We're Not In Kansas Anymore!

After advertising my three large rabbit hutches in the Wednesday Mover for a couple of weeks I finally had a genuine buyer turn up to look on Tuesday morning. Jonathan is a bee keeper and was out this way to put some hives on Smedley Station. He called in along with his employee at 10am and we spent an entertaining half hour talking animals and meeting all the ones here. Negotiating over the hutches was more difficult as they were all damaged by the ex landlord's backpackers so needed quite a few repairs but in the end he offered $80 plus two boxes of clover honey. Three hours later he came back with his truck, paid me and put 24 pots of honey on my kitchen bench with the promise he'd drop some manuka honey in when he came past again in a fortnight. I was just so happy to see the back of those hutches as they were so hard for me to handle and at least this person is going to repair them.

Wednesday I was due to go to town for my big excitement of the month- a visit to the library. Although it was chilly up here by the time I got into Hastings I began to swelter in my thermals. No wonder people were in tshirts as apparently the temperature was in the 80s.

We ended up having to drive to Taradale as my sister in law wanted to come home with me plus I had to get a repeat prescription refilled and a snotty chemists in Hastings refused to do so (after keeping me waiting for ten minutes which staff chatted on the phone). Coming out of Taradale we were waiting at the intersection when to our right a rubbish collection truck began driving across. However to our left a black car jumped the red lights and scooted in from of him while turning into our road. Although the truck slammed on his brakes he still clipped the car which didn't stop. However if he hadn't done so he would have hit it full force and it would have smashed into us. Someone was definitely looking after us.

By the time my brother, sister in law and I returned here mid afternoon is was beginning to cloud over and get very windy. Richard took a look at the lawn and decided he would mow it (I have been trying to find someone to do the job but apparently the nearest person willing to do it lives in Waipukurau and charges $94 a visit). I was so lucky he decided to stay longer as the wind began to strengthen until it was up to 120kms per hour. Diane and I collected firewood and took this inside and I mentioned I would go out and feed the chickens who had been locked in their house nearly all day as I had worried that the weather was going to turn bad. Soon as I got out in the paddock the full force of wind hit me. The front of the hen house was buckling and being metal was folding in at the middle while one side panel had come loose from the metal warratahs (posts) it was wired to. The container of hen food flew across the field with me chasing after it. I called out to Rich that the hen house was about to fly but he couldn't hear me so leaving spilt food all around I had to make my way back to the lawn to tell him.

Diane and I went out and tried to open the door but the wind wouldn't allow us. Rich followed us which was just as well as one gust nearly blew Di over and she had to hold onto him for support. The next half hour was a blur of Richard trying to find metal stakes which he hammered behind the front wall of the shed to stop the metal buckling. I rolled a concrete brick along and pushed it against the piece that had come loose and Di and Rich brought more round which they lined up against the front. We tipped over the goat's original house and pushed it against the side of the shed to make a small windbreak. Unfortunately all the movement dropped the door so the catch is now in the wrong place. To open and close it I have to slide a pair of hedgecutters under the door, kick it at the bottom which raises it so I can slide the catch through. And how did the hens cope? They were totally unconcerned and one even laid an egg!

The terrible winds lasted two days and my heart was in my mouth the whole time. In the middle of this Darren the farrier came out to trim Briar's hooves and he had to shelter with her under a cottoneaster tree in the side paddock so he could finish the job. Not surprisingly he didn't stay long.


Have only had time for a little spinning this week. Pulled out a large bag of fawn alpaca I was given and so far have spun one skein. Beautiful to work with. This week hopefully there won't be any more excitements and I can get back to work.