Welcome visitors

Down at the front gate, one of the oak trees is about to burst into green leaves. Can't wait. I pruned the house olives on friday, cutting out the main branches, trimming off the dead wood. The trees look stressed and lacking in nutrients. We now have our soil report and kilos of lime and other goodies are needed per hectare. We have yet to work out how to get this into the soil, but we now understand why our grapes and olives haven't been producing. Saturday David buried all the lateral irrigation pipes while I mowed the front olives. This is great as I can now mow 'longways' without chopping up the irrigation pipes! Even so I managed to chop two up completely. I think I could hear David muttering. David planted the two bay trees from the apartment, in front of the house as we transplanted the remaining korokias to lengthen the hedge, so our entrance way to the cottage is more attractive. David trimmed the grass from around the hedging plants and fertilised them with plant fertiliser. We are getting the idea that soil and plants need nutrition. Jane and the boys came for dinner, and we talked late into the night. Sunday Peanut the pony arrived and happily munched the long grass from the side olives. She is likely to be our regular weekend visitor. She is around 30 years old, and belongs to Hayley's mother and Hayley has run out of grass. I loved looking out and seeing her there. The roses are now fertilised, and today I bought nitraphoska for the roses, and camelia fertiliser, as they need more lime than roses. The two Graham Thomas roses have been planted up the front, these are the yellow ones Bona recommended and they are at the front corner of the property.

Wow, did you see that

Driving over last night, about 1 km from our place, a deer, startled as me, shot across the road. I braked, and everything slid off the front seat, as the deer hurtled over the road, down towards the river. How amazing. I phoned Paul S and he told me he had heard there were 2 stags down by the river, and this hind was likely to foal in 6 weeks. How amazing is that!
Saturday am I awoke to a 4.8 degree frost and a warm day, totally blue sky. A real Wairarapa day!
Mike was working on the stone fence and is putting in the letter box David had made. The fence is looking great, we are both completely thrilled with it. I gardened in the morning, weeding the house garden, replanting lavendars which are beginning their spring growith, and planting out the red poppies Jane gave me to lift my spirits. The summer garden will be gorgeous. The green house was next and 12 shoots of rosemary, Tuscan blue are in their pots hopefully to plant out in November around the shearers quarters. There are vague hints of green on the orange branches of the willow trees down by the river. I pruned about 5 olive trees this morning too, and cut my finger on the saw. Blood everywhere, all over the secateurs, gruesome looking.
Bloss and Alistair arrived late afternoon and we settled in. Our row before breakfast this weekend was olive trees. Bloss was on the pruning past, covering all the cuts I had made, and Alistair was trimming off the dead wood. Over the weekend we completed 4 rows, 24 trees. Not bad going with both Bloss and Alistair well into the 80's. Bloss had a great eye for the trees and which leaders to saw off. She was hot on taking off all the damaged and diseased wood. With both her and Anne's guidance, I am getting the hang of pruning olive trees. Bloss began to address the aethetics of the trees which I had noticed Anne had done this when she pruned the roses. So from here on I will be noting the overall shape of the trees. 150 trees to go so plenty of room to move on this one! David completed spraying the 13 rows of vines and mowed all around the house right out to the vista! looks fantastic. Alistair took photos, and measured the roof area of the barn so we can calculate the litres per minute rainfall which relates to how large the overflow soak hole will need to be. Hmmm. The MDC want this information!

Early September

After 5 days at the trainer development, time to reflect. When I arrived on Sunday night, Mike had completed one side of the stone fence and it looks amazing! Fantastic. My focus is to have some quiet time...meanwhile, I picked up the remainder of the olive prunings, and took the resource management consent application to Tyler at MDC, photos of the shearers quarters were printed off at Warehouse stationary, a great service. I am hopeful we are granted consent to have this as a second dwelling on the property. Usually there is only one dwelling per property however we are finding our 80 sq metre cottage rather small for our 19 acre property. We need this resource consent before we apply for the building consent to add a kitchen and bathroom to the shearers quarters. Blackrock Rd is an area the MDC don't want further subdivisions which we don't want to do. We want our family and friends to stay here with us. I picked up 6 roses from home and hosed (white romance), ordered them ages ago, and now not sure where to put them!

Pruning the Olive trees with Anne

Anne and Mark were here when we arrived. We'd forgotten to leave the key out. We unpacked the delicious goodies Anne and Mark bought and had beef Wellington for dinner. Next day, out and a row before breakfast. Anne and I pruned the olive trees. Anne is a master pruner of roses and put all her skills and experience into the trees. They certainly looked slimmer.

We pruned over 20 trees. Some hadnt been done last year, we looked at it, decided which branches didnt belong and used the ratchet lopers and the saw with the larger branches, and our secateurs for the smaller ones. Have a look at this. One criteria we used was ' could a bird fly through this swiftly'. If yes, we decided it was enough. We took off all the dead wood, any branches growing across the middle of the tree, and any branches which crossed over others. That was quite a bit for some trees. We took off branches lower than a metre from the ground. For our break we pruned the roses. Using similar principles of opening out the plant, nipping off bugs if more than one came from one node. These are the roses Claire and I planted in June. They are beginning to grow. Anne opened them out, gave them shape, a great teacher. David an Mark completed the watering system for the oak trees and the roses along the front fence and had a few consults with Mike who was working on the stone fence. Now we can water the oak trees for an hour each day while we arent here. Fantastic. I went back to Wellington for Saturday night and when I got back, even more trees had been pruned, and Anne was on the mower between the vines, and then proceeded to mow amongst the olives, it looks like a park!