A Small Win

Saturday, 8 January 2011

Thursday morning I checked our traps with great anticipation, only to discover them all empty. I was gutted.

However, that changed in the afternoon. In the process of feeding out the pigs, Coppa showed great interest in the stoat trap on the driveway by the bantam run. Lo and behold a dead stoat!

Our first dead stoat. A nice healthy, adult as well, with its head well and truly crushed in our DOC2000 stoat trap. I whooped with joy and gave Coppa a big hug.

We hadn’t had any rabbit meat to bait the trap with so I wasn’t feeling hopeful, however, it turns out a piece of blade steak is just as tempting a morsel.

The trap’s a vicious thing and requires 2 people to reset it so I waited for Aaron to come home.

I recall reading somewhere that once you catch your first stoat you need to run its anal scent glands in and around the trap to attract further stoats. I donned a pair of gloves and while Aaron lifted the trap plate I removed the stoat. It was absolutely crawling with fleas. Undeterred I proceeded to rub the arse of the still soft and warm stoat in and around the 2 stoat traps. The stoat’s insides gurgled as I held onto it.

It was quite frankly a somewhat unpleasant and surrreal task but if it means more dead stoats then I will willingly wipe my traps with the arse of every stoat we catch.

This morning the traps were empty again, except for one of the rat traps. The rat was still alive unfortunately so I shoved the trap under Coppa’s nose. He grabbed the rat and with a few quick chomps it was all over.

So that’s 2 dead pests in less than 48 hours but I’m still not happy.

I really want to catch that wild cat that’s been hanging around the gate at the bottom of our drive.

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

Our neighbours G & D have just returned to Australia after their 2 week annual summer holiday in NZ.

Although nice, friendly people, they are worlds apart from us in interests, intellect and property ideas. I can enjoy their company in small doses but they always arrive on the doorstep with alcohol and cigarettes, and as the alcohol consumption increases so does the smoking and the lack of meaningful conversation.

Usually we only catch up once or twice during their visits but this year their water tank had been completely drained by our other neighbour. We had told them we would fill their tank with our water pump but the pump got drenched in a heavy rain shower and blew the ignition component.

I had the week before Christmas to take it in for repair but I had other things to deal with and I figured our neighbour would have a go at fixing the water pipe to his tank. So the upshot is I didn’t take the pump in for repair until the end of the week, by which time it was too late to get a part ordered in and while our neighbour did spend 4 hours clearing his water pipe it was not the one to his house!

Instead he decided the best option was to make sure the water pipe to his goldfish pond was working and for the 2 of them to use our bathroom while they were here. That meant they visited every 2nd day and each time stayed for a drink and a chat.

We had of course said it was okay for them to do so. How could we not? Because of the drought the water in our tank has been pumped out of the creek on their property.

It also meant they could get their daily supply of meat; payment for grazing their land. Not that the meat really costs us anything but with only a bbq to cook on they only want the convenient cuts – steak, chops, sausages and bacon. By the end of their visit our own supply of meat is now down to stewing steak and roasts – not what I feel like cooking or eating in these consistently 30° summer temperatures.

They wanted eggs as well but our girls haven’t been laying consistently.

They also asked to come around for dinner a couple of times to catch up. They don’t have the ability to entertain us at their place with their lack of water and lack of electricity so I understand why they want to come to ours. What is a little annoying though is that when served dinner, one of them usually doesn’t feel like eating.

They only visit for 2 weeks every 6 months so I should just learn to deal with it but the fact is they’re our neighbours, not our buddies. I don’t have a problem being neighbourly but this summer was neighbour overload.

Having said all this I can’t deny that we are incredibly lucky to have such good neighbours up our drive. With one absent most of the time we get to utilise the land for livestock and dog walking. Not to mention dreaming of what we would do with the place if we could afford to buy it.

Our other neighbour is also absent most of the time, seemingly only coming home to sleep. Subsequently both blocks are overgrown and wild but also very quiet.

G has hinted in the past that he hopes to return to live on his block soon but this summer the story was quite different. His income has dropped a lot in the recession and D’s health problems are such that I doubt she will ever be able to live over here. She’s close to being wheelchair-bound and this summer, apart from day trips in the car, has been almost completely house-bound.

She said she wouldn’t be back here next summer so I suspect we may never see her again.

The Poison Man

Last summer when G came home from Aussie he moaned about how high the grass was growing on the side of his driveway.
“I’ll poison it with the most toxic weed spray I can find” he said.
We tried to talk him out of it but he said he had no choice, so spray he did. Through autumn and winter his driveway was devoid of vegetation but then spring hit and it was payback time. Having made the soil sick, mother nature was forced to grow weeds with long taproots – the only things able to draw essential nutrients.

By the time our neighbour arrived back in the country his driveway was absolutely infested with 5 foot high thistles.

Our sympathy levels were low; we’d warned him. He was annoyed but undeterred. There was only one thing for it – go out and spend several hundred dollars again on poisons. He started referring to himself as the Poison Man

For the first week he was home it drizzled a bit every day and we crossed our fingers that this good fortune would continue. But alas, the last 3 days of his trip it was still and sunny and he went hard out.

He was feeling generous and offered to do our side of the driveway as well. Aaron was adamant he was to do no such thing.

And so, he has gone once again and as we walk the dogs up the driveway the smell of dying vegetation permeates the air. But worst of all, knowing they’re going to die the weeds have gone into reproduction mode, hastily setting seed. Next summer our neighbour’s weed problem will be tenfold.

More Money Than Sense

With his water tank inadvertently drained by neighbour K, G went and talked to K and told him he was not to use his water. G was convinced K had done it maliciously. We tried to explain that K has no water collecting facility of his own and probably thought G’s water tank was constantly being filled by mother nature.

“I’m going to have it out with him” G said. It was his call, not our argument, so we left him to it.

When G next paid us a visit he had surprising news. K is planning to put his property on the market soon. He has only been here 18 months and in that time he has let his property grow wild and has used it as a rubbish dumping ground. He’s a nice enough, friendly guy but clearly K doesn’t feel a lot of love for his south-facing block with its complete lack of amenities.

G is stoked. He’s told K he wants to buy the block.

That would be great for us. We would then have no neighbours for nearly the entire year and a bit more grazing to boot. The catch though is that K paid the same money for his 2 acres as we did for our 10. For some crazy reason he paid twice the market value. We told G that K was unlikely to take much less than what he paid for it and with rural property prices down he’s unlikely to sell it anytime soon.

G said he’d happily pay the $120K to own it. Not because he actually wants the land but because he’s paranoid about getting ripped off by neighbours. The water incident helping to confirm his suspicions.
"That’s crazy” we said
“It’s worth it”
“That’s way too much money for that shitty block of land”
“It’s worth it to me”

We shut up at that point. We’re not stupid. If that shitty little 2 acres off our driveway sells for $120K twice in a short time, and in a recession, then that should push the value of our own property up.

G is mad, absolutely insane if he considers it. The only people who really stand to benefit from such a transaction are me and Aaron. We can only hope that G goes ahead with it.