Tales from the farmhttp://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php2024-03-19T09:21:23Ztim@timnbron.co.nztim@timnbron.co.nzPlenty of exercisehttp://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry240317-022702 Two months of sunshine. The grass was about to turn brown, but we had some rain just in time. But we did manage to get some of the hay in. Bronwyn rustled up a hay gang through a contact at work, and we moved over 500 bales. That took 5 hours, and we were all exhausted, young and old. We're due to bale the big paddock next week. That'll be 800 bales, but at least the hay barn is in the corner of the same paddock!
Rach has got her Batchelors, and is continuing to an Honours and then a Masters degree. She'll be studying deep ocean mud sediment as part of he project. She hasn't brought any boys home yet, but has filled the house with plants. Sarah is also at uni studying Chemistry and Statistics. She's currently working through some foundation courses and I've been helping her with the basics. Bronwyn has two more papers to go until she completes her Batchelor of Ministry. Meanwhile I've had a full few months, teaching brass instruments to a family from church, getting the youth trust through an audit, and helping on the farm. As well as driving up and down the hill once or twice a day...]]>2024-03-17T02:27:02ZChristmas!http://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry240106-041113 It's been rather wet, and still very green. Several festivals have been swamped in floods and mud. We're still hoping that it will have dried out a bit by the time we get to go on holiday later in the month. Or at least something less than the record rainfall last year. Haven't had to water the garden for years.
Sarah has finished school, and Rachael has finished Uni. The end of an era. No more trips to the school bus. And Rach is hoping to get her full driving license soon, which means that she'll be able to carry passengers. Legally.
Bronwyn now has a new car. Our old one did well at transporting huge amounts of creative junk when Bronwyn was working for the church. But it's a bit of a liability now if she needs a parking spot in the city, so the new car is a bit shorter. Just need to sell the old one so we've got some space in the garage.
Sorry, hang on. Duchess wants a chat.
Hi guys! Duchess is my name. I like to hang out with the humans, and wag my tail. Violently. And climb up on them too. And run. I LIKE TO RUN! Very fast. Round and round! The humans have been teaching me how to chase the white fluffy dogs out on the farm. I love chasing them. Round and Round! I think the humans want them to go in a straight line, but that's BORING. I like digging too. Haven't found anything yet, but I keep trying.
There's a one legged furry snake in our house. A big fat one. He hardly moves, except when I come up to say hello, when he raises the leg and HISSES. I'm not sure he wants to be friends. There's also the Mouthclaws. They live in a cage in the garden, and peck at the ground with their mouth claw. One day, I found one sitting on the ground, so I brought it round to show the humans. The humans didn't seem too happy about it. But the mouthclaw is doing fine. I tried not to dribble on it.
So that's about my life so far. I spend a lot of time sleeping, waiting for the humans to get up. We've been out to the water a few times. Big water. I used to be scared of it, but I'm happy to splash and even swim a bit now. As well as running alongside it, of course!
Thanks Duchess. Must give you a run sometime. ]]>2024-01-06T04:11:13ZDIYhttp://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry231022-061948 We looked in the local recycle centre for old windows. Several shower doors and aluminium panels, nothing like what we needed. And we'd need to get the entire window frame since we'd never find an opener to match. I decided to make a new opener. We found some balustrades of the right width and some beading for the glass to sit on. Took ages measuring it all, and carefully cutting everything to match. The hardest part was getting the hinge holes in the right place, because it's not possible to mark them with the window shut. But it almost right, so I resorted to the old trick of shaving the edge down slightly. Got someone else to do the glass and putty. (My last effort looked like some kid with Plasticene.) I'll be better prepared for when I need to replace the other opener, which by the looks of it may not last much longer!
