the vaccinator

spent the day in the tailing pen vaccinating 2200 lambs.  got covered in sheep shit, blood and almost vaccinated myself against pulpy kidney, tetanus, blackleg, black blood and some other nasty bacterial infections half a dozen times (never quite managed to get that needle thru the skin luckily).  ran around in the sun chasing lambs up and down the paddocks, got seriously hit on by the "bro farm" tailing gang and then got the fun task of kicking 2200 lambs tails off the back of the truck into the gut hole.  did get quite nicely pissed on champers afterwards tho as we managed to break the 150% mark.  surprised myself by actually largely enjoying the day but it does reinforce my idea of never becoming a fulltime farmer!!

a philosophical aside

don't know about anyone else but ever since i started this blog a whole 17 posts ago, i have begun thinking about my life in terms of how i will write about it online.  which gets kinda weird `cos i tend to spend all day wandering around thinking about writing about what i am doing and not really actually thinking about what i am doing.  the most annoying thing is that by the time i sit down in front of the computer to actually write about what i've been doing, i've forgotten what i had thought to write about.

yawn

today has been one of those days when i've been busy all day but achieved absolutely nothing.  played farmer this morning and chased a few sheep up and down the road, cleaned out dad's university notes from the garage, chased a few more sheep, stuffed about on the computer trying to work out where to buy my camera from and getting thoroughly confused.  that's about it.  just found out that we are tailing at 7am tomorrow which lend itself to a thoroughly exciting day. 

heavy rain warning

spent the week in the clinton doing the whio thing again. managed to scam another ride in the waka huri huri (yay for made-up maori words for things that never existed before europeans arrived) which saved me 13 miles of walking. Wed was a cracker day during which i located a new nest after much cursing and swearing at house-sized boulders and dense coprosma shubbery. a fair chunk of the riverbed was dry, so spent most of the day "looking for ducks" while really avoiding the crowds of walkers that spoil the track now that the season has started. Woke on thurs morning to a big rumbling noise which i was praying wasn't the cliff in front of the hut collasping. turned out it was only an avalanche behind the hut (which is not much of a brighter prospect). pissing with rain and a heavy rain warning on the sched, so i skedaddled down the pomp gorge before the river got to high and then checked out red and kitty who are presumably still nesting. smashed a canada goose's nest much to her distress but better than having a bunch of geese flapping around upsetting the balance of things. looks like verne and shirley are still nesting as well which is good. picked up eric's tx down at 6 mile - not sure what happened to him. no carcass, so hopefully it's a case of dropped transmitter and not something more sinister. Headed back to the hut quite damp and settled in for the evening. lit the fire, cooked up a big feed and was about to go to bed when i heard a knocking at the door. now one never gets visitors at castle, so thought it was a bit weird. turned out to be bushy, the warden from mintaro who had been sent to get me. the office bods were a bit worried that my hut might fall into the river because of the heavy rain, so i had to pack up and walk the hour up to mintaro on that dark and stormy night. trundled back down there this morning to find the hut fully intact (much to my disappointment as i had left most of my crappy uniform in the hut, hoping that it would wash away and i could get it replaced with new things). packed up the rest of my shit and walked out to glade in the pissing rain. 20mm an hour it was falling, with the river rising quite fast. hopefully maude and shirley's nests haven't washed away and the ducklings down at forks are okay. should now be sorting out my wet shit at the backdoor....but where's the fun in that??

melita stream

loaded the kayaks (decided against the jetski as i didn't want to be responsible to liberating didymo into the eglinton)on the truck yesterday and headed up to lake gunn in a bitterly cold south-easterly. nice headwind across the lake which slowed things down a bit. parked up on the beach and then "followed" one of those "i was a nice track in the 1970s but now only exist as the odd bit of permalit on trees that narrowly missed out on being wiped out in a slip 10 years ago" kind of tracks. Thankfully not too much bush lawyer but some nice vertical bits where you are trusting your life to a handful of moss that is tentatively holding onto a crumbling rockface. fun stuff!! Took about 2 hours to climb up to bushline and then it was boulder-hopping up the stream bed to the saddle. bit of chamois sign up near the tops. Took about 4 hours to climb 800m - the saddle sitting at 1309m. nice views down the hollyford and into falls creek - looked like a good spot for whio. managed to find a little more of the track on the way back down the hill which meant that we managed to avoid most of the bluffs.



have spent most of today staring at the computer, trying to write some bullshit about why my research will benefit nz for a scholarship application. bit of a waste of a gloriously sunny day. still, am planning on taking the jetski out on lake manapouri tomorrow.

word of the day: flibbertigibbet

A flighty or whimsical person, usually a young female.

a sticky situation

today was another day of sitting in the sun playing with ducks. put the ducklings into the outside runs today and they went nuts - swimming up and down, diving under the rocks, chasing mealworms. bit of a relief really 'cos they didn't really like water up until this morning. Max managed to put his camera down on a gule trap which meant that everything he touched got covered in sticky bubblegum scented goo - the car keys, the door on the run, my hands, the duckling that i picked and then had to peel off my fingers. We put a cover onto one of the runs this afternoon and i managed to impale myself on a tussock. Damn thing got stuck in my ear but i had to keep moving or risk getting crushed by a few 100kg of steel. think the thing went into my brain. probably did it some good but. off tramping tomorrow with the jetski up melita stream.

