An Early Surprise

We had a few sets of neighbours in for dinner back in early June. One happened to remark that we were early with our lambing. Oh no, he was assured, we weren't due any lambs until towards the end of August. 'Well', he said dubiously - 'I'm pretty sure I saw a lamb out there'. Earlier that day, Denise had remarked (from the kitchen) that she thought she saw a lamb out in our back paddock which housed our four (hopefully, pregnant ewes - 3 had been run with Barry, our last year's oldest ram, and Barry's mum had been with Bart - our second ram lamb). However, a quick scan with the binoculars didn't reveal anything unusual. Needless to say, all sets of neighbours' tail lights were still disappearing when we donned jackets and gumboots and strapped on the god-send headlamps, and set out for the back paddock. Sure enough, we had a lamb. Astra, one of our four base stock who had failed to produce last year, did the trick this year. The father must have been our oldest ram lamb, Barry, who has proved his fertility at 5 months.

Astra, with very early ram lamb Casper

We had a bit of a trying, busy time over this last winter, which proved almost as wet as last winter. Zita, the younger of our bought-in feeder calves last spring, came down suddenly with a bacterial infection, resulting in two vet visits and long vigilence. She and Clarissa, our Dexter heifer, who had also got a dose of it, were brought into the paddock with the barn and needed to be cosseted for several weeks. Zita went down so suddenly and was very weak - we had to continually go out to the barn at all times when we were home, every day, for 12 consecutive days and haul her to her feet and rub the numbness out of her. To top it all off, she developed ringworm, which resulted in horrid, balding crusty patches all over her. Veterinary advice was that there is really no treatment, it is viral, particularly prevalent in calves - cows don't get it - and just to let it run its 21 day course as the animal's health does not suffer. Sure enough, the whole darned mess cleared up after 2-3 weeks. Now, we are happy to report, she has made a full recovery and is looking splendid on new, spring grass.

Denise, returning back from feeding pigs, fighting off greedy Zelda

We incurred a bit of damage early in winter when we ran the big calves in the paddock with the barn. We had fenced off the haybarn with a multi-strand electric fence, and had found the tape chewed and the unit on the ground still sparking. This happened twice - thus we lost use of both battery powered units. The main culprets appeared to be Zelda and Zita. The two Dexters, Clarissa and Charlie, are a bit more timid but don't miss out on any resultant action. On one of the vet's visits, he also de-knackered Charlie (who is destined for our freezer end of next year).

Damage caused by weaner calves to one of our electric fence units. Not content with just chewing through the tape and knocking down the unit, they also have to chew metres more tape and chew all the leads of the unit, as you can see. We could have almost bought a new unit for the amounts we have had to spend betting new wires and clips.

HUGE Catch Up

Wow! We can't believe how the time has flown. Things have sure happened at Fossils Retreat, but in wintry hours. So many animals needing feeding, so much wet, wet, wet ... dark, dark. dark ... (just like last winter), and with one of us on continual shiftwork, seems like things have come at a standstill at Fossils Retreat. And to be absolutely honest - with the house not fully completed, it has been so darned cold in the computer room - we have had a sluggish winter blobbing in front of our home supplied woodburner and Sky TV.

Denise modelling our godsend headlamps recommended by our friends Elizabeth and Teresa. Proved absolutely amazing for problem sheep feet investigations in winter hours too

We got two weaner piglets on 5 June. Winter not really a good time to raise free range pigs, especially with another very wet winter - we had lots of very-near-misses being bogged down in pig muck (on the agenda for this early summer - concrete majority of pig yard - and memo - don't run free range pigs over winter !)

Patsy, at rear, darker spots, and Penny (white head) - two sisters, purchased locally on 5 June 2011 - first day home - 6wks +

After having our ears continually assailed by indignant bellows for ongoing weeks by Bonnie and Bella, our Dexter cows; after finally financially able to get a ramp installed on the property and finding a suitable Dexter bull; a lovely local chap; Legend, arrived and seemed to pacify the two girls. Our records show that he arrived on 25 May. He is a lovely red fellow - there is a not-very-high chance but still-a-chance we may get a dun calf from Bonnie (our black Dexter cow), but will almost certainly get a Grade 1 red calf from Bella, who is also red.

Here's a shot of Legend with Bonnie at back - not a very good shot we're afraid. He stayed around 3-4 months, and as the girls ceased bellowing at us and ignoring him after the 'new boy in town' love affair seemed to end after six weeks or so, we are assuming Legend lives up to his name. Any anticipated calves will be born end of February 2012 on.