Fixed the mailbox last week. Came home after Sunday lunch to find the post leaning over towards the road. This seemed odd, because the average vandal would likely knock it the other way. So I went down with a spade, spanner and hammer and got it pretty much back to the approximate position. While I was doing this, someone from over the road told me it had been a bus. Apparently it had tried to turn round using our driveway, and hit the post on the way out. It's an 8 inch post, so it must have left quite a dent. It also rescued them from reversing intro the ditch. It was an Auckland Transport city bus. No idea what it was doing out here!
When I get time, I want to make a dodecahedron shaped mailbox. With a sign saying "No Circulars".
Had a fun time with the youth trust recently. We had a staff day out, and had a "masterclass" in making ice cream. Plus cookies and hokey pokey (honeycomb). I learnt how to extract vanilla, and we also made some Brookie Pies. Cookies shaped into a cup, with fudge brownie on top. Brownie-Cookies. Or Brookies. Fascinating place - they had a couple of 3D printers for making chocolate moulds, and all sorts of different contraptions and ingredients.
The two lambs have been weaned. Well OK, we ran out of milk powder and there's no point buying another sack. But they're getting big, so it was about time. They don't agree though! Meanwhile, Duchess is settling down. A bit. Bronwyn has been trying to teach her how to round up the sheep by pointing and calling Left and Right. Not the traditional method, but easier to remember. She's still crazy, but getting stronger. Would make a good sledge dog. Pity we don't have any snow.
Diamondz has been wearing a cone for the last couple of weeks. He got a bad scratch on his leg, but it's now healing well, provided that he doesn't lick it. Eating can be an issue, but if you pile it up high he can generally get hold of it. The cat flap can be more of a problem!
Sarah is in her final term, and preparing for the exams. She wants to study counselling, but they don't take on people for that course until they've had a bit more life experience, so she's looking at doing a foundation course in the meantime. Rach is working on her final project to finish her degree. Next year, she's been considering a one year internship at NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospherics). It'll mean staying in Wellington, which will be a big step. She's also been offered a place on a Masters course, one of only three students to be chosen. She's really excited about that too, and they've told her they'll hold it for her if she does the one year internship first.
Warm and sunny. Green. Well, for now anyway!]]>2023-10-22T06:19:48ZDuchesshttp://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry230917-075618 She's still a bit anxious when left alone, but so long as she's had enough exercise (and somewhere to poop) she settles down quickly. I've been taking her out a couple of times each day when the others are out. Duchess likes sniffing. Especially poo, which she starts eating if we don't pull her away. Sheep poo is her favourite. Also chicken poo and horse poo, but not cow. She'll just walk straight through it without noticing. She likes it fresh. When meeting lambs, she goes straight for the butt.
We've got a cage for her in the lounge, a pen in the bedroom, a fixed lead in the garden, and a retractable lead for walks. She lives a life of home detention! But we're beginning to teach her commands, so she might get a bit more freedom once she gets the hang of it. She's still a nightmare when distractions are nearby. I took her out on the lead while I was chopping thistles this week. The lambs decided it was feeding time, and raced towards us. Duchess immediately wanted to leap over and lick them to death. Unfortunately she was on the other side of the thistle and did a forward roll right over it. Don't think she was injured, but she certainly quietened down after that.
Finally, it's getting a bit warmer, though not necessarily drier. The frost tender tree in the driveway has survived so far. I've cleared the garden, and we've started planting. Soon we'll be complaining that it's too hot and dry. But not yet.
This weekend was very windy. Yesterday, a sudden blast blew the plastic sheet off the back porch, pulling out a couple of planks which then hit the kitchen window. Bronwyn and her dad fixed the plastic onto the window instead, and I spent an hour finding all the bits of glass. That part of the kitchen is a lot tidier now. The window frame is rather rotten though, and we really need a complete new window. Hopefully we'll be able to find one to fit.
So currently we have a crazy puppy out front, two crazy lambs out back, a cat who wants to kill the dog, and five chickens who have been keeping well out of reach. Plus an indoor-outdoor flow in the kitchen...]]>2023-09-17T07:56:18ZCovid, the lambs, and a puppy.http://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry230813-032546 That night, I didn't sleep too well, and I had a headache in the morning, so I did a test. Yup, my first official positive. Slept all day and night.
