Load of Hay

“You’re not a farmer’s arse.”

He’s right, you know. I probably wouldn’t ever measure up to the mark required to be a farmer. I’m far too soft and too lily-livered. Outwardly, I’m Mr Tough-Guy, a tobacco-chewing, juice-spitting, hog-kicking gum-booter, but inside… I’m only an animal softie.

This morning I went down to Goat-Hill with a bunch of hay for Jacko’s breakfast. There I go again… Can you imagine Farmer Brown admitting that he’s taken din-dins to Dobbin and Black Beauty and Billy? I think not. Animal feed is animal feed – a farming raw material, nothing more.

The morning was dry and warmer than other mornings, pleasant enough to take a stroll down the winding path of Goat-Hill – a mental reminder to myself that I should start trimming the weeds and wild fern undergrowth along the pathway as soon as we have a dry spell.  As  I approached the goat fence, I felt an eerie silence. In the distance the carpenters were busily hammering away at fixing the roof trusses, but here I could only hear a dog barking faintly in the distance.

At the lower gate I could see all the way to the bottom of the steep incline. Nothing, no-one. No Jacko.

At the tree-covered foresty-bit along the lower fence, also nothing. No Jacko.

Where was Jacko?

“Here, Boy, here Big Guy!”  I look round sheepishly, in case someone has heard me. Sometimes I whistle to attract his attention, sometimes I simply bang on his tin roof with a stick.

“Maa-aa-aa-aa!  Maa-aa-aa-aa!”

I’m not sure what a goat yawn looks like, but I suspect it may have been a goat yawn that greeted me, as a furry pink snout shoved its way through the curtained door of the goat-house.

Jacko had been taking an extra-long morning lie-in in the straw this morning!

(Above): Jacko digging into the yummy hay breakfast, packed full of free-range organic stuff, befitting a healthy Billy Boy.

Despite his goofy stare, he is really a strange but loveable creature.

Snake In The Garden

July 5 –6 : Saturday and Sunday proved to be typical “summer” days, but without any heat – just a noticeable degree of gentle warmth around midday. It proved to be excellent weather for tidying work in the garden, and we took advantage by one more working through the maze of overgrown shrub branches and matted underground root-masses and the remnants of spent tubers and stumps of yesteryear. It is quite clear that the beds have seen very little maintenance over the past decade or two.

(Above): An aerial view of the northern part of the gardens, with “The Snake” (outlined in yellow). This is where some clean-up work was started previously. The area labelled “1” which is directly in front of the lounge and conservatory is being re-worked, adding a firm edge and splitting the bed into two (as indicated in red). The area to the north, labelled “2” will be done later.

Here are a few photos of the work in progress:

(Above): The bottom part of Snake “1” starts taking shape, with a bit of a curved edging, rather than the straight undefined and overgrown boundaries, which were difficult to maintain and mow with any success.

(Above): The clearing of the top portion of area “1” has been completed, in readiness for the proposed hard edge. Theoretically, mowing will become a lot easier and give a neater appearance. Time will tell.

(Above): While digging and sifting and carting away the roots and weeds, we were constantly being supervised by Jacko, on hind legs, peering over the nearby fence from Goat-Hill.

(Above): Looking southwards at the newly-created walk-through between the two sections of area “1”

(Above): On Sunday, the new hard edge of the second part of area “1” starts taking shape as well.

(Above): Towards the end of Sunday, the second part of area “1” nears completion and its time for a general tidy-up. Doggy footprints all over the newly-raked soil indicates that the dog inspectors have done their walk-about to sniff every upturned grain of sand!

In the words of statesman Cecil John Rhodes (and probably many others), “So much to do, so little time…” I am philosophical about such things – There is no rush, really. It is good to be able to spend leisure time like this with family in the pleasant natural surroundings of Chartwell, and to be able to take a warm shower after viewing the success of the handiwork… I am not anything near a gardener as yet, but perhaps, over time, my fingers may become a bit greener…

R.I.P. Beebs

Friday 4 July 2014. An icy cold morning, while the construction guys are busy preparing to pour the concrete floor slab on the extension. I make my way through the icy grass to Goat Hill with the ration of hay for Jacko and Beebs’ breakfast.

