rivettingKateTaylor

Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | September 30, 2010

Don’t put your fingers in the mixer…

Literally. Don’t put your fingers in the mixer.

Lachlan is turning out to be a very good little baker, he has even made up his own chocolate cake recipe (that actually tastes like chocolate cake).

Now I’m no queen in the kitchen, but I can bake. It takes every ounce of strength not to take over when he’s on the go in there. But he gets out all the ingredients, making sure we have everything he needs (he’s even biked down to the store once to get coconut and milk – 7km return) and gets to it. Mum’s only needed when it’s time to pour out the mixture (it’s heavy and he’s only eight) and turn on the oven (which he’s not allowed to do).

The beeper goes ** minutes later and Mum is required again to take the produce out of the oven.

Unlike my younger days, when cakes were cooled before being iced, we cut the edges off while they’re still hot. We flip the biscuits around on our hands as we take nibbles from them straight out of the oven. We eat two pikelets each with butter melting everywhere while the next lot is cooking. And there is always, always, at least three biscuits worth of mixture left in the bowl for little fingers to hook into (or big fingers if the owners of the little ones aren’t looking). Actually I remember once my sister Maree and I making Anzac biscuit mixture once and eating the whole lot without making any biscuits! Obviously Mum wasn’t around! My kids remind me of that every now and again – sooner or later I’m going to have to let them do it!

So why shouldn’t you put your fingers in the mixer? Because it hurts.

Lachlan had a silly moment yesterday, obviously, and stuck one finger on a turning blade. I was alerted to the catastrophe by the distinctly ominous sounding cries (as one would assume from an eight year old boy with four fingers stuck inside pieces of metal where they had no right to be! ( a bit of ice and lots of cuddles, all he has to show for the pain are three little red marks on his fingers – there goes another one of his nine lives…)

The good news is that he will never do it again, of that I am sure. He now knows what happens when you touch an operating beater. There are no more questions to be answered in that regard. Although he did look at me in a panicked way this morning, making pancakes, when I asked him if he wanted to lick the beater! You’re not going to leave them attached to the machine though are you? His emphatic “No!” came with an even more emphatic shake of his head!

3 Comments

Posted in Family | Tags: baking, Lachlan

Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | September 24, 2010

Hello from the library!

Libraries are a place of solitude and reflection. A strict old matron in the corner saying “ssssssh” every five minutes. Not in Waipukurau.

The lady on the front desk has a very cool shirt on and I might just ask her where she bought it when I check out my books.

Plus, the typing on the six computers in the corner is so annoying… something I am contributing to of course.

A man with heavy breathing has come to my right and a young girl, who should be in school, is on my left.

I’ve just scrolled up on the screen so they can’t see what I’m writing! Ah, but the germs on these things. I’ve just seen the girl next to me sneeze all over the monitor, wipe her nose with her hand and keep on typing. Joy.

I’m no prissy when it comes to washing hands but I might have to go to the ladies before I leave here.

And these girls are all talking about being on Bebo. They’re, like, 12, you know? Be quiet!

So anyway, I am killing time while I wait for my car to come back from the garage. Hopefully with a warrant attached to the windscreen. It is a 1996 Honda Accord (holy the girl to my left has just asked me how to spell star doll and the one opposite is listening to a young girl’s interview of Justin Bieber).

It is a 1996 Honda Accord that owes me no favours (but it better keep going just a while longer! please!)

We bought it in 2000 for $20,000 and it’s now worth more like $200. And has done 320,000km. And only needs oil once a year!

It’s a good car. The passenger wing mirror casing has been broken for a while and the windscreen has a few stone chips but I keep thinking its not worth paying the two lots of $400 to get them fixed because the car might cark it tomorrow.

(I wish those girls would get a set of headphones!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay here comes the librarian in the nice shirt 🙂 )

That’s it. I’m off for a walk down the street. Three sets of speakers playing Justin Bieber, star doll and a music video all at the same time is too much for me.

