Putting in the frost protection system

The race is on. Will we get the frost system in before the spring frost hit? We have a new approach. The fan system, while great in our expriments, was drawing down frozen air, even from 10m up, the neighbours complained, and asked did we have resource consent. They hated the orange tube soaring skyward to draw the air down. So down it came.

Now we have kms of 19mm pipe. We clip this to the lower wire of the vines, at 1m intervals, hard on our fingers. The trickiest part is unravelling the pipes, it is so easy to bend and fold in half and then the pipe is stuffed. We have dug a trench for the 30mm pipe and the 19mm pipes go for 3/4 of the row and then we join 13mm pipes off that. This weekend, Jeanette came over from Raumati and lay out all the flipper pipes at each post, then helped me clip the 19mm pipes to the wire. Backbreaking stuff, bending down every paced step to clip the pipe to the wire, standing, taking a step and then puting the clips on the wire. Close to the ground work, and remembering to bend at the knees is a challenge. We completed five rows, three more than we thought we would.

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.

Win some, lose some and finding black gold.

We are in the home strait with the renovations. Friday the Shearers quarters had their borer spray over all the old wood, powder in the roof area and liquid on all wooden surfaces. So the borer will die as they come in contact with the external surface of the wood. they have a three year life cycle, (amazing what you learn, Neill from Zap was most educative), so all will be gone in three years, so the borer are facing a slow and dwindling process. The concrete floors haven't turned out as we had hoped so two extra costs of sealer (now 9) still didnt improve so a new high gloss surface has been put on, however its not great, just better than what it was. No-one knows what hasnt worked here so no real solution. Awkward. Today Robin and Matt are here to put in the bathroom. Many discoveries. The guy who sold me the basin didnt sell me the complete piping for the push button plug so had to buy a new one. Spazio Casa didnt include the base of the tap so it couldnt be installed. The holes for the loo seat were too small for the screws supplied, fortunately Robin had a drill to widen the hole, the water mixer had a backing on it that the tiler hadnt allowed for, and the concrete floor was uneven and Matt has spent most of the morning filing a rubber pad to ensure the bath will sit flat. Mixed with this is the rain means even poorer cell phone coverage than unusual and the guy polishing the wooden floor due today didnt turn up. Grrrrr. Renovations! However it is going to be fantastic when all done.
The bathroom is transformed already.

From this:

Can't show you the final thing yet. David sanded and primed the external doors and I oiled the back of them. They have come up beautifully and so now ready for another 77 years of life. With the oil, they become a dark orangey brown, rich and gorgeous. WE think they are heart rimu.

By Sunday I have completed oiling the walls of the bedroom and have begun on the lounge. Walking back and forth from the cottage to the shearers quarters we have spied ripe olives!! There are loads more than we thought we had, lush, huge rippening olives, black gold, so out with the ladder and up the trees, picking an olive here, 2 or 3 from there. We now have two large jars of olives underway with changing the water daily for 14 days before putting into brine. I had my pockets bulging with these olives as I was picking them and vert glad to get them before the birds. Mostly manzanilla. It is quite a mystery, and they only have become visible since ripening, and as we look now we can see 10 - 12 trees with great looking olives which is 10 more trees than we had first thought. So I have been envisioning thousands of olives on the trees for next year.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

The grapes might have a virus! Several have dark red leaves which are not autumn colours, and the bark has peeled from the stem with a nasty looking growth in between. Essentially the roots arent talking with the leaves and the leaves are giving up in disgust. Andrew, our olives advisor, came in on sunday and amongst many other gems, thinks that the growth is solidified sap from severe frosts several years ago. Believe it or not, this is great news and our thoughts of having to pull all the vines up and burn them have moved further back in our minds. Richard had the rest of sunday, tucking in the long arms of the very much alive vines. this was after he had mowed both the vines and the north olives. You may be thinking what were we doing with all this activity. David distressed painted the ceiling of the shearers quarters. He faced some opposition from both me and Jane, however it does make the room a lot lighter. I love the rimu boards, however four sides and the floors may well be enough wood. I am slowly oiling the boards and they are coming up beautifully.