(Above): Beebs with his glistening brindle/white coat and huge floppy ears on a better day.

Goats are strange creatures, pretty much loners, but always pleased to have some human company for a while, and these two are no different. As I round the corner of the garden at the veggie patch, I can hear Jacko’s maaa-maaa bleat. Nothing wrong with his ears, I muse.

(Above): Jacko, eager as ever to grab first at the bunch of hay. There is no word in the goat dictionary for “wait”. He insists on having a few sample morsels before you are permitted to put the bulk of the food into the feeding tray. That’s Jacko’s Rule.

He digs in without further invitation, creating sounds of someone chewing away at a crisp cucumber. He is able to make hay eating sound quite juicy and delicious.

I look around for Beebs, who always stands back for his horned colleague and prefers to eat separately. There is a strange silence. Ominous. I cannot see him.

I stroll around behind their goat-abode and see a brown furry form lying on the grass at the top of the slope. It is Beebs. There is no response to my call, which he would recognise.

Whilst we tend to personify animals, I must emphasise that Beebs was treated as a family pet and not as livestock, so we give him a burial befitting your trusty dog or favourite cat. Tyler kindly acts as grave-digger prepares the grave at the bottom end of the hill. It is tough going, hard clay ground strewn with plenty stones and small rocks.

We act as pall-bearers, carrying the limp carcass down the long sloping pathway, with Jacko in tow. I am sure he understands absolutely nothing of the current situation, or about the “journey” being undertaken by the Late Beebs, but nevertheless he tags along to see what is happening.

We reach the “cemetery” spot, which is ready the accept its first resident, and Jacko starts nibbling at some fresh roots which had been dug up by the grave-dig. I’ve heard of funeral wakes, but never where the mourners starts gobbling the nosh before the burial! But, hey, that’s the World of Goats for you…

(Above): Having completed the necessaries, we pack some rocks a-la-dogs-breakfast style to allow for a bit of subsidence, and gather up the pickaxe and shovel.

(Above): Ever-curious Jacko stands at the graveside for quite some time after we have left. From the top of Goat Hill, I can see him, still standing down there. Who knows what is going through his head? If anything at all… He’s a livestock, after all.

A goat has died. Quite ordinary on any farm, nothing earth-shattering. However, Beebs will be missed by the family, perhaps he will be missed by Jacko… if Jacko is intelligent to notice that he is now alone.

Snake Surgery

The size of the grounds of Chartwell fall into an in-between category. They are too small to be sub-divided into paddocks to hold livestock or to plant crops commercially, but are too big to maintain as a single continuous formal garden. Currently, we are busy with efforts to revitalise the long formal flower and shrub bed to the west of the house, which is called ‘The Snake’.

 
(Above): Aerial view of the ground, showing GH[in red] (the steep section called ‘Goat hill’), V/C[in blue] (veggie and composting), CC [in yellow] (area earmarked for a chicken coop), PJ[in orange] (area set aside for a BBQ and outdoor dining area, called the potager, a plant nursery and formal vegetable garden) and the formal flower garden areas in yellow marked SN (the ‘snake’) and 1, 2, 3 and 4. The south part (lower block) of the snake in front of the house is being tackled in conjunction with the planting Bianca is busy with in the L-shaped bed (marked ‘1’)

(Above): The refurbishment of this part of the garden, which I will refer to as ‘Snake Surgery’, started off a couple of weeks ago when Bianca removed all the border rocks from the south bed and placed them in temporary storage for re-location. Some of these specimens are real ‘monster’ boulders! What a job!

(Above): The yellow line indicates the approximate position of the front lawn edge along the snake. Her next move was to remove all weeds, ‘undesirable’ and overgrown plants and shrubs, with the exception of the few healthy developed shrubs. The trellis on the right separates the north snake from the south snake.

This weekend I learned a new expletive (swear-word): ‘crocosmia’. I am that sort of gardener who likes all the pretty flowers, and generally don’t take into account the effects a particular plant may have on its neighbours and the environment. I can now see that these masses of ‘pretty’ flowers were, in fact, invading the snake and have become invasive, throttling the performance of other neighbouring plants.

