Insect Garden

I'm drawing up plans for an insect garden in the town, filled with plants insects love (borage, bergamot, angelica and many more) and open for the public to wander through for the sheer enjoyment of being amongst the flowers, butterflies and beetles. The garden I have set my sights on has served as an orchard for a while and already attracts insects with its herbal under-storey so it won't take much to fine-tune it for the little scuttling folk (the Kindergarten children that will surely love to wander about in there once it's completed).
Now, I'm looking for a name. I've settled on a spidery sort of font for the signage and just need to gather possible names - I'm thinking:

_______________    _______________  Insect Garden,

something quirky and welcoming, perhaps a fictitious name?
I'm already collecting seed for the sowin'!
Here's a picture taken at the front of my house that makes me think of all this.

One scoop or two?

No, no more about sweet icecream! I'm talking ponds here. We began to hand dig our pond on the new section but discovered that a previous owner had laid down a bed of shattered rock over top of the loam so that he could drive his truck on it without sinking. This made digging by hand (or rather, shovel) very difficult, so we called in the big boy, or rather the mini-dig and Daniel who worked like a dervish, scraping off the surface layer of rock and exposing the soil to our hand tools.
While he worked, I stood about uselessly and took photos. Here's one.

Jack's handle

Treat from the teat

While I was in Te Anau for the pruning of the old, gnarled plum tree (and a chance meeting with Jack Murrell!) I bought a copy of Saturday's Otago Daily Times. It was filled with stories of the Christchurch earthquake, as you would expect. There were however, other articles and snippets in no way connected to the calamity. The one I've chosen to reproduce here is quirky and of no great importance, but fun. They weren't brave enough to give it the title I did, but I'll bet they were tempted!


Ice-cream treat

London: A specialist ice-cream parlour plans to serve breast milk ice-cream and says people should think of it as an organic, free-range treat.
The breast milk concoction, called the Baby Gaga, will be available from today at the icecreamists restaurant in Covent garden, in London.
Icecreamists founder Matt O'Connor was confident his take on the "miracle of motherhood" and priced at a hefty 14 pound ($NZ 30) a serving would be popular with the paying public. The milk was provided by mothers who answered an advertisement on online mothers' forum Mumsnet. - Reuters

Cheerful and hopeful

Mayoral decree

I've been commissioned by the Mayor of Southland to prune her much loved plum tree.
Frana Cardno lives in Te Anau, some 2 hours away from Riverton, so I'll be heading west later in the day, armed with my pruning saw and loppers.
Frana tells me she's organised a party of interested onlookers, keen to see an experienced pruner in action. Perhaps I'll slip and fall from the tree and ruin my carefully managed super-gardener persona.
Te Anau looks sunny from here, though it's also a beautiful day in Riverton. I'll have to push myself to get away.

Quake aid

Our local high school ran a garage sale this morning, in aid of the Canterbury quake, selling books retired from their library along with baking made by the students yesterday. The sale started a 8 am and as my daughter had volunteered to look after one of the tables, I went down with her to see what I could find.
I came out with an armload of great books, including:
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse (I'd been on the look out for a copy for a while now),
The Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot (as recommended to me by my fellow councillor and well known veterinarian Brian Mason),
How the Whale Became by Ted Hughes and The Trial of Minnie Dean by J.O.P. Watt which looks to be a very interesting read.
I finally found someone with the entire 'Moomin' collection, none of which I have read and I've arranged to borrow those when time permits. I've heard great things about them, though they seem very foreign (which of course, they are!).
I left the pin wheels and scones there for hungrier customers. and came home to leaf through my finds.

Smile!

There was this country, right, and standing for election for Prime Minister was a man who called himself 'the Smiling Assassin' and they voted him in!
How about that!
Isn't that something!
The Smiling Assassin!

Earthquake politics

Robert Winter clarifies the debate over politics during disasters brilliantly on his blog Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow.
Had I the wit, I'd have responded to my detractors thus when harranged by them recently for asking a politically-loaded question.
Robert says:
"One understands fully why formal politics is suspended because of the Christchurch earthquake. For a time, there must be an unremitting focus on rescue and reconstruction, and this is understood. But the idea that politics ends because of this terrible event is simply wrong. The current ceasefire is politics in practice. Politics continues in a different form, but it continues. Indeed, political management is in full swing as we grieve for Christchurch. So the truculence of those who condemn others for commenting politically on, for example, the Rebstock report at this time is simply another version of ongoing politics, in this case, a crude and cynical use of Christchurch as a means to promote their own brand of politics by omission."

He continues the argument here.

Rule 11

Alpaca thinking of Waituna

Farmers are loathe to accept rules for what they do on their farms. The problems with the Waituna lagoon in Southland have already thrown up responses from farmers who are putting their feet down and saying 'property rights' even as the seriousness of the situation and the repercussions for the economy are being described. Seems they are not to be told what to do on their own land, no matter what the effect on the greater environment. Certainly discussions around limiting stock numbers is not to be tolerated.
In Rotorua however, this ground has already been covered. The lakes there are endangered due to non-point pollution from farms and the regional council has made some rules ...and some of those are around stock.
Here's an extract:

"This means that such properties (small rural properties) can have only ONE of the following:
(a) Horse, donkey or mule (maximum of one per property).
(b) Sheep or goats - (maximum of three per property).
(c) Alpaca or llama - (maximum of two per property)...
and so on.
Perhaps this is a way forward for the Waituna lagoon - cut back on the donkey, mule and llama load.
It'd be a brave soul who suggested capping stock numbers to a dairy farmer.
The Feds'd be down on them like a ton of cow shit!
There's some very intense and deep thinking going on right now about Waituna and some on-the-ground work as well. Some of the practical stuff is hampered though, by the difficulties presented by having your fingers crossed as you work.

