An old mountain bike - an old welder - an "old" man

I'm not really that old but stooping over a potato seed bed and manually planting several thousand seed potatoes was making my back feel much older than the rest of me. So I got to thinking, as you do when you're in field with nothing for company but baskets full of seed potatoes yet to go into the ground.

"There has to be a better way than dragging baskets around and going backwards and forwards all the time." I thought to myself.

So when my back told me that it was past time to go do something else I wandered off to my workshop and sat down to think some more. And I spotted an old broken mountain bike in amongst my pile of stuff-that-will-come-in-useful-one-day. For the bike that day had come today.

After rummaging around a bit more for some pipe to make a frame it was out with the angle grinder and the welder. It ended up taking me the rest of the day to make my contraption. Sadly there was nobody around to photograph me while I was bending the handlebar into shape. It would have looked hilarious! There I was with my little cart clamped securely to the front end loader of the tractor with me hanging from it to bend the pipe into the shape I wanted!

Enough of that. Here are the fruits of my labours and, more importantly, using this cart has more than doubled my planting speed. As a bonus the cart will come in handy for a whole lot of other jobs around the farm.

Six Italians digging my paddock

Six mechanical Italians that is!

We are fortunate enough to own one of the best pieces of cultivating equipment ever invented . It was made in Italy and is called a vangatrice there. In English that loosely translates to digging machine.

The machine consists of a row of six spades which are mounted on double articulated arms. This system of mounting makes it possible for the machine to mimic the same movement that a person makes when they put a spade into the ground, tip it backwards to loosen the soil, then flip the soil out of the ground and in the process invert the sod dug up. The picture below shows you the six spades.

When used properly this machine turns grassland paddock straight into a seed bed in a single pass. This obviously saves a lot of time and fuel.

But more important is that the digging action loosens the soil properly without creating a hard pan as you would if you used a plough or a rotary hoe. That is a big advantage, particularly if you are growing organically.


In organic agriculture one of our priorities is to look after our soil and make sure that it rich in naturally occurring nutrients. In doing so we also make it possible for us to grow the best quality produce we can.

I have just finished planting all the potatoes. Now it is just a case of keeping the weeds away and making sure that I cover the emerging potato plants.

Here is a picture of one part of the potato field. Doesn't look like much now but in a few months time it will look much more impressive.

Little saw - BIG saw

After searching for a fair while I've finally found the bargain I was looking for!

It arrived this week and I've already given it a bit of a workout. "It" is a 2008 Husqvarna 575XP chainsaw. I found it on a online auction site and managed to buy it at just over 40% of the price of a brand new one.
In New Zealand many tertiary institutions offer forestry courses which are attended by new employees of the major logging companies. In the majority of cases the course fees are paid for by these companies. One very nice little feature of some of these forestry courses is that the students are supplied with all of the equipment they are going to need to complete the course.

This includes all of the safety gear as well as a chainsaw. The saw is of course of a size that is actually suitable for logging work. A lot of students when they leave the course sell their chainsaws for a variety of reasons, in most cases a wish to get cash to use for other things.

In the vast majority of cases these saws have done very little work and are barely run in. And most of them sell for quite a lot of money. Still cheaper than buying a brand new one but not cheap enough to make it attractive. That is until just now.

So I now have a near new proper chainsaw Yes, I know those of you who are fans of Stihl equipment would disagree, but I already have a Husqvarna that has done sterling service over the last six years and all of my, much more knowledgeable than me, friends have Husqvarnas. They were horrified when I suggested that I might consider buying a Stihl chainsaw if one was available at the right price. So it as just as well that this saw came up.

Just by way of comparison here is a picture of my little saw next to the new one. The new saw is going to see a lot of work in the near future. Lots of firewood to cut!

Damn the Dam

What does a good sized rock weigh? And with good size I mean something about the equivalent of between three to five footballs. Must be somewhere in the range of 25 to 80 kg each.

You may remember that in a previous post I said that I didn't want to become either a weightlifter or a body builder. Sadly, i think I may well be on the way to becoming one of those two.

You see, on our farm we have a dam that the previous owner built and it holds back a good bit of water. But it has a few design flaws in it and during the heavy rains we had recently the dam overflowed. That in itself isn't a problem really because small dams are supposed to do that. The problem is that as a result of the poor design/built the overflowing water was busy breaking large chunks of dam off. We lost nearly a third of the width of the dam as a result. In the photo below you can see how much overflow pipe is sticking out into, well ... nothing. The bath below the pipe is there to stop the falling water eroding more ground away and is positioned on top of a big(ish) pile of rocks.

