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23 December 2008
Oh My God this is a crazy time of year. I absolutely love Christmas but I am so absolutely exhausted this year that I have not been able to work myself up to feel even vaguely interested.
With oodles of fine weather and everything growing at a suddenly alarming rate we cannot keep up with all that needs to be done outside. The guests are arriving on a regular basis and the cycle of housework and meal preparation seems to stretch endlessly in front of me.
There is much to be grateful for and much to enjoy but this train that is currently my life won’t stop, instead I hurtle towards some unknown destination, missing many wonderful things along the way. I am glad that today is my last day of work for the year as I am close to crashing and burning.
Instead of looking forward to Christmas Day, all I yearn for is Boxing Day when I can sleep in until 7 and then do nothing for the day. As a kid I could never understand why mum thought Christmas was such a hassle, after all, I really enjoyed it. Now I’m an adult and I have a fulltime job and then work fulltime on the block, tiredness overtakes me and I become numb to partying and celebrating. I hate feeling this way. Where the hell’s my Christmas spirit??
The beloved Christmas tree that symbolizes everything that’s wonderful about Christmas in my home has sat outside in a bucket of water for 3 days. Just the thought of bringing it inside and decorating it saps my mental energy.
It’s an awful thing to say. It’s an absolutely beautiful tree, picked out lovingly by my sister just a couple of months ago. Aaron and I drove down to Albany on Saturday to collect it. We had just left the in-laws Christmas lunch and I was dressed up and in heels. We discovered our tree was in some back paddock of the Christmas tree plantation and we had to chop it down and drag it back to the car. I wobbled my way along the dirt path and up the hill.
Then we saw the tree for the first time.
It was enormous. It towered over Aaron’s tall frame. Expletives were uttered as we both struggled to comprehend how we would ever manage to get it into our house.
We chopped it down and haltingly staggered back to the car. It weighed a ton and I lost balance and fell over more than once. Back at the shop the book said it had been paid for. “That can’t be right” I said “You’ve made a mistake”. I paid for it and left.
The next day Jo rang “Did you pick up your tree?”
“Yes”
There was pause “Did you pay for it?”
“Yes”
“But I’d already paid for it. It was a gift from us to you”
Oh crap!
How lousy did I feel? The surprise gift ended up falling flat on its face and being a hassle for Jo to sort out the next day.
Now it sits forlornly on the corner of the verandah looking abandoned and unloved.
Our First Couchsurfers Arrive
It was one hell of a weekend. Sometimes there is just too much excitement in my life.
Friday night Sebastian and Claudia arrived. A young French couple, cycling and Couchsurfing around the world chose our home for a 2-day break. They were late arriving so I told Aaron I would drive into town to see if I could locate them. I put the dogs in the car and turned my car around and then I spotted them walking up the drive. Having cycled from Kaukapakapa that morning they were exhausted and only managed to get their bike as far as the shed. I drove my car down and they loaded it up with all their gear and I drove it back up the hill.
Saturday morning they slept well. We told them they would. Our guests always do.
The Pigs Get A New Bed
While they slept we had a truckload of chip dropped off in front of the stockyards.
Aaron removed the pallet and plywood flooring from the pig shed and after shovelling out the old hay and dirt we then covered the floor in a very thick layer of woodchip. Phyllis and Arthur seemed concerned. They were very vocal, grunting constantly at us and sniffing and tasting each pile of chip as we emptied bucket after bucket of the stuff onto the floor.
Joy was even less impressed. In her heavily pregnant state she too is suffering from exhaustion and having the house redecorated was a little too much for her to deal with. She wandered off to the corner of the yard in front of the shed and lay down for a sleep.
One of Aaron’s colleagues and her family arrived to meet the pigs as they are considering buying one of Joy’s piglets in 2 months time. They met the 3 pigs and checked out their home and then Aaron took them up the drive to meet Spotty and Stanley. Meanwhile I carried on shoveling chip. I had to constantly walk in and out of the gate and at some stage Arthur decided to walk out the gate and go for a wander. Despite strongly encouraging him to return to his paddock he wasn’t interested. I fully expected the girls to follow suit but luckily they stayed where they were. After several minutes of fruitless coaxing I let him wander over to the pond and then raced up the hill to the shed.
“Aaron! Help!”
I grabbed a bucket of cheese and ran back down the hill. Arthur was still sniffing around the pond. However, he was soon following the trail of cheese back through the gate to his paddock.
Phyllis and Arthur wandered up the back and over to the wallow. Joy refused to move. Standing was clearly all too much effort.
We said goodbye to the visitors and carried on shoveling chip.
We had intended for the chip to be from our willow trees as it has great health qualities. However, despite booking 2 weeks in advance the tree feller decided he would be unable to work on our block until the New Year and we were left with no choice but to buy chip off him.