Briquettes for Solid Energy

Plans for the first step in Solid Energy's industrial developments near Mataura were published today.
An application has been filed with the Gore District Council and amongst the details of that, there was this gem:

"Solid Energy says that the visual impact of the plant would be less than minor despite a 30m-high boiler-baghouse stack and other structures 19m and 11m in height.
It plans to plant vegetation and have a 4m high earth bund with a wooden fence on top."

That's alright then. The 30m-high chimney will be barely visible!

Sheesh!

Hone cuts loose

Can ex-Maori Party fire-brand Hone Harawira wield any sort of stick (call it a taiaha) now that he has made himself independent of the Pati Maori?
Hard to predict, but it might be worthwhile looking to Nandor Tanczos' story. Nandor left the Greens with no less fire in his belly than he had when he first joined them and had re-jigged and expanded his fight for justice, environmental and social, at the grass-roots level.
Will Hone do the same?
I believe so, though while news of Nandor's activities percolates through the paper media occasionally, blogs more regularly and email for those in his loop :-)
Hone's networks are less visible and he may appear, to the average punter, to disappear unless they watch Te Karere, korero Maori or have Harawira whanau.

Removed by request

Fellow blogger Inv2 has suggested that I remove my post which asks whether the state of emergency in place for the Canterbury earthquake should be of the 'national' type or the 'local' sort.
I've taken his advice.

Southland response to quake

Canterbury Earthquake

Building inspectors likely to go to Christchurch

Building inspectors from all three territorial authorities in Southland, along with a public information manager, are likely to be heading to Christchurch tomorrow (Wednesday 23 February) to help out following today's earthquake.

Emergency Management Southland Advisor Craig Sinclair said eight building inspectors are on standby waiting for confirmation before they leave.

A public information manager is also likely to travel to Christchurch to help out with communications, while welfare staff, headquarters staff and the Red Cross rescue team were all available to be deployed immediately.

A fire crew from Invercargill has already left for Christchurch, with a police team and Red Cross team getting ready to go.

The Southland Emergency Operations Centre is in watching mode and will reactivate fully tomorrow morning at 7am.

"We will be on standby overnight to assist wherever we can," Mr Sinclair said.

Southland Hospital has cancelled all elective surgery and is on standby to receive casualties.

The national helpline number for the Christchurch earthquake is 0800 779 997.

The 111 system is working again in Southland.

111

This is a message from Emergency Management Southland

The 111 phone  system in Southland is OVERLOADED following today's earthquake in Christchurch.

Anyone needing urgent assistance from the police must phone their local police station  direct - this number is in the BLUE pages at the front of the Southland phone book.

Anyone needing an ambulance in Southland
must phone 03 211 3044.

Anyone needing assistance from the Fire Service
must phone 214 3779.

This message was authorised by Warren Tuckey,
Southland Civil Defence Controller

Where there's smoke

The letters to the editor column of the Southland Times is one of the few venues Southlanders have for self-expression around issues that affect them. It still serves as a visible platform for local concerns and today it's choked with letters about lignite mining and I don't think Solid Energy will be pleased by the nature of those letters.
The leader, under the title 'Coalmining worries many Southlanders' is from Jeanette Fitzsimons, who visited us down here recently. Not many high-profile New Zealanders write unbidden to the Times, so her letter will cause a lot of interest to readers, I'm sure. In her letter, Jeanette lists a number of concerns that Southlanders she spoke to have about the proposals to mine lignite. She talks about the loss of quality Southland topsoil, the potential harm to our aquifers, the social impacts on the community, the enormous issue of greenhouse gases and the failure of carbon capture and storage procedures world-wide.
Jeanette closes with this sentence,
"Coal-to-liquid fuel plants are being cancelled all over the world, including China and Indonesia, on the grounds of cost and feasibility."

Doesn't seem worth the trouble.

Two other letters from Liz Springford from Wellington and Lynne Dempsey of Opotiki encourage Southlanders to think more deeply about mining proposals, especially with regard their grandchildren.
Jack Murrell of Manapouri makes a hash of defending himself against the three letter writers who took him to task over his pro-coal comments of last week.
It's becoming a hot topic, the mining of lignite!

Cheers Santa!

That's all.

Cold, calculating milk barrons.

Ever had an icecream headache?
I got one the moment I heard Fonterra had 'voluntarily' frozen the price of milk for New Zealanders.
It's wrong in so many ways and reeks of manipulation - of the customers, the farmers and the voting public.
That's all.
Gotta go lie down.