(Above): Some of the root-webs which we separated from the topsoil layer. There were approximately millions of crocosmia corms (bulbs) and tons of roots of varying thickness and strength, and the haul amount to a number of waste-wagons full of vermin.

(Above): The double-dig of Operation Crocosmia involves digging out one-spade depth in rows until the full bed-width (excluding existing healthy shrub-clad parts) has been dug out and placed on the treatment sheet on the lawn.

(Above): The excavated digging is then broken up by hand into clear soil and unwanted root mass and flower bulb components. This refurbished soil is then tipped back into the ‘clean’ area of the bed.

(Above): The refurbishment effort in the Snake starts taking shape, with the lawn edging to be defined by using these cement pavers seated on a bed of hardfill and possibly a bit of mortar filling. We will only tackle the final accurate edging job when processing of both snake beds has been completed and a well-defined outline can be determined.

Monday, after a relatively dry weekend, sees more rain falling, and consequently no further work is possible under the muddy conditions for the time being.

Crocosmia: They are commonly known in the United States as Coppertips or Falling Stars, and in the United Kingdom as Montbretia. Other names, for hybrids and cultivars, include antholyza, and curtonus. The genus name is derived from the Greek words krokos, meaning "saffron", and osme, meaning "odour" - from the fact that dried leaves of these plants emit a strong smell like that of saffron (a spice derived from Crocus - another genus belonging to the Iridaceae) - when immersed in hot water.

Bennie and Sophie in Wonderland

Dogs. Strange creatures, dogs.

Dogs are really a loveable and affectionate part of the family. They certainly want to be in on the action, whatever the action may be, and wherever it may happen. This morning I went out strolling in the garden, camera in hand. Yes, two black Labradors, Bennie and Sophie, in tow following me.

Just in case. I’m not sure what they were expecting, but they were following, just in case.

Nearing the end of my excursion, I turned and started heading for Goat Hill to spend some time with residents Jacko and Beebs, who were naa-naa-ing in the distance. Now, that’s something they didn’t teach us at school: a horse neighs, a lion roars, an elephant trumpets, but what on earth do you call the sound made by goats? The naa-naa of a goat is called his bleat. Just like Mary’s famous little lamb.

English lesson done.

I had just turned, when it was as if the sky had fractured. Silently and suddenly, just like a earthquake – you might call it a sky-quake. Huge, and I really mean huge, rain-balls were pelting down and smashing themselves to smithereens on the ground around us. I was being soaked as I stood, undecided, trying to determine where the best cover might be. The camera instinctively crept under the front of my jumper, away from the deluge.

The front door was closest, but that was about thirty metres away. Usain Bolt would do it in 3 seconds on a good dry day and on a good track. This was not a good day, it was certainly not dry, and there was no track, just a watery concrete path. I am not the Usain Bolt I used to be, and I was wearing floppy gumboots. I calculated that I might need a fraction longer than 3 seconds.

There is a saying that the dog might get under your feet? Obviously not literally, unless they are those flat little sausage dogs. But in this instance, Bennie and Sophie really got under my feet. Both at the same time. This nearly resulted in me being floored. Luckily the dogs are large and I managed to remain upright, stumbling along, rainwater splashing everywhere.

The dogs were looking up at me, terrified at the unusual phenomenon.

“Where on earth are these huge balls of water coming from?” Bennie seemed to ask.

I could become scientific and give him an explanation, but that would be like water off a duck’s back. Not that he’d understand the simile. Nor, would he even want to know what a simile is…  He doesn’t do grammar, not even dog grammar. Grammar or no grammar, all three of us were almost at the safety of the front porch.

I was still about 10 metres from my target, water splashing up as my floppy gumboots dragged along the cement path. Then, as suddenly as they had started, the huge rain-balls stopped. The sky-quake had ended.

Prior to this little episode, I’d been strolling around like, I imagine, perhaps Lewis Carroll. Not physically like Mr Carroll, but like he might have done, collecting ideas for his type of writing of fiction, humour, word play, logic, fantasy and nonsense.