The more observant of you will note a kingfisher (at bottom left of photo) on the fence. We had several weeks of visits from many kingfishers - what a delight it was to see them vigilantly lined up on the fence posts, motionlessly intent on whatever it was in our boggy paddock that attracted them.

Let's end this post with a pic of one of the crazy residents of the household - Scruffy (aka Thelma)

Where Did April Go?

We've missed a month. We have had many memorable things happen and lots of visitors at Fossils Retreat and I haven't recorded them - it was obviously a busy month!


Well, our well (bore) is all in and paid for, with the pump securely established under cover in a corner of the garage, next to the house pump. We have a tap connected up a fence post with the hose connected. We have unlimited water - hurrah! No more carting 20 litre containers up from the water race! And we've had plenty of rain and haven't had to add any water to the veges - what we have left, anyway.

I'm glad we planted lots of varieties of veges as it's given us an indicator as to what we can grow well and what doesn't do so well. Peppers and chillies just did not grow up at all, and resulted in small, sparse fruit. Our sole cherry tomato plant has produced tomatoes for China and is still producing. Spinach and silver beet thrive. Carrots are doing well - sugar snap peas and dwarf beans were sporadic sprouters but produced well when grown.


We dug up some Jerusalem artichokes in the weekend and they are to die for, yet the Globe artichokes have been very slow to establish. The yam foliage is beginning to die off so we have yet to be surprised or disappointed when we dig deep in this bed. Potatoes were okay, but many small which we thought would happen as they suffered a bit from lack of water in their earlier weeks.



Flavours were noticeably improved after compost tea was made and was fed. The compost WILL be turned and doctored up this week, so I am sure we will notice a difference in taste and growth of next summer's veges.


The berries and the fruit trees have been totally neglected, we are ashamed to say - but the asparagus bed did get weeded eventually - had better plant a few more crowns in it this year. Our citrus have adapted to their new conditions and all have blossom and shows of fruit to come. The lime tree planted in a big planter died - wrong positioning and a convenient cat toilet being the main causes of its demise. The feijoa hedge plants are doing well and have put on some growth and are currently being weedeated around and will hopefully be mulched before this week is out. We do miss the twilight hours of summer, and we are now at the time of the year when you're leaving for work in the dark and arriving home at near dark. However, the upside is that it's lovely to light a fire when you get home and blob out in front of TV and actually watch the news live for a change. It's not really cold enough for a fire every night right now, but we had our macrocarpa tree (which was felled 18 months ago) cut and split so we have wood ready. The new wood shed is gradually getting filled, and our pile of wood on the lawn is gradually diminishing. We still have one big pile of old timber and wood from the house to get through, but the skilsaw is currently getting a well needed overhaul.


We are feeling very rich and lucky in that our three freezers are full or ham and bacon, lamb and pork. We know where our meat has come from and that we raised our animals in happy and stressfree conditions, with plenty of food. And it shows in the taste.

Carving our first lamb roast. Yummm!

Brawn made from Phyllis's head. Pretty darn tasty it was, too!

More on the animals' welfare in the next couple of days. Promise!

Marching into More Activity

It's been a busy month so far, with no significant rain until the last two days, which hopefully will green up our pastures and we'll get a late spurt of growth before winter. Having just had a southerly blow through, it's really starting to feel like autumn - and to date - woefully, still no wood in the wood shed.



Jennifer working on the framework for the woodshed. Plenty of 6 inch nails and nail clamps going into this little lot!

It has progressed now to a four wall dwelling, lacking only the roof and a few bits of trim - the corrugated iron has to be cut to size and nailed on and the door will follow 'later' ... Jennifer has currently rendered herself unable to do a lot due to ongoing back pain - her condition described by one provider as 'your chassis is wearing out'! Add a strained muscle and a pinched nerve to that and you get the picture.

Anyway, the cows and calves were separated at the beginning of the month. Bella and Bonnie bellowed for a few days - both for their two calves and for a boyfriend (which we are still trying to arrange) - but the two calves, Clarissa and Charlie, were pretty oblivious. They are with our two weaners, Zita and Zelda, and are gradually getting more friendly and letting us get closer to them.

Thursday 17 March was memorable as well as being St Patrick's Day, in that our biggest, finest ram lamb, Barry - was re-introduced to Annabel, Astra and Aroha. Bart, our second and slightly smaller (although not, apparently, where it counts) ram lamb, was singled off with our biggest ewe, Abigail (Barry's mum). Both encounters appear, to date, amicable. With the full moon (and a biggie it was too, the closest the moon has been to the earth in 18 years) on the 20th, we are hoping both these liaisons are fruitful.

