Child of the Planet

My latest adventure has been up in the roof of this old school house. Steve, a cranky old curmudgeon of a builder has been hired to do the refurbishment work on the property. There is a photo of him here . He is patent, and happy to teach so I have a great time working for him. There is now a new fireplace installed in the building to heat the two rooms with high ceilings. Our mission was to install the flue to carry the smoke away. Punching a hole in the ceiling for the flues metal tube should have been easy. But after breaking a couple of drill bits without leaving much of a mark, we decided that the white painted surface was made of some 'crazy' durable material. It turned out to be some sort of sheet concrete, and the only thing that got through it was a grinder. A brush like disc was fused to the spindle of the grinder we pulled out of the tool box, so a half day was wasted driving into town to score a replacement tool. I start making jokes about asbes...

I've been back here at the timber trail ( Click here for previous post ) doing everything from painting (which I hate) to building stuff (which I'm enjoying). The drive here was a bit of a slalom coarse. The storms had brought down slips on the roads. It's around half seven and the rising sun is just starting to glow behind the curtains. I've decided that my brain finds writing easier in the mornings, so this is the best time to bash out some words. A train has just rumbled by on the railway line that runs past the village, just on the other side of the road. Long freight trains grinding past sends vibrations out through the earth. Feels like an earthquake. Sometimes the trains run quite late in the evenings, or quite early in the mornings, but I don't think one has roused me yet. The world outside this room is frosty. The valley the property sits in usually warms up by lunchtime. I'm glad I bought some Long-John's (known as Thermals he...

Remember that Swastika etched into a glass window on a shed at Awhi farm? We had to disguise it to alter it's meaning ( click here for previous entry... ). I found this example of something that reminded me of our efforts, pinned to a board in the bathroom here. It's some graffiti, snapped by Fred in Italy.

Deb took me out on an excursion to collect their milk for the week. She drove a short distance out of town and pulled onto a farm. We stopped the car outside a shed. Once inside, she pulled two large jars out of a gently humming fridge. Each jar had a really thick layer of real cream floating on top of of a taller layer of milk. She left some money in an envelope as payment. it turns out that this milk is half the price of the stuff in the shops. I'm told that this farm has more then eighty clients. Each has a 'pick up' day of the week assigned. We had an apple Tarte Tatin for desert that night. It was so novel to watch deb ladle cream out of the top of the jar for drizzling over our wedges of pie. Deb and Fred get most of their produce locally , and grow a bit out at their properties. The eggs we picked up from a mail box up the other end of town.

The local library in Wanganui is pretty cool. Great Wifi, they serve coffee, and have engines on display...

Woke up to a sunny morning and the river at the bottom of the garden was a bit swollen from the nights rain. I sat on the back balcony scoffing porridge and watched branches and the odd tree float down towards the sea. Jess the dog killed a mouse that was hiding in the garden bags that were piled up out side the garage. We dug up several fruit trees from the neighbours back yard  The couple next door wanted to thin out the numbers of fruit tree they had out in their garden. Previous owners had gone mad and planted peaches, plums, and apricots in any spare space they could find. I had to carefully dig out one large plum that was inserted In a gap between a boundary fence and the wall of a greenhouse. Shifting soil with a trowel at one point in a effort not to break a pane of glass. Some of the tress are headed to the river side property. The others are being planted out at a communal living situation that is being established on the edge of town. Deb and Fred have got ...

