Another kiwi

Cor, over two months since my last blog and my apologies for those who have come looking for new posts. Since I changed to a new phone plan, I've found my reduced data allocation is largely gobbled up by Windows updates, especially as I prepare to install Win10 on one of my devices. With a new data allocation happening today, heavy rain outside and no work to go to, putting up a blog is my highest priority!

Island life is quietening down after a busy tourist season. With such an early Easter most of the tourists have gone now and with them, the call for casual work at accommodation providers. I've enjoyed my cleaning jobs and another birthday has seen me one year closer to retirement. It's hard to wait when I can see so much that needs doing on my section but I now have the winter to redirect my energies.

My deer-proof fence (DPF) MkI wasn't! I reckon the males caught their antlers in the bird netting and then thrashed around creating a hole big enough to jump through. The deer must have strained to reach the rhubarb and snapped the wire that was holding the bird netting up. Grrrrr. The rhubarb got hammered again so it was out with the old and in with DPF MkII...

Mum Whitetail

Spiker Whitetail

Pruned rhubarb

MkII version of the deer fence - it now has wire netting in front
of the bird netting

Hoping this will keep them at bay

If this doesn't work then I'll give up with a vege garden and take down all the barriers!!

I've been dog-sitting Mac and Beau while their owners were off-island. I've had limited experience with dogs and not quite sure what you do with them when you're not walking! Luckily both dogs were on their best behaviour. I thought that they would react noisily to deer being on the property so was very surprised to find Mac sitting quietly and observing Mum Whitetail and her twins feeding a few metres away.

Can you see the three whitetail deer?

Beau and Mac digging to China on Golden Bay Beach

The days are noticeably shorter from mid-February onwards and the end to daylight saving means that it's dark after dinner now. I needed a torch to help a friend get back out to her car and was waiting by the car door when we were surprised by a kiwi that almost collided with my leg! We watched whilst our feathered friend probed around the front of the car then headed off back toward the garage. Magic! I haven't heard any calls for a while but often see kiwi footprints or probe marks outside so it's more likely my double-glazing blocks out their welcome sound.

It's Autumn and of course the fungi know that! Great to see a wide selection of colours popping out of the ground - I'll put some pics up on my next blog.

Visitors

Summer is all about visitors and January is peak season for cruise ships, trampers and those just wanting to chill out. Although it would be lovely to have sunshine to welcome them, the people I've spoken to have taken our inclement weather in their stride. The Coral Discoverer made its fourth visit this month and possibly won't be back for a year or two; our guiding team had the pleasure of having lunch with the staff and passengers on board before showing them round Ulva Island - with a cold easterly blowing most birds had sought refuge on the lee side of the island so just as well the plants stayed put!

The Coral Discoverer at anchor in Paterson Inlet

On the tender approaching Coral Discoverer

The tender after being lifted to deck level

Looking from the boat to Sydney Cove, Ulva Island

Off to Ulva Island in the tender - good view of the tender 'cradle'

Ulva Island jetty with the Coral Discoverer tender mid-picture

My visitors at home are four-footed or winged...

Whitetail deer out from the deck - a spiker (?Dad) to the left, Mum at
the rear and Bambi by the incinerator

Lots of kereru around at present

Another pic of our lovely native pigeons

My visitors pale in comparison with those visiting Beverley's garden; her mature kowhai tree had 16-20 kereru perched in it the other day.

The top half of Beverley's kowhai tree

The Bluff Coastguard were here last weekend on a PR visit; they appreciate the fundraising efforts of some Islanders and were giving free rides out in their rescue boat. I went down after work and got these shots as they took another group for a ride.

Deery me

I arrived home from my holiday just before 5pm and it was glaringly obvious that the deer had made the most of my absence. They had got the rhubarb and potato tops again and even nibbled the yams and silverbeet plants I have in the raised bed. New leaves were already forming on the rhubarb so they must have jumped the fence in the first week that I was away. My frustration turned to murderous intent yesterday morning when the deer returned during the night and trashed the rhubarb again, leaving just the dirt with hoof prints in. It's hard enough growing things here with the soil and short growing season and for the first time I'm seriously contemplating giving up altogether.