We have also been busy getting quotes for plumbing up our second water tank, to collect the rainwater from the implement shed. We have now arranged this, and also have accepted a quote for inserting the well (where Honk the water diviner predicted water in the back yard), supplying and connecting the appropriate pump, plus a large main water line to a tap on the fence line. Brian, our wonderful 'digger man' has rebedded the new water tank, dug the trenches to lay the water line back to the downpipe on the shed and to connect the two water tanks to equalise, then Kevin, our great electrician, rushed to lay an electric line in the same trench from our garage to the implement bay (we can get the bay shed wired up later), Paul the plumber arrived to do both jobs, and it has been all go in our back yard for the last couple of days.

Brian dug the well. Honk the water diviner was spot on, except water was evident at about 1.5 metres, or 6ft - Honk had predicted 12 ft down. Note the walls are on the wood shed now

And then we got two days of rain ...

Wrap Up for February

February has come and gone already. All four pigs have gone - Pharoah and Phyllis for hams and bacon, and we picked up Poppy and Penelope from the Homekill butcher the other day - and mighty fine pork chops they are too.

The four renegade sheep that needed shearing have now gone - two got fly struck but we were on to it pretty quickly - and were homekilled by Vic last Tuesday - who had us panicking as he still had not arrived by 3.30 - the sheep had been yarded since the night before - and we had 8 arriving for dinner for fresh (and it certainly was!) lambs' fry with our bacon. Jennifer raced over from the yards with the frys just before 5pm, with guests due at 6.30pm. With no shearing facilities, it would have cost us about $50 per sheep to be shorn, and with not much return for 4 fleeces, it was a no-brainer decision to slaughter all four and stick to the virtually fleeceless Dorper sheep.

The two Dorper ram lambs - Barry and Bart - have been separated from the main flock for a while - as have the 3 ewe lambs. We are planning to test Barry and Bart's virility by crossing Barry with the 3 Dorper ewes who are not his mother, and Bart with Barry's mum. They are going 'out' just before the full moon in March - a month later than is customary for most farmers in our region.

Bonnie and Bella are both bellowing regularly for a boyfriend, so we are on the lookout for a suitable Dexter bull to lease for a few weeks. Good news from their original breeder - Bella's calf Clarissa can be registered as a pure bred heifer, but the bad news is poor little stunted Charlie is doomed for freezer pack. Clarissa is coming along nicely but is very shy. Our two weaner calves, Zelda and Zita, are doing very well as well. All the cattle are in together, but we will need to flick out the 3 heifer calves when the bull arrives; keep two separate paddocks of mating sheep, while managing to keep the 3 ewe lambs separate as well. An urgent need for fencing our two home paddocks has arisen ...

We are waiting for a second quote to connect up the second water tank to the implement shed to gather that rainwater, plus a possibly better option to access underground stream water for paddock troughs and garden irrigation.

The wood shed at the back of the garage is nearly completed. Strict instructions were given and understood that no way was a chicken shed to be contemplated until a wood shed was built. We need to get cracking on wood to put in the woodshed.

We have mainly been on the border of drought stricken over the last three months. One good soak a few weeks ago and that was it. The pastures badly need a good long soaking over several days.

The vege garden has mainly been productive, but has suffered sadly through lack of water. However, we have a fair idea what will flourish next year and what not to bother with.

Inside - and we need some photos to post showing you what has been done - we regret to say there is not one room that is completely finished. We are very aware that summer hours are coming to a close, and are anticipating working inside finishing off paintwork, stripping, and the like.

We had very satisfactory dealings with The Warehouse, who honoured the good sale price on the 300 litre freezer, and we were able to additionally purchase a 200 litre freezer a few weeks ago at a very good discount.

Dealing with Water and Other Slippery Issues

During our recent quests for information and the cheapest and most practical way of getting water on to our land for plants and stock in the back paddocks via our water race, which runs down past 3 paddocks to the west, we have officially learned from the Carterton District Council that our water race is not in actual fact a 'water race' (i.e. owned and maintained by the Council) but a 'stream' (owned and maintained by us).
Hurrah! We can dam it, take 20,000 litres a day from it, cultivate watercress, and, harvest eels. This sounds appealling, bearing in mind we purchased at a very good price at the end of last year, a chest smoker (yet to be assembled) and the required manuka chips, anticipating home smoked chickens, salamis, and eels. Well, first we had to find out if we had any eels in our stream, which flows north to south. Internet research revealed eels are active at night, have a tremendous sense of smell, and are particularly attracted to smelly meat - the older the better - aged roadkill is highly recommended.

