11 October 2009

What the hell happened to the weather? We had a couple of weeks of warm weather to herald the arrival of spring and suddenly winter came back with a vengeance. It seems like it’s rained every day for at least a fortnight. The temperature’s dropped enough that I had to light the fire last week. The southerlies are flying in off the freshly snow capped mountains down south and those 2 new summer tops I bought last week are probably going to be sitting in the wardrobe for a while.

Earning Some Extra Dosh

Our visit to mum’s a couple of weekends ago ended up with us volunteering to be mum’s gardeners. We told mum she had to hire someone who knew what they were doing. The garden hadn’t been touched for 4 years and it was rather overgrown. Then Aaron suggested we could do it the following weekend as Bex and Jay could run the farm in our absence. Mum offered to pay and so we jumped at the opportunity.

Convinced it was too much work for just the 2 of us we roped in Aaron’s stepdad Pete and dad also ended up joining us. I was suffering from the tail end of a headcold after an encounter with an unwell Blake the weekend before, but we only had the one weekend so there was no choice but to get on with it.

We duly arrived Friday evening as mum was leaving for a weekend in the capital. Saturday morning we arose and after breakfast got stuck into it straight away. Pete arrived as we were deciding our plan of attack. The weather was miserable. It was cold and wet nearly the entire weekend but it’s amazing how the motivation kicks in when there’s several people all pitching in at the same time.

All weekend we chopped, pulled, cut, chipped, spread, dragged, dug, etc, etc and by the end of the weekend the place was transformed.

The 20ft pittosporum hedge separating mum and dad’s had caused the most disagreement. “Let’s lop it by a 3rd and trim it to retain mum’s privacy” I said. Aaron agreed.
“It’ll be better if we cut it back completely. It needs a radical prune if it’s to look any good long-term.” Pete said. Aaron agreed.
“It’s way too radical. Mum’ll kill me” I countered
It was 2 against one. We debated, I lost, and the trees were lopped to 5ft bare-branched sticks.

Absolutely they’ll eventually look good again but that might be 12 months away. I felt slightly ill.

Dad didn’t like it. Paul and Phil were speechless when they saw it and Jo’s reaction was “Oh my god!”.

I suspected I would be disowned as soon as mum saw it. I have to say it. Aaron and I did a fantastic job of originally landscaping the place (and no we didn't plant the pittosporum hedge).

For the most part we picked the best plants for the property. Despite some good trimming they still retained much lush, healthy growth. My desire to plant tui friendly trees had also paid off. All weekend at least ½ dozen tui sat in the trees and drank and sang and called to each other. The garden was very close to being the little paradise I had hoped to achieve.

The Australian frangipani that I had bought and planted 12 years ago in memory of colleague and friend Gary Melton was bursting with fragrant yellow flowers that the tui gorged upon.
I think maybe next year I will plant frangipani in Kaiwaka.

Sunday morning Jo called in, I stopped for a while and we talked to dad about Joy. Her condition hasn’t worsened but it hasn’t improved either. She is in a holding pattern. She is existing in a fantasy world of paranoia at the moment and the Joy we know is absent. Dad is spending many hours with her, feeding her, talking to her and just being there. Dad’s optimistic view of her condition has faded considerably since last weekend. Even he wonders if he should tell her to let go.

And I think now we should have kept our opinions to ourselves. Who are we to make judgements on Joy’s health and life expectancy? Is it fair that when dad visits now, instead of walking in with an attitude of cheerful optimism he is more likely to be cloaked in a feeling of sad resignation?

We talked about visiting but Joy is no more coherent than last week and neither Jo nor I can go while we’re sick. Dad and I drifted back to the garden and Jo went in out of the rain to run around with the vacuum cleaner to pick up bits of leaf and bark we'd dropped and whip up a batch of scones for lunch.

Matt and Bron also popped round for a visit but it was raining and we wanted to finish earlier rather than later so we chatted a bit and then they went next door for a while. We were packed up and out of there by 2:30 and then it was a quickish visit to the Mall so I could use up some Westfield vouchers and then home.

Organic Treatment For Hair Loss

36 and 40 have been losing their hair. We never see them scratching but after Bex got close enough to run her hands through their coat she’s pretty sure it’s mites. Bugger.