Plans are now afoot to put inthe gas fire and the kauri surround. My brother Doug carefully packed this and ensured it made its way from Christchurch to Masterton and it is in beautiful condition. Meanwhile, my contribution to the weekend? I was on compost again, and managed 30 trees. the rich mushroom compost will activate bacteria under the soil and give the tree more life. Andrew was a great source of encouragement and assistance. We will be planting 200 more trees this November, after most of the frosts, and in the next couple of months, ensure all the small young trees we already have, are given a little sleeping bag at their base to keep them frost free during winter. There is work to do. It has been pouring with rain, much needed. Our grass has gone from white to green in two weeks. and the roses have a new lease of life.

There's been a bit of a gap

A lots has been going on. Its taken some time to recover from David's party, find our feet back at work, and keep the renovation of the shearers quarters on track. I'll do a blog on that when its completed, four or six weeks from now (preview: septic tank in, water tank in, road in, bathroom tiles in. Next is kitchen in, gas fire in, bath in - can't wait). Meanwhile.....there's work to be done. It was dark when we arrived on friday night 8.00pm. We were expecting 4 cubic yards of mushroom compost (yeah I know, new lingo) from parkvale mushrooms to be here, and couldnt find it anyway. Out with our torches, beautiful still evening, and pile of compost anywhere. then we discovered our water was still off (we'd have 5 days over easter with no water, and swimming in the river kept us clean enough. Feeling helpless, insignificant, an early night. at 8am, the driveway alert let us know someone was coming. The compost guy. four cubic metres is a lot of compost, steaming, ripe in the early morning usn. So our work was cut out for us afterall. David made a 600 x 600 x 60 square for our template and proceeded to put compost at the base of each of the olive trees.
While he was doing this, I was on a rescue mission with 15 box trees from the apartment, gasping for life, leaves bright orange, starved of water, and nutrients. So I trimmed their bases, put compost in the freshly dug holes and planted, surrounding the base with compost too. I reckon they look better already. I can hear them breath sighs of relief. By the end of the day he had done 45 trees, and we discovered there are 110 trees in the front olives, not 85 trees, and I counted 5 times when we first bought this property. I think numbers just arent my thing. David found acorns from our very own oak trees so they are destined for the glass house and I am going to see if I can grow little oak trees. Right now these acorns have pride of place on our dining table in a little white bowl. Late afternoon, I mowed the front olives and so they look fantastic with their new black socks on! Andrew Taylor, our olives consultant is have us grow canopy this year (branches and leaves), and hopefully this treatment will mean we will have flowers and olives next year. I was really disappointed when there weren't any olives, again, however reality is, I wouldn' t have had time to tend them, so much on at present.

David's birthday party

The day was glorious, warm and windy. Christina and I cleaned the bbq, David, Paul and Chris, put up lights, Liz joined me and Christina in setting the tables, and we all did all those last minute things needed to be ready by 4pm. We had put a marquee up as the previous days had been cold, wet and windy and we readlly wanted the party to be outside. So we were lucky. Marquarette and Paul arrived with the cake around 2pm and that went secretly into the outside fridge. At 4pm the band, B-side, began playing, setting an inviting upbeat mood.

Neighbours, friends, work colleagues and family began arriving and gathering around the house garden, I looked around and thought, this looks like a pretty good party! Great to have our friends and family and neighbours all together.

Lots of people had travelled over the hill from Wellington and the Kapiti coast, some from down the road and over in Martinborough, others from Auckland, Katikati and Sandra and Ran, all the way from Dunedin, so there was lots of talking and laughing together.

And I got to be with the birthday guy...............

people danced...

The table was set in the marquee, and at 7.00pm, the sides were rolled up and in we went and we sat down to delicious food provided by Entice Gourmet. The tables was decorated with terracotta coloured candles and olive branches. It looked great.

We feasted,
and drank lots of gorgeous local wines, and feasted some more, late into the evening .

Peter, Chris, Pirimia, Tia, Gerry and Simon, all spoke to David and their speeches were warm hearted and touching. David responded. The birthday cake delighted David - chocolate mudcake by Michael from the 10 0’clock cake company and he'd done a fabulous job and it tasted delicious.

We partied long into the night.

We were all a bit quieter the next day. Mike and Liz, Chris and Christina dropped in for morning coffee, then Rocky, Jeannie, Steve and Nikki picked up Pirimia and took her back to Wellington. Mark and Anne joined us for a late breakfast, then Sandra and Ran arrived with rock melon. Pete and Pip headed off around midday. Six of us went down to neighbours Jane and Paul's for a swim in the river, which was cool, clear and inviting. We sat in the shallows and chatted, glided down with the current, then swimming back up the river, reminiscent of when we were kids and knowing how lucky we are.