Talkin' rivers

Spent the day in the chamber, talking with river management committees about ...gravel largely. It's an issue that concerns them greatly. Farmers, it seems, would like to be able to 'extract' gravel from the river beds for use on their farms, I suppose, though it wasn't spelled out, for lane building and so on. Fish and Game will be reluctant to support this idea, having the interests of the fish at heart and they don't do well spread out on paddocks for cows to walk on. My favourite 'presenter' was the gentleman (and he was) from Waimatuku, who talked about his concerns for the quality of his local river, describing its murkiness as being something that wasn't apparent in past years. His Southland dialect was a treat to listen to. Tomorrow night is the Land and Water Forum, open to members of the public and councillors alike and should be very interesting, though following a second day in the chamber, might necessitate a very strong coffee before hand.
Wednesday's around the table as well. And Thursday. Friday's attendance is optional.
Busy week. Wetlands to save, decisions to make.
I'll be chewing through my tie collection.
Today's was 'sheep'.
I think it went down well.

Esler swats council

Go Lloyd!
Harranged by his own council, Cr Lloyd Esler for the Invercargill City Council dealt swiftly with news that his non-permitted roadside plantings would be investigated by his own council.
"If they have an issue with that they can let me know" Cr Esler said to the Southland Times on Saturday.
That's the spirit Lloyd! Should rankle with the small-minded, that response but they'll have a point (one rule for them, one for us they'll clamour.)
Council roading manager charged with deciding whether Cr Esler and his trees should be taken to task is named Tom Greenwood.
Poetry.

Sell Australia fair

Whenever I'm at the local supermarket, I always pick up whichever farming newspaper's on the stand. Yesterday, it was 'Straight Furrow' and in it I found an article by Andrew Marshall from Melbourne, titled:

Food plan draws rich Arabian investors

That caught my eye as I had been wondering about reports that rich Arabian investors had been in Southland recently, discussing the purchase of farmland with local farmers and land agents. Andrew's article began:

"Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke is leading a push to get Arabs to invest in Australian farmland as part of a long-term food security strategy for oil-rich Gulf States.
Mr Hawke, a founding member of the Australian Gulf Council (AGC) believes the combination of Saudi money and Australian farmland and farming know-how will make a good mix, and the oil-rich states are keen to buy in.
With fast growing populations, shrinking water reserves and land areas that are mostly desert, Arabian Gulf Nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are keen to reduce their reliance on their own limited irrigated farmland or volatile import markets.
While increasing foreign ownership of Australian land and agribusiness assets has stirred concerns about long term lock-up of production for overseas profit, and implications for neighbouring landholders, overseas investment activity isn't slowing." 

You don't hear alarm-bells ringing?
You don't see in your mind's-eye, Julia Gillard and John Key gazing into each others eyes like star-crossed lovers?
Must be just me then.

The Little General

At the request of ICCAPLRG, I am putting up a 'general' post where anyone who feels inclined can broach subjects that interest them.
Welcome aboard ICCAPLRG!

Anti-mining letters clog opinion column

Is it something in the water?
Letters to the Southland Times might reflect a change in the public mood toward exploitive and extractive industries, if the latest batch is any indication (and I think that it is!).
Today's clutch, some coming from as far away as Wellington, clearly lays-out the good reasons for 'leaving it in the ground' and chide those who find coal sexy for their foolishness.
I suspect there will be more arriving in Mr Tullett's mailbox and that the theme will remain constant. With a bit of luck, more Anne-Maree Thomas's or Jack Murrell's will pen their adoration for mining, as their cheer-leading seems to provoke passionate responses from otherwise quiet-living folk from all over - folk who don't want to see their futures jeopardised by short-sighted politicians like Gerry Brownlee and John Key.
Speaking of the Prime Mincer (it's an evocative title isn't it), one of today's letters had this to say:
"I would rather have a frowning accountant than a smiling idiot as Prime Minister.
John Key is the cancer at the core of our collapse..."

Harsh criticism in the largely blue South!

Magic wheel

Today, my son bought home a girl...and a magic wheel!
It's a scooter-come-unicycle and takes some mastering, I'm told. You grip the pads with your knees and spread your arms like an albatross in flight then scoot away!
Here it is.

F&G on Waituna

Ignoring waterways won't fix problem

Here's the link to Bryce Johnson's straight-shooting account of Waituna's woes and an extract to show how good his aim is.

"As usual, all Federated Farmers can offer to counter continuing compliance failure and calls to curb dairying to save wetlands and waterways from degradation is the same old do-nothing response that "regulation won't work".
Feds Southland dairy boss Vaughan Templeton's statement that "things" need to be "put in place to minimise" the impact of dairy farming is typically vague.
How much longer is this going to wash with the New Zealand public when all evidence clearly shows that not regulating the sector isn't working?"

Load of rot

Was the editor of the 'letters' column in today's Southland Times toying with the winner of the 'daft letter of the day' award  by titling it 'What a load of rot'?
I suspect so.
Here it is, in all it's convoluted glory:
What a load of rot

Guess what Southland?

A few tree huggers would rather you didn't have jobs.

That's what all the rot we've been reading in the letters to the editor recently means.

Coal is bad, they say. Lignite is worse.

The funny thing about the Greens is that once they draw a line in the sand, they don't tend to move it.

No amount of reasoned scientific analysis will change their tiny one-track minds.

Here's a few facts:

Clean coal technology, demanded by European Union guidelines, means that not only is the technology already available to off-set carbon emissions, but that technology is also available to deal safely and effectively with the by-products of coal mining and power generation.

Over the past 30 years, research has led to the efficiency of power stations being improved by 30 per cent with even-better environmental performance.

