Me? No, I barely slept a wink.
A Real Princess
Building Bridges
The first two months of 2017 was a busy time for family celebrations, with a wedding and a birthday dinner in Auckland coming hot on the heels of a 21st party in Wellington. Catching up with all the rellies was a blast, but the whirlwind of social occasions left me a bit short on time and brain space for blogging. Once we got back home I had quite an urge to have a nice long lie down. Instead we started building a bridge.
As with so many things at the farmlet, the bridge leading into the Seven Acre Wood was on its last legs. It had probably never been particularly sturdy, and by the time we inherited the property it was downright precarious. Constructed using thin decking timber and minimal supports, it featured several broken planks, and in wet weather was as slick as an ice rink. I barely trusted it to support anyone larger than the resident midget (That’s me. A good 6 inches shorter than anyone else here). Certainly the sight of the Forbearing Husband traversing in full chainsaw regalia gave me cause for concern. I’m sure I need not even mention that the two fat ponies were banned from ever making bridge crossings.
Not our decrepit bridge. I forgot to take photos. This is a much scarier bridge. Photo credit: Joel Oleson
A new bridge had been on our To-Do-List since we arrived. Bridge building materials don’t come cheap though, so that was where progress had stopped. But wait… A stroke of luck! On his way to work one day our resident sparky noticed a work-party digging out bollards at an Auckland factory site. He screeched his van to a sliding stop, and vaulted out through the driver’s window (some artistic license may have been used in this description). On learning that the massive chunks of timber were destined for the tip our hero secured 70 of them and took them for a long drive.
The building materials, shown here resting in the barn after their journey. Well done Stephen!
Stephen didn’t stop there either. Putting on his design hat he masterminded a cunning combination of wood, galvanised plates and something called Unistrut. After some debating back and forth about what would be needed to support a quad bike (desired future farmlet purchase, weight approx 400kg) and a 500kg pony or two I remembered we have an engineer in the family. I asked Darling Daughter whether she might chip in on the bridge design. She looked at me with narrowed eyes and proclaimed herself ‘Not. Civil.’ I interrogated her about the orientation (vocational) of her various engineer friends, but apparently none of them are civil either.
Not to worry, how hard can it be to build a bridge? A few design tweaks later, and we got started. Construction involved all the farmlet residents — a team that now includes Deborah and Stephen, who moved into their little house over Waitangi weekend (yay!). In a companionable flurry of chiseling, drilling, and bolt tightening, the bridge moved from imagination into reality.
Part way through construction. The planks were yet to be spaced and fixed in place. Gives you a good view of the troll environs.
What do you think? Isn’t it just a little bit Game of Thrones? The final flourish will be a post at each corner which will surely make it a drawbridge worthy of The Dreadfort.
Inspector Kitty-Pop signing off on the bridge.
Kitty Pop obviously needed to conduct her usual inspection, but you’ll be pleased to know our new bridge has also been tested for heavier items. Specifically, little fat ponies. Little fat ponies, the larger of which probably weighs around 500kg, and carries her weight on four hooves, each about the size of a human hand. Think about that weight concentration as something akin to a largish human wearing stiletto heels*.
Originally we had the idea of slowly backing the Vitara onto the bridge to see how it held up. We decided against it. That car weighs 2 tonnes so it seemed a bit extreme and, well, maybe we are not quite that confident about our bridge design. Deborah came up with a great alternative though. All five of us: Forbearing Husband, Favorite Stepson, Deborah, Stephen, and I, (at a combined weight of approximately 450kg) stood on the bridge. To produce the stiletto effect of our pony on four legs we each balanced on one of our legs and then we all jumped in the air at the same time. We landed. The bridge survived. Design tested and approved.
Take that, you Un-Civil Engineers! (Love you little quail x)
* Nurse Jenny if you’re reading this, yes I am thinking of the SLT Christmas Party and the two Davids.
