Wet Wet Wet Winter

Here we are, on the brink of August and again, it's another wet winter.  Although temperatures have been much milder generally and it surprisingly appears we are getting a small grass growth, the constant sloshing and pushing wheelbarrow loads of hay through slush and hungry animals fetlock deep in mud along the fencelines constantly  bellowing for 'More Hay, More Hay' is getting a little depressing.

We had rain last week, a couple of days of beautifully fine but cold, crispy days with heavy frosts, and we are back to the rain again.  We have looked up the long range forecast for the next 8 days, and it is rain, rain, rain every day.  Our hay situation might be getting a little critical as most of the paddocks have more than their fair share of mud and any remaining grass trampled in.

We have five sheep in lamb this year - two of our original Dorpers (the only two remainders of our original four) and three of their offspring from the year before last.  Looking good as far as William's performance goes (William being the young Wiltshire ram we bought earlier in the New Year).  Mostly in the Wairarapa, the ram goes out with the ewes on 1 February, but we held William back until the first week in March.  With a gestation period of approximately five months, we can expect lambs from early next week on.

Some of our hens have started laying - in particular, Hannah (the hatcher) and Lucky (who defied the storm bomb).  This is a nice surprise with it still being officially winter - we're getting maybe three eggs every two days.

 The hens are reposing back in their flash condo that we showed you a few months ago that got a bit busted up in a bad storm.  A friend of ours has painstakingly fabricated new pieces and glued and fixed all the parts back together.  The house is now reposing on our garden lawn as the ground is much flatter, as against in the adjacent paddock where the barn is where it runs the risk of being pushed over by four exuberant calves.  The downside of this is that they are wandering nearer and nearer the house, which may seem 'cute' and 'farmhousie' to some folk, but it's not so great when chook poo is being tramped through the house.  Two of the Barred Rock 'chicks' in the foreground who will be laying very, very soon, with Hannah (who reared them) at the back

With all the miserable wet weather, we have managed to get on with a few more things inside the house, like finishing off painting woodwork, replacing hardware, etc.  The reason we have not shown you any photos of any of our house interior, is that we do not yet even have one room that is totally finished!

We got above-ceiling and under-floor insulation installed last week, which has made a huge difference.  It no longer feels like the South Pole when you open the door into the hall.

                                

Well, lookie here - a fine day!  Yes, folks, we did have two fine days in between the rain last weekend, albeit with a very chilling northerly wind.  Here's the whole damn family grazing Bonnie and Bella on our long acre

                                         And here's Madge, the supervisor

Surprisingly, the days recently have not been too icy and our house lawns were mowed on Sunday (the above fine weather day), showing that there has been some limited grass growth.  We will be utilising our long acre over the next few days when one of us is home and can get two cattle out at a time as they require constant monitoring.  The tape across the road is not electrified.

Bonnie and Bella's calves, Dawn and Paddy, were weaned off them just over a week ago.  Such a terrible bellowing for 3-4 days;  not so much from the babies, but from the mums.  Paddy and Dawn are now with Walter and Wanda, our foster calves from the year before (10 months old) and are being cosseted with barn shelter, feed nuggets and ad lib hay.  They are about 4 1/2 months old now.

A Day Off at the Seaside

We felt we needed a little cheering up one day last week and a break from 'getting on with things' on the property, so rewarded ourselves (and Tansy) with a picnic on the coast.  After several days of rain, we were lucky enough to be blessed with a perfect winter's day, and set off for Castlepoint, 69 kms north east of Masterton.  Castlepoint is famous for its lighthouse, annual horse races on the beach, and 160-metre-high Castle Point rock. It is popular for holidays and fishing, and has a safe swimming beach and tidal lagoon. 

Castlepoint takes its name from Castle Point, the impressive rock outcrop at the settlement's southern end. The rock was named by the British navigator James Cook in 1770, presumably because the landform resembled a fortress.   Castle Point is one of Wairarapa’s most spectacular landforms. It is made of successive layers of lime and sandstone, deposited over the last two million years. On the seaward side it sits on an older base of siltstone. As the land rose from the sea, the encircling softer mudstone was eroded, exposing harder limestone.

With its strong winds, shallows, reefs and currents, the eastern Wairarapa coast can be dangerous. Since 1849, 31 vessels have foundered there and 31 lives have been lost. In 1913, a 23 metre high lighthouse was built on Castlepoint reef. It is New Zealand's third highest lighthouse and sends three flashes every 45 seconds, visible for 30 kilometres. The last lighthouse keeper retired in 1958, due to automation.