You can also see some of the repair I am making. I'm still not quite used to recording things to use for a blog entry so I missed taking pictures of the dam in its diminished state. All that grass you can see below the repair is what slumped off the dam during the storm.

What I'm doing is driving steel posts into the ground to stabilise the slumped ground. Then there are more steel posts to support the old bulldozer track I found on the farm. I'm using the track to support the rocks I'm dropping down the dam to shore up the slump.

What you see in the picture is perhaps slightly less than one quarter of the repair completed and already my muscles are bulging out of my shirt!

We're lucky that we have a good supply of sizable rocks lying around on our property and I'm busy moving them from where they were to their new spot holding up the dam. Of course that means picking the rocks up, putting them on the transport tray of the tractor, taking half off again because I overloaded the tray and the tractor couldn't lift it off the ground, driving back to the dam and carefully and lovingly place each rock in its designated spot (well more like roll them down the bank and hope they land in a good spot and shifting them if they didn't).

Eagle eyed readers will notice that the dam is near the spot where I cut down a tree recently. Which brings me to why this job is so urgent. The firewood trees and the dam are higher than the house. That means that if the dam were to fail a whole lot of water will come rushing down the hill toward the house and, hopefully, miss it. I'm not keen to take that chance and will keep shifting rocks until I'm confident that the dam won't fail.

Of course in the meantime there are all sorts of other urgent matters to attend to and somehow we manage to strike a balance between doing those and fixing the dam. I haven't got a picture of the damn dam repair as at today but it's looking much safer now. Obviously I'm going to over-engineer my repair and I expect that I'm maybe one third of the way through the full repair job, but the pressure is off now. Once the full repair is done I'll report back with a picture of the very large pile of rocks that will be the downhill side of the dam.

Wellington Folk Festival 08

What a boring tittle for four wonderful days filled with great music and great friends. If music was like chocolate then this festival was like eating bars and bars of deep, rich, dark 70+% chocolate. Not that weak watered down milk chocolate but the real good stuff. MMMMMMM!

We got to the Brookfields Outdoor Education Centre on Friday morning and set up our campsite first of all. Jenny and I are part of the site management team for the festival so we get to arrive before most people and that gives us the advantage of being able to put our tent in one of the "good" spots.

Good for us means that we're away from the campfires and other sources of smoke. There's something about humans when they go "camping" (complete with the queen size inner sprung mattress and a small lounge suit) that seems to bring out the need to become a Davy Crockett and have a campfire with smokey wet wood. Over the years we've worked out where we can escape all that smoke and this is something that is very important for Jenny. For that reason we cook outside our tent in our outdoor kitchen. The little tent you can see in the background on the left is where we keep our gas powered fridge.

These photos were taken before it started raining. And it rained, and rained, and rained and then it rained some more. In fact a lot of the campsite, particularly in the busy spots was resembling melted chocolate by Sunday afternoon. Did we, or anybody really care??? Nope! The music made the wet irrelevant.

We had the great pleasure of listening to Pat Higgins, formerly of County Galway and now living in Wellington, when he sang some wonderfully soulful songs as well as playing some fantastic tunes on his Irish flute.

For us the highlight of the festival was Tim van Eyken who was over from England. He is a superb musician and plays the melodeon with consumate skill. Coupled with that he has a beautiful singing voice and is very handy with a guitar too. If you ever hear of him playing in a town near you do what you can to go listen to him. It will be worth your while.

In the tradition of folk music concerts the final concert was closed off with what we call an "ugly". This is when most, if not all, of the musicians who were feature guests at the festival play together on the stage. And what a rousing time it was too! With Jugularity (an Australian band) leading the song it was like going on a rollercoaster ride around Piccadilly Circus. What a joy!

And then, all too soon, it was all over for another year. On packing up day the sun shone on us all so we were lucky enough to be able to pack away dry tents which saved us another big job when we got home.

Now we have the warm, chocolatety memories to savor of another wonderful Wellington festival.

Of daffodils and other things

The daffodil season is over for another year. We had a bumper crop this year but, sadly, most of the daffs ended up in the compost. Maybe it is the economic downturn, maybe it is something else entirely but, whatever the reason, we sold fewer bunches of daffodils this year than we did last year. Interestingly, this year the daffs sold much better at the Farmers' Market than at the Essex Street market. In the previous two years it was the other way around.



Here is a little picture of one small part of our daffodil paddock. We haven't counted but there must be near ten thousand plants in that paddock. I know that on one Friday during the season we picked over 3000 blooms. And we had to sort, trim and bunch them all of course.

This year we've gone "high tech" with our market stall at the Essex Street market. Just feast your eyes on our very flash market stall.