I'm told that Wanganui is a 'fifty k' town. If you drive over fifty, people notice. New Zealand is covered in fifty K limits which is 'doing my head in' a bit. I'm used to 60km limits, and the difference is noticeable. Hastings is the only city I've found so far which has 60k zones. More weeding, more wood cutting. This is a really wet corner of New Zealand. I'm kneeling in the damp soil, thrusting my hands into the mud. Back out at the property by the river, and we start off the day with a cup of coffee... We've been doing a bit of tree pruning. The lengths of branch and twig get thrown onto a couple of large piles that will become 'kick arse' bonfires once the summer heat has dried them out a bit. Lots of entertainment to be had, watching Fred wobbling about astride a wire fence, clutching a rumbling chainsaw, barbed wire tickling his crotch. So much potential for disaster! Could burn a couple of witches on this bad boy...

walnuts have always reminded me of little brains  Made bread with Deb and then sat on the back deck cracking walnuts and watching the river slide past. The river didn't do it's job last night and Jess the little dog from next door, managed to sniff out the chicken carcass and appeared, soggy body gripped in jaws, to show it off to us. I'm wondering how many murderers have had their sins washed back into their lives by the tide? Next day dog appears with We find as murders have through out history, that the tide has a habit of returning one's sins to your doorstep The weather has been bouncing about all morning. It had made up it's mind in the afternoon and was raining steadily as I drove into town to the Wanganui Savage Club (established 1891) matinee. I took a seat behind several rows of grey haired savages and listened to some wonderfully dusty old acts, strive to be heard over the drumming of the rain on the steel roof

Nice thing about this Wwoof with Deb and Fred is that I work for four hours so I get to explore the town. I put in a lot more hours at Awhi farm and had to cook meals every so often. Wanganui has a great market every Saturday despite it being the of winter the river side stalls are still pumping. Check out the cool oven I spent the afternoon back at the house, digging up seedlings and potting them. Finished up with some more weeding and don't realise how cold it is until I get into shower and hands sting like crazy when the warm water hits them. Jess, the neighbours dog broke into the chicken coop and finished off the hen she had stolen. Sad little things head is dangling loosely from the body. Fred has thrown the carcass into the river.

Steam curling up off the wood surfaces as the section of sunlight slid across them. My sodden boots are also streaming. I really need to get some gumboots Weeding the garden today and playing with pup who likes to molest the chickens. Her owners have a coop which the dog likes to break into. Today though she ran off and found a chicken somewhere else. She bought it back half dead. No one knows where it's home is so it's been put in the coop to recuperate. Smoke on right hand side is local Potter opening his kiln Savages club  ( Savages background here... ) Fred has invited me to a local musicians club Friday night showcase. The venue is a tin shed hidden away in the middle of town. It's decorated with Maori motifs enclosing a large wooden floored space with a stage at the far end. The vibe is post war canteen and late nineteenth century misappropriation of native culture. I'm in a venue that could be any time in the last thirty years, but the glow from...

Ex plum tree I drove out to 'the section' with Fred (Wwoofer host). It's a plot of land that they acquired when the commune they were a part of back in the sixties dissolved. We jumped in the truck and followed the Wanganui river as it cut through the town and out into the countryside. Through a gate held up by two ancient looking curvy stone walls was a field few horses were chomping at the grass. The block of land has an orchard of plum, Fujoha, Mandarin, and orange trees. Fred pointed out the spot where the heritage plum used to stand. Our chores for the day are mainly grass control using a motorised mower and strimmer.  I'm enjoying mowing the lawn. Reminds me of game spec I created for warthog  ( click here to see ). Discovered a strange fruiting fern tree

Arrived back here in Wanganui ( click here to read previous post ), late in the morning and after greeting my new hosts Deb and Fred, was put to work chopping wood. I'm beginning to enjoy chopping wood. Bit like what I imagine cutting diamonds is like. One needs to be sensitive to the grain of the material. Strike at the right point, and the wood flies apart in two sections. Get it wrong and it's a world of pain, splitting down a chunk of log working with wedges and the mallet. Sometimes the centre of the block is twisted by knots and it resists the pressure of axe, hammer, and wedge to pry it apart, so man is forced to throw some hydrocarbons at the problem. It's easier to believe in the omnipotence of the human species when weilding the flat blade of a chainsaw, invisible teeth chewing through a section of timber, grain twisted like frozen cigarette smoke. The wood I’m sectioning is from a heritage plum tree, and has a red heart. The chunky sawdust pilin...