Inspired by this morning's sunshine I popped on a couple of loads of washing and decided to rig up a clothes line between the trees so the sheets would dry faster. The Weather Gods were playing games though and first the clouds rolled in, followed by the rain. BUT my brain started ticking and I wondered if I could use the washing line to string up some of my Mikroclima cloth between the garage and the house! This could hang above and also be attached to the fence that used to keep the deer out. Hmmm.

I removed the rest of the manuka from in front of the vege garden
so the deer have no cover now

A close inspection of the garage showed that I could possibly attach one end of the line to the framing and run it out of the door and across to the deck. The 2m-wide Mikroclima cloth has eyelets woven into the edge so I could weave the line through this, a bit like net curtaining. As long as the line's strong enough to cope with the weight, AND the wind doesn't rip it to bits, I'm hoping that this will be a temporary fix until I can get the tyre retaining wall in. Fingers crossed!

Threading the line through the Mikroclima cloth eyelets

...then attach the loose end to the deck post...

...and voila! Can whitetail deer jump this high??

Fungi time

Autumn means fungi time; I haven't had as much spare time as last year but keep my camera at the ready to snap these amazing life-forms. Their abundance makes me realise how important they are to the cycle of life and when I retire I intend to study them in more detail - would be great to understand them better. In the meantime I'll just capture them in photos!

Entoloma hochstetteri, blue pinkgill - two of these were on
the back boundary in mid-March

 

Note the spiral twist to the top stem. Geoff Ridley's book, 'A Photographic Guide to Mushrooms and other fungi of New Zealand' has the following information...

"The blue pinkgill is common in lowland broadleaf conifer forest. Its striking colour has always drawn attention and it was one of the first species to be collected from New Zealand and is still the Holy Grail of beginners. It continues to draw attention and features on the NZ$50 note, to date the only banknote in the world to have featured a fungus."

A brown gill fungus with a stem ring - ? maybe a pleated cooper,
Descolea gunnii

What a delicate wee thing!

The light blobs on this dead rimu branch initially looked like leaves but
on closer inspection they are pretty wee gill fungi (see below)

This one may be a bolete as it didn't have gills (see below)

Pretty wee fungi amongst the filmy ferns

There's more than 20 gill fungi surrounding this stump (see two
pics below)

A quick update on the deer: they came back and pushed down my fence around the potatoes for a second feed - and also managed to reach the rhubarb growing by the garage. I've now put up a second fence and hung plastic bags on - I heard that a neighbour now has the dark-coated one in their freezer so am hoping that this is the pesky one that got my other rhubarb plants.

The pushed down fence and the culprits who chomped my potatoes

A bigger fence with plastic bags that flutter in the wind and scare the deer away

Oh deer!

A good breeding season seems to have resulted in an explosion of deer visits around the village. I've been seeing them regularly here and often see them as I walk to work - last week a 'spiker' (a teenager just starting to grow horns) was at the bottom of Back Road and we exchanged 'foot stamps' before he barked and ran off.

I've been growing rhubarb for over 3 years and, up until last week, the deer hadn't touched it. Rhubarb leaves are poisonous due to high levels of oxalic acid and I just presumed that other animals would avoid eating it. Two of my rhubarb plants are unfenced and I've blithely picked them when they're ready and never thought about protecting them from visiting animals.

My 3 rhubarb clumps in January: one on right before garage door, one in
a mussel buoy at left and the third in the Tiptop cabinet at top

In the last few weeks I've picked the rhubarb from the garage and mussel buoy clumps and had intended using the Tiptop cabinet clump for rhubarb chutney. I was supposed to make this last Sunday but didn't have any red wine vinegar so went for a walk to the shop. They only had the white wine version so I decided to leave making chutney until after our dry goods delivery on Wednesday.

