dre was looking after the spit. Aaron was sober driver so it was an early evening for us. The birthday cake was lit at about 8:30, happy birthday was sung and then Kevin proposed to Raewyn. What a shock.

Thank god Raewyn was happy about it because it would have been damned near impossible to say no in front of all those people. And so shortly after 9 we left for home. I put the seat back and pretty much slept the whole way home. I went to bed as soon as I got home and Aaron spent the night in the lounge watching numerous sporting events.

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not

Sunday was a struggle for both of us as far as motivation goes. Aaron was tired and I was quite simply completely over the weather. We got into it though. We always do. Hell, there’s no choice really!

And then Aaron discovered Belle and Spotty had had another fight and she’d completely shredded his ear. I went and had a look. He wasn’t a happy piggie. He was covered in bite marks and his ear was a bloody mess. I felt just absolutely terrible. Belle, as always, was back in her house sleeping.

This is not how we had imagined things working out. With only a few short weeks left before we send Spotty to the butcher we had wanted them to be happy ones. We kept an eye on them during the day and I gave Spotty numerous hugs and rubs. We just hoped like hell their differences were now sorted.

Sheep On The Move

The rest of the animals seemed happy enough so we decided that we would also move the sheep from Stanley’s paddock onto Naniwha Hill. It required taking down a large section of electric fencing and offering sheep nuts as a bribe. That meant keeping the pigs away.

We tried a couple of times but each time the pigs heard us and came sprinting. In the end Aaron worked with the sheep when I fed out the pigs’ dinner. The sheep hesitated and pissed around for ages and we only just managed to re-erect the fencing before Phyllis finished dinner and sprinted over to see what we were up to.

Frank had left a message on Aaron’s phone while we were moving the sheep “Would you like to buy some mud?” It seems we’re not the only ones struggling this winter.

Sleeping With The Enemy

Monday arrived all too quickly. At 7:30 I fed out only to discover another pig fight had taken place. The front wall of the love shack had been completely knocked out, a panel of wood from the house lay on the driveway and part of the electric fencing was knocked down. There were bloody splatters inside and outside the house. Belle was sleeping inside and Spotty was nowhere to be seen.

I started to freak out and then I saw him near the stream under a flax bush. I woke him up and got him up for breakfast. I fed the 2 of them and checked out Spotty’s wounds. She’d attacked his ear again as well as his face and neck. My wonderful, happy Spotty was a bruised and unhappy piggie.

I didn’t know what to do except put all the pigs back in their own paddocks but I didn’t think I could do it on my own. It started to rain yet again and I hung around for a while. Belle finished eating and wandered off. Spotty wandered off in the opposite direction. I stayed with him for a while. Rubbing his belly and snout and talking to him. He was very subdued.

I took the dogs back up to the house and had breakfast.Aaron phoned as I sat drinking my coffee. I told him what had happened. I was upset and angry. There wasn’t a hope in hell Spotty would get Belle pregnant and I would never let Arthur near her.

It had all become crystal clear. I now knew why Belle had not been pregnant when she’d arrived. Like the naïve small farmers we were we had clearly been duped. The man who got rid of her wasn’t getting rid of a dearly loved pig, he was getting rid of 270kg of PMT on 4 legs.

She may have had piglets before but I can almost guarantee they were when she was smaller and easy to dominate. The only way to get Belle pregnant would be with a much larger and slightly more aggressive boar. This is something we neither have nor want.

Aaron was angry as well. He decided there and then her fate was sealed. By lunchtime he’d rung the butcher. Spotty had won a small reprieve. We cannot put them both in the freezer at once so his time will come later. Aaron wanted Spotty out of the paddock as soon as possible. I took some camembert down to Spotty and tried to persuade him to leave. Unfortunately he’d zapped his nose on the electric fence on the Sunday and was clearly terrified about walking past the boundary line, even with a section of fencing removed. It took a good 10 minutes to get him onto the driveway but from there it was a fairly easy walk up into the girl’s old paddock.

Sometimes You Just Need Your Mates

The rest of Monday drifted by all too fast. It rained frequently and heavily and every time I went outside I seemed to get wet. Aaron rang again. He wanted Stanley put in with Spotty in the hope that it would lift his spirits. The only problem was the paddock was full of girl pig smells and I suspected it had something to do with all the pig poo. I didn’t want to put Stanley in until I could eliminate some of the smell in case it made both boys aggressive towards each other. That meant picking up 3 months worth of poo.

After 2 hours of poo collecting I still wasn’t finished, my back was sore and I didn’t think I could face walking up the hill to the compost again. Then Aaron arrived home and I called it quits. We fed out the animals and then we went and got Stanley. He happily trotted down the drive with us and up into the paddock.Spotty came out to greet him.