This is improving all the time.

According to the International Energy Association, methane from active and abandoned coal mining areas in Germany is being used increasingly for heat and power production, thus removing a greenhouse gas from the environment and putting it to use.

Now the Greens won't tell you any of this because they don't want you to know it, and it doesn't fit with their “don't do anything anywher” philosophy.

Remember, these are the same Greens who forced Solid Energy to shift 1500 snails at the costof $10 million.

The snails were fitted with tiny transmitters which now stop them mating.

So they're going to extinct anyway, thanks to the green's actions.

Solid Energy lost 200 000 tones worth of sales because of the hold up of finding and shifting the snails.

Down here we could see up to 2000 jobs created from the various lignite mining projects.

At the end of it all, the companies have to reinstate the land as it was (obviously without the lignite).

But no, those “hate everything” Greens don't want job creation.

They don't want Southland to go ahead.

They don't want our standard of living to increase., no matter what the science says about clean coal and carbon capture.

I'll be remembering that when their Monster Raving Looney party comes looking for votes later this year.

ANNE-MAREE THOMAS

Invercargill 

Guess what Anne-Maree?

It is a load of rot!

Smith to go head to head with dairy farmers

Yeah right! But as I predicted, Nick Smith has taken the opportunity presented by the news that the Waituna Lagoon is on the brink of collapse, to haul his undies on over his suit trousers and swing into super-action, to save the day. What a feather in the Government's cap it would be if Nick Nitro could halt the Ecological Disaster unfolding in Southland - and all in an election year!
Hoorah!
I sincerely hope his is able to save the lagoon.
Vaughan Templeton and his dairy farming 'environmentalists' will be quaking in their gumboots!

I/S calls 'foul' on Solid National

"This is policy failure on a grand scale, and it is going to cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. A serious, credible policy would have made it clear that Solid Energy's project would not  be allowed to proceed. Instead, it is likely to receive free carbon credits. So the government is going to subsidize the undermining of its own targets, and the destruction of the global environment."

That's how Idiot/Savant feels about Brownlee's Question Time performance around challenges over Solid Energy's plans to mine lignite in Southland.

He closes with: "National's climate policy is empty spin - targets, without any policy to meet them. Can I have some grown ups in charge of the country, please?"

Lignite letters

The bulk of the letters to the editor in today's Southland Times are on the topic of lignite mining and they are opinions that Solid Energy and it's supporters will not like to read. Dave Kennedy and John Purey-Cust both take coal cheerleader Jack Murrell to task for his pro-mining comments earlier in the week and leave his argument in tatters. Dave predicts that 'the mining of lignite will profit Chinese industry, provide fewer local jobs than predicted, leave a large dirty hole and cost the taxpayer dearly through the resulting carbon emissions."
Mr Purey-Cust calls on Solid Energy to 'put away the magic mushrooms and start talking seriously' - indeed!
My own letter ran thus:

Jack Murrell says (16 Feb) that I’m right about Southland’s coal reserves.

I wish I could return the compliment but Jack’s got it wrong.

In his eagerness to ‘get the money’ Mr Murrell is turning a blind eye to the major problems that surround the mining of lignite: the vast amount of greenhouse gas that will be released into the atmosphere, the huge cost demanded by the Emissions Trading Scheme, and the damage to our international clean, green brand for starters. Even more misguided is his support for turning lignite into diesel, a process that makes all of those problems much worse! Mr Murrell is keen, there’s no doubt, but he’s wrong to think that lignite mining in Southland is a good thing.

Robert Guyton

RIVERTON

Waters clear and muddy

Showing exquisitely bad timing, National MP Jacqui Dean tries to put a shiny spin in dairy farming in Southland, right at a time when it's looking very murky indeed, highlighted by reports that the Waituna Lagoon is seriously threatened by the effects flowing from the dairy farms upstream.

Dean's comments are here but are barely worth the read, so shallow are they.

Far more pertinent are those of chief executive officer of Fish and Game New Zealand Bryce Johnston who's opinion piece in today's Southland Times goes straight to the heart of the crisis that is unfolding at Waituna. He lambastes 'Feds Southland dairy boss Vaughan Templeton for his comment that 'things need to be put in place' as typically vague and says intensive agriculture 'is becoming the country's cancer'.
His powerful warning is here (well, it would be had the ST put it online! Seems to be an oversight and I'll link to it when they put it up. Every other little news item is there, but not this...)

Mad comments from the home paddock

Ele Ludemann blogging as Homepaddock is a transparent promoter of the Key Government and posts slanted, pro-National opinions regularly but her latest,
"Why use wheat for ethanol when there's a food shortage" is a break from her usual fawning pro-'John' work in that it descends into petty anti-Green rhetoric like that seen more and more these past few days on right-wing blogs as the election approaches. Ludemann closes her post on the growing of wheat for ethanol production by British farmers with,

"Could it be a Green plot to reduce world population by starving people to death?"

How stupid, petty and nasty is that?

It's a new low for Homepaddock and Ms. Ludemann*

*I am a journalist by training and a bitser in practice. I do a little freelance writing, am North Otago correspondent on Newstalk ZB’s Farming Show, have a regular spot disucssing blogs and other internet sites with Jim Mora on RadioNZ’s National’s Afternoons; and a contributor to the ODT’s Paddock Talk; used to teach Spanish night classes (with the very necessary assistance of a Uruguayan friend porque mi español está oxidado) * and am a registered marriage celebrant.

