Three Ds; Cars and the daily grind.

 Some of you will have read some of the below on my FB page, so I’ve saved you a read.  Good eh?

The 3 D's.

Dogs, Dags, Drenching and Shearing.

As the sun rose the dogs barked.  Did they bark?  Yes.  there was shouting and whistling and the frequently occasional 'Maart, *ucking ell, get back. Lie, baaaack'.  I could hear all this and I was fast asleep.  It wasn't Ali imagining she was at a hunt saboteurs meeting in Chipping Norton or whatever else an anti brexiter does in Chipping Norton.

The music started. 

This was no normal morning.  The sheep were in a good bleating song. 

Across at the wool shed the sheep were having their jerseys taken off.  I wasn't going to miss out.  I was going to be a new kiwi farmer on the block. 

I'm not geek enough to post my own video so this is the next best thing.  Golden Shears which can be as exciting as the races a Cheltenham without Dido Harding.

Our next door neighbours, the farmers who own the sheep, Lois and Garry told me to get dagging.  I had to catch a sheep, get it between my legs, roll it over onto its back and suddenly it was totally relaxed.  Oh how I have that relaxing effect on women!  Then I pick the 'cling ons' off!!

Sheep with real caked on cack I pass onto Garry and he gets his clippers onto the job and they get a brazilian and some of them, as is de rigueur at present, and wanting to be in fashion get a bit more than that.  Then the dagless sheep go through to be shawn, and have their jerseys taken off, to a serious No 1.

All the black faced sheep had to be drenched.  "Always approach sheep from behind, and if they come at you, get out the way, they'll bale you over", I'm told by Lois.  So I approach from behind.  Macty the dog barks aimlessly.   In a brownian motion manner the sheep dash all over the place until one of them finds the drenching channel and goes in and they all follow.  I feel a strong sense of success.  Lois gently strokes Shaunless the sheep under its chin, in the same manner that you like to be stroked, and the sheep likes it and relaxes.  In goes a squirt of deworming drench.

There are about 3 gazillion sheep to get through.  But I'm getting the hang of this, I think I might get 3.

The music(?), I am told, is to pump the shearers up and keep them motivated, so make sure you've got the sound on.

(btw, as you know, I am not a fashion-ister so I can only refer to fashion that I am told about.  No personal knowledge)!!

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I always wondered why the Bee Gees wrote 'Stayin' Alive'.  The truth is that they wrote it after they'd been on tour in New Zealand.

New Zealand has one of the highest death toll rates per capita of the world, and if you've been to Kurdistan, you'll be surprised to know that.

We have just bought a new car and we don't need a reclining sun roof, hot seat, warm steering wheel or even a self injecting CD player to play the Bee Gees.  No, we want every safety gyzmo you can get.  27 air bags isn't enough.  White line tracking seems interesting.  Tail-gateometer would be wonderful.

On every long public holiday weekend, on the hourly news we are told what the weekend's death toll is.  Saturday lunchtime it's 16.  The population is 4.5 million, so that is probably only about a million people on the roads at once.  NZ has the same surface area as the UK.  At any time there are probably a million people on the M25.

The road safety campaign for the last long weekend was 'Stay on the left'.  BTW, they are 'meant' to drive on the left here!

But hear this ......

Today's news reports that there is a plan to stop driving on the beaches. Between 2013 and 2017 there were 75 crashes, 9 killed and 47 injured - yup that's right - on the beaches.

Our new car will be one air bag lined with cotton wool.

And now you know the history behind the Bee Gees song 'Stayin' Alive'.  And all that is true.

As we are on the fascinating subject of cars let's go to Martinborough, 19kms away for Martinborough Cruise, about 250 huge massive American 1950s & 60s pontiacs, cadiallacs and any other ...iacs, …… a festival of “American classic, hot rod and muscle cars” https://cruisemartinborough.co.nz/ 

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The daily grind of a retired radiographer grinds on.