Can’t wait to sit in my car and listen to my 80s cassettes in my old stereo. Sad.

rubbish you write in the early hours of the morning…

Is leadership the new buzz word? Nope, it’s been around for a long long long time.

I have been working on stories all day, plus a 250km return trip in the middle plus the kids winter sports prizegiving complete with kids vs parents game of soccer (one-all and Lachlan got most improved for his team!) so that intro was the best I could come up with at short notice.

I am doing a feature at the moment for Young Country magazine about leadership – looking at everything on offer from Young Farmers and Federated Farmers courses through to Kellogg’s, FAME, Nuffield and the Executive Development Programme offered by Rabobank.

I am interviewing some pretty cool people – cool in that they are just like you and me, except they have great aspirations. So do I, actually, but they’re hidden under the pile of rubble on my desk at the moment, either that or I have already mixed them with chocolate and cream and they’re long gone….

One thing I wish I could learn is the art of delegation. Wonder if time management is part of the deal? Procrastination 101.

But for me, because I’m tired and I have to say what I want to say before I fall asleep on my keyboard (it’s 12.57am and I have officially just met one of four big deadlines for the month).. um, where was I.

I am also writing stories for the Hawkes’ Bay Regional Council’s next newsletter and a DominionPost ram feature, among other tasks. One of the reasons I am up so late is because life doesn’t stop when you have deadlines and you are self employed (and you’re selfish and still do everything you want to do).

In other words, I went to school camp last week, went to my netball club’s prizegiving on Saturday and played in the Harris Cup shootout at golf on Sunday. A W E S O M E ! All of it.

Last year I was the top qualifier for Harris Cup and got knocked out on the first hole (you start with a group and the bottom one drops off each hole until there are only two left on the last hole) but this year, I made it to the fourth hole. Look out next year. I might even keep them all in bounds… on the fairway… close enough to two putt.

The netball trip was wall climbing in Ahuriri (cut short because the van overheated on the way there….) and then Laserforce. You have to give this a go. It is the most adult fun I have had fully dressed and sober 🙂 for a long time ( I was the driver). You put these little suits of armour over your shoulders and go into this darkened maze with strobe lights and funky music and shoot laser beams at people. You gotta love it. It was a good thing the van overheated outside pubs on the way home though aye.

And last week’s camp. Talk about leadership. How to hold your tongue on numerous occasions when you want to tell lovely little 10 year olds they’re being dumb, but also, how to allow your eyes to shine with pride when you see them doing something they said they couldn’t do (before you pushed them).

The coolest thing was walking as a group down the road one night, then the teacher taking all the torches and getting the kids to walk back along the road to camp in the dark. Sounds basic to country kids (can’t tell you how many times I have made my kids do their farm chores in the dark when they’ve neglected to do them on time!) but some of these children have never seen the stars without a street light.

In fact, one 10-year-old boy asked me on the way up to Wakarara (west of Ongaonga off SH5 under the Ruahine Range) if the animals in the paddock were boy cows or girl cows. I thought I held my sarcastic streak in check well!

We also took compasses into the swamp at Triplex Hut and instead of walking around the loop track we crossed in the middle of it, keeping to the same bearing. Muddy! I always knew how to find north but I couldn’t remember anything else (I wonder what else I was thinking about in my girl guide days?)

My favourite part of the camp was building the fires and cooking our own sausage, damper and then a banana with chocolate chips and marshmellow pieces inside. Seriously yummy and seriously fun.

So. My first camp as a grownup. I have technically been to Camp Wakarara before as a grownup but I was on Young Farmers weekends so they don’t really count. I even whistled the National Athem in Camp Idol.

Sad.

Goodnight. 1.11am. That took 14 minutes. Do I tell a good yarn when I’m tired? I’ll tell you in the morning when I read it with fresh eyes. Laugh at it or delete it. One of the two.

2 Comments

Posted in general | Tags: golf, leadership, netball, school camp, Wakarara, Young Country

Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | September 20, 2010

new gun laws

Is it time to license guns as well as the people who fire them?

