Planting on the Carrids
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
What beautiful weather we are having at the moment. Plenty of sun and the sunrises & sunsets have been great recently. The forecast for Saturday is looking good so break out the sun hats! Vicky and the Pukerua Bay Posse will again be planting on Carrads farm this Saturday. It’s not so far to walk this time because we are moving in to the Kapekape block for the first time. If you do want more of a walk, there are still patches of the unnamed block to do on the left (south side) as you go through the gate.
Planting Bee this Saturday
Saturday 25th July 2009 Carrads Farm 9am Kapekape Rd
What to bring Good boots, gloves, rain coat, a munch and a drink.
Grubbers, spades, plants, water and fertiliser tabs await you on site.
Last Thursday we had another surprise visit from the Global volunteers. Not that we are complaining, it’s always a pleasure to have the young Americans pay us a visit. Remembering from the solstice visit how much they enjoyed destroying things (clearly, it’s not just a guy thing!) we set them some tasks of destruction as well as planting. Weed slashing like last time and ring barking wattle in Ames St Reserve, see image. At this time of year the GV’s mostly only get to do planting so I think they really enjoyed the break. Thanks again GV’s!
There were only three of us at Saturday’s working bee on the Ho Chi Minh trail; Paul ‘The Doc’ Callister, Vince and myself. Team Paekakriki have recently been hit by injuries and many of our best volunteers have turned professional. Paekakariki keep making the mistake of employing volunteers and, to make matters worse, Pukerua Bay have sabotaged our efforts by wearing out our top planter, Peter Martin, on Carrads. He’s done his shoulder in and could be out for the rest of the season. Clearly Paekakariki’s old guard cannot hope to compete with the youth of the Pukerua Bay Posse at the moment We are not helping ourselves by playing smart either, departing from the game plan early on planting new areas instead of infilling down the channels. No matter, it was a great day to be pottering about amongst our maturing saplings and musing on exactly where the Te Araroa walkway was going to go. We got about 100 trees in and another 200 or so were put in on Tuesday by Philip, Overseas Volunteer Yu Suzuki and our very own Posse, The Community Service Boyz! They even brought a ghetto blaster, beat that Pukerua Bay!!