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Thanks, Rae

PS: News: We'll be on Country Calendar: Saturday, 21 July, 7.30pm, TV1.

Visit my blog at www.raeroadley.co.nz

You can now find my blog and pix at: http://www.raeroadley.co.nz/category/rae-roadley-blog/

Thanks to our hapless guests

The farmer and I thank visiting family and friends for coping with cold showers, collapsing chairs and curious possums.

About a year ago we bought eight new deckchairs which, as three hapless guests have taught us, have a design fault.

So far three chairs have cracked in the same place taking three different guests with them. The farmer and I use the chairs daily but none has broken under us. In the interests of our guests, we have had some chairs replaced and are working to resolve the problem.

It was great to have a guest for company when, just minutes after the farmer had gone out, a possum wandered into the dining room.

The startled creature fled upstairs with me in pursuit, but I was too slow to see whether it had left via the terrace or was hiding in a bedroom.

It was, therefore, handy to get a report from the guest when I returned to the dining room. In my absence she’d heard a squeal and opened the back door - a cat streaked inside.

She figured it had been the cat that yowled, but as the back deck was coated in possum fur, we concluded otherwise, reasoning the possum had jumped from the terrace to the ground where it had been set upon by Kate the dog.

The guest, who also turned out to be a handy source of information, said possums can shed fur so they can escape attackers; we never did find a dead possum.

The longer you stay the more likely you are to experience more than one mishap, so this same guest also scored a cold shower.

When one gas bottle runs out, the supply is supposed to flow from the other bottle but, for a reason that’s beyond the farmer and me, this doesn’t happen.

It was jolly unfortunate that the gas ran out when the guest was showering at 11pm. It was also jolly decent of her to insist that I didn’t emerge from my cosy bed to turn on the full gas bottle.

It was also handy to have friends staying when a fisherman snagged a shag in his net. Rather than ask his family, which was nearby, to help, he slashed the net with a knife until the shag was cut free – but it was still entangled in a piece of net.

We watched the action with binoculars – and growing alarm - as the bird struggled to a small sand spit to ponder its fate. Without intervention, this would have been an early death.

A friend and I set off with a towel, scissors and the sort of environmental righteousness which excels in company. The bird tried to swim away, but had no show. I waded out and grabbed it in the towel.

We were settling down to snip it free when it stretched its elastic neck and pecked a chunk out of my forehead.

I was amazed! What was the bird thinking, attacking me when there was a perfectly good guest available?

Visit my blog - it's now at my revamped website

Hi there, Finally . . . .I’ve finished revamping my website which now hosts my blog. I’d love you to visit www.raeroadley.co.nz and sign up for my blog there. Each blog now comes with pictures, my latest news is on the website and I’ll mention it in my blogs as well. Thanks to you all for following me.

I’ve included this week’s blog here - to ease the transition.  Warmest wishes and thanks, Rae 

News: Friday evening at Paperplus Whangarei - thanks to the great staff for their hospitality. Great wine, crowd (thanks to all who came along) and books - I talked about Love at the End of the Road and treated myself to Zen under Fire by Marianne Elliot.

News: The NZ Society of Authors plans to take my book to the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. This year, NZ is the country of honour.   

Quick as you can

When the farmer pops his head in the door and yells “As quick as you can,” I know he needs help - and fast.

The expression was coined by his old friend and stock agent Goldie Rossiter. It’s best used when you want the other person to do something A) you don’t want to do, B) which is unappealing, C) you need help with or D) they won’t want to do but you know you can coerce them to do.

In this case A, B, C and D applied. Our objective, said the farmer, was to catch a sheep with fly strike. Fly strike is horrible. Blowflies lay eggs on sheep, the maggots burrow into the skin and the animal’s physical health and nervous system fail.

When we found the sheep snuggled beside a bank, the farmer slammed on the brakes, dived out of the ute and rushed at the sheep. In short, he demonstrated the sorry lack of communication skills I’ve found common to many farmers.

