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.

Albert William Moir

I have fond memories of Bert Moir. He was drove Dorothy the forest grader but first was employed as a Rabbiter.

I respected Bert for his guts! He had a fearlessness and control that earned my respect in the early days - and I have a tale or two to tell about him.

He was a scrawny old bugger. Short, skinny and bandy with it - always smoked a pipe [Sherlock Holmes type - and he smoked it until he had to give up for health reasons] and always wore a hat - a bit like Indiana Jones!

Strange thing though - Upendo reminded me of him! Nah, not by looks, by attitude - guts if you like. Upendo, a graceful young woman, but prepared to clean out the cow manure form the cow's banda/hut using her hands.

Bert should have been born a century or so earlier. One night drinking with his mate Doug Wilkie, they had this argument, a serious one actually. Bert challenged Doug to a duel using .22 rifles. They were to meet on the hill at 7:00am the next morning. Bert waited there for Doug next morning - in vain. They remained friends.

Bert and I used to walk our dogs to the hydatid dosing strip. This was a strip of land where dogs were sampled (stools) and dosed to prevent the disease occurring in humans. All the farmers took their dogs and the Council man did the dosing/testing. A social time for the farmers and the dogs!

During one of those walks, Bert told me how practical Doug was. If his sheep were getting out (onto the road), he would find the hole in the fence and shoot the first sheep he saw going through it. This did two things - first it killed the leader making the rest unlikely to follow; next it automatically plugged the hole in the fence. Most would repair the fence - not Doug, he used his logic!

Some buffoon made the decree that hard hats had to be worn by everyone [on the forest] all the time! There was resentment about this because in the heat of the summer, there was no air in the gully bottoms and a hard hat just made life unpleasant. I made representation to had the decree lifted. Even Bert had to wear his in the cab of the grader! But he loyally did - not to suck up to the [twits] head office people, but for me - he felt that if he set an example, then the others would follow. And he was right! His actions made things just a little easier for me. The decree? Like most, we just forgot about if and continued to wear hard hats in hazardous conditions.

Bert was my regular firelighter. He would carry the knapsack pump [those bass ones] filled with kerosene, or sometimes diesel to light the fires for our burn-offs. He was reliable and because we clicked, he knew exactly what I required and would light up accordingly.

The County Council established a rubbish dump in the dip on Breakneck Road. This was the cause of distention as it attracted rats and the toxic juices flowed into the Waianakarua River. Environmentally bad - but not as bad as dumping straight into the sea as previously. Bert and I discussed the need for a fire in the dump many times. Well one day Bert was having a cup of tea with neighbors Keith & Pat Gibson, and they were talking about the dump. Bert said nothing, but left his tea and walked the short distance to the dump. There he lit a fire. He returned and said nothing. Well we were called out to put the fire out but we did not expend much energy doing so because of the 'toxic smoke'. We knew it couldn't go far. This of course caused the County to find another location for the dump. Bert never 'fessed up' - he could keep a secret.

Reminding me that he was keen to 'play fight' and often with Colin Bartrum. One day Colin broke one of Bert's fingers, but he said nothing and nobody would had know had not his wife made mention of it.

He didn't like to show pain. One day at the old headquarters, he was taking shelter from the rain with the rest of the workers and Russell Ewing brought in a new pair of Porter Pruners - loppers if you like. Russell was flashing them around because they were a new tool on the forest and snipped them too close to Bert! He nipped the piece of skin below Bert's nose dividing his nostrils. He never moved a muscle, just took out his pipe and allowed the drip, drip of the blood to his the floor.

'Stupid old bastard.' he muttered, waiting for the blood to congeal there by itself.

Bert had a farm on the forest boundary, but he was a rough farmer. He could put an immaculate fence up for me, but his own was as rough as guts! There was a lot of gorse and we helped him by bulldozing it and burning. He used gorse though because young, soft gorse is nutritious for lambs and lambs also like to eat gorse flowers. The trick is to keep it short!

He liked horses and he had one that silhouetted by the bright sun, you could see through it's ribs! Well it was skinny!

