THE GREAT CHAINSAW WITHOUT THE MASSSACRE.

I've not been writing my memoirs for a while so here is a little update.

Our wonderful friends down the road gave us a chainsaw, along with a few other very useful bits of ‘lifestyle’ machinery. Industrial strimmer, heavy duty hedge cutter and a chainsaw.

I’d heard of the chainsaw massacre and was keen not to repeat the event unintentionally at 354 Blue Rock Rd. Despite well intentioned friends telling us that all you have to do is start it, and then chop away, we didn’t have the confidence to enter into the process with such gay abandon. So, it hung on a hook in the shed, and the trees fell over and never got seen to. A course, a chain saw course was the way to go. Off we went with our helmet, visor, earmuffs, snarl up chaps, gloves, leather safety mitt, steal toe capped boots and a chain saw. After what happens at the start of every course, the introductions, we were asked ‘what can a chainsaw be used for’, to which I shouted out ‘a massacre’, which was actually a good lead in for him to say ‘well, actually we’ll show you a few other things to do with one’.

This was a 2-day course, and we didn’t even see a chainsaw until day 2, we didn’t fire up the mighty roaring engine until halfway through the second day. For all we knew they may not even have existed.

Day 1 was full of safety, safety and more safety, with a You Tube film of all the things that can go wrong if you use a chainsaw up a ladder, stand on the wrong side of branch you are cutting, what happens when a tree falls on top of a house, what happens to your leg if you think it is a branch and you don’t have chaps on and more.

Then we took the machine apart, sharpened the chain, cleaned it up and put it all back together again. Just to see, I put our chain on the wrong way around, and our instructor noticed.

It was time to go to a fallen tree. Look what happened. Ali cut the thinnest most consistent slither of a log, all in one down cut. She was the only girlie on the course.

Just look at and admire our new ‘Ali made’ placemats.

We did ‘up-cuts’, ‘down-cuts’, ‘borer cuts’ and probably more, and then we got a certificate to go on the shed wall.

This year’s olive harvest has been poor. A mere 498kgs. Last year was about 1000kgs. Only 57 litres. But never mind, we had fun and the oil is delicious. We pay about $15NZ a litre, or £7.75; I don’t know how that seems, but we’re happy.

There is sad news from the estate. There has been more death, and I’m not good at facing it. But it is all part of the learning curve and it was my fault. We went away for 5 days so we had to have belief that the chickens and ducks could look after themselves. All they have to do is eat, have a dust bath and snooze, before climbing a tree at night. The ducks might fancy a swim. That doesn't seem too difficult. They certainly know how to eat. What could go wrong? Only the odd Australasian hawk could swoop in and take one away in its claws, or a newly arrived feral cat could have one for supper. The hawks haven’t had one yet, and we’d just caught a mog. Then the day we were due to leave another darned Carnivora Felidae appeared, so I put out a trap in the hope it would catch it. On our return, guess what, yup, you gottit, it caught 2 ducks. Not a cat in sight. It’s a shame, they were good company, useful therapy and fun. Their main product seemed not to be eggs but endless shit, everywhere, so at least we only have half as much now. They used to steal toast from our plate, hoover up the dead cluster flies, enjoy the tasty morsels of a polystyrene box and eat anything else that was in duck reach including vegetables, seedlings, feijoas, brussel sprouts and almost anything else that didn’t move. One is called 'Dyson', the other 'Hoover'.

It's a dilemma really, in one way I struggle with death, (I’m not looking forward much to mine) and yet in some ways I tolerate it. We put out traps, including mouse traps. Some how that seems ok, but I’ve learnt not to put mouse traps outside. Today it had a starling in it, and that made me feel quite sad. We are now also trapping magpies which are naughty for 2 reasons, they are territorial and if we wander into their territory, we get dive bombed, causing near death and potential head lacerations. They are also predators of the eggs of the lovely native birds. We’ve caught 5, once we have them, we pass them onto our neighbour, after which I have no idea what happens to them, who knows, maybe magpiepie? Or maybe he has an aviary and looks after them. We learn, mouse traps will only go inside, and cat traps will only be set whilst we are in residence. Our palace is a bit like Buckingham Palace. When the flag flies, she's in. When cat traps are set, we're in.