I was a little concerned about the fact that we had no idea what trees were in the chip but I did recognise macrocarpa, blackwood and lemon. I know eating macrocarpa can make cows abort so I just had to hope neither Joy or Phyllis would decide to eat any of it.
As for the smell, wow, talk about fragrant. It’s a heady brew of lemony, spicy scents. I hoped the smell would be more restful than stimulating otherwise the pigs would probably go outside to sleep.
Day Trip
Late morning we left our guests to fend for themselves and headed to Christmas lunch with Aaron’s family. We arrived about 40 minutes late and then had to leave less than 3 hours later.
We had a Christmas tree to collect, cheese to pick up from Puhoi and then we had to drop off cheese and pick up a couple of piglets from Muriwai Valley Farm.
We arrived at Bev’s and she was having a Christmas lunch with friends. We were invited to join them and so we sat and chatted for maybe an hour. Bev served dessert and then went and got changed.
We wandered back down to the drive and as we waited I wandered over to see Phyllis and Joy’s brother. His partner is a very striking silver coloured wild sow that wandered down from the bush a few weeks ago. Obviously keen to find a suitable mate she found the boar and Bev opened the gate and let her in.
Bev’s young daughter came over to warn me that the wild sow would bite me if I wasn’t careful. I explained that I had the boar’s 2 sisters at my house.
“You have Charlotte don’t you?”
“No, we just have Phyllis and Joy”
“No, Charlotte went to live with you”
“Nooo…” and then I suddenly remembered Aaron telling me that Charlotte’s constant escape antics had led to her demise.
Crap. Despite trying to back track, kids are not stupid and I suspect she cottoned on that all was not as it seemed.
Damn…damn, damn, damn.
Arthur's Boys
Bev came down from the house and we drove over to the stockyards. There peering through the railing was a line of about a dozen baby snouts. It was the absolutely perfect photo opportunity and so unbelievably cute I couldn’t help but laugh.
There they were, Arthur’s 8 week old progeny. They were all just absolutely beautiful. I had to stop myself from jumping in and playing with them.
Bev managed to grab 2 boys and with much squealing and wriggling Aaron managed to get them into the cage in the back of the car. Our hay man wanted 2 piglets and Aaron had arranged to swap them for 2 years hay. Unfortunately he wasn’t ready to take them so we had piglet babysitting duty for 2 nights.
Back at home we placed the cage at the entrance of Coppa’s run and the piglets got to spend the first night and day running around in there. Coppa, while slightly taken aback that his run had been taken over by piglets was very good about the whole thing and showed no sign of annoyance.
It was a late one Saturday night as we chatted to our guests. Eventually I fell asleep on the sofa.
Baby Red Learns To Swim
Sunday morning it was my turn for a sleep in. I desperately needed it but the pig breakfasts had not been made and there was much to do in the way of chores. I got up with Aaron.
As we walked down the drive to feed Phyllis and co I looked over to the cattle standing by the stream edge. I counted 4 heads. With grass still long and the willows hanging over the paddocks I assumed one of them was lying down and hidden from sight.
“Can you see Baby Red?”
“No” we looked around the paddock “You better go check”
Aaron went off to feed the pigs and I walked over to the cattle. Baby Red didn’t appear. My heart jumped as I looked over the bank into the water below.
“Aaron! Aaron! Baby Red’s drowning!”
Baby Red was swimming frantically in the water below. Having fallen into a particularly deep part of the stream she had clearly been treading water for some time. There were many gouge marks in the bank where she had tried to find some purchase with her hooves.
There was a flat piece of ground leading to the water’s edge. “Baby Red, over here”. She swam over but with no ground beneath her feet she had no way of hauling herself out. She panicked and turned around, swimming back up stream.
Aaron raced across the paddock and ran over the log blocking the upper portion of stream. On the other side he started pulling at the blanket of alligator weed covering the back of the stream. I crossed over and joined in. We frantically cleared away a section of weed and Aaron called Baby Red. She swam over. Unbelievably she found some ground beneath her feet. I wrapped my arms around her neck and with much struggling on her part and virtually useless hauling on mine she eventually managed to crawl out on her knees. It took her a good 30 seconds before she could stand and then she stood shaking and panting for a couple of minutes before trotting off behind the stream.
Instead of trying to get a distressed Baby Red back to her paddock Aaron decided we should take the other cattle around the drive and into where Baby Red was. Easier said than done. Baby Red was bellowing in the trees somewhere and 51 was clearly upset his girlfriend was alone. Being moved across the paddock away from her did not impress him. He shook his head madly at me and stood his ground. I had visions of my being hurled into the stream by 600kg of angry steer. I calmly waved my arms and told him to move. Eventually he turned and ran out the paddock with the other cattle. Within the minute all 5 cattle were back together and calm returned.
