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