I Built a House

Sometime in 1967 I bought an area of land just on the south side of the Herbert Hill. It was in two blocks, one on each side of Breakneck Road (though the cadastral map says it is Middle Ridge Road). I bought the land because I was interested in raising animals, mainly beef-breed cattle. It never entered my head that I could make money from it and actually you don't make much out of a small block of land.

The top block was 8 acres and across the road was 14. I remember it was 1967 as decimal currency came in then and my lawyer, Margaret MacKay could not get her head around the purchase price because she was more used to pounds.

Some people advised me against farming cattle because of the drought. It was the tail end of a five year dry spell and our local MP Alan Dick had sourced funds to try seeding clouds with CO2 ice in an effort to make it rain. Well it did! At the end of the drought!
Freddy Robertson had farmed cattle - Jerseys. He had a show bull and treated it as a pet, often seen giving it hugs and kind treatment. He didn't believe the adage that Jersey bulls could not be trusted, so he did - and it killed him!
Eddy Thourghgood farmed dairy cows and sold cream to the butter factory, I think in Waitati.
So I didn't see the problem in raising beef.

The property was not actually on the market, but had been abandoned because of tragedy. Don Blakebourgh had built a sailboat with his kids and took it to the Waianakarua River mouth on its maiden sail. Three of their children were drowned.
Margaret MacKay was his lawyer too and when I went to him - in the signal box at the railway where he worked - he was pleased for me to take the place off his hands.

There was a cottage on the property and it was in a dilapidated state. It had no value to me, and I largely ignored it until Mags came along and I chased her until she caught me!
The old cottage was going to be our home and I needed to refurbish it, but a builder's quote made me rethink. It was going to be a huge cost.

So there were three very big Rimu trees close to the road on Diamond Hill and they would be burnt during our land preparation fire. So I felled them and hauled them with the D6. Bert Bennett was going to saw them into timber for me, and Bob Yates arrived in the GMC logging truck to load the logs. The Hiab could not lift them, so we used the D6 to dig a pit and backed the truck into it, then, using the D6, rolled the logs on.

Bert Bennett and Bob Yates are characters of other stories.

The sawmill had not been updated in those days, so my mate Keith Gibson, used the breaking down bench to cut flitches that the breast bench could handle. They produced some very nice timber for me - 6 x2, 4 x2, and 6 x1 (inches as we weren't quite into metrics yet).
Mel the builder was going to work with me for a week, then I was to carry on by myself. I actually hadn't built a house, but poverty is a magnificent teacher.

While the timber was drying, I tore down the old part of the cottage. Albert helped me when he had the time - I used to help him too. There was not much salvageable and the renovation became a rebuild!
But the cottage was very old! The studs and top & bottom plates were 4 x 4 Totara held together with dowel, rather than nails. There were newspapers lining the walls and they were old Otago Witness! Sarking on the walls was Kahikatea - riddled with borer. And scrim slackly held the wallpaper in place.

Well I learned about building and bought the window frames from Smiths City Market in Christchurch. Albert helped me fit those and I did the glazing myself. A mate did the wiring and another did the plumbing. I had intended to use the 6 x1 timber for weather boarding, but the expense of dressing (planing) put me off, so I nailed them on a 45 degree angle covering 50% and then covered it with tar (building) paper and netting, then roughcast the outer wall. Lex Kennedy taught me about roughcasting.

By the time we were married, we had a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. The rest I completed at night after work - that's how I did the first part as well. I usually worked to 9:00 pm.

One of my cows was sold so Lex could make a nice fireplace in our lounge. Just to point out that all was not plain sailing, I lost three cows moving them from the Hill Block to the River Block. They were on the railway line when the express (steam train) came roaring around the corner. It killed the three outright!
I rang an Oamaru butcher to see if he would take 'farm killed beef' and he said he would. So with a system of blocks and rope and my tuck, I hoisted the the carcasses into a tree where I skinned and butchered them. The smell of the meat was not too good in my truck, but I took it into my butcher.
One look and he said, 'This meat has not been bled properly - bruised meat does not bleed well!'
He pointed out that if the beast was not bled properly, the meat can be toxic.
So I rang the Rabbit Board who had a lot of dogs - they would not pay for the dog tucker, so I donated it to them. Those dogs did not know what a feast they had!

