A selection of your letters to the Times-Age, on December 14, 2011.
Dispute over baleage angers fellow farmer
As a farmer, it angers me to read the article about the baleage stacked on a farmer's boundary fence (Times-Age, December 12).
Firstly I want to make it clear that I don't have any connection at all with the Engels family and don't support what has gone on in the past.
Carol Fathers is grizzling about nothing. The bales in the photo look to me like solid and well-wrapped bales. Bales like these in my opinion will not go spongy or tip over. The way the bales are stacked also ensures they will not fall off. They are layered and overlap each other for that reason also by the look of the photo the second layer is at least 300mm in from the edges.
There is a smell to freshly made baleage, normally that would be gone in a few days. Baleage is expensive to make. I would be surprised if these bales have holes left in them intentionally. The bales would go rotten and be good for nothing.
I doubt very much if Carol got up on to the stack of bales there would be any movement at all even when a truck went by, the only way bales would fall is if they were pushed by a tractor.
I doubt a Christchurch-type earthquake would move them.
David McKay, Masterton
Whingeing on
NZ has a real problem Mr Marks, in allowing subdivision/lifestyle living next to working intensive farming. It's not always pretty or the right sound or smell. I know Chris Engels, he is no mug, and doesn't always push the right buttons, but Geez Ron!
Those bales won't fall over in a Richter 10. Mrs [Carol] Fathers, move back to Carterton. The only other thing Chris should have done is put a happy face or "have a nice day" graffitied on the bales. Oops! That might be visual pollution too for the neighbours to whinge about.
John Coveney, Pirinoa
Linesmen praise
I would like to compliment the linesmen who worked on the lines on the east side of Kuripuni St on December 8. They were very efficient, capable and the height they climb to on their ladders showed skill and nerve.
They were very polite and such a change from the noisy trucks of every manner that use our street. Strangely, I never saw many while these men were working? I hope they found even ground to stand their ladders as the street is a disgrace, and perhaps the council and their workers could take a "leaf out of the linesmen's book".
Get working. Make a decent job, and give us a proper road and not a bumpy mess which causes these trucks to make more noise than they need to.
Mildred Turley, Masterton