 
One of the most widely read and remembered tales in the English language, Alice in Wonderland.

So much of the Chartwell gardens could well have provided Lewis Carroll with ideas for his literary works. Simply dim your eyes a bit and use your imagination, and you’ll see the sights (and perhaps even hear the sounds) which might have inspired him. 

There goes a white rabbit, darting away between the shrubs. Drat, did you miss that?

We approached the top of a hill where the wood thickens. Sophie looked like a real giant – we were really approaching a Wonderland…

A sheltered little arena of moss-covered stones, where the Queen of Hearts may have been ordering “Off with their heads!” One cannot see any of this from the surrounding gardens.

Sitting on one of the number of large tree stumps, it is easy to imagine the Cheshire Cat with its mischievous grin, sitting on the branch above, where it appears and disappears at will, engaging Alice in amusing but sometimes vexing conversation.

At one point, the cat disappears gradually until nothing is left but its grin, prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat.

Although it bears no resemblance to The Sleepy Hollow Tree, I am totally fascinated by the hanging bark of this tree in our Mad Hatter’s Garden. The deep brown colour dominates the otherwise grey brush, kindling and branches of the surrounding growth.

G-Sweep

Yesterday was spring-clean day at the home of the G-Men.

This involves a periodic cleaning out the goat-house, airing the premises in the warm air and then re-furnishing the bed and carpet to the tenants’ satisfaction. You will understand that this is probably over-personifying the animals slightly -- they do not really have carpet and a bed.

Clayton donned the regulation Health and Safety apparel, being gardening gloves and a painter’s dust mask. Special tools include the old kitchen broom, the dustpan and the 30 litre garden barrow. Then a deep breath and down on all fours (like a goat!).

Interested parties may want to know that this deep breath technique trick does not really work, but it is probably consolatory to the G-sweeper for the first 30 seconds or so. After that, he is faced with the full wrath of the ammonia urine stench. I am reliably informed that goat urine is excellent for opening the sinuses, but I’m sure that the average person will rather prefer a blocked nose!

The boarded floor of the G-house has 5mm slits which allows the bulk of the urine to leak through, but the straw quite obviously absorbs and retains quite a bit. This gives the place a pleasant “goat-y” smell. Pleasant, that is, if you are a goat.

I used two very valid excuses to send Clayton into battle in the straw, rather than doing it myself. (a) the fine dust particles are not good for my post-surgery recovering sinuses, and  (b) well…, actually there was only one good reason.

Ten minutes later, Clayton had fully loaded the wagon with smelly spent straw and the floor scraped clean and dry of traces of G-presence. I was watching from a safe breathing distance. Justin “Beebs” wasted no time and immediately clambered inside and stomped around on the wooden floor checking and smelling. It’s amazing how inquisitive he is – he needs to know what you’re doing and needs to smell absolutely everything!

The compound was left to air, while the straw was taken to the composting area and covered, in line with our cunning plan for this waste product. I am hopeful and positive that the vegetarian goat-poo should do wonders in the veggie garden.

Then back to the feed-store to collect sufficient straw for re-furnishing the G-house. I took the liberty of taking a small bag of hay as a treat for the boys as well. Nothing like an inauguration meal once in a while.

Back at Goat-hill, Clayton kitted up once more and spread the straw all over the floor of the G-house. It was good and clean and fresh. And soft, like new straw. I fully expected him to lie prone on the soft new mattress to “test it out”, but Jacko Jackson butted his way in, in his official capacity of Quality Control Inspector.

(Above): Michael “Jacko” Jackson

Jacko checked out the floor in a zig-zag pattern, finally showing his approval by actually eating some of their mattress/carpet, indicating that, if its good enough to eat, then it must be good enough to sleep and pee on as well! That’s goat psychology for you.

There was no need to panic about him eating himself out of house and home, as he was easily distracted from this bedtime snacking by the offer of handfuls of yummy hay.

Clayton, too, was a happier G-servant, ready for the next spring-clean in a fortnight. Off to the shower and deodorant!