Unfortunately Stanley was covered in girl smells and Spotty got confused. For several minutes Spotty chased Stanley around the paddock until eventually Stanley realised he couldn’t keep running forever. He would have to remind Spotty who he was. He stopped and spun around. It started to absolutely piss down with rain. Several minutes of grunting and rubbing snouts went by and finally Spotty calmed down. We showed Stanley his new home and then left them too it and took the dogs for a walk next door. I felt completely mentally exhausted.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

At the moment I feel like it’s taking every ounce of effort I can muster just to stand upright. I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this weather. It’s not the place, not the life, not the hard work that’s grinding me down. It’s the rain, the incessant rain that is attacking my will to live at the moment. I am constantly on the verge of tears. As soon as something goes wrong I feel myself starting to panic. If this farm was our livelihood I couldn’t cope with these conditions. Sometimes it hurts just to think.

At the moment we’re achieving nothing, we’re just existing until the weather becomes drier and we can make some progress. There’s absolutely no sense of satisfaction in our daily lives. We just lurch from day to day trying to solve problems. Every now and then it will start raining (again!) and one of us will just lose the plot and start screaming expletives at the sky.

In our world rain has now become synonymous with the “F” word. It’s not just us of course, the farming people we speak to seem to be reeling from one problem to another as well. Large amounts of money, time and energy are being spent on fixing problems the weather has caused. The willow trees are suddenly covered with tiny leaves of green this week. Spring is on its way. It’s the one flicker of light in the gloom that I find myself desperately clinging to.