After an invigorating walk up to the lighthouse and back, we headed north to the much less occupied Mataikona, about 20 minutes' further drive.

Looking north towards Mataikona - taken from the path leading up to the Castlepoint lighthouse

Mataikona could be best described as an 'olde worlde' lightly populated beach settlement.  No store, pub nor garage.  Very few permanent residents.  Lots of baches.  This place must really hum over Christmas/New Year

Amazing rock formations at Mataikona beach. This is close-up detail of one of the rocky 'channels' shown in the other photo

So, we had a lovely day off.  A super bonus was finding a nice big deposit of kale seaweed very near the spot we chose to have our picnic, so came home with a garbage bag full to make seawood fertilizer and foliar spray.

An Update on the Cattle & Other Miscellaneous Topics

We have 10 cattle on the property, which we feel is really too many to be carrying on our small acreage, especially after a few very wet spells so far this winter which has left some paddocks quite badly pugged.  We are keeping a close eye on our hay stock and hoping we have enough bales to see us through until the spring grass starts growing again in September, without having to buy more in.  We have three at 21 months - Zelda, Zita and Charley Farley (aka Stumpy) - who will all be getting acquainted with Vic the Homekill in August and September.  Zita and Zelda are Hereford/Friesian crosses, and Charley Farley is a pure Dexter steer courtesy of Bonnie.

A nice shot of Bella with her current pride and joy, Paddy the bull calf.  Paddy is 3 months old in this photo.  Present plans are to  keep Paddy as a bull, as he is turning into a lovely little chap with good constitution, and hopefully selling him before next winter

We still have Clarissa, Bella's calf from last year, who is currently in with Bonnie and Bella and their two calves.  We are hoping to obtain the services later this year of Legend the Dexter bull again, and Clarissa will be put to him.  Current plans include also selling her if she is in calf.  She needs dehorning as you can see, which will be a messy job.  She is a timid wee thing so we need to do a bit more work in handling her before getting the vet up again.  She was scheduled to have been dehorned a few weeks ago when the vet came to burn out Paddy and Dawn's buds (little bumps of horns starting to grow) but she jumped out of our yards, damaging the top rail of a gate.

In this shot taken the other day, Paddy is now 4 months old and is very interested in Clarissa, who is currently on heat and is actually his half sister.  That could be seen as a bit of a worry at his tender age considering he is not yet weaned, but good as far as prospects of hopefully selling him as a breeding bull are concerned

Bonnie bellowing for hay in a very muddy paddock.  Her wee calf, Dawn, is 4 1/2 months in this photo

Our two Hereford/Friesian calves from last year, Walter and Wanda, are now 10 months old and are being cosseted through winter.  They will have two new companions from this weekend - Dawn and Paddy.  It is time these two were weaned so mums can recover before we get the bull in, hopefully October some time.

Wanda in the improvised chook house

and

Denise in the dog house.

Taken during construction of Kate's kennel, which was done on the back of the ute to keep it all nice and level

A nice (but technically not a success) panoramic view looking east taken on a frosty winter's morning

We Now Have Eggs to go with the Bacon

Way back in the New Year about late January/early February, we decided to get another couple of pigs.  They turned out to be the nastiest natured pigs we have had to date (these were our fourth batch).  We found it difficult to name one nice attribute between them.

                       The two new girls, appropriately named DARKIE and DOTTIE

Dottie turned out to be a Number One Bully and an absolute Houdini who could worm sideways through a 7 strand post, wire and batten fence, like a natural sheepdog.  Consequently, when they were running loose in the back paddock (which they invariably were when one or both of us was home) she was a huge pain if she caught a glimpse of you in the distance which prompted a wriggle-through the fence and a speedy arrival of Miss Nosey Parker accompanied by high pitched cries of frustration from Darkie left back in the original paddock.

Fortunately, Kate, who has made it very clear that SHE DOES NOT ROUND UP CATTLE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH - ONLY SHEEP - became our self-appointed house guardian, dissuading Dottie from wriggling through the fence wire to chase up dinner by barking furiously and monitoring our home paddock fence line.  When either of us appeared with the dinner bucket on our way to lock them in their yard, they would run behind you squealing, with Dottie very fond of nipping you on the back of your legs.  And they can hurt!  They both became very fond of learning to balance on their hind legs, which they both did constantly, jumping up to push against gates as you were trying to let them out and trying to nip your hands as you were fumbling with the gate latches.   Such fun after heavy rain when one became spattered in mud!

