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

A Tiring but Productive End to 2010

Today is New Year's Day and it's drizzling heavily which we are very thankful for as we are almost in drought conditions. Some overstocked farmers are already having to buy in hay. We had part of one of our bigger paddocks cut for hay on Christmas Eve and unfortunately the baler has not turned up yet so its spread all over the paddock getting a little wet right now. We have had day after day of beautiful hot dry weather - temperatures close to 30*C, and plenty of gale force northwesterly winds as well.

Clearing out our water race to improve water flow. Always a welcome little job when the weather is stinking hot. Jennifer is also sussing out a good spot to encourage eels

All the cattle are now in together in front of the house. Denise is fostering adoration and obedience by feeding out a small ration of feed nuts. Bella and Clarissa at the back; Bonnie with her head out towards Denise; Zita and Zelda, and little Charlie in the foreground. The far back of this paddock past the electric tape has been cut for hay - still to be baled.

Over the last few days and weeks, we have been concentrating on cleaning up our house garden. This has entailed hours and hours here and there with the weedeater, attacking grass up to knee height on what was formerly paddock grazing horses. Denise arranged to hire a huge industrial roaring beast of a push mower over two days to then attack the weedeaten down pasture which was working just fine until a tyre came off a wheel yesterday morning. Fortunately, most of the mowing had been done.

Denise being hauled along by the industrial mower, magically transforming rough pasture into what will be, in about 12 months' time, beautiful lawn (we hope)

While we were returning the mower, we got to look at and test drive on the footpath, a lovely brand new ride-on mower. Denise persuaded the salesman to bring it down to Fossils Retreat to see how it performed on the newly mowed grass and it outshone itself. Needless to say, it is here to stay.

Jennifer having her trial run on the new mower. That's all our raised vege beds in the background, with a pile of topsoil to the side that still has to be barrowed off elsewhere

Irrigation has become a priority in the overall plan now. Just to give all these veges and the surrounding few fruit trees a good drink took 120 litres of water - hauled up from the water race on to the back of the ute and carted up to the house. We will be checking out with our local Council next week that we are, in fact, allowed to draw water from the race, and we'll have to be seeking opinions on how to go about this and get the water up to a holding tank and also put drinking troughs in the front paddocks. Yes, it will be expensive.

We've had some amazing sunsets and cloud formations over the past few weeks. This photo was taken about 8.45pm one evening as Denise was getting washing in from the line.

After our exhausting last couple of days, for New Year's Eve we went and visited friends on a lifestyle block in Greytown for a few drinks, and came home about 9pm. We spent the rest of the evening quietly at home eating a crayfish each, enjoying a few wines and Jennifer was treated to a lovely feet treatment in her new Foot Spa. We saw the New Year in, and collapsed into bed. Today, we are somewhat stiff and sore and lethargic, but the drizzle is clearing away so no doubt we will be out raking up some of our copious grass clippings to use as mulch. We're out to friends' tonight for dinner, then off to the races tomorrow for a picnic day out. Perhaps we will win enough to pay for our irrigation! (Hardly likely but an entertaining thought) ...

Our First Christmas at Fossils Retreat

Our first Christmas has come and gone at Fossils Retreat. Fortunately, we both started holidays at the beginning of the Christmas week, which enabled us to start cooking, baking, shopping, getting beds organised and creating bedrooms out of previous storage rooms in the house. The domestic animals were very quick off the mark to recognise that holidays had started and get into the summer holiday spirit ...

Madge relaxing on a spare bed after a hard morning's work hunting rabbits, birds, tailess lizards and tiny field mice

Scruffy checks out that we have indeed removed every Christmas ornament from this box

We got the 8ft Christmas tree up and placed and got the last of the ornaments up 2 days before Christmas Eve.