The Postman Delivers To The Wrong Address

12 August 2008 Last Monday one of our stops on the way back from the Warkworth orchard was at Topuni timber to order 50 fenceposts and a roll of sheep netting. As I waited in the car while Aaron went inside the sales office, an old car pulled up at right angles to me. Quite startlingly one side of the bonnet appeared to be covered in blood and then a scruffy young male got out and he appeared drenched in blood from the waist down. My mind was spinning. Had he hit someone?! Had he been hit? He went inside the office and I found myself staring at the bloody bonnet wondering what the hell to do, if anything!? Then he emerged from the office again with an older male and they walked to the boot, which when opened released 3 excited, happy looking dogs. One of them had a nasty gash to the thigh. Surely he hadn’t hit a dog? Suddenly it occurred to me - I have seriously been watching way too much of the Crime & Investigation channel! One of the dogs ran over to our car to say hello to Whisky and Coppa. I bet they thought the smell on that pig dog was just wonderful. As we left I could see the trussed up wild pig in the boot of his car. My mouth started watering at the thought of how good that wild pork was probably going to taste. Wednesday the fencing was delivered. Aaron waited all day to get the call so he could show the delivery man where to drop the fenceposts. Eventually he gave up and rang the yard and was told they were delivered. No they weren’t. Yes they were. No they weren’t. And then at some stage during the conversation it all became clear. They were delivered alright but not to us. They were in fact sitting at the top of our next door neighbour Gary’s drive. Crap! And so, over the next couple of days Aaron walked posts across Gary’s lawn and through the bush to our place. The posts are sodden and weigh 10 - 15kg each. The path through the bush is muddy and slippery. It wasn’t easy going. On one journey Aaron strained his back. On Saturday I carried 2 posts through and quite frankly that was as many as I wanted to carry. There were now 16 in a pile in the bush, 34 still on Gary’s drive and I was concerned about the mess we were starting to make of Gary’s lawn. Cleaning Out Early Saturday morning I massaged Aaron’s back for him. The pulled muscle made it difficult for him to sleep. We also had a stack load of work to do so he needed to be able to move around. After everyone had been fed we headed down to the pig paddocks to clean out. I told Aaron he could scrub the troughs this time. It needs a lot of elbow grease and I wanted to clean the housing instead. So Aaron scrubbed the troughs and Spotty and Stanley kept him company, tasting his cleaning water, trying to eat the bucket and sticking their snouts in his face and grunting piggy conversation at him. I swept out the boys van and scraped the dried mud off the floor. As per usual the old straw got put either side of the doorway to try soak up the mud so the piggies don’t get their trotters too muddy before retiring for the night. Contrary to popular belief, piggies do not like a dirty home. The drier and cleaner the better.I fluffed up the new hay into a big pile. There’s no point spreading it out too much as the piggies will always rearrange it to their liking. Next we went down to the girl’s paddock. Joy and Phyllis were straight out of the shed and grunting madly at Aaron and his bucket. I went inside the shed and Belle was sleeping. Hmmm. I woke her up as gently as possible and then had to persuade her to get up. It took a few minutes. She was warm and comfortable and in no rush to get up. I started clearing out the hay around her, putting it at the entrance to the shed – another mud collection point. I heard Aaron swearing at one of the girls. Phyllis was standing next to Aaron with her head inside a tipped over bucket. Aaron took the bucket off her and so she and Joy decided to come into the shed with me. It’s not the easiest trying to sweeping out with trotters and bodies in the way. I tried pulling the hay out from under Belle’s 250kg frame. It wasn’t budging. She got the hint, stood up and shook her head. I leapt backwards. If there’s one thing to avoid it’s being ear slapped by a pig! If a pig’s just woken up it will shake its head quite vigorously and those big, heavy ears go flying. A few times in the morning I’ve been half asleep and had either Joy or Phyllis ear slap me as I’m feeding out. It actually hurts quite a bit. People keep warning us to watch out we don’t get bitten by the pigs. Trust me, a little nip is nothing compared to an ear slap. With Belle moving out of the way I continued sweeping. Joy and Belle started having a bit of an argument. I don’t know what those too argue about, just petty little things probably but Joy usually starts it. They’ll grunt aggressively, bash snouts, ear slap each other and then move on off in different directions. Joy came back over to me and started her usual trick of trying to eat the broom. So I stopped and started scraping the dried mud off the floor with the trowel. Phyllis didn’t much like the noise and kept trying to get in the way. Eventually the house was clean and the new hay went down. This is always a great source of entertainment for the girls. Joy and Phyllis automatically start eating it and Belle tries to rearrange it mouthful by mouthful. With the girls happy we went back up to the house. A Prickly Situation It had started to rain. Aaron started turning the compost and I went into the chicken coop to start scraping out all the willow mulch. Then Aaron realised we needed to put the vege waste through the chipper before he could finish turning the compost. We went to the carport and I stood watching Aaron for a couple of minutes as he lopped willow branches to put through the chipper. We hadn’t dragged much willow up the drive so I went and got some large cut branches of totara from down the bank behind the house that had been sitting there since last spring. I gave these to Aaron and then suddenly remembered we were going to cut out the gorse on Naniwha Hill for mulching. I wanted the loppers. Aaron handed me the hedgeclippers. No, I’d wait for the loppers thanks. Aaron insisted I take the hedgeclippers as standing waiting for the loppers was wasting time. We argued, he won as per usual and I stormed off down the drive with the dogs behind. The hedgeclippers weren’t going to work unless I chopped off individual branches. I wanted to lop the plants off at the base. So I stood there telling Baby Red exactly what I thought of men and Whisky and Coppa what I thought of their father and then trudged back up the hill with the hedgeclippers and no gorse. Aaron had finished lopping and was chipping. He was not pleased to see me empty handed. He decided he was going to take the hedgeclippers down the hill and prove a point. He went off to get his Swanni so I grabbed the loppers and took off down the hill again. Both thoroughly pissed off with each other, Aaron carried on chipping and I cut gorse. As per usual, when I did return we had neither the energy or time to continue being pissed off at each other. The gorse proved to be a nightmare as far as chipping goes. It’s too fibrous or bendy or something. It just didn’t want to go through and when it eventually did it didn’t chip all that well. It’s a shame because it’s so high in nitrogen it would be excellent for composting. Perhaps next time we should cut it, leave it to dry and then chip it. Some Nesting Boxes Are Better Than Others Once everything was chipped we carried on with composting and chicken coop cleaning. As I cleaned the coop one of the hens sat in her nesting box. (Late morning seems to be the time for laying at our place.) She sat and laid her egg but before she could finish another hen decided she also needed to lay an egg. Now, as I’ve previously explained, we have 2 nesting boxes. One was being used as a chicken toilet so I moved it next to the other one and the pooping stopped. However, the hens don’t want to use it for laying yet. So there we had 2 hens, one who’d just laid an egg and wanted to sit on it for a while and the other wanting to start laying. So the 2 hens jostled for space, eventually ending up topping and