It was, therefore, no surprise that neither the dogs nor I were positioned to dive tackle the creature which took off like a rocket; sheep can run surprisingly fast.

After ignoring my unflattering comments, the farmer and I zoomed up the hill in the ute and watched the sheep disappear into some bush with the bewildered dogs in pursuit. It was lively for a sheep with fly strike.

We thought we’d lost it until I spotted it and the race was on again. The sheep plunged down a bank, under a fence and along a riverbed with the farmer on foot far behind it.

Ten minutes later, after heading towards his faint shout, I found him grinning sheepishly (sorry . . .) and in an embrace with the sheep. There is, I hasten to point out, no truth in all those grubby sheep jokes, however the sheep proved there is truth in jokes about their stupidity.

Rex had cornered it on a miniscule promontory on a river bank beside a fence. The only way out was across a stream where Kate the dog was cooling off by swimming in circles.

The farmer removed his gumboots and socks (a one-handed job done while he lay beside the sheep), tossed them to me then crossed the stream holding the sheep aloft.

Somehow it was my job to stop it escaping while the farmer got the ute and did a spot of cross country driving.

I kneeled beside the sheep and grabbed its legs while attempting to swat away a multitude of blow flies having the time of their life.

“Quick as you can,” I muttered grumpily, having found yet another opportunity to use Goldie’s invaluable expression.

Oyster farming ain't sexy . . . . maybe

Oysters might be an aphrodisiac when you eat them by the dozen, but they don’t do much for sex appeal when you’re at the pointy end of production.

About three decades ago my husband’s father and uncle pioneered New Zealand’s Pacific oyster industry by seeding the Kaipara Harbour with oysters. Since then, however, it's become apparent that oysters mature best on the east coast, while the Kaipara Harbour remains ideal for catching spat - baby oysters.

Over the years they built oyster racks by drilling into the limestone seabed below the high tide mark, banging in posts then mounting planks.

Each year oyster farmers drive hundreds of miles, from Houhora in the north to Ohope Beach in the south, rolling up in trucks laden with thousands of oyster sticks which they mount on the racks. 

After the spat have attached to the sticks, they take them to their east coast farms where fat, succulent oysters grow for your dining pleasure.

Now, in the traditional of family businesses, Rex the beef farmer has morphed into an oyster farmer and this summer he and his helper Tony have repaired and rebuilt racks for the spat catch which is now underway.

It's a messy and decidedly unsexy business, even though there’s lots of sweat involved. 

Low tide - the only time they can work on the racks - isn’t always at dawn or after dinner, it just seems that way, while limestone is definitely as hard as hell and the seabed has to be muddier than hell. 

One evening the oyster farmer stood at the doorway of the dining room coated in Kaipara mud - it’s mauvy-grey/brown, if you’re interested - and said, “How long do you think I should keep this mud pack on?”

Sometimes, apparently thinking he's clean, he collapses with a beer onto the couch where he showers sand, grit and sawdust.

The sawdust, which sprays from the chainsaw when posts and planks are cut, also lands in his gumboots and clings to his socks.

When he removed his socks in the bedroom moments after I’d vacuumed, I pointed out that this was akin to me merrily leaving gates open all over the farm.The next day he kindly took of his socks on the back terrace just after its once-weekly sweep.   

Honestly!! 

We live at the end of a gravel road and the tide comes in by the front gate. One of these steamy, sultry summer days I’m going to suggest he rinses off in the sea. I’ll insist that he takes his gumboots off at the front gate, then his socks, then his shirt, then his . . .

Human obedience class - listen to your dog

Dogs must get so exasperated with humans – we expect them to be obedient, but don’t take nearly enough notice of their instructions.

I’ve recently attended four human obedience classes and now know that when a dog acts in an unusual fashion I need to respond.

Lesson One happened when Kate, a smarter-than-average dog, rushed inside, circled the coffee table, danced about and raced outside.

I idly thought, “How odd.” I’d heard my father-in-law’s vehicle skid as he navigated our steep, rutted drive, but that was no surprise; it presents a challenge to all comers.