With this marquee we get protection from the sun, wind and rain. And we've had all of those while we've been at the market. Since we're at the market anyway we are taking the opportunity to sell our surplus goods (some people would call it junk but that doesn't sell as well) and we are also selling our organically certified free range eggs. Both the chicken eggs as well as the duck's eggs. Most weekends we sell out of the duck's eggs but we often have some chicken eggs left over.

Now we're getting busy preparing for the spring planting. I'm clearing part of our growing paddock and turning over the soil so I can plant the next potato crop. We're scaling up this year because our test crop last year was a huge success. We grew so many potatoes that I managed to get only about 20% out of the ground. This was because I was digging them by hand after I went over the rows with a sub-surface plough to loosen the soil. This coming week we are getting a potato harvester delivered. This will turn the figures around because with this piece of equipment I'll be able to lift at least 80% of the crop. And, more importantly, I'll be able to plant many more rows which will mean that I can look forward to having several tonnes of potatoes to sell.


This little baby is a German Kuxmann single row potato harvester. It is coming from another organic farm where they are now growing other things.

And this week I'm going to learn how to milk sheep on a sheep dairy farm near Masterton. We are considering the possibilty of buying a few milking sheep but I want to learn a bit about the whole business of sheep dairying first. Our intention is to supply milk and cheese products only for our own use and maybe a bit extra to trade with friends for produce we don't grow.

So you can see that the adventure is still going on. Always something new to explore or learn. For instance, I'm learning about building dams because one of ours is in danger of collapsing and I want to rebuild it properly (since it was never built properly in the first place).

So, if any of you come to visit be sure to bring a strong back and plenty of energy because there is lots to do here on Elwin Farm.

The first tree felled

Firewood is something we need quite a lot of. Not only because it gets quite cold in autumn and winter but also because we cook on a wood fired range.

Both the range in the kitchen and the fire in the lounge are connected to our hot water. During summer we get most of our hot water from the solar panels at the North end of the house but in autumn, winter and spring we have to use wood to make sure we have enough hot water.

This last winter we ran out of wood and had to buy three loads of wood. So this season we are going to make sure that we have enough wood in store. And that is why I just chopped down one of our 25 metre (80+ feet) pine trees. Now "chopped" is not quite the right word because I used our current Husqvarna 345 chainsaw. It is actually a bit too small to cut down trees of this size but with a bit of extra preparation, planning and care all went exactly as I wanted it too.

If you look carefully at the base of the stem you'll see that the "hinge" is still attached. That shows two things. One, that I could have made the cut a bit deeper (and possibly a bit higher), and two, that the tree came down in a very controlled way. In fact it was so controlled that I made most of the cut (which I had to do from both sides of the tree because the tree was more than 45cm or 18" thick), put a wedge into the cut to stop the tree from sitting down on my chainsaw blade, completed the cut, took the chainsaw out of the cut, and gave the wedge one more tap with my hammer and then very slowly the tree started falling down. It was a textbook drop and the tree fell exactly where I had planned it to go.

It took me two days to cut off all the branches, cut them to firewood size, cut the stem into rounds for splitting into firewood and transport it all to the shed. I used my tractor and a trailer to move all of the wood. This was one of the two loads of wood. You can see that the trailer is actually so full that the springs are completely flattened out.

And this is the first load of wood stacked in the shed in front of the splitter. Unfortunately I cut a lot of the rounds a few centimetres too long to go into the splitter, so my choices with those pieces are to split them with an axe, or cut a small slice off them with the chainsaw. Depending on how well they dry I'll go with the axe because it doesn't use any petrol.

I'll have to fell at least three more trees to make sure we have enough dry firewood for the next season. Even though we have a very large shed I'm not quite sure yet where I'll put the other trees to let them dry before I split them. With each tree weighing several tonnes I don't really want to move them from place to place too often because I don't aspire to become either a weightlifter or a body builder.

There is something about firewood that you only become aware of when you start making it yourself; it keeps you warm many times over. First when you cut the tree down, then when you cut the tree into smaller, bite size, pieces, next when you load the wood onto the trailer, again when you unload and stack it for initial drying, once more when you split it and stack it into the next pile for further drying, yet again when you take it to the house for burning and finally when you actually burn it. I guess that is why wood is such an eco-friendly way of heating.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why a greenie like me is cutting down trees? Since we moved here we have planted over 200 trees and now, more than two years later, I'm cutting down three. Not a bad exchange really.

Hunters and gatherers

The daffodil (narcissus) season is upon us and we're busy picking, sorting and bunching. Today when I was just about to go inside I spotted a HUGE hare hopping along the fence just by the road. Hares and rabbits destroy our crops and so I quickly went inside to get my rifle from the safe, got my bullets and bolt from the other safe, put bullets into the magazine, slid the bolt into the rifle, removed the telescope covers and went back outside. All a big rush because most of the time when you get back outside the hare is gone.