tailing in the box. They were clearly both uncomfortable but neither was willing to relinquish her spot. I carried on cleaning out the old mulch and left them too it. At some point the girls both came out of the house and the 3rd one went in. By the time I had started spreading new mulch on the pathway we had 3 warm eggs in the nesting box. We stopped for lunch…We had lots of eggs in the fridge. We now get at least 2 eggs a day and quite often 3. Aaron suggested we have scrambled eggs. What the hell, suddenly it’s a luxury we can afford. I scrambled them up with a sprinkling of salt and pepper and added a teaspoon of butter just before serving. What can I say? We both noticed the flavour. The eggs tasted absolutely lovely and it sure as heck wasn’t the butter. Clearly the chickens’ diet is having a positive effect on the taste of the eggs. I have to say it’s wonderfully gratifying to know that all this hard work is paying off in terms of food quality and flavour. How to Outsmart a Sparrow The dogs have discovered a wonderful new game. It seems a family of sparrows have discovered not only that the chickens have convenient pellets of food to eat but also how to get into the chicken coop and get those pellets. The dogs in turn have discovered that sparrows flying around in the coop equals captive entertainment. The dogs see the sparrows and launch themselves into the air at the walls of the coop. The sparrow panics and flies across to the opposite wall, where invariably another dog is waiting to launch an attack. This carries on until either we figure out what is happening and yell at the boys to stop or the sparrow escapes. Initially it completely freaked out the chickens but they quickly learnt that the dogs were not actually trying to attack them and now barely seem to notice. Except of course if one of the dogs tries to attack a sparrow sitting on top the henhouse and there’s a hen inside laying. I suspect it is a bit like an earthquake and quite unnerving for an unsuspecting hen. I’ve been trying to figure out where the sparrows get in and out from. There’s a few small gaps in the windnet roof but I couldn’t believe they were flying in through there. And then on Monday, as I stood at the kitchen bench I looked out the window, and there on top of the hen house were half a dozen sparrows. I watched as they each hopped up to the wire and suddenly they were inside flying around. Aha! I went outside and checked and sure enough there was a perfect little doorway between roof and wire. I adjusted the wire and went back inside to watch. Sure enough the sparrows flew back to the roof. They were mightily confused. Each sparrow tried to find the doorway without success. Eventually they got frustrated and flew off. Although it may have actually been my standing on the verandah shouting out “Got you ya bastards!”that made them leave. Of course they’ll find another way in. Sparrows are so annoyingly persistent that I wouldn’t put it past them to dig a tunnel if they had to. A Rare Journey South We fed out early on Saturday. We had to go to Auckland for Wattie’s 50th so needed to leave by 4. We headed to Whangaparaoa first where we dropped off some beef off to one of Aaron’s mates and then we dropped in to see Jeff for 5 minutes. We went straight to mum’s after that. Jo, Phil and Blake turned up and mum made us all dinner. We were there for about an hour and as always it was good to catch up. Blake was certainly more alert than the first time I met him. He was absolutely fascinated by the tv and the pictures on the walls but quite frankly not the slightest bit interested in me when I tried to engage him in polite conversation. It is only because he is 2 months old that I shall forgive such rude behaviour. Okay, I admit it, I was slightly offended. But then his mum made it all better. Apparently Jo sings songs to him and one of them is “Aunty Lisa has a Farm”.This is flattering beyond belief. Growing up I had always imagined I would become the eccentric, child-hating aunt that was rarely talked about and usually avoided but now I’m Aunty Lisa who has a farm, E-I-E-I-O! Just after 7 we headed off to the party. Phil joined us but Jo decided to go home with Blake. Phil left soon after he arrived. Turns out he had the house keys with him. When we arrived the guests were all deathly quiet in the livingroom watching The Warriors. Okay, so I’m not a sports fan but I wasn’t coming all the way to Auckland just to watch tv. Mum and I stood in the dining room chatting. I caught up with Donna and then Wattie and eventually others wandered out and the party got going. We ended up having a really good time but as I was driving home we left by 11:30. The drive home was long and slow. I absolutely loathe driving in the dark when I’m tired. It’s all I can do just to keep the car on the road. Aaron literally passed out in the passenger seat before we’d even left Glenfield. He was slouched forward and I could tell the strain on his neck wasn’t going to do any favours for his back. Try as I did, I couldn’t wake him. When we did get home he could barely stand and literally fell into bed straight away. He didn’t even manage to undress. I let the dogs out as they were worked up and in need of exercise. It was one hell of a cold night. I stayed up until 2am letting them run around as I tried to snuggle up on the couch under a duvet. However, they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be in or out and I swear I must have got up about 20 times just to open the door for them.They were still hyped up at 2 so I put them in their run lest they start fighting. I then climbed into bed myself. It was a rough sleep. The dogs barked frequently and I was constantly waking up. Winter Wonderland I woke up at 6 and Aaron was in a lot of pain. I massaged his back again and then got up and got dressed. While I was feeding the dogs I could hear Aaron throwing up in the bathroom. It looked like I would be feeding out the animals by myself. The world was a wonderful frosty white outside. It was damn cold too. The ice in the dogs’ and chickens’ water bowls was frozen over. While I was feeding out the chickens I noticed a disturbing sight. There appeared to be broken egg shell under one of the nesting boxes. Sure enough, one of the hens had randomly laid an egg during the night and a rat had found it, taken it and broken it open. All that was left was sticky pieces of shell and rat poo. I cleaned it up and shoved a rat trap underneath the box. I started chopping up the pig’s breakfasts but my hands became so numb I couldn’t feel anything. I filled a bowl with hot water and frequently immersed my hands as I prepared the pig breakfasts. As I walked down to feed the pigs my hands became so cold they hurt. It was that awful, awful cold pain that brings tears to the eyes. By the time I got to the girls paddock I’d lost all feeling in my hands and was unable to scrape the feta off the inside of the buckets. Back up at the house I thrust my hands back in the bowl of warm water. I’m not sure it was the right thing to do. The pain was so unbearable I had to take them out again. God knows how people cope with frostbite. This was quite literally the coldest my hands have ever been. I went back inside for my own breakfast and lit the fire. Aaron was not well. At one stage he emerged from the bedroom to advise he was in so much pain he needed his back massaged. The day outside was turning out to be quite lovely. Troubles With IT I needed to email my CV off to a mining company that day. I had to attach a cover letter but then I realized my template was on the external hard drive and it had crashed just over a week ago. I plugged it in and the laptop froze. I had to unplug everything and remove the battery to get it going again. It did it 3 times in a row and my blood was beginning to boil. The 4th time nothing crashed but the drive wouldn’t display any folders. I played around with it for about an hour, trying different things and finally I got all the folders and their contents to display. I transferred everything back on to the laptop before the external drive could crash again. It took over an hour and a lot of my patience but at least our seemingly lost files were once again active. Of course the laptop has