I peered down the drive but could see no problems. Boy, was I ever wrong.

A few minutes later said father-in-law arrives at the door. After planting his foot on the accelerator instead of the brake he’d rocketed off course, collected the front fence, narrowly missed a concrete strainer, and flown over the small seawall onto the beach. Luckily he only suffered a bruised hand and minor whiplash.

But I’d learned. The next night I was trimming the grapevine after dinner when Floss trotted across the garden to watch the pet lambs.

As she usually shows little interest in the pair, I idly thought, “How odd” - and followed her. Boy, was I ever right to do that.

Mary Kate had got tangled in her lead. She was suffocating and on the verge of expiration. I flew through the gate and quickly whipped off her lead.

The gasping lamb huffed and puffed for ages before she could stand up. Even though her paddock was quickly sheep-proofed, she became most suspicious of me.

Then, a few evenings later, Floss barked. Nothing unusual about that, except it wasn’t her, ‘humans are approaching’ bark nor was it her ‘pay me some attention’ yap.

I investigated. Yikes! Turns out it was her ‘forty or so escapee bulls are lunging around on the beach’ bark coupled with her ‘a nervous camper’s cowering in the doorway of the public toilet’ bark. We swung into action.

Then came fourth time lucky: We were on the beach when Kate stopped dead and assumed the transfixed stare that usually indicates an irritating seabird blithely floating just out of reach.

As there were no birds around, I looked harder. A pod of dolphins several hundred metres off shore was delivering a spectacular performance complete with leaps, flips and stylish dives.

It was high time a human obedience lesson yielded something good.

Late night vision - sloshed slob chomping chops

I decided the pet lambs, Ashley and Mary Kate, would retain special privileges when, at three in the morning, I was feeding Cliff, a lamb who didn’t make the grade.

I was crouched over Cliff with warm lamb milk dribbling up the sleeve of my dressing gown when I had a vivid vision of a seriously sloshed stock broker at a party in London gnawing on one of Cliff’s ribs. 

The detail was extraordinary.  He was overweight (I noticed he ate all the fat) and carried his excess round the hips like a certain former Prime Minister. 

He wore a pin-striped suit, a finely striped white shirt with the top button undone and a loosened tie bearing a club emblem.  Between chomping on Cliff’s chop, this glutton (let’s call him Hugo - with apologies to all Hugos) slurped really expensive champagne.  I didn’t see the bottle, but fancy it was Perrier Jouet from one of those classy bottles with embossed flowers.

Hair:  mousy brown and floppy.  Face:  a tad flabby and pale.  

The only good thing about the hallucination was that rather than being in a gracious home, Hugo was in the grotty kitchen of a grungy flat Kiwis are wont to call home during their OE.    

Hugo haunted me. While I was up in the night nurturing a lamb, he was gorging on bits of Cliff in a pre-Christmas orgy with no respect for the wee creature that had given its life for his gastronomic bliss.

A day later Cliff went to lamb heaven and I vowed to keep Mary-Kate and Ashley as pets.  This involved training them to eat bread so they’d stick around, fencing them out of the section and, trickiest of all, convincing the farmer this is a good idea.

When he found them eyeing his precious strawberries, the farmer merely shunted them into the paddock and threatened to cut their tails off.  As he’s done this with calm alacrity to thousands of lambs, but was using it as a threat to the pets I knew I had him

He then reinforced the post and rail fence at the bottom of the paddock, but filling gaps under the batten and wire fence was going to be tricky.  I told him I planned to tie garden mesh onto the bottom wire and fix it to the ground with huge wire staples.

He listened to my Mickey Mouse idea, sighed deeply and said, “Let me do it.” 

“What a guy,” I thought dreamily - for two days at which time he told me he had no recollection of our conversation. 

“What a guy!” I thought, with somewhat different emphasis.

I then agreed with his plan to let the lambs go while praying they’d be too fat and woolly to slither under the fence into our garden.  They promptly merged with the flock, herd instinct being stronger than their love for sandwich loaf.