Pete Gray
04-13-2012, 3:50 AM
229372
This is a very different angle to "Suspension" form my last post,
Came across an old Matai fence baton & it made me reflect on our great farming background in NZ. This is a piece of a typical
baton from our standard 6 or 7 line fence, (depending on which Island you are in) the top was generally barbed & mid way optional, others being a 8 or 10 gauge galv’ wire.
They stopped commercially milling Matai some years ago, these were a spreaderbaton to hold the gap between posts,
I tried to leave the 4 flat faces to retain the weather beaten features, thisparticular baton is not square (40×45) so the flats are a bit uneven. Thebarbed wire was still attached to it when I picked it up.
It was said back in the 50’s that there were 2 million people living in NZ & 80 million sheep, few more people today & a fewless sheep but still a major part of our backbone.
NZ was the first to successfully ship refrigerated meat tothe other side of the world back in 1882 on the SS Dunedin & this was amajor reason for being a world class people of the land.
This is not meant to be a stunning piece of turning rather a reflection of who we are.
Sometimes it is nice to simply remember the work of or earlier settlers &quietly thank them for our head start.
Any comment welcome
Pete
This is a very different angle to "Suspension" form my last post,
Came across an old Matai fence baton & it made me reflect on our great farming background in NZ. This is a piece of a typical
baton from our standard 6 or 7 line fence, (depending on which Island you are in) the top was generally barbed & mid way optional, others being a 8 or 10 gauge galv’ wire.
They stopped commercially milling Matai some years ago, these were a spreaderbaton to hold the gap between posts,
I tried to leave the 4 flat faces to retain the weather beaten features, thisparticular baton is not square (40×45) so the flats are a bit uneven. Thebarbed wire was still attached to it when I picked it up.
It was said back in the 50’s that there were 2 million people living in NZ & 80 million sheep, few more people today & a fewless sheep but still a major part of our backbone.
NZ was the first to successfully ship refrigerated meat tothe other side of the world back in 1882 on the SS Dunedin & this was amajor reason for being a world class people of the land.
This is not meant to be a stunning piece of turning rather a reflection of who we are.
Sometimes it is nice to simply remember the work of or earlier settlers &quietly thank them for our head start.
Any comment welcome
Pete