Aaron and I trudged back up the hill. I tried not to think about the fact that all our cattle paddocks border the stream and there are places in the stream from which it would currently be impossible to extricate an animal. Until we can clear the stream of willow it remains a potential death trap for careless animals.
While we provide a trough to drink from the cattle frequently ignore it in favour of the constant flowing stream water.
Of course in New Zealand we’re not supposed to let our animals near streams in case of effluent contamination. So far we haven’t seen this as being a problem as there isn’t really anywhere for the cattle to cross. We have in the past spent much time setting up electric fences along the stream boundary but as this is time consuming and prevents the animals accessing much of the willow we eventually flagged that task.
So now we will have to reconsider how we contain our animals. Had Baby Red drowned we would have lost a very large sum of money.
Our Guests Leave and the Fun and Games Continue
Late Sunday afternoon Sebastian and Claudia packed up their tandem and headed off to their next couchsurfing experience in Ruawai. I got the impression they would have liked to have stayed another night but the timing was bad. I had much to do before Christmas Day.
Sunday night we had to move the piglets from the dog run to the chicken coop. Monday we would both be at work and Coppa would need his run back. The move was easy. We encouraged the piglets into the steel cage at the entrance then picked them up and carried them over to the coop.
It seemed the perfect solution. The chickens spend all their time on the raised garden beds so the piglets could have the floor. I threw in a couple of crates of leaf mulch for them to snuffle through and we set up their steel crate bed at the entrance to allow the chickens in and out of the door but not the piglets. Happy with the arrangement we turned to leave the coop and just at that moment the piglets leapt off the floor onto one of the raised beds. They ran straight to us. It didn’t seem possible that the piglets could jump that high but it turns out they can. Now we had to build a wall across the centre of the coop so the chickens could have the front half and the piglets the back. We used sheets of metal, pot plants, wood, sticks and windnetting. An ugly, messy combination but it only had to last less than 24 hours.
We left the piglets to explore their new home and kept the door to the coop open for when the chickens wanted to return. Aaron went to bed and I carried on with baking Christmas presents. About 15 minutes later Aaron appeared on the verandah.
“Honey. There’s some pigs out here”
I looked out the kitchen window. Sure enough, 2 little piglets were snuffling around in front of the verandah area.
I grabbed their breakfast off the kitchen bench and took it outside and waved it under their snouts. They followed me back into the coop. We dismantled part of the wall to let them back in and then looked for the escape route. It was hard to find but then I saw a small piece of loose windnetting leading into the parsley garden.
“I think I may have found it” and sure enough the little piglets appeared around the corner, ran over to where I was then launched themselves at the windnetting. They literally broke a hole in it there and then, darted over to the opposite side and broke through the windnetting again.
It was impossible not to giggle. We herded the boys back through and then set to rebuilding that part of the fence. Convinced we had it sussed Aaron went back to bed and I back to baking. Whisky and Coppa set up camp on a picnic table outside the coop and sat and watched and waited.
Ten minutes later I could hear the sound of grunting below the kitchen window. I looked out and there were the 2 piglets again, snuffling in the post peelings. Coppa was behind them giving them a good sniff, and Whisky just looked up at me with a concerned “Should these be out here mum?” expression on his face.
I woke Aaron up and once again we herded them back in. This time they had pulled the pot plants away from a section of propped up lattice willow fencing and then pulled down the fencing. Hey presto, instant doorway.
We fixed the fencing then enticed the chickens into the coop with some pellets. We shut the door to the coop this time.
“Do you think they’ll get out again?”
“Hopefully not”
2 December 2008
Saturday afternoon we got to work on the cold smoker again. After a couple of hours we had it finished. As always it didn’t go completely to plan, but we got there in the end. We hung 3 of the salamis inside the barrel and then I set the fire in the firebox. Initially I left the chimney open on the barrel but the fire went out too quickly. I set it again and put a lid on the chimney. For 3 ½ hours smoke billowed through small cracks in the barrel. Woohoo, success! Souz arrived early afternoon and so we finished up outside for the day.
How To Cook Flounder
Some time after 3pm Aaron went out with Frank to pull in Frank’s flounder nets. Frank and Marge were coming for dinner and Frank would be providing the flounder. I was a little nervous about the prospect of cooking flounder for 5, having only cooked it once before the weekend before and not too successfully. Still, I’m not exactly going to turn down a free meal if it’s offered.
As a starter I wrapped prunes in our homemade bacon and cooked these on the cast iron griddle. The saltiness of our first bacon attempt was nicely balanced out by the sweetness of the prunes. They were deemed a success and so I started dinner.