G-Man Report

Some weeks ago, you may recall, I introduced the G-Men, namely Michael Jackson (so-called “Jacko”) and Justin Bieber (the so-called “Beebs”). They are not really Government Men, they’re Goats on long-term loan from a neighbour.

(Above): Black and white horned Jacko nibbles at a leafy snack. He would do well in a rugby scrum and is forever shunting his G-Mate out of the way – friendly nudges in G-Terms, I guess.

(Above): Skinny old big ears, Brown, tan and white Beebs grins for the camera. He is an avid eater and a great little runner. The friendliest goat you could ever imagine.

(Above): I am please to report that these people-friendly and snack-hungry darlings have settled in extremely well and have started making their little community on Goat Hill.

(Above): Jacko absolutely loves being hand-fed crunchy leaves and juicy peaches and apples, but take care, don’t drop the snacks to the ground – Jacko simply doesn’t do scraps off the dirty ground.

(Above): Beebs is the more agile and adventurous of the pair, and is frequently to be seen near the bottom of the hill (about 50 metres down) among the yummy thorny brambles – not sure if he’s find many berries there, but he is gradually consuming part of the landscape there, so it must be reasonably tasty, I suppose!

(Above): Jacko stands at the top of the Hill, looking down at fellow G-Man on the brambled slopes. Not sure of whether he feels like any brambles to day?

Want some yummy straw, hey?

If, like me, you’ve been a towney most of your life and have had very little contact with animals or farm life, chances are you won’t know what donkeys eat – hay or straw. And you probably won’t care, either.

But, say, you’ve become an owner of a pair of goats, and you need to supplement their feed and provide them with comfortable bedding in their shelter and sleeping quarters. The goats will instinctively know which one to eat and which one to use for bedding. However, you need to go to the co-op and to buy some of each, without their help.

Save yourself any embarrassment: its common-sense, really. The cushy stuff is for sleeping on, and the yummy stuff is for chow. But, they are both straw, hey, and they sell at a similar price? We found out for sure by buying them and testing on Justin and Michael.

(Above): Straw – soft, sometimes tubular hollow stalks of grains after they have been threshed. Good for absorption, insulation and comfort, this makes an ideal and cost-effective fitted sheet and under-blanket for any goat. Straw is not nutritious at all.

The bedding straw has been tested by Michael Jackson (pictured above). Reports show that he wouldn’t swap this for any other sort of bedding.

 
(Above): Hay is a finer, softer fibrous material, being a mix of various local grasses, which involves cutting, curing, processing and storing. Yummy stuff… If you’re a goat.

 
Justin Bieber (pictured above) whole-heartedly endorses the local hay, hey? Of course, the in situ grasses and brambles growing on Goat Hill still form the main part of his diet.

Acting the Giddy Goat

Sunday 2 March. Although the sun is out, a promising amount of grey cloud is starting to accumulate overhead, with a slim possibility of some much-needed rain later in the day. Everyone is holding thumbs.

Our neighbour (‘Mike’, we’ll call him) from across the way arrives with his tractor-trailer and sets up a water pump and pipes so that we can transfer 3,000 litres from the garden tank to the household supply, which is dwindling at an alarming rate.

That’s not the end of the story.

Its actually not even the start. Its a different story, a “trailer” prequel if you like. A while later, Mike cum-tractor-cum-trailer-cum 5 little girls on the back plus a goat-house arrives back in the driveway!

Goat-house. Yes, goat-house, not dolls house or guard house, as you might expect.

Mike is the proud owner of a pair of Billy goats and previously offered there services as scrub/weed/gorse removal agents. It looks like this is the day when that promise gets fulfilled.

(Above): Tyler and Clayton walk around Goat Hill, surveying for a good spot to locate the goat-house, a piece of level terrain with a bit of cover from the elements.

(Above): The goat-house proves to weigh far more than can be handled without some sort of crane over any distance. Getting it over the fence into the Goat Hill paddock is well-nigh exhausting, and the building comes to rest in a convenient spot under some undergrowth (which, we understand, in all likelihood, will be devoured in due course.)