The hare was still there looking around, no doubt wondering what to eat next. I quickly put the magazine in the rifle, cocked it and sighted in on the hare. It would have been about 70 metres away. Took a shot and didn't compensate for the fact that in my haste I had grabbed the sub-sonic bullets. The hare got a big fright and took off across the road where it stopped by the other fence. Both rabbits and hares tend to stop for a moment before they go through a fence. So I took careful aim and made the needed compensations and pulled the trigger. Hit it! But by this stage the hare is a good 80 metres away and being tough as nails it simply shook its head, looked at me and seemed to say: "You bastard!! What you go and do that for!!" It then turned around and hopped away.

This is not good, because the poor thing is now wounded and it would be cruel to let it go off somewhere to die in pain. So I go running off after it, hernia repair and all, find it and shoot it again. Hit it again but it still keeps going. Try again .... no more bullets! Run back to the house and this time I load the magazine full of high velocity bullets. Run back to where I last saw the poor thing and, yes it's still there. By this stage my side is starting to tell me to take it easy and stop with the running. Try another shot ... darn it all ... too shaky and the bullet hits the ground just next to the hare. Have to get closer and catch my breath more so I can aim more carefully.

I climb the fence and slowly get closer to the hare until I feel there is no way I'm going to miss it, shaky arms or not. One more shot and I finally manage to put the poor thing out of its misery. Not a good thing considering that I normally bag hares and rabbits with one shot. Maybe I knocked the telescope when I last put the rifle away.

When I get back home and have dealt with the remains of the hare, which are going to a friend who will process them, our young dog seems to have been inspired by all of this because when she spots a young rabbit in the garden she's off after it like a lightning bolt, corners it and before you know it she's finished it off and is trotting proudly around the garden with a dead rabbit hanging out of her mouth.

I have to say that she did a better job of it than I did this time. Trouble is, now she's patrolling the garden looking for more rabbits. And a Keeshond isn't really supposed to have a prey drive. If you look at her you'd never expect her to chase anything down. And this is the most ferocious photo of her I could find!

Kicking off

And so it begins. This blog is really just a means to keep my family and friends up to date on things that are happening in my part of the world. My family, while close to my heart, are geographically separated a long way so this is a convenient way to keep them up with the play.

In time, and as my blogging skills expand, I imagine that this blog will become more interesting to casual visitors because the topics will begin to vary more. For now posts will be mostly of interest to people who already know me.

Ok. Introduction out of the way let me get into a quick catch up to now. Since I came back from Holland at the beginning of August I've had an interesting time of it here.

I was due to have my inguinal hernia operation the week after I got back but a pre-op check up showed up a wobble in my heart so the operation was postponed until that could be checked out. The treadmill stress test showed that in fact I am very fit and well and the cardiologist commented that my test was one of the best he had seen in a long while. It would seem that the wobble was in the ECG machine rather than my heart.

The op was rescheduled and went well. I had mild sedation and a spinal block so I was awake during the entire op which was a unique and very interesting experience. In a way it was a pity I couldn't see what the surgeon was doing but, there again, that might have been too much information. Recovery the first night was quite unpleasant because the spinal block meant that pretty much everything bellow my belly button was non-functioning but still quite able to transmit pain. If I had to do it again I would opt for sedation and just local anaesthetic.

Since being home things have gone well but of course doing any work on the farm is out for a few more weeks yet. And, of course, I am using this time to try and line up some more contract work or, failing that, a permanent position. As usual one of the key requirements in the type of work I am looking for is that the job delivers a tangible social good to society. And there may well be a wonderful opportunity in the wings. I've had a preliminary discussion about this and if this opportunity comes to a job offer I'll let you know what it is all about. For now I can say that this role would enable me to make a significant and long-lasting positive contribution to the well-being of families in need. This is something I am very excited about and I hope that the organisation does select me for this job.

That is pretty much where we're at to date, except that I need to buy a bigger chainsaw to be able to do the firewood. The one we bought while we lived in Wellington is fine for sawing small diameter wood but I can't actually use it to fell our firewood trees with. Because this past winter has been so cold we used up all of our dry firewood, and we had to buy in more firewood twice. That means that as soon as I am able to I need to drop a few trees and process them into firewood so it has time to dry before next winter. Right now we're hunting the online auction sites for a suitable chainsaw with a saw bar of at least 24 inches. No real hurry yet because it will be at least 2 or 3 weeks before I'll be able to use it, but if we spot one at the right price we'll buy it.

Right then, that's it for my first ramble. Comments very welcome.
Remco