now run out of space… Ah well, brother Matt is going to find another external drive for us. The sun outside beckoned. When I went for a walk all the animals were sunbathing. Not surprising really as I am sure they have all been getting heartily sick of the rain. Aaron did eventually manage to get from the bed to the sofa. He needed Panadol. We wanted hot chocolate. He felt like he was dying so I offered to get things for him. Post Collection Aaron suggested it would probably be a good idea if I went nextdoor and got the rest of the posts. He suggested I take the car and unload them down by the pond. So the dogs and I drove nextdoor and while I loaded the posts into the back of the stationwagon they ran around looking for rabbits. It was hard going but eventually all the posts were in, as well as the netting.The car was incredibly low so we drove very slowly back. Unfortunately the car came to a grinding halt part way along the drive so I had to unload half the posts before the car was high enough to move forward. I unloaded the rest of the posts further along and then we drove back up to the house. Aaron suggested that we need to think seriously about getting a 2nd hand ATV next year. His back is just not coping with the heavy lifting and carrying we are constantly doing up and down the drive. While I agree that some of the carrying we do is virtually beyond my physical abilities, we do cope, even if it is in a stop-start manner. On the plus side I’m fit and my biceps are getting bigger. On the downside, we use up a lot of our time and energy carrying things that an ATV could do for us in minutes. In the end it’s Aaron’s back versus the cost. We’d be spending around $2000 and that’s money we then can’t spend on fencing or a coolstore. Far out this is an expensive life we’re living! Cutting The Grass As the day wore on I decided I needed to do something outside. Our plans for the day had been sidelined due to Aaron’s unwellness and I felt frustrated that we had lost a day. I took the scrubcutter out to the back garden and cleared a large patch of ground ready for weedmatting and mulching. The area will eventually be the site of our permaculture garden. We planted the orchard trees there last week and now we have to get the garden beds prepared. The dogs joined me and played chasey. Despite their sensitive hearing the dogs want to hang around while we’re using noisy machinery. I worry about the long-term effect on their hearing but I’m not sure if you can get earmuffs for dogs. I had to keep a constant watch out for them as the last thing I wanted to do was accidentally chop a paw off. A few times I had to jam the blade into the ground as one of them streaked past me. Fortunately I managed to finish without casualty in the end. I chopped up the rest of the fruit and veg for the pigs (3 meals worth) and then we went and fed out. Aaron was at last feeling better. Not that there was much day left. We had dinner and then he went to bed. My Day Is Planned Monday arrived and with it another frost. However, it didn’t seem quite so cold and in fact the day ended up quite spring-like. It gave me a chance to air out the house and the dogs were more than happy to be outside all day. The other animals continued to sunbathe as well. I wrote my To Do list for the day and steadily made my way through it. First things first I needed to set up the flooring for the new pig love shack next to the pond. Then I dug the holes for the posts. At 11 I headed over to Koanga to by some stuff for a work colleague. Elaine was there and although I stayed to chat the phone wouldn’t stop ringing so in the end I had to leave. I hadn’t done any baking all weekend so that needed to be done. I also needed to run the still. I set the still up and switched it on and then I cleaned the kitchen and washed the dishes. I had lunch and then made the dough for the sticky sugar buns and put it outside in the sun to rise. Then I made our toasted muesli. I make a big batch at least once a fortnight and it’s a great way of making sure we eat healthily at least once a day. I’ve combined 2 recipes, one from mum and one from sister Sarah and it’s quite frankly better than any store bought muesli we’ve had. With dough rising I took the opportunity to sit down and start writing my weekly newsletter. At 2 O’clock Aaron phoned. He wasn’t feeling well and was going to leave work early. Aaron arrived home and I was in the flow of writing and the still was ¾ done. There were 3 crates of fruit and vege to sort through and food to chop up for the pigs for Tuesday’s meals. Aaron said he’d feed out and look at doing some work on the love shack. My Plans Change I stayed up at the house and sorted the fruit and veg and then started chopping. My phone started ringing. It was Aaron. Apparently Belle had been standing by the gate so he seized the opportunity to open it and let her out. He wanted me to come down and help him finish setting up the new pig paddock. I turned off the still and wandered down the drive. I got down to the pond only to discover that the love shack still needed the walls to be finished, a roof put on, a plywood floor put down and fencing put up. It was about 2 hours work all up and not what I was expecting. Belle hung around the pond until Aaron took off up the driveway to get something from the shed. Belle decided she wanted to go too. It is not easy trying to make a big girl like Belle stay put. She kept trying to push past me and grunted her displeasure at me. Eventually she started getting really pissed off and I was relieved to see Aaron coming back down the drive. All he had to do was pat her on the back and gently push her back in the opposite direction and she happily trotted back with him. She’s a very interesting pig, so gentle-natured and polite but she is also only interested in being friends with Aaron. She tolerates me but that’s about it. Her previous owner was a man and I have to wonder if she had a bad experience with a woman prior to her move here. I guess I’ll never know. I’ll continue to talk to her and give her hugs and maybe one day she’ll decide to be my friend. The whole time this was going on a small Cessna-like plane kept flying very low overhead. Initially Aaron thought it was going to crash into the house but fortunately it didn’t. However it did make numerous circuits over ours and Frank’s place. It was so obnoxiously loud and the plane so unstable looking that I actually wondered if someone was trying to harass Frank. The only thing I can think is that Frank’s paddocks were getting sprayed with something. Despite the low flying and the horrendous noise our animals seemed to cope okay. There was no panicked running fortunately except by Whisky and Coppa. The boys ran up and down the drive, barking furiously at this large, obnoxious bird. Although I guess it was a little stressful for them it was also excellent exercise. Eventually the plane left and we carried on the building and setting up fencing. The roof of the house was to be a double metal shed tilt-a-door door. It was leaning against the bank in the girl’s paddock. Unfortunately it had two large shed wall frames leaning on it. It took both of us a bit of effort to get them upright and then Aaron had to hold them upright while I pulled out the tilt-a-door. What a mission. It must have taken me a good 10 minutes. Not only were Joy and Phyllis getting in the way checking everything out, I had to manouvre the door from the top of the bank. Two heavy iron arms connected to the door made it weigh a ton. By the time I had the door up on the bank I was absolutely exhausted and filthy. And then I realized I was still wearing my inside clothes. Bugger! Once the roof was on the shed we went up to the carport to get the tarpaulin. The new shack had too many draughts so I wanted it covered. We cut the tarp to size and then draped it over the house. By then I’d truly had enough so we just temporarily secured the tarp for the night and went back up to the house.I turned the still back on and then made dinner while Aaron finished chopping up veges. After dinner Aaron went to bed and I finished making the sticky sugar buns and looking after the still. And that my friends, was the end of yet another weekend of fun on the block.