...

and here's a pic to keep people happy. Not an interesting one (or even from today's egg stealing mission) but a pic nonetheless. I tried to steal some duckling ones from chris but he had the nerve to not leave them on the work server. will bail hime up tomorrow and hold him accountable!!

off on a wild duck chase

Off i went along the milford road today to look for ducks.  First stop, the chasm.  headed up the west branch of the cleddau following the beeps but soon decided that i was going up the wrong branch and cut across to the main river.  mistake # 1.  a "shortcut" is never a shortcut in fiordland.  Swamps, bush lawyer, rotten tree falls that trap you up to your knees in decomposing muck.  finally made it out to the river and then proceeded to chase phantom beeps around in circles for over an hour. Get a strong signal in one direction, head towards it, signals fades away. signal strongish back where i'd come from.  turn around, head back towards signal, signal fades away.  drives you mad it does.  found donne who was looking kinda shifty, like he might have a mate on a nest.  this fueled the search but i eventually gave up and wandered off up a creek that i'd never noticed before.  after about 200m, the signal started to get strong again.  followed the creek for about half a km, getting very (over the waist) wet in the process.  then once again decided to go overland which again was a mistake.  came across a big pile of feathers and a skeleton which sent the old heart rate racing but the signal wasn't that strong, so kept going (looked more like a kereru anyway).  After a few more circles, a large number of toi toi cuts and some careful poking around, i found her.  Little louise (or lousie as my lovely colleagues call her) sitting on a nest. Not sure how many eggs she has or who her mate is.  Hopefully that wee stoat beastie doesn't find it.  Wandered back down the river (the nice easy way that i would have come if i hadn't spent the morning chasing bounces) and ran into angus, the most likely candidate for a mate, hanging out on a rock.

 

Mission one complete, I drove back to monkey creek to look for trinity.  Jumped out of the truck, flicked on the TR4 and almost blew my eardrum when the beep boomed in. Crossed the road and located the source of the beep in a toi toi about 5m from the road.  Took me 25 mins tho to actually work out where in the toi toi she was sitting. Snapped on a pair of latex gloves and went in.  Stole 5 rather grubby looking eggs and popped them in the incubator, while being watched by a busload of interested tourists, all asking stupid questions as tourists are want to do.  Bit nerve-wracking being in sole charge of 5 eggs belonging to an endangered species.  wouldn't want to scramble them. Drove back to town and was ambushed by a tv cameraman (never again will i radio ahead to let people know that i am coming).  Had to put on the silly little microphone and give a little speal about the exciting things that i had been doing.  going to be very dorky. No idea when will actually air but i will make sure that i don't mention it until after the fact.  Looks like the eggs are only about 5-6 days old, so will be a month before they hatch (assuming my driving was slow and careful enough)
 

this is cool

i'm trying out the emailing thing. i was wondering the other day why you would ever use this but I am not cool enough to be allowed to access the internet at work. but now i can still update this while pretending to do work (assuming that this works, of course).

brown girl in the rain, tra la la la la

I am currently s'posed to be watching touching the void at the movies for the tramping club meeting but my parents (note plural) decided that they couldn't be bothered going, so instead I get to fix my mother's computer. The bonus, i guess, is that I won't get that infernal song stuck in my head for the next two weeks.
Spent the day playing mother duck again - tried to teach them to swim but they don't fall into the "like ducks into water" catergory. stupid ducks.... had to keep throwing them in.

grrrrr

i just wrote a big long post and then my server crapped out and i lost it all. can't be faffed writing it all again. not that you're missing much. all about donkeys and monkeys and other such exciting things. forgot to take my USB stick to work, so no photos....sorry. maybe tomorrow but no guarantees

I've just been playing around with templates and have pretty much ended up back where i started with a few minor modifications. still it will get there eventually. duckling pics tomorrow, i promise

things i learnt in the weekend

1. That one needs to take care when lambing sheep - too much pressure leads to bad things (like lambs coming out in bits)
2. That motherhood is over-rated (for the reasons outlined above)
3. That the human body contains more microbial cells than actual human cells (yay for newscientist)
4. That solar panels take far longer to stick on the roof than you think they will (it took a team of 5 people 7 hours!)
5. That a climbing rope is essential on a roof with a 20 degree pitch to prevent a rapid descent
6. That aluminium joinery is easy (provided you don't want to look at the end result)
7. That standing in the sun for 7 hours fitting solar panels ends in sunburn

