Friday 1 November 2013

Wonka Nutty Crunchalicious

This is more disappointing candy.  It is just another case of some company churning out some gimmicky product that isn't particularly interesting in it's own right, and is just being bought because it's different from the old gimmicky products already out there.

2013-09-02 - Junk food - Wonka Nutty Crunchalicious - Package

Generic tasteless crunchy bits embedded in the sugary chocolate.

2013-09-02 - Junk food - Wonka Nutty Crunchalicious - Innards

Wednesday 30 October 2013

Scythe

The grass in my paddock has been getting too long - thigh high.  I get the northern neighbour to put some animals in there to graze the grass and get it down, but unfortunately as half the paddock is orchard, the long grass is most likely inhibiting the growth of the young fruit trees. I was wondering how I could deal with this problem.

Then I remembered that I was given a scythe several months ago, by someone who stumbled across it at a market.  It cost $15 NZ if I recall correctly. It looked pretty hard done by and rusty, and has a shorter blade than most I've seen online. I didn't expect it to be much use at the time.

2013-10-28 - Scythe - Profile

But after a quick sharpen with some sharpening doodad I bought at Bunnings, it worked pretty well. It won't do a full sweep, and generally requires several goes to do so. But it still does the trick. My push powered hand mower sure isn't going to do the job. Here's my berry patch scythed.  You can see the electric fence behind the stump, and beyond it the area the cattle grazed.

2013-10-28 - Scythe - Berries

It probably took me 45 minutes at most, to scythe around the 40 plants in the ungrazed section of the paddock. Not bad. I think I shattered a small piece off the end of the blade when it hit a stone, and it hit lots of stones which can't be good for it. It makes me want to buy a proper scythe, but I'll have to do some research on that.

Monday 28 October 2013

Weather

This is a picture from the first bout of heavy wind, now over a month and a half old. That knocked out the power for a day or so, where I live. It also left a local bridge that I use blocked, requiring me to do a long detour.

2013-09-13 - Wind damage - Fallen tree

Pretty much every day, these days, has some strong wind. But about two weeks ago, there was another bout of bad weather. It started by in the space of ten minutes going from a sunny day, to dark and windy, to heavy hail, and finally back to a sunny day. I was by my garage shovelling potting mix and planting new seeds in new seed trays, so had to hurry to put some protection over my existing seed trays.

2013-10-13 - Wind damage - Hail - 01

The front lawn. The peach tree near the center of the photo, which had minor blossom on it, didn't get too badly damaged. It currently has lots of fuzzy buds on it.

2013-10-13 - Wind damage - Hail - 03

The eucalyptus tree part of the front lawn (Sunday).

2013-10-13 - Wind damage - Hail - 02

The eucalyptus tree part of the front lawn (Monday). This is after the second bout of wind.

2013-10-14 - Wind damage - Eucalyptus branch

There's an old apricot tree by my raised beds. I didn't think there were many budding fruit on it as it was, but after the wind, there are now even less.

2013-10-14 - Wind damage - Apricots

The power went off early in the morning, so I decided to drive into town and take care of some business. Unfortunately, my preferred route was blocked.

2013-09-14 - Wind damage - Fallen tree road blocked - 01

My second preferred route was also blocked.

2013-09-14 - Wind damage - Fallen tree road blocked - 02

And more power lines were down.

2013-09-14 - Wind damage - Power lines down

Thankfully the power came back on shortly before I actually left for town, and although it went off for several hours later in the afternoon, it's been on since. The eucalyptus tree blocks the winter morning sun, and it's not near enough to anything other than shrubs, to do much damage if more pieces fall off. Here's hoping for no more power cuts.