I’d Googled a recipe for pan-fried flounder in a lemon and caper butter sauce. Ahh, blessed Google. Dinner was a success. Sunday it was my turn for a sleep in. Aaron wasn’t particularly impressed I’d only slept in until 7am. He’d been up half the night watching sport and would have liked a lie in. However, he’d had his long sleep in on Saturday morning so it was my turn on Sunday.
After breakfast I started another fire in the smoker. For some reason I just couldn’t get it to work as well as it had the day before. It took me a good hour of playing around with it before I got a steady but not particularly strong smoke going. In fact I end up prodding the fire most of the day just to keep reigniting it. Like I said to Souz, I’d suck at being an arsonist.
More Rats
Aaron did some more work on the fencing and gates for the new duck paddock and I hedgeclipped the knee-high grass in the dog run.
Poor dogs, getting in and out of their run was a bit like tackling an obstacle course before I got in there and cleared it. Mind you, Coppa had caught at least 2 rats hiding in the grass in there in the last few weeks so it wasn’t all bad.
Speaking of rats. My god we’re being inundated with them. While I never see any alive, between the dogs and the one rat trap we have set inside the chicken coop we’ve been catching at least one every two days for a couple of weeks now. In fact the boys caught an enormous one this weekend, which lay on the driveway in the hot sun for a day before I picked it up and hurled it into the bush.
There was a smaller one I discovered on the verandah Sunday morning. When Aaron took the dogs for a walk I picked it up by the tail and hurled it into the bush behind the house. Or at least I tried.
I went to hurl it and part of the tail came off in my hand. Euwww! The rat dropped to the ground so I had to pick it up and hurl it again. There’s something incredibly satisfying about seeing dead rats everywhere. I just worry about the obvious population explosion.
Fortunately, now the boys sleep on the verandah at night there are no rats or mice getting into the house. Unfortunately the rats are getting into the shed at night and literally chewing their way through the plastic buckets of food we have for the pigs. They’ve destroyed 3 buckets already, which means I’ll have to buy some more soon.
I started to think about what other affect it might be having on our place. Native birds get hit quite hard by rats but our tui population has suddenly increased. And then I realized the fantails are missing this spring. Usually we have half a dozen of them flitting around the house, constantly twittering but this spring they’ve been missing. The wood pigeon’s are also in short supply. I might need to invest in some more traps.
We’ve taken to praising our boys as much as possible for each rat they catch. The praise seems to be working. We’re also encouraging bunny hunting and it’s one of their favourite games when I take them for a walk.
There's Lots Of Bunnies As Well
There are bunny holes in various locations around our property and Gary's nextdoor and as we get near a hole the boys will look at me expectantly and poise themselves like sprinters waiting for the gun. “Find the bunnies!” I’ll yell and they take off like rockets, racing to the holes and under and around bushes and scrub nearby.
Whisky especially seems quite addicted to the instant adrenaline surge that comes when I yell “Find the bunnies!” Every now and then they’ll be lucky enough to spot a bunny and the race is on. Not that I usually see it but I’ll definitely hear them crashing through bush and waist high grass and there’s no mistaking the high-pitched “I’ve found it! I’ve found it” yelps as they race off in hot pursuit. Unfortunately they don’t catch a lot of bunnies but the exercise they get chasing both real and imaginary ones is all good.
While they may not be working dogs I think they earn their keep with pest control.
Fowl Intentions
Sunday afternoon Souz left and Aaron and I did some more work on the dam for the new duck pond. The water level is at least knee high at the moment but we’d like it a bit higher. Overall I think it’s going to be a very nice living area for the ducks. There’s heaps of space for them. Although we’re only getting a dozen of them, depending on how they cope we maybe be able to increase the number later down the track.
As for the chickens, we were going to put them in with the ducks but I worry about the aggressiveness of our chooks. Instead I have decided they can go in the orchard paddock, below the dog run, on the other side of the duck fence.
We are going to open this up to the pigs as well but I’m sure they’ll all manage to get along. We’re also going to build a proper chicken coop in the hope that the chickens might go a bit broody and hatch a few babies for us. 
Our chooks are absolutely loving the free range lifestyle but this has started to become a problem for us. For a start the chicken poop on the verandah is getting out of hand but also the chickens have decided to revert to their ancestral calling and have taken to spending most of the day in the bush.
Initially this was great, there’s bound to be heaps of yummy insects for them to gobble up, they’re safe from any overhead predators and the hot sun and it also means less shit on the verandah right?
Unfortunately we have been without eggs for 2 weeks. I had thought initially the girls were off the lay. Perhaps they’d had another attack of lice? And then it occurred to me, those girls are laying their eggs in the bush! Twice I scrabbled up and down through the bush looking by tree roots and under ferns and damn it, I couldn’t find the eggs.