Lavender and Old Denim
Due to rain — and boy were we glad for it, the water tank situation was seeming a little precarious — bridge construction has been on hold. We don’t want anyone slipping into that ditch (there may be trolls). Sorry. I know you were hanging out to see what we’d been up to. I was excited to show you. Next Sunday…
In the meantime I’m drying lavender to make lavender bags. There seem to be lots of moths here and they’ve been chewing my cardies something chronic. Mind you, I have noticed that, in a 1990s revival, clothing with holes is all the rage so perhaps I am just once again hurtling toward the cutting edge (pun intended) of fashion.
As those of us over 20 know, everything old becomes new again. Now that denim waistcoats and white linen shirts are back in, I remembered some such items that had been hanging in the back of the wardrobe for years. Too nice to throw out, but until now a bit passé. Note to self: hold onto those ugg boots for another year or so.
I dragged them out, washed them and noticed with satisfaction that they are both old Max Clothing gear from the days when their stuff was still made in New Zealand. The waistcoat was an op shop find in the mid 1990s, the linen shirt from the Onehunga Dress Smart when it first opened in [date redacted as I simply cannot be that old].
Made in NZ
In case you’re interested here are some instructions for how to make your very own holes in your jeans. In 10 steps, with pictures. Use scissors. Make holes. Really? Really?! No doubt pretty soon someone will create instructions for putting your very own undies on.
Thought… I could be selling moths to Paris Hilton so she can create custom holes in her woolies. Rare NZ moths with organic credentials. Haha!
Chickens in Thyme
No, this is not a cooking post. It is an excuse for some pretty pictures of chickens, and a way for me to assuage my guilt about not posting recently. I’ll explain why soon. Get ready, we’ve been working on a Big Project.
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A few weeks ago I trimmed back the thyme and lavender in the Mediterranean garden. Both had finished a first flush of flowers, and I’m hoping that after this little haircut we might get another round of pretty before the end of summer.
Thyme trimmings.
I thought the thyme would make a nice addition to the bedding in the nesting boxes so I headed out to the chicken house. There was a certain amount of interest from some punters who were in the middle of laying.
What you got there then?
We use hay in the chicken house boxes, but we have a few obstinate broody girls who are spending far too much time sitting and trying to hatch babies. Thyme should deter mites, and give the girls a lovely springy mattress.
Broody chicken
At last count we have 14 chickens and one rooster. Each year the Forbearing Husband says ‘No more chicks’, and then… Well if you’ve been reading this blog for a while you can guess the rest. The girls have hatched five babies so far this season. Here are the two oldest.
Orpington / Leghorn cross chicks. They are at a rather awkward gangly stage just now.
And here is a portrait of their dad, Ghost Dog, here looking every bit the pompous Victorian Gentleman.
Ghost Dog.
Well that was a bit of a going-nowhere type ramble, but at least you’ve heard from me. And the pics were cute weren’t they? Yes of course they were. Now, go and watch some Game of Thrones so you are architecturally prepared for the unveiling of the br–. Whoops nearly let the cat out of the bag.
See you next Sunday!
A little bit country
How to tell that you’re acculturating to country life:
(1) Although for decades you drank town water with no qualms, you now notice that it smells of chlorine. You find yourself getting precious about having only Northland rainwater in your drink bottle. You worry that this is the start of a slippery slope.
(2) When you see an NRM sign on the local store you know immediately what is being pushed, and do a mental stocktake on your supplies of chicken and horse feed.
NRM Advertising
(3) You own two categories of clothing — Farm Clothes and Town Clothes. Farm Clothes are full of holes, animal hair and random bits of straw. They are washed irregularly. Town Clothes are mostly outfits that can be worn with cowboy boots. That’s because when you get out of the car to open and close our farm gate the gravel plays havoc with shoes designed for pavements. Open toe sandals are particularly hellish, thus summer dresses are hardly ever part of Town Clothing.
