Muggles

I can't believe it but Muggles my house rabbit is dead. What's worse is that I was sitting posting here and didn't even realise he had gone as he looked as if he was resting. The first I knew was when I went to lift him out of his cage to clean it- he was even warm. He didn't appear to be ill at all so will keep fingers crossed that it's not RCD although he was vaccinated against this. I am so upset as he was a lovely rabbit and I enjoyed his antics. I don't know perhaps it was his heart? He was so small when he was born that in a larger litter he would have died but with there only being two kits and having a great mother he survived. I've buried him in the front garden and disinfected his cage and all this by 6.30am. Needless to say I'm completely stunned.

Goodbye 2006

Haymaking has finished here on the farm with all the bales safely stored in the barn in the paddock next door. However one was left in the baler- not a good idea I thought when I discovered one fat donkey stuffing her face yesterday morning.

Red is the largest horse amongst the three here. By the look of him he is an ex racehorse as these are often sold on as hacks once their racing career is over. The three horses aren't ridden very often at all, in fact the Kaimanawa seems so wild that no one can get near her. I would love to try and give her some one on one training just to tame her down but she's not my horse. I will really miss them all once we move as will Briar.

Yesterday morning Gypsy brought a thrush in the house with nothing but bad intentions. The bird managed to get away from her only to be caught by Peaches but I managed to free it again by shaking her. When I finally caught it I was rewarded by a severe bite. It appeared totally stressed with a bloody wound on the side of its head. Not expecting it to survive I placed it in a box in the darkness and warmth of the hot water cupboard. The aftermath of the chase was feathers and spots of blood all over the place with the bathroom the worst hit with blood and poop on the floor and up the walls.

An hour or so later I heard scratching coming from the hotwater cylinder cupboard so took the box into my bedroom. The thrush sat looking up at me for a minute before taking off out the open window and flying into the manuka tree on the edge of the front lawn. I hope it survived its terrifying ordeal. I don't think I'd like ending up as Gypsy's plaything. At least now I know how she lost part of her ear when she caught the other thrush two weeks ago- that bite was pretty hard.

Today is New Year's Eve and I for one won't be sad to see the end of 2006 with all its dramas. Fingers crossed that next year will bring some positive changes. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

The week before Christmas raced past much more quickly than I expected. I managed to complete two jobs that were worrying me: washing the outside of the windows which were covered with muck from when the cottage was waterblasted prior to painting and also cleaning out Chocolate's outside hutch and removing her long coat. She looks so funny now but at least she's cool for the summer.

I came in a few days ago to find feathers all over the floor and the skeleton of a thrush in the bottom of the bath with blood up the walls of the bathroom. The only animal that plays in the bath is Gypsy and when she appeared a minute later she was in a terribly good mood plus missing a small chunk out of her ear so looks like the something had fought back. When I took the body outside I found it to be the beautiful thrush that has been keeping me company for the past few weeks. Or so I thought as when I went out to feed the chooks in the afternoon the body of another thrush was laid neatly in the laundry. My cats rarely catch birds so I have no idea what this massacre was all about and feel badly that these lovely creatures met with such a terrible end.

Anyway it is Christmas morning here in New Zealand so I'd like to wish everyone a happy day and hope you're sharing it with loved ones. I'll be having a rest and veging out after all the hussle of the past few weeks. The painting to the left is one I completed as a Christmas swap a couple of years ago- the original went to America. Merry Christmas!

The Search Begins

My rural rental adverts in the Friday Trader and Wednesday Mover brought two replies. One was an offer to live in the Ormmondville School which is situated near to Dannevirke and therefore is too far away. The second was for a 100 year old farm cottage with one acre of grazing at Maraekakaho, west of Hastings. It was part of a family farm that has been slowly cut up for lifestyle blocks. The landlord told me he felt that there wasn't enough grazing, especially as Maraekakaho is extremely dry and hot and doesn't have much grass growth. However I felt I would regret it if I didn't take a look so Tuesday morning my brother Richard, his friend Lorraine and I drove out to see what the property was like.

