RABBITS,RATS & ROSES

A view from the window

One of the benefits of working from home is that the Office can be situated to enjoy the landscape instead of the side of a concrete building or lines of traffic winding their way into the city. Our current home Office looks out on a delightful rural view of grass paddocks, trees and hills which has been enhanced with the addition of a shady wooden deck to lessen the heat from the Summer sun which used to make the room extremely warm especially in Summer. We don't have to walk far to another window which has a view over our dam and a wide range of Native evergreen trees and many deciduous trees which vary from a delightful fresh green in Spring through to beautiful Autumn tones and then bare branches in Winter. I used to worry that our property had too many deciduous trees (looked like a bomb site in Winter) but after 20 years of growth, the Oaks and Liquid Ambers are a fantastic sight to behold.

A tiny bunny that will grow big!

But I diverge! This week I spied a baby rabbit feeding on the lawn and in our experience, one rabbit spells disaster for any new growth in our vegetable plots. Two rabbits usually mean an influx of these long eared louts and in recent years they have been quite prolific in our area and when you get rabbits and possums on the prowl, beans, peas, lettuce require extra protection. I won't get the rifle out just yet, but if I spy more than one over the next few weeks, they had better look out! Unfortunately our local council insists to apply for discounted rat or possum poison funding, we have to have a written submission for contestable assistance by joining large commercial operators also seeking funds. We haven't got close, even though we can show them $100s of dollars of already purchased and plenty of containers of products used in the past. Anybody would think they are OUR rats and possums!

Macadamia rat collection

Two weeks ago our nostrils told us that there was a dead animal somewhere close to the garages and Lyn and I searched close by, but couldn't track down the source. Overtime the smell disappeared and I forgot about looking any further. In recent months we have experienced the character building experience of completely upgrading our kitchen, which has not been a totally enjoyable period. Lot's of disruption and the complete destruction of the old farmhouse kitchen meant heaps of broken timber and surplus cupboards, doors and other items which will need permanent disposal. (This experience could involve a future blog or two once we have recovered!) I managed to save a couple of undamaged drawer units and decided to replace a rather tatty arrangement already installed in the garage. As I dragged out the old unit the door swung open and to my surprise the body of a very LARGE, very DEAD rate hove into view! I gathered together a bucket and spade and shoveled these remains out of the way (now buried under the Tamarillos) Once I had removed this unit outside I could see that the rat had been very industrious and the area under the cupboard was covered in a collection of Macadamia nuts! They had settled into a very neat tidy pattern (see photo) and reminded me of a Chinese abacus. The replacement drawer unit has been vermin proofed!

My love is like a red,red rose ...

On a lighter note, but also involving the use of nostrils, is the wonderful scent of our roses. We planted some new varieties last year and Lyn insisted they were of the scented type and we don't regret this insistence. Although they don't last long roses are just one of those "must have" flowers in any garden. My personal favourites include Fuschias and the huge variety available these days mean you can have them in pots as well as in borders etc. I have plans to clear a larger area and Fuschias are top of the list. Of course the fruit tree blossoms are a delight and our Puriri and Bottlebrush trees with their red flowers and berries make our resident Tuis very happy and we can sit in our lounge and watch the Tuis feeding close by the window. A glorious sight indeed and my aim is to try an attract some wood pigeons (Kereru) which have been decimated by the possum damage to our native trees.  

 I can recommend working from  home!

Cherry tree blossom

And the scent is fantastic!

A 3 point Landing or how Pirate caused my downfall!

Henry Moje - Sheep Farmer & Lion Tamer!

My late Father in Law, Henry Moje from Waipu was a sheep farmer and one of his memorable sayings was "Farming would be great if it wasn't for the Animals!" Henry was a quiet unassuming fellow, but he had a dry wit and he was an excellent stockman who worked his entire life on farms and was an inspiration to all his family and I often think of the memorable times we shared. Henry seemed to spend an awful amount of time repairing fences in his retirement years and he would often be away from the house for hours, not returning to the house until late afternoon.

I didn't realise how important maintaining secure fencing around a property was, until I bought our own lifestyle block and over the past 20 odd years, my Wife Lyn and I have spent a considerable amount of time replacing damaged fence battens and repairing broken electric tapes and wires on our property. Our animals get quite large over time and after they have leaned on a fence to get that "delicious piece of grass on the other side of the fence" the fence sometimes break and repairs are necessary. Our border fences are five wire high and the internal fences are controlled by an electric current that sends alternating pulses throughout the system. (Well that is if we remember to switch them on at the controller!) The Heifers become very wary of getting a shock and in some cases, even if the reel comes off the fence and is laying on the ground, they will not cross over the tape, which is white and easily identifiable.

A Lone Pirate

Except for our "Pirate"! This is the heifer I wrote about in a previous blog who had to have surgery to remove an eye after getting an infection as a calf. She has coped extremely well and is now equally as large as the remaining 11 animals. In recent years we have tried to keep the stock away from our boundary river and I have erected a series of boundary tapes to keep them contained. So far we have only had the odd incident where stock have breached the tapes and we allow the stock to graze the area around our dam, which would become a weed infected eyesore otherwise. I have heard that even string can be used in an emergency, but my lot always seem to know when the fence isn't connected properly!

