365 days of gratitude

A morning walk with the dog, lunch out with my farmer, an afternoon chat and ice cream with friends, time to read a new book . . .  It’s been a relaxing and happy Waitangi Day for which I”m grateful.

Word of the day

Miscegenation – the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or procreation; the interbreeding of people considered to be of different racial types.

Hat tip: Lindsay Mitchell

Rural round-up

Middlemarch property positive for cow disease – Sally Rae:

A property at Middlemarch has been confirmed as testing positive for cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis.
That means the bacterial disease has now been detected in Winton, Lumsden, Invercargill, Gore, Waitaki and Waimate districts, Ashburton, Rangiora and Hawke’s Bay, as well as Strath Taieri. The number of confirmed infected properties stands at 21 and 34 properties are under restricted place notices.

In its latest stakeholder update, the Ministry for Primary Industries reiterated all detections to date were linked to the original infected properties via animal movements and had been caused by close animal contact.

MPI has contracted a private laboratory to boost the testing capacity and results reporting should pick up. . .

M.bovis just needs simple rules – Sally Rae:

A Central Otago dairy farming couple with first-hand experience of dealing with Mycoplasma bovis say it is very easy to manage.
Shaun Dettling and Pam Thompson, who managed two dairy farms in Australia with the bacterial cattle disease, are happy to discuss their experiences with New Zealand farmers.

The disease was first detected in New Zealand on a Van Leeuwen Dairy Group property in the Waimate district in July last year. The number of properties confirmed to have the disease is now 21. . . 

Health benefits of NZ black currants tapped in to – Andrew McRae:

A New Zealander living in the UK has found a way of tapping into the health benefits of New Zealand-grown blackcurrants, helping our struggling blackcurrant industry.

Blackcurrant growers have finished a relatively poor season caused by adverse weather conditions and coupled with the withdrawal of its biggest client, the makers of the drink Ribena.

Fleur Cushman is founding director of Curranz, a company producing health supplements, primarily for athletes, using 100 percent New Zealand blackcurrant extract. . .

NZ coarse wool prices lift from lows as demand picks up – Tina Morrison:

(BusinessDesk) – Prices for New Zealand coarse wool have lifted at auction this year as the relatively low price stokes demand.

Coarse wool prices have improved over the past three wool auctions, helping lift the AgriHQ coarse wool indicator 22 cents a kilogram from the first auction of 2018. In the first February auction of the year, held in the North Island, stronger wool types all lifted by between 5 and 10 cents a kilogram compared to the previous week, AgriHQ said. . . 

Love a duck but feed it the right food:

There’s a right way and a wrong way to feed a duck.

And too many people are feeding ducks the wrong way, Topflite general manager Greg Webster said.

The North Otago family-owned pet-food business – New Zealand’s first commercial producers of duck-specific food – has offered the Waitaki District Council a free trial of its product, Lucky Duck, to help get the message out that feeding ducks white bread was “doing more harm than good”.

Wild-bird feed was a growing market in the pet food industry as Kiwis began taking the feeding of birds in their backyards more seriously, Mr Webster said, and about 18 months ago the company began producing duck food,  blending seeds, grains and duck pellets,  to meet  market demand. . .

 

https://twitter.com/EketahunaCheese/status/960030696864706562

Outback photographer will hold international exhibition – Helen Walker:

Whispering Grass is the title of rural and remote photographer Fiona Lake’s international exhibition which will be showcased at the Embassy of Australia in Washington, D.C.

Fiona is a household name in the bush and first began documenting life on Australia’s largest cattle stations, when she began work on Wrotham Park in 1984.

When Fiona arrived at Wrotham Park she found it was a different world from the closely settled farming community where she grew up on the Murray River.  . .

The photographer first began documenting life on Australia’s largest cattle stations in 1984. https://t.co/NQtU5Yre2c

— Stock & Land (@stockandland) February 4, 2018

A day to celebrate being able to do what we want

Some countries do national days with a spirit of unity and cohesion.

Neither of those have been features of Waitangi Days past.

The decisions to by-pass the lower marae at Waitangi this year has also by-passed a lot of the political posturing and protest that have marked, and marred, celebrations before.

