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Hi Everybody from Down-Under!

Started by KiwiCharlie, June 24, 2001, 09:04:14 PM

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KiwiCharlie

G'day there

First post from the Kiwi Charlie (popular name round these parts!).  I am in Auckland, New Zealand, and have a patch of dirt close to Kaitaia in the Far North of NZ (a web search should bring up a map if anyones interested!).  At present I work in the big smoke, to enable me to buy my tools for use on the land, and hope one day to be able to move to the country full time.  Grew up there but not much work to be had.
I am into slabbing of large trunks, with a chainsaw mill, for use as table tops etc, and would like to get a small portable mill as time and funds allow.
So you will most probably find me on the Chainsaw and Milling pages!
Looks like a friendly place.
Cheers
Charlie.
Walk tall and carry a big Stihl.

Kevin



another chainsaw mill`r eh?

Welcome aboard!

Tom

Take it easy Kevin, your liable to strain sumthin'

Welcome KiwiCharlie, Kevin has been mighty lonely.  we almost had him convinced he needed a bandsaw.

CHARLIE

WOW!  New Zealand!  It'll be neat to hear all about that part of the world. It'd be great to be able to see it someday. I hear it's a beautiful place. By the way....what's the "Big Smoke".   I've never heard that term.
 8)
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

KiwiCharlie

G'day Charlie,

As NZ is a very rural country, the term "big smoke" is generally applied to the large town or city (smog, industrial etc) that all the young folk head to for work when they leave school, if they are not taking over the family farm!  I work in Auckland, the biggest smoke by far!  NZ has a population of around 3.8 million, and of that 1.2 million live in Auckland!  So its not hard to see there is a lot of wide open spaces here.  It is a beautiful country.  Trees trees everywhere. :D
More outdoor sports and adventure sports than you can believe.  NZ is known as "the adventure capital of the world"
Tell me a bit about your part of the world.
Cheers
Charlie
Walk tall and carry a big Stihl.

CHARLIE

New Zealand sounds lush and a great place for a woodworker or woodturner to reside. What kind of trees are down there? Anything unusual?
I've lived in the state of Minnesota since '72 where summer is usually scheduled somewhere between July 3rd and July 5th.  ;D    Actually, our winter starts about the end of November or first part of December and lingers through March. I think January and February are the most brutal for cold.  There are a lot of outdoor sports here also such as fishing, canoeing, Kayaking, downhill skiing, cross country skiiing, etc. Even though there are a lot of farms (primary crops are corn, soybean and dairy)  We also have plenty of forest (Different varieties of Pines, red and white oak, ashe,  soft maple , hard maple, birch, elm, walnut, butternut, hickory, cedar, aspen, hmmmmm I'm sure there are more but by brain has quit on me).  The northeastern part of Minnesota ajoins the great lake, Lake Superior where a lot of grain and iron ore is exported. We have the proverbial 4 seasons, A long winter that can become very cold (I've seen temps here in southeastern Minnesota at -36 degrees and then if you add the windchill factor it can be -70 to -100...SHEEESH! (Gets colder in Northern Minnesota). Our Springs (April - June) are usually cool and wet, our Summers (July- August) can get quite warm and humid with temps in the 90's and Fall is just perfect and beautiful. My favorite time of the year.     8)
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

KiwiCharlie

G'day Charlie,

I think most of the trees down here would be unusual to you!  Natives include the Totara, Matai, Rimu, Puriri (said pu-ree-ree), Kahikatea (car-hick-a-tee-ar!), Kowhai (cor-fai), Pohutukawa ( poh-hu-two-car-wah) and lots more.  The names are in the Maori language which can be a handful for the uninitiated!
Exotics grown here include Macrocarpa, Eucalyptus, Cherry, Walnut etc.
As for the seasons here, it is winter here at present, and we all moan if we have more than half a dozen frosts in a winter!!  That is in the north of the North Island however, there is plenty of snow etc at the other end of the country!
Cheers
Charlie.
Walk tall and carry a big Stihl.

CHARLIE

What in the cathair is Maori?  I forgot to list cherry in our woods of Minnesota, but should have. I think the Eucalyptus grows down south U.S.A. in the Florida area. I have a good Idea! You could really stump the tree experts if you'd take a picture of the leaves and bark of some of those trees and put them on the I.D. Forestry Forum. Heee heeeeeee! You'd have 'em scratching their watch and winding their butts.    :D :D :D
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

KiwiCharlie

G'day Charlie,

"Cathair"??!!  Funny how when people from round the world start talking with each other, they have to learn a few new words.
Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand, and arrived here by canoe from around the Pacific Ocean a few hundred years ago.
I will see if I can get some small file size photos on the digital cam and post on the ID forum, but be aware that I may have to let them know this was your evil plan!! :D
Cheers
Charlie.
Walk tall and carry a big Stihl.

Tom

G'day (??) kevin,

I know what you mean about having to learn all those new words.  I use to understand Charlie pretty good when he lived in Florida, but since he moved to Minnesota we practically need an interpreter. :D

KiwiCharlie

G'day Tom,

G'day is a greeting used by just about all Kiwis in day to day conversation.  Just short for Good Day To You, which would hark back to our English heritage - NZ was settled by the English about 160 years ago, so we are a young country in terms of the world!
Cheers (another Kiwi everyday term!)
Charlie. ;)
Walk tall and carry a big Stihl.