They were a little late in getting dealt to due to our processor being inundated with work which is normal at this time of year as there is little grass growth and surplus stock are consigned to the freezer.  Believe us, we were counting down the days until Home Kill arrived.  And, they were getting very big.  Folk were very generous keeping us provided with plenty of surplus fruit this year, so they were fed on a surplus of apples and feijoas.

Vic, our Home Kill operator and his worker, skinning the bristles off Darkie in            scalding water while Dottie hangs around watching

We are now officially getting eggs.  The Plymouth Barred Rock chickens we hatched from eggs are now 16 weeks old.  We ended up with 3 hens and 1 rooster.  The hens are now at 'point of lay' which means we can expect eggs from them any time from now on, especially now that we are 1 month past the shortest day and the days gradually getting longer, but our eggs at present are coming from Hannah (the hatcher) and Lucky (who survived the storm) who both lay in separate nests among the hay bales.  They are still in temporary quarters without a proper nesting box, but that's another story ...  At this stage we are getting about 3 eggs every 2 days, on average.  It's so lovely having your own free range fresh boiled eggs!

Now, this is a photo of the HENS, not the cows who are obscured by the fence.  Hannah far left, the 3 Barred Rock Pullets and little Lucky, and Randy the Rotten Rooster to the right

A handsome fellow though he is, Randy is going to meet his maker and become Coq au Vin in our slow cooker, we have decided, this weekend.  He is just too bullying and greedy with his raping and pillaging and is becoming a nuisance.   As well, he is exercising his vocal chords these days and we don't need to be woken any earlier than we are at present!

Hot Air over the Countryside Again

Wikipedia Report :

On 7 January 2012, a scenic hot air balloon flight from Carterton, New Zealand, collided with a high voltage power line while attempting to land, causing it to catch fire, disintegrate and crash just north of the town, killing all eleven people (ten passengers and the pilot) on board. It was the deadliest air disaster to occur in mainland New Zealand since the July 1963 crash of New Zealand National Airways Corporation Flight 441 in the Kaimai Ranges, and the deadliest crash involving a New Zealand aircraft since the November 1979 crash of Air New Zealand

Flight 901 into Antarctica's Mount Erebus.It was also the second-deadliest hot air balloon disaster on record after a 1989 balloon crash in Australia that killed 13 people.

The balloon was a Cameron A-210 model, registered ZK-XXF and named Mr Big. The envelope was manufactured in the United Kingdom in 1997, and was initially used in the United Kingdom before being purchased and imported into New Zealand by Early Morning Balloons Ltd in 2001. The basket and burner system, capable of carrying ten passengers plus pilot, were manufactured in 1989 and were previously used with a Thunder and Colt 160A envelope before the envelope was retired at the end of its useful life

    ZK-XXF, the balloon that crashed

The balloon took off at 6:40 am from its launching area in Carterton, a town of 4100 people in north-eastern Wellington Region, on a 45-minute scenic flight over the Carterton area, carrying ten passengers.  The Masterton-based pilot was one of New Zealand's most experienced balloon pilots, with more than 10,000 hours flying time, and was the safety officer for the "Balloons over Wairarapa" hot air balloon festival, held annually in March around the Carterton and Masterton area.  The ten passengers were all from the greater Wellington Region.  At the time, the weather was clear, with sufficient light and little wind.  Data collected from weather stations at six nearby vineyards confirmed that the wind was mostly calm with occasional gusts up to 11.4 kilometres per hour (7.1 mph) from the north-east

The accident occurred around 7:20 am, when the balloon was attempting to land after completing a partial figure-8 flight pattern over the Carterton area. The pilot had indicated to the chase team he was likely to land near Somerset Road, a rural through road just north of Carterton in the locality of Clareville. At first the balloon was heading north-east over Somerset Road, around 700 metres east of the road's intersection with State Highway 2. Around 400 metres north of Somerset Road, the balloon reversed direction and headed back towards the road. The two chase vehicles, carrying some of the family members of the passengers, positioned on the road ready to assist with the landing.

Eyewitnesses saw the balloon climb and drift east towards a 33 kV subtransmission power line running perpendicular to the road, one of the two sub-transmission lines that connected the Clareville zone substation, which supplies the Carterton township and the surrounding rural area, to the national grid at Transpower's Masterton substation. The pilot was heard shouting "duck down" as the balloon came in contact with the power line around 85 metres from the road. One of the conductor wires was caught over the top of the pilot's end of the basket, and the pilot attempted to get the balloon to climb, but the tension of the wire prevented it rising and instead the balloon slid along the conductor. Around 20 seconds later, electrical arcing occurred, causing the cane basket to ignite in flames, and causing a phase-to-phase short circuit, tripping the line and causing the 3800 properties supplied by the Clareville zone substation to lose power.