We met the landlord at the cenotaph in the middle of Maraekakaho and followed him down a little winding shingle drive amongst other houses to this tiny cottage. I couldn't see that there an acre with this place- maybe a quarter and although they had a lot of rain recently the grass that was there wouldn't have lasted two days for Briar. The remaining farm land is leased out to someone else so no more grazing available. The promised double garage turned out to be a series of woodsheds. The house was rough but livable- by the sounds of it they had only recently moved the toilet inside as it used to be in the wash house (which was outside and darkly depressing consisting of only a tub behind a door). Afterwards Lorraine gave her opinion that the place wasn't worth $185 rent a week and she was right. It had some things going for it but there was a lot against and by the sounds of it the landlord has a high turnover of tenants in there.

I came home, rewrote my advertisements to be more specific and placed these back in the trade magazines. I am still waiting for a reference from my current landlord- even put a message on their answerphone a week ago with no success. The Tenancy Tribunal advised me to give prospective landlords Ken's phone number plus show my bank statements which will demonstrate that I pay my rent regularly. The guy I spoke to heartened me by saying that I have strong record as a good tenant as I have lived here for eight years- a bad tenant would have been thrown out long ago.

I have begun going through all my unopened boxes of stuff sorting out the rubbish to be thrown away from things I need to keep and items that I can put up for sale on Trademe (I have added a permanent link to my auctions to the left of this blog). Hopefully I will be able to earn money to pay for the move so I don't have to take a loan. I am now extremely determined to buy my own place so I have some security in life.

Kingfisher

Yesterday afternoon I found a kingfisher hopping around at the back of the cottage. Demelza was extremely interested but every time she went to pounce on it the creature jabbed its long beak at her. Unfortunately it didn't recognise someone who wanted only to help so I was bitten a few times before I donned gardening gloves and finally managed to pick it up. The kingfisher gripped onto my left hand while I came inside and tried to ring my friend John, fount of wisdom on all subjects to do with nature and farming. Unfortunately he was outside but Marg promised she'd get him to call once he finishing tinkering with his rover.

I made up a little box with a towel and took the bird into the Widdly Room (the bright yellow storage room at the end of the cottage which is a repository for empty boxes and spinning fleeces) as this was quiet and sunny. After John rang and told me try it on some chicken mince I mixed up a mushy worm of meat with water and tried to get some down its beak with little success. When I checked on it later in the day it had perched on the edge of the box and was looking around with some interest (I managed to get a couple of photographs while it was doing this).

Before heading to bed at 9pm I checked on it but it had disappeared. After some frantic searching I found it had hidden itself behind a canvas board leaning against a basket. As kingfishers apparently burrow into river banks I didn't feel this was strange and left it alone.

This morning it had died. Not a shock as it obviously had some severe injury which had prevented it flying. I know people feel kingfishers are bad luck and bring death into the house but I couldn't help marvel at the sheer beauty of this wild creature. As an aside as I write this there was an advertisement on the radio for an eatery called the Kingfisher Cafe....

Merino Yarn

A cold snap blew in yesterday bringing a little rain to settle the dust. I have been finishing off some spinning to sell. Merino needs to be spun finer than most other wools as it really fluffs out when plied (a bit like angora). I still have nearly a whole fleece left to work with but have gone back onto core spinning for The Shearing Shed. At the moment I am picking through the white angora, getting rid of second cuts from shearing and fluffing up the fibre ready for spinning. I missed working for them so am happy that business is doing so well Heather was able to take me back on.

Got a little advertisement placed in the Creative Fibre magazine Friday and the hits on my website have been phenomenal. The problem is that angora is a specialist fibre and at the moment alpaca is "in" and bunny hair "out".

Song thrush

Every time I go outside there is a thrush which comes and sits on the fence and watches whatever I happen to be doing. Sometimes it even flies down and lands within four feet of me. The common and garden thrush would have to be one of my all time favourite birds both for its song and also for its personality. Some people believe that birds are spiritual messengers. Whether or not that is true I find the bird's presence strangely comforting at this time.