The ducks were fun though, fearlessly they’d invite themselves for breakfast, and with even less fear they’d steal Ali’s toast and then run faster than FloJo!

What is your few minutes of fame? Running onto the pitch at Twickenham without a top on? Streaking onto the pitch at Lords? Scoring into the same goal as Shaun Maloney? I have no idea what mine is, maybe not dying when I capsized my canoe in a weir and couldn’t get out of the stopper wave. Nah. That was just plain stupid. Maybe it was chatting with Jimmy Saville and polishing his shoes? That was careless and I shouldn’t admit to it. Maybe it was 4.5 days of filming by a famous cameraman who has filmed for National Geographic and also some telling stuff in Palestine. Phil the Camera was filming for a series of 6 episodes about the significant changes people have made in their lives as a result of covid. The series was being made by a producer / director who has made items for Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN and NZ Stuff. The other 5 episodes are all really really interesting, with some heart rendering stories. If you are at all interested, you can look at:

https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2022/no-place-like-home/index.html#ep6

Or maybe your few minutes of fame was winning a big jar of Uncle Joes Mint Balls for scoring in the half time ‘Goal Shoot’ at Wigan or beating Birmingham City in the half time target shoot. Or maybe it was having your Wigan journey broadcast potentially to the world on the Wigan Progress with Unity Podcast World Service, recounting in 7 minutes 7 years of fun, stupidity, laughs, bizarre events, amazing memories and unashamed escapism, in their series called ‘Latics Shorts’. I confess that initially I thought it was a chance for me to tell everyone how I swapped my Palestinian Football Association shirt with the Wigan Captain and Egyptian International Sam Morsy, but no, although this event did get a mention! If you are struggling to sleep, this may send you to sleep.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/7167?fbclid=IwAR3tGgdyJUPHG3o4Qu4FqKFeW6n5EKaDYbmjhEqQCBsa9g7tbAyuF64zHxQ

Oh dear, the carnage continues! We went over to the woolshed to get some sheep shit for next year’s vegetables. Tom the farmer’s son was there so I went to say ‘Guddaymate’ and to tell him what we were up to. I wish I hadn’t. There hanging from its hind legs was a big cow with only half its skin on. Tom is kind and gentle enough to say “you may not want to see this”, to which I agreed. ‘Home kill’ is fairly commonplace and I did see one in operation in a field beside the road as I drove home. It was with such disbelief that I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I turned around and went and had a look. I kinda wish I hadn’t. Sorry folks, I have no photos.

Oh I just about forgot. Do you want GROSS+++? This whole area has just had the worst invasion of cluster flies, and we have ‘enjoyed’ the experience. Everyday we sweep up a good few of them, but the worst was at the height of the cluster fly pandemic when look what we swept up on a few occasions.

The ducks love 'em. Duck Caviar.

I frequently tell our therapy animals, and I need a lot of therapy, not to go out onto the road. Like most interactions I have they rarely take any notice, but after a bit of gourmet roadside grass they come back. I made a mistake the other day, they were on the other side of the house, so whilst unloading the car I left the gate open. Lamborghini was around faster than a Ferrari and through the gate. The intruders invaded the house, checked the washing machine, sat down in the sitting room, complained about the amount of washing up, had a wee and moaned about all sorts of things, or am I just anthropomorphising it all too much?

Talk about eating at the Ritz. Lime leaf, lemon grass, carrot top, jasmine flower, cabbage, leak, celery you’ve got the idea, whatever there was, they sampled it, a real tasting plate, and I suppose in a way you can’t blame them when their usual diet amounts to grass. Could I get them out? Well, you know the answer to that!! Then I went back to the car and MadBlackJack decided he’d go for a drive.