Billie and Tamai pictures from their July visit

Billie and Tamai came to the farm in July. We swan in the pool, whizzed down teh long and twisting slide, made a swing under the gum tree, played at Queen Elizabeth Park and had heaps of spa's.

These pics are from bath time in the bucket

















And Tamai took to the farm bike like a duck to water.

Frost and winter pruning

Spring is here, the winter slowly drifting off, remnants of rain lagging behind. The flooded Ruamahunga has returned to normal for now, the Tararua hills are covered with snow, David is working flat out for three weekends now putting in our frost system before the grape have their bud burst. In the past two years we have lost our grapes to frost. A 5 degree frost kills anything alive and tender as grapes and leaves. As part of our research he set up two thermomentres, one at ground level and the other 5 metres high. I was the one who ventured out at 2am to check temperatures,
3 degrees at ground and 1 at 5 metres. You can see the gadget we used here; cool. My fingers froze as I opened up the case it was in! David, Richard and I pruned all the vines in August. This meant cutting the long vines, leaving two branches, one to the left and one to the right, each with 8 buds, and then a smaller branch under the wire, with two buds for next years growth. This pruning measn our vines now resemble real vines!! Progress. And early mornings after a frost, you would swear we are growing diamonds.

We have been on trade me to buy a sprayer for the olives trees so we can spray nutrients into the leaves and get rid of the peakcock spot, which is threatening the trees. So much to do. We will be spraying a mix of copper and sulphur over several weeks. However before we do that, we need to now find a tractor! We will also be spraying sulphur onto the vine leaves to prevent mildew.