Suddenly beekeeping has become a lot more fun and a lot more rewarding.  Pete, who ever Pete is, but shall now be known as Pete The Bees, or PTB, comes up in his ute and I silently celebrate thinking someone has ventured out here to visit me.  Nope, PTB has come to visit his bees, not me.  But I'm happy with that.  In payment for the use of our land, an area about the size of room 5, and all our blossoms, gives me what you see in the picture.  It's all honey from PTB's hives on our patch.  It's a good form of rent, but we'll need a lot of honey if it is going to help pay for our patch of paradise.  Gone are the days at the allotment where I'd look at Ali's  36 bees flying around my head wondering what I should do next.  And then getting stung and then swelling up like an over fed jelly fish in Skegness.  Bring me the honey, and if that is all we get here, it'll be worth it.  The jars are about 1 kg.  The tub is 4 litres

Actually I'm told the farmer who keeps his sheep on our land will give us one its legs one day.  That'll be useful!  To both vegetarian us and the lamb!!!  Not.

Last week a giant gust of wind blew through, it probably had the speed of little over 1 million miles per hour.  Our nice rustic, un Earlsdon, non electric rough sawn gate ended up in 2 pieces.  Two piece gates are great ..... if you intend to have one and not very handy with a hinge at only one end.

This morning's task was to unite the 2 halves.  It's a nice patch work of patches, but the separated pieces are now together again.  What's more it swings on its hinges.  (which is actually how it broke - it swung too much), but we are swinging again.  Ferrrrrrk look at those patches.  Eat yer heart out all you clever folks who think you can do 'patchwork', bet yer never done one on a gate, eh?

Tomorrow I'll be a kiwi farmer and spread noxious herbicide along the solar electric fence.  I'm told grass shouldn't touch it because grass is a conductor.  Well I never knew that.  Never have grass in your x-ray room.

And tomorrow our own personal air display will fly over as the other local farmer does whatever farmers do with airplanes, lime and superphosphate from the air.  Crop spray amid loop the loops.

Who would retire?  It's hard work.  Stay a radiographer.  You're essential.

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MSC Alabama and hopefully a container has arrived in Welly.  I spent the evening watching the Wellington Harbour webcam and in came the boat. Can you spot our container?  It’s the red one.

We have no idea when it actually gets to us.  Biosecurity wants to check our tent pegs are clean.  I was asked where they may be ....... as we didn't pack the container and there are 201 packages, I said they'd be with the tent.  I hope that helps.

I bet you're not even interested, and I see no good reason why you should be, but, heh ho ........

We continue to learn.  The shower was tepid heading towards cold last night and yet there had been sun and the thermometer told us the water should be 60 degrees.  Well, at 22.23 I was darned if I was going to try to find the problem.  There was a much better way of warming up.  This morning it was still cold and slightly lower water pressure.  All the fuses were good.  Hmmmmmm.  Up the ladder I go to the top of the watch tower where the header tank lives.  For some reason it was empty.  Back down and fiddle with the pump, press the reset button and hey presto, as if I know what I'm doing, the pump purrs into action and fills the tank until the float switch switches it off.  Guess what ........ we've got hot water and better pressure. Best of all ... I'm in the good books, except it may be a shower that warms me up tonight.  Of course the real question is 'why did the pump trip out'?  Any suggestions? No shower photos.

Whilst up the ladder I noticed that the gutters had a lot of leaves there in, so up the ladder I went again to clear the gutters of those leaves.  It'll make our tea water less organic though.  The sad thing is that a bird had built its home in one of the downspouts and the bailiffs prevailed this morning.

We're off to a 'neighbour' about 7 kms away to look at his solar water pump to maybe pump water up from the river for us to water the garden and flush the toilet.  All I need is the spring, a pump and a 2Kw solar panel, oh and a bit of sun.  Sounds easy.

Next up - order some wood for the winter.  A 'cord'.  What the hec is that?  Despite NZ being metric is it 128 cu feet.  I want a cord and a half for winter warmth and hot water or 8 cubic metres.  I’ve phoned up a local supplier of firewood and asked if the want any of our trees, which the can have if they leave us some wood.  Let’s see.

Saved until last because of the subject matter.  We may be rewarded with more birds next spring.  I told you that NZ has no natural predators so I have to be one.  You don’t need the detail, but about 15 traps of various sorts and a bit of cyanide and so far an average of 3 animals a night.  Let me know if you don't believe me and you want photographic evidence, but the photos can only be seen by an adult after the 9 0'clock watershed.

Hope you folks are well and all news is good news.

For a different take on the same thing, or if you are suffering from an inability to sleep you could take a look at Ali's commentary. It's funny innit how 2 people see the same thing so differently.

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