Categories: From the Farm This Week
      Date: Sep 19, 2013
     Title: 19 September 2013
Spring is well into it, the barberry is leafing up and won't be long before it flowers, and when the barberry flowers we should have an excess of grass. The native pigeons spend time in the plum trees and willows. The cherries and the blackboy peaches are busting flowers ..........The larches have greened up.

The bees are working in the sun, I was talking to Brian the bee keeper and 20% of his hives have died out around Taranaki and the highest in the past have been no more than 7%. We still have to find out how the hives out here have gone. The thinking is that the seed chemical protection on the maize plantations are having this impact. So maybe the bees on the organic soil will be fine. The problem is no-one will be worried until its too late. The bees are a huge part of the natural system that cannot be replaced with some man made thing, less bees mean less food for livestock, animals and us. So i will keep you posted on how the hives out here get on.

Ruth has been doing some live tree fencing with black post willow replacing a poplar fence that was frost struck 2 years ago its a good job and will save me redoing the whole fence.

Dylan Laagland from ANIMATES New Plymouth phoned us to take livestock to the Grand opening of the New Plymouth store 28th and 29th Sept... so mark this date call in........... i will give you full details next week.

I'm not sure if i told you about the bus YES the bus. A week or so back while delivering pigs down at Bulls i drove onto the farm to drop off the pigs and near to the farm workshop was a huge bus a Seddon diesel with a front motor a huge V8 Perkins. It had been totally stripped of seats and some of the back floor, as it was going to be used to drive a stock car in the back and travel around as a race vehicle.

Now this is one BIG bus .....But a better bus came along and this one sat idle. Seddon were made in NZ i think mostly of fibreglass and stainless steel, plenty of windows and sky lights. This one is a 1970 and only 11 were made ..most gone but some now as house buses......It was one of these that went into the river when the Bulls Bridge collapsed i think in 1975 .....I was that day about 4 minutes ahead of that accident on my way to Taranaki on a reptile hunting trip with Jim Edney seems like yesterday ...............................SO i just had to chop .....a good deal was struck and i organised Bruce Jamieson and his huge Mack tow truck to get  it home. It was a day trip and Aulgie went down as well. It was a big job as the bus is over 8 ton... very long and only just made it around the roundabout onto highway 43 at Stratford. So after getting Andrew from over the road to tow it into place with a tractor its home.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzz   ...........................Yes i know ....We have too much ON now, short of cash ;;; yes real short ,,,,, with the Studio and all ....here is the concept .....
We intend to make this bus a common room for all who stay on the farm.. Wwoofers, helpers, volunteers and us all, set up the back of the bus as a kitchen then tables and chairs for eating and then Lounge chairs etc at the front and a TV and Stereo. This way we can have our own private homes. Can eat or watch TV in the common room and leave when we like ........................
But for now the bus is sitting unstarted we may water blast and tidy but won't put any money in until we catch up maybe over a year................. lets see its not hurting ....

Dee came out for tea looking 10 years younger after her trip. Um    maybe i need one................... HA like maybe to Stratford HA

We have a new French Helpx worker who is an engineer tool maker fits well with us all, practical, Augie and him get on well. Ruth, myself and Beate spent a day in New Plymouth at the Toastmasters speech competition. It was great Paul Our Ngamotu club president winning the humourous speech contest, Graham getting a second in table topics, Beate getting a third talking on ........yeah Yes sort of ...Pigs  Kune Pigs...A lovely talk made out like the new boar mistakenly thought to be her lover on the phone to an old friend.

So much more but I'm out of space - Next week