Bert told me of a time that he was working with a horse and it kicked him in the chest knocking him out. When he came to, he kicked the horse back, but it kicked him again, knocking him out!

I would often look after his place while he was away and he would look after ours. I had the odd adventure there.

He had bantam chooks including a mad rooster who used to attack. Bert would catch him and hold him under the water in the small creek nearby - once he screwed its head around and let it go like a wind-up toy. One time I was in the hen house and the thing attacked but few up my Swandi [for the uninitiated a bush shirt that is fairly long]. Well he was flapping up there and I was jumping around trying to get rid of it! It was quite a performance!

His ram was a problem too - I took my son with me, who was a toddler and we had just shut the gate when the ram charged us! I tossed my son back over the gate and cleared it myself, just as the ram crashed into it!

Then there was the prison escapee - he had been seen walking down the the railway line, so as I was in charge at Bert's, I rang the police to tell them there was nobody home and the baddie could be hiding out there. They asked me to go and have a look - not me! I may be silly, but not that silly!

I have enjoyed jotting this down for Bert is a hero and one of mine!

Oh I want to add this. His mother called him 'Sonny' or 'Sonny Jim'. We heard about this this, and we too called him 'Sonny' but the ever inventive Mick Hill changed that because Bert was not afraid to 'pop you on' or have fisticuffs, so he was given the name 'Liston' after the boxer.

There is every chance I will add to this because old Bert was one of the guys who helped shape my own character.

Frosty

Frosty was one of my forest workers, and he came as a government transfer from New Zealand Railways. This was entirely reasonable because the Otepopo Railway Station had closed down - actually before my time. There was a good set of stock yards, because livestock cartage had been a big part of the Railways' business.

I once used the yards to load some of my own cattle - this meant a long drive and a river ford, but it was a good way to load my cattle - onto a Hampden Transport truck.

There was a large goods-shed and a shunting bay. So it was a thriving station - and trains stopped for passenger service.

Frosty told us of many an exploit carried out at the station, with the recurring one being whenever there was a new engine driver, they would lure him into the station and Frosty 'stole' the train - often going right through the Herbert tunnel, which was nearby! Reversing back was a bit tricky because it meant backing up a steep incline! These were steam engine days and there was great billowing of smoke and steam!

If the same thing happened today, I'm sure the law would look dimly.

But Frosty was one of those old characters who drank hard and played hard but was honest as the day was long! A prankster too and was always laughing!

As with all the forest workers, Frosty was used to working with hand tools (slasher, shovel, spade, grubber) and was very skillful.

This reminds just how hard these guys used to work. P J Wilkie had a carrying business - a tipping truck. He won the contract to spread gravel on the Herbert Hill. To do this he drove his truck onto the Waianankarua river bed (Magaret Mackay's pit) and loaded on his own using a shovel! That's had work.

Later Snow, as we called him, worked a Clark's Mill at Maheno and then when it closed down, he put pressure on us, through local MP Alan Dick, for us to employ him.

The old bugger nearly killed me! We were logging windthrown Radiata Pine and he felled a standing tree but did not see me below me. I happened to switch off my chainsaw and heard the crack of his tree leaving the stump, starting to fall. I saw it coming straight for me and I discarded my saw and ran down a tree that had already been limbed - it was in line with the tree that was falling. At the top of the tree I jumped as far as I could and luckily there was a criss/cross of windthrown trees there for me to fall into! Snow's tree hit me on my helmet protected head - splitting it, but the criss/cross of trees took the force of the tree and I was unharmed.

Snow passes my home most weekends, he is in his 80's and often recounts the story and how badly he had felt when he say the tree heading in my direction. Then his relief when he saw me stand up!

Wally

Towards the end of the third training year - at the Forestry Training Center, Wakarewarewa, Rotorua - I managed to gain permission to keep a dog. Fair enough, dogs were not allowed, generally, but because I was to leave shortly; permission was granted.

Ross Lockyer and Bob Crooke were also allowed, though they were going into 'forestry protection' so perhaps needed a dog.

