Pest Control

Not only are there many more sheep and cows than people in NZ, there are also many more possums - about 30 million of these marsupials live in the bush, farmland and gardens of New Zealand.

And like sheep and cows, possums have a voracious appetite, munching through up to 21,000 tonnes of vegetation per night, much of it native trees and plants. They also
eat bird eggs and insects like the weta.

The possum is endangered in Australia, its homeland, where trees release foul-tasting chemicals to deter the hungry critters. In NZ, hunting of possums is allowed - encouraged, even - and merino wool mixed with possum fur is made into beautifully soft knitwear in a bid to protect the fragile kiwi ecosystem.

So as responsible landowners, we have installed possum bait stations (supplied free by Forest and Bird) in our two areas of bush in the hope of reducing the numbers of possums in the area and encouraging native birds and bush to regenerate.



We've also laid out some tunnels which will be fitted with ink pads and baited so that we can see whether we have any stoats, rats or other similar introduced pests roaming around, with a view to fitting mustelid traps if necessary.



We'll be reporting back in due course if we find anything...

Mouse Mystery

I am absolutely certain that we have mice. We live in a big old draughty house in the middle of a field and sometimes go to bed without putting the dirty plates in the dishwasher (sorry Jennifer!). How can we not have mice?

This week I thought I'd found certain evidence of them with little black droppings appearing on the side of one of our two sinks several days running.



The slightly odd thing was that they were always in the same place and there were also droppings just beneath my herbs. Maybe it was sipping water from the plant trays? Maybe the mouse was a vegetarian gourmet?



And then a few days later we found the answer - a caterpillar! I think it's a green looper caterpillar but whatever it is, it lives outside now.

Bunnyvision

Jasper keeping an eye on the TV for us whilst we cook...



Lots more bunny photos here.

California Quail Chicks

Eleven chicks and two parents making for an oversized family...

Fondue-tastic!

Another trip to the local market, another piece of treasure/trash returns home with us...



...this time it was a fondue set for just $15. Roll on winter!

Rabbit Palace

We (he) built this fabulous flat-pack rabbit palace this weekend and then retrieved J&J from the cattery where they'd had the run of the isolation block and settled them in. They seemed quite at home and mastered the ramp in no time with their paws barely touching the wood as they leapt upstairs to see their new bedroom.

Trash Palace

After dropping in on my not-quite-relatives just out of Wellington, we headed north up to Porirua to visit Trash Palace.



Trash Palace is quite the fanciest municipal dump that I have ever seen - and I've seen about four. The Palace endeavours to recycle as much waste as possible and sells re-useable items to the community at a very reasonable rate. We bought a basket (for all the pine cones that I keep collecting from around the paddock), a large old woven mat (to cover the compost heap), some Crown Lynn pottery and half a dozen books - all for about $30!



I was also really quite inspired by the junk sculpture surrounding the shop. Will be hoarding my recycling from now on...