So I learned little techniques that have stuck with me over the years, ways of doing things - that may not be the way trained people do it but more importantly, not to be daunted about anything! Perhaps I did it the hard way, without the proper gear, but I got it done!

Ergot

At my workplace part of our business is producing trees that have edible fungi growing on their roots. For those who do not know; trees need a fungi - mycorrhiza - to help locate food and this fungi has a fruiting body, either a mushroom or a puffball, is edible. Not only edible but in some cases greatly sought after!

One day while talking about the uses for fungi, Ergot came to mind. Nobody knew of it, and I have asked around and it seems that I am the only one who remembers about it. That won't be the case, but in my little circle, nobody knows about it.

I only ever heard about it as 'that's what was done in the past'. Ergot is a fungi that grows on ryegrass and cockfoot seed heads. It is like small blackish brown specks. Now this fungi was used to treat burns and help to coagulate blood.
It was easily found on road verges in the countryside and during the war years, it was collected by children as their contribution to the war effort.

Now I do not know any more about it - how much was produced and where most of it came from. All I know is children in the area ot Herbert township used to collect it.

I would be interested if any others have heard about this or have collected it. This is one of those small things that becomes a forgotten part of history.

Funny thing though, if you research Ergot, you will find that it is a source of the drug LSD and as a fungus it is dangerous to ingest. It may also have has a role in the bubonic plague (of all things).
I suspect it is the cause of 'ryegrass staggers' in cattle and this can cause death.

So the collection of Ergot is now a bit of a mystery and something interesting to contemplate.

Strange Things

There is a rich history wherever you go - a recent visit to the UK reinforced the fact to me - and just talking today made me remember some things worth recording.

Andy Paterson lived with his wife, at the end of Mile Flat Road - just on the Southeastern boundary of the South Block (previously known as Fraser's.
Andy had a lame leg and he was affectionately known as 'Hoppy' to his friends. Andy was a keen dog trialist [for those who don't know - competitive use of dogs to round up sheep to make them behave appropriately - to go through gaps and into pens. The dogs are worth a lot of money!] He had a cabinet full of trophies including some of his father's who also had the passion.
Andy was also keen on pig hunting and (I thought) put expensive dogs at risk in this pursuit. He had a few mates who joined him from time to time - Jim Jamieson, Shorty Hyland, Bill Pile and Nig Gloag to mention a few. Of course when we took over the Fraser's Block, they were deprived of hunting area - so they just carried on hunting the area - some may say 'poaching'. Not really though, I knew they were doing it and were doing no harm nor annoying anyone.

Actually we all became friends and hunted together - swapping yarns.

Anyway... when Andy built his house, he logged some Rimu trees from his property and had them milled, then used the timber to build his house.
Time went by and poor old Andy died. His house was rented out by a Maori fellow, whose name eludes me. His son thought that his bedroom was haunted! This happening was frequent and sometime the boy received injury. There were several attempts at exorcising the place but this seemed to have no effect. So the family decided to move out.
Now I'm not into the spiritual world but things have happened that made the hair on my neck stand up - so I have an open mind.
However, I read later that those small insects the wood borer when attacking Rimu timber, give off a gas that is hallucinogenic. So could that have happened in this case? I have no idea as I haven't been able to make a followup.

Then there were the brother who went hunting together and stopped in the bush gully below the beehive. Somehow one brother's rifle discharged and his sibling was hit. In panic and without thinking, the first brother fatally shot himself! The real tragedy was that the first shot was a graze to the head and he came to finding his brother done this terrible deed.

Oh the Beehive was a big bluff, yellow in colour that could be seen from the coast. It is now quite overgrown by gorse. When we were roading and carrying out land clearing, we found many artillery shells - with lead shot (shrapnel I guess) and timers. During the war years, the reservists used the bluff for target practice from batteries by the coast. We did find some that had not gone off but on checking we found them to be safe/unarmed.