Pinnochio & Innocent Friends

Somehow, sometime, during the day, somebody managed to open the large metal gate and 11 happy heifers gained access to the forbidden area. Lyn and I rushed over to try and herd them back through the entrance and away from the danger area, but just as we were gaining control, the wind blew the gate half shut. The herd then turned around and tried to run back, so we had to run towards them and hopefully turn them back again. I didn't see the Totara tree branch hidden in the grass and the next second I was doing a heavy three point landing (my two knees and my nose!) I lay on the grass momentarily stunned and realised that I had also damaged my hand on the tree and was bleeding profusely. Lyn rushed over to help me and was worried that the galloping herd would run right over the top of me. They suddenly stopped about 10 metres away and according to Lyn almost looked as if they were concerned at my welfare. Once I got back on my feet we quietly turned them around and they calmly went back through the gate. I hobbled home and spent the rest of the day on my LazyBoy chair!

Maybe a rest after all that excitement!

It took a number of days before I could use my right arm and shaving or combing my hair was a painful experience and light duties prevailed. Yesterday, Pirate got tangled in the newly erected fence and demolished it before we could get her out.

Today, the whole herd have been moved to a safe paddock with double wire surrounds! Lesson Learnt!

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!
Today, the neighbours calves managed to get out of their paddock, cross over a supposedly safely wired off culvert and are now grazing our paddocks. Reminds me of the old saying "Rust Never Sleeps!"

What Roof? ... The End of an Era at the "Pepper Plot"

Like the bones of a bleached whale

The recent Spring weather has been memorable for a number of reasons, but not entirely pleasurable. Unfortunately the very strong winds over the past Month have made garden preparation difficult, but the resulting damage from Thursday's "Big Blow" finished off the remains of our Commercial Gardening operation. The last of our Polyhouse roofs started to split in the middle on the Monday and on Thursday it started to tear off completely and began a process akin to unzipping a jacket. The roofs were 55metres long, 14metres wide and the twin skin polythene had to be imported from Canada and it was an awesome spectacle to see these huge pieces of polythene being smashed around like little pieces of a plastic shopping bag.

A curtain of wrecked polythene

Fortunately (and unlike the 1st damaged roof that was destroyed a couple of years ago) the pieces have remained stuck to one another and are now lying quite tidily to one side of the building, completely out of the way! Our task now will be to completely strip the existing plants, the  growing wires and strings out of the ground before it becomes a nightmare of weeds and unwanted vegetation. Amazingly enough, we have had Capsicum plants still producing a reasonable crop 9 years after being planted and although we haven't been using the fertigation system in recent years a regular watering has produced some good size fruit. Unfortunately the birds, possums and other flying insects have had easy access to the planted area and it is only the sheer number of plants (1200) that have meant we could pick anything edible. We had anticipated the roof being destroyed at some stage, merely because of the length of time since it was installed and without regular maintenance, the degradation through sunlight, wind and rain etc, we were surprised it lasted so long.

Ready to send to Market

During our time as Commercial Growers we were able to produce excellent quantities of Capsicums that were collected by truck twice a week and dispatched to Auckland to be auctioned off. Over the years we developed an excellent rapport with our marketing company and we often had comments that our produce was top class and had a number of regular buyers who sought out our label. The company had been called Racecourse Gardens after the old racecourse that used to be in Waipu, but we called our company "The Pepper Plot" which was a play on words, i.e. Capsicums are related to Peppers and we grew them on a Plot of land. Needless to say some folk misread it as the "Pepper Pot", but we were included in a farming magazine once in a list of quirky Agricultural businesses. There was "The Country Pumpkin"  a sheep farm named "Ewesful Acres" and a few other funnies whose names elude me now. 

Our top quality Capsicums

 For a couple of years we experimented with a range of colours including red,yellow,orange,purple,white and brown, but we could  never grow enough good quality except for the reds and yellows. Capsicums are related to potatoes and tomatoes and we had to contend with battling the same diseases such as botrytis, white fly, green bugs, snails etc and because they love warm conditions and we grew them through Winter to get the premium price, we had horrific power bills for our two large electric heating units. 

 

Mother Nature's Work

Soon after we began growing the Government of the day decided in it's wisdom to allow the importing of Aussie Capsicums, which were grown outdoors all the year through in Queensland and because the quantities were so huge, the domestic prices collapsed. There were a number of issues with the imported Capsicums including a number of endemic Australian pests such as Western Flower Thrip and a type of Nematode and the imports were supposed to be soaked in dimethoate for 2 minutes before being exported. Many of these pests are now rampant in New Zealand and it shows that these controls weren’t very effective, which is what we said at the time!) The final nail in our commercial venture coffin was the proliferation of huge glasshouses in New Zealand supposedly growing for export. Some of these huge enterprises were larger than our entire farm and with the new technology available they were able to grow huge quantities each season and their option to dump large quantities on the local market meant we just couldn't compete. 

The End of an Era

 Surgery for Melanoma in 2001, restricted my involvement for a period and then we were lucky enough to purchase our publishing business, which resolved the crisis for us immediately. We now spend our "Garden Time" growing vegetables for ourselves and have become self sufficient for most of the year. Gardening is fun and is an enjoyable way of getting outside for some fresh air as our publishing business involves a lot of time in front of a computer and it is a great feeling to harvest a crop of fresh produce, which makes any effort worth while.

 I can't imagine never having a garden and the old commercial growing area will be host to new banana plants,perhaps another Avocado or even a nice Granny Smith Apple tree!