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.

More March Arrivals!

We had been waiting and waiting in anticipation for our two heavily pregnant Dexter matriarchs - Bella and Bonnie - to produce their calves. It was very late last year (according to Wairarapa birthing schedules) when we leased LEGEND, a very handsome red Dexter with impeccable pedigree, who could not arrive until we had a loading race in position into our yards. Bonnie was the first to produce on 4 March ...

Bonnie, with baby heifer calf DAWN - not even one day old. We noticed her early in the morning, and she had not been born the night before when we checked. We had the possibility with a red bull and a black cow, that the calf might have been dun in colour (Dexters only come in three colours - black (the most popular), red and dun.

Bella was several days later birthing a lovely red bull late on St Patrick's Day - 17 March.

Bella, with bull calf PADDY. We knew this chappie would be red in colour, like his parents.

Dawn and Paddy - Dawn is 3 weeks old here, and Paddy 1 week old.

Both babies are doing well.

Tansy Gets a New Sister

We initially chose our Dorper sheep for one reason - they are a self-shedding meat breed, so we would not need to get a smallfarmer shearer in (which costs a lot if you have no plant or shed). They originated in South Africa, where over the years they, of course, adapted to their native surroundings. They do well in New Zealand, but, unfortunately, not too well in wet conditions. We have had two very wet winters in a row, and we are flat, so we have had to yard them very frequently and check and trim their feet.

We only have two of our original mums left (see previous blogs) but they have passed on certain characteristics to their daughters, namely : run up and put your head in the bucket for nuggets, allow patting, follow the bucket ONLY TO 20 METRES TO THE YARD GATE - then turn round and CHARGE AT THEM.

Believe us, we have bred big girls. A large woolly missile projecting itself at chest height is one to duck! We have learned it takes 3 persons or 1 person and a good dog to yard our wily sheep. Anyway, Denise has been lamenting for some time our lack of a dog, and we started asking around friends and neighbours if anybody knew of a retiring sheepdog with heading abilities (i.e. a strong eye to stare the sheep down and make them retreat). Our good friend Jean who lives on a large station in South Wairarapa came to our aid and was able to negotiate such a dog, belonging to the owner.

We started to get prepared. We had been told the dog responded to a whistle and swearing. A second plastic whistle was purchased. A Google search revealed a standard set of whistle tones for various commands (e.g. tweet tweet tweeeet = STAY, you bugger!) and one site even had all the tones! Problem was, neither of us was very good at producing any tone!
The dog whistles. One of us managed to produce a noise and tones relatively quickly; the other took several hours to produce a monotone and has apparently, since, given up altogether! (I think she has sussed that the dog doesn't appear to respond to any tonal variations anyway!)


So, last Saturday, we travelled down to South Wairarapa and picked up KATE, who is an 8 year old Beardie cross, and very Large. Jean had warned us she is a SHEEPDOG and has always been a working SHEEPDOG and she has always lived OUTSIDE and she is very used to living OUTSIDE. So, in the meantime, whilst we are still busy planning to build Kate her own roomy house, she is resident in the calf pen in our shed at present.

Kate on the day of her arrival at Fossils Retreat. That's a soft bed on a palette we have made up for her you can see inside the pen, but we don't think she knows what it is for

So Kate, after 3 days, seems to have settled in. She has now discovered her warm blanket bed. We did have one go at seeing if and how she works, but she seemed more interested in exploring our stream and having a wade (it was very hot) but she did come to the party eventually, barking and helping move the sheep.

We gave Kate a bath on her second day here, and gave her a bit of a trim. Isn't she lovely?

She is very good out in the paddocks and keeps to herself. She is not too fond of our two Dexter cows, Bella and Bonnie. Bonnie, in particular, who always births black calves, is absolutely certain that Kate is a renegade Dexter calf, and tries to run after her for a smell at every opportunity.

Things we are gradually learning about Kate :

1. She is really an agility dog ...
Kate showing remarkable speed and agility in fence hurdling to get away from curious Bonnie (out of picture) who thinks she is a Dexter calf.

The Flock Increases

Towards the end of February, we decided if we didn't get some chickens underway - bearing in mind we have been established at Fossils Retreat two years next month - can you believe! - it would be next spring/summer before we got cracking. As most hens go into their annual moult over winter, we thought we would raise our own first flock so that they would be (hopefully) coming in to lay this coming spring. Broody hens are relatively easy to find, and we were lucky enough to have been offered one. As well, she is a 'breed' chicken - a french breed called 'Favorelles'. We have called her HANNAH - not that we really want to go down the road of now starting to name every chicken we will own ... but we know from past experience that some hens become character favourites down the track and do end up being named. She needs a name, anyway, as she will become our official chicken nanny.