Don't Feed Your Pigs Cream

Tuesday, 5 August 2008

Monday afternoon Aaron arrived home with three 10-litre bags of cream. Knowing how much the pigs love cheese we thought they might find this a treat. We put an extra trough in the 2 pig paddocks and fed out 2 of the bags. The pigs just went crazy for it.

Tuesday morning all the pigs refused to eat. Tuesday afternoon they refused again. Wednesday they ate a bit of fruit and nothing else. It was, to say the least, very worrying.

Our piggies had clearly overdosed on fat and we were entirely to blame. The piggies were all exuding an awful sour milk smell and Aaron and I felt just absolutely terrible. Our lovely treat had turned into something akin to animal cruelty.

Thankfully on Thursday the pigs had their appetite back, except Belle. At 5am that morning I was in her house hand feeding her pieces of apple and rubbing her tummy. I was late for work but it couldn’t be helped.

Finally Thursday afternoon Belle got up and ate some dinner and by Friday afternoon all the piggies were back to their old selves. We disposed of the last bag of cream and made a vow never ever to give them cream again. They would just have to stick to their usual camembert and feta.

Friends In The Right Places

Last Tuesday I arrived at work and discovered a big box under my desk. My darling friend Erica is currently contracting to a clothing company and they were having a staff sale. She told me it was all small sizes and asked if I wanted her to get me or Aaron anything. I told her we had a budget of $200 and that I trusted her judgement completely.

She spent $105 on 20 items of brand new clothing. It was like Christmas and I was cursing the fact that I’d just spent $100 on clothing at The Warehouse only a fortnight before.

I'm Soooo Over Winter

I’ve struggled at work for the last couple of weeks. My general lack of energy and enthusiasm is affecting me at work as well. I just don’t want to do anything. I’m lucky I have my own office as a couple of times I’ve caught myself just staring at the computer screen doing absolutely nothing.

At the moment I get my job done and that’s it. Although I’ve established a reputation at work for being friendly and approachable I think I’ve probably been quite the opposite lately.

However, I’m trying to help myself a little bit. I joined a stair walking group a couple of weeks ago and now I spend every morning and afternoon tea walking the stairs at work. We climb 16 flights in the morning and 21 in the afternoon and I try to go at a fast pace. If I can get the heart racing and feel slightly short of breath I’ve discovered it gives me a mental high for between 1 and 2 hours.

There’s usually a group of about 6 of us and the faces change from day to day depending on who’s available. Still, despite this exercise I’ve still been a grumpy sod this week.

It doesn’t help that I feel like I’m getting behind on everything – from keeping in touch with friends and family, to housework to general property maintenance. I started searching the Internet on Friday evening to find out more about blogs. By Saturday evening I had set up this blog.

Obviously it doesn’t have the personal feeling of an individual letter but the fact is, virtually no one is getting correspondence from me anyway so it’s better than nothing. Aaron is now thinking of starting up his own blog. His idea though is for it to be solely a commentary on sport and for anyone to view it. With any luck it may just become a popular site, he’ll get discovered and become a freelance sports journalist. Stranger things have happened!

Whisky and Coppa

Friday night we decided to let the dogs sleep on the verandah instead of putting them away for the night. They seemed to like it and didn’t wander off anywhere. It also helps to have them on rodent and possum duty near the crates of pig food.