The problem is the chickens are lower to the ground than me and therefore can access more hiding spots than me. Then there’s the rats. What rat wouldn’t steal off with a chicken egg if it found one? Aaron was pissed off about this latest development. “That’s it. Their heads are coming off and they’re going in the freezer.” I suggested we just lock them up again for a while. Aaron reluctantly agreed.
25 November 2008
This past weekend was semi successful in terms of work done.
Last Monday we had 3 cubic metres of post peelings delivered. We’ve ordered 40 but 3 is as much as we’re getting for now. The recession has hit and fence posts are now a luxury item. They don’t sell, so new ones don’t get made and the byproduct, post peelings, aren’t created.
This is disgustingly bad timing for us. It’s our cheapest option as far as a patio floor goes, not to mention covering dug up, muddy areas around pig troughs. Timing-wise we need the stuff now. Unfortunately we have been told the wait may extend to February.
I can only be grateful we’ve sourced the last 3 metres from Croft Poles in Te Hana. Our local supplier Topuni is completely out.
So at this stage we’ve spread nearly the whole lot. Most of it is on the patio but I’ve spread a few barrow loads around Spotty and Stanley’s trough. The old post peelings on the patio have just about rotted away. In the mean time the dogs have dug up and ripped apart a lot of the carpet weedmat underneath and the chickens spend hours scratching around in them, baring more carpet for playful dogs to get their teeth into.
Getting to Know Blake
Jo, Phil, Blake and mum all made the trek north for the weekend so it was a full house. Jo brought bags of fresh cheap veges from Auckland and mum brought Baker’s Delight bread. Ahhh, the delights of the old life!
At 6 months of age (or thereabouts) Blake is finally registering people as a source of entertainment, rather than a passing visual distraction. He is definitely more interesting now than he has been up until this point. Jo and Phil are quite besotted. In fact they’re so besotted they’ve become those parents that think their child is just perfect in every way.
Not that I’m knocking it. It’s great for Blake – up to a point. But this is where I really lose my ability to, I guess, appreciate a parent’s perspective. This is the stage where the child becomes the centre of the parents’ world. It’s not just about survival any more. Now it’s about moulding the child into a perfect human being. This is the time when everything the parent does starts to make an impression on the child.
Jo and Phil’s goals and dreams are now focused on Blake. He is the centre of their world.
I can’t imagine why anyone would want to take on that tedious, monotonous responsibility. I love that I can change the goal posts whenever I want. I love that my dreams can be completely about me if I want them to be.
My sister is incredibly happy. That is good. If it was me I’d be incredibly miserable.
Having said that, I’m making every effort I can to be a good aunt. Quite frankly I want Blake to like me and to like our home. I enjoy my sister’s company but generally if I want to see her then she has to come here. So now if Jo visits then so does Blake. If Blake doesn’t like me or doesn’t like being here then I won’t get to see Jo that often. It’s in my best interest to form a good relationship with Blake.
If I’m completely honest, I was initially worried that if I spent any time holding or talking to Blake that I might catch the ‘I want a baby’ bug. However I’m happy to say that that hasn’t happened. It turns out I can actually hold a baby without setting off the biological clock.
Building a Smoker
Despite having guests we still had our ‘To Do’ list to work through. Aaron and Phil started making our cold smoker. I wanted to smoke our oldest salamis this weekend so that we could finally try them. The smoker has been placed in the garden next to the car turnaround, as there is a natural incline on the hill to allow the smoke to travel from the firebox up an underground steel flue to a wine barrel smoker. All went well with the firebox and flue but taking the top off the barrel proved to be impossible with the tools we have. The lid needs to be cut on an angle so that it can just drop back down into place, but the lid is so thick we couldn’t get any tools to cut it.
I was gutted but if you can’t do something then you just can’t do it.
While the men worked on the smoker I planted more flaxes around the driveway entrance. I drove a stick into the ground next to all the newly planted flaxes the same as I did last week. I have high hopes for these flaxes!
Aaron’s borrowed Pete’s trailer for a couple of weeks and the deal was we took Pete’s garden prunings already piled high on the trailer. What a score for us! We set about chipping those into a wonderful leafy mulch, perfect for our compost! It was working really well and then the throttle got stuck and the chipper kept losing power. Add to that a blunt blade and after chipping 2/3 of the pile we called it quits.
We use that wonderful chipper every weekend and it is now in desperate need of a service. Fortunately we bought it in Kaiwaka and can get it serviced there. Of course that means we’ll probably be without a chipper for 2 weeks. Bummer.
Dad made a brief visit in the afternoon. He and Don were heading to north to a funeral service. It was good to see Don still alive after being told he only had weeks to live a few months ago. Not that he isn’t a mere shadow of his former self, but hey, he’s hanging in there.