Two of the passengers jumped from the balloon, still ten metres in the air, to avoid the fire, falling to their deaths below. The conductor wire on the power line then snapped, sending the balloon shooting upwards, as the balloon basket fire intensified and began to catch onto the envelope. One hundred and fifty metres in the air, the envelope disintegrated, causing the balloon to fall towards the ground, with the wreckage landing in a field just south of Somerset Road, around 600 metres east of the SH2 intersection.

Emergency services were quickly on the scene but, shortly after they arrived, ambulance staff found that all eleven people had died at the scene, and this was later confirmed by police. The bodies of the two people who jumped from the balloon were located 200 metres (700 ft) from the crash site. One of the four propane gas cylinders from the balloon was found leaking at the scene, with the other three found empty.

Weather conditions in the Wairarapa between the months of January and end of April are considered ideal for hot air balloons.  These flights are usually organised first thing in the morning when there is little or no wind.   All the hot air balloons in the country were grounded after the tragedy while they underwent comprehensive safety checks.  Every year, the Wairarapa town of Masterton hosts the 'Balloons Over Wairarapa Festival' in early March and this year, it was unknown for some time whether or not the festival would go ahead.  In the end, the vote was to hold the festival with a special tribute to those who died in the tragic crash on 7 January

Balloons Over Wairarapa 2012

We often get to see balloons in the skies when we are up early in the morning.  We saw the ill-fated ZK-XX, the balloon that crashed, to the north about 20 minutes before it went down.

This photo taken shortly after 7am from our front gate, looking east, towards the end of April

Two balloons landing beyond the ridge to the west of Fossils Retreat

It's All About Madge ...

 Meet the Gymnast - can't resist an open window - entering

the house from the roof

Fur Rules!

Every Dog Should Know Its Place

Still the Cleanest Bottom in the Wairarapa

                                                         A Favourite Yoga Stretch

More on the Produce Part 2

After a reasonably encouraging result from a few broccoli plants last year, we filled a 2x1 metre bed with some healthy little plants earlier this year towards the end of summer.  We didn't get a chance to check on them for several days and when we did so, this is what we found :

Hmmm - looks like it's home-sweet-home for white butterflies.  This photo was taken at the beginning of April

Now as we knew this was tasty fodder, we became more vigilant in inspecting these little what were, healthy wee plants.   We had a couple of severe frosts at the end of April, and then thought that that would be the end of the white butterfly caterpillar carnage.  Silly us!  Now that we are well into July and have already started harvesting broccoli heads, amazingly, we are STILL also harvesting plump green caterpillars, after recent gales, storms, heavy rain and stiff frosts.  The plants are sturdy enough now to give each a jolly good shake which throws these little blighters onto the soil, from where they are picked up.  A weekly 'shake' is still producing 10-15 caterpillars which are then gathered up and speedily disposed of by the chooks

A typical harvest of fat little caterpillars.  As well as being masters of disguise blending in perfectly with broccoli stalks these little buggers have the stamina of an Olympic champion with an equivalent voracious appetite

We also tried growing corn and sunflowers directly into cow patties in the spaces of our north shelter belt but again - too many gale force storms and not enough sunny days to produce any harvests.  We had reasonable success with zucchini and scallopine - again - had the weather been kinder we would have had better results.  A so-so crop of peas;  reasonable bean crops.  We also grew celeriac and kohl rabi for the first time.  Celeriac grew well and the kohl rabi not too bad.  A great crop of yams and jerusalem artichokes.  Greens grew well.  Peppers and chilli plants were swamped by the sprawling tomato plants, and for the second year, basil failed to grow satisfactorily.  Having discovered the joys (and cheapness) of producing your own pesto, we will give basil one more try this year with a little bed all of its own.

In a week or two we will have completed all our raised vege beds, which will total 13 in number, varying in sizes of 1x1 metres, 2x1 metres and 3x1 metres.  And that will be it.   Filling them takes time as well - trips with the wheelbarrow into the paddocks to gather manure, sifting topsoil, carting and shovelling mushroom compost.  We live quite near a local mushroom factory, so it's not far to take the ute to get a scoop of mushroom compost on the tray.  Oh, we do have a 2x1 metre (woefully overgrown) asparagus bed as well, but on the south east side of the garden near the berries (also woefully overgrown and awaiting pruning and weeding).