We kept them out the next 2 nights as well, although Sunday night Whisky decided to attack a sleeping Coppa and we had to get up to sort them out. I think we’ll just keep it as a weekend treat so at least Coppa can have piece of mind some nights.

Since we built their new run and gave them separate sleeping areas Coppa is now a lot happier but Whisky isn't so thrilled. We originally had it so that the 2 dogs could still see each other from their mezzanine floors. However, Coppa growled at Whisky everytime he caught Whisky looking at him. That then set Whisky off barking verbal abuse at Coppa and in the end we were getting stuff all sleep as we had to keep getting up to sort them out.

I nailed up a dividing wall and Coppa was happy. Whisky on the other hand has taken to sleeping on the steps to his mezzanine, presumably so he can keep an eye on Coppa during the night. I'm not sure if it's his "I'm the alpha dog and don't you forget it" thing or whether it's more a protective thing. Whatever it is the growling seems to have ceased during the night.

Saturday Chores

Saturday morning was dry so we fed out, cleaned the pig troughs and houses and then set up the electric standards on the DoC paddock, ready for the cattle.

We absolutely had to pick up our orchard trees from Koanga this weekend so I got out the scrubcutter and cleared planting areas in the back garden. Then Aaron and I dug big holes. It was hard going but at least it wasn’t raining.

We stopped for an early lunch and I put on some washing and some eggs on the boil for our 2nd lunch. With the holes dug we fired up the chipper and put through this week’s vege waste and several large branches of willow. Then I went inside the house to check the washing and was hit by the pungent smell of smoke and a crackling, popping noise. Turns out eggs can catch on fire if left to boil for over an hour!

I was sooo annoyed with myself. I am doing so many stupid things like this lately. With so much to do these days I’m constantly starting one task before another is finished and invariably forgetting things. I filled the blackened pot with water and opened all the windows. Burnt egg is not a nice smell! Worst of all, my next task was to clean the chicken coop. Aaron turned the compost and I started cleaning. I wanted to tell the chickens I was sorry but I was so embarrassed about what I’d done I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

Chook Chook Chook

I think all 3 hens have started laying now, although one of them has obviously only just started as she is dropping eggs in random places. The other 2 are taking turns in one of the nesting boxes.

For some reason the chickens have decided the 2nd nesting box is a chicken toilet. I scraped out the poo-covered hay and put the 2 nesting boxes together. Hopefully that might confuse the hens into thinking they’re both laying boxes.

The chickens are desperate to get out of the coop now. Every time I open the door one of them tries to bolt. I don’t blame them of course. There’s not much for them to play with in there. They’ve completely scratched away any plants, weeds, etc. We covered one of the raised beds in leaf mulch a few weeks back, which totally freaked them out. I had thought they might find it good to scratch in but it seems not. They do like the weekly changing of the willow mulch though. They absolutely love scratching through it and pecking it.

The chickens seem to be pretty much free of pests and I wonder if it has something to do with the willow. Perhaps it’s not only good for internal parasites? Several times a week I will throw in a large plant of puha or dandelion or a big bunch of watercress and they absolutely love ripping into it and gobbling it up.

I also make up bowls of finely chopped tamarillos and tomatoes mixed with a very small amount of crumbled feta. Unbelievably they are just like the pigs when it comes to cheese. They wolf it down as fast as they can and then take their time with the fruit. If I’ve accidentally dropped a big piece of feta in the bowl one of the chooks will find it, grab it and sprint away to a corner to eat its treat before the others get to it.

If we get lots of cucumbers from the orchard I will slice them in half lengthways and they will peck the skins clean. Unfortunately they are not the slightest bit interested in slugs or snails, which is the precise reason we got them in the first place. Turns out we need ducks or geese for that.

Once we’ve fenced off the back garden we will let the chickens out to forage. If we let them out now the dogs will have a field day. They hate birds and eat any they catch. We’ve had a cormorant in residence by the stream for the last month and the dogs go absolutely crazy when they see it. They bark and whine almost hysterically and then the cormorant takes off and circles above and the boys race frantically up and down the drive trying desperately to scare it off. The barking is annoying but they get lots of exercise in the process so I quite like the cormorant being there.

Hawks are another issue for them. They drift in lazy circles in the air in front of the verandah as they search for a meal on the flats. Meanwhile the dogs race up and down in front of the house barking furiously. More exercise! It’s all good.

Dad Visits

Saturday afternoon dad turned up for a flying visit but before he’d even got to the house Aaron had convinced him he had to stay. And so that afternoon we kitted dad out in Swanndri and beanie and he watched us feed out the animals.

Back at the house I assured him that now he knew what to do we would be sure to call on him the next time we needed someone to babysit the animals. Ha ha!

Dad and Aaron spent the rest of the day drinking, watching sport and watching the River Cottage ‘Pig in a Day” dvd. We had our yummy aged Dexter-beef sausages for dinner and then I made us some lovely chocolate brownies.