Scruffy checking out that we have placed all the Christmas tree lights symmetrically around the tree

After heading down to Wellington on Christmas Eve to take Jennifer's mum out for a Christmas lunch, two family couples arrived that night and stayed over; Denise made fantastic waffles and fruit and yoghurt and/or cream for breakfast; one couple departed for Christmas lunch elsewhere; and 3 more family couples and 2 kids arrived around midday on Christmas Day. For a change, the gale-force north wester winds abated and we were able to open the french doors into the kitchen and dining room and sit outside, which enabled all to improve on their summer tans. We had a great Christmas Dinner about 4 o'clock on Christmas Day which was even more remarkable (as somebody commented) in that no family arguments at all ensued. The family all departed early afternoon on Boxing Day to go to their respective homes, and Denise and Jennifer did absolutely nothing for the rest of the day apart from feeding pigs (very disappointing left-overs - zilch, in fact) early that evening.

We also decided that if we were ever going to restore our fridges to their natural states, we had better get some friends in to help get through the leftovers, which we did on the evening of the 27th, having spent at least some hours constructively - finally getting another gate made for our house fencing - which makes it an awful lot easier to carry down pig buckets to Porker Villa than climbing over the fence as we were used to. We still have lots of friends and family planning to visit over the next few days, which we are looking forward to immensely.

The Christmas tree finally up and lit, decorated muchly with some of Jennifer's selection of American Christmas ornaments - the fairy angel seems to be a little tipsy after Christmas Day but she has now recovered and resumed her rightful upright position at the top of the tree

We Make Progress on our Freezer Purchase

Well, we must say we are very impressed with the rapidity Head Office of The Warehouse responded to our complaint of no 300 litre freezers available for us. Follows, the chain of correspondence since our original letter :

Good afternoon Jennifer,

Thank you for contacting The Warehouse regarding the in-store special of the 300L freezer over the weekend.

As this promotion was a store-only offer, these terms and conditions are at the discretion of the store involved and the item in question was in extremely high demand over the weekend.

Also, each store has its own policies on laybys and rainchecks around Christmas due to the nature of retailing in this busy time of year.

However, what I will do for you is contact the manager of The Warehouse Masterton in order to gain some feedback on your circumstances.

In the meantime, please forward me your contact telephone number, the name of the staff member, time of your visit and any other information that we can use to investigate this for you.

Regards
Alfonso

Customer Services Advisor

We then had another email from Alfonso the next day :


Good afternoon Jennifer,

I have just heard back from The Warehouse Masterton who want me to forward the following response:

Hi there,

thank you for bringing this to my attention Is it possible to know who Jennifer spoke to on Saturday. Could she narrow down the time for me?

For a number of reasons:

We had 4 going into Saturday, the display and 3 boxes that were merchandised behind. I personally worked nightfill Friday night and know this was so. We sold 3 on Saturday and the display model we sold on Sunday We most always have the 300l chest freezers in stock. (You can look at Itran to verify this) In regards to the advertising, it was a 2 day deal and these are advertised on tv, not in mailers and are promoted instore with the flyers. Could you let them know if they sign up to the website they will get this info in advance, as well as other family and friends exclusive deals.

I am more than happy to honour the weekend special when we receive more in

Also can you please forward your contact number and I will get them to ring you.

Regards

Alfonso

We replied :

Hello Alfonso

I've found the docket from the Masterton store. On Saturday 11 December we purchased at Till: 136H @ 4.33pm DK 68583. 'Deanna'? at the till directed us to the Returns/Enquiries counter to ask about the freezers, where we waited for service approximately 5 minutes; so we would have started talking to the female employee at that department about the freezers who gave us the information as already detailed to you at about 4.40pm. I'm sorry, we don't recall her name. There were two of us - good looking, middle aged females. We believe the employee has shortish wavy brown with red highlights hair, possibly glasses, mid 40's or so. Very pleasant.

Our contact details :

Jennifer ... and Denise ...
Carterton

Cheers and thanks for your swift attention to this matter Alfonso. May you and yours have a very Happy Christmas

Regards

And next day we heard again from Alfonso :

Good afternoon Jennifer,

Thats no problem we are here to help.

Jennifer, I will forward this to the store manager in order to get a
resolution for you.

If they have not contacted you in the next few days please let me know
and I will investigate further.

Thank you for your email and if you need any further assistance, do not
hesitate to contact us.