TV today

The cameras will be here in 4 hours time and while I don't like to window-dress, there are a few things I need to flossy-up, so I'm kinda tie up for the period. As well, we've been gathering produce from our garden for the Winton Flower Show - starts tomorrow! If you're in Winton, check it out, especially the heritage potato section.

Southlanders don't like it!

The comments on the Southland Times story about the effects of dairying on the Waituna lagoon are harsh and not painting a pretty picture. If they are indicative of the public mood, there are going to be heads rolling soon!

Glenys Dickson   #1   04:12 pm Feb 15 2011

Thank you Mr Tullet. Great to have some straight talking on the Waituna Lagoon issue. Our Territorial Authorities need to be held accountable. It is not just the Waituna Lagoon that is under threat. Why are we allowing intensive deer and dairy farming along the Upukaroa River that runs directly into Lake Te Anau??. Development of native vegetation on hill country that protects water quality.

(Glenys is Bill English's 'office person' at the Gore electorate office)

Dave   #8   12:53 pm Feb 15 2011

Oliver - good job! Keep on planting! That is a different issue altogether, but it is great to protect the riparian zone. Re- finances to F&G - great smokescreen Kevin! Bring out the fact that your great forebearers worked the land and maybe drop in stories of meat pies too... anything to skirt the issue. Now, high nutrient loading is a completely different issue. Key point - trout are simply an indicator species of the ecosystem. If the ecosystem goes so far downhill that the aquatic plant and insect life is decimated, trout suffer. By that point, you have serious, long term impacts. New Zealand is teetering on a serious precipice - to continue to issue permits perpetually in a 'do anything for profit' ideal, or take heed of the bigger issue - long term cumulative impacts and determine if they are acceptable. Remember, if water isn't clean enough for trout, how long until it is not fit for humans, and what end result does that bring? New Zealand is no longer the green country it sells foreginers. With tourism being such a high factor in GDP, you might want to consider that. And, in the international communinty, if you are perceived to be a rape and pillage country, it won't take too much longer under current methods until boycotts begin. Give it 10 years at the rate of environmental over use and destruction. And once that worm turns, it will be generations before it comes back.

Smokin'

We're doing the bees now.

Blunt words for the Feds

Southland Times editorials are a mixed bunch, due to the rotation of the authors but it's usually apparent when the best of them writes. Today's titled 'Bluntly speaking' is a good one and addresses the antediluvian comments made yesterday over the need for action to protect the Waituna lagoon from destruction.

Bluntly speaking

OPINION: Sometimes blunt instruments are just exactly what you need. That's why you'll find them in toolboxes and sheds – for tasks that needn't, or shouldn't, or just plain can't be carried out with surgical precision and exquisite delicacy.
Federated Farmers needn't expend effort trying to convince anybody that it would be, as Southland dairy chairman Vaughan Templeton says, a "blunt instrument approach" if Environment Southland were to permit any more dairy development around the increasingly degraded Waituna Lagoon.
Of course it would be. We get that. But Mr Templeton needs to understand that we're at the stage now where the public find themselves looking longingly for a heavy hand to come into play.
For pity's sake, this is not a problem that has come upon us by stealth, only now to be revealed in all its horror. Warning voices have long since grown hoarse. This problem has existed for years, and deteriorated badly right before our eyes and, yes, on our watch.
So the invitation should issue to anyone who seeks to persuade the regional council, or for that matter the rest of Southland, against the notion that we need to act quickly and decisively, that they better make their case sharpishly.Mr Templeton says the federation would rather see farming carried out under conditions that "try to minimise" the problem.
We should have a care with what we accept when we talk about minimisation.
This cannot be one of those cases where there's either a tacit or explicit understanding that, Jeez, there's only so much you can do.
Waituna is a precious wetland of international significance, and widely enjoyed by locals as well as visitors. It's an important habitat for birds, fish and, OK, eels. It is also home to unusual plants and has a useful regulating role, soaking up water after heavy rain.
It's been said that wetlands are the earth's kidneys; in which case Waituna is getting perilously close to renal failure, going from a clear-water ecosystem to a murky, algae-dominated, deadened disgrace.
Environment Southland is far from uninterested in mitigation tactics, but we have to acknowledge that this is hardly new thinking.
The Waituna Landcare Group already exists and has been working hard to address the problem, but there is scant environmental indication to rebut a suggestion of tippytoeing around the essential problem.
The regional council is considering not only halting further dairy farm development in the catchment, but also thumping much weightier controls on existing dairying operations.
You won't find many Southlanders throwing up their hands in horror at such a thought.
Environment Southland's chairwoman Ali Timms says co-operation from landowners and government agencies is needed.
Is there even time? Sometimes, if you ignore a problem it actually does go away.
The less often cited flipside of that is that if you ignore a solution, it can go away, too.
Waituna needs to be saved. That's a big ask, and the solution is liable to require Environment Southland to be ungentle.
- The Southland Times

Mr Templeton will be feeling a little set-upon I imagine (especially if he's read the comments section of yesterday's article) and he ought to, in my opinion. His response was not a wise one. Revealing, but not wise.

* Comments section from yesterday' story has some pointed advice.