The deer had other plans!! On Tuesday I was outside talking on the phone and glanced at the rhubarb; instead of a mass of green leaves I was looking at the bush behind - someone had eaten the lot!

An hour later the culprit came back for another nibble...

Is the coast clear?

Yum... more rhubarb

It wasn't me!

I've got it all on video and even when I opened the ranchslider and stood out on the deck he was in two minds about whether to run or not. Far too cheeky to leave the rhubarb unprotected so I've dragged some netting around the cabinet.

No chutney for a while - just as well it grows quickly

Deer-proof fencing? I doubt it but it might keep them away for a while!

I'll now have to think how I can protect the mussel buoy clump now - maybe I should move to Fort Knox!

Growing well after being dug up and extra soil added

Mother Deer and her two fawns came visiting on Thursday night and stayed for a couple of hours; I watched them for a while but had lettuce seedlings and garlic to plant so grabbed my ukulele and started strumming. Mother Deer's ears pricked up and she wandered off to the edge of the bush. I opened the ranchslider a bit and strummed some more. The two fawns started walking toward me, stamping their feet - if I had the video going I would have got some excellent footage of the deer 'dancing' to my (bad) ukulele playing.

Kiwi central

Light rain on my day off means that I've caught up on inside jobs - I've made a big pot of vege soup, done some baking and ordered some reusable shopping bags from PouchProducts Limited. The one I've been using for the last 4 years or so came from Woolworths in New Plymouth and is 'laddering' at the seams. It's used 2-3 times a week along with mesh bags for my fruit and veges so potentially saving 6-10 bags a week. I'm on a personal crusade to reduce, re-use and recycle; it's pretty easy to say 'no' to plastic wherever possible and I hope that others will follow suit. It's estimated that New Zealanders use 1.14 billion bags a year - one plastic bag per person each day. Most end up somewhere in the environment where they will add to the pollution problem for decades (and possibly centuries) to come.

Another website offering string bags and reusable vege/fruit bags

It wasn't easy finding a replacement bag; most on offer seemed to be the bigger cloth bags which are fine for popping in the car but too big for my backpack. It wasn't until I added 'nylon' to 'nz reusable bag' that Google came up trumps. I chose NZ-made products and I'll let you know how good they are when they arrive.

Thursday evening was extra-special. It had been a beautiful sunny day and it didn't really get dark - the moon was rising as the sun was setting and it wasn't until 9.45pm that I needed to turn the light on. As I turned my head I saw a whitetail deer nibbling the grass by the deck steps, then another moved into view and yet a third. I stood by the ranchslider for 20 minutes or so and watched them in the moonlight - I reckon they were the same ones that ate the potato leaves last week. They didn't budge even when I turned the lights on and started cutting up some produce for the Bokashi bucket.

At 10.15pm a male kiwi called followed closely by a squeaky female - they weren't far from the house, possibly among the pile of firewood trimmings up near the boat. At 10.20pm a male kiwi called from the deck, loud and insistent. I turned the light off and slipped out on the deck to watch a shadowy kiwi strut around the grass and down by the bush. Five minutes later another male/female duet sounded out by the road - different to the first two so by my reckoning there was a family group of 5 kiwi - what a blast! I stood outside until I got too cold and went to bed grinning from ear to ear!

This morning I had a welcome sleep-in so it was 8.40am when I pulled up the blind on the bedroom window to see 3 whitetail jumping toward the house; a mother and her fawn, and maybe an older, darker coloured male. I just had time to grab the camera and snap these shots through the deck window before they disappeared into the bush.

Mother and fawn in centre, male (almost invisible) at left

Mother heading into the bush with fawn following

Male following the others but keeping his distance

I am so blessed to live in such a special place and invite the kiwi to come calling any time they like.