The 'A' Team

Meg, Jessie, Ned, Ben, Pip & Gem.

Pip & Gem.

Jason

In the mid '90's a friend of ours rang from Motueka to ask us if we wanted a big ginger cat. He told us that the cat, 'Jason Ginger', had been owned by an old lady up there who had gone into a home and Jason was now residing in a cattery.

The cattery had been trying to find a home for Jason but because of his age at four years, there were no takers; the cattery were thinking of putting him down.

We told Dave that yes, we would like the cat but getting him all the way down to Sheffield would probably pose too much of a problem ... wouldn't it?

Dave said, "If you want to have him, I'll get him down to you".

This was at the time when Ansett Airlines were running their very popular cat ad on TV and Dave being a very enthusiastic kind of chap and full of bright ideas, decided to give Air New Zealand a bell and make a proposition. He told ANZ that if they would fly Jason to Christchurch for nothing, he would get the story in the news papers. They agreed!

Jason duly arrived at Christchurch on a 737 and we brought him home.

The funniest thing I've seen in a long, long time was when we let Jace out of his cage in the kitchen, still drugged up to the eyeballs with his mandatory dose for flying on the airline, and our pet baby wallaby went hopping by. I can still see him sitting there watching the wallaby with a pissed look on his face. I imagined him thinking, "Wow! Look at the size of that mouse!"

Dave, true to his word, not only got the story of Jason's flight to freedom on the front page of the Nelson Mail but in the Press also.

The favourite winter spot.

The greatest excitment was when I shot a rabbit and chucked it out on the lawn.

Jason owned us for the next twelve years.

Unfortunately, for the last three years of his life Jason had diabetes and was on a very strict diet; no more bunnies, and I had to give him two insulin shots a day. At sixteen years old it all got too much for him and we had to put him down.

But I reckon he had a pretty good life, with his own pet humans and a farm to roam around.

Inspired by Gecko With Canon.

Country Calender

When the TV crew rang Dick to ask if they could come on the cattle muster and film it for Country Calender, they asked if they needed to pay for accommodation and food. Dick answered, "No. You bring the beer and we'll bring the tucker!"

And that's what they did!

It was a great muster, enlivened by heaps of raucous hilarity in the huts at night.

It's a real shame they had to edit 8 1/2 hours of video down to 22 minutes for the program.

On the next episode, screening June 20 at 7pm on TV ONE:

While most eight-year-olds pester their parents for a new toy, a trip to the movies or a digital device, Mount White Station's Mark Smith had a different birthday present in mind.

Mark was desperate to take his pony on the Canterbury high country station's annual cattle muster - and when he got his wish, a Country Calendar crew went with him.

According to his dad, station manager Richard Smith, the youngster had been pleading for over a year to join him and the other stockmen on the four-day muster.

Read more and check out the links at the bottom of the page.

See it here.

Spot the WebWrat.

Winter 2006

A couple days ago I was over at No Minister and read Fairfacts Media's post on Gorbal Warming.

Seeing the sat shot reminded me of the big dump of Global Warming we had in 2006. In fact I think the sat photo I lifted from Fairfacts is of said dump.


From NIWA:

Two severe winter snowstorms accompanied by bitterly cold conditions, and later heavy frost contributed to a particularly cold June. The national average temperature of 7.3 °C was 1.2 °C below the 1971-2000 normal. This was the coldest June since 1972 which recorded 6.7 °C. The regions with the largest anomalies, more than 2.0 °C below average, were Waikato, King Country, inland Marlborough, South Canterbury, and North Otago. Parts of South Canterbury and North Otago recorded their lowest June mean temperatures in more than 50 years of record. One snowstorm hit Canterbury over 11-12 June, producing snow depths of 15 – 90 cm. The other affected the central North Island over 20-22 June. These were accompanied by bitterly cold conditions, and later heavy frost. There were more days than average in June with air frost over much of New Zealand, especially in the central North Island and the southeast of the South Island. Precipitation was about 200 percent (twice) of normal in South Canterbury. In contrast, June rainfall totals were 50 percent (half) or less of normal in much of Bay of Plenty. June was much sunnier than normal in all western and southern regions, with record high June totals in Northland, Auckland, and Waikato, and coastal Otago. Anticyclones ('highs') were much more frequent than average for June in the Australian Bight with ridges of high pressure extending into the south Tasman Sea. This pattern resulted in frequent cold southerly winds over New Zealand.

It was bad enough here where we had no power, water or phone for about two weeks, but it was far worse down in South Canterbury where the severe frosts prevented the snow from melting for 8 or 9 weeks. For all that time there were dozens of farms without power because of the exceptional number of power poles that were brought down by the snow.

I think Mitre 10 and Bunnings had a boom in selling portable generators!

We were lucky in that we didn't have the severe frosts here and our snow melted in about a week. The down-side was that the hillsides were so wet I had to use the wee dozer and trailer to feed the deer for three weeks.


HELP! How do you change the publish date on a post that has been saved in 'Draft's for a few days?

Posted this on the 20th.

Poulter River

A post inspired by Oswald Bastable's photo of Lake Minchin.

A couple of months ago, Henry and I got sent up the Poulter to spend a night in the Turnbull Biv and then muster cows out the next day.

Looking up the Poulter. Lake Minchin is in the distant valley at left. Turnbull Biv is on top of the terrace on the right.