The national media focus will be on Waitangi, and maybe Opposition leader, Bill English will get a little attention at the other end of the country.

He’s attending the Ngai Tahu Treaty Festival at Te Rau Aroha Marae in Bluff.

In between there will be various official celebrations in various places and most people, who don’t have to work today, will be doing what they want to do – sailing, swimming, tramping, picnicking, partying, reading . . .

Unity and cohesion have their place but I’m more than happy with a country where for most, celebrating the national day gives us the freedom to do what we want.

Quote of the day

To be mulcted of our money and mutilated of our property is serious enough: to be deprived of our colon would be intolerable. – Eric Partridge who was born on this day in 1894.

February 6 in history

1664 Mustafa II, Ottoman Sultan, was born (d. 1703).

1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland became King upon the death of his brother Charles II.

1778 In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce were signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic.

1815  New Jersey granted the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.

1817 José de San Martín crossed the Andes with an army in order to liberate Chile from Spanish rule.

1819 Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded Singapore.

1820 The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society started a settlement in present-day Liberia.

1840 Around 40 Maori chiefs, led by Hone Heke, signed a treaty with the British Crown at Waitangi.

1842 Mary Rudge, English chess master, was born (d. 1919).

1843  The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrelsopened in Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.

1848 Walter B. Pitkin, American lecturer in philosophy and psychology, was born (d1953).

1862 Ulysses S. Grant gives the United States ts first victory of the Amnerican Civil War war in the Battle of Fort Henry by capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee.

1894 Eric Partridge, New Zealand lexicographer, was born (d. 1979).

1895  Babe Ruth, American baseball player, was born (d. 1948).

1899 The Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain, was ratified by the United States Senate.

1900 The international arbitration court at The Hague was created when the Netherlands’ Senate ratified an 1899 peace conference decree.

1911 Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, was born  (d. 2004).

1912  Eva Braun, wife of Adolf Hitler, was born (d. 1945).

1917 Zsa Zsa Gábor, Hungarian-born actress, was born (d. 2016).

1922 Denis Norden, British radio and television personality, was born.

1922 – Patrick Macnee, English actor, was born.

1922 The Washington Naval Treaty was signed, limiting the naval armaments of United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy.

1933 The 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution went into effect.

1934 Far right leagues rally in front of the Palais Bourbon in an attempted coup against the French Third Republic, creating a political crisis in France.

1945 Bob Marley, Jamaican musician, was born  (d. 1981).

1947 The trans-Tasman liner Wanganella was refloated after 18 days stuck on Barrett Reef.

1950 Natalie Cole, American singer, was born.

1951 The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derailed near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, killing 85 people and injuring over 500 more.

1952 Elizabeth II became Queen upon the death of her father George VI.

1958 Eight Manchester United F.C. players were killed in the Munich air disaster.

1959 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed the first patent for anintegrated circuit.

1959 – At Cape Canaveral, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile was accomplished.

1962 W. Axl Rose, American singer (Guns N’ Roses), was born.

1976 Princess Marie of Denmark, was born.

1974 – The bird calls began on what is  now RadioNZ National.

1978 The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor’easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of 4″ an hour.

1987 Justice Mary Gaudron became the first woman appointed to the High Court of Australia.

1989 The Roundtable talks started in Poland marking the beginning of overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.

1992 The Saami people of the Nordic countries had an official day celebrating their existence.

1996 – Willamette Valley Flood of 1996: Floods in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, United States, caused more than US$500 million in property damage throughout the Pacific Northwest.

1996 – Birgenair flight 301 crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic, all 189 people inside the airplane are killed. This is the worst accident/incident involving a Boeing 757.

1998 – Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.

2000 – Second Chechen War: Russia captured Grozny, Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government into exile.

2004 – Princess Louise of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess of Belgium, was born.

2012 – A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit near the central Philippines off the coast of Negros Island causing at least 51 deaths and injuring 112 others.

2013 – An 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Solomon Islands killing 10 people and injuring 17 others.

2016 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit southern Taiwan, killing at least 38 people and injuring over 530 more.

Sourced from NZ History Online, Radio NZ  & Wikipedia.