This is not actually Hannah Hen, but a web photo. Hannah looks pretty much like this one. When we looked up on the web to find out more about Favorelles chickens, we discovered this breed has five toes. Most poultry only have four toes. Now, isn't that an interesting biological fact you have learned today?

A local poultry fancier sold us six fertile eggs which were collected the same day as we collected Hannah. She claimed them as her own immediately.
New mum-to-be Hannah settled in on the first day of her chick rearing in her little custom-made nesting box made from an old wooden nails box. Twenty days to go ...

The new chickens are Plymouth Barred Rock chickens - a dual breed, which means as well as laying a decent supply of eggs, any surplus roosters can be fattened separately and should make for a fairly decent casserole. It will be a while before their growth indicates how many will be roosters and how many will be hens.

This is what any hens we have from the eggs will look like when mature. Of couse, we may not hatch any hens - they may all be roosters!

The eggs hatched bang on target on 7 March - 21 days after Hannah sat. Five out of the six hatched. Our eels enjoyed the dud one.

Hannah right into the role of an active Mum. As soon as we lifted the chicks out of the nesting box she was up and at it, clucking to them and showing them how to eat the crumbles and forage in the grass

They really are a delight to watch and hear, especially at feeding time when they are given table scraps and the like. You can hear the raised excitement of the 'cheep cheeps' when they are given something exotic like a soft tomato or the fat off a chop.

A web photo of Barred Rock chicks at 5 days old - ours looked just like this. No doubt a surprise to many of you who thought all baby chickens were yellow - eh? Another useful informative fact you have learned today

Lucky has discovered the new family and we have to feed her at the same time. She walks round and round the coop (sometimes chased by Tansy - grrr - bad dog!) clucking for her feed, so we have to toss it down at the side of the coop

By now many of you will have noticed and greatly admired the handsome nursery coop made by Jennifer (patent pending). This one survived our two storm bombs no problem.

Where in the World was Lucky?

A couple of weeks ago, the accountant in our household announced that we had a spare credit card with a little bit of credit on it, and having seen advertised on sale a chicken house with run attached, suggested we might buy it, bearing in mind we have been at Fossils Retreat almost two years now and we still haven’t had the time or resources to build a chook house.


Looks great in the advertising material, doesn't it?



And so we entered into the world of poultry keeping in two dimensions - disregarding the fact that we are now officially into autumn, and most laying hens are entering the annual moult about now and over winter. We did think the purchased house and run was pretty flimsy when we were unpacking it (looks solid as a rock in the photographs, of course), but we ended up being so thrilled that the instructions were actually very easy to follow and plenty of spare screws were supplied, and the whole thing looked so cute! with its little ramp up from the ground to the house, that we decided to go ahead and look for some tenants anyway, but resolving to go to town in the weekend and get some tent pegs to secure the base of it to the ground. We purchased a couple of young Rhode Island Red pullets from the Masterton A&P Show Poultry section, and established them in their new home. They took a few days to settle in, needing patient educating on how to eat chook feed pellets from a dish, how to slide down the ramp from their upstairs sleeping quarters (with a bit of help via a firm shove out of the nesting boxes where they weren’t laying) and they were just coming right after six days, with a couple of eggs to show, when we had a doozey of a southerly, with a burst of gale force winds and horizontal rain.

After one particular gust when we thought perhaps the house roof may be coming off, we ran to the laundry window and saw the new hen house bowled right over upside down, with the living quarters and roof smashed and broken. It was nearly dark with no chickens to be seen, but we struggled against the wind and carried the run and remains of the house into the shelter of the implement shed. The weather really was so atrocious it was pointless stumbling around, so we retired until the morning, hoping the weather would have settled down next morning.

Saturday dawned with much depleted winds and flooding visible in several paddocks along with a couple of willow branches down along our shelter belt. No hens to be seen after an hour or so fruitless searching. Some time later in the day, we were alerted by Tansy to something really interesting in the paddock next to where the hen house had been standing, which turned out to be one very sodden and very dead chicken – we figure the poor thing had probably died of fright and drowned in a deep puddle of water. Many searches in grass clumps, on hay bales, wherever a frightened (to death obviously) over the next couple of days were in vain with not a sign of the remaining hen.

Then, one sunny morning, exactly twelve days later than the storm, as we were over in the hay barn, came this loud jubilant ‘dook dook dook dook dook dook’ (which translates into ‘Egg laid! Egg laid! Egg laid!’) and here, large as life, strutting up and down on the hay bales, was one of the chickens! Now, where on earth she had been holed up for twelve days is a total mystery. She is very much a presence in the vicinity of the implement shed/hay barn, waiting for breakfast and dinner every day, and sleeping in the shattered remains of the hen house (still awaiting repair and reassembly).

Esme, now called LUCKY (for obvious reasons) perching nightly in the shattered remains of the hen house