Brigitte   #7   06:20 pm Feb 14 2011

Its not just Waituna that needs protection from the cows, the whole of Southland does with all its water-ways and tributarys etc. Sh*t is just that -sh*t, and with cows its is abundant. It literally runs out of them, gone are the days off a good old firm cowpat, not to mention the stuff that ends up on the cow pads and in the dairy shed, all hosed down with huge quantities of water and respread over the pasture! Water goes one way on land - down! And eventually it seeps into the ground water. No matter what the dairy giants or farmers do to minimise it, cow waste will always end up in the water supply somewhere, that is if there is enough of it left after they have sucked most of it out to help run and clean the dairy shed. Back to beef and sheep I say!

Sh*t hits fan

Front page of the Southland Times - Waituna - under immediate threat!


Iconic wetlands in jeopardy

"Environment Southland might try to halt further dairy farm development in the Waituna catchment in a bid to prevent the area's internationally significant lagoon from suffering irreversible damage."

That's right. We might. Must even.

Spokesperson for the dairy farmers, Vaughan Templeton, unsurprisingly, disagrees.

"Federated Farmers Southland dairy chairman Vaughan Templeton said not allowing any more dairy development would be a "blunt instrument" approach to the problem.
"We would rather see people who are (farming) there do so under certain conditions that don't have runoff. We have to put things in place to try to minimise it."

Is that goiung to be sufficient Vaughan?
I doubt it.
Commenters on the ST site so far don't have much faith in Mr Templetons way either:

Amanda   #2   10:07 am Feb 14 2011

I really don't see Dairy farmers regulating their practice look how much damage poor management has done to New Zealand's waterways already.
http://www.livingrivers.org.nz/Site/Living_Rivers/the_problem.aspx
I want to be able to swim in a river in 20 years time without swimming in cow sh**

Anne   #1   09:11 am Feb 14 2011

If that happens, it will be irreversible - so do something now! New Zealand has lost too many of its wetlands. We can put a diary farm anywhere - we can't move this internationally significant lagoon.

This issue has a long way to go and will get dirtier as it goes, I predict.
Something must be done and more of the same isn't going to save the lagoon.

Pick 'em while you still can

We're harvesting today in earnest and in Riverton - getting in before the birds and the wasps strip our apple trees bare. First up, Spartans and they're perfect for the picking! They are a very nice eating apple, red with a stripe and sweet as!
In truth, we've already picked the Keswick Codlin and our French guests have been turning those into compote.
The birds are on high alert now, so I'm watching where they begin their infernal pecking and harvesting in response. I lost 50% of my Coe's Golden Drop plums by being too relaxed about this but those are the last fruits I'll miss this year! I'm determined to beat the avian menace! And tonight, I go on a wasp-nest hunt.

Green leader busts Nats

Russel Norman, ever alert, has seen through the National Party's devious machinations around the Horokiri Stream, which they need to have 'de-moated' in order to further their plans to build Transmission Gully.

"OK, how bad can it get. Currently Horokiri, Ration and Pauatahanui Streams near Porirua are strongly protected under the Wellington Regional Freshwater Plan. And for good reason – they are the home of a lot of endangered New Zealand fish.
But these streams and their gullies are also the proposed route for Transmission Gully motorway from Porirua to Kapiti.
So you guessed it. The Nats are moving to de-protect these stream so they can build the motorway on them."

This is a development that our very own Environment Southland councillors ought to be made aware of.
I'll do my best.

'Unhappy' of Christchurch.

Gerry's name is mud in some parts of Christchurch. Despite his and John Key's show-pony cameos at the time of the big quake, there is widespread discontent now over fixing the problems caused by the shake.
The people of Seabreeze Close are more than restless, they're rope-able!
From the SST:

Five months after the Canterbury earthquake liquefied their street, residents of Seabreeze Close in Christchurch are living like refugees in ruined homes. Tony Wall found growing anger at the lack of action over their plight.

Seems all is very much not well in the agitated suburbs and promises by the National Government, through Key and Brownlee, were hollow.

"I'm just kind of stuck in limbo really," says Laura McConchie, whose house sale fell through when the quake hit. "They've just forgotten about us."

Rich Maori, poor Maori.

"The culture that the new Maori elites have adopted increasingly demands that Maori entities be run on business lines, mirroring the model of the Treasury and Business Roundtable", and went on to detail what she called "the complicity of the Maori Party".

How right she is.

Findlay McDonald for the Sunday Star Times casts light on the reasons for Hone Harawira's actions and the seeming dislocation from reality shown by the other Maori Party MPs.
The same creamy layer of society is doing to Maori what our own pakeha elite are doing to us.
No surprise there but it's good have hear it being enunciated.

Shrooms galore!

It's the time of year when fungi thrust up through the moist and still-warm soil in the south and I've seen quite a few here in my garden.
Here are a couple of examples of unknown shrooms from under the pittosporums and birches respectively.

Sheet!

I've always wanted to follow the old British habit of drying bed linen on hedges and springy shrubs, rather than a clothes line, so today I gave it a try.
I utilised two astelia for the purpose.

In the strait

Idle thoughts...

...of an idle fellow.

"I'm detecting a certain tendency on the part of the Right Blogs to either focus on the trivial and the diversionary, or on the occasional gratuitous case of wrongdoing that allows a point to be made."