Monday morning was nice and sunny. I managed to shift a lot of post peelings in the morning down to Spotty and Stanley’s trough area. All up I carried 16 baskets of post peelings down the drive but after the 16th trip back up the hill I was well and truly knackered. I can only hope all that hill walking did something good for my butt.
Troubles With Rats
By lunchtime the day was starting to turn stormy. At some stage in the afternoon I went into the carport to get something and that’s when I found it, one of our salamis lying on the ground. It had been gnawed from one end to the other. It had to be rats. I was absolutely gutted. In fact for the rest of the day I found myself stewing on the fact that we had now lost 2 salamis. All that work, all that time, just so a sodding rat could have itself a really good dinner.
That was pretty much the rest of my day ruined. And as the weather turned more and more stormy so did my mood.
Monday evening we moved the cattle from behind our stream to Gary’s roadside paddocks. It was our first attempt at shifting the new girls and the weather was just horrible, wet with strong winds. Aaron unlocked the padlock to open the gate but the lock would not open. No amount of swearing or banging it against the post would work. The CRC was in the carport, which meant a long trudge back up the drive. Aaron volunteered. I stayed on the drive as the cattle stood by the gate just waiting.
Eventually Aaron returned and sprayed the lock. The lock opened and Aaron opened the gate and ran over the bridge calling the cattle. I stood on the drive ready to move them on. The cattle made a beeline for the lock and the CRC and started licking it furiously. Crap! I quickly moved up to Baby Red to push her and as I did the young heifers turned around and ran back into the paddock. Eventually I managed to push Baby Red and the boys away from the lock and they started running toward Aaron. The 2 young heifers were panicked by my presence so I had to get in behind them and eventually they ran through the gate and after the others.
The cattle then ran, kicked and bucked their way down the drive. The dogs didn’t even bother to follow. They’re so used to the cattle trying to trample them that they’ve got to the point where they’d rather not be involved.
And so we put the cattle in the paddock and set up the fencing and walked back up to the house. I showed Aaron where the salami had come down and then Aaron noticed another salami that had been attacked by rats that I hadn’t even seen.
I Lose The Plot
That was all that was needed for me to lose it mentally. I was angry beyond angry and no amount of consoling by Aaron would calm me down. Aaron went to bed even earlier just to get away from me and I sat in the livingroom with dogs as the storm really hit. I tried to get the dogs to go outside once my bedtime rolled around but the weather was so foul they cowered inside.
Coppa’s mood had also deteriorated with the weather and he started growling and snarling at Whisky. A fight was imminent. I opened the door and shoved Coppa outside into the storm.
Then I turned off all the lights and curled up on the sofa with a duvet. After a couple of hours Coppa started barking furiously at the weather and that set Whisky off. I opened the door to tell Coppa to shut up. Whisky ran outside and Coppa ran inside. I shut the door and got back on the sofa. Coppa wasn’t interested in sleeping. That meant I didn’t sleep, instead I just lay on the sofa feeling thoroughly pissed off about everything.
Aaron got up for work about 3ish and he put Coppa outside. I finally went to sleep and then my alarm went off at 4:15.
I got up and fed the animals. The storm had blown over by then fortunately.
Back at the house I rang work and told them I wouldn’t be in. I was grumpy and tired and I didn’t want to risk driving to work in that state.
I ended up actually being sick on Tuesday and called in sick again. Wednesday I went to work but I was so ill I ended up having Thursday off. I must have come down with some kind of virus and apparently my symptoms matched those of a bug doing the rounds of staff at work.
I felt so crap Thursday I decided to get outside and work on the new duck pond for as long as possible before I collapsed form exhaustion. After about 3 hours of digging and clearing and sweating buckets my arms and shoulders were burning and barely functioning. I went inside and collapsed on the sofa. By the end of the day I felt great.
Friday night Sebastian and Claudia arrived. A young French couple, cycling and Couchsurfing around the world chose our home for a 2-day break. They were late arriving so I told Aaron I would drive into town to see if I could locate them. I put the dogs in the car and turned my car around and then I spotted them walking up the drive. Having cycled from Kaukapakapa that morning they were exhausted and only managed to get their bike as far as the shed. I drove my car down and they loaded it up with all their gear and I drove it back up the hill.
Saturday morning they slept well. We told them they would. Our guests always do.
The Pigs Get A New Bed
While they slept we had a truckload of chip dropped off in front of the stockyards.
Aaron removed the pallet and plywood flooring from the pig shed and after shovelling out the old hay and dirt we then covered the floor in a very thick layer of woodchip. Phyllis and Arthur seemed concerned. They were very vocal, grunting constantly at us and sniffing and tasting each pile of chip as we emptied bucket after bucket of the stuff onto the floor.
Joy was even less impressed. In her heavily pregnant state she too is suffering from exhaustion and having the house redecorated was a little too much for her to deal with. She wandered off to the corner of the yard in front of the shed and lay down for a sleep.