taxes

I've just spent a frustrating evening doing my taxes - only 3 months overdue!! I only have adobe reader, so i couldn't save anything and had to keep restarting all of the time. Still hopefully I will soonbe $318.09 richer (or at least my student loan will be $318.09 smaller). This is assuming of course that they still give methe $$ after all this time.Another day of hefting rocks around in the sun - why join a gym when you can get paid to workout. Turned the ducklings intolittle punk rockers by giving them pink and purple nailpolish mohawks, so that we can tell them apart. Rock on, dudes.Will hoepfully get a chance this weekend to make a few changes around here (a little less like another site i know, for starters)with maybe a few more uptodate pics to boot - stay tuned

fenn-o-phobia

Headed into the hills on monday to do a spot of duck watching. nice flight in the waka huri huri up over the mackinnon pass, although i did have my doubts at one point that we were actually going to make it - holy crap do those boys fly close to the edge!! Managed to lug a whole season's worth of tinned food up to the hut from the chopper pad in only 2 trips which impressed the builder's at pomp (an offer of help wouldn't have gone astray, lads).
Headed up to Mintaro on Tues morning all set to find some ducks and do a little stoat trapping. Found 4 birds but of course not until i had walked up the river to the top of the gorge instead of taking the trap (it seemed like a good idea at the time). Collected my eggs and set off for the first stoat trap where i quickly rediscovered my phobia of traps. The first one I set nearly took my thumb off and after my experience last year when I ended up with one firmly attached to my thumb, I decided against any further trapping. Headed back down the valley, cautiously peering into the boxes but couldn't get up the nerve to actually set any of the damn things. Fortunately for me after walking past about 10 boxes, I spied a duck on the river and took off after it to try and figure out who it was. By the time I got back to the track I had managed to lose the spanner in the river somewhere and couldn't open the boxes to set a trap even if I had overcome my ridiculous fear. Oh well....
Managed to catch up with most of the birds and confirm three nests, with possibly another one on the way. Hopefully there will be ducklings next time i'm in there. Hopefully my hut will be too!! At least one tree fell off the bank into the river while I was there and the toilet won't be too far away. There's now only about 5m btwn the front door and the river - hope i'm not in there during a flood (or an earthquake)!! Back to the office tomorrow to play with our 5 wee ducklings - yay :o)

aoraki

Spent the weekend up at mt cook for nita's 21st. Drove up in my wee bomb on friday nite, arriving up there about midnight. Stayed at the NZAC's Unwin Hut which has wicked views up the Hooker and Tasman Glaciers - definitely a place to go again. Woke up on Saturday morning to falling snow!!! A few cm's on the ground around the hut which was magic. There were about 40 rellies and other random people there - heaps of peeps i hadn't seen for 15 years or so. Went for a wlk up to Hooker Lake in the arvo - well everyone else did while Jo & I ran up and back in a snow storm. Took about two hours and was damn cold but a pretty good track and fabulous views of cook. Cracker day up there today - beautiful and sunny. Walked up to Red Tarns in the snow and took some wicked pics of cook reflected in the tarns. I'm old school when it comes to photos though, so you'll have to wait a while til my slides come back. Actually got quite sunburnt!! Drove back this arvo and trying to psych myself up to go back to work. Hard to get used to 2 day weekends after having 2 weeks off at a time over the winter. Still, could be ducklings tomorrow - that's a good enuf reason to get excited about work.

scholarships & ducks

I rang the UC scholarship office today to chat about the doctoral scholarship that i'm applying for and it turns out that i have to apply for special addmission because i have a foreign degree. stupid because i also have a kiwi degree and a pain in the arse cos it is heaps more paperwork for essentially nothing....grrrr

our eggies have almost hatched!!! The wee blighters are into the aircell and will probably hatch on saturday - crazy to think that a duckling is going to jump out of those tiny little eggs!

Oh & I've just added the only digital photo i could find of myself (that was publishable anyway) - a tad older (& wiser, perhaps) than that now!!

statistical nightmares

I just spent 3 hours doing my mother's stats assignment - not sure why she expects me to remember how to do things that i did in highschool or how to use a computer program that i have never seen before!! Yay for my fantastic ability to sound authoritative while spouting complete and utter bullshit.

It absolutely pissed down this morning with thunder & lightning - storms are great. Of course, I cooked this afternoon in my sexy polarfleece work pants and now it is pissing down again - spring weather is great.

I will get around to making this pretty at some point but blogger was down for maintenance last night when i was trying to do it and now i can't really be arsed. & besides, I don't think that anyone actually knows that this exists yet anyway

the world premiere

So I figured that i never update the old page, so why not start something completely new. The likelihood of me ever using this one is probably nil too but hey it's worth a shot.

Got to heave lots of rocks around at work today...the runs for the whio babies are starting to actually look like rivers which is cool. Must have caught several thousand insects which got dumped rather unceremoniously into the runs, although a large amoutn got lost in the back on the truck when i managed to get it stuck .... grrrrr!!! Should be writing my proposal as we speak but stuffing around doing this is much more entertaining.

Aha...so i figured out the putting in pics bit (not that it was particularly technical). This is SO much easier than the old way i used to do things. Anyway...meet Elton & Charlie ... potential breeders from the Arthur Valley. Breed, my little duckie friends, Breed!!!