Police register licensed firearms owners, not the firearms, even though there are thought to be anywhere between 700,000 and 1.2 million firearms in New Zealand.

There have been a spate of gun thefts in Wairarapa. The stuff website says police fear they have been stolen to order and have fallen into the hands of criminals (no kidding – stolen firearms are in the hands of criminals. Duh.)

The story reads… “Thirty firearms – including pump-action shotguns, rifles and handguns, as well as ammunition – have been stolen from Wairarapa properties this year. In the latest raid, nine guns were stolen from Dalefield Hall, in rural Carterton, last weekend. The thieves made off with the sporting rifles used by a gun club, complete with rifle bolts. Two weeks earlier, thieves broke into a house in semi-rural Masterton, smashed their way into a gunstore on a study wall, and made off with a locked gun cabinet and weapons. The guns included a .270 rifle, a .303 rifle, two 12-gauge shotguns, three air rifles and an air pistol.”

I have done many stories for the police/Mountain Safety Council over the past 10 years for a Farming The Year Ahead feature I write for the DomPost. Separate guns and ammunition, lock them away, bolt the cabinet to the building, hide it…. and still the thieves come.

We license cars as well as drivers. Why not guns. They’re just as lethal in the hands of stupid people.

Added grammar question – license something with an s (s for skip, which is a verb) or get a licence with a c (noun) – something someone taught me once… I must have been sort-of listening but is my memory correct?!

4 Comments

Posted in Crime, Rural | Tags: frearms, guns, licence

Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | September 3, 2010

East Coast welcomes Farm Environment Awards

The 2011 Ballance Farm Environment Awards provide East Coast farmers with the perfect opportunity to show how much they care about environmental sustainability, says Hawke’s Bay farmer and awards chairman Bruce Wills.The awards opened on Wednesday and close on 17 October.

Bruce Wills

Bruce, who farms an 800ha (effective) Te Pohue sheep and beef farm with his brother Scott, says he is excited the prestigious competition has come to the East Coast – a region he believes is home to some of the best farmers in the country.

In fact, Bruce was hoping to be among the first to enter the inaugural East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards, until he got “tapped on the shoulder” and asked to be the region’s awards chairman.

It’s a role he will relish. He has been passionate about environmental sustainability ever since giving up a 20-year banking career to return to the family farm, Trelinnoe, six years ago.

“Because I’d come from a non-farming career I was very conscious of how urban people perceive farmers. I think it’s very important that we can show consumers of our products that we are doing the right thing when it comes to animal welfare and environmental sustainability.”

Bruce says farmers are traditionally good at responding to climatic and economic signals, but the past three years have been particularly tough for East Coast farmers.

“Hawke’s Bay has never had a triple drought before and that really knocked us for six.”

In response to the changing climate and the need to improve sustainability and profitability, Bruce and his brother Scott have reduced stock numbers on their farm from 10,000 stock units to 8000 stock units. They have also changed their pasture management regime so that pastures have more “top length” going into summer.

Bruce says they aim to plant 500-1000 trees every year. These trees are either natives planted in 110ha of QE II Trust land, or poplars planted around the farm for slope stability and stock shade.

They have also erected more than 20km of seven-wire post-and-batten fencing to protect steeper faces, gorges and streams.

“Out of the 85 paddocks on the farm we’ve only got two left where stock have access to natural water.”

These efforts helped Trelinnoe win the rural category of the Hawke’s Bay Environment Awards in 2009.

Bruce says winning this award was a big thrill.

“Most farmers live a fairly solitary existence, so it’s satisfying for those farmers who work hard on improving the environment to be recognised for their efforts.

“This is what the Ballance Farm Environment Awards are all about. They showcase farmers who are doing a good job and inspire other farmers to learn from them. I’m a great believer that education is better than regulation.”

As chairman of the Meat and Fibre section of Federated Farmers, Bruce says he is among the first to get phone calls when farmers get it wrong.

“But the Farm Environment Awards show that most farmers are doing the best job they can.”

