Break Out

24 February 2010

It finally happened. Last week Joy’s darlings broke out to investigate what was on the other side of the fence.

Why oh why didn’t they break out where it was easy and head straight up the drive? What would be the fun in that eh?

8 O’clock on a weekday evening there’s a knock at the door. Aaron’s in bed. I lean myself out the window. (The front door lock is broken and permanently shut until we buy a new one). An older gentleman is standing there.
“You own some piglets?”
“Yep”
“Black ones?”
“Yep”
“They were just running up the highway”
“Oh my god!” I feel absolutely sick at the thought of 7 piglets running along the highway.
“I’ve got them back in for you”.
“Thank you so much!”
“I didn’t realise your driveway was so long”
And then I remember the locks on the gate and I look down to see the man has a bandage on his leg. Oh my god! The poor sod has just had to hobble all the way up our long driveway.
Aaron was out of bed, dressed and outside before I had a chance to close the window.
We went down the drive and said our thank yous and then attempted, with some difficulty to get the piglets out of Phyllis’ paddock and back in their own paddock. They had clearly just had a feed and weren’t that interested in the sound of banging buckets and troughs.

Still they were all back in within 10 minutes, which was fortunate as the light was fading fast.

We couldn’t figure out how they’d got out but Aaron wondered if it was the open stockyard gate. I wasn’t convinced but we closed it anyway.

With nightime arriving we were pretty confident the piglets would go to bed now. Then in the morning they’d have the 4am feed and then head back to bed until lunchtime. That would hopefully give Aaron enough time to get home, feed out and board up any escape routes.

Still, I tossed and turned all night, as my imagination tried to convince me that we’d have no piglets left by the morning.

They were there in the morning though. And when Aaron got home from work the next day the piglets were still with mum. He found their escape route out the front fence, hence the reason they’d gone for the bridge, (although up Gary’s drive would have been a better option!) the gap was quickly bordered up and then Aaron set up an electric unit around the perimeter. A few piglet zappings later and they seemed content enough to stay away from the fences.

When Will This Drought End?

From Auckland north it is looking brown. In fact the further north you go the worse it gets.

We at least have some green, unlike many other farms we’ve seen, but our pasture isn’t that great. Most of the grasses have gone to seed and there’s whole patches that have died off. It’s only the cursed kikuyu that bravely battles on. We’re actually grateful for it for once.

The cattle are getting plenty of willow, the sheep seem unconcerned and the pigs have enough to keep them happy.

The ducks and chickens on the other hand aren’t coping all that well. The ground is rock hard so most attempts at foraging are severely restricted. The chickens struggle to scratch the ground and the ducks cannot get their bills in the earth to retrieve tasty insect morsels. We are feeding them all extra but for no return. We’ve had no eggs since early December.

The ducks’ pond keeps drying up and we keep trying to empty our water tank into it but the dam walls have cracked and the water just drains away.

Subsequently the ducks are bored and spend most days lined up along the fenceline quacking their annoyance at us.

The vege gardens and the orchards are taking a hammering. We had wonderful fruit set in December but all the fruit, without exception, has dropped off early and Emily and Olive have made the most of this unexpected opportunity and eaten the lot.

A lot of the veges have struggled or failed to grow, although our Perpetual Spinach, Bright Lights Silverbeet, Welsh Bunching Onions and Society Garlic have all gone crazy.

And then finally, horror upon horrors, our dam ran dry last week. It was an unpleasant discovery and ohhh how grateful I am we bought a water pump last year. There’s a strong water flow coming out of a seam in the ground through the bush, on Gary’s side. The hole wasn’t there until about 18 months ago when mother nature lashed out and the ground gave way. A bastard at the time for Gary but what a blessing it has proved to be for us now.

Aaron has spent several hours over several days at the pump, slowly chugging water into the 25mm pipe. It’s a pain of a task but at least we don’t have to pay to truck water in. Apparently water prices are up to triple their usual amount in some northern areas due to demand. Hmmm, how surprising!

A Somewhat Empty House

We’ve had a few HelpX requests come through since Kuri left but we (meaning me) decided to take a break. Sometimes it’s nice just to let the discipline slide. It’s nice not to have to worry about eating perfectly balanced meals. It’s nice not to have to do the housework if I don’t want to. And it’s nice not to spend so much money at the supermarket if I don’t want to.

But this last weekend was Paul and Nicky’s quarterly weekend. It didn’t start so well. They set off from Auckland Friday mid-afternoon and arrived early evening. The traffic was a crawl virtually from Puhoi tunnel north. And the reason? No, no car crash, no bodies strewn across the highway, just cones. That’s right, god damn blasted cones in Warkworth where Transit NZ have been working on the Warkworth intersections since early 2009.
 Surely they must be going to finish soon I thought. So I Googled it. Apparently completion of these roadworks is scheduled for 2012. Oh our visitors will be thrilled.

Eventually Paul and Nicky arrived.

We had dinner, drinks and the traditional apple pie and custard and then as usual I insisted on going to bed early as we had an early start and I had to get up and feed out before we headed up to Whangarei for the morning.

We went to the Whangarei Growers markets for the first time and how fabulous it was. If only they were closer I would shop there every week. As it was I emptied my wallet of all its cash for tomatoes, apples, oranges, garlic and coriander.

After wandering around the markets we walked across the road to the artisan markets. I found some absolutely beautiful jewellery, all murano glass. I could have spent hundreds; I spent nothing. We did however buy a beautiful blackboard with fencepost frame, which we plan to use once we find ourselves a market to sell at.

Then it was home and a weekend of relaxing with bits of farming thrown in. For some reason I felt completely spaced out and unwell on Sunday and I struggled to even hold a conversation, let alone anything else.