The three of us tootled up to Pukekohe on Bob's Model A Coupe to a dog breeder that had advertised in a paper we had read. For the record I sat in the small seat at the back - the Dickie Seat.

I bought a Doberman x German Shorthair Pointer, liver coloured and called 'Grin' by the breeder because that was what he used to do. Ross bought a Blue Heeler and Bob a Labrador x Alsatian.

I called my dog Wally after Wally Mapplebeck, my form teacher at CBHS who somehow managed to enthuse me to take education seriously.

Straight away I began to teach Wally manners and to behave appropriately - when you have special permission, you respect it or risk that permission being taken away.

At Naesby Forest, I had to convince Jack Rolls that Wally would be of no bother in the village, and he acquiesced. Trouble with this sort of thing is that you fight hard for a right and then someone else wants to be given the same right! Theo Russell therefore wanted a dog too, and Jack could hardly refuse him. His dog was a bit older and not so refined.

I used to take Wally for walks/runs morning and evening, mainly among the water races and dredge tailings. Making every day a lesson for him. Without being smug, I know about dogs and while I am no Dog Whisperer, I do not fear dogs and have the ability to manage them.

While I have had pig hunting dogs, and some thought them as 'savage', they were not, but having said that, if they were not chained up, I did not let them out of my sight. I have no truck with those who have these so called dangerous breeds and regard them as 'puppies', then somehow, they tear a young child apart! To me a dog is a dog and while you may well love it, a dog cannot be given the same status as a person.

Having said that, I wonder what was said of me as a walked in the suburbs of Christchurch. Cut off jeans for shorts, hobnail boots (fitted with tricoonies - if that's how it is spelt), with my dog(s) at heel. They were well trained and though they were not on a leash - verbally they were.

So on to Herbert Forest and I did not want Wally to be bothered with pigs. I wanted to train him to point to deer. As exercise for Wally, and for my own interest as well, I would take him pig hunting - me with a .22 rifle and Wally kept at heel.

I do have a lot of pig hunting stories and if time permits I will relate a few. Wally had learnt to pant silently when I was listening for animals.

Oh the other thing he did that I have never seen other dogs do - he would back into a low gorse bush and stand on his front legs only, and have a crap!

For a start, I would shoot smallish pigs, usually through an eye and I would share the meat among the forest workers. There were deer in the forest and very occasionally Wally would point one and I would shoot it.

He seemed keen to chase pigs though and so I let him do just that. He could hold (by the ear) a pig up to about 90 pounds and anything larger he would bail. This meant that I had to use my rough old .303 for the bail ups. I was getting too many pigs to eat so I sold them to Hughie Muldrew, who exported them.

Hughie used to employ a man in his butchery and I considered him unfair in his weighing and payment. And he was. My response was to fill the pig's mouths with stones to increase the weight - once I managed to place the butcher's saw in the rib cavity and gained that weight of that! It didn't give me very much more though.

I bought a big Alsatian x Collie fr9om the Dunedin Pound and Fred became a good companion to Wally. They could handle pigs, so well that I dispensed with my rifle. Using my Green River knife, I would slit the pig's throat! Hughie's buyers complained about this and and asked me to make a vertical cut and then cut the jugular vein without further cutting the meat. I did this many times, but on one occasion, I only cut the windpipe and the dogs had to re-catch it because they had headed off after more pigs, leaving me sitting on the rump of this one - when I stood up, he ran off!

The thing was though, I became to know almost every square meter of the forest because my dogs and the pigs took me there.

As well, I hunted possums for their skins and this too took me into every nook and cranny. Actually I bought my first colour TV from proceeds of possum skins.

Joe Bunting and Friend with Wally and Fred

On occasion I used to take friends out for a hunt and they were usually happy with the outcome.

As you can imagine though my old vehicle became a bit smelly with dogs and pig blood! Old Jim Robertson at the Waianakarua Garage and his offsider Jimmy Jamieson used to wash it out with disinfectant before they would work on it. I preferred the smell of the dogs to that of the disinfectant - but it didn't usually last long!

