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
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