I’ve never been terribly impressed with any brownie recipe I’ve tried but Aaron had bought home a couple of cartons of mascarpone and while I was googling recipes on the Internet I discovered a mascarpone brownie recipe. I will definitely be making them again.

It was good to have dad there. He doesn’t visit enough. Admittedly I should have spent more time talking to him but as usual I was more focused on me and the things I needed to do.

Lazy Sundays

We slept in until 7 on Sunday and then fed out the animals and came back up to the house for breakfast. Dad was still in bed so we headed next door to collect the cattle off the driveway. We walked them sedately along the drive, trying to keep them as calm as possible. However, when they got to the gate at the bottom paddock they saw the grass, got all excited and started kicking and bucking and running madly across the paddock. “No! Stop it! Stop it!” I yelled. Too late. With the paddock so wet the last thing we wanted was for the cattle to run. They can do so much damage in such a short burst of time.

We moved the cattle up onto the hill. They were supposed to go on the flats but 9mm of rain overnight had left the ground absolutely waterlogged. With the electric fencing all in place we went back up to the house.

Dad was up and doing the dinner dishes. He left shortly after that, taking with him some of the aged Dexter beef cuts for mum and Jo.

We put the dogs in their run and took the car across the road and picked up our fruit trees. Elaine was behind the counter as per usual. We chatted for a while and discovered she was contemplating getting a pet pig. We invited her over to see our piglets when we have some at the end of the year.

We took the trees home and worked out where each should be planted. It had rained overnight and all but 2 holes were full of water. I emptied the water out, but I’m worried now that our trees are going to drown in the next big rainfall. I hope not. I had the same misgivings last year when we planted orchard trees, however they all survived so fingers crossed for this lot.

Aaron filled the wheelbarrow with compost and wheeled it over to one of the holes. While Aaron tipped the compost I planted the trees. The idea was to incorporate the dug out soil with the compost but the heavy rain the night before had turned it into sticky mud. It stuck to my gloves and my gumboots and mixing the two was impossible.

I became overwhelmingly frustrated and annoyed and cursed the mud and the rain. Hole after hole we repeated the process with me getting more and more irrational about the mud. I ranted and cried and hated every minute of it.

At one hole Aaron tipped the wheelbarrow, the wheel lost traction on the mud and the weight of it yanked it forward, catching his little finger. While he didn’t think it was broken he has bruised it very badly and it started to swell up slightly on Monday. With the job done I’d had enough of being outside. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the laptop, editing my last 2 newsletters and continuing to set up my blog.

Monday, Monday…

Early Monday morning Aaron’s alarm went off but he was too exhausted to get out of bed. In fact he stayed in bed for at least another 5 hours. While it’s been blindingly obvious that I have not been coping with this winter, Aaron has struggled as well but in a less dramatic way. He’ll be very quiet at times, stressing about something happening on the block. The last few days though he’s been very snappy (although apparently not as bad as me).

Quite frankly he needed a break to get back on track. Monday we took it easy. Late morning we went for a drive down to Warkworth to collect vegetables. We made various other stops on the way and got back for a late lunch. The dogs came with us.

Coppa especially loves going for a drive. At 100km an hour he has one paw on the door arm and one on my shoulder and his head’s right out the window. He seems to love having his fur streaming behind him and all those smells rushing at him. Whisky on the other hand is a 50km an hour dog. He likes a sedate travel where he can get a good look around. As soon as we get anywhere over 50 he lies down on the back seat or tries to lie between the 2 front seats, headbutting whoever’s elbow is convenient, making it quite clear that a scratch would be very much appreciated at this stage thank you.

The Most Annoying Creatures On The Planet?

When we’d got home and sorted out the latest fruit and vege scraps I made up a bowl of chopped fruit for the chickens. I added a kiwifruit but it seems they don’t much like kiwifruit. I was pleased to discover 2 eggs in the one nesting box. As always I thanked the girls and told Roosty he was a handsome boy with a wonderful crow (lest he feel left out).

Despite not liking chickens, now the hens are laying I feel more affection for them. I don’t wish to name them but I do want them to be happy. As for Roosty. It’s not really a name but somehow has become one. A bit like 46 and 51 really. Aaron pointed out it sounds very like Marty’s surname. Perhaps we should call our Rooster Marty? I wonder if Marty would be offended?

I can’t believe we own a rooster. Of all the creatures I was never ever going to live nextdoor to, and now I’ve got one in my own backyard! Not that it was intentional. He was supposed to be a hen. The sound of a rooster is one of the worst sounds on the planet until you actually own one. He competes with one of Frank’s roosters, having crowing duels. And although Frank’s rooster is older and far more experienced I do believe Roosty’s crow might be slightly superior.

It’s bizarre. I can remember on more than one occasion debating the merits of having children with mum. “They’re so annoying” I would say. “But it’s different when they’re your own” she would reply. Yeah, whatever! And though I don’t have children I have somehow ended up with a menagerie of animals that apart from pigs, all used to annoy the crap out of me in one way or another, and by god mum was right – it is different when they’re your own. Not that that means I’m going to have children. Let’s just make that very clear. Children definitely are annoying.