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This morning my car is at the garage having a new lock fitted. Just before Christmas someone tried to pick the lock ( I think while in a carpark ) and so the only entry has been by automatic opener which is a bit risky if the battery fails, so a new lock unit had to be made to fit the keys. ( same key does the boot as well. )
Just one of life's little inconveniences and extra expenses. I am very glad that either I disturbed the would be thief or he / she was foiled and didn't get in.
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That was one pest. Another sort are these moths that have been getting into the unshelled walnuts stored in the shed. I got one of these pantry moth traps. It has sticky surfaces and a strip of male moth pheromone. Wow is it effective!
In this photo I have laid it on it's side so you can see all the bodies inside. It is just a triangular cardboard shape. Below shows the outside.
It is good as it doesn't have any nasty chemicals, just sticky.( Not good for the male moths obviously ) Today the kiwifruit orchard is being inspected by staff from the pack house working as a pest monitoring team. ( we could try and do it ourselves but haven't time. )They collected leaves ( so many per row etc ) and take them back to the pack house where they are inspected under a microscope for tiny first instar scale pests. They also while walking the rows in the orchard inspect clusters of fruit for leaf rollers or other pests, using a 10 Xs hand lens. ( very useful things 10 times lenses - I have one for doing close inspections of all sorts of things. )
If the pest monitoring team find any scale or other pest in sufficient numbers they will inform us that we need to spray for that pest. It is a good system as you only use sprays if you really need them.
Also this morning TD was here with a quad bike spreading a small round of fertilizer.
Meanwhile we are still fruit thinning. Progress is extremely slow and I am throwing 1000 fruit on the ground in some bays. That is still leaving more than a 1000 good fruit.I might take some photos today to show you how that looks.
Thank you all for your comments...they give me a lift...and another human contact.