But next morning, I felt pretty much back to normal. I even dug the garden. Briefly. Of course, we still have to isolate for 7 days, so Bronwyn went to Rachael's room and spent most of the time either out or with the doors and windows open. I put down Bronwyn as a close household contact. The notification form didn't ask about colleagues I spent five hours down at the cafe with, so I didn't mention him. Nobody else got it though!
It's lambing season. I'm losing count, but currently we've got five in the back yard bottle feeding, and another with the mother in the back garden. Bug was first. You can tell by his hairless bulging eyes. Then Barbie. Then we had a lamb with two scrotums which peed like a girl. Unfortunately it probably had other issues, and didn't last long. I'm not mentioning its name, but it began with B. Then we had Benedict, Blossom and Bernard. Plus a couple more that didn't make it. Someone wanted to pick up a lamb for their child to train for Agricultural Day, and I believe we have homes for another two to go to, once they're out of the vulnerable stage. Bronwyn and Rachael have been out regularly checking the paddock for any more.
Rachael delivered a lamb this week. The mother was wandering around with the lamb poking out. We managed to corner it, and after about 5 minutes, Rach managed to pull it out. We weren't sure if it was going to make it, but when we left, they were all standing and Mum was cleaning it up.
It's a bit chaotic at the moment. Sarah is due to get a puppy delivered. It's a golden labrador. She's been setting up a pen in her room, and a puppy house on the deck, and we've been putting in some posts in the garden for a dog run. Sarah wants to train it properly. I'm not sure if its name will begin with B.]]>2023-08-13T03:25:46ZThe South Islandhttp://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry230813-025206 Kaikoura has some interesting geology. It's got a layer of white limestone on top of old sandstone, with several other layers as well. Rachael was in her element, telling us about the layering and erosion, and she was following her geological maps as we drove along. We set off for a walk around the peninsula, narrowly avoiding an aggressive calf and getting back just before dark. But we spotted our first few seals.
Not far north, we spotted more seals. Thousands of them. There's a major breeding colony there, and you can see all the brown stains where they've been lying.
At Blenheim, the weather was closing in a bit, but we went to the air museum there, and also a restaurant which had a vintage plane in the garden. A big plane. Had a day trip to Picton to see one of the migrant ships, and one of the oldest on display in the world. The rain was clear enough to get out to an old Maori site.
It rained on the way back. Lots. But it made the journey more interesting, avoiding the mud and rocks in the road and admiring the waterfalls. Lots. And the seals obviously enjoyed it immensely, having been left alone for the day.
Hanmer Springs is a bit expensive, and it was now about 4C. If you're after some decent hot pools, try Waikite south of Rotorua, where the entire family can bathe and eat for the price of one in Hanmer!
But perhaps our best day was back in Christchurch. We spent a while at the Antarctica Centre. It's a real live research establishment with plenty for visitors. They have some of the tracked vehicles that they use, which could cross a metre gap without feeling a bump, and climb 45 degree slopes. Plus the inevitable penguin sanctuary and lots of other exhibits. Including the room which is kept at minus 8C, and has big fans to simulate a "summer" storm. I had my British coat on and enjoyed it immensely. Not sure how people cope in summer - they only supply coats and snow shoes!
After that, we'd run out of time to see the earthquake exhibit. But we drove into town, and right into the sound and light show that the city had put on for the Maori new year. It was rather awesome, with multicoloured light shows all over the park. We got to see the cathedral, which now looks in much better shape although still covered in boards and scaffolding.
After a decent meal, we came back home. Rachael spent an hour or so carefully examining the rock eggs and identifying as many as she could. Our host was most pleased. ]]>2023-08-13T02:52:06ZWinter.. Sorry about the lack of posts!http://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry230611-065938 I had a go at processing my sugar cane. It wasn't easy; it's almost as hard as wood, and that's after you've broken through the bamboo like bark! I managed to get some juice out with a pair of pliers. I also tried the blender (after hacking off the bark with an axe) but you tend to end up with a lot of fibres and pulp. When I tried boiling it down, it went black and started burning. Perhaps if I can find an old clothes mangle, it might just work...