He urges farmers to get in behind the East Coast awards and enter the competition.

“It will be a wonderful experience and it’s a great way to benchmark your farm against other properties. You will learn a lot and you will meet some great people.”

Bruce says every entrant will be visited by three expert and independent judges who will be happy to offer useful advice.

“I think the East Coast is really looking forward to these awards. It’s a great opportunity for the region to show the rest of the country that we have some outstanding farms and some excellent examples of environmental sustainability.”

Entries for the 2011 East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards close on 17 October.

For more information or an entry form, visit www.bfea.org.nz or contact email eastcoast@bfea.org.nz

please help remove Michael

Before last month, my highest blog stats were when the gunman was on the loose between my place and Norsewood.

That was an exciting couple of days, with my blog being updated regularly as police information came through.

But Michael Laws blew them away.

One whisper of a scandal, a blog from me saying I didn’t really care who the Mayor of Wanganui was tupping in his own time and whammo, that day had the most visits. Hundreds of people were searching for anything to do with Michael Laws, eager to find out what he’d done without having to buy the Sunday paper (I didn’t buy it, didn’t read the stories on the net and still don’t care).

So my request today, is to visit, visit, visit … and give me a new best blog. A blog on nothing.

On nothing. Sex, drugs and rock n roll… that will get search results. The All Blacks. Police pursuits. Love. Just trying to get some topics in here that seem to be popular search terms.

Tiger Woods. Scandal. solar panels (believe it or not – I get at least one of those every single day).

Paul Henry and Pippa Wetzell. Can you tell I have Breakfast on in the background?

No Tamati today. He has been helping on the weather on One News at 6pm. They better not be stealing him permanently!

While I’m here, big news yesterday about my brother-in-law going in for back surgery. Talk about the health system working when you really need it to. Ongoing sore back. Get specialist appointment. On telling symptoms, get immediate specialist appointment, MRI and admission on the same day and under the knife last night. All well this morning apparently.

And my hubby has shoulder surgery on Tuesday. No driving for a month. That will be fun. Not.

3 Comments

Posted in general, media | Tags: blog stats, health, Michael Laws, Norsewood

Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | August 26, 2010

oh to have automatic video

I so wish I had automatic video sensors in my eyes. I have seen two very funny things this morning and I wish I could show you instead of just describing.

About 30 lambs from the next door neighbour’s paddock were having a ball! Running around, chasing each other, running the fence line, sometimes one after the other and sometimes in a pack. Repeatedly. Except for when I came back with my camera.

On the way back from letting chooks out (what I was out for to start with) I chucked some hay over to the skinny heifer and her calf in the paddock beside the house, into which our two weaner pigs have just been released. The pigs went mental over the pile of hay, rolling, sniffing and I’m sure if pigs could giggle, that’s what they were doing! Again, no camera.

However, I did go for a wander once I had retrieved the camera from the office – here are a couple of stills from life in Takapau today.

No-one told Lachlan's pet lamb the bottle was empty....

Six year old Brownie with this year's twins

Heifer and calf share a hay treat with the pigs

Why you can't take photos of pet sheep (Molly) - they keep coming up for hugs

Our lovely Diesel coming to say Hi (not a ram, but we can't kill him cos he won too many red ribbons at lamb and calf day three years ago - see blog on pet lambs). Ignore the old ram in the background, like Footrot Flats' Cecil he's still going, despite only having paid a dozen beer to rescue him from a friend's dog tucker freezer five years ago.

Cardigan completely ignoring me. Funny what moving a makeshift fence 30cm can do for a ewe's attention span!

Let us out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the mouse catcher... a welcome addition to any rural property!

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Rural | Tags: cows, farming, lambs, NZ farming, pet lambs, pigs, rural New Zealand, sheep

Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | August 25, 2010

milking time…

Milking sheep. Why not?

Some people already do it, why not on a larger scale? I don’t know why, but I don’t know why not either!

