November 2006

Spring seems to be truly here and not before time. It certainly has been a long winter this year, wet and by far the coldest since we've been here. We had to go out and buy some heaters, boy did we miss our central heating and double glazing! But never mind it's behind us now and Joe's plan to install a log burner are in the pipeline for next winter.

The garden is starting to look lovely. We were asked to take part in the local schools garden ramble this year and I was beginning to think that maybe we had taken on too much and that we might never get it done in time. The ramble is on the 12th from 10am - 4pm and we also said we would do cream teas as well, I never do things by half do I? We only have a wee bit of tidying left to do and one more border to weed, its only a small one but very weedy!! Once that's done we can hope to relax and enjoy the garden for the summer and do normal things like normal people hahaha!



Having said that we did do something normal for our anniversary. We went to Napier, Hawkes Bay and had a long weekend. What a lovely place it is and we were lucky with the weather. We stayed in a motel and only had a short walk into the town center. We went down on Thursday 19th October and stayed with friends. Their place is great and sits on top of a hill with magnificent views, you're never short of views in New Zealand. On the Friday we went to Hawkes Bay Agricultural and Pastoral show which was huge and very busy, plenty of horse events and they like Alpacas down that way, but not a Boer goat in sight except for the kids in the petting zoo. We left in the early afternoon as it was gettting very hot and headed into Napier, found our motel had a refreshing spa bath then took a walk.
Napier was totally destroyed in 1931 by a huge earthquake, what was left standing was burned down by fires caused by a gas explosion. The quake caused the land to rise up to 2 metres out of the sea which is now reclaimed land. Some of it has been built upon, some pasture and even an airport sits on an area that was once under water. When they rebuilt all of the buildings were in the Art Deco style. We visited their museum which was very interesting.
If you would like to read some more there is a link above, just click on the title November.

We had our first goat show on Saturday 28th of October at Waikato World's A & P show. Like the Hawkes Bay this show is huge, bigger than HB I think. There was certainly more of a selection of animals and classes etc. We had entered all our our 5 kids born this year. We had a mix of results but the best one being getting 2nd place in the doe kid class with Brea so I was well pleased with that! Another of our does was placed 5th so again a good result.
Our next show is at Waihi on Saturday 12th November. So hoping for some good results again, I'll keep you posted.










Joe has been very busy outside building his raised vegetable beds and planted some potatoes at the weekend. To keep the chickens out he's also had to build a rather high fence to keep them contained. It's worked to a point but some cheeky beggers are still getting out. One fence still needs some netting on it and hopefully that will do the trick, failing that a few wing feathers need to be trimmed, that will at least stop them from flying over the top.










The animals are doing well and thriving on the new spring growth and the paddocks are coming away with some beautiful lush green grass. I never thought I would enjoy watching grass grow! But for those fo you old enough to remember Crossroads I can tell you it is a lot more interesting than that!
We sold half of our sheep with their lambs and I rehomed Pikelet our old goat with her triplet kids from last year. We only have the full blood boers here now so I can concentrate on breeding those. I have decided to keep one kid doe, Brea and sell the rest. Weaning will start in about a months time.
Bert & Beryl the Kune kunes were making some funny noise a few weeks back and we are hoping for some cute piglets in January!
Our two heifers (female) cows went for a 'sleepover' next door with the bull and hopefully in 9 months time we will have calves too. Joe has also bought 2 weaner steers(boys) and may even get some more yet as our neighbours has kindly offered about 2 acres of land to graze, so that's great!
The chickens seem to breed when they feel like it and I have chicks everywhere, one hen turned up yesterday with 12 chicks and 6 more hatched out in the coop today and theres still some more to go! We even have ducklings too so when I said spring has arrived...it certainly has!

Michael is in the final term of this year and looking forward to the summer break in december. He has his end of year exams coming up and he is hopefully studying hard for them! He has certainly grown in the last year and isn't a boy anymore. He even has his own car which he is learning to drive but he wont be able to start driving on the road until next year when he's 15. So he getting some practice in driving around our turning circle. We bought him an old mini which is bright orange but a new paint job will be needed in time, racing green with a white stripe were the last colours discussed. I'll put a photo of hom here as soon as I am able to take one. My camera only works when it feels like it so I'm unable to take any at the moment.


Kiaora, more coming soon.