One of Aaron’s colleagues and her family arrived to meet the pigs as they are considering buying one of Joy’s piglets in 2 months time. They met the 3 pigs and checked out their home and then Aaron took them up the drive to meet Spotty and Stanley. Meanwhile I carried on shoveling chip. I had to constantly walk in and out of the gate and at some stage Arthur decided to walk out the gate and go for a wander. Despite strongly encouraging him to return to his paddock he wasn’t interested. I fully expected the girls to follow suit but luckily they stayed where they were. After several minutes of fruitless coaxing I let him wander over to the pond and then raced up the hill to the shed.
“Aaron! Help!”
I grabbed a bucket of cheese and ran back down the hill. Arthur was still sniffing around the pond. However, he was soon following the trail of cheese back through the gate to his paddock.
Phyllis and Arthur wandered up the back and over to the wallow. Joy refused to move. Standing was clearly all too much effort.
We said goodbye to the visitors and carried on shoveling chip.
We had intended for the chip to be from our willow trees as it has great health qualities. However, despite booking 2 weeks in advance the tree feller decided he would be unable to work on our block until the New Year and we were left with no choice but to buy chip off him.
I was a little concerned about the fact that we had no idea what trees were in the chip but I did recognise macrocarpa, blackwood and lemon. I know eating macrocarpa can make cows abort so I just had to hope neither Joy or Phyllis would decide to eat any of it.
As for the smell, wow, talk about fragrant. It’s a heady brew of lemony, spicy scents. I hoped the smell would be more restful than stimulating otherwise the pigs would probably go outside to sleep.
Day Trip
Late morning we left our guests to fend for themselves and headed to Christmas lunch with Aaron’s family. We arrived about 40 minutes late and then had to leave less than 3 hours later.
We had a Christmas tree to collect, cheese to pick up from Puhoi and then we had to drop off cheese and pick up a couple of piglets from Muriwai Valley Farm.
We arrived at Bev’s and she was having a Christmas lunch with friends. We were invited to join them and so we sat and chatted for maybe an hour. Bev served dessert and then went and got changed.
We wandered back down to the drive and as we waited I wandered over to see Phyllis and Joy’s brother. His partner is a very striking silver coloured wild sow that wandered down from the bush a few weeks ago. Obviously keen to find a suitable mate she found the boar and Bev opened the gate and let her in.
Bev’s young daughter came over to warn me that the wild sow would bite me if I wasn’t careful. I explained that I had the boar’s 2 sisters at my house.
“You have Charlotte don’t you?”
“No, we just have Phyllis and Joy”
“No, Charlotte went to live with you”
“Nooo…” and then I suddenly remembered Aaron telling me that Charlotte’s constant escape antics had led to her demise.
Crap. Despite trying to back track, kids are not stupid and I suspect she cottoned on that all was not as it seemed.
Damn…damn, damn, damn.
Arthur's Boys
Bev came down from the house and we drove over to the stockyards. There peering through the railing was a line of about a dozen baby snouts. It was the absolutely perfect photo opportunity and so unbelievably cute I couldn’t help but laugh.
There they were, Arthur’s 8 week old progeny. They were all just absolutely beautiful. I had to stop myself from jumping in and playing with them.
Bev managed to grab 2 boys and with much squealing and wriggling Aaron managed to get them into the cage in the back of the car. Our hay man wanted 2 piglets and Aaron had arranged to swap them for 2 years hay. Unfortunately he wasn’t ready to take them so we had piglet babysitting duty for 2 nights.
Back at home we placed the cage at the entrance of Coppa’s run and the piglets got to spend the first night and day running around in there. Coppa, while slightly taken aback that his run had been taken over by piglets was very good about the whole thing and showed no sign of annoyance.
It was a late one Saturday night as we chatted to our guests. Eventually I fell asleep on the sofa.
Baby Red Learns To Swim
Sunday morning it was my turn for a sleep in. I desperately needed it but the pig breakfasts had not been made and there was much to do in the way of chores. I got up with Aaron.
As we walked down the drive to feed Phyllis and co I looked over to the cattle standing by the stream edge. I counted 4 heads. With grass still long and the willows hanging over the paddocks I assumed one of them was lying down and hidden from sight.
“Can you see Baby Red?”
“No” we looked around the paddock “You better go check”
Aaron went off to feed the pigs and I walked over to the cattle. Baby Red didn’t appear. My heart jumped as I looked over the bank into the water below.
“Aaron! Aaron! Baby Red’s drowning!”
Baby Red was swimming frantically in the water below. Having fallen into a particularly deep part of the stream she had clearly been treading water for some time. There were many gouge marks in the bank where she had tried to find some purchase with her hooves.