A short while later, Mike and Clayton arrive back, with two obedient-ish goats on leashes. Enter Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber. That’s the names given to these creatures by Mike’s three pre-8 little daughters. The black and white boy is “Mike” and the brown one is called “Justin.”

The new tenants enter the Goat Hill precinct and sheepishly (pardon the pun) inspect their surroundings, mostly along the (level) top of the steep incline adjacent to the length of the fence. It is soon evident that Mike and Justin are by no means “wild” – they, in fact, appear to crave company. Mike has a healthy set of horns, while Mike sports a pair of rabbit-ish floppy ears. He has strange dopey eyes.

(Above) The physiques of the two buddies is rather dissimilar. While Mike is plump and pregnant-looking around the gut, and has a stocky purposeful gait, in contrast Justin is quite skinny, with a protruding spine, and seems to weigh about the same as Bennie (about 35 kg). Every now and then, Mike head-buts poor old Justin, just to remind him who is the Alpha-goat in the paddock. The butting doesn’t seem to bother Justin in the least.

Time to introduce them to Labradors Sophie and Bennie. This should be fun.

(Above): Sniffing through the bars: Bennie and Sophie did some “we’re boss here” barking spells (and still continue to do so now and then), and then started settling down to the serious business of sniffing these new and very strange-looking dogs! The goats are in no way phased by the hounds, and we’re hoping that everyone will soon be living happily ever after…

Goat Hill revisited

People usually give “pet” names to parts of their property, so that others will understand the location of a particular subject of conversation. Just so, we have developed a couple of such names, mostly quite coincidentally rather by conscious aforethought.

The MAIN LAWN is not really a pet name – it is really a statement of fact.

The ORCHARD is the area where a number of fruit trees are located, so I like to call it the Orchard, although it probably falls far short of the definition: “An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production”, but we probably comply with half the definition.

The SNAKE: This is a long curvy fairly wide flowerbed which separates the lawn directly in front of the house from the main lawn. Clayton referred to it as this no-name viper, so the name has stuck in my mind.

The SECRET GARDEN: When they first moved in, Brynn explored the gardens (as is the habit of any five-year-old). Being of short stature, she crept between some of the shrubs and discovered, al-la-Alice style, a “secret” garden on the other side! I’m not entirely sure whether these are the accurate facts, but I claim them in the name of poetic licence.

The VEGE PATCH and the HEN RUN are demarcated, but, as yet, they are not fully functioning agricultural centres of excellence. Clayton and Tyler have propagated a mealie-patch as well as a number of rows of fairly good-looking tomato plants.

That leaves us with GOAT HILL, previously referred to as Binnie Hill (a female “Billy” goat to be hired for plot-clearing purposes). The advent of the goat is still a future project, so the brambles and vegetation remains uneaten. Because of Goat Hill’s apparently daunting terrain, I had not previously ventured past the fencing which separates this 2,000 square metre natural wilderness from the  main lawn, kept trim by Clayton and Tyler.

Had this been South Africa, I would have only entered under the supervision of an expert snake catcher, crocodile hunter and general wild-creature-tamer. Tangled bush and long grass and all that stuff, you understand… But this is New Zealand, and a New Life, so Brynn could lead the way for me!

From about half-way down a fairly steep incline, this is the view (0549 and 0551) towards the wooden fence, a little way beyond those trees at the top. The surroundings are quite pristine and natural -- brambles, grasses and stuff…

The slope gradually flattens out near the bottom of Goat Hill, where we find a mini-forest in which I imagined we might encounter Harry Potter. If that was so, then he was out to-day, probably gone to the movies…

Granny and Brynn explore the forest:  With a  bit of clearing up of dead branches and so on, a log or two for seats, and we have a wonderful sheltered and quiet retreat in nature to read a book, contemplate the purpose of life, or simply perhaps just relax in a hammock. But, before the relaxation, there is that little bit of input to be made on our part (including clearing a reasonable footpath through the long grass from the top! – that will be a separate blog one day, hopefully in the near future.)

Clayton, a-la-gumboots, surveys the state of the woods from a flat area.

The gum-boot gang lead the party back up the incline of Goat Hill from the Potter Forest. Maybe we can start writing best-selling novels?