Funny, I've noticed the same thing!

Una fiesta!

Ahora, vamos a la fiesta para comer, beber y bailar

Going offshore

Not the island to which we are going

It's Tim's birthday today and were celebrating overseas. We're to board a fishing boat at 10, bearing our pickanicka baskets loaded with goodies, wearing our gaudiest Hawaiin shirts and pandanas hats and sail out to a mysteriously undisclosed island off the south coast for a day of ukele fun!
When I get back (!?) I'll have photos!

Not Tim

Nandor on MP

It's not unusual for Nandor Tanczos to be the one expressing the clearest view on issues that otherwise tie political commentators in knots and here he describes his take on where the Maori Party and Hone Hariwira presently sit (or at least sat a week ago).

"One of the factors in the Maori Party's success thus far is the enormous energy and enthusiam of its activists. It is those activists, the election harvesters, that are starting to down tools, pack up and go home. If the party loses their support it will still survive but in my view will go into decline."

That clear?

Solid Energy has plans to start mining lignite in Southland, turning low-grade coal into diesel, urea, electricity, and briquettes. If the projects go ahead, our carbon emissions will go through the roof.

We cannot develop a sustainable economy by subsidising activities that intensify climate change and dig up our environment in the process.

The Government should be looking for clean green energy solutions. We need to amend the ETS so that there's a price on all new activities that increase carbon emissions and support for sustainable alternatives.

Kennedy Graham, Green MP

From the insect garden

Friday's thai

Kiwibog

This was created by pollywog from pollywannacracker and appeals to me, thanks to a misspent youth.
I'm assuming pollywog won't mind my posting his/her work, such is his/her gentle and forgiving nature :-)
(Click for larger view)

Seeds of trouble

Lie back and think of New Zealand

Ah, those Chinese companies who dub themselves inspirational names like Pure Glory Goodness and Generous Blue Vista or whatever, before leveraging some precious asset or other from our feeble grip.
Today's news that the controlling stake of PGG Wrightson has been lifted gently from New Zealand control and taken by the New Hope Group from China is merely another in the list of such subtle manouverings.
What's behind the move?
The headline describes nicely the primary motivation:

Controlling stake all about seeds 

"The largest seeds business in the southern hemisphere is probably the jewel in the crown for the Chinese backers of a partial takeover of PGG Wrightson, independant advisor Grant Samuel says."

"Wrightson supplies commodity and propietary forage seeds in New Zealand, Australia and South America and in other markets. "

I can't help but wonder at the wisdom of losing control of your largest forage seed producer. We're reliant on a primary industry that is in turn reliant on seeds. I just can't see the strategic advantage to New Zealand here.
I wonder what critical service or commodity will be bought up next and I wonder what the buyer's inspirational name will be - the 'Thanks For Everything New Zealand' Company?

Why try?

I'm training for the Wai Tri run, paddle and cycle event coming soon beside a river near me.
Ordinarily, I'd cycle my section of my team-of-three's contribution to the race, or paddle as I can do both well enough but I've chosen the running leg and need to train. So I'm accompanying my daughter for an every-evening run along the beach - 20 minutes north, turn at the river and 20 munites back. It's a bit of a puff at the moment but I'm making gains. It's a great run, with the plashing waves on one side, dunes on the other. Tonight's sky was clear, with banks of cloud away toward Stewart Island.
I'm feeling kinda good about this.
Eventually I'll be able to keep pace with my daughter but for now it's "You're doing really well Dad!"

:-)

Two love!

Lens cleaner

(Just to clear your mind of the last image really)
The Peasegood Nonsuch crop is very heavy this year (in joke).

Key's a bloke - so's Goff.

Our Prime Mincer

A bee of a certain age discusses the cringe-worthy behaviour of John Key (bloke-ing it up with Tony 'kick-em-while-they're-down' Veitch and that dreadful catwalk!) and me-too Phil Goff on her blog, A Bee of a Certain Age.
The comments from readers are worth reading too.

Farmers in the cactus

I once got a letter, through the Southland Times, from a disgruntled farmer who felt that I was too critical of dairying practices.
I wish he'd read this first! He'd have changed his tune about my gentle missive.
Cactus Kate blasts farmers from the point of view of a businesswoman and she's not withdrawn her claws first!

Lloyd's a Sunday Star!

It took a double page spread in the Sunday Star Times supplement to contain Invercargill's own giant in the world of science in the lounge of his Otatara home.
Lloyd loomed large and his lounge looked lovely - well, busy anyway!
I've visited Lloyd in his home and there's plenty to talk about there. The squid-lure collection caught my eye (not literally I'm pleased to say.)
 Here's a little of what Lloyd said:

"That collection of bananas on the coffee table has taken a year. They're all models - plastic ones, glass ones, china ones and wooden ones. People sort of know that I collect bananas giving them to me and leaving them in my letter box."

 That Lloyd!

Celebratin' 'erbs

Southland Herb Society invites you to an action packed day to celebrate 30 years of Herb Society.

"CELEBRATING HERBS''

Saturday 5th March 2011
1:00 - 4:30
 Invercargill Workingmen's Club, Esk Street Invercargill
  Speakers: Lynda Hallinan - writer and TV gardening guru
                 Robert Guyton - Mr Self Sufficiency
                                            environmentalist and writer

Tickets:      $25 including afternoon tea
                   Admission by ticket only - no door sales
                   Available from: Lyn phone 03 2157716
                   or Anne email lamond@xtra.co.nz
Stalls - Raffles - Display   Afternoon tea

Quick! Hide! Arthropods!