We've all been pretty busy. Sarah is enjoying Chemistry, and already seems to know it better than I do. I'm having to do a fair amount of googling in order to understand the exam questions. Rachael appears to be doing fine in university, although the wifi has been causing issues. She's sometimes had to come back home in order to get an assignment finished. Last week, she went to Rotorua with a friend to study sedimentary volcanic layers. Sounds like they had a great time, and her friend (a German exchange student) wants to go back before she has to leave. Bronwyn has been out at work most days, which has made it hard to get assignments done for her bible college course. Meanwhile, I've got several major projects going on at the moment, although I find it good therapy to get out of the house and hack some blackberry. Nearly cleared the latest patch. Will need to check on all the old patches next, because they've probably grown again!
We're planning another trip to the South Island next month. Hopefully this time, we might actually get to see some snow. We'll be travelling across the Southern Alps, so hopefully there won't be TOO much snow...]]>2023-06-11T06:59:38ZHappy Easter!http://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry230409-094907 The new water tank is filling up. I had to patch up the pipe in a couple of places but I appear to have stopped the leaks. I've also filled in the trenches so that we can have our lawn back (not that we've had a chance to mow it properly this year!) Unfortunately, I got a bit of grit in one eye, which got infected and I've had to endure several rounds of having bright lights, dilating drops and various medications put in it. As well as several very long waits in the queueing system. But it's settling down now, and hopefully I'll have seen the last of The Chaser and Tipping Point on TVNZ in the waiting room for now!
The Kumeu Show went smoothly, although on a somewhat reduced footprint. Good weather and no pandemic for once! We've also had my first playout in a movie theatre for the premier of Red, White And Brass. Good acoustics (we were in a little ampitheatre in the ticket hall. Terrible lighting. But apparently we sounded really good, and got quite a bit in the collection box for a short playout. We've also done my first performance in a library. Libraries are generally supposed to be quiet, but this was the formal opening, so they wanted some music and culture!
We've had a few issues with cars. Bronwyn's battery died. She called out the AA and they jump started it, so she could drive to get another. The next day, I was heading to the hospital for a checkup. At the parking ticket barrier, I leaned over to get the ticket, lost pressure on the clutch and stalled. I tried to start but I didn't get anything. So I got out and flagged the car behind to use the other gate. The ticket collector got out and offered to push. However, I suspect he came from a more laid back culture. At 0.5 mph I wasn't able to start it. Fortunately a woman came to help who was obviously better trained, and I had enough speed to start it before hitting the pedestrian crossing ramp. I parked in the only spot I could find that faced downhill.
Some hours later, while perched in the chair getting lights blasted at me, Bronwyn rang. Her car had refused to go above second gear, so she'd avoided the motorway and limped to the church nearby. This time, the AA had booked a tow truck, which didn't arrive. Eventually they booked her an Uber taxi home. The tow truck eventually appeared the next day.
Fortunately, it wasn't the gearbox, but the transmission housing which has now been replaced. And my battery is still holding out, although I've taken to parking on a downhill slope. Meanwhile, Bronwyn had borrowed Rachael's car, which ran out of water and overheated in the middle of a motorway junction. The AA refused to bring her water and booked another tow truck. Fortunately, the motorway patrol truck spotted her and filled up the radiator so she could get home. Was a bit low on oil as well, as we discovered!
