May 2012

May arrived and it was still lovely weather on the whole although we did have some much-needed heavy rain on a couple of days and we had 3 heavy frosts towards the end of the month. And a new month, a new job for Dave! This time he turned his attention to the rather untidy and unstable slope next to the glass house /poly tunnel. We had planted this with some bits of orangeberry which had survived but not established themselves and taken over as we had hoped.

So he put in a wooden border and reshaped the slope a bit ...

... and covered it with weed matting.

Then we replanted the orangeberries, which we split up even more, and also added seaside daisies, viewed by many as a noxious weed, but I like them and think they could well do a useful job here.

And then there were the brambles! I officially finished clearing the mammoth slope of blackberry, though of course I have just cut them down and I'm sure their offspring will come back for many generations. Anyway, it was a big break-though when I reached the fence ...

... but there were still some over to the left ....

... but yay, a few more sessions and a bad back later, I made it!! Yay!!

Yes, lots and lots of photos but then it is a huge area and it was a mammoth task. Dave has calculated that it will take 40 cubic metres of mulch to cover it before we replant it and fortunately we chanced on an arborist who will provide us with mulch at 1/5th of the cost from the composting centre. Bring it on!

And then it was back to the fence for Dave, and a mere 200 or so battens to attach. Still they soon appeared ...

... even the additional ones along the wooden fence at the bottom.

Then the paddocks gained water ...

... at which point, I discovered I couldn't have the sheep I wanted until the end of the year. So it was quite fortunate when some neighbours dropped by to see we would have 2 of their alpacas for a while! Spirit arrived early in the day and seemed quite pleased to meet Bev and us ...

... while Charisma took a bit more convincing (ie they couldn't catch him!)

Anyway, they soon settled in and have saved us finding someone to mow the slope. Dave built a sheep shelter and tried to convince me the alpacas could sort of back in, but having seen how they drop to the ground to lie down I don't think they'll be trying that. But we subsequently discovered that they never used their shelter back home anyway.

And then there was my next great horticultural disaster. After some failed attempts at germinating some tree lucerne seeds, I noticed lots of seedlings had sprouted under the trees after some rain. We want these to plant in the pony (or alpaca) paddock so I potted up a hundred or so over a few weeks. They seemed to be growing well ...

... until I noticed some were greyer and some were greener. And the green ones looked rather healthier.

Mmmm, very strange and I had a vague idea this was not good. And a quick google confirmed my doubts. The green ones were GORSE!! No! Of all things, not gorse. So I had to throw out over 30 very healthy gorse seedlings and find a few more of the real thing to take their place.

And finally in the last few days of the month, Dave turned his attention to my (bramble-free) slope. We had planned out a route for a track and decided to put in some steps rather than zigzags down the steepest bit. This all sounded very difficult to me but, in a flash, a staircase appeared! Sometimes things take a while but sometimes they don't!

And a highlight (literally) of the month was the perigee moon, which stunned us from perfectly clear skies in both the evening ...

... and the following morning.

April 2012

April was a glorious month weatherwise, with continuous warm, calm, sunny weather. A good start for our new chooks who had to experience just about everything for the first time after their arrival from the local battery farm. They were quite pathetic when we first got them - they just stood there looking stupefied, repeatedly pecking into thin air presumably for their water or feed tube. They had huge pale limp combs that folded down over their eyes and they didn't know how to eat or drink.

So the first day we had intensive drinking lessons and the second we moved onto eating food out of a bowl. Then we advanced to green stuff and worms. A few of them had the instinct to try and catch a worm wriggling in front of them but didn't have the dexterity to grab it in their beaks or the ability to swallow it. Anyway, after a few days, they got the swing of things and after a few more days, started to lay some eggs. They also had to be persuaded to lay their eggs in the nest boxes and to sleep in their shelter rather than on it.

Elsewhere, Dave had a rather large bonfire to farewell our brambles as well as other prunings from many of the neighbours ...

... and it was very hot!

We harvested our pumpkins, a mixture of my special dark green skinned Austrian oil seed pumpkins and some self seeded plants from last years standard grey skinned pumpkins. It was clear that they could pollinate each other as we had pumpkins of every shade in between. But it was avery good crop and should see us through the winter and some.

We also had some help with the kumara harvest, from both Alice and Little Black. Kumara were a bit of an experiment for us and we had 3 varieties, orange, pink skinned and pink fleshed.

Many hands made light work ...

... although the paws did not make all that much diffference!

Anyway, soon we had a respectable harvest, with a few large kumara and lots of very small ones. Ah well, ready made chips.

The vege patch was doing well, with the first beds planted up for the winter rotations ...

... the greenhouse was cleared and just had strawberries and lettuces growing ...

... and the native plant nursery was thriving with the plants more than ready for their new homes.