This is the kind of innovation that will keep NZ farmers on their toes. This is the kind of thinking outside the square that we should be putting hard-earned research dollars into. There are already millions of sheep in NZ. We use their meat and try to flog their wool, why should their milk be any different?

I was reading on the stuff website this morning, thanks to a story from Mark Hotton, that “Southland sheep farmers could soon join their dairy counterparts in milking their animals, if an idea being investigated by Alliance Group proves feasible.”

The company is investigating alternative revenue streams, including ovine milking. Sheep milk apparently has “significant” health benefits, is high in vitamins and calcium and there is solid demand from Asia and North America. The article said prices for whole milk powder produced from cows was about US$3000 per tonne – from sheep it was US$7000 (probably because access to their teats is a tad harder!!!)

Sheep milk can be used to make cheeses such as feta, roquefort, pecorino romano and ricotta, as well as yoghurt (I stole that from the article as well, I haven’t done any of my own research on this at all…)

This is a cool little story with a positive twist for NZ farming. I’m all for positive. Call me a woos (woose wous – how do you spell that???!!! I’m going to settle on wous even though the only one spell check liked was woos) but I like people reading my stories and not only learning something, but feeling positive afterwards (one of the many reasons why I am not in mainstream journalism).

I am sooooo looking forward to reading the Dominion Post tomorrow. My Farming the Year Ahead feature does not have opinion pieces from the heads of organisations you hear from in the rural papers all the time (there’s nothing wrong with that, I just wanted to be different). There is only passing mention of the ETS and other issues facing farmers, as one feature can’t address these things in one go – they’re ongoing and complex – and covered well by the likes of Farmers Weekly.

Instead, I have compiled a couple of little stories that I believe make a good read – from biodiversity to biological farming.

To give you a taste if what rivettingkatetaylor has been up to lately…. the use of fur harvesting to reduce the cost of possum control in northern Hawke’s Bay, the testing of a new floating wetland (used for wastewater ponds but can it be used on farm?), a soil carbon conference in Wellington and an insight into the beliefs of the woman driving it, the expansion of the Ballance Farm Environment Awards into the East Coast, Masterton hosting the grand finale of the 2011 National Bank Young Farmer Contest and a wee profile on two QEII covenants owned by Eketahuna farmers Ian and Janet Woodhouse (who incidentally were in Young Farmers with me away back when so that was a cool catch up. I like Janet. I haven’t seen her for 10 or so years and she said I hadn’t changed a bit! xx)

Have a look out for the DomPost tomorrow (usually in the business section).

2 Comments

Posted in media, Rural | Tags: DominionPost, media, milking sheep, sheep farming

Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | August 24, 2010

Swine flu cometh?

With a third of our school at home with the flu yesterday and more than half away today, maybe swine flu has finally hit Takapau.

My two kids had their first absence due to illness yesterday (much to Lachlan’s disgust, he loves school. While she is a good student, I’m sure Sarah just goes to school to eat her lunch and see her friends.)

Lachlan’s was due to a cough he’d had for a while, but Sarah had the full on flu – temperature and weak all over. Poor thing. It’s not nice being sick. She told me she wished she could fully appreciate having the TV in her room.

The good thing is that pamol is doing the trick for both of them.

You see, we are stingy with the medicine for 364 days of the year so when they really need it, it works. And that policy has certainly come into its own this week.

Sarah’s temperature has been fluctuating with the intake of pamol – almost normal an hour after pamol and burning up half an hour after its effects have worn off. This afternoon I haven’t needed to give her a top up at all so fingers crossed.

She’s watching the Garfield movie on TV so I hope she is getting better and can still keep her arms up long enough to read a book. I don’t know how much more of Cartoon Network I can take (several respites through the day with a whale watch programme on the documentary channel and a zoo item on Animal Planet).

It’s five to three. Normally I am shutting up the office and putting the kettle on, waiting for the onslaught of children from the school bus.

Nice Mum will go outside and feed the lambs, chooks and pigs and get in the firewood – chores normally done for their pocket money. I guess if they can’t go to school – they can’t do chores?