Despite all the storms, the feijoas and guavas have finally come online. I spent most of yesterday making chutney (it takes a while to scoop a large bucket of feijoas and dice five large onions) and did some guava jelly today. Might try the feijoa and ginger jam recipe again soon too. Meanwhile, Bronwyn found the beams for the three crosses we put up a couple of years ago and we set them up for Easter on the grassy mound on the front paddock. And she organised an easter egg hunt in the tractor shed this afternoon. Fortunately she counted all the eggs beforehand so we knew how many were still hiding in the tractors! ]]>2023-04-09T09:49:07ZCan we call it summer now?http://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry230311-200959 One of our friends has had to move out; her house is fine, but the hillside opposite is still unstable and might go at any moment. There's a police cordon around their village (Muriwai); some parts are off limits and the beach (one of the most popular in Auckland) is only accessible for locals. The cyclone hit the east coast very badly, and the river rose so high in one valley that it's now several feet deep in silt. Nine people died there, plus two firefighters in Muriwai who were checking a house when it was crushed by a mudslide. Several others are still unaccounted for; it's difficult to know who was living where in some places.
We lost over thirty lambs and a few sheep. Most of the lambs were the small ones that were born to last year's lambs and didn't have the reserves to survive. We checked over all the sheep in the days after the cyclone and gave them all several medications. We didn't have power, so we weren't able to shear them where the flies had been attacking them. So Bronwyn made up a solution of the insecticide and gave them a bottom shampoo instead. We had one sheep in the back garden for three weeks, unable to walk. The back legs had become paralysed for some reason. We tried propping it up on a cradle and a hay bale as we had done for the hogget last year, but it didn't work this time, and with the sheep not being able to eat properly, it wasn't able to survive. We're hoping that's the last of them.
But it's been mostly dry and sunny since then. This is because Bronwyn's dad has now got a second water tank installed to collect water from the other side of the house. Now that we have the new tank installed, the rain has stopped. We've been doing our best to get the lawn mowed. It hasn't stopped growing since Winter and it's been too wet to mow until now. The cows are enjoying the grass clippings.
Kumeu show today. They were due for the 100 year anniversary last year, but it got cancelled again due to covid. This time they've been lucky. Lots of other events were cancelled this year because of the rain. Bronwyn and Rach are at the St Johns stall. and I'll be going off shortly to play in the brass band. Now that it's summer for once, I must remember to bring plenty of sunblock.]]>2023-03-11T20:09:59ZIt's still raininghttp://timnbron.co.nz/blog/index.php?entry=entry230205-052205https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/01/27/video-bridge-washed-away-by-raging-auckland-floodwaters/. 261 houses have been condemned (access prohibited) and plenty more are needing repairs before they can be inhabited. Several have gone down a cliff, and some have had the cliff go down onto them. There are plenty more across the North Island.
We were on a campsite, at Festival One. Fortunately, it was a long way south, so we only got a few inches. But it was enough to turn the tracks into swamps.
We turned up on the Tuesday when it was still quite dry, and spent Wednesday helping set up all the stalls, and most of the day making pompoms for a new venture in Cloud Manufacturing. The pompoms were attached to a frame to look like a cloud, which could then be hoisted high up in the art tent (the Ministry Of Art) as a centerpiece. On Thursday, we got to meet the rest of the crew who were coming in to run the festival. Bronwyn and Sarah were helping out at the Ministry Of Art, and me and Rach were running the bank, where we were loading money onto wristbands. We also decorated our own tents as well, complete with plastic ivy and flowers, LED lights and a pair of solar powered gnomes.
We spent four hours on Friday loading money onto the wristbands. It rained very heavily that night. At 8:30 the next morning, they made the decision to cancel - the ground was so soft that very few vehicles could get on site, and they couldn't empty the toilets, as well as all the other deliveries. The bank had been flooded, and we had to go next door into the merchandise tent, which actually worked out quite well because everyone came in with a rush to buy the T-shirts while they still could. The ground outside was just a sheet of mud. I got a cheer when I nearly did the splits but managed to stay upright. Fortunately, Saturday morning was dry enough that we could pack up the tents. The route home was above sea level, and the house was safe. Although some of the gates were mysteriously open, and the garden was in peril from the sheep!]]>2023-02-05T05:22:05Z