(4) In respect of the above, Auckland friends start generously labeling your new look as ‘urban cowboy’. You hope for more of this to validate your choices (although really, those shoes are never going to work on the driveway gravel). Perhaps sometime soon Vogue might care to do a Montana horse country shoot, at which point I will be the very definition of fashion forward.
My friend Esme is Vogue-worthy in her ball-gown, as Ruby notes her lack of gravel-capable footwear.
Shot at Te Atatu Pony Club (not Montana).
(5) The Byrds song ‘Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season)’ takes on very literal meaning. On the farm there is a indeed a season for everything, and most times I’ve just missed it. We should have limed in late spring you see — whoops, missed that. Now, repeat after me: The shelter belts need to be trimmed in autumn.
(6) While driving in the country you used to see grass as just pretty green scenery. Instead you now assess each field you pass for weed content, and compare the level of dock / buttercup / dandelion (seasonally dependent obviously) with the crop in your own paddocks. You notice that some areas of farmland elicit severe grass envy. Your covetous inclinations also extend to tractors, quad bikes and post rammers.
(7) After years of steadfastly rejecting weedkillers on the basis of their biological hazard, you look at your paddock of dock / buttercup / dandelion (seasonally dependent) and start to see the appeal of a backpack full of glyphosate.
Dandelion. ‘Tis that season.
(8) You own a fencing tool and a fault finder, and a faint ‘tick, tick, tick’ heard out in a paddock prompts a zealous search for the electric fence short. Memories of hoofbeats racing past the bedroom window at 2am are all too recent.
(9) Your gumboot tan line has become a year round phenomenon, and you refer fondly to this place as PGG. After all with the dosh you’ve spent there you jolly well should be on first name terms by now.
What are the things that mark you as a country dude, an urban adventurer, or both?
Sherwood
When a man who once lived in Nottingham visited The Seven Acre Wood.
He brought his bow and arrows with him.
We persuaded a brave hay bale to stand in for The Sheriff.
And training of our little band of Merry Men began.
Ready your Bow! Nock! Mark! Draw! Loose!
Funnily enough, although the Sheriff took a few hits, there was quite a bit of looking for arrows that hadn’t landed where we had planned.
Here’s our man to show how it’s done though.
He learned archery while growing up in Michigan, but here he looks every inch the medieval outlaw.
The hay bale didn’t feel a thing.
So guess what I just bought on Trade Me?
I wonder whether I could ever get good enough to use a bow from horseback. I think just riding around carrying one might be enough of a thrill to start with. Who’d like to try archery?
Skinny Dipping
Air temperature 31 degrees. Pool temperature 26 degrees. Waited until the Favorite Stepson was off feeding the chooks, ditched the clothes and slid right in.
Note scruffy crocs.
Sooo good! And to think when we first moved here I wanted to get rid of the pool. Ha!.
How Did My Garden Grow?
It’s been a year since I started the Mediterranean Garden and it’s really only just starting to look garden-like. We’ve all seen those renovation shows where people create impressive landscapes in 24 hours, but real life gardens are not instant. I can’t help thinking that half those expensive super-sized shrubs planted by Jax and Sy probably die within six weeks of the show ending — Jax and Sy are a fictitious couple, but substitute any trendily named competitors on The Block.
Okay then, enough sour grapes. My point is that when I first posted about the Mediterranean garden the ‘after’ shot didn’t look wildly more impressive than the ‘before’. Here’s a refresher on that.
January 2016. Here’s where we started, in a desert of weed-mat and gravel.
January 2016: After the make-over. I had planted lavender, thyme and rosemary.
Things look tidier, but it’s not exactly a massive transformation.
It was a start though. One of the things I find most exciting about gardening is watching a few small (and cheap) plants grow to fill out a border. By April, three months after planting, the garden still had lots of empty space, but things were moving in the right direction.
April 2016: The plants have started to fill out.