There is the remnants of a concrete support running into the stream at one spot, which proved a handy spot to submerge varying degrees of 'smelly' offerings over the next few nights, and with great anticipation, we flashed on the torches after hearing great activity and splashing in the water below us to find indeed, we did have guests for supper. Over the next few nights, we counted five eels congregating in our feeding spot, but none of them seemed particularly large. However, on our last night, after dropping on an aged pig's ear, we spotted one 'biggie' voraciously attacking it.

There were 5 eels visible when this photo was taken. Note the 'supervisor' in the foreground, with 'aged' offerings in the water in front of her. To the left, about '10 to' you can make out another eel; there is one under the reeds at the top of the photo just above the flash reflection, and there is one at the front of the large rock.

Internet research on our NZ eels is quite awesome. The females don't have an urge to reproduce until they are well over 20 years of age; find a mate, and make their ways back from OUR stream and waterways back to the ocean mouth, then make their way all the way up to Tonga, mate, and have millions of eggs (and I don't know what happens to them then, sorry). The eggs hatch, and the little eels make their way all the way back down to the same ocean/river mouth, and will hopefully end up back in our stream. Pretty amazing, eh?

Along with all this, it was suggested to us by a very helpful Council bloke, that we might consider putting in a well with a liner and pumping water from that. We learned of a local water diviner who came with very good references and tales of excellent results, so had him located and he arrived one early evening last week. True to his name, his number plate read HONK. Honk comes armed with a piece of #8 fencing wire about 75cm long, bent into two right angles at each end. He holds one of these bent pieces, and the other end indicates when he has located water. Honk's technique is to wander around, stop, then the end of the wire suddenly starts dipping a number of times, and Honk's lips start counting '1, 2, 3 etc.' After 10 minutes or so of these mysterious wanderings and countings and subsequent spraying of fluoro paint on the grass, Honk explains that there is a stream flowing W/E 12 feet down just HERE (a circular spray) and another stream flowing N/S just HERE (a sprayed line) which is 20 feet down. So, we learn that it is probably good to dig perhaps around 17-18 feet, which hole then gets filled with a porous base and 'well liners', capped by a concrete top, the whole thing perhaps 1 metre wide. Then we have to get a pump (electric is best) and get someone with the required plumbing know-how to come and get the basics up and running. We figger we can run and get the alkathene in place for water troughs and garden and orchard access points. Honk wandered around a few sites, and we have eventually decided in the home garden, just beyond where our two water tanks for house water are situated. We have heard from the plumber about connecting these, and we are waiting for the quote. Honk water divining with his #8 fencing wire. This is our last shot of Penelope and Poppy who departed yesterday to be transformed into succulent roasts, chops and baby back ribs.

Our next step is to contact Brian and ask if he can dig the well and place the liners. As this is reasonably near the garage, we can have a trench dug to the corner of the garage and site the pump adjacent to the house water pump. We paid Honk a satisfactory 3-figure sum in notes, and he departed. He is very confident we will strike water exactly where he has predicted, which claims would back up the very extensible amount of complementary reviews as to the accuracy of his divining that we have received.

Tansy and Madge resting in the morning sun in the lounge room. Madge is tired from being out all night hunting, and Tansy is tired from sleeping all night

Reminders as to why we love living in the country ...

And It's Goodbye to two Pigs, and Hello to Bacon and Ham

We farewelled Pharoah and Phyllis mid January. They had a very brief introduction to Vic and were both chowing down on bread when the big bangs came. Hard to find a homekiller these days who is prepared to kill pigs, as it involves setting up a large steel bath and heating water from drums on the truck by gas in order to immerse the (dead - throat has been cut by now) pig and start scraping off the bristles.

Dear readers, we thought some of you may be upset with us if we published photos of Vic's schedule, but Denise reckons it will be 'fine' and 'interesting' so we'll get some photos of the process when Penelope and Poppy go off for pork chops and roasts in a couple of weeks' time.

Pharoah and Phyllis' last supper before slaughter. Phyllis at far left, Pharoah at back with head facing

We have now received back the hams and bacon packs from the butcher, and we are mightily pleased. The bacon is thick cut and the ham is delicious, as was the roll roast of pork we have also had. Just so nice NOT to see water coming out of the ham and bacon cooking. Pharoah is but a distant memory to Denise, who still has bruising showing on the back of her calf.

