The weeks are racing by and my free time is getting squeezed considerably—not just from working but also from all the other jobs around the section that need doing at this time of year. I’m in the process of building 30 rat traps that I can put out in the bush behind the house and give the birds the best chance possible. I bought the materials from SIRCET, the community environmental trust that is a driving force on Stewart Island; the traps aren’t that difficult to make but I need to find some more timber for the baseboard. I have a couple of pallets that will do for a couple of years but haven’t found an easy way to break them up without splitting the board.
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| Rat traps made with corflute, netting, Victor traps and a timber base |
I enjoy stacking firewood but re-stacking it is a questionable waste of time. I made the mistake of stacking the first four trailerloads along the back wall of the shed with subsequent rows in front. This worked fine until I got some more trailerloads of wet wood – luckily I was off-island for a month so stacked those in front of the dry stuff and kept my fingers crossed that it would dry out before I needed to use it. Now I have more wood but it’s ‘green’ so needs to season. I’ve taken the radical step of restacking all the wood but this time making each row go from front to back, rather than side to side. A big job and I’ll have to work out a way of preventing the front from collapsing (? salmon netting) but then I can cycle dry wood first next winter.
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| Part way through the woodshed re-stack |
I had to revise my enjoyment of barberry hunting after last week’s efforts. We’re working in scrubby bush (flax, bracken, blackberry, bush lawyer, grass at the road boundary, moving into more established bush further away from the road) but spending most of the time on our knees dealing to dense barberry plants, from juveniles (above knee height) to adult trees with branches over 8m. Last Tuesday (our third day on this property) we took 7 hours to move 100m before running out of Vigilant gel and energy. Not looking forward to more time here but at least I’ve now got kneeling pads which should make life a bit more comfortable. We move on to Chilean Flame Creeper (CFC) in December so good to mix it up a bit.
The unstable weather patterns lately meant that the island was isolated last Friday with no ferries, planes or water taxis operating. A Search and Rescue operation was instigated after a photographer missed his plane pick-up but it wasn’t until late afternoon that a bigger helicopter could brave the weather to check Freshwater Hut, normally accessed by water taxi. Fortunately, the photographer was there but I wonder if he had any idea of the efforts and resources that went into the operation. It was a busy day in the Visitor Centre with tourists having to spend an extra night on the island and phone calls from trampers that couldn’t make it to the island so needing to cancel their Great Walk hut reservations.
On to more interesting things with my next blog...