Merry Christmas
Alfonso

Customer Services Advisor

We'll give it a few more days and wait to hear from them. We visited the Masterton store yesterday and confirmed they have no 300 litre chest freezers for sale. Just goes to show it was worthwhile following up. (Mind you, they could work it that none will be available until about August next year ...). Will keep you posted

General Update and A Bit of Trivia

What with lots of things happening and our grass going wild - pigs a'wandering through the water race into the neighbours' (we're pretty sure we've plugged all the escape routes now); rams having to be separated and moved in with the cows; thistle-grubbing; drenching, etc. - haven't had time for many photos. The weather has been hot and dry, with the nor'wester doing its share of the soil drying. The cattle and pigs have been drinking plenty, and Denise is developing a truly admirable set of biceps carting 20 litre containers of water from our water race. The sheep are able to access the race from their current paddock, but there are still large trecherous muddy areas along our banks, so we don't risk the smaller Dexter calves. Jennifer is currently exempt from water-hauling duties due to pulled R arm tendons, but is keeping up with watering and tending our copious-producing vegetable beds.

We left it too late to organise Pharoah for Christmas ham and bacon, and also Phyllis for pork. Pharoah has developed, it appears, into a fine, healthy young boar and the girls are advancing at a great rate so we are a little worried but however can do nothing until 10 January, when the home-kill man comes to terminate their short and romantically sweet lives. We imagine Penelope and Poppy will make wonderful roasts, ribs and chops and like to hope they will be destined for a visit from the home-kill man shortly after. We will seriously need another big freezer.

Hence, when visiting our nearest branch of The Warehouse this last weekend, we were thrilled to find that chest freezers were on sale ... read on ... Jennifer's letter to The Warehouse :

Dear The Warehouse

On Saturday 11 December 2010 I visited the Masterton branch of The Warehouse, and discovered in-store advertising of a considerable percentage off the normal selling price of your chest freezers. The notice stated that the discount was valid for this past weekend only.

There was a flyer advertising the 300L freezer, showing the discounted price if purchased.

I enquired at the Enquiry counter at the Masterton store whether I could pay for one now, and return the next morning with a suitable vehicle to take it from the store. I was told that there were no 300L freezers in stock. No rain checks as it was a weekend only special. I asked if I could buy the freezer displayed in the Masterton store. I was told 'No'. (No reason). I was told that Masterton had never got any of the 300L freezers. (Yet there was a flyer advertising the discount price off the 300L freezer in the Masterton store). The helpful Enquiries person advised that the Petone Warehouse was showing 300L freezers available.

As I was returning home on Sunday 12 December, I detoured a considerable way and visited the Petone Warehouse store. In store was the same advertisement above the same 300L freezer, advertising the discounted price for that weekend only. There were 300L freezers in stock. I asked if I paid for one now, could it be held and picked up the following Saturday when we had a suitable vehicle? I was told that goods would only be held for 24 hours. I asked about courier/freight charges, and was told there was no delivery to Carterton (where I live).

By then, I had had enough. Well, wouldn't you? Mainly because :
There was an advertisement in the Masterton store telling me I could buy a 300L freezer at a discounted price, yet it appears that was untrue
I live in Carterton. It is a good 20 minute drive to your Masterton store anyway; and I deviated about 40km to visit the Petone store.

I must say I don't think much of your advertising or P R policies. I would be interested to know just how many of the freezers you did sell in all your stores this past weekend if there was no advertising apart from weekend store advertising? I mean, I am looking for another new freezer as I am sure a lot of other rural folks are (for a start) to put all their Christmas hams and homekills in. If I had read in advance that The Warehouse was going to heavily discount chest freezers over the weekend, I certainly wouldn't have made the 20 minute drive to and from in my car, and would have obviously taken my ute and tie-downs, assuming, naturally, that my local store had a freezer in stock to sell me.

I look forward to your comments

JENNIFER M NIDD

p.s. I would be interested in buying the floor model in your Masterton store. Why take up the floor space advertising something it doesn't even have?

We'll keep you posted ...