We’ve got no idea how they got them and it took us a few days to discover that the best organic treatment we can give them is to coat them in vegetable oil mixed with tea tree oil. Thank god we’ve managed to score some free pots of vegetable oil as it would be a very expensive exercise otherwise.

I had hoped daily doses of willow as well as organic drench in the trough might be enough but these are more preventative treatments and we’ve only been using these in the last 3 weeks.

Another preventative treatment is apparently kelp. I believe the large NZ Bladder Kelp is the best stuff but that only grows in the South Island. So instead we will try to find somewhere where we can collect Common Kelp washed upon the beach.

Neighbour Frank’s given me the names of a couple of local beaches to check out so hopefully we’ll strike it lucky. The washing and drying part I don’t think we’ll have a problem with but crushing it into an edible state I haven’t sussed yet. With any luck we might just be able to hand crush it. But whatever the outcome, if it’s no good for the cows then the garden will love it.

So anyway, for the last 2 days Bex and I have been rubbing oil onto 36 and 40. It’s an exercise in patience and quite frankly, when Aaron rang me from home on Friday and told me we’d be oiling the calves up in the paddock when I got home from work, I was pissed off at the thought I was going to be running around the paddock for an hour or 2 chasing calves. Bex had it sussed though.

With several buckets of feed in hand I managed to coax 40 over, the boys distracted the adults and Bex diligently worked with a very skittish 36.

Thank God we asked the HelpXers to spend time getting the calves people friendly because a difficult task would have been impossible otherwise. It’s not the easiest task rubbing oil into very hairy calves and we didn’t have a chance with the adults.

Apparently one of the adult girls has developed a mean kicking technique, which she has already practiced on Bex and Aaron. I wasn’t too keen to experience it myself. A heifer that size could easily smash a shin or kneecap. Guess who’s going in the freezer next?

Saturday morning we repeated the procedure and we can only hope it works. If it doesn’t we either call in the homeopathic vet or resort to drench. Bex spent a good couple of hours on the Internet yesterday trying to discover what type of mites they are and it would appear they’re cattle mange mites. Fortunately, despite the patches of hair loss, the calves don’t appear in too bad condition. The other good news is they’ve got used to the spring pasture growth and the scours seem to have passed. We’re keeping up the willow feeding as well so hopefully they’ll be right as rain soon.

Fowl News

The ducks and chooks are now completely enclosed in their own paddock. Initially none of them were particularly happy with their sudden confinement. The chooks spent at least 4 days running up and down the upper fenceline looking for gaps, and the ducks have certainly walked the perimeter a few times looking of an exit. However, things have calmed down, the fowl have settled down and the chooks and ducks appear to now be quite comfortable in each other’s company. I

’m not saying they're entirely happy with their loss of freedom but to be fair, they must have a good quarter acre to roam in, with plenty of trees, geographical interest and food.

Of course, since closing them in the ducks have quickly discovered that us humans actually rise early in the morning. Not only that but we come out onto the verandah, which means they have the perfect opportunity to run along the fenceline loudly requesting breakfast.

Breakfast feeding was to be a no go affair. Mornings were to be strictly for foraging and dinner for supplement feeding to make up for what might have been lacking in their diet during the day. Of course being the soft touch I am I caved in after the 3rd morning. So now my morning routine is to feed the pigs and then go snail collecting for 15 minutes.

Call me strange, but there is something slightly therapeutic about snail hunting by headlamp in the wee hours of the morning. The road traffic is sparse and I can clearly hear the stream as it wends its way across the front of the property. Then there’s the satisfying ‘plop, hiss’ as each snail lands in the bucket, quickly retracting into the safety of its shell.

I work my way along the driveway, near areas where the grass is short and there’s a bank. I don’t know what it is about banks but the snails seem to like climbing up them. Some mornings it seems like there are hundreds of snails and other mornings there are slim pickings.

This morning for instance I went to my 2 usual spots and I seemed to spend a lot of time searching. After collecting about a litre of snails I thought I’d try somewhere new. I decided to check out the paddock on the other side of the driveway to Arthur’s. Score! There they were in the hundreds.

Into the bucket they went ‘plop, hiss, plop, hiss, plop, hiss’. I must have had close to 3 litres and still there were more snails.

Just how many snails can 10 ducks eat? Certainly not 3 litres in one sitting, but boy it’s hard to stop when they’re all glistening on the grass under the light of the headlamp.