CHARLIE

I've worked with some Aussies that talk like that.... G'day and cheers and all that. I think it's the beer y'all drink down there that gives y'all that accent. ;D
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

KiwiCharlie

G'day Charlie,

Firstly let me tell you how much of an insult it is to compare a Kiwi to an Aussie!! lol ;).  We are very competitive between each other and the Trans-Tasman sporting challenges always whip up huge support for your team, none more than Rugby (go the All Blacks!!).
As for the accent, when I was in Canada, everybody thought I sounded like an Aussie, but in actual fact there is a huge difference between them.  The Aussie accent is very nasal - "feesh and cheeps" (fish and fries!, we call them chips), while the Kiwi accent in its extreme is "fush and chups".  Anyway, enough of the lesson!!
What I really wanted to say was that just because we drink so much beer , 85 litres each per capita in '99, (that works out to 323,000,000 litres!!) we are still very nice people!  HA ha.

Try a Steinlager the next time you see it, they sell it all over the world.  A good Kiwi beer, and also our normal strength beer is 4 or 5% alcohol.  Arent yours weaker than that.....
Cheers mate,
Charlie (hic!)
Walk tall and carry a big Stihl.

CHARLIE

Whoops! Thanks for setting me straight and giving me the lesson about the differences between y'all and the Aussies. I won't make that mistake again.   Only 85 liters each a year? :-/  Y'all must be doing some other stuff too that interferes with your beer drinking. I'll be looking for that Steinlager and will let you know if I find some. What I like about the Minnesota/Wisconsin area is that they like their beer and there are a lot of different varieties from which to choose. Here in Minnesota, the grocery stores can only sell beer that is 3.2% alcohol, but  the bars and liquor stores sell "Strong" beer which is...I think...7%.  I like the heavy stuff that comes from the bottom of the barrel. I like those smiley faces. Where in the name of the bridge over St Croix did you find stuff like that?         :D
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

Ron Scott

Tell us about some of the timber management rules and regulations in regards to timber management there. How is it controlled?
~Ron

RavioliKid

Welcome to you, KiwiCharlie!

I am friend of trees and foresters - and a third grade teacher here in Michigan.  ;D I'm on summer vacation! (See my smile?) 8)

I look forward to seeing you around the board!



 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
RavioliKid

KiwiCharlie

G'day Ron,

Timber management down here always seems to be in the news of late.  Lots of forest land being turned into protected National Parks and the like.
The whole timber industry is controlled by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (a Govt Department).
In particular, there are strict rules for logging of Native (indigenous) forest, whether it is on public or privately owned land.
Basically MAF approves sustainable management plans for all indigenous production forests, and sawmills may only mill logs sourced from forests managed according to sustainable management plans.  All sawmills are registered.  Also, you need licences to export certain timbers from NZ.
I cant just head out the back of my property and cut down a Kauri tree for my woodworking projects, without a "Resourse Consent" from MAF.  They are not easy to obtain.
The logging of another Native, the Rimu has been under quota for the past couple of years and I beleive next year all (or at least a massive % of) logging of that species will cease.  Many sawmills on the West Coast of the South Island are closing because of this.  It seems to be happening more for the enviromentalists than the continuing sustainable logging of that species - and the continued employment for small remote communities.
There are two passionate sides to this story.
Plantation forests form a huge part of NZ's export trade.  Almost all forests are Pinus Radiata, a fairly quick growing conifer (about 28 years to harvesting), which was found to like the conditions here.  NZ is hoping to export 30 million cubic metres of timber per year by 2010. At present it is adout 17 million cu/m.
MAF is also responsible for the Bio-Security for NZ.  Most of the bad bugs come from the Aussies !!, including the Australian subterranean termite, the Gum leaf skeletoniser, and the Australian Painted apple moth.  MAF has active surveillance programmes that have been developed to detect the emergence of any previously unknown pest.
With the foot and mouth disease in the Northern Hemisphere at present, MAF is very twitchy about imports into NZ.  If it came here it would decimate the farming industry.
Basically MAF is all about sustainability, which is a good thing, but sometimes when a particular issue becomes high profile, the Govt tends to grandstand on it, and sometimes the solution is more politically correct than anything.
If you have any particular questions Ron, I would be happy to try to answer them.
Cheers
Charlie.
Walk tall and carry a big Stihl.

Ron Scott

Thanks for the overview. I'd heard that NZ had gotten quite restrictive in its forest practices with increase controls.

Is the New Zealand mud snail a native species in your streams there? It is becoming an invasive species here in some of our western states, Idaho, Montana etc. Do you apply any controls there?
~Ron

KiwiCharlie

G'day Ron,
You dont hear of the mud snail here much at all.  I did not know at all that it was a problem in the States.  We know it as the freshwater snail, and I can only think that the climate here, or a predator (such as the freshwater crayfish) is keeping them in check, as they dont seem to be a problem.  Although thats often the way, its not a problem in its own area, but transplant it to another country and the conditions suit it, and it thrives.
I found the following quote during a web search to try and find out more about them -
"Accidentally introduced to Idaho fish hatcheries in trout eggs from New Zealand. Gradually spread upriver to Yellowstone."
They look like they could be quite a problem.  I did find out that a trial was done, and they die when the temperature gets up a bit.
Nasty little critters!
In return, we are starting to have lots more trouble with the Giardia virus in the waterways here.  Not really safe to drink from a stream, during a hot days milling anymore!
Cheers
Charlie.




Walk tall and carry a big Stihl.

Kevin


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