The good thing about using those small plants was that without a whole lot of leaves to support they could put most of their energy into root development. Growing roots in situ makes for stronger plants in the long run. Unfortunately about a week after this photo was taken the pool pump repair bloke trampled the lavender plant at lower left and it never recovered.
So now, finally we can get to the ta-dah before and after moment.
BEFORE.
AFTER: January 2017. Looking like my vision for the garden. Self sown nasturtiums fill the gap left by the deceased lavender.
January 2017: Close up of planting. I do like that combination of lavender, thyme and weathered rock.
Thank you for being patient, I hope it was worth the wait. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just got another 14 acres or so of wilderness to whip into shape!
Underplanting the Orange Grove
Hello, how are you doing out there after the excesses of the festive season? If you’re at the stage where finishing off that last box of chocolates has started to feel like something to cross off the to-do list, you’re probably ready for a bit of exercise. Let’s go for a virtual walk down to the orange grove and I’ll show you what Deborah and I have been planting.
Look a comfrey flower, right on the edge of the grove.
As any citrus pest worth her salt knows, thirty-one orange trees planted in close proximity constitute an invitation to party hard. Ergo, on moving onto the farmlet we were greeted with evidence of the extensive carousing of Northland aphids. The entire grove was disfigured by <use your ominous voice> Black. Sooty. Mould. Yes, it really is a thing. It’s a fungus that grows on ‘honeydew’.
Honeydew is what entomologists call the excrement of aphids and scale beetles. Haha! Perhaps equestrians should start calling horse excrement ‘meadow-dew’. That would certainly put a new spin on poo pick-up — ‘I say friends, let’s pop out to the paddock and gather us some fresh meadow-dew shall we?’.
Comfrey
Anyway, I digress. Black sooty mould is a sign that you have a nasty aphid or scale beetle infestation and those little critters are sucking the sap out of your trees. The mould is less damaging than the insect pests, but as it grows and covers the leaf surfaces it reduces the tree’s ability to photosynthesise. A malnourished tree is a low health tree, and low health trees are more susceptible to attack by varmints of the sternorrhyncha suborder. Cue a downward spiral of happy pests and sad trees.
Parsley dropwort, known locally as carrot weed.
One way to quash aphid parties is to grow plants in your orchard that encourage predator insects. Ladybirds, lacewings and praying mantises (yup, I checked, and that really is the plural of mantis) suck the juices out of those sternorrhynchas like vampires at a nightclub.
If you choose carefully your underplanting species can also enhance soil fertility, suppress grass (grass isn’t ideal in a citrus orchard because it competes with the trees for food), and reduce the need for watering by acting as a living mulch. Oh, and they look pretty don’t you think?
Nasturtiums.
Luckily for us Deborah knew about the Manukau Institute of Technology plant nursery (highly recommended), and before Christmas she stocked up on comfrey and nasturtiums at $1 per plant. Earlier in the year we had transplanted some borage seedlings from the Kragbol’s Auckland garden, and some comfrey from the garden at our old house.
Queen Anne’s Lace
Our underplanting has a long way to go. Although the individual plants are thriving, at the moment the orange grove undergrowth still sports way more out-of-control grass and tradescantia than it does swathes of pretty and beneficial herbs. Never mind, there is another wave of propagating and planting on the list for autumn. With luck we’ll get some decent rain around then which will give our next batch of seedlings a good start.
Anyway, although it is very early days, I’m pleased to report that I’ve noticed quite a number of Steelblue Ladybirds in the grove recently.
A Steelblue Ladybird, hard at work hunting aphids. What is super-cool is that if you look very carefully at her metallic sheen you can just make out my reflection as I take the photograph.
And so far no Black Sooty Mould to be seen.
Christmas Greetings!
Happy Christmas from the Farmlet.
We hope your day is filled with delicious food and congenial company,
and that your Christmas gifts are only as exciting as you can manage after a large lunch.
Drawn by Norman Thelwell. Reproduced from Thelwell Country. London: Methuen & Co., 1959.*