There was a flat piece of ground leading to the water’s edge. “Baby Red, over here”. She swam over but with no ground beneath her feet she had no way of hauling herself out. She panicked and turned around, swimming back up stream.
Aaron raced across the paddock and ran over the log blocking the upper portion of stream. On the other side he started pulling at the blanket of alligator weed covering the back of the stream. I crossed over and joined in. We frantically cleared away a section of weed and Aaron called Baby Red. She swam over. Unbelievably she found some ground beneath her feet. I wrapped my arms around her neck and with much struggling on her part and virtually useless hauling on mine she eventually managed to crawl out on her knees. It took her a good 30 seconds before she could stand and then she stood shaking and panting for a couple of minutes before trotting off behind the stream.
Instead of trying to get a distressed Baby Red back to her paddock Aaron decided we should take the other cattle around the drive and into where Baby Red was. Easier said than done. Baby Red was bellowing in the trees somewhere and 51 was clearly upset his girlfriend was alone. Being moved across the paddock away from her did not impress him. He shook his head madly at me and stood his ground. I had visions of my being hurled into the stream by 600kg of angry steer. I calmly waved my arms and told him to move. Eventually he turned and ran out the paddock with the other cattle. Within the minute all 5 cattle were back together and calm returned.
Aaron and I trudged back up the hill. I tried not to think about the fact that all our cattle paddocks border the stream and there are places in the stream from which it would currently be impossible to extricate an animal. Until we can clear the stream of willow it remains a potential death trap for careless animals.
While we provide a trough to drink from the cattle frequently ignore it in favour of the constant flowing stream water.
Of course in New Zealand we’re not supposed to let our animals near streams in case of effluent contamination. So far we haven’t seen this as being a problem as there isn’t really anywhere for the cattle to cross. We have in the past spent much time setting up electric fences along the stream boundary but as this is time consuming and prevents the animals accessing much of the willow we eventually flagged that task.
So now we will have to reconsider how we contain our animals. Had Baby Red drowned we would have lost a very large sum of money.
Our Guests Leave and the Fun and Games Continue
Late Sunday afternoon Sebastian and Claudia packed up their tandem and headed off to their next couchsurfing experience in Ruawai. I got the impression they would have liked to have stayed another night but the timing was bad. I had much to do before Christmas Day.
Sunday night we had to move the piglets from the dog run to the chicken coop. Monday we would both be at work and Coppa would need his run back. The move was easy. We encouraged the piglets into the steel cage at the entrance then picked them up and carried them over to the coop.
It seemed the perfect solution. The chickens spend all their time on the raised garden beds so the piglets could have the floor. I threw in a couple of crates of leaf mulch for them to snuffle through and we set up their steel crate bed at the entrance to allow the chickens in and out of the door but not the piglets. Happy with the arrangement we turned to leave the coop and just at that moment the piglets leapt off the floor onto one of the raised beds. They ran straight to us. It didn’t seem possible that the piglets could jump that high but it turns out they can. Now we had to build a wall across the centre of the coop so the chickens could have the front half and the piglets the back. We used sheets of metal, pot plants, wood, sticks and windnetting. An ugly, messy combination but it only had to last less than 24 hours.
We left the piglets to explore their new home and kept the door to the coop open for when the chickens wanted to return. Aaron went to bed and I carried on with baking Christmas presents. About 15 minutes later Aaron appeared on the verandah.
“Honey. There’s some pigs out here”
I looked out the kitchen window. Sure enough, 2 little piglets were snuffling around in front of the verandah area.
I grabbed their breakfast off the kitchen bench and took it outside and waved it under their snouts. They followed me back into the coop. We dismantled part of the wall to let them back in and then looked for the escape route. It was hard to find but then I saw a small piece of loose windnetting leading into the parsley garden.
“I think I may have found it” and sure enough the little piglets appeared around the corner, ran over to where I was then launched themselves at the windnetting. They literally broke a hole in it there and then, darted over to the opposite side and broke through the windnetting again.
It was impossible not to giggle. We herded the boys back through and then set to rebuilding that part of the fence. Convinced we had it sussed Aaron went back to bed and I back to baking. Whisky and Coppa set up camp on a picnic table outside the coop and sat and watched and waited.
Ten minutes later I could hear the sound of grunting below the kitchen window. I looked out and there were the 2 piglets again, snuffling in the post peelings. Coppa was behind them giving them a good sniff, and Whisky just looked up at me with a concerned “Should these be out here mum?” expression on his face.
I woke Aaron up and once again we herded them back in. This time they had pulled the pot plants away from a section of propped up lattice willow fencing and then pulled down the fencing. Hey presto, instant doorway.
We fixed the fencing then enticed the chickens into the coop with some pellets. We shut the door to the coop this time.
“Do you think they’ll get out again?”
“Hopefully not”