We do try to be as organic as possible and refrain from using commercial sprays and chemicals.  Slugs are gathered with old leaves and beer traps and a hot garlicky spray is made up to deter snails and slugs (but obviously caterpillars are not phased!) from snacking on our greens.  Our plants are fed regularly with manure tea made by soaking a sack full of manure in a drum of water;  comfrey tea, and a recent trip to the coast provided a good sackful of seaweed which is now also soaking in a drum of water to make a foliar spray/fertilizer.  We also have a large compost bin on the go.  Let's hope this summer will be a lot warmer than our last - we never once had the urge to beat the heat and head for the river last summer!

View of the raised vege beds from the kitchen.  Beds 11-12-13 are still under construction in the back row.  Kohl rabi and celery remain in the 1st bed LHS;  frost cloth over a hoop frame covers baby spinach and rocket in bed 2;  garlic planted in 3rd bed with pea straw covering.  Straggling remains of silver beet and mesclun behind this bed, and broccoli in the far back left bed.  All the remaining beds are being 'fed up' for spring and summer planting.  It is hoped that the beds will be completed this year as a winter project, painted and surrounded by tidy little gravel paths, but with other emergencies (usually involving animals) always cropping up, as usual, we will have to wait and see if and when it happens 

How our Vege Garden Grew - Part 1

This last summer of 2011/12 was not a good one for growing - complaints abounded all over the country about poor results.  Literally, summer as we know it in New Zealand just didn't arrive.  Here in the Wairarapa, we had plenty of cloudy days, little sunshine and unseasonal cold weather.  Some vegetable prices in the supermarkets were ridiculous - for example, pumpkins which normally abound and run amok in everyone's garden, reached an unprecedented $19 each in the supermarket - a small portion cut for 2-3 servings calculated out at around $6-7.

A renegade pumpkin plant in the compost bin ran riot but alas, too late.  By the time the weather had made up its mind it was, indeed, summer - our days were already waning.  Resulting pumpkins from this growth failed to fully ripen before being cut down by early frosts

Over summer, we had 9 raised vege beds up and running at Fossils Retreat, varying in size from 1x1 to 2x1 and 3x1 sq. metres.   Two beds were set up for early and main potato crops, with Ilam Hardy and redskinned Heather selected for the early crops, and Rua and Agria for the main crops.  We were extremely pleased with the redskinned Heather which grew prolifically.  The Ilam Hardy reached a decent size when dug but weren't all that abundant.  Of the main crops, Rua performed poorly and developed heaps of nasty little inedible 'flowers' which resembled small, unripe green tomatoes which turned out to be a real pain after the haulms were cut before harvesting, as they fell off the foliage and then had to be removed one by one from the bed.  We harvested a superb crop from the Agrias and it looks at this stage as if we have easily enough potatoes to last us the full year.  Green skinned spuds which were accidentally exposed to sunshine were boiled up nightly in the stock pot on the fire with feed peas and fed to the pigs.  We'll go with the same two earlies this year and just stick with Agria for the main crop

Rua potatoes a few weeks before harvesting.  The tall 'bush' in the background is actually a bed of Jerusalem Artichokes - another abundant crop

We had a couple of unseasonal, doozy storms over summer which wreaked some havoc not only in our garden, but over the whole district.

Gale force winds snapped the supports of the tomatoes causing the plants to collapse and sprawl untidily.  If truth be known, too many plants were planted, too close together.  We're not huge tomato eaters, so maybe we'll just stick to two plants this summer

Late tomatoes from here to China.  These did not amount to any great size, and huge batches of tomato sauce were made and frozen.  Because of the lack of warmth, tomatoes were still trying to ripen on the vines when we got hit with early frosts

We had good crops of beans, with a few Broad Beans sown and the remainder Kings Seeds Purple Tee Pee Dwarf Beans, which remained nice and compact and we got two picks from each plant.  Surpluses were french sliced and frozen

Some plantings just didn't get there.  Golden Eggplant seedlings (Kings Seeds) were transplanted, initially grew well, then remained in a permanent state of blue-flowered limbo with no fruit developing.

Not all bad news!  Look - we got two Rock Melons!  Lovely bite sized morsels they were too!  Lovely lush Eggplant bushes in the background which gave a splendid display of blue flowers and nothing else

Yams were very prolific and coloured up nicely, growing to a decent size and very tasty.  Our first frost cut back all the foliage

We grew garlic and onions - very well as it happens.  This winter we have devoted a whole bed for garlic and have planted 81 Kakanui Garlic cloves (our own saved cloves) and 16 Elephant Garlic cloves which we will mainly use for roasting with veges with a roast dinner.  Greens grew very well.  Spasmodic luck with carrots - those that did germinate grew well;  same with peas.