Fire in Compartment 5

Compartment 5 had been a good stand of Pinus nigra but thinking changed about the crop and it was decided that a full rotation was unprofitable. The area was clear-felled for the production of fence posts which was a lucrative market then.

In preparation for the next crop, the slash was heaped (windrowed) with great care to avoid soil being mixed in which would cause the fire to burn more slowly and remain burning for a long time. Charlie James had done the windrowing with his D4.

Weather conditions were good when the burn-off started and the heaps burnt cleanly. It was on the forest boundary and while it could be termed a 'slash burn', it was safe enough and the burn-off went well. As usual we monitored the area that night without problem.

A few days later we began planting and there was still the odd bit of slash that could be burnt and Doug Turner asked if he could light it. I agreed.

A 'tool' I often used was to rely on a burnt area to act as a firebreak - once burnt the fuel is consumed..............

That night, Jim Wilson rang me at about eleven o'clock that night to say there was a fire on the forest. There was a howling Southwest wind blowing! Now a Southwest wind is generally cold - often very cold but it brings low humidity. Fires burn best in low humidity!

I went outside and sure enough there was a great glow in the forest about the area of Compartment 5.

I called Bob Shaw and he picked me up to go and have a look at the fire. We found that it was the duff burning a second time, and the sparks carried by the strong wind kept igniting new areas!

The only danger point really was below a high rock bluff to the Northeast and below that there was a crop of 15 year old Cupressus macrocarpa. I went down there to take a look and saw that live sparks were landing in the trees, but luckily there was no wind down there, so they did not ignite anything.

In my rush I had not put on my boots, I wore my slippers, and the track was muddy down there - I lost both my slippers and never saw them again.

Bob went into the township to scramble the workers and I ducked home for my boots and readied the fire equipment - hooking the trailers to the trucks and warming the motors. I knew there was a great pond in Matheson's paddock - we had built it for firefighting purposes. I decided to set the Hale pump there because it could pump more volume than the Wajax. Use a by-pass and it would feed two fire hoses. Hales are a trick to prime, you close off the exhaust and fiddle around until a stream of water shoots out the pipe below it - then you turn on the feeder tap/valve. The inlet has to watched too because it could suck mud or float and suck air.

I decided I had better man the pump to make sure of a water supply. Two hose crews could pinch off each face of fire and another crew could relay water using the Wajax trailers filled from the creek below. I had no shelter where I worked and it was bitterly cold - the wind cut through my Swandri. I had a hand held radio so was able to talk to the teams and help direct them. Albert was in the office and I kept him recording what was going on. Actually we had omitted to inform District Office people or Conservancy - so no backup was on the way.

At about 3:00am I called Albert to ring Charlie James as his D4 was handy and there was enough light for him to operate to make firebreaks - bulldozers are good to have at fires!

I also asked him to organise Mags to ring around the wives to organise food for the 'troops'.

I was feeling frozen and called Colin over to operate the Hale - well watch it and make sure it didn't run out of fuel. I had tipped the last of the fuel into the tank and thought to warm up in the truck as I drove down to HQ to pick up more.

A bit dangerous that! I was so cold, and the truck so warm that twice, I nearly fell asleep as I drove down South Rodge Road! The warmth of the truck made my eyelids soooo heavy!

Good old Albert though - he had the fuel ready and a hot cup of coffee, which he demanded I drink. He had some sandwiches and made me eat one of those! Thus fortified, I went back to battle!

I had a small meeting with Bob, Herbie, Bert and Colin - old, experienced buggers and wise with it. Colin suggested that the wind might drop just before sunrise which would be a big help. We decided to be ready with water and hoses for when the wind dropped. It did and we hit the fire with all we had - we had had a long night!

Luckily, the wind did not build up again, and Charlie had made most of the boundaries safe with firebreaks - he's a good guy in a crisis too!

We had the fire out and it had not escaped into other areas. The pond was almost drained and I guess we all were at that. I sent everyone home except Colin. He and I sat there in the morning sun, drinking coffee and eating leftovers of the food the wives had prepared. We were watching just in case.

All was well again.