Of course, the most disturbing aspect to it all must be the sheer numbers of snails. It is surely an indication of a snail epidemic that I can collect so many in such a short time? Just how much vegetation are these molluscs consuming? I curse the rabbits I see but are they doing anywhere near the damage these snails are? But rather than panic, I have decided to focus on the positive, and see these snails for what they are, a wonderful source of free food for my ducks.

And what of the 3 litres of snails I collected this morning? I heaved them over the fence and scattered them on the grass. And I mean heave. 3 litres of snails is a fair weight.

The ducks gorged their way through a litre or so and then saw the chickens eating pellets and raced over. Typical! It seems even animals will go for convenience food over pick-your-own if given the opportunity.

The snails that hadn’t been gobbled up lay there seemingly concussed and for the next couple of hours the ducks slowly cleaned them up. Even the chooks seemed to have a go at a couple of them. I suspect after such a huge feed the ducks will be fairly lazy this morning as their tummies work to digest them.

I’ve already collected the day’s eggs though so I think it’s a fair trade. I do wonder though what the property would look like if I could fence it all and let loose a couple of hundred marauding Indian Runner Ducks. The snails wouldn’t stand a chance. How good would my paddocks look then? As for the duck fertiliser on my paddocks…

Of course it isn’t all about ducks. My 2 chickens are looking so happy and healthy and they haven’t even bothered to try flying over the fence yet. Their egg production is now full on and it is glaringly obvious now that Marty cost us more than just chicken food. Sadly we're not missing him.

And then there’s the 3rd chicken. We moved Phyllis into the bush paddock last week, with a narrow wired off corridor down to the driveway fenceline. She comes down to the fence for breakfast and dinner.

For the first day the wild chicken wandered around her old paddock looking for her. The following day, as she fed out, Bex (bless her little cotton socks) stood and called the chicken until she ran up through the bush and down to Phyllis. Now the chicken appears at the troughs with Phyllis every evening.

And yesterday it became very obvious that Phyllis now has a pet chicken. Whereas the chicken used to run around looking for accidentally dropped scraps of cheese, it now perches on the edge of the trough next to Phyllis and they share the meal together. It’s fair to say I was shocked to see it. Cheese is without a doubt a pig’s favourite food and they don’t like to share.

With one very quick turn of the head the chicken could easily lose its head to Phyllis and yet she moved over for it so they could both share. Not that the chicken can consume that much and obviously Phyllis realises that.

I do also wonder if Phyllis has also discovered that the chicken lays eggs because a couple of weeks ago there was broken egg shell in Phyllis’ trough. No one had fed Phyllis egg so there was only one possible explanation. It is entirely possible the hen lays eggs in Phyllis’ paddock and Phyllis consumes them as she finds them. This is not a bad thing. Egg is apparently good for a pig’s diet. It is entirely possible that Phyllis has worked out, just as I have, that a happy, well fed chicken results in the occasional eggy treat.

Sheep Update

The young sheep have been gone a few weeks now and although I missed them for a week or so, once Aaron described their new lifestyle and how happy the new owners are with them, I no longer mind their absence. It has also put an end to the sheep escapes.

The 3 adults and 3 lambs we have left now seem content to roam our land without thought of escape. Putting them in one of the pig paddocks no longer seems necessary. Instead we’re happy for them to keep doing what they’re doing.

Tulip still has a limp. We’ve had her in the yards twice and checked her feet but cannot find the source of the problem. She seems to get better once we check her over and trim her hooves and then she starts to go lame again. Footrot has been our biggest concern but we cannot see any obvious traces of it. Still, we will get her in the yards again to have another look. It’s a bastard. She’s at least 6 weeks away from going in the freezer so if we can’t sort the problem ourselves we may just end up having to call the vet in.

Tree Planting

After the weekend of gardening at mum’s, we returned with a bucket full of baby flax and cabbage tree plants as well as cuttings from various other plants. We have had Bex planting them all over the place. I do love free plants!

Next year we will return to mum’s and collect more. Despite only spending about $200 on plants this year we seem to have planted hundreds of plants. A good third of them were freebies though. Of course we’ve already lost a bunch of plants. We planted around the base of Naniwha hill back in June and July but a series of break-ins from lambs and piglets has resulted in virtually all the plants being eaten. So we’re back to square one on that particular patch. We will have to wait until next winter to target that area again.