For those with an interest in things that scuttle and feed on detritus: slaters, beetles, boags and garretts, here a link to a story that will make you want to hide.

The wai in Waitangi

We're drawn to the things that interest us most. Waitangi day is all about cultural and political issues isn't it?
But there's a detail that caught my eye in the various reports on the events at Waitangi Marae.
Swimming and shellfish collecting was off the programme, as the water at Wataingi is polluted and therefore unsafe for those seemingly basic activities.
I wonder how many from the media reported on that aspect of the celebrations.
* Hat-tip Bunji at The Standard

Kiwi of the Year

What does New Zealander of the Year Sir Paul Callaghan, have to say about the country that bestowed the honourific upon him?
Amongst other things, he says New Zealand had reached its limit on how it can exploit its natural resources.
"Mining our national parks may get us a few billion [dollars] but it's paltry in comparison to the damage to the brand it will do."

A glimpse of our future

Think public libraries are a symbol of our caring egalitarian society, do you?

One Fine Weasel has something for you to browse through in that case.

"It's Save Our Libraries Day.

"We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth."
Humanoid David Cameron and his government pixies want to close lots of public libraries.

They think it will help get the economy back on track."

When you are reading it you'll probably notice thumb-prints from Rodney Hide left on the pages and dog-ears where Key has turned down the corners on the ones that excited him the most.

Ripping off the scab

Mayor Kockshorn

Mayor Kockshorn has taken the opportunity provided by the league to announce that he'd like to see the national park open cast mined.

Kockshorn "believed Pike River should have been open-cast all along, but "restrictive DoC conditions" and the price of coal at the time the mine started ...meant it was prohibitive."


Nice one Tony.
You've taken us all completely by surprise. Who'd have ever guessed that idea would surface?
Gerry Brownlee will be as surprised as we are!
Here's the article.

I can do the smiley face emoticon, but how do you do the wry smile, tinged with exasperation and resignation?

Cosy Nook

Though I seem to have lost my readers (sob!) I'll post on, lonely as a clod.

Here's an image of the disputed lands at Cosy Nook. The original is a painting on the wall of a gentleman I visited in order to interview about his glasshouse.
He spent most of his childhood weekends in one of these cribs and has some stories to tell indeed!
It's surprising what you find when you get out and about!

So this is the way the Environment Southland councillors roll - after the talk, some sweat!

I'm on the bridge, warming up :-)
I had lunch with David Caygill and it was a very ideological meal of ideas.
Very interesting but not especially encouraging given his degree of influence and my relative lack thereof.
He is an admirer and friend of Don Brash.
He certainly has a lively mind though (as I suppose, does Brash!).

Saturday's tie - eat yer greens!

Emmanuel, Chloe and chanterelles

Our two guests are fruit pickers and have picked the fruit of the chanterelle as well!
Here's some special and highly sought-after purple chanterelles they gathered on Hayda Gwayy (Queen Charlotte Islands) between Vancouver Island and Alaska.

Moschino

"The Moschino designer tie really is all about humor and surprises. The man who wears a Moschino tie definitely cannot be a square peg. He has to see something funny both about himself and the world around him.
Moschino ties are designed with fairly conservative colors, blacks, whites, blues, and reds, but the patterns are out of this world. What at first appears to be a simple geometric pattern turns out to be, on closer inspection, shoes, hearts, or cowboy hats. Other ties include lucky symbols in the weave, and one of my personal favorites looks like a striped tie, but the lines are actually made up of tobacco pipes."

If you are a man with style and a sense of humor as well, Moschino is the line for you.

Sequestration

I beat the retreat! The first day of it anyway - made it through, made my thoughts known, listened to those of others and had some very stimulating discussions on the side. Having arrived a little late (no excuse) I found myself invited to sit in the only spare seat, at the head of the table beside the chairman and the CEO. I felt quite comfortable and used my position to advantage during discussions. It was a full table, councillors and staff, plus Fran Wilde to tell us where we sat in relation to the present Government and what to expect from them in the up-coming months. The councillors papers were very thought-provoking and useful. My own question resulted in a satisfying array of suggestions and support and I'm sure the other councillors felt much the same about their own. Staff reports too were very good material for discussion and I have to say, it was a convivial and productive time. Can't fault it really - even the catering was modest. Tomorrow, we're down to the 12 councillors plus one or two others I guess; someone to scribble down our utterences perhaps. Maybe a CEO thrown in for good measure. I've promised to bring a pair of stilts along to provide extra challenge for those who find the running, cycling, kayaking programme set by Ali too easy and I threatened to bring the unicycle as well, but as I'm still 'a distance' from being adept at the one-wheeler, I think I'll leave it here.

Today's tie - goose's bridle

All I need now is the wigwam!
(I know, it's a saddle but what else is there to say about this tie?)

Mini harvest

This afternoon we harvested the small patch of rye.

With this.

Then it rained.

Da not den

Plus!
They bought Vietnamese coffee which they brewed in this device and served both hot and chilled on ice, in a glass (no sugar, no milk).
The ice coffee was best!