Other progress has occurred. We have met Brian, father of our dairy farmer over and down the road (Jamie). Brian is supposed to be retired, but just loves to play with his toys - tractor, bulldozer and the like. Brian has worked miracles and removed rubbish and old tree trunks and roots and filled in an awful area in our far paddock; he's bulldozed a couple of large hills we had in our home paddock behind the implement shed, and pushed the dirt into the above-the-gumboots-height wet area we had most of last winter; and best of all - he's dug a trench for the second water tank that has been sitting at our front gate for eight months and moved it into the hole. Not exactly where we had envisaged it, but the poor chap had to have three goes at digging a suitable hole without hitting the pipes leading from the existing water tank. This second tank will take the roof rainwater from our implement shed. Brian has dug the required trench, and now we are waiting for the plumber to bring the pipes and connect it all up.

After two attempts to find a clear space to place the second water tank without finding existing pipes. The second tank is still out at the gate

We'eve been having some lovely nights but they are few and far between. Everyone is jolly sick and tired of these never-ending north-wester gales. We have not had rain for some weeks.

A late BBQ steak one evening. Reminiscent of our first early days here at Fossils Retreat when we didn't have a kitchen

Make Hay While the Sun Shines

We had part of our larger front paddock cut for hay, which was about all we had spare due to the near-drought weather conditions. We took a day off on Sunday 2 January to have a picnic at the races at Tauherenikau, just north of Featherston, only to arrive home at 6 o'clock, tired and sunburned, to find lots of neat little hay bales scattered over the paddock.
We checked the weather forecast over a gin and tonic and once it was confirmed that no rain was expected for the Wairarapa (no surprise) we decided to leave the gathering until the next day.

By late Monday it turned a little cloudy, so after another gin and tonic and a check of the weather forecast after the news (still no rain) we decided it should happen. Fortunately, Tracey and David had arrived to stay with us after being nearly blown away camping out at the coast at Ngawi, so we were mighty glad of the extra muscles.

Denise, Tracey and David stacking up the trusty ute with 12 hay bales at a time, which were then transported to the implement shed and stacked 6 bales high. If you look very hard you can see the supervisor looking out the ute window

The day had started rather unexpectedly and tiringly, in that it was noticed at breakfast that there were more than 2 rams in the middle back paddock. (Barry and Bart had been put in the back paddock until after the hay was baled). The renegades (Flossie and Rosie and the two smaller Freezer Packs) had somehow got out of the adjacent long paddock and in with the two ram lambs. Barry was delighted to see them and expressed his utmost pleasure by repeatedly attempting to get a piggy back ride on them. Needless to say a hasty decision was made to get them all yarded together and separate again, the two rams, and also separate the 3 female ewe lambs - Barbara, Beatrice and Bianca. All was going too smoothly with Barry caught and escorted to the home paddock that has just been cut, and as we thought, Bart too; but Bart ended up mistakenly being Bianca; then Abigail made a flying leap at the closing yard gate and ended up in the home paddock as well. The true Bart was manhandled in as well, and the remaining two ewe lambs - Barbara and Beatrice were returned to the long paddock, the remaining ewes were released into the back middle paddock, and the sheep handlers all retired to the house for R & R (it was a sweltering 28* at this stage of the day) with the 4 outlaws left to their own devices for a while. At some stage it was noted that 2 of the outlaws had broken through the electric fence which was fully charged with new batteries that morning after we saw Charlie the Dexter calf skipping merrily back and forth through it, nibbling at all the hay bales. What a miracle it was to find that the breakaway sheep were Abigail and Bianca, so it was merely a matter of opening the adjoining gate and letting them back in with the ewes. Now it is just a matter of getting all the ewes yarded again and separating Bianca and trimming all the ewes' feet.

As we keep reminding ourselves, it appears very difficult to plan one's daily activities - always some emergency popping up and priorities changing. Now we have to concentrate on getting Barry and Bart sold in the next few days, which means we will have to make a portable ramp to get them on to a ute, so that will be a priority.

We also made use of Tracey and David's stay with us by enlisting them to help us fill all our 20 litre water containers from the water race and load them on to the ute, so all the veges and fruit and berry and currant trees got a long, overdue soaking.

A rather lovely near-on sunset at Fossils Retreat. This panoramic photo was taken about 8.45pm on Monday 3 January, looking east from outside our front gate